Yes, and altruism doesn't exist, everyone is political, and a whole slew of other nonsense banalizations that pretend that distinctions cannot be made.

> Greed: a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (such as money) than is needed

This definition is quite easy to distinguish ordinary desire from greed. Otherwise you need to render selfish and excessive banal and meaningless as well.

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lotsofpulp 4 days ago | parent [-]

How is "needed" determined? 3 of my 4 grandparents made it around 100 years old with way, way less than what I "need" for my kids.

They did not need doctors, daycare, helmets, cars (they sat 5+ to a motorcycle), air conditioning, avocados, bedrooms, computers, etc.

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BlackFly 3 days ago | parent [-]

Getting more than needed does not imply that something is needed at all. You can live your whole life without needing to eat a Lychee, but if you eat 1000 of those that is clearly more than needed. A person who never ate a lychee maybe cannot put it into perspective and might suggest that wanting a single lychee is greed, but most people wouldn't find it difficult to see that perspective as extreme. Change lychee for cocaine and you suddenly start getting a different balance.

Context and our norms is what determines it.

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lotsofpulp 3 days ago | parent [-]

I know. Per your definition, anyone who desires a vacation to a tropical island is greedy. Or eating at restaurants. Playing video games, renting a movie, eating dessert, etc. How about living on the California coast? People who want to earn more so they can move there are greedy? Or do they simply desire it?

One of my cousins' parents immigrated to the Bay Area, but mine went to the midwest. Am I greedy for desiring to earn income more than a couple standard deviations above the mean so that I could buy land in the Bay Area? Is my cousin not greedy because they were born there?

>Context and our norms is what determines it.

Exactly, which is the problem with trying to distinguish "desire" and "greed". "We" don't have norms. I was lambasted growing up by my grandparents for wanting things that any 1990s kid had in the US, but they didn't have in their poorer country from 1920 to 1940.

	▲	BlackFly a day ago \| parent [-]
		> Per your definition, anyone who desires a vacation to a tropical island is greedy. Or eating at restaurants. It isn't my definition, it's Merriam-Webster dictionary, and I suggest reading the definition more carefully, it really isn't that hard to understand. That is how the word is used. All of your examples are not selfish or excessive. So not greedy. That it isn't a clear bright line isn't a problem, most judgements in life are not clear cut.