RE: On the Goodness of Greed on Steemit
re: the debate in the above comments around the subject of greed...
as I read this, I feel the "greed" theme as secondary to the value in the article itself. having been following your writing on here for a few weeks, it's clear you are a top contributor of consistent value - and that motivation has come across before any greed. the greed theme makes for a great headline, though I feel the cats above are getting caught up on it...
yes, we may all have that primal egoic urge kicking in at times, wanting to extract dollars from this opportunity. natural. and there's valid reason why greed was included in the 10 commandments as a sin. (I'm not religious by any means, but can recognize wisdom.) REGARDLESS, even if those primal drives push us into certain actions every now and then - you spell it out well here: this force CAN be used constructively for the greater collective good.
the saints beyond greed might be sitting in caves in Tibet - most of us here are still human, and will experience it at times. but if that force can be channeled to fuel value creation - both generating the means to free ourselves to pursue creative passions and build a better life for our families, while generating content that educates & inspires others and contributing to some bad-ass collective legacies... then bring it on!
Primo, mate. Excellently written. :-)
The idea that greed is natural or you must be a saint to live without it is based on a flawed notion of human psychology. Its like saying "well, there will always be war, so we might as well fight." Having such an attitude is exactly what allows wanton wars to exist in the first place. Greed exists in the current world because it is heavily incentivized. The financial markets, for example, are places where people of otherwise modest talent can make large sums of money very quickly. But how do they get this money? Ever seen wolf of Wall street? They don't get it by offering goods and services to improve the lives of their clients. They get it by being greedy, from which they justify all manner of lies to get more and more money. This is not a natural state of affairs, it can only exist so long as it can be sustained. Stock exchanges are an invention that is at most hundreds of years old. Most people lived and died without ever feeling the euphoria associated with greed-based gains.