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Comment by jonmc12 | Hacker News Reader

In a lot of ways I agree, but change doesn't come from attacking people. "Don't hate the player, hate the game" - we live in a place where we don't yet draw clear lines for capitalistic behavior or how it might affect the exploitation of our environment, our friendships, or our life-saving drugs. I'd suggest you help facilitate change by suggesting systemic improvements to how these economic behaviors could evolve and evangelizing ideas in that direction.

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It's absurd to say that you shouldn't criticize a person's actions unless you first fix the systemic problems in our entire economic system.

Anyway, change very well can come from attacking people. Publically criticizing actions which are harmful is part of the way that we, as a society, build up the standards and norms by which we judge individuals' actions--and, ultimately, form legislation and other institutions to diminish harm and exploitation. The idea of "Don't hate the player, hate the game" is an attack on morality as such.

You can reason with people, sometimes. Attacking them triggers the competitive urge and it becomes about winning rather than the thing you originally intended to do.

The anti-tobacco movement is a prime example of this, just as were the people who brought you Prohibition.

We have very clear lines for "capitalistic" behavior; people are just disinterested. Not even just the capitalists; people write their own version of the world.

The Vast majority of capitalists struggle with ethical concerns because there's downside risk in behaving badly. It's an iterated version of "all problems stem from Man's inability to sit quietly in a room."

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