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Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

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201–210 of 242 posts

Re: Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Luckily as PG notes there is a massive defragmentation His essay is about a _re_-fragmentation, which is the opposite of a defragmentation. If this was just a typo, ignore me, but I wasn't sure if you had misunderstood the metaphor he was using.

I meant fragmentation is good, I misspoke. I agreed with a lot of PGs evidence but drew the opposite conclusion. Fragmentation in that people are less tied to companies, countries, organizations, and religion. I hope this means that as these descriptors fade, people will relate on individual levels and cooperate. Essentially, this is how society improves and the "income inequality" will be offset by the better measur…

I feel pretty much the same way, and I read pg as saying basically the same thing (though with a note of caution that I share about the need to perhaps manage the transition).

Re: Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

#202
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having read PG's essays since 2002, I suspect his motive is that he wants to have good ideas. The kind that will be remembered after his death. He even said as much in one of his essays [1]. He's writing for legacy, not for profit. YC itself was one of those ideas - it started out as an experiment [2], derived from a talk at Harvard Computer Society [3]. The easiest way to test if an idea is a good one is to go do it…

From half a world away I wouldn't say his motives are "Machiavellian", but his style and the subjects he wrote about definitely changed just after reddit and especially YC became important, mostly for the worst/not-interesting. I think I started reading his essays in 2004 or so, and he was a cool guy, not as cool as jwz, for example, but pretty interesting nevertheless because of his story of actually making some goo…

Coming also from half a world away from Silicon Valley (Europe), I also think there is a large discrepancy in PG's essays before and after YC became successful. Before YC was successful, I felt that his essays were written by a very smart guy who thought a lot about various topics, and his advice made lots of sense (don't go for prestigious fields for prestige's sake, find what you really love, etc.), while now it feels that he's thinking that everything converge to make startup the only path to success (I'm exaggerating a bit, but not that much). I don't think he does that to bring more and more people to apply to YC, but I can feel the influence on spending lots of time with VCs and startups.

Re: Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

#203
This is a great discussion on the single most important issue of our day. I like Paul Graham's perspective on this but I would like him to elaborate on how he would curb corruption. In the past, he said that "transparency" was key but they are doing this in the open and they direct the media to put a spin on it which the non-critical thinking masses can't detect. Politics/economics is an imperfect entity. I think the "pragmatic" solution may lie somewhere between Graham's Libertarian view and Sander's Democratic/Socialist view.

Re: Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

#204

"I think the propaganda of "The Communists" has been drilled into the American public so solidly" You mean the part where communists murdered 100 million people in the last century? That "propaganda"?

If you consider the US (and other) wars/interventions of imperialism motivated by capitalism, the number easily exceeds 100 million. http://maoistrebelnews.com/2012/03/16/1-6-billion-killed-by-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Livre_noir_du_capitalisme

While I agree with you about questioning number of deaths by capitalism, your first link is laughable. Maoist Rebel News, really?

Deaths are counted multiple times, cigarette related deaths worldwide are capitalism fault, children killed by hunger are capitalism fault (especially in North Korea), famine of 1932-33 is capitalism fault (this one is really fucked up, because it is exactly the opposite).

Re: Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

#205
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communism happened. It killed lots of people, and made radical changes in the social order unappealing to most. Now ideas don't just have to sound plausible, but you also have to prove that they won't lead to the deaths of millions.

Communism never happened. Communist propaganda happened.

Billions of communists disagree.

Re: Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

#206
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly the parent does not believe in property rights when they believe unskilled non-differentiated labor should be rewarded with above market rates by force and at the expense of Walmart's shareholders. That individuals believe government should be directed at investors who risk their property to create wealth in order to take by force that property to redistribute it is perhaps the most offensive sentiment. > The…

Let them eat cake! (The concept didn't work out so well for Marie Antoinette) If a revolution comes and you find yourself thrown up against a wall somewhere, remember your comment this evening.

A Revolutionary Tribunal, powered by HN/Reddit/Twitter.

Truly terrifying.

Re: Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you consider the US (and other) wars/interventions of imperialism motivated by capitalism, the number easily exceeds 100 million. http://maoistrebelnews.com/2012/03/16/1-6-billion-killed-by-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Livre_noir_du_capitalisme

While I agree with you about questioning number of deaths by capitalism, your first link is laughable. Maoist Rebel News, really? Deaths are counted multiple times, cigarette related deaths worldwide are capitalism fault, children killed by hunger are capitalism fault (especially in North Korea), famine of 1932-33 is capitalism fault (this one is really fucked up, because it is exactly the opposite).

While I agree with much of what you are getting at, cigarettes are available in socialist countries. (Cuba is famous for cigars).

Re: Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you consider the US (and other) wars/interventions of imperialism motivated by capitalism, the number easily exceeds 100 million. http://maoistrebelnews.com/2012/03/16/1-6-billion-killed-by-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Livre_noir_du_capitalisme

While I agree with you about questioning number of deaths by capitalism, your first link is laughable. Maoist Rebel News, really? Deaths are counted multiple times, cigarette related deaths worldwide are capitalism fault, children killed by hunger are capitalism fault (especially in North Korea), famine of 1932-33 is capitalism fault (this one is really fucked up, because it is exactly the opposite).

While I agree with much of what you are getting at, cigarettes are available in socialist countries. (Cuba is famous for cigars).

Re: Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

#209
post #14
post #10

Mr. Garret quotes Sanders: > The reality is that for the past 40 years, Wall Street and the billionaire class has rigged the rules to redistribute wealth and income to the wealthiest and most powerful people of this country. I am rather puzzled that this idea gets so much traction. Does anyone really believe that if only the rules weren't "rigged" local shops and businesses would be able to compete against Wal-Mart a…

It took me years to realize that economics isn't physics - and it isn't ruled by physics-like laws. Instead, economics is governed by laws created by our society. And what we think of as "free market" is really just norms of trade which are created by our society. There is no reason why the bulk of the billions taken-in by WalMart should go to the Walton family while their employees live on food-stamps - that is just…

The laws of game theory, which underlie economics, are just as real as calculus.

Re: Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom

#210
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the GMO debate is hysterical people keep making unscientific objections to the general concept of gene modifications instead of specific objections to actual problems. Monsanto makes Roundup (glyphosate)-resistant crops. As far as anybody can tell the gene modifications have no inherently harmful effect on the resulting food. But then all the crops get sprayed with glyphosate and the food is contamin…

You're wrong at least 3 times in a single post. Roundup doesn't contaminate plant products, because it's applied when the plant is still tiny. It does, however, contaminate rivers. Farmers don't get sued by Monsanto because they accidentially get seed blown on their fields - that's practically legally impossible, given that Monsanto enforces its policies using licencing laws, not patent laws. If you disagree, please…

> You're wrong at least 3 times in a single post.

No.

> Roundup doesn't contaminate plant products, because it's applied when the plant is still tiny.

Monsanto successfully lobbies EPA to raise levels of glyphosate allowed in food:

https://www.rt.com/usa/monsanto-glyphosate-roundup-epa-483/

Can you explain why they would bother to do that if it doesn't end up in food?

> It does, however, contaminate rivers.

It does also contaminate rivers.

> Farmers don't get sued by Monsanto because they accidentially get seed blown on their fields - that's practically legally impossible, given that Monsanto enforces its policies using licencing laws, not patent laws. If you disagree, please provide an example of such a lawsuit.

I see you're not familiar with the modern process of aggressive legal trolling.

It goes something like this: Some people sneak or lie their way onto your farm to check if your crops are an infringing variety and if they are (regardless of why or how) you get a settlement demand letter. If you pay the money and sign the NDA then it all goes away but nobody ever finds out because you can't talk about it.

If you don't then they file a lawsuit, which will end up costing you a huge pile of money to defend from even if you win, and all the pretrial legal processes get rolling and you start incurring big legal fees.

After they've stuck you with a big pile of legal fees and looked at all the discovery, if you haven't settled yet, then they decide whether their case actually has any merit. If it doesn't then they make the settlement offer very attractive so that you pay almost nothing but sign the NDA to make the legal fees stop accumulating. If you refuse that then they drag it out as long as they can and keep burying you in pretrial legal process hoping you'll change your mind, but if you don't then they ultimately drop the case before trial.

So the only cases anyone can point to of someone going to trial are the ones where Monsanto actually has a case. For example, there was a famous case in Canada where the farmer took it all the way to the Supreme Court and lost. In that case Monsanto had originally claimed patent infringement (note: not a licensing dispute) for the crops from seeds the farmer claimed had blown in from the neighbor's farm, but come to find out that after that the farmer harvested the seeds from those plants (allegedly on purpose) and planted the next year's crop with them. So by the time it went to trial Monsanto had dropped the claim for the original year's crops, even though they had made it during settlement negotiations, and the trial was only about the farmer purposely replanting the patented seeds.

> Monoculture is popular even without GMOs.

I'm trying to imagine what point you think you're making. Something is a problem, so making it worse is OK?

Monoculture occurs when one strain of a thing dominates the market, generally by out-competing all the others under currently prevailing market conditions. GMO crops are obviously specifically designed to do that. It's the same with intentional crossbreeding, but they're better at it so it's worse. Monsanto also claims the rights to seeds bred from their seeds, so farmers who plant Monsanto seeds have little incentive to experiment with creating new derivative varities because Monsanto will claim all of the profits from your work, so why bother?

Now suppose we label GMO crops. That won't actually remove them from the market because they still have the advantages the modified genes provide, but more people will refuse to buy them, increasing demand for non-GMO crops and inhibiting GMO crops from becoming a large supermajority.

The biodiversity within the non-GMO segment of the market will then tend to be larger than it is within the GMO segment because there will be different seed lines with different advantages and disadvantages, and you can't grab exactly the gene you want out of each of them to make seeds that have both advantages at the same time as easily as you can with GMO crops, so more different seeds will be able to carve out a market niche.

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