> I don't understand how you could think any of this.

If life, community, industry, love, and community were a zero-sum game, a do-nothing loner would be at parity with a dynamic entrepreneur who has a family and a network of colleagues essential to achieving their shared goals.

Particularly in these times of politically weaponized philosophy, it is important to teach children values that are not nihilistic trash.

Exceedingly difficult goals are the most worthy because they require growth. That is to say, expect the world to be grossly unfair, and build strength, friendships, industry, community so that you can construct and defend the fairness you desire. There are an endless number of zero-sum thieves out there who never learned to thrive except by taking from their betters, and you win against them by being better.

Relationships are a huge competition in an atomic family type situation - children competing with spouses for time, spouse/kids competing with grandparents, family competing with friends... and god forbid if you have a family member with medical needs. When time was collective because of extended families, this stress got spread out and not as much noticeable but with the shrinked family unit, this is only going to get worse.

Your experience with relationships, work, and community are different than mine. There's some competition, of course, but relationships, romantic and platonic, IME mostly rely on factors that have little to do with third parties; their success depends on the two people involved - I find that's true even for romantic, monogamous relationships with 3 or more parties as options. Most of my time at work is not spent competing, but cooperating and helping each other.

Mostly, people seem to love to argue about nihilism to some philosophical extreme, but let's separate that from real life.

> Community? What else do you think teens are seeking out online?

Does that mean community is or is not competitive? HN is a community but isn't much competitive.

They are objecting to the zero-sum aspect, not the competition.

IF you need to make your married partner feel worse to make yourself happier, you are absolutely doing it wrong.