Hawking: We need to rethink our attitude towards wealth • Hacker News Board

Re: Hawking: We need to rethink our attitude towards wealth

#71

Post by AnimalMuppet » Fri, Jul 29, 2016, 8:31 PM UTC

gonvaled wrote: post #39

mamon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are suggesting that Poland should give up its financial stability (like being pretty much only EU country which did not suffer recession during 2008 financial crisis) and join Eurozone just to help you avoid small inconvenience with reimbursing business trip in foreign currency?

The Eurozone is suffering. All economic areas have up and downs. Being in a shared monerary union, you sacrifize some advantages for others: we compromise - I know, strange word. We are building a stable, long term monetary union. We are learning, we are improving and we will have a strong currency going forward. Next time another economy area is in distress, as it will unavoidably happen, remember about our crisis,…

That sounds rather over-optimistic. A currency union is inherently unstable if not matched to a fiscal union. If you're not going to move to a fiscal union (and after Greece, I'm pretty sure there is not the political will to do so), then the Euro union cannot be stable.

Can it survive even if it's unstable? Perhaps. Will it be worth it? That's not for me to say. But you cannot "master the crisis" with the Euro zone without a fiscal union.

Re: Hawking: We need to rethink our attitude towards wealth

#72

Post by gonvaled » Fri, Jul 29, 2016, 8:36 PM UTC

hx87 wrote: post #69

gonvaled wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So are the carrots you buy ecpensive? In april? Two years ago? Basically, you go to the supermarke, get your carrots and say: whatever, lets just get over with it. Sure, you can get use to a new currency - it took us the best part of a decade to stop thinking in our old national currencies in the eurozone, and some people, and for some things, old currencies are still used mentally and in conversation. The good thing…

> So are the carrots you buy ecpensive? Not a difficult problem: I just look up the latest local-to-USD conversion rates and do the conversion. If you have a largely cash economy, sure, multiple currencies are a bit of a hassle, but with electronic payments and on-the-fly currency conversion, you can do your accounting in whatever currency you want. It does not get in your way. Having a permanently over- or undervalu…

Sure you do: the problem is that you dont have the feeling of the currency: only when you pull your calculator and start typing numbers, you have an idea how high or low prices are. I am talking about a walk in the supermarkez, or a shopping mall, where you see lots of prices. Doing that en-masse and continuosly is not feasible for an individual.

Until your google glasses are translating prices in real time, give me my euro.

Re: Hawking: We need to rethink our attitude towards wealth

#73

Post by laserDinosaur » Fri, Jul 29, 2016, 8:52 PM UTC

hal9000xp wrote: post #26

I actually don't understand why Brexit should necessary be bad for UK. Switzerland is doing very well outside of EU despite it's literally surrounded by EU members. Of course, there is a risk that UK won't do as good as Switzerland does but it's only risk, it's not established fact yet. Regarding article itself ... well, it's The Guardian so it's very predictable what they will write about wealth. Regarding author, i…

"I actually don't understand why Brexit should necessary be bad for UK"

Leaving the EU could have some advantages, but those advantages need would only come from a very VERY long, slow drawn out plan (eg. coming up with new laws and trade deals ready for the switch over) over many MANY years. Leaving the EU isn't necessarily a terrible thing, but doing it in the way it was done, now, so fast, with so much misinformation? The only outcome could be negative.

Sure everyone wants to rewire the server farm, but you don't just go down and start ripping out cables because "Once it's done it will be better".

Re: Hawking: We need to rethink our attitude towards wealth

#74

Post by airesQ » Fri, Jul 29, 2016, 9:10 PM UTC

mrec wrote: post #62

airesQ wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the UK do badly outside the EU? Well because 45%+ of its exports go to the EU. And the EU is not just a trade deal. It is a single market, like the US is a single market, with a great degree of regulatory uniformity. Which means accepting laws from a central source (in the US it is Washington, in the EU it is Brussels). What you think would happen to Texas were to secede? With border controls? With its inte…

> Well because 45%+ of its exports go to the EU. Implying that ~ 55% of its exports go outside the EU, and since the EU is a customs union, external trade incurs tariffs by default and members are prohibited from negotiating their own trade deals to change that. The 55% number is despite those constraints; it's not unreasonable to think that the proportion would be quite a bit higher if EU trade had tariffs and trade…

Geography still matters a lot. Japan [1] trades mostly with Asia, and the UK [2] with nearby countries (it trades more with Sweden than Canada; more with the Netherlands than China).

When it comes to trade deals, the UK does not have all that much leverage. And Brexit was (to some extent) a vote for protectionism (e.g. against TTIP).

[1] - http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export...

[2] - http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export...

Re: Hawking: We need to rethink our attitude towards wealth

#75

Post by therealjumbo » Fri, Jul 29, 2016, 9:14 PM UTC

sevenless wrote: post #29

zo1 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>" If the mob is well-informed, it can go well. When the mob is not, it can go very badly. " That only applies if you have some sort of arbiter to decide whether or not the "mob" is informed. And if you do that, you might as well have a dictatorship, as the arbiter can decide which side s/he thinks is well informed. Or rather, they could decide that groups X,Y and Z are not informed, therefore they aren't allowed to…

Are you saying that objective fact and truth is equivalent to a dictatorship? Are anti-vaxxers living in a dictatorship because we don't give their claims equal weight to those of doctors and scientists?

Are you implying that a vote for Brexit is equivalent to being an anti-vaxxer?

Re: Hawking: We need to rethink our attitude towards wealth

#76

Post by hx87 » Fri, Jul 29, 2016, 9:22 PM UTC

gonvaled wrote: post #72

hx87 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So are the carrots you buy ecpensive? Not a difficult problem: I just look up the latest local-to-USD conversion rates and do the conversion. If you have a largely cash economy, sure, multiple currencies are a bit of a hassle, but with electronic payments and on-the-fly currency conversion, you can do your accounting in whatever currency you want. It does not get in your way. Having a permanently over- or undervalu…

Sure you do: the problem is that you dont have the feeling of the currency: only when you pull your calculator and start typing numbers, you have an idea how high or low prices are. I am talking about a walk in the supermarkez, or a shopping mall, where you see lots of prices. Doing that en-masse and continuosly is not feasible for an individual. Until your google glasses are translating prices in real time, give me…

It takes me about a week to get the feeling of a currency. It's more problematic if exchange rates fluctuate by large amounts, but a daily lookup takes care of that.

Re: Hawking: We need to rethink our attitude towards wealth

#77

Post by mrec » Fri, Jul 29, 2016, 9:45 PM UTC

airesQ wrote: post #74

mrec wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well because 45%+ of its exports go to the EU. Implying that ~ 55% of its exports go outside the EU, and since the EU is a customs union, external trade incurs tariffs by default and members are prohibited from negotiating their own trade deals to change that. The 55% number is despite those constraints; it's not unreasonable to think that the proportion would be quite a bit higher if EU trade had tariffs and trade…

Geography still matters a lot. Japan [1] trades mostly with Asia, and the UK [2] with nearby countries (it trades more with Sweden than Canada; more with the Netherlands than China). When it comes to trade deals, the UK does not have all that much leverage. And Brexit was (to some extent) a vote for protectionism (e.g. against TTIP). [1] - http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export... [2] - http://a…

Sure, but still, 55% is more than 45%.

I agree that much of the support for Brexit had protectionist roots, though I think that was far more about labour protectionism than goods. Very few people in the UK have even heard of TTIP; it doesn't get mainstream coverage here. That may change once the UK steps out of the EU's trade-protectionist umbrella, of course; those trying to spin the result as a ringing popular endorsement of Extreme Globalization Turbo Max Pro are definitely being disingenuous.

Re: Hawking: We need to rethink our attitude towards wealth

#78

Post by greggyb » Fri, Jul 29, 2016, 10:11 PM UTC

roymurdock wrote: post #57

hal9000xp wrote: post #26

I actually don't understand why Brexit should necessary be bad for UK. Switzerland is doing very well outside of EU despite it's literally surrounded by EU members. Of course, there is a risk that UK won't do as good as Switzerland does but it's only risk, it's not established fact yet. Regarding article itself ... well, it's The Guardian so it's very predictable what they will write about wealth. Regarding author, i…

> I won't buy socialism in any possible form and any interpretation even from world famous scientist This is a pretty ridiculous statement. Do you believe in taxation? Do you believe there are some things that a collective organization of people can do better than an individual - be that organization a family, village, private company, or a federal government? OK, then you buy into and support the premise of socialis…

> Socialism/capitalism isn't binary.

This is correct.

> Moving towards "socialism" by increasing taxation on the ultra-wealthy

This is not a move toward socialism.

Socialism is defined by communal ownership of the means of production and exchange. Capitalism is defined by private ownership of the same. These terms are specific in meaning, as they are jargon in the field of economics.

I'm not particularly interested in engaging in a political or economic debate right now, so I'm not trying to pass judgment on what is good or bad, but if you're going to make a post about people mischaracterizing a concept while doing so yourself.

Ninja edit: That capitalism and socialism are often seen in combination with other particular social and economic arrangements does not in any way make these things a component of socialism or capitalism.

Re: Hawking: We need to rethink our attitude towards wealth

#79

Post by dwaltrip » Fri, Jul 29, 2016, 11:02 PM UTC

gonvaled wrote: post #28

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #4

There will always be people who take great pleasure and submit extraordinary effort to accumulate massive wealth. These efforts cannot be ignored in the prosperous society we have today. We take refrigeration and electricity and indoor plumbing - unheard of for the Founding Fathers - for granted, and perceive those without it as living in extreme poverty. It is only when the pursuit of individual prosperity comes at…

Poverty is a relative term: somebody without a shirt is poor because nearly everybody has a shirt, not because shirts are absolutely necessary. Edit: not sure why I am being downvoted. Take the poorest man on Earth today; he is richer than most men alive 20 thousand years ago. I would argue that he would conquer any ancient society.

What's your point? Not everyone "deserves" a shirt? Seems like an incomplete analysis.

Re: Hawking: We need to rethink our attitude towards wealth

#80

Post by wes-k » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 1:11 AM UTC

clavalle wrote: post #68

nyolfen wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Desperation and exploitation are not core features of a free market, Capitalistic system. In fact, I think they are a drag on Capitalism and the free market. without making a value judgment, i think this extremely disputable, historically speaking

You don't have to dig in history to dispute it, desperation and exploitation are current features of our Capitalist system. BUT I think that is more historical accident rather than a necessary consequence of the system. I think we have to work to pull Capitalism out of that swamp if it is to remain viable for the foreseeable future. But it is so ingrained that these are part and parcel with the free market that sugge…

As long as businesses are profit driven there will be exploitation of both people and the environment.

It takes a trememdous effort to navigate the consumables as to minimize harm to yourself (bad food, addictive & compulsive apps) or the environment (so much plastic!). My point is, removing desperation helps but you still have to navigate the business landmines.