What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922) • Hacker News Board

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#361

Post by verisimi » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 6:04 PM UTC

bilbo0s wrote: post #295

verisimi wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very hard conversation to have on HN. It is impossible to consider that the whole of society has been created and planned in advance. To think that the upper classes manage everyone (they always did), that the schooling system produces people that are incapable of seeing the outside the box (and yet believe that they are free, nay - they 'know' it), that finance is the main weapon in the wealth extraction,…

Not that I disagree with the underlying ideas, but I'd argue we're not slaves. I'll concede that in practice we can definitely be thought something more akin to peasants, but what we live in today is not slavery. Now, is being a peasant, with all the concomitant limitations on one's livelihood any better than being a slave to the mental health of the bright and ambitious? Perhaps not, but it would be significantly mo…

If I am forced to give any percentage of my income to a government I do not want, I think that is slavery. You wouldn't think it ok if an individual forced you, or the mafia. The government is just big mafia.

But that is not really the nub of it.

Slavery is really a mental state - having been through the system we have been propagandised that the government is a good thing, it's the right way to manage ourselves - anything else is very bad. This is the creation of the slave mentality, putting the policeman inside your head, so that you feel highly uncomfortable just considering non-standard ideas - they are thoughtcrime.

Thoughtcrime egs: that news is just another show, a serious type of advert. That pharmaceutical companies will run world wide campaigns, seconding governments, drafting laws, to poison millions - this will fill up their pipeline with sickness for the coming decades.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#362

Post by joshuamorton » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 6:05 PM UTC

thegrimmest wrote: post #351

joshuamorton wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> enforcing nonviolent interaction By ultimately using force or the threat thereof to prevent people from using force in disallowed ways, right? > Liberty isn't the same thing as prosperity/economic power. I didn't say they were synonyms. I said prosperity was a prerequisite to liberty[1]. A poor person isn't free to inhabit a house, and if they try to do so the state will use force to prevent or remove them. [1]: ac…

A homeless person can be more free than a person confined in a mansion, can they not? > By ultimately using force or the threat thereof to prevent people from using force in disallowed ways Yes, since using force to compel action is basically the definition of slavery and decidedly un-free.

> A homeless person can be more free than a person confined in a mansion, can they not?

Sure. But a rich homeless person is no longer homeless, and a poor person confined in their home is less free than a rich person confined on their home. You haven't addressed my point.

> Yes, since using force to compel action is basically the definition of slavery and decidedly un-free.

Right, so when I said

> You sort of admit as much, what is keeping the piece but ultimately deciding which things are good things or not

I was correct. The government decides which things are good or not (using force in disallowed ways) and prevents those. Generally governments high in libetry also do things like punish fraud, because fraud is bad and misleading people and stealing their money...reduces liberty? Or is fraud prevention unrelated to liberty, and should the government even do it?

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#363

Post by joshuamorton » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 6:08 PM UTC

thegrimmest wrote: post #357

wbsss4412 wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your definition of liberty here is getting really tangled. If liberty is “fundamentally your relationship with those who can use legitimate force against you” then how is having a set monetary policy incompatible with liberty as long as it comes from a “legitimate” source of power?

Because compliance with that monetary policy is enforced with.. force? You must pay taxes in USD, and if you don't you go to jail. The government also conveniently controls the USD supply, which allows the to debase it as they see fit, forcing you to obtain a set amount of USD per year to pay taxes. If the government accepted tax revenue in gold or bitcoin or anything else they don't totally control, you'd be absolut…

But we all agree that the government is legitimate, and so it's use of force is legitimate. Additionally, if the government forced you to pay it $1000 a year, even if you could deposit that in gold, you would still be forced to pay. The currency seems irrelevant.

It seems like what your saying is you believe taxation is legitimate, but requiring taxes to be pain in USD is illegitimate. Which, like, is just your opinion man (and makes the whole argument circular) I don't see any generic argument that makes taxation compatible with your definition of liberty but taxation in USD incompatible". I don't see really any generic definition of liberty that would distinguish between those two actions.

I'm rate limited, but to your example below of a currency no one could obtain, the government could equivalently apply a greater than 100% wealth tax. Or the government could define all speech as force or any number of other things. A capricious government can do bad things yes, but requiring taxes to be paid in a particular currency doesn't give them any more powerful ways to be capricious.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#364

Post by selimthegrim » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 6:08 PM UTC

User23 wrote: post #196

md_ wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m confused. If you mean public debt, doesn’t central banking free the public from meeting debt obligations when those obligations are denominated in the national currency? Countries can and do issue public debt in other currencies. If we all used gold or bitcoin, there’s no reason to think public debt would be lower. But the obligation to pay it back would, in a sense, be harder to dodge. It’s worth noting, as an a…

The primary purposes of central banking are to privatize seigniorage[1] revenue and increase bankers' ability to control politicians. The former is achieved through the Primary Dealer system and the latter should be self-explanatory. Needless to say, since most spending is electronic transactions, the seigniorage revenue is very nearly the entire face value of the created instrument. It's a blatantly undemocratic pow…

The UK has plenty of private banks printing notes - it doesn't seem to hurt them.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#365

Post by wbsss4412 » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 6:08 PM UTC

thegrimmest wrote: post #357

wbsss4412 wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your definition of liberty here is getting really tangled. If liberty is “fundamentally your relationship with those who can use legitimate force against you” then how is having a set monetary policy incompatible with liberty as long as it comes from a “legitimate” source of power?

Because compliance with that monetary policy is enforced with.. force? You must pay taxes in USD, and if you don't you go to jail. The government also conveniently controls the USD supply, which allows the to debase it as they see fit, forcing you to obtain a set amount of USD per year to pay taxes. If the government accepted tax revenue in gold or bitcoin or anything else they don't totally control, you'd be absolut…

Any centralized authority with a monopoly on force is going to have to levy taxes. Otherwise you’d end up with people just refusing to pay because they didn’t get the judgements they desire.

If there is a state _at all_ there is force involved. I don’t really understand what you believe is possible here. What you’re discussing is tantamount to assuming that American traditions of due process just exist in a state of nature when they absolutely do not.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#366

Post by selimthegrim » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 6:09 PM UTC

mwint wrote: post #208

jollybean wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Central Banking has been one of the most powerful and liberating achievements of civilization. And you now have the 'freedom' to strike and sue your employer, women have the 'freedom' to actually have a job, you have the 'freedom' to attend college which only about 5% did at the time, you have the 'freedom' to do almost anything in life. And what 'freedoms' have you lost? Well, there's more taxation. And you have to…

> And you have to sell your car to a Black man if he wants to buy it from you. Never thought about this before: Suppose I’m Black, respond to a Craigslist ad for a $10k car for sale by owner, and am refused for my skin color. What law do I or the state prosecute the seller under? Most of the anti-discrimination laws I know of apply to companies, usually companies with more than N employees.

Probably more relevant to dealerships

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#367

Post by alpha_squared » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 6:09 PM UTC

bilbo0s wrote: post #295

verisimi wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very hard conversation to have on HN. It is impossible to consider that the whole of society has been created and planned in advance. To think that the upper classes manage everyone (they always did), that the schooling system produces people that are incapable of seeing the outside the box (and yet believe that they are free, nay - they 'know' it), that finance is the main weapon in the wealth extraction,…

Not that I disagree with the underlying ideas, but I'd argue we're not slaves. I'll concede that in practice we can definitely be thought something more akin to peasants, but what we live in today is not slavery. Now, is being a peasant, with all the concomitant limitations on one's livelihood any better than being a slave to the mental health of the bright and ambitious? Perhaps not, but it would be significantly mo…

> I also understand that reasonable people can debate whether physical or mental health is more important.

I'm actually unsure what this means. I take it to imnply that physical health is more important, but I'm not convinced of that. Physical health impacts the individual and loved ones (via emotional labor and support). Mental health impacts the community (mass shootings); it's hard to predict the outcome of poor mental health per individual but it's clear on the whole that it's often the community that pays for it.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#368

Post by 2Xheadpalm » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 6:11 PM UTC

godshatter wrote: post #305

verisimi wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very hard conversation to have on HN. It is impossible to consider that the whole of society has been created and planned in advance. To think that the upper classes manage everyone (they always did), that the schooling system produces people that are incapable of seeing the outside the box (and yet believe that they are free, nay - they 'know' it), that finance is the main weapon in the wealth extraction,…

Yes. Those that have the power to trick others into giving them even more power have little restraining them from doing so. It's also complicated by the fact that those who push against it haven't exactly made a name for themselves as reasonable people (at least the most vocal ones haven't) leading to derision of "freedumbs" and so forth. I mourn the dearth of different perspectives and not assuming everyone is on a…

'power to trick' - that hit the nail on the head! The oligarchs, higher level bureaucrats, politicians, extreme wealthy etc. that is the superpower, at their core, they are magicians but not in a good, fun way, more like con-man who have mastered the power to _trick_ and deceive. I came to the conclusion sometime ago, that all these people of power and position are really just charlatans, albeit extremely good ones, they are nothing to aspire to and respect, they are no better then a grifter using 'slight of hand' and deception to remove as much wealth and power from others to themselves and when all else fails, they will resort to force/war if need be. In a nutshell, nothing but liars, cheats, cowards and dishonorable megalomaniacs that put on a (good) show for us peasants to better rob us blind.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#369

Post by rbanffy » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 6:14 PM UTC

sologoub wrote: post #236

idiotsecant wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>honestly, with remote work, seven hours a day seems about right. This is, with the most possible respect, a position of great privilege. Most people in the US are not remote workers that get to work 7 hours a day. They are expected to be physically present doing things like retail service work, manufacturing, healthcare, construction, etc. The average HN user is in a very specific demographic that has benefited enor…

> Most people in the US are not remote workers that get to work 7 hours a day. They are expected to be physically present doing things like retail service work, manufacturing, healthcare, construction, etc. This is not entirely accurate — as much as 69% of all full-time employees worked remotely during the pandemic: https://news.gallup.com/poll/355907/remote-work-persisting-t... While we certainly do have professions…

> Those who cannot should be rewarded for that and added enjoy benefits/guarantees to compensate.

This is more or less the opposite of what happens to these professionals - they are often those who are paid the least and work the longest hours under hourly contracts on multiple jobs (because, if they worked more in a single job, the company would have to give those benefits).

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#370

Post by selimthegrim » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 6:16 PM UTC

foobarbecue wrote: post #328

Fascinating. I guess about one third of his predictions were correct. Eye-opening moments for me: - "white countries" - "radial energy" - "the servant problem" - no smoke in the house, "perhaps not even tobacco" - "the child is likely to be taken over by the State" - His vision of a house filled with frequently replaced disposable surfaces - "king of Jugo-Slavia" [will still reign] - "the American race [will become h…

I wonder how he expected the American race to be homogeneous with segregation. He was probably implicitly meaning all the new European immigrants.