Any successful scam is very productive in the economic sense. Does that make the scammer worthy of honor and respect? If Bill Gates gives away a billion meals to starving African children then he is 0% productive (no revenue!). Does that make Bill Gates unworthy of honor and respect?

Ken Levine (of BioShock fame) calls this the "circus of value." The disparity between economic terms and their moral/intuitive counterparts grows very large in certain important limits.

I have a different view on scams. I don't think they are productive, even in an economic sense, if one takes the long view.

A person who tries to succeed in life by scamming other people enters a war with reality. He may fool some people, for a certain period of time, but he is forced to constantly be looking over his shoulder. One lie leads to the need for additional lies.

Some people think this is fine, or that it's a price they are willing to pay in order to get away with stealing a million dollars or whatever. It's not worth it to me, however.

As regards Bill Gates, what he does with his money is his business. If he wishes to give it way in that manner, I'm fine with it.

I'd suggest, however, that Bill Gates worked many long hours to earn his money. So if you claim that giving it away is 0% productive, I think you're dropping the context of how he came to have the money in the first place.

Thoughts?

I think you need to be more precise about what you mean by "productive" before I can reply. Clearly you don't mean it in the economic sense (productivity is revenue/X where X is some measure of input, e.g. workers or hours). So what do you mean?

In the sense that I am using the term, an action is productive when it moves a person closer to achieving their goal or goals.

Are you saying that work, not people, is what is worthy of honor and respect?

I'm saying that productive work is one way in which people can become more worthy of honor and respect.

For example, let's say you have two individuals. One gets married, fathers some children, and then decides that rather than supporting his family, he's going to sit around and play video games while his wife works 24x7 to try to take care of the family.

Another man, in the same circumstances, gets a job, works hard every day, studies things that he finds interesting, and eventually works himself into a job where he can easily support his family, to the point where the members of his family can engage in things that interest them.

Which man is more worthy of honor and respect? I would say the man in the second example.

Do you see it differently?

Not the OP, but yes, I see it differently. IMHO, it's none of my business. The division of chores between the man and his wife is between the man and his wife.

The reason is because of a quirk of psychology. What you're describing is basically shaming people: making them feel like they are unworthy because of what they do or do not choose to do. And that's a logical response to trying to influence behavior. Except it doesn't work. When you, me, society in general makes people feel like they're unworthy of honor and respect because of what they do, they end up confirming those expectations of unworthiness in what they do, they don't end up adjusting what they do to escape your judgments.

Your reply is helpful to me, to clarify my own thinking. Thank you.

Let's continue with the hypothetical that I presented.

We have a man who is shirking his responsibility to his wife and to his children. Presumably, his wife did not sign up for the deal she now has when she married him (and if she did, it's on her, then, but I'm assuming she did not) and the children, of course, had no role in the decision making.

Does the man who ignores the responsibilities he freely chose develop or improve his sense of self-esteem, by sitting home and playing video games? Does he come to view himself as more and more competent to make his way in the world?

I would say he does not. I would expect that, by his own estimate, he will come to consider himself less and less worthy of honor and respect. I don't know that he would admit this to anyone, but I think his estimate of himself would decline.

Now, consider his wife. Should she consider him worthy of honor and respect? Is she acting with integrity if she fakes something she doesn't really believe?

I would say that his wife would have less esteem for him over time, that she would come to resent him, and that this would have a negative effect on her view of him as worthy of honor and respect.

Finally, I would say that I am not out to shame people, but if someone does act unjustly, I think they should bear the consequences of their decisions.

So yes, in your hypothetical, I think that's a logical train of thought. But it's unfortunate. He will come to consider himself less and less worthy of honor respect, and as a result, he lives up to his deflated estimate, and never gets off the couch.

Here's an alternate reframing. The man considers himself worthy of honor and respect by virtue of his existence as a human being. He takes those attributes off the table. And because he is an honorable and worthy human being, he acts like it. He puts down the video games (or Hacker News), and goes back to writing code and spending time with his family, because that is what allows him to maintain his self-respect. To do otherwise would cause emotional friction, as his self-image is no longer congruent with his actions.

> I'm saying that productive work is one way in which people can become more worthy of honor and respect.

It's not quite that I disagree. I just think that your statement and example don't make an accounting for what honor and respect a person is worthy of independent of their work status. Should a 3 year old, or a 93 year old, only be accorded respect in accordance to how much they work? Should hospital patients receive less honor and respect than hospital staff?

I think human life has value, and is worth of honor and respect, completely independent of the capacity and willingness to work.

Do you see it differently?

What's the value of your honor and respect?

I realize that sounds pretty dismissive, that isn't what I'm getting at. I'm asking a serious question about why you are framing the discussion in that way.

I don't mean to be dense, but I'm not sure I understand your question. I take you at your word when you say you don't mean to be dismissive.

I'm framing the discussion the way I am because of how I see the issues raised in the comment to which I initially replied.

Perhaps we are using different definitions for some of the terms that were used?

How would you frame the discussion? I will try to respond to that if you wish.

It's just a literal question. Say you don't respect someone very much. What harm does that do to them? Say you respect someone a great deal, what good does that do them?

Oh, got it. Thank you.

If I don't respect someone very much, they lose the benefits (let's assume there are some) of trading with me, and I lose the benefits (presumably, small, if I don't respect them much) of trading with them.

I think we 1) live in a division-of-labor society, and that we 2) survive best when we trade with each other on a strictly voluntary basis.

So if that's the case, I think that people that are good trading partners want to have the (legitimately earned, based on past performance) respect of other people in the marketplace.

Perhaps the reputation systems we see all around us are evidence of this? ("Please remember to leave positive feedback for me!")

If I am a good judge of character, then someone I don't respect is likely not respected by (many?) other people as well. If our society is in fact based on division-of-labor and trading, then that person is going to have a more difficult time getting by.

Thoughts?

The pretext of the 20 hour work week stated above is that we don't really live in a division of labor society (in the sense that material needs can be met with a fraction of the available labor).

I agree that we tend to pick winners and losers, but I think a lot of the time those decisions are more arbitrary than we think they are (for example, good judges of character might conflate that judgement with appreciation for charisma without realizing it).

In addition to probably being more arbitrary than we think, the winner/loser way of thinking is also self polarizing, rewarding prior success with more success and punishing lack of success.

(Think about a student that gets some bad grades when they are 10. In our system, that might follow them around for decades (they don't get into a private Junior high, they don't get into Harvard...). There's no reason it should follow them into the next year of school.)