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Dude, You Broke the Future [video]

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Re: Dude, You Broke the Future [video]

#121

Post by gaius »

platz wrote: post #94
ahartmetz wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's fair to call all attempts so far "not reall communism". But you don't have to conclude "real communism would work". You can also conclude "real communism seems unimplementable". It is, after all, a social order that was created purely on paper and from theoretical arguments, which is ridiculous. That activity gives you something to try, but certainly not a fixed solution that you just need to implement a…

The original intention was the communist revolution would take over the whole world at once. it was never intended/feasible to be a sole communist nation surrounded by a sea of capitalist nations, but they couldn't admit that failure and pressed on anyway.

The original intention was the communist revolution would take over the whole world at once

This in and of itself speaks volumes. If it were truly a viable system it could start in one country which would quickly outstrip all others in technology, culture, industrial production, quality of life for its citizens... Then all other countries would gladly follow.

But they knew from the very beginning that people who could vote with their feet, would flee that system. Countries that restrict people from leaving know perfectly well that they are doing something evil.

Re: Dude, You Broke the Future [video]

#122

Post by BjoernKW »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #113
BjoernKW wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing is, communism didn't really exist to fall in the first place Not a true Scotsman, eh? The same argument can be applied to the current capitalist system, too. Some libertarians in fact do so when saying that the problems we see with capitalism don't actually arise from free markets but from precisely the state intervention in those markets that's supposedly meant to alleviate these problems. > and the most…

>> Like many people being lifted out of poverty in the last decades? Like the average person having a much easier life than the average person just a hundred years ago? Yes, the number of people living under the international poverty line has halved since 2000, however: a) The international poverty line is currently set to $1.25. This means that, e.g. someone who makes $1.26 a day would be counted as "above the pover…

> a) The international poverty line is currently set to $1.25. This means that, e.g. someone who makes $1.26 a day would be counted as "above the poverty line"... which is very much not the same as "not poor".

You have to define 'not poor' somehow if you want to measure poverty and do something to alleviate it. The definition of 'not poor' intended by measures such as the poverty line is: The basic needs are met.

> b) And more importantly, there is no reason to assume that the fact that people are marginally less poor today, than in 2000, is thanks to free market capitalism, rather than despite it.

So, what alternative explanation other than free markets do you have?

> In fact, there is another metric of financial well-being, than wages, or absolute or relative poverty: inequality. And that one is _rising_.

That's a common fallacy. I'm not poor just because Bill Gates is rich beyond all means.

Inequality is just that: Inequality. It could be an indicator of financial well-being but it's not sufficient proof someone or a large part of the population is poor.

Socialist policy today is often obsessed with the idea of inequality, which is a shame because in many cases financial inequality at least might not be the true underlying problem that needs to be solved.

I consider increasing inequality not so much a problem in terms of current poverty but as to continued economic prosperity and subsequent improvement of living conditions: If wealth is concentrated at a few corporations or people, possibly inherited through generations, that means that capital is less likely to be invested in new, risky businesses but instead will be lying around accruing interest.

Re: Dude, You Broke the Future [video]

#123

Post by fao_ »

BjoernKW wrote: post #122
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Like many people being lifted out of poverty in the last decades? Like the average person having a much easier life than the average person just a hundred years ago? Yes, the number of people living under the international poverty line has halved since 2000, however: a) The international poverty line is currently set to $1.25. This means that, e.g. someone who makes $1.26 a day would be counted as "above the pover…

> a) The international poverty line is currently set to $1.25. This means that, e.g. someone who makes $1.26 a day would be counted as "above the poverty line"... which is very much not the same as "not poor". You have to define 'not poor' somehow if you want to measure poverty and do something to alleviate it. The definition of 'not poor' intended by measures such as the poverty line is: The basic needs are met. > b…

What we consider 'basic needs' must be vastly different.

1.26 a day is 37.8$ a month. I don't know about you, but in all of the places I know, such a person would barely be able to afford food, let alone shelter, replacement clothing, petrol and insurance for travel (or public transport -- in many places public transport would be four days worth of work for such a person at least).

> So, what alternative explanation other than free markets do you have?

The increase of social welfare safety nets.

> Socialist policy today is often obsessed with the idea of inequality, which is a shame because in many cases financial inequality at least might not be the true underlying problem that needs to be solved.

Of course it isn't, much of it falls down to social class and identity politics -- which is another debate for another day.

Re: Dude, You Broke the Future [video]

#124

Post by BjoernKW »

fao_ wrote: post #117
BjoernKW wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing is, communism didn't really exist to fall in the first place Not a true Scotsman, eh? The same argument can be applied to the current capitalist system, too. Some libertarians in fact do so when saying that the problems we see with capitalism don't actually arise from free markets but from precisely the state intervention in those markets that's supposedly meant to alleviate these problems. > and the most…

> Not a true Scotsman, eh? No, accuracy. If there's a raft with "YACHT" scribbled on it in permanent marker, and you call it a yacht, and I correct you that it is, in fact, a raft, then my correction is not an example of the No True Scotsman fallacy. To date, there haven't been any 'true' communist states. For that to be so, the workers would have had to hold the power. It is trivial to prove that in most self-profes…

> It is trivial to prove that in most self-professed communist countries, the workers have not held the reigns of power.

While this is true the question is: What does 'the workers holding the reins of power' even truly mean? Why didn't that state last longer in communist systems where it initially was the case (I suppose both the Paris Commune and the short-lived Soviet Republic in Germany after WWI are additional examples)?

These affairs or definitions tend to be more gradual than we commonly think. For example, we usually take for granted that both the US and France have been democracies since the late 1700s. However, by today's standards they weren't (France in particular) because they hadn't universal suffrage and excluded large parts of the population from political participation.

> Really? From the UK all I can see is the literacy rates getting worse and worse in either country, people being driven into unspeakable amounts of debt by private universities and bank bailouts, and Americans dying of silly things like Type 1 Diabetes just because they couldn't afford enough medicine.

Those are certainly urgent problems but not necessarily ones that are entirely driven by poverty:

Literacy rates drop because education systems are insufficiently funded and don't keep up with societal changes.

Rampant university debt and bank bailouts are symptoms of a crony capitalist system that has politicians and corporations collude in order to extract value from society (i.e. rent-seeking).

People dying from type 1 diabetes is a symptom of a dysfunctional healthcare system, which in rich countries is less a question of poverty but one of ideology.

The true epidemic is type 2 diabetes, though, which is caused by malnutrition and obesity (which in turn in rich countries indeed are linked to relative poverty).

Re: Dude, You Broke the Future [video]

#125

Post by BjoernKW »

fao_ wrote: post #123
BjoernKW wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a) The international poverty line is currently set to $1.25. This means that, e.g. someone who makes $1.26 a day would be counted as "above the poverty line"... which is very much not the same as "not poor". You have to define 'not poor' somehow if you want to measure poverty and do something to alleviate it. The definition of 'not poor' intended by measures such as the poverty line is: The basic needs are met. > b…

What we consider 'basic needs' must be vastly different. 1.26 a day is 37.8$ a month. I don't know about you, but in all of the places I know, such a person would barely be able to afford food, let alone shelter, replacement clothing, petrol and insurance for travel (or public transport -- in many places public transport would be four days worth of work for such a person at least). > So, what alternative explanation…

> What we consider 'basic needs' must be vastly different. 1.26 a day is 37.8$ a month. I don't know about you, but in all of the places I know, such a person would barely be able to afford food, let alone shelter, replacement clothing, petrol and insurance for travel

You can't simply apply rich industrial country standards to that. $1.25 is a global average (which by the way lately has been increased to $1.90). In developing countries $1.26 might be enough to get by.

> The increase of social welfare safety nets.

Those safety nets for the most part again only exist in industrialised countries. The reduction of poverty in recent decades however is accounted for mostly by developing countries, which typically don't have that kind of system.

Re: Dude, You Broke the Future [video]

#126

Post by Fnoord »

tqdm wrote: post #51
Fnoord wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a typical low blow, akin to throwing all right-wing under the guise of Franco, the Weimar republic, or some other right-wing system. Communism has been implemented on small scale. One notable example in Spain [1], problem is that any large political system eventually turns out to be either authoritarian or ineffective or sabotaged (I leave the guess by whom as an exercise to the reader). Its also been applied in…

Capitalism is actually currently ending the world hunger because trickle-down effects actually exist. Living standards are rising globally incredibly quickly. Middle-class kids in Jordan are playing Diabolo 3 on their computers despite the region having almost no natural resources, almost no water and despite it being troubled by Syrian refugees. Yes, capitalism needs regulation, but it is a lie to say that the entir…

Capitalism needs all kind of patches/bandaids in order to function, and even then it won't function for all. The Kuznets Curve (as mentioned in this article [1] about the doughnut economy) shows the vast amount of inequality in rich countries. Not so much for the general readership of HN (ie. I am arguing the readership is biased).

I fundamentally disagree with a left-right x-axis; we're missing out on authoritative-liberty. Hence politicalcompass.org provides a better framework.

Some of these bandaids are authoritarian, some are liberal. For example, trademarks, patents, copyright each grant power to one or more individuals (ie. a minority) over a vast majority. Here, the free market is being regulated by the government. We consider it part of capitalism.

[1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/04/the-new-economic-mode...

Re: Dude, You Broke the Future [video]

#127

Post by platz »

gaius wrote: post #121
platz wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original intention was the communist revolution would take over the whole world at once. it was never intended/feasible to be a sole communist nation surrounded by a sea of capitalist nations, but they couldn't admit that failure and pressed on anyway.

The original intention was the communist revolution would take over the whole world at once This in and of itself speaks volumes. If it were truly a viable system it could start in one country which would quickly outstrip all others in technology, culture, industrial production, quality of life for its citizens... Then all other countries would gladly follow. But they knew from the very beginning that people who coul…

Well, your 'restriction' motivation is a bit conspiracy theory / disingenuous, but yes for many reasons communism at the level of nations doesn't work. Do we really need to re-hash that the leninists' revolution model was flawed over and over again? There is no disagreement here.

Instead, following your startup idea, we should foster worker co-ops, which already exist today and are compatible within existing nations. One example is the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

Re: Dude, You Broke the Future [video]

#128

Post by EdwardDiego »

api wrote: post #77
0x445442 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> America has a lot of problems but I would not prefer to live in Russia or Saudi Arabia. Would you prefer to live in Japan? Like most, I consider the "alt right" to be on the margins but I also think it's healthy to challenge conventional wisdom. Japan is not nor does it strive to be diverse and they do not have a lot of the problems the US has.

Japan? It has tons of problems: chronically low birth rates, one of the highest suicide rates in the world, extreme workaholism, decades of economic stagnation, and probably the world's most intense forms of social alienation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori The latter seems a direct refutation of the alt-right's contention that racial uniformity promotes social engagement and unity. The Japanese are so alie…

Out of curiosity, why NZ?

Re: Dude, You Broke the Future [video]

#129

Post by dang »

fao_ wrote: post #16
narrator wrote: post #11

Except for the Singularity trashing, this talk feels like a rehash of reading your average Reddit political thread. I really wanted more than that. I think the political left viewed dialectical materialism as their futurism and now that that's gone with the fall of communism there's just doom. Global warming doom. Hyper-capitalism doom. Race war doom. Overpopulation doom. Evil AI overlord doom. They can't see the fut…

> and now that that's gone with the fall of communism there's just doom. The thing is, communism didn't really exist to fall in the first place, and the most advanced countries (Sweden, Norway, etc.) are all putting in place a mixed socialist/capitalist system. Also, dialectical materialism didn't necessarily fail just because a set of predictions were made with it didn't come true, it just means that we didn't have…

Please don't take HN threads on generic ideological tangents, regardless of ideology. They're reliably some of the most low-quality threads we see—partly because they're all the same and partly because they trigger everyone's reflexes rather than their curiosity. They are definitely not what this site is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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