Why do some people need so much money?

Karen Rodriguez3: If you’re implying that humans are inherently wicked, I can't agree with you—just as I disagree with Anthony Garcia19 when he suggests human nature is noble.
Human beings are incredibly adaptable creatures, evolving specifically to fit their surroundings. Concepts like good and evil aren't inherent; they are mere human inventions.
Anthropologists have gathered significant data on this by studying isolated tribal societies. You see all kinds of behaviors. For instance, Inuit communities follow a strict code of sharing. Everything is considered communal property. When an Inuit person shares what they have with you, there is no need for thanks. It belongs to everyone. If they viewed it as strictly personal while you were dependent on their charity, it would create a hierarchy of dominance and submission, effectively destroying freedom.
Then you have entirely different groups, such as those living on the island of doba. They view everyone as a potential threat and prize private property above all else, guarding it with absolute secrecy. Wealth is acquired through ruthless theft. Their most valued virtue is cunning. "If we intend to kill a man, we approach him, eat, drink, sleep, and work alongside him for months. We call him a friend."

Karen Rodriguez3 said:So, are you basically saying one person can't be more successful than another unless they're cheating?😕

No, what led you to that conclusion? 😕

Not at all. I'm not saying someone is just born bad. Or rather, I'm not implying that every single person is inherently rotten.
Since you brought up those two examples of civilizations developing in isolation, I don't really see that as proof they evolved specifically because of their surroundings. To me, it feels more like individuals with similar worldviews just ended up building an environment that fits them. If you know what I mean.🤷

Zachary Mendoza2 said:No, it is quite simple: humans evolve through interaction with their environment. Someone cheats someone else, gets away with it, and profits as planned. They try it again and see that it works, so they adopt a new behavioral model. The environment might not respect them, but it tolerates them, and he profits. Or, if he uses theft, people fear and despise him, yet they do not stop him. Then he finds someone similar to organize with, making them stronger and more successful together. Eventually, some dissatisfied people notice this and say, "Why shouldn't we act just like these successful people?" Everyone else hates them and complains, but in reality, they are just more successful than their surroundings. So, I follow suit.
It becomes infectious. Once it spreads, it becomes obvious that general social morality has gone to hell, people retreat into themselves, and the opportunists take over. Resourcefulness becomes the ideal, while compassion, sharing, empathy, brotherhood, and unity are seen as part of that old, failed system—a system that hates you because you are successful.

Weeds grow faster than crops, stealing the sunlight, water, and nutrients while reproducing more quickly. Weeds grow wherever they can, whereas crops require a specific, favorable environment. If you don't constantly pull the weeds, you will soon have nothing but weeds in your field.

Time, you still haven't tackled my main question: why is the environment the way it is? Why do certain people start cheating and grabbing whatever they can? What's their core nature—are they good, bad, or just chameleons?

Otherwise, things play out exactly like you said. One person sees someone else getting ahead and things go south. To protect yourself in a system where everyone is grabbing, you usually end up grabbing too (even if you don't realize it, since you aren't really looking at who you're taking from).

Karen Rodriguez3: I see your point; you believe those individuals have simply shaped their environment to suit their inherent nature.
My view is different. I don't believe in a fixed "nature." Human nature is essentially the capacity to become anything. If you take a child from one community and raise them in a completely different one, they will adapt and adopt a totally different worldview. That worldview becomes who they are.

I suppose there are exceptions to my rule—for instance, psychopaths seem to be born that way; it's just their nature, though we don't truly understand why. But a typical child can be raised to be a decent person, or they could just as easily be raised to be a killer or a thief, without ever questioning if their actions go against some internal compass.

Anthony Garcia19: It seems what I shared with Karen Rodriguez3 actually addresses your concern as well. Aside from those born as psychopaths, you simply have people who experiment with cheating or greed, perhaps out of pure curiosity. That is entirely human. Then you have those for whom this behavior isn't new; they’ve seen it firsthand, lived through it, or were raised surrounded by it. The world isn't a bubble where deception is some unknown concept.
Simply put, it exists and cannot be eradicated. It can only be kept in check through constant effort to root it out.

Karen Rodriguez3 said:You don't need a PhD to realize we aren't all cut from the same cloth when it comes to talent. Right?
If you take someone who’s naturally driven, capable, and works harder than most, and you constantly force them to split everything they achieve with people who can't help or—let's be real—people who just won't, it won't take long before that high-achiever just says, "screw this, let someone else carry the load."
It's a total simplification, I know, but honestly, it's pretty straightforward.

We really ought to pause and consider that this has nothing to do with the current debate over wealth accumulation, nor does it touch upon the idea of hypothetical redistribution...

Besides, who ever actually claimed that all people possess equal capability in the first place?

Karen Rodriguez3 said:I don't think human nature "returned." It never left. It was just shoved into this forced shell that barely let it breathe. You can't do that without a dictatorship, obviously. Those scammers didn't suddenly appear after the guidance stopped; they just finally showed their true colors. So, I guess, what does that actually say about what people are really made of?

At first glance, it looks like human nature is just bad—greedy and selfish.

But there are two other ways to look at this, which I mentioned earlier to Frogger:

1) We aren't all built the same. Some people are naturally greedy and selfish, while others are truly altruistic and compassionate.

2) Those negative traits—the greed and the ego—only flared up because there weren't enough resources available during that period to guarantee everyone total personal freedom. Personal freedom is the ability to express oneself fully and reach one's creative potential, which is the ultimate goal for any individual. When that need goes unmet, people scramble to find fulfillment any way they can. This implies that personal freedom sits at the top of our value system, with altruism following right behind it.

Which one is actually right? Honestly, that’s a tough one even for us mere mortals!

Zachary Mendoza2 said:Karen Rodriguez3: I see your point; you believe those individuals have simply shaped their environment to suit their inherent nature.
My view is different. I don't believe in a fixed "nature." Human nature is essentially the capacity to become anything. If you take a child from one community and raise them in a completely different one, they will adapt and adopt a totally different worldview. That worldview becomes who they are.

I suppose there are exceptions to my rule—for instance, psychopaths seem to be born that way; it's just their nature, though we don't truly understand why. But a typical child can be raised to be a decent person, or they could just as easily be raised to be a killer or a thief, without ever questioning if their actions go against some internal compass.

Anthony Garcia19: It seems what I shared with Karen Rodriguez3 actually addresses your concern as well. Aside from those born as psychopaths, you simply have people who experiment with cheating or greed, perhaps out of pure curiosity. That is entirely human. Then you have those for whom this behavior isn't new; they’ve seen it firsthand, lived through it, or were raised surrounded by it. The world isn't a bubble where deception is some unknown concept.
Simply put, it exists and cannot be eradicated. It can only be kept in check through constant effort to root it out.

Regardless of how someone is raised, I still think there's a core nature lurking inside everyone that dictates how they act when things get real, depending on the situation.
But hey, doesn't matter if I'm right or you are. As long as we have a society where the family is the foundation and where upbringing and guidance happen mostly at home, that’s the bedrock of everything.
Good people raise good people, and vice versa.
Unless, of course, their basic nature is fundamentally different.😬

Evolutionary psychology has actually shed a massive amount of light on why we act the way we do—even debunking some of those deeply ingrained myths and misconceptions that people still cling to today. Take, for instance, the persistent fallacy that one person's gain must inherently necessitate someone else's loss. It’s a tough pill to swallow, but unfortunately, humans seem genetically hardwired to believe in that zero-sum game, making it incredibly difficult to dismantle the myth.
At our core, we are adaptable opportunists. We don't possess massive muscle mass, sharp claws, or formidable canines; we aren't sprinters, nor can we carry much more than our own weight. Honestly, if you compare the density and sheer strength of human muscle to anything else, it's pretty underwhelming—it's about as sturdy as a boiled chicken. Just look at a bison. Most animals are several times stronger than a human per unit of muscle mass. Even a moderately sized dog could easily take down an adult man without breaking a sweat.
We essentially traded all that physical prowess for a single organ: the brain. That highly adaptive brain is what allows us to navigate constantly shifting environments, project ourselves into the future, and weigh the long-term consequences of our actions. Our entire physiology is subservient to the brain. For example, we lost those powerful canines because we sacrificed the specific muscles at the top of the skull that control the jaw. Primates still have those muscles, which results in a slight indentation in their skulls and a smaller cranial capacity. We effectively discarded our most potent biological weapon just to squeeze out a few extra percentage points of brain volume.

Karen Rodriguez3 said:Not at all. I'm not saying someone is just born bad. Or rather, I'm not implying that every single person is inherently rotten.
Since you brought up those two examples of civilizations developing in isolation, I don't really see that as proof they evolved specifically because of their surroundings. To me, it feels more like individuals with similar worldviews just ended up building an environment that fits them. If you know what I mean.🤷

So, you're actually arguing that we aren't all equal (like I mentioned in point one earlier), rather than saying humans are just naturally greedy?

placidwolf27 said:We really ought to pause and consider that this has nothing to do with the current debate over wealth accumulation, nor does it touch upon the idea of hypothetical redistribution...

Besides, who ever actually claimed that all people possess equal capability in the first place?

I was just using that as a starting point for the argument. I wasn't talking to you specifically.

But hey, if there's no way to register, how is that irrelevant? Wealth piling up is basically just a side effect of progress. We tried doing things differently before and it didn't exactly work out.

Still, I'd love to see someone actually map out a redistribution model. Like, what’s the most efficient way to pull that off without ending up right back where we started in a few years?

People are social predators—think along the lines of wolves hunting in packs. But there’s a fundamental distinction here: a wolf is mostly driven by raw instinct, supplemented by a bit of learned behavior. A human? We exist in this constant, messy tug-of-war between instinct and what we’ve been taught—all while being blessed with a significant amount of intelligence. We actually have the capacity to override those primal urges and act purely rationally just to hit a specific target. At the end of the day, humans are defined by adaptability. That’s why you won't find any use in simple labels like "people are good" or "people are greedy." It isn't that binary. A person can be both at the exact same moment—it all just comes down to whatever serves their interests most effectively.

Zachary Mendoza2 said:Karen Rodriguez3: I see your point; you believe those individuals have simply shaped their environment to suit their inherent nature.
My view is different. I don't believe in a fixed "nature." Human nature is essentially the capacity to become anything. If you take a child from one community and raise them in a completely different one, they will adapt and adopt a totally different worldview. That worldview becomes who they are.

I suppose there are exceptions to my rule—for instance, psychopaths seem to be born that way; it's just their nature, though we don't truly understand why. But a typical child can be raised to be a decent person, or they could just as easily be raised to be a killer or a thief, without ever questioning if their actions go against some internal compass.

Anthony Garcia19: It seems what I shared with Karen Rodriguez3 actually addresses your concern as well. Aside from those born as psychopaths, you simply have people who experiment with cheating or greed, perhaps out of pure curiosity. That is entirely human. Then you have those for whom this behavior isn't new; they’ve seen it firsthand, lived through it, or were raised surrounded by it. The world isn't a bubble where deception is some unknown concept.
Simply put, it exists and cannot be eradicated. It can only be kept in check through constant effort to root it out.

You didn't quite hit the mark there. Specifically, why is one community one way and another community something else (one good, one bad)? Based on your last point, it sounds like both you and Karen Rodriguez3 believe people aren't all built the same.

Anthony Garcia19 said:So, you're actually arguing that we aren't all equal (like I mentioned in point one earlier), rather than saying humans are just naturally greedy?

I guess so. I'm just not totally sure if that's happening right now in the middle of everything, or if we've just drifted that way because of those reasons you mentioned in your second point.
But yeah, pretty much. I don't think everyone is on the same level.
🙈
😁

Anthony Garcia19 said:You didn't quite hit the mark there. Specifically, why is one community one way and another community something else (one good, one bad)? Based on your last point, it sounds like both you and Karen Rodriguez3 believe people aren't all built the same.

What even defines a "good" community versus a "bad" one? It's an abstract, subjective metric at best.
Take, for instance, a tribe surviving in a harsh, semi-desert region—I think it was somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, if my memory serves—that would kill a newborn if they judged the child to be physically or mentally weak, or even if it was born with a minor defect. Is that a "good" community or a "bad" one?

Andrew Booth29 said:Evolutionary psychology has actually shed a massive amount of light on why we act the way we do—even debunking some of those deeply ingrained myths and misconceptions that people still cling to today. Take, for instance, the persistent fallacy that one person's gain must inherently necessitate someone else's loss. It’s a tough pill to swallow, but unfortunately, humans seem genetically hardwired to believe in that zero-sum game, making it incredibly difficult to dismantle the myth.
At our core, we are adaptable opportunists. We don't possess massive muscle mass, sharp claws, or formidable canines; we aren't sprinters, nor can we carry much more than our own weight. Honestly, if you compare the density and sheer strength of human muscle to anything else, it's pretty underwhelming—it's about as sturdy as a boiled chicken. Just look at a bison. Most animals are several times stronger than a human per unit of muscle mass. Even a moderately sized dog could easily take down an adult man without breaking a sweat.
We essentially traded all that physical prowess for a single organ: the brain. That highly adaptive brain is what allows us to navigate constantly shifting environments, project ourselves into the future, and weigh the long-term consequences of our actions. Our entire physiology is subservient to the brain. For example, we lost those powerful canines because we sacrificed the specific muscles at the top of the skull that control the jaw. Primates still have those muscles, which results in a slight indentation in their skulls and a smaller cranial capacity. We effectively discarded our most potent biological weapon just to squeeze out a few extra percentage points of brain volume.

From where I'm sitting, it's actually the exact opposite! 🙂
It feels to me like most people today are working overtime to prove the myth that any success they have is strictly due to their own individual talent.

I don't think it's about being genetically programmed to believe one way or the other. To me, it just looks like a free-thinking process where everyone ends up with a different conclusion.

The very fact that people are working so hard to prove a point just shows they’re arguing against an opposing view—which, if you glance at this forum, is clearly the dominant mindset these days. Good grief, the entire philosophy of socialism is built upon that exact myth. Entire nations and whole continents have fallen straight into that trap.
One also needs to be careful about falling into common logical fallacies. Just because a gain isn't necessarily caused by someone else's loss doesn't mean that *every* gain works that way. What simply doesn't hold up is the assertion: "One person's gain is always someone else's loss."

Karen Rodriguez3 said:I was just using that as a starting point for the argument. I wasn't talking to you specifically.

But hey, if there's no way to register, how is that irrelevant? Wealth piling up is basically just a side effect of progress. We tried doing things differently before and it didn't exactly work out.

Still, I'd love to see someone actually map out a redistribution model. Like, what’s the most efficient way to pull that off without ending up right back where we started in a few years?

It doesn't matter... certain disparities in ability or whatever aren't an explanation or an excuse for the systemic mess we see today. There isn't much connection between the two, aside from the obvious assumption that people will grab whatever slice of the pie they can based on their skill sets...

What exactly "didn't work"? Are you talking about economic growth?

There are efficient ways to handle this—more or less direct approaches exist...

It just seems to me—perhaps implicitly in your posts—that you view this as some sort of natural state... as if this is just how things go, or how humans are inherently wired... or something like that...

Anthony Garcia19 said:You didn't quite hit the mark there. Specifically, why is one community one way and another community something else (one good, one bad)? Based on your last point, it sounds like both you and Karen Rodriguez3 believe people aren't all built the same.

I have been trying to avoid answering whether we are all truly equal. 😁
I am not sure what you mean by that. We are equal in terms of our basic needs: food, shelter, self-actualization, and so on. We are also equal because we belong to the same species, with two arms and two legs, faces, etc.
Otherwise, I would say we are quite different. 🤷
In fact, I can distinguish people at first glance by their appearance, the sound of their voice, or how they speak. I can even recognize people on this forum just by their writing style; forget avatars and usernames. 🙂

Andrew Booth29 said:People are social predators—think along the lines of wolves hunting in packs. But there’s a fundamental distinction here: a wolf is mostly driven by raw instinct, supplemented by a bit of learned behavior. A human? We exist in this constant, messy tug-of-war between instinct and what we’ve been taught—all while being blessed with a significant amount of intelligence. We actually have the capacity to override those primal urges and act purely rationally just to hit a specific target. At the end of the day, humans are defined by adaptability. That’s why you won't find any use in simple labels like "people are good" or "people are greedy." It isn't that binary. A person can be both at the exact same moment—it all just comes down to whatever serves their interests most effectively.

So, what’s actually worth it in the end? What does a person value most? Is it all about the material stuff—money, power, and status? Or is it that sense of personal freedom? To me, there's nothing better than having the liberty to just be yourself and actually chase those creative sparks alongside a community of people who get it.

So, you think I’m calling humans social predators—like some kind of wolf? What makes you say that? I was just looking at those Eskimos from the example used to argue against the theory.