321–330 of 387 posts
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I’ve gotten two separate responses reaffirming the very same “strawmen”, so I guess the cliches exist? In my opinion it’s even more disrespectful to pretend that a simple counter argument doesn’t exist, and keep doubling down on the cliche. Just that ignorance is not an excuse anymore. We have knowledge conveniently available.
Make the argument yourself, directly, in your own words or GTFO.
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I don’t think that’s true anymore. You can ask for weak points of a position (e.g. that luxury spending is good for the economy) and they will give you a reasonable answer. You could do the opposite - what are the weak points of the position that accumulation of wealth leads to waste and see what are the weak points there. And then think which position can be dismantled more easily and is therefore less well founded.…
If you had ten million dollars, what would you spend it on?
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You mean 1.075M? The house was the bulk of it. But that’s the point. A private individual will use his economic power on vanity spending and it won’t materialize into anything efficient or useful.
OK - what is the mechanism by which you believe this private individual’s $1.075M should be turned into a public internet cafe?
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This is an underrated property of wealth accumulation: beyond a certain point money doesn’t cover useful things, but vanity projects, and is being wasted. The typical cliches in this subject are that nobody can decide what’s worthwhile or not so we have to let the people with accumulation decide and that it stimulates the economy, no matter what kind of spending it is. Claude can point out the flaws in those argument…
Yeah, I don't think building a house dedicated to LAN parties is a waste of money at all: it provides a substantial benefit for those that get to use it!
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Ahh yes. The old "because they were within 10 feet of evil, they are evil." He didn't single-handedly stop Google, so he's guilty of perpetrating the evil himself, right? Go on, next you'll tell me about how your hands are clean. You've never so much as touched a product that made someone's life worse.
If you work at the orphan killing factory and your job is just to mop up the blood (you would never hurt kids) that makes you innocent right?
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Cribs was at its best when it was some newly rich musician living in a boring suburban neighborhood and they had basically nothing in their house except some weird piece of art that cost 300k.
There was an episode where one American rapper bragged he never wears the same socks twice. He unpacks every day a pair of brand new white socks. I have no bloody idea why this carved into my memory.
FWIW he justifies it further here: part of his job, as he saw it, was to show up in public looking like a guy who could afford brand new clothes whenever he was seen, and he had a public appearance of some kind every day. The interviewer also mentions at the start that it came up in his episode of Cribs, so I'm pretty sure that's the one you're thinking of. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEQvb6hCtog
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OK - what is the mechanism by which you believe this private individual’s $1.075M should be turned into a public internet cafe?
Why would I need to believe in some mechanisms? What are you on about?
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Ahh yes. The old "because they were within 10 feet of evil, they are evil." He didn't single-handedly stop Google, so he's guilty of perpetrating the evil himself, right? Go on, next you'll tell me about how your hands are clean. You've never so much as touched a product that made someone's life worse.
Being complicit in feeding a malicious whale is often just as bad as being the malicious whale. When 1000 people all thing "I'm not doing that many objectively bad things at this company," that's 1000 workers under 1 tiny group's control deciding the destinies and "luck" of millions. It's obfuscation of power and responsibility, and I think people "in tech" need to realize this and accept it more than they do right n…
While we may say the cowardly bystander has less moral character than the one who would risk their life to attempt to stop the murder, surely you cannot mean the witness is as guilty of judgement as the murderer? You cannot mean they deserve the same sentence.
I will, for the sake of my own sanity, assume you mean that the witness is a coward. You are indicting their moral character. There is a degree of self-sacrifice that you might personally find more or less agreeable in a man. Fine.
But merely witnessing the murder is not complicity, just as merely working at Google is not complicity. Whether society is "ok" with the cowardly bystander not preventing murder is not, in my eyes, what this discussion is about.
What next? Will we compel all men to live to our standard?
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Ahh yes. The old "because they were within 10 feet of evil, they are evil." He didn't single-handedly stop Google, so he's guilty of perpetrating the evil himself, right? Go on, next you'll tell me about how your hands are clean. You've never so much as touched a product that made someone's life worse.
He didn't have to stop Google from doing evil, but he could've refused to have his fortune coming from there. > Go on, next you'll tell me about how your hands are clean. They are as clean as they can be , which is a lot more that can be said from anyone who works at any FAANG (or Wall Street, or Big Oil...) No one has been forced to work for Big Tech. No one ever said "I only took those $300k/year salary with those…
Indeed, which is to say not clean at all.
"Only slightly dirty" and "much dirtier than mine" are fine judgements to console yourself of your involvement, but if you intend to indict a man, you'll need much stricter standards than this.
To be completely clear: I agree with your moral assessment. I too would not work for Facebook due to my moral qualms with the company. However, it is a terribly dangerous game to begin judging a man's choices when you know nothing about him.
Before long you'll convince yourself that you're the only decent man around and the rest are less-than-human.
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Why would I need to believe in some mechanisms? What are you on about?
You seem to be suggesting that there's a problem with private individuals spending their money as they see fit because that leads to what you see as wasteful vanity projects. So I'm asking how you think the world should change to compel these individuals to spend on things you believe are more efficient and less wasteful? I would point out that spending $1.075M on food for starving people probably scores more utilita…
I don’t need to design any world changes to go with that. So your line of inquiry makes it seem like you’re fighting some phantoms or replicating debate strategies that you’ve observed. That’s unnecessary. The statement still holds up.
The only objection you can make is the silly one: actually it’s not up to me to decide what’s misguided, it’s up to those people who have the means. Or you can say doing useless crap is actually good which is not even a valid objection in my book.