One of Estonia's first "e-residents" explains what it means • Hacker News Board

Re: One of Estonia's first "e-residents" explains what it means

#71

Post by TangoTrotFox » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 4:59 AM UTC

gonvaled wrote: post #68

TangoTrotFox wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with your statement is that many people did and continue to do exactly what was stated going from rags to riches. Elon Musk is probably the most well known example. Now one of the most influential business and technological leaders in this nation, he immigrated from South Africa with little more than to rely on than his ability, motivation, and work ethic. A soft spoken immigrant with a slight speech impe…

Elon Musk is the exception used to sell you the american dream.

The reason I chose Elon Musk is because he's a household name and most people are familiar with his story. However, 67% of all "high-net-worth" Americans are self made, with only 8% directly inheriting their wealth. [1] If you consider only men (as women have an easier time marrying into wealth) it's 76%.

I used to be more aligned with what you're saying. An eye opening paper for me was this [2]. I ran into that when actually searching information on the chiseling out of the middle class. And that paper does describe that. In 1979 the middle class controlled 46% of all income, and the upper/rich classes controlled 30%. Today (well at least today as of 2014) the rich and upper class control 63% with the middle class left with 26%. There's even been a chiseling out of the middle class as a whole declining from 38.8% of society to 32% of society.

But the eye opener is this. This is the change in the size of each economic group between 1979 and 2014:

- Rich: 0.1% -> 1.8%

- Upper Middle Class: 12.9% -> 29.4%

- Middle Class: 38.8% -> 32%

- Lower Middle Class: 23.9% -> 17.1%

- Poor or Near-Poor: 24.3% -> 19.8%

If you're concerned that partisan bias may be tilting those numbers (as such figures are certainly subject to a variety of different interpretations), wiki has a section on the political stance of the Urban Institute [3]. Beyond that, that paper is quite readable and their methodology very transparent. It's extremely eye opening.

[1] - https://www.fa-mag.com/news/most-millionaires-self-made--stu...

[2] - https://www.urban.org/research/publication/growing-size-and-...

[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_Institute#Political_stan...

Re: One of Estonia's first "e-residents" explains what it means

#72

Post by donatj » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 5:04 AM UTC

jadedhacker wrote: post #43

donatj wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite the propaganda, statistically the United States has one of the lowest starvation rates on Earth at .58/100,000 - half that of Norway. The majority are not homeless but rather shut-ins, uncared-for elderly or suffering from other mental health issues.

I accept your argument that few are starving like a national geographic picture. Instead we have merely undernourished schoolchildren in the richest country in world history. As for the adults, maybe we can write sleep outside until you freeze, get shot/stabbed, or jailed where you're threatened with sexual assault and are in general treated like a disease until you acquire enough money to escape the poverty trap and…

The root cause of childhood hunger is more often than not either criminal neglect or parental/financial incompetence than actual cost.

I personally grew up in a single minimum wage income household, which supported 2 adults and 3 children. I'm very familiar with dubious food. That said, it is quite reasonable to meet the caloric needs of a grade school-age child in the United States with little regard for taste or variety for roughly a dollar a day. Adding some variety and nutrition to that wouldn't be much more. Formula for very small children averages between about $40-$100 a month so they are a little more expensive, but you did specifically say school children.

There are 50 lb bags of rice at my local grocery store for $15. I have bought them before, they're short grain and not very good so you wouldn't want it everyday, but in a pinch you can meet your caloric necessities with rice for basically cents.

I actually don't have a very strong sense of taste, and manage to get by on ~$3-$6 of food a day, my diet consisting largely of over-hard eggs, canned fish and canned string beans. I am quite confident I could get by on half of that if need be.

As far as homelessness goes, I don't have reliable statistics on this, but depending on where you get your statistics between 20 and 70 percent of America's homeless have mental health issues.

I am perfectly aware that this is anecdotal, but I have a friend who worked for an organization that housed homeless in unoccupied Homes and Apartments. According to her, the majority wandered off because they did not understand what was going on. In Minnesota no less, it's cold.

My point is simply that there is a sizable portion if not majority who cannot be helped without stepping on their personal freedoms, because they won't allow it, for better or worse.

Re: One of Estonia's first "e-residents" explains what it means

#73

Post by dang » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 5:06 AM UTC

txsh wrote: post #13

whb07 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of like any venture where you try as hard as possible and yet fail ? Kind of like an athlete in the olympics who ends up losing by a fraction of a second? Idk, they don’t get the gold right?

So, in your world, the best software developer gets paid the most (gold), the second best gets paid less (silver), the third best gets paid the least (bronze), and everybody else works as slaves because they're losers.

Could you please not post like this? It leads to low-quality flamewars, and there's specifically a guideline against it:

Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize.

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

Re: One of Estonia's first "e-residents" explains what it means

#74

Post by dang » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 5:07 AM UTC

freeloop10 wrote: post #40

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's capitalism in a nutshell. Except first prize was granted by your parents and upbringing. Second prize was partially because of parents and upbringing, but with a bit more luck. And bronze? Yeah, well they're just lazy and bad and they deserve what little they have - cause the Gold and Silver earned what they have.

Suppose a average married couple had a child and also adopted a rock. By your reasoning, the rock would perform exactly as their living breathing child, right?

Please don't do this here.

Re: One of Estonia's first "e-residents" explains what it means

#75

Post by mathgladiator » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 5:12 AM UTC

gonvaled wrote: post #68

TangoTrotFox wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with your statement is that many people did and continue to do exactly what was stated going from rags to riches. Elon Musk is probably the most well known example. Now one of the most influential business and technological leaders in this nation, he immigrated from South Africa with little more than to rely on than his ability, motivation, and work ethic. A soft spoken immigrant with a slight speech impe…

Elon Musk is the exception used to sell you the american dream.

This is exactly my point, the rare exceptions are the ones capable of actually pulling off a real revolution; they get sucked into the American Dream.

This leaves everyone else without effective organization. Look at all the occupy stuff that was supposed leaderless; did it accomplish anything?

Re: One of Estonia's first "e-residents" explains what it means

#76

Post by vages » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 5:24 AM UTC

inertial wrote: post #61

- Are there any good (easy to use) payment processors available in Estonia (like Stripe) ? - Is your startup governed by specific laws for data privacy etc. - What about legal disputes, arbitration. How does that work for startups based out of Estonia ?

"Specific laws for data privacy": GDPR at the least.

Re: One of Estonia's first "e-residents" explains what it means

#77

Post by nstj » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 5:26 AM UTC

The article claims that Japanese PM Shinzo Abe and French PM Emmanuel Macron are Estonian “e-residents”. Has anyone seen any non-Estonian reports which support this claim?

Re: One of Estonia's first "e-residents" explains what it means

#78

Post by thinkloop » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 5:36 AM UTC

edwin01 wrote: post #70

I incorporated in Estonia few years ago because of what their promo materials say. It’s a total shitshow unfortunately and while it’s true that you can do everything online, it’s not what you think. All user interfaces are straight from the 90s, only the most basic forms are in english and they want to know everything about your business while setting ridiculous limits. For example, you need to have half of your capi…

Thanks for touching on some of the things I was expecting to read in the article.

> you need to have half of your capital available always

What does this mean, in a bank account?

Re: One of Estonia's first "e-residents" explains what it means

#79

Post by mpweiher » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 5:36 AM UTC

jancsika wrote: post #65

mpweiher wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in a meritocratic world, what happens to the dumb and/or lazy? They don't get to run things? Put another way: assuming you're going to have some sort of hierarchy, and you will, how would you want to organize that hierarchy? Merit seems like the least bad way to do so.

Let's take a small municipality and play. I'll take town board/administrator form of government, you take "meritocracy." In my form of government the board members run for office periodically. The ones who get the most votes win. Then they hire a professional bureaucrat to handle the day to day business of keeping a municipality up and running. Here's what I've got: * a discrete (and anonymous!) method to determine w…

> What's the way you measure and get consensus on community leaders' merit?

Dunno, elections, maybe? Seems like a common way to get community consensus on personell decisions. For things like public office. So people get to vote for who they think is best suited, who has the most merit. And for lower level positions, you could have entrance exams and a mechanism for promotion that takes into account job performance.

And for the economic sphere, we could let people vote with their wallets...

Re: One of Estonia's first "e-residents" explains what it means

#80

Post by Boulth » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 5:37 AM UTC

edwin01 wrote: post #70

I incorporated in Estonia few years ago because of what their promo materials say. It’s a total shitshow unfortunately and while it’s true that you can do everything online, it’s not what you think. All user interfaces are straight from the 90s, only the most basic forms are in english and they want to know everything about your business while setting ridiculous limits. For example, you need to have half of your capi…

One more thing to remember is even though you cna have a company incorporated in Estonia if you mostly operate it from another country you may still need to pay your taxes locally (depends on country, consult your tax advisor).