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Everything as a Service

curiositysink.substack.com

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Re: Everything as a Service

#21

Post by user3939382 »

skybrian wrote: post #19

This essay seems to be about having a vague dissatisfaction with relying on other people so much. If you go along with it, you're buying into an individualist philosophy that you should do more yourself, somehow. I'm wondering what a less individualist approach would be. Maybe it would emphasize joining or starting organizations more? Member organizations, created primarily for the benefit of their own membership, we…

Maybe smaller orgs are better for everyone in every way, except for what becomes possible with economies of scale (a team of 10 wouldn’t be making iPhones, as an extreme example). Even if that simple analysis were correct, it’s still hard to weigh.

Re: Everything as a Service

#22

Post by AlexandrB »

Barrin92 wrote: post #9

Michael Sandel's The Moral Limits of Markets is an good and very accessible book on this topic of civic virtues being turned into transactions. There's a case study in the book of economists asking Swiss citizens about their opinion on having a nuclear waste storage facility near their community. When people in the community were asked if they were okay with this, a small majority agreed. A common argument was that t…

> The transaction changes the entire nature of a process, turning activities that were about civic virtue into transactions about profit, degrading the entire thing.

Even worse, profit attracts bad actors like blood attracts sharks. In real life, you would soon have people "gaming the system" to get those incentives.

Re: Everything as a Service

#23

Post by quickthrower2 »

Barrin92 wrote: post #9

Michael Sandel's The Moral Limits of Markets is an good and very accessible book on this topic of civic virtues being turned into transactions. There's a case study in the book of economists asking Swiss citizens about their opinion on having a nuclear waste storage facility near their community. When people in the community were asked if they were okay with this, a small majority agreed. A common argument was that t…

Ill help someone for free but not for $10/h

Re: Everything as a Service

#24

Post by nicbou »

Barrin92 wrote: post #9

Michael Sandel's The Moral Limits of Markets is an good and very accessible book on this topic of civic virtues being turned into transactions. There's a case study in the book of economists asking Swiss citizens about their opinion on having a nuclear waste storage facility near their community. When people in the community were asked if they were okay with this, a small majority agreed. A common argument was that t…

A similar passage in Freakonomics showed how fining parents for picking up their kids late made the problem worse. Paying the fine "excused" the behaviour.

Re: Everything as a Service

#25

Post by joenot443 »

SQueeeeeL wrote: post #2

It's always so strange to see one of these articles that endlessly seeks to philosophize modern political/economic circumstances but never directly reference labor theory/the alienation of man from his labor. I wonder if people are simply unaware of the large existing body of work on these issues or are just trying to use "politically neutral" language to describe the explicitly radical study on our existing structur…

One man’s explanation of human behavior isn’t an objective reading of reality, that’s why it’s known as a theory. It’s possible other people, like me, are very familiar with Marxist theory and choose to reject it on a variety of grounds. Referencing one philosopher and noting that it’s strange others don’t agree with them is sort of funny - one could bring up Kant or Martin Luther or Rand or any other influential thinker using the exact same framing.

Re: Everything as a Service

#26

Post by joenot443 »

impeplague wrote: post #15
seneca wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's strange at all. After the fall of the USSR and the revelations of its horrors all but the most radical in the west came to consider Marxism as a dead letter philosophy. One ought to believe what they believe to be right, even if it is radical, but you shouldn't be shocked when others don't join in your radicalism with you.

While I understand why someone may think that (just because Marx is important on both topics), they are not much related at all. The Capital is something on it's own, and Marx has the best explanation about capitalism so far.

It’s hard to separate Marxism from the USSR in the same way it’s difficult to separate facism from Nazi Germany, I think. I don’t see how one can reasonably separate a predominant ideology from the empire that popularized it.

Re: Everything as a Service

#27

Post by dragonwriter »

joenot443 wrote: post #26
impeplague wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I understand why someone may think that (just because Marx is important on both topics), they are not much related at all. The Capital is something on it's own, and Marx has the best explanation about capitalism so far.

It’s hard to separate Marxism from the USSR in the same way it’s difficult to separate facism from Nazi Germany, I think. I don’t see how one can reasonably separate a predominant ideology from the empire that popularized it.

> It’s hard to separate Marxism from the USSR

That makes more sense if you are talking about Leninism than Marxism (yes, I know Leninism markets itself as Marxism-Leninism, but, its quite easily to distinguish Leninism from non-Leninist Marxism.

> in the same way it’s difficult to separate facism from Nazi Germany

I mean, Naziism is a lot closer to the original Fascism (that of Mussolini’s Italy) than thr USSR is to original Marxism, but it is still pretty easy to distinguish the features of either fascism in the broad sense or Italian Fascism in the narrow sense from the distinct features of German Naziism.

> I don’t see how one can reasonably separate a predominant ideology from the empire that popularized it.

Marxism was a significant global force about which regimes were concerned well before Lenin made a radical alteration to make it seem relevant to societies that had not yet acheived well-developed capitalism.

Re: Everything as a Service

#28

Post by abigail95 »

nicbou wrote: post #24
Barrin92 wrote: post #9

Michael Sandel's The Moral Limits of Markets is an good and very accessible book on this topic of civic virtues being turned into transactions. There's a case study in the book of economists asking Swiss citizens about their opinion on having a nuclear waste storage facility near their community. When people in the community were asked if they were okay with this, a small majority agreed. A common argument was that t…

A similar passage in Freakonomics showed how fining parents for picking up their kids late made the problem worse. Paying the fine "excused" the behaviour.

That's because they limited the downside.

If I continue being late without any consequence eventually there will be some consequence to me, with a lot of uncertainty from a mild talking to, to being banned from the daycare.

What's the difference between a sign that says "No Parking" and "No Parking ($200 fine)"?. The second sign isn't excusing bad behavior - it's limiting the likely punishment to an infraction, rather than being towed or misdemeanor trespass.

Re: Everything as a Service

#29

Post by alexvoda »

abigail95 wrote: post #28
nicbou wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A similar passage in Freakonomics showed how fining parents for picking up their kids late made the problem worse. Paying the fine "excused" the behaviour.

That's because they limited the downside. If I continue being late without any consequence eventually there will be some consequence to me, with a lot of uncertainty from a mild talking to, to being banned from the daycare. What's the difference between a sign that says "No Parking" and "No Parking ($200 fine)"?. The second sign isn't excusing bad behavior - it's limiting the likely punishment to an infraction, rathe…

This looks like a problem of scaling. The punishment should scale with repeat offenses in order to both provide clear consequences and to prevent a cost of business attitude.

Re: Everything as a Service

#30

Post by vorpalhex »

yellowapple wrote: post #20
vorpalhex wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Labor theory is an insufficient and poorly evidenced claim that does not align with reality.

That's the case for pretty much all theories attempting to model something as famously nebulous and poorly-defined as human society. In light of that limitation, labor theory provides one of the less-wildly-inaccurate models; the issues with it are more around people claiming to champion it while simultaneously imagining themselves as part of some privileged intelligentsia, the very existence of which is indistinguis…

Labor theory posits that the capital value of an item is the sum of all labor to produce that item.

That is wrong. See many goods sold above or below direct labor costs, eg silk.

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