We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day There are really only two types of people: those who want to win in competition, and those who would prefer to shut competition down. The former are the strivers and entrepreneurs; the latter the monopolists and cronies. Philosophically, which are you?
– Arthur Brooks, for context follow the link.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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Every competition is against yourself. Competition is about self-improvement.
There are those of us who are perfectly happy selling support to BOTH sides of the equation.
At what expense you may ask?
Doesn’t matter if one is selling price tags, and the admittedly innovative machinery to print them in mass, freeing up your price tag writer personnel to practice more
a. Innovation, or b. Valor.
Did you also need toilet paper, and light bulbs with that order of price tag blanks and tag printer ink?
Need a microwave, hot pockets, and energy drink for those innovators in the lab that would otherwise forget to eat or sleep?
Do you need shoe polish, and hair dressing, for your salesmen, AND your corporate lawyers?
Need a case of that Senator’s FAVORITE Scotch?
So how does innovation IP fair in this equation, surely that is a “shut down the competition” element, albeit temporarily?
Increasingly, there is a third type – the type that wishes to maintain the illusion of competition / advancement / merit- or skill-based recognition, but works to dilute the competition or standards so as the make the contest more ‘inclusive’ or ‘diverse’ or whatever-else political goal they are peddling this week.
So we have ‘women-only shortlists’, and ‘affirmative action’ in college admissions, and lowering of standards for the Marine Infantry Officer Qualification course, and so on – all designed to retain the prestige of competition while making it easier for this-or-that favoured group to ‘compete’ and ‘win’ in greater numbers – or at all. To shut the competition down is not their goal, because this denies the benefits of ‘winning’ to their favoured group. They want the value of the competition, just without the effort.
I don’t know what these people are called.
llater,
llamas
There are only two types of people:those who divide the world into two types of people, and those who don’t. (I don’t recall who said this first.)
As much so as the locks on my doors.
Philosophically I absolutely support the strivers and entrepreneurs, though I personally don’t consider myself either — I simply recognize that such people bring benefit to all in terms of innovation, employment, and wealth-creation, while cronyism benefits only the cronies.
(I won’t even include “monopolists” in there, because the cronies will happily tear down any monopoly that doesn’t pay them tribute.)
Moreover I see the strivers and entrepreneurs at the high ground in the defense of economic liberty — If they go down, it’s that much harder for anyone else to mount an effective defense of such things as property rights. Unfortunately, seeming strivers and entrepreneurs can flip their own allegiance at the drop of a hat.
There are two other groups: those who enjoy watching the competition; those who benefit from its effects.
The beneficiary group subdivides into those who have enough sense or honesty not to hate the entrepreneurs who benefit still more, and those so envious they would bite the hand feeding them.
llamas (February 23, 2018 at 3:03 pm) notes that some love the flattering illusion of a competition fixed in their favour: they would have their cake and eat it. We can lump such affirmative action types in with Arthur’s ‘crony capitalists and monopolists’.
I am reminded of one of my favourite quotes from Pterry:
I followed the link. The first thing I read made me laugh:
So Arthur Brooks thinks that until a century or so ago society/humans/people/cultures had not recognized that competition creates excellence……….??
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
Wow.
One day this guy should get himself some edumacation! Alternatively, he could take up comedy because he is funny as fuck.
There is a third category, which is those who believe that freedom of choice is a divine right. If anyone doubts this, let them consider the first book of the Bible, in which God gives people freedom to chose between good & evil. When one thinks about it, this 3rd category is truly the first, and actually the only one. Why on earth would anyone want to win in a competition, isn’t earning stuff adequate? And aren’t deniers of competition deniers our basic freedom of choice? Is it not true that the latest American mass killer was a second categoryist?
So let us not strive to win, let us not strive to shut people down, let us be content with that which we have.
There are only 10 type of people, those who learned binary, and those who did not.
“Experts” have developed the spectrum to justify us nicely into their “latest theory”, and the term borderline to exclude us from it.
Entrepeneurs (free agents) are looking out for Number One; the Customer
Civil servants (Government, NGO’s) are looking out for Number One; Themselves
There are, in fact, two types of people: Those who can extrapolate from incomplete information.
Good post and good comments.
And were lied to by their God about the consequences thereof. Every slave is given the same “free choice” option. ‘Oh yeah you can run but in that day you shall surely die’.
Other sources for the same story had a better take on the matter. And more moral.
“Do you think, fellow citizens, that any man would ever have been willing to train for the pancratium or any other of the harder contests in the Olympic games…if the crown were given, not to the best man, but to the man who had successfully intrigued for it? No man would ever have been willing. But as it is, because the reward is rare…and because of the competition and the honor, and the undying fame that victory brings, men are willing to risk their bodies, and at the cost of the most severe discipline to carry the struggle to the end.”
– Aeschines, Against Ctesiphon , 179
But that’s so unfair! Everyone should get a prize just for taking part!