• Vanth
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      2829 days ago

      Define cheating. I doubt many CEOs would consider anything they’ve done to get to the position they are as “cheating”.

      To “cheat”, one must break the rules. And the rules have been designed to not only allow for but encourage current behavior.

      • @[email protected]OP
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        29 days ago

        CEO’S are propped up by investors and guaranteed the money invested traces back to some sort of nepotism.

        • Vanth
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          1529 days ago

          Which is the way it’s designed to work, so not cheating.

          Also, the definition of nepotism involves favoring relatives. I get what you mean, but it’s not quite accurate. There’s certainly favoritism going on, just not between relatives generally.

          • @[email protected]OP
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            29 days ago

            Here’s a common definition of neoptism:

            Undue attachment to relations; favoritism shown to members of one’s family; bestowal of patronage in consideration of relationship, rather than of merit or of legal claim.

            Maybe I sprung the word “cheat” on you too soon, but ‘nepotism is cheating’ is a brief a summation of my argument.

            • Vanth
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              1029 days ago
              1. What’s going on with overpaid CEOs and underpaid workers is not nepotism

              2. cheating means breaking of rules, and they’re not

              You can argue that we should change rules to disincentivize some of the behaviors we’re seeing and to make them “cheating”. And I would’t argue against you if we could somehow make those improvements. But if you’re framing “cheating” as against yours or my personal moral framework instead of law, that is not something you can expect everyone to agree with you on.

              • @[email protected]OP
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                129 days ago

                But if you’re framing “cheating” as against yours or my personal moral framework instead of law, that is not something you can expect everyone to agree with you on.

                This is actually the supposition of my question.

                But you’re not cracking the surface and it’s honestly really boring exchanging ideas with you. I don’t think I’ll carry on.

                • Vanth
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                  1329 days ago

                  I agree it gets very boring when you are too careless to accurately articulate your views. Good luck!

    • @[email protected]
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      1029 days ago

      It can’t.

      It’s a logistical nightmare. In order to be rewarded for your efforts, you need some system of evaluating the worth of every effort. Any societal system that exists is made by at least one person, and every person had biases and ambitions.

      There’s no way to prevent cheating, because any rule to prevent cheating will be ignored, because that’s what cheating is. Any rules to make cheating harder only make it harder, not impossible.

      Oh look, it seems the act of deciding a person’s worth to society is 100 times the worth of a labourer. And the worth of a writer for Batman is 20 times the worth of a writer for Spider Man. Oh, my physicist girlfriend just broke up with me… Looks like that’s practically worthless now!

      Wait, what’s a youtuber? Is that a new thing? I made my value system back in 2002, so this is all new to me! You’re not on the list, so I guess you’re not worth anything? I guess we could make the list again, and while we’re there, my opinions on Batman have changed, so we can tweak some other things too.

      Ah, the problem is that a person’s worth is entirely subjective… But what if we press it down into clear and objective statistics? What if we limit it to a single statistic, and a person’s value is entirely related to raising that statistic? We can call the statistic… Capital!

      So a person’s value in society is entirely tied to their ability to obtain as much capital as possible, no matter what they do. Ah, meritocracy.

      • @[email protected]OP
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        129 days ago

        You said a lot of words but only convinced me that you think very highly of your own judgment.

        • @[email protected]
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          1229 days ago

          I’m not convinced you actually read my comment before responding.

          I don’t even think you wanted a discussion. I think you just want to say your belief and have it treated as fact.

          • @[email protected]OP
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            229 days ago

            I did. It was a whole lot of assumptions backed up with anecdotes all designed to come to one single conclusion.

            • @[email protected]
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              1129 days ago

              Okay, you definitely didn’t read my comment if that’s what you think it was. Let me sum it up for you:

              • A person’s merit is subjective.
              • Judging merit based on subjective values will bring in biases and corruption.
              • Judging merit based on objective values is impossible, and will need to be a simplification.
              • In either case, people will game the system to raise their value, regardless of whether they actually contribute anything of merit.
              • Any system will become outdated VERY quickly, as society is always changing.
              • Capitalism only judges the acquisition of capital, which is not a merit.
              • A person can cheat literally any system if they try hard enough.

              I explained all of that without a single anecdote.

              • @[email protected]
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                229 days ago

                From which semi-tautological contortions we can conclude that, uh, capitalism probably isn’t the problem, after all.

                • @[email protected]
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                  229 days ago

                  First, my conclusion is that meritocracy is impossible. Your conclusion was something you came up with on your own.

                  Second, capitalism isn’t the ONLY problem. It’s still a problem. Greed will corrupt any system, but capitalism is a system that openly rewards this corruption.

                • @[email protected]
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                  229 days ago

                  I don’t think I said “nothing can be done”. I just said meritocracy is impossible. And since it’s impossible, we need a different system we can actually achieve. It won’t be without flaws, but we can still aim to have LESS flaws than currently.

                  You don’t improve by pretending nothing’s wrong.

                  • @[email protected]OP
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                    129 days ago

                    I don’t think I said “nothing can be done”. I just said meritocracy is impossible.

                    Why would I want to discuss anything with someone who will contradict themselves in the first two sentences they mutter.