Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Refragmentation

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 461 posts

Re: The Refragmentation

#101

Post by gotchange »

A very fascinating article that I have truly enjoyed reading minus the last 10 or so paragraphs where Paul expressed it unequivocally that he's a status-quo warrior and that nothing can be done to remedy the problem of the ever widening gap of income inequality in the global economy and more specifically in the US and that it's a "natural" product of the state of affairs in our world. A classical example of « the naturalistic fallacy » [0].

Also, it's also worrying the degree of infatuation or affection for the early 20th century years with central planning of the economy, crony capitalism, robber barons, an all-powerful big government, centralization and concentration of power at the hands of a few, regimented and uniformed society ...etc.

No leftie is arguing or longing for any of these policies. What we're looking for is just more equality in economic opportunities and esp capital and that distribution of capital to be more fair across all the classes and not to be a privilege only for rich and highly connected people.

That's how we envision the solution to fix this problem of "fragmentation" as he put when it exactly is more like a "segregation" problem but not based on racial or cultural factors but on economic one into two completely separate societies between the haves and have-nots, between the 1% and the 99% of the population and it's getting worse and uglier by the day.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy

Re: The Refragmentation

#102

Post by vzcx »

bawana wrote: post #73

Refragmentation is the result of the fungibility of money. When we wanted to make things (stuff people could use to make war or make a better life) money was spent to make those things. Like the water cycle, money would be transformed from one phase into another so that work could be accomplished that directly impacted humanity. But we have short circuited that cycle. Now money is being used directly to make more mon…

Bold claims. Forgive me for saying so, but your knowledge of finance does not strike me as particularly deep!

Do you not think that use of financial instruments is vital for allocating resources in a world of imperfect information?

For me, their utility and necessity is obvious. If you think about it, making stuff that people want is actually rather complicated. The world is rife with hazards and risk; the intricate supply lines upon which production depends are all vulnerable to disasters both natural and human.

Naturally, those whose business it is to produce things and not to speculate on future events would like to be free of such risks. This is true the source of fundamental demand for financial instruments. All the derivatives markets, and zero-sum game apparatuses exist in order to transfer -- and in so doing compute a consensual value of -- these risks to those who believe they are better informed about reality.

While I understand not wanting to personally engage in this process, I claim that that the world is better that these contracts and exchange machinery exist!

Re: The Refragmentation

#103

Post by Plough_Jogger »

sce wrote: post #84
harryh wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In the case of minimum wage, they would indeed be forced to pay more, rendering the need for welfare to those same people unnecessary, thus shifting the cost from the state/government to the employer. That is in effect wealth distribution, which again closes the big income inequality. (That's the intended effect anyway.)

> thus shifting the cost from the state/government to the employer.

This would simply shift the cost from the state/government (read taxpayer) to end consumers (read taxpayer).

Re: The Refragmentation

#104

Post by gotchange »

walshemj wrote: post #96
gotchange wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the specific part in question: " People did start their own businesses of course, but educated people rarely did, because in those days there was practically zero concept of starting what we now call a startup: a business that starts small and grows big. That was much harder to do in the mid 20th century. Starting one's own business meant starting a business that would start small and stay small."

Hmm so explain Fairchild and Intel and all the spin out companies in SV.

I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't write the article. I just quoted the guy where he laid out the definition or his understanding of the term of « startup » which IMO is in line with the current common and broad idea of startups in that they're a special breed in the small businesses category that possess specific qualities that make them rather distinct from other business ventures and establishments.

Re: The Refragmentation

#105

Post by lkrubner »

jessriedel wrote: post #97
lkrubner wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Multiple studies have shown that startups are dying in the USA. The great era of startups in the USA was in the mid 20th Century. At least since the 1970s, new business formation has been dying: http://econweb.umd.edu/~haltiwan/dhjm_jep_5_17_2013.pdf http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2014/... Here is the abstract of that last study: "Business dynamism is the process by which firms continually are…

Are those studies equating "starting a small business" with "startup"? Paul Graham only uses "startup" to refer to business that start small but grow large is a short time, as he says in the OP article itself (and elsewhere). If you equate those two ideas, you won't be able to talk clear about this topic.

When he refers to "the spread of computing power" he seems to be talking about software startups in particular. But when he says "The ultimate way to get market price is to work for yourself, by starting your own company" he is either talking about every imaginable form of business, or he is talking complete gibberish. If everyone goes into one sector, the economy would soon suffer an abundance in that sector, and a relative lack in other sectors. So his point is either true of any business that one might start, or he has no point at all.

Re: The Refragmentation

#106

Post by chrispeel »

bawana wrote: post #73

Refragmentation is the result of the fungibility of money. When we wanted to make things (stuff people could use to make war or make a better life) money was spent to make those things. Like the water cycle, money would be transformed from one phase into another so that work could be accomplished that directly impacted humanity. But we have short circuited that cycle. Now money is being used directly to make more mon…

Many people are aiming finance startups at the established finance industry. Some are blockchain based, others are just coming in with lower-end products. I'm not as negative as you appear towards the finance industry, yet I do hope that it will become much more efficient and automated.

Re: The Refragmentation

#107

Post by markbnj »

I'm older than Mr. Graham, and grew up in the heart of the period he focuses on. I think this is one of the smartest essays about the economic and cultural after-effects of the great wars of the 20th century, and all the accompanying and related social phenomena, that I have ever read.

Re: The Refragmentation

#108

Post by ericd »

venomsnake wrote: post #21

I think that the field in US in urgent need of refragmentation is the political systems. The two parties are oligopol that don't care about their customers and they don't deliver enough political product to the people. We need more smaller parties that could represent the increasing diversity of opinions.

Agreed, and some system of voting that allows people to express near-substitutes, to avoid a Gore-Nader situation. I don't know the name of it off-hand, but there was a system proposed where you could assign up to 10 points for candidate, so if I happened to like Nader, but also Gore slightly less, I could give Nader 10 points, Gore 9, and Bush 1, rather than give my one vote to Nader with the knowledge that I was probably helping Bush win.

Re: The Refragmentation

#109

Post by ThomPete »

msvan wrote: post #39

I think this is one of the most interesting essays he's written in a while, and it echoes many of my own thoughts better than I could express them. PG seems to argue that the fragmentation of society is a question of efficiency. A natural effect of this is that the world will become more cut-throat. Efficient systems turn hyper-competitive, as seen in university admissions, startups, financial markets. It seems to me…

In other words and to paraphrase that now famous paraphrased. It's the technology stupid
Post reply on HN