Greed appears to me to be fundamentally intrinsic to human behavior and culture. I don't think it's realistic to try to get rid of it. Rather I think it would be more effective to use it as an incentive and actively limit its negative externalities.

Greed as we see it today is a symptom of our economics system. The system encourages greedy behavior, you win if you act greedy. I'm currently working on simulations attacking this problem, focusing on systems that discourage competitive actions and encourage cooperation and equality. A resulting society based on a more egalitarian economic system wouldn't be a utopia, but I hypothesize that we can create a much better world by attacking the root of all out systems and what types of behaviors it rewards.

I believe it's an educational/cultural problem and not a systematic one.

Bad actors will corrupt any system out of greed for wealth and power.

There are lots of "fundamentally intrinsic" harmful elements of human behavior and culture but civilization is slowly getting them under control.

But there is a vast difference between getting something under control and getting rid of it.

How do you suggest we do that?

Only give power to people who don't want it.

There's an SF writer I really like for his books in the vein of this. His name is L. E. Modesitt, and some of his books that discuss this are the "Parafaith War" and probably the best "Adiamante."

In Douglas Adams's books the president of the universe is completely powerless because anyone who wants to be president should absolutely not be given any real authority.

The real ruler is a man living in a shack in the middle of nowhere who only cares about his cat and an occasional glass of whiskey.

That's where some of us are destined to end up, I'm afraid. :)

It's a pretty old idea. The Bene Gesserit surely got it from Other Memory. They just figured out how to make it practical.

By observing our behaviors and eliminating harmful ones, i.e. through mindfulness of one's actions and motivations.

This solves the problem for you, the individual who values your goal, but that's the easy part. How do you suggest we get other people to do it?

Education of the younger generations because adults are quite inflexible when it comes to habit changing.

Build great stuff and don't be greedy - set an example. Make those greedy over mediocrity look bad. Build for the sake of building, because that's reward enough.

Maybe that's enough of a reward for you, but personally I work because I like to get paid. The fact that I enjoy my work immensely is just a happy accident. There are things I enjoy doing even more than my work - much more so! - and if I did not need to get paid, I'd be doing those things instead.

Just wondering: If you got so rich from crypto currency that you could retire, would you retire? Start your own company? Just do fun stuff? Or keep working?

I myself work, to occupy myself with interesting problems, so I would keep doing this, regardless of my wealth.

Wealthy enough to really never work again? Yes, I'd absolutely "retire." I'd still "work", in the sense that, say, angel investors work, or people own real estate; I'd also still write software in my free time.

But for the most part, no I wouldn't continue doing what I do now because I'd stop consulting and I would never again be an individual contributor. I'd probably devote "professional focus" to investing and academic research in math and cryptography while traveling all over the world like Tom from Myspace.

I think in conversations like this the dimension people like myself are talking about is freedom. I'd still work on what I'm passionate about even if I was wealthy, I would just cease doing it in a way that I don't have total control and direction over my work. That circles back to my original point - my passion for my work is not nearly enough of an incentive for me to do it if I'm not doing it with total autonomy.

But, but what about love, friendship and the feeling of connectedness? Is freedom what people should desire?

This naive approach likely leads to the head-down artist or creator being exploited by the greedy manager/agent/parasite/whatever, not some sort of life changing event for those who see this person's work and suffering with profit left on the table.

If you're naive, but not being greedy doesn't require naivety. In fact it probably requires some awareness to understand that money can be an anchor.

You're making $140k a year. Nice. How much of your time and attention and energy are you trading for that? Is it worth it?

> Build for the sake of building, because that's reward enough.

My daughter can't eat the sake of building.

I didn't literally mean do it for free. There's a tradeoff between comfort and freedom that's different for different people.