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by robocat 1112 days ago
> except the capitalists

The article is about monetising social status, and I think the majority of criticisms about capitalism are actually thinly veiled complaints about social status (often complaints about how others get more, rarely mentioning someone’s benefits compared against those that get less).

However social status exists independent of capitalism.

Replace capitalism, and you just end up with similar problems, just rotated, because the underlying motivation is the human drive for social status.

The article implies a wish for a world without social status signals, and rightly denigrates caste systems. Can we even change our nature to avoid status signalling?

Virtue signalling is also status signalling - just declaring a particular caste - and this article clearly declares their virtue.

I agree we should aspire to not be judgemental, and we should aspire to generosity, kindness, forgiveness. Regardless of what ingroup we belong to. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be aware of human failings, and imperfection in our systems is a compromise.

1 comments

Right. It seems it's very rare, even among so-called egalitarians, to find someone that defies cliques, defies the urge to be offended, and lays down their weapons, all for an open conversation.