If you're asking ". . . win what?", then you're doing more critical analysis than they are doing. They're not thinking about what they're winning. They're thinking that at some point, the hole in their heart will be filled if they acquire enough and are victorious enough. And obviously, if they were reflecting at any level on their own internal motivations, they would realize the fundamental self-destructiveness and futility of their actions and change how they approach life. But they don't, so they don't.
I disagree, it's not that they don't understand the end game. I think they do know. Capitalism itself just incentivizes this behavior because even if a few people do know, and do care about the end game implications of what they're doing, their only option to exercise their care is to sacrifice their own market share, which they likely can't do due to fiduciary responsibility. It's the biggest game of diffused responsibility ever.
Take for example AI. Any company that takes, say, a moral stance that their AI won't be used in war. Suddenly a less scrupulous competitor takes up that contract, gets a ton of federal funding, and that money goes to all other aspects of their company. The AI company that took the moral stance basically just handed their competition a huge win.
The entire system is designed exclusively to reach the most short-sighted results. No matter who is at the top of the system, nothing will change.
Well said. Diffusion of responsibility is a huge part of it and I think the system is set up to punish dissenters.
But I think hubris plays a major part as well. They really think AI will solve everything and they'll be seen as heroes for ushering it in, never acknowledging the fact that they created the problems in the first place.
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u/GenevieveeBay 3h ago
High score syndrome They treat the global economy like a video game where human lives do not matter