The Refragmentation • Hacker News Board

Re: The Refragmentation

#51

Post by jacquesm » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 6:40 PM UTC

AJ007 wrote: post #33

cronjobber wrote: post #7

He takes the easy way out on the war theory: It would be awful, of course, so let's not think about it. But think about it. Would historical WWII be possible in today's United States? Introduce the draft and send current US population off to die in Europe? I think you'd see intense levels of political resistance, draft dodging and desertion in the field. Fragmentation means you probably can't unite the whole country…

A full scale war today, excluding skirmishes, between two large conventional armies would be nuclear. It would be over very fast. Perhaps there is little to nothing to compare with WWII. A war in Europe could happen again but it would be quite different. The use of militarism and nationalism does not require a full scale global war. Certainly it is being used right now in several nations under structural duress. The…

A war in Europe could definitely happen, the outward unity belies the inner rivalries. There is also the option of civil war. Breakaway provinces wanna be nations, religious factions, old hatchets barely buried. The potential for war has never gone away.

Re: The Refragmentation

#52

Post by harryh » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 6:40 PM UTC

beagle3 wrote: post #49

harryh wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes an obligation on Wal-Mart's part to pay people according to their need. In a market economy, people are paid according to their ability.

But welfare payments are paid according to need. My understanding on Sanders' statement is that it could be paraphrased: "If walmart employes didn't get state welfare, waltons wouldn't be as rich, because they would have to pay more (employees who can't afford food and shelter can't work for you) ... ergo, walmart employees are, at the moment, practically, a conduit of welfare from the state to the waltons". (That is…

It's not clear to me that they would have to pay more. In previous generations people leaved in much worse poverty and still managed to show up to their various jobs.

Re: The Refragmentation

#53

Post by jonathanwallace » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 6:41 PM UTC

rpgmaker wrote: post #24

Disappointing article filled with pseudo historian rubbish.

Shallow comment with no provided insight.

vs.

I read the comments on HN looking for the dissenting view as that's where I often appreciate the most value. I'd love to see you expand upon your reason for both disappointment and then provide some concrete counter examples that highlight Paul's lack of historical rigor.

Which of my comments do you prefer? (Note: I prefer the latter. Since you're the only dissenting view I've seen so far, I'm asking you to expound if you would, please.)

Re: The Refragmentation

#54

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 6:42 PM UTC

cronjobber wrote: post #7

He takes the easy way out on the war theory: It would be awful, of course, so let's not think about it. But think about it. Would historical WWII be possible in today's United States? Introduce the draft and send current US population off to die in Europe? I think you'd see intense levels of political resistance, draft dodging and desertion in the field. Fragmentation means you probably can't unite the whole country…

[deleted]

Re: The Refragmentation

#55

Post by tdaltonc » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 6:43 PM UTC

> Globally the trend has been in the other direction.

I think that this is misleading. Every global culture is fragmenting, but the biggest fragments within countries tend to get along much better then they used to. There is a "global culture" now that contains a bigger share of humanity then ever before, but inside each nation it still looks like fragmentation.

Re: The Refragmentation

#56

Post by tomjen3 » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 6:43 PM UTC

paulpauper wrote: post #48

Small observation: why title the file re.html? Why not just spell fragmentation? Is there a reason to do it this way? Why .html? Doesn't that make it hard to update all the pages at once such as menus and footers? The design is very minimalist, but it's effective. We're definitely in a winner-take-all economy, whether it's real estate, stocks, the dominance of companies like Google, amazon, and amazon, or web 2.0 val…

PG used the system behind yahoo stores (which he wrote) to make the not-a-blog. It may serve HTML, it may very well generate it statically, but I am almost certain that he does not edit the layout by hand.

Re: The Refragmentation

#57

Post by wutbrodo » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 6:43 PM UTC

wtbob wrote: post #19

Very interesting, particularly the idea that the rise in inequality is a ntural consequence of fairness. I wonder, then, if those opposing the rise in inequality aren't like King Canute ordering the tide to recede.

> the rise in inequality is a ntural [sic] consequence of fairness. I wonder, then, if those opposing the rise in inequality aren't like King Canute ordering the tide to recede.

The subset of people complaining about inequality that I actually take seriously[1] are concerned with its effects (for example, on the health of the economy[2]), not what the cause of the rise was relative to the previous era.

Another factor in the (reasonable) complaints has to do with the perception that income inequality is driven by (and driving) inequality of _opportunity_. Basically, the rising inequality is seen as an unfortunate side effect of a positive thing (the aforementioned "fairness"), and the good (IMO) proposed solutions involve increasing said fairness, instead of just rolling back to what we had earlier (warts and all).

[1] i.e., excluding the people who dislike it without any understanding of what its potential causes or implications might be (IME these people exist for every single possible POV). Included in this are people who think that we can magically re-create the economic environment of the 50s (wherein half the world had blown itself to pieces and the other half was emerging from under the heel of colonialism or being smushed by the heel of Communism).

[2] http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-imf-inequality-idUKBREA1P1P...

Re: The Refragmentation

#58

Post by 13of40 » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 6:43 PM UTC

golergka wrote: post #36

rsync wrote: post #3

"Obviously the spread of computing power was a precondition for the rise of startups." If you live in San Francisco (or are visiting) you can visit the USS Pampanito - a retired WWII submarine.[1] One thing I think you will notice is the manufacturers plaques attached to every little piece of equipment in the submarine ... every one of them the plaque of some tiny little supplier that you have never heard of . Some l…

That seems to be just small businesseses, not startups. Startups either go Facebook or go bust, they're not created to stay stable at small scale.

Seems like it might be a kind of survivorship bias. A hundred years from now, will people look at our era as one with a rich ecosystem of startups, or as one dominated by a half-dozen Facebooks and Twitters?

Re: The Refragmentation

#59

Post by tomjen3 » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 6:47 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #29

Great essay. I would quibble with the following though: > [Technology] means the variation in the amount of wealth people can create has not only been increasing, but accelerating. The problem with this is that success = ability * motivation * opportunity. There's no question that technology is increasing ability. But it's less clear what's happening with opportunity. Networks tend to be winner-take-all, which means…

Opportunity has increased massively.

When I was a lad I got my hand on a great prize: a copy of Delphi 3 (already obsolete by then), which got me started coding. Today anybody can download much better tools (Visual studio, IntelliJ, etc for free). Any question you have can be searched on the internet, etc. Opportunity has increased _massively_ the last 20 years.

Re: The Refragmentation

#60

Post by jusben1369 » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 6:51 PM UTC

The thing to me is Silicon Valley is the place in the US that still looks like that post WWII America. Large monopolies like Google, Apple and FB utilizing fantastic profits and paying amazing perks to employees. Everyone working in and on the same mission acting as a social fabric tying people together. Glass Door and the Internet in general replacing trade unions by helping balance a knowledge imbalance so that workers can maximize their benefits.

The irony of regularly lecturing the rest of the country and world about what the future holds from the position as a final bastion on unassailable US hegemony of last century (2nd only to Hollywood?) perplexes me.