Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Inequality in Equalland

daemonology.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 139 posts

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#101

Post by loewenskind »

maeon3 wrote: post #6

I would like to live in Equal-land, I could live there, slouch around, work the absolute minimum and avoid work, and enjoy exactly the same benefits as those working the hardest to maintain that utopia.

That's pretty short term and pessimistic thinking. If you no longer had the burden of providing for yourself and your family would you seriously not do anything productive? Do you seriously not have any projects or things you would love to work on but never will because you can't easily get paid to do so?

Further, capitalism can't possibly be the solution to every problem. For example, capitalism will probably never take us "to the stars". There isn't enough money in it to cover such a massive expense. But yet, going to the stars is the only possible way to defend against the thread of a "planet killer" meteor/asteroid. The only time there would be money in it is when we knew such an event was imminent but by then it would be too late.

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#103

Post by barry-cotter »

Teckla wrote: post #93
yummyfajitas wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not necessary in the US or most other industrialized nations - our bottom x% tends to eat too much, not to little.

The poor don't eat too much compared to the middle class and the wealthy. The poor eat the wrong kinds of foods, because the wrong kinds of food are inexpensive.

The poor eat the wrong kinds of foods, because the wrong kinds of food are inexpensive.

Convenient dominates inexpensive. Frozen vegetables fried in a wok with butter and assorted spices is easy, fast and cheap, but not as easy as pizza goes in oven.

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#104

Post by loewenskind »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #58
gnosis wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Everyone agrees that some wealth disparity is a good and necessary part of a healthy economy." Nope.

So you think a high-school dropout who spends his days playing Black Ops should have the same wealth as a trained surgeon who saves lives in the ER? No thanks. That idea is brain dead.

Maybe that high school dropout is wasting his life away because he sees no means of being successful.

I think you'll find that most people who prefer to stay at home and mooch off the system do so because to make their life just slightly better would require them to seriously bust their asses. That means their effective compensation would be very low (maybe zero or even negative in some cases).

We have and have had societies in the past where everyone got equal compensation. Do you think those societies allowed loafers to goof off all day and contribute nothing?

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#105

Post by kiba »

loewenskind wrote: post #101
maeon3 wrote: post #6

I would like to live in Equal-land, I could live there, slouch around, work the absolute minimum and avoid work, and enjoy exactly the same benefits as those working the hardest to maintain that utopia.

That's pretty short term and pessimistic thinking. If you no longer had the burden of providing for yourself and your family would you seriously not do anything productive? Do you seriously not have any projects or things you would love to work on but never will because you can't easily get paid to do so? Further, capitalism can't possibly be the solution to every problem. For example, capitalism will probably never…

Super-rich people interested in space exploration? Ordinary people donating money for space exploration?

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#106

Post by yummyfajitas »

Teckla wrote: post #93
yummyfajitas wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not necessary in the US or most other industrialized nations - our bottom x% tends to eat too much, not to little.

The poor don't eat too much compared to the middle class and the wealthy. The poor eat the wrong kinds of foods, because the wrong kinds of food are inexpensive.

If you are fat, you eat too much food. You have more than enough to eat. The situation described by monos, "the lowest x% don't have enough to eat", does not apply. His advice to "share the cake" will only make the real problem (the bottom x% already eats too much cake) worse.

Also, price is not the controlling factor here. 3500 cals of crap might be the same price as 2250 cals of nutritious food, but so what? If you were optimizing for cost, you would eat 2250 cals of crap, not 3500. If you have the money to be fat while eating crap, you also have the money to maintain a healthy weight on nutritious food.

If you can can buy a Big Mac, you can also buy a Premium Southwest Salad ( http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/food/full_menu/salads/premium... ).

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#107

Post by yummyfajitas »

loewenskind wrote: post #95
axod wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Do you think that success should also be uniformly distributed amongst the entire population? I'd say reward people who are successful. The fact is the majority of people aren't successful or really very useful to society. The top 1% of society do most of the work, so they get most of the reward. That's pretty fair IMHO. Human motivation requires that success be rewarded. If there is no success, or "success equa…

Good lord, how did a post like that get an upvote? It's ignorant well beyond the point of normally being considered a troll post. >The fact is the majority of people aren't successful or really very useful to society. That's an insanely arrogant thing to say, not to mention complete garbage. The only reason we even have a society at all is because of that majority you dismiss. They are the ones who spend the money, d…

They are the ones who spend the money,...

Consumption isn't useful to society. Society is useful in that it makes consumption possible, but that's not the same thing.

How do you define "work"? Obviously not manual labor.

I imagine he meant production, rather than work. A developer (potentially earning $200k/year) who builds an application can be hundreds or thousands of times more productive than a secretary (potentially earning $20k/year). The same applies to a manager who streamlines a production process, a consultant who outsources labor to where it is cheaper, or any number of other similar jobs.

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#108

Post by loewenskind »

kiba wrote: post #105
loewenskind wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty short term and pessimistic thinking. If you no longer had the burden of providing for yourself and your family would you seriously not do anything productive? Do you seriously not have any projects or things you would love to work on but never will because you can't easily get paid to do so? Further, capitalism can't possibly be the solution to every problem. For example, capitalism will probably never…

Super-rich people interested in space exploration? Ordinary people donating money for space exploration?

Neither of these are examples of capitalism.

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#109

Post by [deleted] »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #107
loewenskind wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good lord, how did a post like that get an upvote? It's ignorant well beyond the point of normally being considered a troll post. >The fact is the majority of people aren't successful or really very useful to society. That's an insanely arrogant thing to say, not to mention complete garbage. The only reason we even have a society at all is because of that majority you dismiss. They are the ones who spend the money, d…

They are the ones who spend the money,... Consumption isn't useful to society. Society is useful in that it makes consumption possible, but that's not the same thing. How do you define "work"? Obviously not manual labor. I imagine he meant production, rather than work. A developer (potentially earning $200k/year) who builds an application can be hundreds or thousands of times more productive than a secretary (potenti…

[deleted]

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#110

Post by loewenskind »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #107
loewenskind wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good lord, how did a post like that get an upvote? It's ignorant well beyond the point of normally being considered a troll post. >The fact is the majority of people aren't successful or really very useful to society. That's an insanely arrogant thing to say, not to mention complete garbage. The only reason we even have a society at all is because of that majority you dismiss. They are the ones who spend the money, d…

They are the ones who spend the money,... Consumption isn't useful to society. Society is useful in that it makes consumption possible, but that's not the same thing. How do you define "work"? Obviously not manual labor. I imagine he meant production, rather than work. A developer (potentially earning $200k/year) who builds an application can be hundreds or thousands of times more productive than a secretary (potenti…

>Consumption isn't useful to society.

That seems absurd on it's face. If there is no one to consumer what exactly are the producers selling?

>A developer (potentially earning $200k/year) who builds an application can be hundreds or thousands of times more productive than a secretary (potentially earning $20k/year).

Exactly. Surely you're not under the impression that programmers are in the top 1%? Maybe one or two of them but the post I commented on contended that the most productive people are the most wealthy. Nothing could be further from the truth.

>The same applies to a manager who streamlines a production process

If you find a CEO who actually does this (has to be CEO to break the top 1% who are apparently so much more productive than anyone else). I've seen many CEOs ruin things in my career and I've seen many be nearly irrelevant but I can only think of a couple of CEOs who actually made a huge and obvious difference to their company (e.g. Steve Jobs).

Post reply on HN