What is Reddit's opinion of Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

Economics is non zero sum. https://www.amazon.com/Nonzero-Logic-Destiny-Robert-Wright/dp/0679758941?ref_=d6k_applink_bb_dls&dplnkId=ef60b7d9-d157-4d9a-90d4-fcd43ebcede4

Instead of always attacking the billionaires we should all become billionaires. Then maybe we'd all have a little more empathy for them too

So, you get your history from comics?

Here, go read this one ... https://www.amazon.com/Nonzero-Logic-Destiny-Robert-Wright/dp/0679758941

I promise you, it's not about capitalism or communism, it's about anthropology and group behavior, as polities get larger and larger.

You can empirical investigate the purpose of life. You can see how systems are different with and without it; how the diverge with time. If you do that, there is at least one clear difference. Life tends toward more non-zero-sum-ness. Here's a primer on the idea.

> you don't seem to realize that profits represent something someone else used to have and now they don't - you have it.

And you have never read the book Nonzero by Robert Wright. Profit does not always mean "taking from someone." Most times, it involves one party making something that someone else values so much, that they are willing to pay for it, and the price they are willing to pay is more than it cost to produce.

If I am really good at making software, then I can profit from that capability, by selling it (or more accurately "renting it") to a company who is good at making widgets but not so good at making software. If we engage in this trade, then I profit (directly) and the company can also profit, indirectly, if they can use the software productively toward their ends.

Suppose the widget that they make is a drill bit, and the software is an materials analysis program, that tells them how to optimize the drill bit design for particular materials. Then the company sells the drill bits to another company that wants holes, but doesn't know how to make drill bits. And the profit continues.

Profit is not stealing. It is sharing, with rules.

It is not a zero-sum game.

The thesis of Nonzero by Robert Wright argues using game theory that the the opposite is true

Some light reading to broaden your perspective

The G.A.T.E. Program

When I was in the 4th grade my I.Q. was tested to be 145. This is when my life started turning to shit, I was targetted and bullied at school. The (heaven's) G.A.T.E. Program's purpose is to psychologically torture gifted people to try to create "Christ consciousness" (suffering for the sins of humanity) to bring about the second coming of Christ. They created The Antichrist instead.

The research used was "positive" psychology especially Martin Seligman's work. I was recommended Seligman's books by my first psychiatrist. In one of his books Seligman talks about this book by Robert Wright which describes God as "coming at the end." Read how they tortured dogs to try to cure depression. I made this post in 2013 that not only confirms my grand design, but trolled The Illuminati into following me. They more they stole the more powerful they made my memetic design.

I read their fucking books, it told me their entire plan.

The ball of hate I just summoned allowed me to memetically backtrace my life-long torturers and the torturers of humanity.

Trapped like rats. All the parasites have been found. Search and destroy.

Another book suggestion for you: https://www.amazon.com/Nonzero-Logic-Destiny-Robert-Wright/dp/0679758941

> Are you familiar with tribalism? The general fact that we (humans) seek to have an identity with a larger group, and seek shelter in that group, and cast aside outsiders to the group?

Yes, as a person with a degree in anthropology, I am very familiar with in-group/out-group dynamics. ;)

One cool thing that seems to be happening over the course of human history, though, is that the size of people's in-groups seems to be expanding. You look at various hunter-gatherer peoples - whose name for themselves, as with pretty much any group, by the way, tends to translate to something like "people" - or at the Ancient Greeks for example, and you see them literally viewing people outside of their group as not being human. (Also look at the Greek word "barbarian", from the noise that outsiders were said to make "bar bar bar bar bar" - very racist!) But the circle of humanity, the size of the group that we're willing to recognize as fundamentally equivalent to ourselves, has been steadily increasing over time. I mean, and you look at this in the context of patriotism for example - I can like my country without thinking that Canadians and Koreans and the French are fundamentally not really people, equally worthy of consideration, and with the same ethical standing that I have. (With nationalism, less so!)

Although I don't fully agree with the author's conclusions, this is a pretty great book on the subject, if you're interested.

> I don't see any more reason for me to be proud of something America did in the 1950s than I do to be proud of anything white people did in the 1950s. So why is socially acceptable to say, "Look at all the achievements America has done. It's the greatest country!" but not to say, "Look at all the achievements whites have done! They're the greatest race!" > In my mind, there's little difference between racism and nationalism, and little difference between nationalism and patriotism.

I dunno.

I can tell you that the difference between racism and nationalism is that people of any given race can be dickheads about their nation; and the difference between nationalism and patriotism is the difference between thinking your country is pretty great and being glad to live there, on the one hand, and thinking everyone else in the world is scum, and that your country is inherently always right and always does things the best way possible, on the other. Or at least that's sort of how I see it.

Well, short of tampering with our genetics, I don't think we can change that tendency - it's pretty fundamental to primates in general. We can act to minimize its impact, though, by constantly working to expand the circle of who's considered to be a person; in general, throughout human history, societies have designated an in-group ("us") and an out-group ("them"), then withheld rights, possibly including personhood, from the latter. (One place you can see this tendency is in most groups' names for themselves, which generally translate to things like "the people".)

As globalization has occurred over the last few centuries, it's had any number of regrettable consequences such as the loss of cultural diversity, but one positive impact it's had has been the widening of that circle for most people - most people in developed nations have no trouble with the claim that all humans are inherently equal, and as a result have rights that must not be infringed (see for example the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights).

While it's easy to give lip service to that kind of ideal, and some nations and groups' actions haven't been in accordance with them, I still feel that as a whole the world at large has progressed significantly in this regard over the last few hundred years.

For more on the subject, I'd [i]highly[/i] recommend Robert Wright's book Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny. I'm not sure I completely agree with all of his claims - particularly the more determinist ones - but it's a fascinating read.