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Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

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Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#161

Post by danharaj »

eeeuo wrote: post #133
danharaj wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you understand how bonkers it sounds to play calculus with millions of lives in the service of geopolitics?

Did you feel the invasion of Germany in 1944 was in the services of geopolitics? It's not geopolitics to try and determine if fewer people would die with or without Saddam in power. Saddam's chemical attacks against civilians are well documented and not widely disputed. His internal security apparatus was open with their brutality in order to induce fear on the population. I think that the 2nd Iraq War was a mistake,…

> I think that the 2nd Iraq War was a mistake, particularly how the government mislead the people, but I find it absolutely baffling when people will not even honestly address the situation in good faith.

The justification for the war was obviously fabricated, so I don't know what sort of good faith you are asking for. Perhaps to debate some post hoc justification for a thoughtless decision that was paid for with the lives of people who didn't have a choice in the matter? People who touch such questions are only going to injure their humanity.

By the way, when you think about the question of WW2 in terms of "when to intervene" instead of "whether to intervene at all", it becomes as murky and vicious a question as can be, and it ought to make anyone queasy to examine in close detail the decisions made throughout the period. That said, the neoconservative methodology of deciding who to bomb has no justification and people who want to debate that have more urgent issues to address.

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#162

Post by maxsilver »

jogjayr wrote: post #140
timr wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Job growth is a good thing only if it benefits the people who live in a place before said growth occurs. Otherwise, you're incentivized to just keep shifting high-paid populations around and calling it success.

> Job growth is a good thing only if it benefits the people who live in a place before said growth occurs Why so? Even if high-paid populations are being shifted around, it's better for the region as a whole to have more highly-paid people. They'll spend more and pay more in taxes (sales, property, income). The pre-existing population presumably owns property, whose value has increased now because it's close to high-…

It's not objectively good to have more highly-paid people, those benefits they bring all carry significant downsides to any regular people in the area.

Yes, rich people will spend more. But this is bad for all the regular people, who can't spend that much, and will be outbid on housing+rent, schooling, childcare, entertainment, etc. Yes, rich people will pay more in taxes, but this is generally bad for all the regular people, because taxes are calculated by averages, so rich people increasing property values also makes property more expensive for everyone else. Yes, more rich people help other rich people demand higher salaries, but literally none of this money trickles down into regular people's salaries, which stay roughly locked to the same dollar figure, regardless. (See how San Francisco has some of the highest salaries in the entire US, but their regular people still had to fight just to get $15/hr wages, which in SF is insultingly low to anyone working in any line of work whatsoever).

> The pre-existing population presumably owns property, whose property has increased now because it's close to high-paying jobs

That's never a safe assumption. Lots of pre-existing populations do not own property. And even for the people who do own property, it's not like those property values actually become cash -- you can only sell out if there's somewhere cheaper to move to. Increasingly, those 'cheaper places' no longer exist anywhere.

We have people being gentrified out of their homes in my small hometown city (Grand Rapids, Mich). And they say what you've said, "who cares, they can just sell out their property, take the money and profit". But in truth, they can't do this. Where are they supposed to live? They can't afford to leave for SF, or NYC, or Seattle, or Chicago. Hell, they couldn't afford Minneapolis. They'd have to live in the literal middle of nowhere to afford something cheaper, and there's no jobs in the middle of nowhere, so it's a non-starter.

This "property owner wildcard" myth needs to die. You absolutely can (and a meaningful number of people will) economically suffer due to development, even if you/they own property in the newly developed area, and even if you/they sell that property for much more than you bought it for.

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#163

Post by eli_gottlieb »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #21
21 wrote: post #7

> the United States as a whole is depicted as evil by default So true. The USA is viewed worse than China, Russia or Saudi Arabia. I also see a lot of it on HN.

I think the argument is that the USA is a democracy (at least more so than the others), and therefore it's fair to criticise the USA as a whole (i.e. the citizens of the USA) for the failures of the US Government. A friend of mine made the same comment recently in regards to condemning human rights abuses in Israel. You can condemn until your face is blue the human rights violations in Iran, but there's not a lot the…

I find it hard to argue that the USA is more of a democracy than Iran, though admittedly, that's because Iran has a very "American" system where anyone can run in elections, provided the ruling elite approves them as within-bounds for the system as a whole. Both could perhaps be characterized as "managed democracies" with highly authoritarian law-enforcement systems more than either is a full-blown dictatorship.

Israel has a different problem: its political spectrum is defined as doves on the Left, hawks on the Right, and real dovishness became a causalty of the Second Intifada. Coupled to extensive corruption, the Israeli system has become considerably less democratic than it used to be, but it still has the problem that nobody is willing to run against the current government on a winning platform more than that legions of candidates or parties aren't allowed to stand for election.

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#164

Post by s73v3r_ »

imbokodo wrote: post #41
toomanybeersies wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the argument is that the USA is a democracy (at least more so than the others), and therefore it's fair to criticise the USA as a whole (i.e. the citizens of the USA) for the failures of the US Government. A friend of mine made the same comment recently in regards to condemning human rights abuses in Israel. You can condemn until your face is blue the human rights violations in Iran, but there's not a lot the…

> Israel is a democracy, and therefore (at least in theory) the government represents the people. Netanyahu says the West Bank is Israel, and within Israel de facto and de jure it is. Yet Palestinians in the West Bank can not vote, and there is talk in the Knesset of disenfranchising Palestinians outside of the West Bank. Yet a Jew from Brooklyn can move to the West Bank, seize a Palestinian's land, and vote in elect…

Not necessarily for the Palestinians, but the Israelis definitely have a say in what their government allows. If they wanted to, they could stop that practice, and restore the Palestinians. As such, all Israelis are partially to blame for what's happened.

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#165

Post by eli_gottlieb »

jpzisme wrote: post #14
21 wrote: post #7

> the United States as a whole is depicted as evil by default So true. The USA is viewed worse than China, Russia or Saudi Arabia. I also see a lot of it on HN.

I'll go ahead and say the United States is the greatest country the world has ever seen. It's not perfect, but once you live in other countries for a bit, even if you enjoy the experience, you appreciate the U.S. a lot more.

>I'll go ahead and say the United States is the greatest country the world has ever seen.

How the bloody heck can you quantify this, and provided you can, why not just throw out the blindly nationalistic rhetoric and use the measurements?

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#166

Post by Florin_Andrei »

zug_zug wrote: post #12

"- being told you are constructing utopia while the system crumbles around you" This is the one that resonated with me. Obviously "the system" as a whole isn't objectively crumbling by traditional measures like GDP, but there were things that could give that feeling: Homeless sleeping in the subway and on the main streets, the smells, crime so rampant it's basically ignored (my car was broken into > 5 times), working…

> This is the one that resonated with me.

I grew up in the Eastern Bloc, now I live and work in the Silicon Valley, and the whole thread resonated with me.

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#167

Post by AlexandrB »

neuland wrote: post #62
shadowtree wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good test is your view on the 2nd Iraq War. For background, as facts matter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War "After 9/11, the Bush Administration national security team actively debated an invasion of Iraq. On the day of the attacks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld asked his aides for: "best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit Saddam Hussein at same time. Not only Osama bin Laden."[72] President Bu…

I'm not really sure how the 2nd Iraq War is a testament to American evil. It sounds to me like you're saying the invasion was unjustified? But, is there really anyone who thought Saddam was a good guy? He was very obviously a brutal dictator. So, at the very least there's one fewer of those around. Sure, WMD turned out to be a total fabrication and the Iraq War ended up being a misguided attempt at democracy building…

> But, is there really anyone who thought Saddam was a good guy?

Yes. The US, just 20 years prior during the Iran-Iraq war [1]. That's kind of the point. Since WWII the US engages in or supports wars (which kill lots of people) out of naked self-interest while trying to paint themselves as morally good.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War#Iraq_2

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#168

Post by s73v3r_ »

jpzisme wrote: post #14
21 wrote: post #7

> the United States as a whole is depicted as evil by default So true. The USA is viewed worse than China, Russia or Saudi Arabia. I also see a lot of it on HN.

I'll go ahead and say the United States is the greatest country the world has ever seen. It's not perfect, but once you live in other countries for a bit, even if you enjoy the experience, you appreciate the U.S. a lot more.

The "greatest country the world has ever seen" would not let people die simply because they could not afford medical care.

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#169

Post by golergka »

imbokodo wrote: post #41
toomanybeersies wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the argument is that the USA is a democracy (at least more so than the others), and therefore it's fair to criticise the USA as a whole (i.e. the citizens of the USA) for the failures of the US Government. A friend of mine made the same comment recently in regards to condemning human rights abuses in Israel. You can condemn until your face is blue the human rights violations in Iran, but there's not a lot the…

> Israel is a democracy, and therefore (at least in theory) the government represents the people. Netanyahu says the West Bank is Israel, and within Israel de facto and de jure it is. Yet Palestinians in the West Bank can not vote, and there is talk in the Knesset of disenfranchising Palestinians outside of the West Bank. Yet a Jew from Brooklyn can move to the West Bank, seize a Palestinian's land, and vote in elect…

> Netanyahu says the West Bank is Israel, and within Israel de facto and de jure it is

It's funny, because I never saw huge red signs warning me "if you're israeli, don't come here, you're gonna get killed" around Petakh Tikva.

> Yet Palestinians in the West Bank can not vote

They can vote in PA elections - if they finally to end their political clusterfuck and do something, of course.

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#170

Post by Johnny555 »

zzzcpan wrote: post #75
mc32 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one thing that you didn’t get in the Soviet Union was everyday crime, well, what we understand as crime. Sure they could and did send people off to the camps for weird [political and crimes against the state] offenses, but property crimes and such were close to non existent.

Property crimes cannot really exist if everyone is very poor and everything is state owned. Risk and effort required needs to be appropriately rewarded for people to consider it.

If someone breaks into my government supplied house and takes my government supplied mattress, leaving me with no mattress, isn't that still property crime? Just because I was supplied that mattress for "free" doesn't mean that I'll get another one any time soon.

Meanwhile the criminal that took my mattress is sleeping in luxurious comfort on two mattresses, so he got his reward.

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