Meeting on greed versus ambition

We had our meeting last Wednesday on greed and ambition.

Bob made his observation that some of it stems from our tendency to judge others different than how we judge ourselves.  The "I erred but you sinned" syndrome may contribute to how greed is generally attributed to others but not to ourselves.

We then explored the concept that maybe there is a comfort level that we think everyone should have as a minimum to carry on a decent life.  That robbing others of that comfort level in order to enrich oneself to have more than that minimum is greed.

If there is more than enough to go around, then we are free to pursue having more so long as we do not make others suffer by taking from them or causing them to have less than the minimum.

The difficulty is establishing a minimum acceptable to all, in limiting the size of the community considered, and facing the fact that there is no such thing as unlimited resources.

While I originally intended for greed to be separated from ambition, or the drive to succeed and achieve, Mano pointed out that ambition had a negative connotation from the days of the privileged class looking down on members of the lower class trying hard to break out of their lot and try to social climb to a higher class.

Striving to succeed and achieve is something we generally consider to be positive qualities, especially for the young starting their careers, the fine point is to differentiate it from how others may be hurt in this process.

It is easy to see personal gain as greed.  The free market economist idea of the invisible hand that maximizes benefit to all while individuals pursue their own interest have been adopted by many socialist regimes in the past few decades to improve the lot of their citizens.  Yet we feel uneasy about it.

Participants in this free market system are often accused of being uncaring of others while pursuing their own interests.

On the surface, these critics have the moral high ground over the free marketeers.

There actually are two dimensions to this discussion; the moral aspect of helping our fellow humans and the determination of how best to cooperate with each other in our endeavors.

Our moral sense points us to pay attention to those in need.

Our drive for efficiency points us to prefer those who give the best results regardless of effort and other considerations.

In distributing wealth and resources in our society, we have to consider needs as well as efficiency and these two considerations are often opposite to each other.

The discussion is often too polarized with the two sides accusing each other on principle instead of looking at the tricky task of optimizing through compromise of the two.

Mano also pointed out that we live in a society defined by our history and social circumstances, that qualities like greed is defined by historical events leading up to the present day. It is not up to us to define greed on its own in a vacuum.

That is a good dose of reality.  However, it should not stop us from examining ourselves and our history to see where we should be heading and to work at depolarizing the extremes so that meaningful dialog can happen.  Finger pointing, stereotyping, and cynicism are the worst enemies towards this dialog.

5/8/2013 Greed versus ambition

Greed has been considered the main cause of the financial crises in recent years.

Ambition is something we try to encourage in our youth who is starting out with their careers.

This coming Wednesday at the Ideas Cafe, we will discuss how the two attributes compare with each other.

Is the difference mainly in where the motivation is aimed?  Greed towards personal gain while ambition can be for something that is beneficial to others as well as oneself?

Can there be greed if no money is involved?

Can ambition to do good for one's country also be good for the rest of the earth? 

Is Alexander the Great or Napoleon ambitious or greedy?

Perhaps ambitious is not always a good thing?

But should we advise our youth from trying to achieve something?
 
How much achieving is too ambitious/greedy?

Maybe the focus should always be towards the bigger good,  look beyond ourselves and go for the bigger picture, sacrificing our self interest if required.

Should we then not always sacrifice the good of our city for that of our country?  Why bother having local communities?

Is giving preferential consideration for one's local community instead of the greater community a form of greed?
 
In recent decades, most socialist countries have abandoned central planning economies in favor of free enterprise competitive systems.  This changes the distribution of resources from a central planning model to an "invisible hand" economy model depending on market prices to distribute resources and effort. 

Can a free market system work without individual consideration for their own welfare over others?  Is greed therefore a necessary ingredient for this system?

In the perfect world, we will likely want ambition without greed.  is that possible?

5/1/2013 Should performers lip synch at a live performance?

No!

That is the response last week when I told the Ideas Cafe group about the topic for the coming Wednesday.

It is pretty much the expected response, especially when people pay a lot of money to participate in a live performance.  They rightly expect more than what they could have had at home listening to recorded music.

The artist's response is that they want the best for their audience and the recorder version is chosen from various takes.  Live performance is unpredictable and not likely to recreate the level achieved in a studio.

If we do not mind the performers putting on make up to make them look more beautiful, why do we object to them trying to improve on their singing by using their best tracks?  It is their track!

When we visit an art gallery, do we expect the artist there to perform his artistry there and paint one of his masterpieces in front of us?


Are we oblivious to the editing that goes on, that there are lots of abandoned paintings, sound tracks, film strips, and photo shoots for every masterpiece?

If  live performance should not be lip synched, should we have prompters for drama stage performances or when people deliver speeches?


For that matter, should we have speech writers?


Should TV news anchors write their own scripts? Gather their news stories themselves? Film their  sequences? Travel to the news breaking locations to give us the news first hand?

TV news anchors are valued for their trust appeal to their audience, what is this trust built on?

In one of the interviews, a famous local news anchor said that he never read the script before going on air.  That way he can have a genuine reaction to the news as he reads it. Why does the audience have a high level of trust for this anchor when he obvious only does the reading of the news?

But then going to a live performance is not about the music alone.  It is about a closer engagement with the artist outside a perfect recording. We are expecting some connection with the artist.  Is that really possible in a crowd of thousands?  Can the artist develop that connection with conversation with the audience while simultaneously meet the audience expectation of perfect music with lip synch?

4/24/2013 Property versus community rights

Next Wednesday at the Ideas Cafe, we will be discussing the relation between community versus individual property rights.


Property rights are some of the fundamental building blocks of a capitalist society.  From land, physical property, and intellectual property ownership, property rights infers that owners have control over their property and enjoy the benefits as well as be responsible for the liabilities.

The incentive is there then for the owners to look after their property both in protecting it and improving it.

While some of us may distress over the environment being destroyed by businesses whose goal is narrowly focused on profits,  property advocates would blame it on lack of ownership for the environment.  If the environment belongs to some entity, the owner of this environment will have the interest for protecting it and fighting against polluters.

The tragedy of the commons argument.

Since we are not hermits and we all choose to live in a community with other property owners, there arise a community right issue that needs to be balanced against the individual property rights.

Most municipalities have by-laws now requiring property owners to ask for permission before cutting trees over a certain size in their own property. It seems an invasion on individual property rights but the argument can be made that actions in individual property can affect the overall attractiveness and the value of the community.

I lived in a townhouse complex before where residents are not allowed to hang laundry outside as the strata council believe that it affects the looks of the property.

Just what should be the criteria in setting the compromise between property and community rights?  Is it tyranny of the majority over the minority?  or the rotten apple that is ruining the whole bushel?

When do rules start to restrict individuality?  The so call "Vancouver special" or monster house are results of builders conforming and maximizing on municipal building by-laws that are attempting to control excesses in the design of new homes.

Should we have more or less rules?