Funny you should say that: business and profit are actually way undertaxed in the US, compared to (for instance) salaries and pensions. But, you're still talking about the on-paper accounting (and choosing an arbitrary point in a cyclic economy as the "original source", but let's ignore that for now).
Let's consider how progress actually occurs, on the ground. People learn how things work, whether through study, experience, original thought, or (more often) a mix of the three. They then attempt to find improvements: new methods, new machines, new buildings. They then verify these improvements, through experiment, theory, or a mix of the three. We call this "innovation". They then put these into practice: building, manufacturing, distributing, teaching, or performing; which improves the efficiency of some resource manipulation activity, or enables people to accomplish or experience things they couldn't otherwise. We call this "progress".
Individuals cannot efficiently acquire all resources (respectively: accomplish all tasks, experience all experiences, etc) alone. Specialised tools and skillsets allow certain people to accomplish certain tasks more efficiently than others: we call this "expertise" and "economies of scale" and "virtuoso", among other names. Working together, people can accomplish more than they can apart: we call this "collaboration" when it is direct, and "trade" when it is indirect. To make trade (locally) more efficient in large groups, we abstract large trade networks by valuing more-or-less everything along one axis, which we call "currency", or "money". Money represents resources, because it can be exchanged for goods and services. (Therefore, money is fungible.) Money also represents debt, for much the same reason. (Therefore, money is not fungible.) What money represents depends quite a lot on your metaphysics, because it is an abstract concept.
A trade where each party to the trade receives more value than they spend (according to the "money's worth" metric) is considered a "profitable trade": the "more value" is called the "profit", and trades can be profitable for all parties despite a variety of different choices of profit allocation. (Various factors constrain profit allocation in practice; we will not discuss them here.) Some trades are mediated by intermediaries (traders, employers), who take some portion of the profit: in some cases, these intermediaries are providing value (e.g. by transporting goods, or organising a team); but in other cases, they are not. One example of an intermediary that does not provide any value is a corporate person qua employer: by virtue of not actually existing, a corporation cannot by any clever argument be said to actually contribute to boots-on-the-ground labour activity.
So we see that profit is, except on the balance sheets of a sole trader / worker-owned coöp, actually the removal of resources from the people doing the actual work, making the actual progress. If the removed resources are pooled and used for R&D – as in the cases you describe as "side quests" – and we further propose that this R&D would not have been performed by those the resources were removed from, we can say that profit contributes towards progress. (Certain investment schemes provide another example.) However, in many cases, profit goes towards things like "build us a moat to keep the competitors out!" or "bribe the regulators" or "outspend our competitors' advertising budget" or "buy the C-suite even bigger yachts": we cannot say this contributes towards progress, unless we define the ultimate end of human progress narrowly: in the field of yacht manufacturing, or perhaps the field of cheating at sports.
Business, likewise, is sometimes related to progress, but sometimes unrelated to it, and in any case not in any way essential to progress (except in the field of business studies). Saying the word "actuality" doesn't make what you say true.
I notice you didn't address the example of Wikipedia.
>Let's consider how progress actually occurs, on the ground. People learn how things work, whether through study, experience, original thought, or (more often) a mix of the three. They then attempt to find improvements: new methods, new machines, new buildings. They then verify these improvements, through experiment, theory, or a mix of the three. We call this "innovation". They then put these into practice: building, manufacturing, distributing, teaching, or performing; which improves the efficiency of some resource manipulation activity, or enables people to accomplish or experience things they couldn't otherwise. We call this "progress".
And all of this is primarily driven by business and desire for profit. It's less driven by charity or just hobbyiest interest. That is IN actuality how it occurs.
>Individuals cannot efficiently acquire all resources (respectively: accomplish all tasks, experience all experiences, etc) alone. Specialised tools and skillsets allow certain people to accomplish certain tasks more efficiently than others: we call this "expertise" and "economies of scale" and "virtuoso", among other names. Working together, people can accomplish more than they can apart: we call this "collaboration" when it is direct, and "trade" when it is indirect. To make trade (locally) more efficient in large groups, we abstract large trade networks by valuing more-or-less everything along one axis, which we call "currency", or "money". Money represents resources, because it can be exchanged for goods and services. (Therefore, money is fungible.) Money also represents debt, for much the same reason. (Therefore, money is not fungible.) What money represents depends quite a lot on your metaphysics, because it is an abstract concept.
This is just pedantism. At the basic level money represents status and power. It is a materialistic concept at it's core. While there are other ways to look at it primarily what I'm saying is that status and power is what drives people more than anything else. You can get into the bs hand wavy metaphysics of it, sure, any ass hole can do that. We're talking about the core common sense colloquilal nature of what it means to do it for money rather then altruism. OF course altruism can involve money too right? But it would be a rather deceptive move to shift the conversation in that direction to make things even more muddled.
Tired of your pedantic bs. You know what I mean I know what you mean and you're just trying to defend yourself. Why can't people be rational and just admit their wrong. You're wrong. EOS.
> And all of this is primarily driven by business and desire for profit.
When construction is driven by a desire for profit, you get shoddy buildings that, if you're unlucky, kill people. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire, or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_Regency_walkway_collapse – the latter is twice relevant, since the response also challenges your thesis. When buildings are built well, it's because they're built by people who care about their work. Cutting corners (a directly profitable activity, in many situations – and repeatedly profitable, if you play your cards right) is not what I call "progress".
I'm not certain you know what profit is. What do you mean, when you use that word?
> what I'm saying is that status and power is what drives people more than anything else.
Thank you for stating your thesis so clearly. While these things are a major driver of war, they are not a significant driver of human progress.
> the core common sense colloquilal nature of
I've noticed a lot of unjustified assertions from you, which are presumably also appeals to "common sense". How does your "common sense" explain Wikipedia?
>When construction is driven by a desire for profit, you get shoddy buildings that, if you're unlucky, kill people. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire, or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_Regency_walkway_collapse – the latter is twice relevant, since the response also challenges your thesis. When buildings are built well, it's because they're built by people who care about their work. Cutting corners (a directly profitable activity, in many situations – and repeatedly profitable, if you play your cards right) is not what I call "progress".
You get this everywhere. All corruption all corporations suffer from this problem. Shortcuts are everywhere and corporations are abstracted to the point where morality is diluted through shareholder division and all you get is a machine that cares about making more capital. The reason why we don't get shoddy buildings everywhere is because that still affects profits. When a plane crashes that affects things and companies will still think in terms of long term consequences as well as short term.
A better example is global warming or microplastics. The negative consequences aren't clear and the long term result is so far away it doesn't affect profits.
But to your point. All of society is driven by profit, and the negative consequences of it are everywhere.
>I'm not certain you know what profit is. What do you mean, when you use that word?
Look it up in the dictionary. Revenue minus costs = profit. Please don't go into a pedantic diatribe over this like you did for the "abstract concept of money".
>Thank you for stating your thesis so clearly. While these things are a major driver of war, they are not a significant driver of human progress.
It's the major drive for civilization itself. Are you blind? In fact opposite of what you say War in modern times actually destroys progress and business. In modern times society is less prone to go to war than in the past because of this. While the news frequently implies that the world is a dangerous place, the statistics show we've never been more capitalist and at peace.
>I've noticed a lot of unjustified assertions from you, which are presumably also appeals to "common sense". How does your "common sense" explain Wikipedia?
I missed what you meant by this. You mean "Why does wikipedia exist if society is driven by profit".
Yeah why does open source exist?
Good question. because a extremely small minority aspect of society is driven by altruism but this minority aspect is so small one can confidently say that society Is driven by money and profit and this statement is generally true.
There's another factor at play here which makes the generality even more true. It's the fact that only people who have a lot of money "aka profit" and leisure time (because they have money) can afford to spend their time doing charity work. Like how can you just spend your life giving away shit and expect to be alive? At the end of the day you need beneficial utility coming in. Profit is not just something we desire in excess. We desire money to SURVIVE.
This crazy stuff like altruism and charity ONLY exists when people have an excess amount of money and are able to spend those extra dollars on other things. However EVEN when this is the case it's still rare. People with money just want to make more money and most people don't want to give that shit away, that's why this country is loaded with billionaires that rarely give away their money.
Funny you should say that: business and profit are actually way undertaxed in the US, compared to (for instance) salaries and pensions. But, you're still talking about the on-paper accounting (and choosing an arbitrary point in a cyclic economy as the "original source", but let's ignore that for now).
Let's consider how progress actually occurs, on the ground. People learn how things work, whether through study, experience, original thought, or (more often) a mix of the three. They then attempt to find improvements: new methods, new machines, new buildings. They then verify these improvements, through experiment, theory, or a mix of the three. We call this "innovation". They then put these into practice: building, manufacturing, distributing, teaching, or performing; which improves the efficiency of some resource manipulation activity, or enables people to accomplish or experience things they couldn't otherwise. We call this "progress".
Individuals cannot efficiently acquire all resources (respectively: accomplish all tasks, experience all experiences, etc) alone. Specialised tools and skillsets allow certain people to accomplish certain tasks more efficiently than others: we call this "expertise" and "economies of scale" and "virtuoso", among other names. Working together, people can accomplish more than they can apart: we call this "collaboration" when it is direct, and "trade" when it is indirect. To make trade (locally) more efficient in large groups, we abstract large trade networks by valuing more-or-less everything along one axis, which we call "currency", or "money". Money represents resources, because it can be exchanged for goods and services. (Therefore, money is fungible.) Money also represents debt, for much the same reason. (Therefore, money is not fungible.) What money represents depends quite a lot on your metaphysics, because it is an abstract concept.
A trade where each party to the trade receives more value than they spend (according to the "money's worth" metric) is considered a "profitable trade": the "more value" is called the "profit", and trades can be profitable for all parties despite a variety of different choices of profit allocation. (Various factors constrain profit allocation in practice; we will not discuss them here.) Some trades are mediated by intermediaries (traders, employers), who take some portion of the profit: in some cases, these intermediaries are providing value (e.g. by transporting goods, or organising a team); but in other cases, they are not. One example of an intermediary that does not provide any value is a corporate person qua employer: by virtue of not actually existing, a corporation cannot by any clever argument be said to actually contribute to boots-on-the-ground labour activity.
So we see that profit is, except on the balance sheets of a sole trader / worker-owned coöp, actually the removal of resources from the people doing the actual work, making the actual progress. If the removed resources are pooled and used for R&D – as in the cases you describe as "side quests" – and we further propose that this R&D would not have been performed by those the resources were removed from, we can say that profit contributes towards progress. (Certain investment schemes provide another example.) However, in many cases, profit goes towards things like "build us a moat to keep the competitors out!" or "bribe the regulators" or "outspend our competitors' advertising budget" or "buy the C-suite even bigger yachts": we cannot say this contributes towards progress, unless we define the ultimate end of human progress narrowly: in the field of yacht manufacturing, or perhaps the field of cheating at sports.
Business, likewise, is sometimes related to progress, but sometimes unrelated to it, and in any case not in any way essential to progress (except in the field of business studies). Saying the word "actuality" doesn't make what you say true.
I notice you didn't address the example of Wikipedia.