> Looking for fairness to me is a fools errand. It’s not even a real thing, nor is it something any 2 people will universally agree on.
Maybe not from a distance, but there are ways for multiple people to come to a fair conclusion. The most basic example are two children who have to share something, where one cuts the thing to be shared, and the other is allowed choice of which half he wants.
The important thing is: incentives for unfairness must be removed. If someone can get ahead by being unfair, they will do so. The only way to get around this is to make sure the people deciding the rules do not know where they'll end up, so they must be as fair as possible to improve their own situation.
> it does seem that this person is comfortable with that being the way the world operates.
This isn't a very charitable interpretation.
There is no lack of injustice in the world. There are more injustices in the world than any single human can possible wrap their head around much less devote attention to caring about.
Just because someone prioritizes other concerns does not mean they are uncaring about a concern you care about, just as you prioritizing the concern you care about do not imply that you're unconcerning about the injustice the other person is prioritizing.
> It looks like the credits were the goal, and if they weren't then what's the fuss about?
Because that is how fairness works in the minds of most humans. People can have multiple motivations. I go to work to earn cash, but I'd be unhappy if someone else got credit for the work I did.
However, at least I'd have got paid; if I was doing something out of altruism I'd be a lot more unhappy if I didn't get credit for the work I'd done.
>taking advantage of the situation for their own personal benefit:
And therein lies the problem. A subset of people get a benefit from engaging in this behavior. So of course they do it at every opportunity.
You get what you incentivize.
Until the outcome is so frequently a net negative (however slight) in so many cases that the behavior is marginalized to a negligibly small number of people/settings the behavior will persist in enough volume to be worth caring about.
> I find that some people will perceive themselves to be exploited and orient their life around avoiding it, regardless of the situation...
Right it works both ways; some people will be blind to being exploited. It really makes me doubt that I have anything even remotely close to an objective view of things that are close to me.
> If you want something, you trade for it, obtain it through consensual pact (like insurance or farm co-op), beg, do it yourself, or seek charity. Something that involves not stealing. You don't steal from others.
I think most of us would prefer not to have to go back to pre-Roman times. We get a lot more done when we as a society (if not necessarily individually) agree to what outcomes we want and what the rules are, and are forced by law to contribute to make it happen.
> You sacrifice by performing labor and engaging in trade and you get what you want. It's unfair to say I want a pony or a free CT scan and I'm going to rob that rich guy to get it. Do you go robbing guys in suits to feed starving African children?
Gee, you caught me!
Seriously, there's a huge difference between an individual robbing someone of something that's rightfully theirs by law, and the law (to which we, through representatives acting on our behalf, have agreed) saying everyone has to contribute their fair share to a common cause we think is just.
> Womeone is paying me to do a thing. Therefore, what I'm doing must, at least on average and over the long term, be so valuable to some number of people that it's worth continuing those payments.
I feel that is not a logical conclusion. What if someone paid a hitman to kill their boss because they got into a fight with them and they aren't emotionally stable enough to have a discussion?
Yes, an extreme example, but consider this: not every increase in perceived value is necessarily good.
>There may also be a moral hazard - by investing my own time into my work, I disadvantage others who are not willing or able to do so, by seeming even more productive than my baseline.
Lol at calling this a moral hazard. By your logic any positive thing you ever do in life will disadvantage others who are not doing it and therefore appear worse in comparison. Let’s not have a race to the bottom just to seem like the nicest person possible.
>The thing is, you get no money by looking out for others.
And our definitions of harm can greatly differ, to the point where two groups honestly believe the other group is doing harm. While some of these cases can be resolved with more knowledge, some of them depend upon ethical guidelines that are entirely subjective.
It may be because of reasons other than selfishness, outside of one's control.
Don't assume somebody is as insensitive jackass as you with such statements.
Doesn't it? If you have some kind of objective measure of fairness, I would like to hear it.
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