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

After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

theanarchistlibrary.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 253 posts

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#121

Post by polynomial »

jdub wrote: post #33
sam_lowry_ wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one on debt or on bullshit jobs? From what I know, the book on debt is indeed quite influential in financial circles, although I find that a third of its content are entertaining passages on tribal societies. And the bullshit jobs book is a reiteration of the earlier essay. While the essay is concise and straight to the point, the book has dubious assumptions and generalisations that are there for attention-grabb…

Please do not suggest that one of the greatest minds of our era should have adopted the writing style of one of the greatest nitwits of our era.

On what basis are you calling pg a nitwit? What has he actually done to merit such a slight?

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#122

Post by iammisc »

dbingham wrote: post #113
qsort wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did you expect a new country wise economic model to be purposed in this article? No, I didn't, but I'm frankly growing tired of cookie-cutter article like this one that just enumerate problems that have existed since the literal dawn of civilization. The entire "economy bad" brigade is, as parent comment puts it, "r/im14andthisisdeep". They see problems everyone else sees, but they don't have any actual insight, ju…

There are quite a number of solutions on offer - they just have a difficult time gaining traction in our media (and therefor in the public debate). Part of that has to do with the fact that a majority of those with economic and political power - those who have succeeded in the current system - still refuse to recognize that the problems are systematic. They refuse to recognize that the problems are intrinsically caus…

> still refuse to recognize that the problems are systematic

I think you're reading into other's worldviews too much. Most people likely agree it's systemic. Many would not be convinced by the proposed solutions, because they do not think they would improve the situation. Moreover, large numbers of people do not think the situation can be improved, that this is just the natural state of the world (for which they have thousands of years of evidence to point to).

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#123

Post by halo-and-talon »

dwater wrote: post #95
uselesscynicism wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reality creates scarcity. The "current system" produces a modern society with so much abundance that people like you have forgotten that scarcity of everything is the natural state and the "system" is responsible for artificial ABUNDANCE, not scarcity. Yes, there are edge cases like intellectual property but "no economy please" is the kind of thing someone who is completely ignorant to the nature of reality would say…

Can you explain what you mean by "the natural state"? Your argument assumes an understanding of what that is, but the picture I have in my mind when I read that phrase is not scarcity of everything.

Imagine waking up in a forest with your tribe. One of your cousins has an infected foot after stepping on a branch a few days before and it is known that he will soon die in agony. Everyone is hungry and there is nothing to eat, so you prepare hunting and foraging parties and hope that you will find food before starving to death.

That's the default state.

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#124

Post by dgfitz »

kkjjkgjjgg wrote: post #102
c54 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Common misconception, examples are the 40hr work week and banning of payment in scrip in the 1800s. Another example is that monopolies require legislation or they have the effect of “seizing up” the dynamics of a functioning marketplace and turning toxic. Semiconductor patents being made public and telecom copper being made open to use by other companies are both pretty well understood examples of legislation that he…

What do you mean by the 40h work week as an example? Example for what? It was an idea by Ford, but I guess then the unions jumped on it? Who is forcing you to work 40h? I personally don't do that. You are free to negotiate your own contracts.

> Who is forcing you to work 40h? I personally don't do that. You are free to negotiate your own contracts.

This is such a privileged and arrogant stance to take. The VAST majority of people are NOT free to negotiate.

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#125

Post by mostertoaster »

> just a way of tabulating the aggregate desires of rich people, most of whom are at least slightly pathological,

He lost me here. Guy is just a communist hoping for another Bolshevik Revolution.

Maybe it is true of the uber rich, but the majority of millionaires are just normal people who saved, started a business, and just invested.

If I was to judge someone character strictly off their economic status, you’re likely to find on average that the average rich man is a more moral productive member of society than the average poor one.

If he was talking about the bureaucrats way of getting rich by accepting bribes and funneling taxes to their pockets he might have had me. As it is his ideas would just make it worse.

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#126

Post by netizen-936824 »

cto_of_antifa wrote: post #55
netizen-936824 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comment seems to forget that humans are naturally fearful, its not some conspiracy. Just human nature

Citation needed. Plus, even if it is natural, that's not an argument about it being a good thing

I never said if it was beneficial or not, just that its not some huge conspiracy

My citation is intro to psych textbooks

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#128

Post by iammisc »

vinceguidry wrote: post #99
mym1990 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first sentence is absolutely wrong and your second sentence is absolutely absurd. If you want to have a real conversation, maybe keep out the latest thing you watched on Netflix as a source of your bias. Global living conditions across multiple facets have DRAMATICALLY improved in the last 200 years. No, I am not talking about the last 10 or 20 years, I mean over many generations: https://ourworldindata.org/a-hi…

You can look at numbers on reports, or you can go and actually look at some of these run-down areas. It's actually kinda hard to do, my eyes were opened one day when I was trying to get from point A to point B in Colombia and I took a shared cab some 400 miles. Seeing it in person is way different than looking at pictures online, lemme tell you. It hits you that it's not just that part of rural Colombia that looks li…

> The world isn't much different now than the one that caused the Buddha to leave his princely lifestyle and dedicate his life to teaching and spirituality. Those material gains over the last 200 years, sorry they just don't seem all that germane.

In my experience, the people who are typically 'shocked' by this destitution are people who have lived extremely privileged lives, believe this is the default state of the world, and then see this destitution, and are so moved, that they dedicate their lives to eradicating it, while often misidentifying the cause.

Buddha is the archetypical version of this narrative, and it's no wonder -- as a rich prince, he had no idea what the world was really like.

In reality, most of the problems you see in rural areas all around the world are human-caused problems, typically where humans are interfering with individual freedom (civil and economic).

> It hits you that it's not just that part of rural Colombia that looks like that, rural everywhere does.

Except it doesn't. My parents live used to live in rural America and it was quite nice. My brother lives in the countryside and it's also quite nice. It's no less destitute than the area of Portland I live in. Have you ever been to a city? It's not like they're some model of refinement.

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#129

Post by dbingham »

iammisc wrote: post #122
dbingham wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are quite a number of solutions on offer - they just have a difficult time gaining traction in our media (and therefor in the public debate). Part of that has to do with the fact that a majority of those with economic and political power - those who have succeeded in the current system - still refuse to recognize that the problems are systematic. They refuse to recognize that the problems are intrinsically caus…

> still refuse to recognize that the problems are systematic I think you're reading into other's worldviews too much. Most people likely agree it's systemic. Many would not be convinced by the proposed solutions, because they do not think they would improve the situation. Moreover, large numbers of people do not think the situation can be improved, that this is just the natural state of the world (for which they have…

They don't have thousands of years of evidence. The modern economic system has only existed about 200 years. It's precursor was around a couple hundred years before that. Prior to that, the economic system looked very different. And there was a wide range of economic systems prior to that.

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#130

Post by vinceguidry »

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #120
vinceguidry wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can look at numbers on reports, or you can go and actually look at some of these run-down areas. It's actually kinda hard to do, my eyes were opened one day when I was trying to get from point A to point B in Colombia and I took a shared cab some 400 miles. Seeing it in person is way different than looking at pictures online, lemme tell you. It hits you that it's not just that part of rural Colombia that looks li…

Wait, is your argument really to ignore the data and go with your gut? Wow, in the past 200 years, we've seen the eradication of smallpox, treatment for Tuberculosis, vaccines for pneumonia, all issues plaguing humanity for pretty much all of recorded history. A rural farmer in Nigeria can access price data in real time using a cell phone, while democracy in India allows dozens of politicians from every state argue o…

The world is a better place... For those best positioned to take advantage. Those who aren't, can go work in Amazon warehouses.
Post reply on HN