The Last Days of Tokyo’s Nakagin Capsule Tower • Hacker News Board

Re: The Last Days of Tokyo’s Nakagin Capsule Tower

#111

Post by mahogany » Sat, May 29, 2021, 4:31 PM UTC

eru wrote: post #109

mahogany wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be pedantic, a reduction in poverty is not the same as a reduction in inequality. Your example of India and China seems to be pointing to the former. Also, from a US-centric point of view, it seems to me that economic inequality has gotten worse since the 70s, or at least the 80s. See for example: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-... or https://academic.oup.com/cje/article-abstract/37/4/…

> To be pedantic, a reduction in poverty is not the same as a reduction in inequality. Your example of India and China seems to be pointing to the former. No, I meant that not only has absolute poverty declined, global (!) inequality has also declined. There is now more inequality inside of China then there was when everyone was really poor in Mao's time. Yes. Hence the emphasis on global: the vast mass of Chinese pe…

> No, I meant that not only has absolute poverty declined, global (!) inequality has also declined.

Sure, that's true. The pedanticism was pointing out that your second sentence was a non-sequitur. Starving and smartphones are about poverty, not necessarily inequality.

> (American) wage stagnation is a myth mostly produced by being sloppy with inflation adjustment.

Obviously it's more nuanced and complicated than this, but even if I grant you that wage stagnation is a myth, what about the other (majority) parts of what I said and cited? Would you argue that economic inequality has decreased in US over the past few decades?

Re: The Last Days of Tokyo’s Nakagin Capsule Tower

#112

Post by TeMPOraL » Sat, May 29, 2021, 5:56 PM UTC

eru wrote: post #75

TeMPOraL wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, though this and electric cars both required a single man with combination of wealth, charisma and ability to think beyond their own wallet - which is a very rare set of characteristics to coincide in a single person - who then could drag the market kicking and screaming into accepting EVs and reusable rockets. Unfortunately, depending on such happenstance doesn't scale, so it's not a reliable way of creating a b…

> Yes, though this and electric cars both required a single man with combination of wealth, charisma and ability to think beyond their own wallet [...] Elon Musk became the richest African-American in the process. I don't think he needed to think beyond his own wallet? (He might have or not. I don't know what he's thinking.)

It's always possible. There may even be a strong base rate for this assumption, given what just about every other company does. But on the other hand, he is still consistently chasing the goals he outlined over a decade ago - the object-level, world improvement, not money-making goals.

Take a look at SpaceX. It has achieved success, it could double down on its existing work and earn great profits for many years to come. But instead, it's still pushing for Mars, following Elon's original plan. Never deviating, never compromising. Only slipping schedules and changing execution details[0]. They don't have to. He doesn't have to care either, he's already famous and filthy rich. And yet they keep pushing for Mars. So either Elon is that good of a conman, capable of maintaining this charade for so long, or... maybe he's just being honest.

--

[0] - Which is normal for every company, and arguably every white-collar worker. For some reason, Musk gets badmouthed by plenty of software devs here over slipping a deadline on unprecedented feats of engineering - same developers who don't think twice about all the promises they break at their own workplace.

Re: The Last Days of Tokyo’s Nakagin Capsule Tower

#113

Post by [deleted] » Sat, May 29, 2021, 7:59 PM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #87

ekianjo wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh you had smartphones and the web in the 70s ?

They would've indeed been outright sci-fi with a time set for few centuries in the future. Now we have them, and don't much give a damn how sci-fi the semi industry became. Concordes on other sides were a cult icon even when they were flying. People were saving money to "fly on a Concorde once in a lifetime"

[deleted]

Re: The Last Days of Tokyo’s Nakagin Capsule Tower

#114

Post by ekianjo » Sun, May 30, 2021, 12:11 AM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #87

ekianjo wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh you had smartphones and the web in the 70s ?

They would've indeed been outright sci-fi with a time set for few centuries in the future. Now we have them, and don't much give a damn how sci-fi the semi industry became. Concordes on other sides were a cult icon even when they were flying. People were saving money to "fly on a Concorde once in a lifetime"

Concordes lost to first class and business class which were massively better in terms of comfort. Flying Concorde was like sitting in Economy.

Re: The Last Days of Tokyo’s Nakagin Capsule Tower

#115

Post by eru » Mon, May 31, 2021, 3:35 AM UTC

mahogany wrote: post #111

eru wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To be pedantic, a reduction in poverty is not the same as a reduction in inequality. Your example of India and China seems to be pointing to the former. No, I meant that not only has absolute poverty declined, global (!) inequality has also declined. There is now more inequality inside of China then there was when everyone was really poor in Mao's time. Yes. Hence the emphasis on global: the vast mass of Chinese pe…

> No, I meant that not only has absolute poverty declined, global (!) inequality has also declined. Sure, that's true. The pedanticism was pointing out that your second sentence was a non-sequitur. Starving and smartphones are about poverty, not necessarily inequality. > (American) wage stagnation is a myth mostly produced by being sloppy with inflation adjustment. Obviously it's more nuanced and complicated than thi…

> The pedanticism was pointing out that your second sentence was a non-sequitur. Starving and smartphones are about poverty, not necessarily inequality.

I don't know how inequality came into the discussion?

The original point I commented didn't mention anything about equality, did it? "But many people also live in a far more precarious economy [...]" sounds like a complaint about poverty, not at all about inequality?

> Would you argue that economic inequality has decreased in US over the past few decades?

I don't live in the US, and don't care too much about that country. Even its poorest inhabitants are already rich and well off by global standards and are offered opportunities many can only dream off.

From what I absorbed over the Internet, it seems the answer to the US specific question depends a lot on exactly how you operationalize it:

The Gini coefficient is one common way to measure income inequality. It seems to have gone up slightly. See eg https://www.statista.com/statistics/219643/gini-coefficient-...

I (and many economists) prefer measures of consumption (in)equality, because people don't eat money. Presumably income is only a means to the the end of consumption.

See eg https://economics21.org/html/when-it-comes-inequality-consum... for that perspective. (It's just one of the first Google results for 'consumption inequality'.)

Though to be honest, I suggest we should care much more about the absolute welfare of poor people than about whether rich people have slightly more than they did yesterday (ie inequality).