Words pack power and these definitions are laden with values, often wildly idiosyncratic ones. Here's an example, namely the ways I think about the word "competition": {a} "competition"-your lab team races the Cambridge group to a discovery {exhilarating but embarrassing to admit to}; {b} "competition"-playing pickup soccer {fine, as long as the best player shifts sides if the score becomes lopsided}; {c} "competition"-your child's teacher announces a prize for the best outlining-your-fingers Thanksgiving turkey drawing {silly and perhaps a red flag-if it keeps happening, maybe complain to the principal}; {d} "competition"-whose deity is more worth killing for? {try to avoid}.
( Robert M. Sapolsky )
[ Behave: The Biology of Humans ]
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