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RikerT_USS_Lolipop t1_ixek2yo wrote

Reply to comment by AI_Enjoyer87 in Neuralink Co-Founder Unveils Rival Company That Won't Force Patients To Drill Holes in Their Skull by Economy_Variation365

Not necessarily. It's taken as an axiom in Capitalism that you need competition to drive innovation and bring prices down for consumers. But it's not the competition doing that. It's the individuals in charge of those companies deciding to do those things. They could easily choose to do those things without competition forcing their hand but, generally speaking, companies are run by greedy psychopaths.

The leadership of Neuralink probably isn't in it strictly for the money. They want to be rich of course but they also understand the nature and implications of the Singularity as well as anyone in this subreddit.

Then there are the drawbacks of competition. The best minds are being scattered around. Venture capital is being split. Work is being duplicated. There are a lot of inefficiencies inherent in a market system.

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literalproblemsolver t1_ixfyyy2 wrote

I dont know how you can hold this opinion after thinking about it for even a few seconds.

No kidding the "people at the top" set the prices. If you mean it in the most literal, un-nuanced sense. The question you want to ask is "why?". As it turns out, the economy is far more complex than just corperate greed. Prices actually change based on many factors! Crazy thought i know.

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Ahaigh9877 t1_ixge93g wrote

Nope, it’s evil Monopoly Man sitting on his massive pile of money. It’s simple. Goodies and baddies.

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Ahaigh9877 t1_ixge0k7 wrote

> But it’s not the competition doing that. It’s the individuals in charge of those companies deciding to do those things.

What would it look like if it were competition doing that? How would it be different? And how do you know it’s not competition doing it?

In any case, it’s a false dichotomy man. The idea is that competition drives individuals to do those things. People need incentives and that’s one of them.

You can criticise “capitalism” for all sorts of things, and rightly so in many cases I’m sure. But the basic idea that competition can drive innovation surely isn’t total nonsense, is it?

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AI_Enjoyer87 t1_ixemn5d wrote

The growth imperative is a capitalist foundation. A company cannot survive it isn't growing even if it is profitable. The nature of competition ensures this. If the leaders of companies pursue idealistic roads they will die. Grow or die is capitalism. All companies have to grow and make money or they will lose market share and die.

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RikerT_USS_Lolipop t1_ixenpp6 wrote

There are fuckloads of companies that have remained stable for centuries. I don't know where you got your perspective from but I suspect it was people pushing an agenda.

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kmtrp t1_ixeufos wrote

Or just a fancy armchair at home.

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div414 t1_ixg3sb1 wrote

Name 5 publicly traded companies that have remained stable in the last.. centuries?

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literalproblemsolver t1_ixfz9j4 wrote

Businesses do not need to grow to survive. "Profitable" means making money, which means not losing money, which means staying open. If something is profitable, you dont need more growth to "stay alive". In many cases, blindly chasing growth kills more companies than helps them. Small businesses stay open for decades with proper leadership. Weird how they dont just die randomly after not being a multinational corp?

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