A real buzzkill (seriously; the environment dudes)

[wufwugy]

It could also be argued that greed as an incentive actually robs our society of countless people who could provide great benefits to society if they didn't get funneled into careers of financial wizardry by greed incentives. Most of the financial magicians probably get a great amount of satisfaction out of simply solving (creating?) these complex problems. But would they be creating loopholes for banks to swindle the populace without the greed incentive?

For sure. The only time profit incentives are some great boon to society is when the propagandists say so. Just looking over societies and history is all the case anybody needs to denounce profit incentives as a strong and good motive for social good.

For example, the greatest artists and writers who ever lived were almost all incredibly poor. On the contrary, some of the most terrible artists and writers are really rich. The chick who wrote Twilight makes more money in a month than John Steinbeck made in his entire life

Another example, virtually every scientific advancement came not only without profit incentives, but despite profit incentives. When Galileo became the father of science, it wasn't because the profit was there. The profit was in other things, particularly in being a Catholic like the people who put him in jail for his blasphemy

I could go on and on forever about all the goodness, both big things and small things, that have nothing to do with profit incentives. I could also go on forever about all the great evils that come out of profit incentives. War, for example, is primarily a resource issue. Which ties incredibly closely to profits. In fact, one of the best arguments possible for why we have all our economic problems is profit incentives. The megacorps don't enact slave labor and reap incredible profits because they're trying to be good people

[Monty3038]

For sure. The only time profit incentives are some great boon to society is when the propagandists say so. Just looking over societies and history is all the case anybody needs to denounce profit incentives as a strong and good motive for social good.

For example, the greatest artists and writers who ever lived were almost all incredibly poor. On the contrary, some of the most terrible artists and writers are really rich. The chick who wrote Twilight makes more money in a month than John Steinbeck made in his entire life

Another example, virtually every scientific advancement came not only without profit incentives, but despite profit incentives. When Galileo became the father of science, it wasn't because the profit was there. The profit was in other things, particularly in being a Catholic like the people who put him in jail for his blasphemy

I could go on and on forever about all the goodness, both big things and small things, that have nothing to do with profit incentives. I could also go on forever about all the great evils that come out of profit incentives. War, for example, is primarily a resource issue. Which ties incredibly closely to profits. In fact, one of the best arguments possible for why we have all our economic problems is profit incentives. The megacorps don't enact slave labor and reap incredible profits because they're trying to be good people

Hmm... and it can be argued that only people with money can think this way.

True, scientific and artistic exploration and advances can be addressed to poorer persons on many counts, but can you really say that they did it out of 'goodness' or to make money? Did these artists die broke? Did they try to sell their work? Did the scientists die broke? Were they trying to make an advancement to accomplish a goal or sell what they made that accomplished that goal?