> 1) When somebody is systematically losing in competition and left behind
> (e.g., in jobs, education, salary, choices, and so on) it is possible to
> analyze what advantages other have and how they use it (e.g., being white,
> male, middle aged, middle and upper class, physically strong, healthy,
> educated) and how to make "disadvanteged" compensate these feature. Or,
> alternatively, it is also possible to examine where changes of rules of
> competition can make it fair or just redistribute who will be in failure.
> Is the wording "fair competition" a contradiction in terms? Can be all
> people above average? Do we necessarily need "averages," "standards,"
> "certifications," "norms"? Can we live without them? Can we be only
> regulated and related with each other through competition?
I think this is one where dynamic analysis has a contribution to
make. Competition can be as valuable to the "advantaged" (those growing)
as to the "disadvantaged" (those declining). With fast-growing practices,
once the disadvantaged get driven out the advantaged so overuse the
resources, that they collapse (become extinct), but often only after
having done dreadful harm (made it difficult for others to live where they
lived). The way around this is to grow slower, but that is very difficult
to achieve at a population level -- there seems always to be some group
ready to exploit the self-imposed, cooperative restraints of others. But
cooperation can be maintained when exploiters are identified and external
restraints put on them.
In our time, we have few tools for differentiating cooperators
from exploiters, for identifying the resources that particular practices
consume or afford, or often, even for telling when a practice is
competitively successful. One of the most exciting aspects, for me, of
being at LCHC and reading xmca is to see people constructing in self-aware
and self-critical fashion tools for identifying the development of
practices. I believe humanity is deeply in need of this effort, because
unless some catastrophe befalls us there will always be limited resources
and diverse ways of managing them -- hence competition will be with us,
regardless. Learning to cooperate in the face of competition is how I
would define intelligence -- it remains to be seen whether humanity can
achieve what it assumes it has.
David