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Death to Bullshit

deathtobullshit.com

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181–190 of 217 posts

Re: Death to Bullshit

#181

Post by brc »

crdoconnor wrote: post #174
brc wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By growing the income, you mean growing their productivity so they make more money. Rising minimum wage and reducing hours does the exact opposite. Decreasing a tax burden is a good idea - but decreasing the tax burden on everyone. 'Tax the rich' while a popular strategy to single out a minority group, is ultimately a useless strategy as there aren't enough rich people to tax, and they already disproportionally pay m…

>Rising minimum wage and reducing hours does the exact opposite. Decreasing a tax burden is a good idea - but decreasing the tax burden on everyone. This is the exact same story we've been told for 30 years: if you want more jobs and more productivity just lower taxes. It didn't work then and it doesn't work now. It just enables the ultra-wealthy to siphon off wealth from the rest of society. Ultimately that hurts pr…

Can you tell me how 'the ultra rich siphon off wealth from the rest of society?' I see this type of saying thrown around a lot, but I've never understood how those who believe it think the mechanism works, how you sequester wealth away so nobody else can benefit.

Have you read the linked essay? Do you disagree with the central premise, that a society with no income inequality is a society that is not innovating and getting better?

Re: Death to Bullshit

#182

Post by MichaelGG »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #133
MichaelGG wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a real concern? Someone might be on a flight without WiFi and need a digital version of your contact info because the card isn't enough?

It's very real. People nowadays increasingly use their smartphones as rolodexes. QR code is a quick way to enter contact details into one's address book. On the other hand, you can't expect everyone to have a mobile connection. Some people don't have a data plan at all, others may be saving their batteries at the moment. Often there may be no reception at the place where cards are exchanged (think of conferences that…

I'm gonna guess that OCR'ing the card's data will take off far, far, before QR codes take off.

Re: Death to Bullshit

#183

Post by crdoconnor »

brc wrote: post #181
crdoconnor wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Rising minimum wage and reducing hours does the exact opposite. Decreasing a tax burden is a good idea - but decreasing the tax burden on everyone. This is the exact same story we've been told for 30 years: if you want more jobs and more productivity just lower taxes. It didn't work then and it doesn't work now. It just enables the ultra-wealthy to siphon off wealth from the rest of society. Ultimately that hurts pr…

Can you tell me how 'the ultra rich siphon off wealth from the rest of society?' I see this type of saying thrown around a lot, but I've never understood how those who believe it think the mechanism works, how you sequester wealth away so nobody else can benefit. Have you read the linked essay? Do you disagree with the central premise, that a society with no income inequality is a society that is not innovating and g…

>Can you tell me how 'the ultra rich siphon off wealth from the rest of society?' I see this type of saying thrown around a lot, but I've never understood how those who believe it think the mechanism works, how you sequester wealth away so nobody else can benefit.

One mechanism is the things that go by the name 'unearned income': interest payments, dividends on shares you own, streams of rental income.

Another is simply fraud: http://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/bill-black-our-system-so-...

Their money buys condos (which they leave empty) in large cities suffering from a shortage of housing. That's one example of wealth sequestration that hurts everybody else.

>Have you read the linked essay?

I have.

>Do you disagree with the central premise, that a society with no income inequality is a society that is not innovating and getting better?

I disagree with this part:

>Doing what people want is not the only way to get money, of course. You could also rob banks, or solicit bribes, or establish a monopoly. Such tricks account for some variation in wealth, and indeed for some of the biggest individual fortunes, but they are not the root cause of variation in income

With a hand wave Paul Graham dismisses all evidence of fraud which has accelerated income inequality in the last ~10 years and the mere existence of the principal/agent problem and nepotism (which explains how bad CEOs get paid so much).

His argument boils down to "in theory you can be 50 times as productive as someone else" => "nearly all people who are paid 50 times as much as their workers must be 50 times as productive". Just world fallacy.

>When we say that one kind of work is overpaid and another underpaid, what are we really saying? In a free market, prices are determined by what buyers want.

Also this. Unfortunately no such thing as a free market exists anywhere.

Re: Death to Bullshit

#184

Post by prawn »

nickledave wrote: post #94

Worth reading the follow-up post: http://bradfrost.com/blog/post/living-with-bullshit/ He's not against ads. He's against shitty ads that piss off customers. Anybody know if there actually are any studies that show that these ads (1) help businesses attract clients and (2) do so without alienating more clients than they attract? Or are they all just for businesses that don't care about keeping customers anyways (e.g.…

Good ads generally require more effort and investment. On some occasions, companies will try to look cheap and affordable with shoddy ads, but generally shoddy ads come from tightarse clients trying to DIY or hiring average designers, etc. Or because that's what's been tested to be more effective with their audience.

Companies often take the cheap approach because they're cautious about the return they're going to get, don't know any better, are cheap themselves and don't appreciate design.

Re: Death to Bullshit

#185

Post by edanm »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #76
edanm wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertising? Yes, there is. I'm sure you can find numerous reports on its effectiveness.

Personally I do suspect it's a multi-level, recursive scam. After all, convincing you that advertising works is itself advertising from the point of view of companies that you'll pay to advertise you (note: unless you are personally going door-to-door and telling people about your product, you're always paying someone; printshops that make your leaflets and posters are a big part of advertising industry). And since s…

I don't know. It kind of sounds to me like you're saying that millions of people over hundreds of years are either running, or falling, for a huge scam.

Whereas the alternative is that maybe you're just wrong or misunderstanding of how things work.

I'd generally put higher odds on you being wrong, than of an entire field being so completely off base, at least a field as large and well researched as this.

Re: Death to Bullshit

#186

Post by simonebrunozzi »

shostack wrote: post #10

As much as I dislike some of the current trends (and I do digital media for a living mind you), I do have to point out that this stuff wouldn't be done if it didn't work. Ultimately this implies that there are enough people out there who engage with or...dare I say...want...the bullshit, that their collective voice outweighs those that do not simply by the fact that those are often the users who click ads, share thin…

Exactly. Same reason why email spam still exists.

Re: Death to Bullshit

#187

Post by ionised »

Killswitch wrote: post #160
munin wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So I got my start in ad based websites. If it wasn't for ads, I would have never really gotten into what we do. I got my start in computer crime (chasing the crimes that others committed) and if it wasn't for others committing computer crime, I would never have gotten into what we do. Should I be in favor of other people committing computer crime?

Except one is illegal and one isn't. I'll let you figure out what's wrong with your argument.

Legality is unfortunately not an indication of something being right or desirable.

Re: Death to Bullshit

#188

Post by TeMPOraL »

MichaelGG wrote: post #182
TeMPOraL wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very real. People nowadays increasingly use their smartphones as rolodexes. QR code is a quick way to enter contact details into one's address book. On the other hand, you can't expect everyone to have a mobile connection. Some people don't have a data plan at all, others may be saving their batteries at the moment. Often there may be no reception at the place where cards are exchanged (think of conferences that…

I'm gonna guess that OCR'ing the card's data will take off far, far, before QR codes take off.

OCRing the card data is a common practice for executives and sales people. There are even dedicated scanners you can buy.

Re: Death to Bullshit

#189

Post by TeMPOraL »

edanm wrote: post #185
TeMPOraL wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I do suspect it's a multi-level, recursive scam. After all, convincing you that advertising works is itself advertising from the point of view of companies that you'll pay to advertise you (note: unless you are personally going door-to-door and telling people about your product, you're always paying someone; printshops that make your leaflets and posters are a big part of advertising industry). And since s…

I don't know. It kind of sounds to me like you're saying that millions of people over hundreds of years are either running, or falling, for a huge scam. Whereas the alternative is that maybe you're just wrong or misunderstanding of how things work. I'd generally put higher odds on you being wrong, than of an entire field being so completely off base, at least a field as large and well researched as this.

> I'd generally put higher odds on you being wrong, than of an entire field being so completely off base, at least a field as large and well researched as this.

I generally would too. But we know now that it is indeed possible for a very large and "well researched" field to be wrong - just look at the state of soft sciences. A lot of evidence came up recently show that 90% of research in those fields is bullshit (often intentional). It's not beyond realm of possibility that a big part of advertising industry forms a self-contained system of moving money around with zero relation to the real world.

Re: Death to Bullshit

#190

Post by jarek »

stevesearer wrote: post #91
Killswitch wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I got my start in ad based websites. If it wasn't for ads, I would have never really gotten into what we do. I'd have done something away from the internet because I never grew up with a computer and wasn't fascinated by them as a young child. So because of that, I had always been in favor of ads. Not as in I'd plaster my site with ads, but if a site displayed ads, I would endure them because if I wanted the conte…

Someone should make a list of websites that have both great content as well as good advertising practices and have it sorted by the topics: general interest, technology, cooking, etc...

Someone needs to invent and found something like a Pinterest but for text. Might not need that much VC founding and the scaling possibilities are endless, lots of content on the web to curate! Could call it a web directory.
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