Ask HN: Problems for the next decade? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?

#251

Post by galfarragem » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 2:45 PM UTC

kerkeslager wrote: post #205

satvikpendem wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism has lifted billions out of poverty. Even China, who is communist in name, only started experiencing high economic growth once Deng Xiao Ping started reforming the state to be more market oriented, ie capitalism-lite.

> Capitalism has lifted billions out of poverty. It's not clear that capitalism was a necessary component of globalisation or the progress of technology, both of which are adequate to explain any benefits capitalism might claim. What is clear is how many billions capitalism has kept in poverty while the top 1% get absurdly rich. 10 men had more wealth than 3.1 billion people in 2021[1]. The US, supposed beacon of cap…

> You claim capitalism a success, but the only way you can do that is by turning a blind eye to the capitalism's total failures.

Some countries have to build (real or metaphoric) walls to prevent people from getting in...

Some countries have to build (real or metaphoric) walls to prevent people from getting out...

Re: Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?

#252

Post by alexvoda » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 2:48 PM UTC

me_me_me wrote: post #245

Rury wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, I think communism sounds great, but the problem is that it simply doesn't work in practice. In other words, it has been tried, it just doesn't work. To see why, you can categorize the forms of government as so: - Monarchy/Dictatorship: Power in the hands of one, one person is authority - Oligarchy/Republic: Power in the hands of a few, aristocrats are authority - Democracy: Power in the hands of many, majority…

disclaimer, i dont think communism could ever work on current humans (there will always be people who will exploit system), it works great on paper or for ants etc. That said can you give me an example of the communism you described as "Power in everyone's hands, everyone is equal in authority" The best example i can think of is a 'proto' communist fraction in Spanish civil war as Orwell described in Homage to Catalo…

I agree with both things. I think communism is unlikely to be achieved by current humans.

Also that quote really does not describe either the ideal of communism nor does it describe the historical regimes under the communism brand. In fact, I think none of the 4 categories Rury described are truly correct.

1. "Monarchy/Dictatorship: Power in the hands of one, one person is authority" is wrong simply because no one ever rules alone. Monarchy is just oligarchy with extra steps. Most historical communism is here.

2. "Oligarchy/Republic: Power in the hands of a few, aristocrats are authority", equating these two is wrong because the second is supposed to have time limits and accountability. Oligarchs are aristocrats, senators are not aristocrats.

3. "Democracy: Power in the hands of many, majority is authority", democracy is much more diverse than that.

4. "Communism/Anarchy: Power in everyone's hands, everyone is equal in authority" this is anarchy not communism. And anarchy is indeed inherently unstable. There were branches of communist thought that were anarchist but by being anarchist they were doomed to failure.

In practice we have only ever had variations of oligarchy that were more or less disguised and variations on democracy that were more or less direct.

What has not been tried and is unlikely to be tried is a democratic communism.

Re: Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?

#253

Post by carlosjobim » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 2:59 PM UTC

TheFreim wrote: post #179

xerxesaa wrote: post #2

We have an aging population and many places have a flat birthrate. We need to solve how to deal with this consequences. Who will care for these people? How will we deal with the consequences of flat population growth? How will we deal with the stock market's expectations of perpetual growth when the underlying population itself is not growing (and especially since productivity has also been relatively flat)?

> We need to solve how to deal with this consequences. I'm hoping that we start to see an increase in pro-family policies. A couple rough ideas to look into would be decreasing taxation (or giving refunds/payments) based on how many children a productive family has, providing financial support so families can buy homes, and promoting wage increases so a single income can support a family to allow one to work and the…

That is a down-right evil idea, in my opinion. It means those who cannot find partners to make families are further punished, making their chances to create families even lower. They're turned to a literal slave caste to provide for other people's families.

Remove taxation on young and productive people instead if you want to help them create families.

Re: Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?

#254

Post by alexvoda » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 3:25 PM UTC

nurettin wrote: post #173

palata wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No system has managed to reach the point where it could be called "pure communism", because it was "interrupted" in the middle (e.g. by becoming authoritarian). Saying "communism fundamentally cannot work because I know examples that did not work" is similar to saying "democracy fundamentally cannot work, look: Hitler was democratically elected".

I think it is inevitable. Why would anyone willingly give up their rights to tools of production? Correct me if this is a gross misunderstanding, but how can you get people to invent things in their garage when statesmen are trotting around looking for "unearned surplus"? And if the wealth will somehow end up being distributed to you anyway, and more work doesn't have any meaning, why try anything at all?

I think this fallacy you displayed is in fact core to the discussion in this thread. The whole thread started from the need for equity and then user tomp basically went (paraphrasing) "why would you ever want equity? communism bad".

Some people want to dismiss the entirety of the thought behind communism and behind equity and use the historical regimes as justification even if those regimes did not in fact achieve or uphold communist ideals.

People will invent and will create regardless of whether that results in wealth or not. In fact the current capitalist regime is te perfect demonstration of this. People continue to invent things and continue to create art of all kinds despite the fact that most of the times the royalties are captured by corporations. And before IP was created, people did invent and create because that is simply what they do.

Also people will continue to work even without the threat of starving. An example of this is Japan where plenty of retired people engage in community work even if they have no personal need to do so, they do it for the community. This level of care for the surroundings and for the community makes Japan spectacular. Even the most anti-work will eventually get bored and start doing stuff.

This fallacy is used to dismiss all kinds of anti-capitalist ideas not just communism.

A society without intellectual property is against capitalism. A society with UBI is against capitalism. A communist society where workers can control the means of production and where things are redistributed according to needs is against capitalism. All three ideas are against a small group of people maximizing the captured (by themselves) value of the work of everyone else.

This view that humanity is some sort of herd of kettle that will not do anything unless threatened with starvation by a group of wealthy capitalists controlling the herd is bleak and disgusting. To bring it full circle, of course capitalists are against equity.

Re: Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?

#255

Post by kerkeslager » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 4:29 PM UTC

galfarragem wrote: post #251

kerkeslager wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Capitalism has lifted billions out of poverty. It's not clear that capitalism was a necessary component of globalisation or the progress of technology, both of which are adequate to explain any benefits capitalism might claim. What is clear is how many billions capitalism has kept in poverty while the top 1% get absurdly rich. 10 men had more wealth than 3.1 billion people in 2021[1]. The US, supposed beacon of cap…

> You claim capitalism a success, but the only way you can do that is by turning a blind eye to the capitalism's total failures. Some countries have to build (real or metaphoric) walls to prevent people from getting in... Some countries have to build (real or metaphoric) walls to prevent people from getting out...

Would you care to respond to my post? All you've done is show you don't understand that correlation isn't causation.

Re: Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?

#256

Post by carlosjobim » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 5:14 PM UTC

eimrine wrote: post #12

A lot of a billionaires which: 1. Exist 2. Actively making us not noticing their existance by shitting us with some fake problems like gays, drugs, foreigners, terrorists, etc (different set of fake problems per country).

Just because terrorism and drugs make you uncomfortable to think about, doesn't mean that those are fake problems. If you prefer to live your life in a bubble, go ahead that you do that while you can. But good luck trying to convince other people that the real world doesn't exist.

I think your reasoning is an example of modern Stockholm syndrome, where people get absolutely furious at anybody shining a light on a problem, instead of getting furious at the actual problem.

Re: Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?

#257

Post by carlosjobim » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 5:17 PM UTC

M95D wrote: post #163

Kon5ole wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the western democratic world billionaires are an inevitable side-effect of having a high standard of living for the general population. If you create a company that employs a million people and manages to remain profitable you'll be a billionaire even if you don't want to. The only way for you to not be a billionaire is to give up control of your company to someone else who will then be the billionaire. We have ye…

No. Billionaires are a result of avoidable taxation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_avoidance Have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_inequality . There are lots of countries there with a very high standard of living AND a low economic inequality, mostly in Europe.

> There are lots of countries there with a very high standard of living AND a low economic inequality, mostly in Europe.

A low amount of economic inequality among the lower class, absolutely. European rich are absolutely as extravagantly wealthy as any American or Asian moguls. Their assets are nowhere close to where Wikipedia can account for them.

At least in America there is an impression that an industrialist or tech genius can become a billionaire. In Europe you need to belong to banking families or have deep tentacles into government.

Re: Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?

#258

Post by carlosjobim » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 5:20 PM UTC

ywain wrote: post #62

camdenlock wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So having >= 1,000,000,000 USD is somehow bad? How about 999,999,999? Still bad? How about 900,000,000? No? Hm. How much is too much, and why?

By that line of reasoning, we may as well eliminate tax brackets entirely. Or any sort of arbitrary limit, really. What makes an 18 year old mature enough to vote, but not a 17 year and 364 days old?

Humans, as all animals, have a built in maturity limit, which is puberty. After completed puberty you are biologically an adult. You can be a completely immature fool though biologically adult, as well as at 18, at 38 or until death. I'd say a majority of people live their whole lives without ever reaching adulthood in a spiritual sense. Go work in the service industry catering to an elderly clientele if you don't believe it.

Re: Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?

#259

Post by carlosjobim » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 5:23 PM UTC

abenga wrote: post #20

ssss11 wrote: post #3

Technology: (1) getting off “free” platforms aka adtech. (2) Software quality aka actually providing good software that is intuitive to use and does what people need.

So what do we do with the billions who can't pay? They should stay offline until they can? I know I can pay now, but when I was starting out, I couldn't

Do whatever you want for them. Make free content for them if you like. Get together with like minded and make free content and services. Are you on it?

Re: Ask HN: Problems for the next decade?

#260

Post by EternalCarnage » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 6:35 PM UTC

mikewarot wrote: post #84

Unpopular opinion: Secure general purpose computing isn't available for the masses. In fact, most people here on HN don't have access to it either. Our current crop of widely used operating systems all share the same flaw, the ambient authority granted to any program that is run to access anything that the user account is permitted to access. This causes a host of problems, and almost nobody is aware of them, or inco…

The problem of having a "secret" computer (with an operating system) within your computer.

https://youtu.be/1seNMSamtxM

This embedded computer system has access to all your memory devices.

Disabling it? Not convenient.