Throughout history the most popular stories writers ever
produced have included a righteous hero verses a greedy and powerful villain.
The villain has ambitious goal and will do anything to achieve that. Hero
defeats the villain and stops him from achieving his evil goals. Good wins
against evil and morals against greed. Environmentalists accuse human greed for
overuse of natural resources. In many religions also, greed in its forms like
usury are considered sinful. Since childhood we are taught that greed is wrong
and sinful. However as I ponder about this issue I conclude we were wrongly
taught. The problem is that greed is highly misunderstood by people.
“The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of
a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts
through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of
its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward
surge of mankind”
Greed is a rather useful property of human beings or for
that matter any living being. It is Greed is rational, and what is rational is
predictable, and the predictable is understandable, and what we can understand
is good. People don’t realise but it is the foundation stone of our modern
society. Greed by the rich leads to investment which in turn leads to more job
creation for the poor; it leads to more risky investments in startups like
Facebook, Amazon, Flipkart and in research and development of technology.
You might argue that gambling is bad, yes you are right
because that is not being greedy rather it is foolishness as expectation of
return is less than or equal to 0, if its greater than 0 then it is not gambling
it is a free lunch. Same goes for investment in stock market, all your
investment is also gambling unless you sure that expectation of return is
greater than inflation. The difference between traditional meaning of greed and
my meaning is that in mine you also have calculated the expectation of a profit , if not it is plain foolishness.
“I don't throw darts at a board. I bet
on sure things. Read Sun-tzu, The Art of War. Every battle is won before it is
ever fought.”-Gordon Gekko
good shit
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