In contrast to the selflessness and charity of rush hour commuters?
Right now a lot of companies are aware of supply chain issues and counter acting them for instance by greater stockpiling which in turn worsens the situation for others.
Bring back inventory.
That's a really good way of putting it.
Rapidly increasing your stockpile size as a response to shortages is what worsens things.
So it's actually a lot more analogous than you'd think.
- Safety margins requires distance to increase with velocity. i.e. if the light turns green and everyone accelerates together, then you end up with a bunch of cars going at high speeds bumper-to-bumper. This would be clearly undesirable even if everyone could press the gas pedal at the same time. Meaning you'd still want to insert a delay between cars regardless of people's ability to press the gas pedal at the same time. Heck, even with self-driving cars, you'd still want comparable safety margins in case something goes wrong; it's not like self-driving cars result in a perfectly predictable world.
- "Stay the same distance apart from the car behind you and in front of you" ignores the fact that the car behind you might be quite far behind you (if there at all). In reality you probably want to maintain a minimum distance both in front of and behind you, not an identical distance.
- It also fails to show that decongesting a traffic jam by deliberately slowing down (which is what you'd have to do to increase your distance from the car in front of you) will actually result in you getting to your destination more quickly. It's certainly not intuitive for that to be the case.
While I'm not claiming the conclusions would be necessarily wrong if you take these into account, for a viewer that hasn't already done research in this area, it sure doesn't convince them that the conclusions are correct once these are accounted for either.
Many behaviors considered positive for society are encouraged by appealing to self interest. Various tax credits (EV tax rebates come to mind), appeals to health and cost reduction (bicycling, walking, car pooling/public transport, etc.) and many other areas where a change in behavior is considered a "public good" are encouraged by benefits (or punishment -- tickets for not wearing a seat belt, drunk driving, etc.) that appeal to an individual's selfish interests.
As such, why does it matter if societally net-positive things are being done for selfish or altruistic reasons, as long as people do them?
You are responding in the context of a thread without considering the reason the thread developed: someone stated that the effect worsens because selfish behaviour.
Your point is well taken. However, GP questioned whether folks were doing net-positive things due to altruism or selfishness.
Assuming that the result is net-positive (which might be an incorrect assumption, but I'm going with it), it's irrelevant as to the 'why'.
If results are net-negative or zero impact, it might be worthwhile to ask the 'why' of the motivation behind the behavior.
I'd add that while the initial post may have asserted that (paraphrasing) "selfish behaviors make things worse," GP's comment didn't address that at all and every other response to GP interpreted it the same way I did.
Is it a requirement that I respond not only to the comment to which I respond, but every comment prior to that one? If so, how far does that requirement to apply prior context apply? Do I need to address the psychological make up of selfish vs. altruistic behavior? The science underlying climate change and greenhouse gases? The basis for chemistry in our physical world?
And yes, there seems something got lost there.
Assuming that the result is net-positive (which might be an incorrect assumption, but I'm going with it), it's irrelevant as to the 'why'.
Hmmm... no. the_mitshuhiko stated that intentions were an important reason as to why things were worse. Then the discussions drifted to other situations where intentions were the same and the results were not.
That could invalidate the_mitshuhiko point since selfish intentions not always lead to worse results.
Then Retric suggested that in fact the_mitshuhiko might be right because along with selfish motivation there could be also selfless motivation.
gruez's comment is where I started feeling a diconnection, because hey, the point seems to be that you can do selfless things for selfish reasons. I really got lost there. If your motivation is selfish, you're not being selfless, like, not at all. Yeah, your actions could lead to good results to society, but that doesn't make them selfless, just useful.
When you respond to gruez, you don't say that. You say that it doesn't matter what's the motivations. I actually kinda agree, but it does matter in the context of this thread.
I consistently get frustrated when a thread goes too deep and people starts responding just to my last comment, maybe I'm being extra sensitive here.
I get you. And my comment wasn't intended to slight anyone, and certainly not to frustrate you. If that was a result of my comment, I'm sorry about that
You hit exactly upon my point with:
>You say that it doesn't matter what's the motivations. I actually kinda agree, but it does matter in the context of this thread.
Again, I take your point, but mine wasn't an observation of the larger issue, just that in the grand scheme of things, if someone does the right thing, it usually doesn't matter whether or not they're done for the right reasons. As long as it gets done.
Totally agree.
Unfortunately the reverse is also true: if someone does the wrong thing it usually doesn't matter wether or not they're done for the right reasons (or wrong reasons?) but it also happens all the time.
Sometimes it's very difficult to know if a reason is good, wrong or evil. Driving children to school? Not sure about the USA, but when I used to drive in Madrid, school holidays were patently obvious.
Apologies for the delay in responding.
As the old saying goes, "actions speak louder than words."
I'd say that also applied to the reasons people do things.
While there certainly is merit in consciously choosing to do the right thing (whatever that might be, in context), even if one doesn't have a conscious or stated reason for doing something, the action taken is what will impact the world around us, not the thought (or lack of) process behind that action.
And while acting selfishly may have negative consequences (as you point out WRT driving in Madrid on school holidays), understanding the dynamics of self interest can prompt societally positive behaviors for selfish reasons.
Examples and counterexamples of this are numerous, and we've covered a bunch of them.
I think we're mostly in agreement about the principle behind this, if not always specific examples.
Is it so hard to believe that there are people who try to do the best thing for the greater good over their own self interest? Some folks, like me, choose a less comfortable experience because we believe in public transit.