101–110 of 125 posts
In America, politicians are controlled by billionaires. This comes at the cost of national interest, given that winner-takes-all systems are gini coefficient maximizers. In China, politicians control billionaires. At least in theory, especially given how much the Chinese political establishment is attuned to the needs of the Chinese commoner, this does protect the national interest.
> 22-year-old motorbike courier Mr. Tang complains about the lack of medical insurance. “There’s nothing I can do about it if Meituan doesn’t pay for it,” he added. “The wealth gap between people in this society is too big”. People should stop calling China a communist state, when isn't. If they we are truly communist, not will be medical insurances or a "entrepreneur" driving it. It would have a public medical syste…
In America, politicians are controlled by billionaires. This comes at the cost of national interest, given that winner-takes-all systems are gini coefficient maximizers. In China, politicians control billionaires. At least in theory, especially given how much the Chinese political establishment is attuned to the needs of the Chinese commoner, this does protect the national interest.
Am seeing a lot of pushback against this take. There are two things to keep in mind: 1. On execution: The track record of the Chinese political establish in bringing hundreds of millions of Chinese out of poverty is arguably the greatest political achievement of the last four decades. Their track record here gives them legitimacy as a national-interest optimizing function (despite admittedly terrible human rights abu…
In America, politicians are controlled by billionaires. This comes at the cost of national interest, given that winner-takes-all systems are gini coefficient maximizers. In China, politicians control billionaires. At least in theory, especially given how much the Chinese political establishment is attuned to the needs of the Chinese commoner, this does protect the national interest.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are computer games also a huge negative for society? With your reasoning, they provide no utility, waste an insane amount of energy, mostly involve violence, etc. I don't want to live in a country that starts banning things for those reasons. The utility of cryptocurrencies is not decided by governments, or companies, or you. The utility will be decided by reality. I like living in democracy and capitalism, but it se…
>The utility of cryptocurrencies is not decided by governments, or companies, or you. The utility will be decided by reality. No the utility is determined by you me and everyone else collectively. The problem is financial mechanisms that allow inflating these bubbles are not market driven, central banks are flooding the markets with low interest rates, if they want to direct the markets they need to react to negative…
That’s a terrible term. Bloomberg already has a bad history of journalism, but appreciating Authoritarianism is a new low
I feel like investing in market pathologies has become too common and modern democratic governments are far too slow at doing there roles and curbing such behaviour. Bitcoin is the obvious example of something that should have been banned years ago (and all proof of work crypto), but there are so many examples coming up daily, if there was ever any faith in institutions it's eroding quickly, and once you remove that…
I can see why hackernews was (is?) banned in china. You guys see nothing but negatives in any policy decision that comes out of there. Sure there are some power struggles, sure there's a powerful cadre of billionaires who own the politics of the country but aside from the pretty disgusting issues with the Uighurs I would consider china up there with Norway in terms of country development. If you just contrast what Xi…
The idea that a site should be banned because its users 'see nothing but negatives' is repugnant.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The governments of the world are one of the driving forces behind the pathologies. The reason asset prices are crazy is because the government has figured out that if they print money and give it to asset holders then they get stock market growth but are still able to call inflation low. If they didn't have their thumb on the scale, interest rates would be higher and boring, stodgy savers would be in control of the m…
I don't disagree, but I can see why they want high growth. But if you choose that path you need to actively manage the pathological cases, especially the ones you create.
* If the US Congress were capable of identifying pathological cases, would the government go through the ceremony of shutting down every couple of years just to remind everyone they can't balance budget?
* If the Chinese government could identify pathological cases, would we have error bars of +- 15 million deaths around their 60s-era economic policies when they tried to rush improvements through central planning?
Those are my top two favourites, but there are others. The approach the government has to climate change also springs to mind. You're calling for something that we have fairly solid evidence that they can't reliably and safely do. They can kill off things that are novel, sure. They aren't reliable at making sweeping judgements about what technological changes are good or bad. Government's are very marginally competent at identifying value for money.
It is far safer to let something like Bitcoin run than risk, eg, a government nipping the next internet in the bud because people are using it to look at dirty photos. The only thing to complain about here is that they've disabled the extremely reliable capitalist incentive structure that would stop people doing things they know to be a waste of time and money.
I feel like investing in market pathologies has become too common and modern democratic governments are far too slow at doing there roles and curbing such behaviour. Bitcoin is the obvious example of something that should have been banned years ago (and all proof of work crypto), but there are so many examples coming up daily, if there was ever any faith in institutions it's eroding quickly, and once you remove that…
> Bitcoin is the obvious example of something that should have been banned years ago (and all proof of work crypto) not that i would invest in bitcoins (or any crypto), but i don't see it as an obvious ban. The only reason i can deduce from your "obviousness" comment is that proof of works "wastes" energy. But then it is hypocritical to argue this when other modern conveniences also "waste" energy, and yet you don't…