From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Thu Jun 20 2002 - 16:53:37 MDT
In Swedish there are two words that get translated into greed in
English. "Girighet" means greed. Then there is "Missunsamhet", which
refers to dislike of seeing others have something. As I see it, the
missunsamhet-component of greed is the big problem. It is what makes
people dislike successful people and wish them less success. It is
what drives people to "equalize" others income, even when they
themselves do not get much from it. It does not produce anything, it
only seeks to steal or destroy.
One can of course be too materialistic for one's own good, valuing
certain things more than they truly are worth. But that is just
stupidity that ruins one's own life. The wish for more is something
that has driven people to create or at least work hard.
It might make an interesting transhumanist exercise to think of ways
of promoting healthy greed at the expense of unhealthy greed, both
culturally, instutionally and psychologically. Maybe there is a
connection in the hypothalamus between aggression and the frontal lobe
value-estimation system that we really ought to cut...
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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