Competition doesn't work, and the reasons we believe it does are mostly wrong | Hacker News Reader

Competition doesn't work, and the reasons we believe it does are mostly wrong

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4 pointsdan-gittik7 comments

Its hard to follow his reasoning after he says, "I want people to think highly of me". 'Highly' in relation to what? Turtles, bison, antelopes? Or 'highly' in relation to people?

I meant specifically bison, thanks for clarifying.

Competition at the extreme does not work since you burn through lots of resources without advancing. One way to look at it is to see the result of small countries that are at constant war. They move forward slowly if at all since they focus all their resources on winning. At the other end no competition slows progress since there is no incentive to move forward.

The key is to find a balance where there is progress but you aren't burning your resources to the point of impeding it. It's a fine line.

Based on what are you saying that competition is a good incentive to move forward? Did you watch the video? Einstein didn't discover the theory of relativity for money, and Leonardo de Vinci did most of his research in secret. In fact, what incentive competition does give, is to sabotage others; and even when it's not too extreme, how can you seriously claim that it's better than if the people involved were all collaborating?

Einstein competed against all the other scientist that were trying to come up with a theory to explain the different aspects of physics. Academia is one of the most competitive areas in our society. Da vinci was competing to be the best in his field. He operated in a broad range of areas but his focus was in the Arts. His goal was to be the best relative to his peers. Again competition with his peers moved his efforts forward. High level talent does not exists in a vacuum. It's only the best relative to the others which is a competition to be the best.

In a perfect world collaboration would be ideal but we have seen that people just stop trying after awhile and become free riders with only a few doing the majority of work. So in affect collaboration wastes a lot of potential effort by letting people ride it out.

Long term competition is the best way to move forward but it can't be the all out version where resources are wasted rather than used wisely where we try to win at what ever cost.

"Competition is the failure of imagination" - nice

Further, it's damaging to our society and hinders progress and innovation.

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