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

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

#131

Post by vinceguidry »

iammisc wrote: post #128
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…

> 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…

> 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).

This is exactly what I'm trying to say. Rent-seekers are keeping the world under their callous little thumbs, just like they have been for thousands of years. I think I'm done. HN hivemind, you can have your echo chamber back.

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

#132

Post by justupvoting »

dude187 wrote: post #105
vinceguidry wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 'vast majority of people' have not had their lives improved. They were, and still are, given a Squid Game-esque choice to either participate in a status-seeking game to destroy your health for someone else's comfort or exist in total squalor, dependent on other people who are destroying their health so that you can exist on the crumbs they throw your way. Capitalism seems more or less benign in affluent nations w…

Capitalism has greatly increased the quality of life across the board

Spoken like a religious tenet, detached from everything interesting.

Which board? What implementation of capitalism? You don't pretend that the States are running a free market or anything absurd like that, do you? The States have a Crony system at best.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for capitalism. I think humans are a rotten animal at heart and capitalism is the only way to effectively harness that bad nature for good results. But like any technical system, the implementation matters, and the implementation in the States in the last 50 years has been dreadfully short-sighted.

We have gradually whittled away at every collectively positive subsystem for generations now and are left with an inordinate number of miserable people whose day to day life would show up as, 'improved' on the Pinker style charts & graphs.

The subjective is the core of wellbeing.

Objective reality matters, certainly. But all the more so when you apply nuance to your reading of it.

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

#133

Post by mostertoaster »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #62
soared wrote: post #39

Meh. I’ve seen a lot of these short essays about how after the pandemic we either should not or simply will not return to the status quo. It doesn’t really do anything to say “the economy doesn’t work” in 5 paragraphs and then say nothing else. Yes, lots of poor people are getting screwed. Some jobs don’t pay well despite the higher moral standing of directly assisting others. The environment looks pretty bad. But yo…

Did you expect a new country wise economic model to be purposed in this article? I believe the author was trying to say, "Poor people are getting screwed, some jobs dont pay well, the environment is bad, lets do something and not forget it." It is a solution? No. I don't think it is trying to be though. It's just trying to be a reminder that letting everything go back to the way it was is the easiest route forward an…

Yeah it kind of reminds me of why I thought Bernie Sanders was once a useful voice. He was willing to point out realities that most political elites wanted to keep hidden.

His solutions though are crap, and he has profited greatly off the misfortune of the poor.

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

#134

Post by eli_gottlieb »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #62
soared wrote: post #39

Meh. I’ve seen a lot of these short essays about how after the pandemic we either should not or simply will not return to the status quo. It doesn’t really do anything to say “the economy doesn’t work” in 5 paragraphs and then say nothing else. Yes, lots of poor people are getting screwed. Some jobs don’t pay well despite the higher moral standing of directly assisting others. The environment looks pretty bad. But yo…

Did you expect a new country wise economic model to be purposed in this article? I believe the author was trying to say, "Poor people are getting screwed, some jobs dont pay well, the environment is bad, lets do something and not forget it." It is a solution? No. I don't think it is trying to be though. It's just trying to be a reminder that letting everything go back to the way it was is the easiest route forward an…

>Did you expect a new country wise economic model to be purposed in this article?

Well yeah.

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

#135

Post by iammisc »

vinceguidry wrote: post #131
iammisc wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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). This is exactly what I'm trying to say. Rent-seekers are keeping the world under their callous little thumbs, just like they have been for thousands of years. I think I'm done. HN hivemind, you can have your echo chamber back.

If you let humans freely exchange goods, and not interfere, you get capitalism. Capitalism is not a creed like marxism. Capitalism is Marx's term used to describe what happens when people can exchange goods freely.

If you're arguing that we should protect free markets in these areas, like Colombia (which would also include curtailing criminal cartels, which infringe on freedom), then sure, we can have a discussion.

If you're going to pretend that rural areas are sometimes impoverished because of 'muh evil capitalism' and that we need 'insert untried, or failed social policy here', then I don't see the point.

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

#136

Post by iammisc »

dbingham wrote: post #129
iammisc wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I wrote:

> that this is just the natural state of the world (for which they have thousands of years of evidence to point to).

You write:

> And there was a wide range of economic systems prior to that.

That is my point. every single one of those 'wide range of economic systems' (including the ones directly intended to produce equality) produced inequality.

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

#137

Post by nightski »

jdgoesmarching wrote: post #76
AlwaysRock wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you expect a new country wise economic model to be purposed in this article? I believe the author was trying to say, "Poor people are getting screwed, some jobs dont pay well, the environment is bad, lets do something and not forget it." It is a solution? No. I don't think it is trying to be though. It's just trying to be a reminder that letting everything go back to the way it was is the easiest route forward an…

Agreed. This article is pretty clear about its intent: don’t be lulled into a false sense of economic security after the pandemic and build this experience into our understanding of our system. The first step of any solution is convincing people there is a problem. Not just the obvious “things are bad,” but an understanding that these issues are systemic in a way that challenges American ideology. These articles frus…

This doesn't challenge assumptions of capitalism in any meaningful way. In fact my impression reading it was how the author seemed to fundamentally misunderstand finance. I'd love to hear thoughts on how it would be done differently, but he doesn't get that far and rather just makes shallow statements.

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

#138

Post by mostertoaster »

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…

Yeah this same thing you’re saying has been tried. Just newer words for the same thing.

Unless you mean it should be an entirely voluntary system? More likely you’re thinking like the Bolsheviks and you’ll cause 20 million people to stave with your ideas.

Remember Stalin was as evil as Hitler.

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

#139

Post by vinceguidry »

iammisc wrote: post #135
vinceguidry wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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). This is exactly what I'm trying to say. Rent-seekers are keeping the world under their callous little thumbs, just like they have been for thousands of years. I think I'm done. HN hivemind, you can have your echo chamber back.

If you let humans freely exchange goods, and not interfere, you get capitalism. Capitalism is not a creed like marxism. Capitalism is Marx's term used to describe what happens when people can exchange goods freely. If you're arguing that we should protect free markets in these areas, like Colombia (which would also include curtailing criminal cartels, which infringe on freedom), then sure, we can have a discussion. I…

Here's an idea, capitalism, without the rent-seeking. When someone wants to do something everyone knows is wrong, we don't let them. Instead of making excuses, we hold people with power and affluence to higher standards.

What a concept.

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

#140

Post by iammisc »

jeliotj wrote: post #69

The so called "dream work" of doing something for its own sake is the highest form of work, and the most human

Except few engage in this sort of work. If left to their own devices, most people would simply consume content produced by the 10-20% of people who would actually do anything useful.

This is my observation. People are so weirded out when I tell them all the stuff I want to do. Most people just laze if left to their own devices and provided food. People have this image of hunter gatherer tribes doing interesting things in their free time, but the data show that, unless they're hunting, gathering, cooking, or doing other biological imperatives, most of their time is spent lazing.

That's fine, but if your argument about not working is that humans are going to engage in 'dream work'... well I think that's just silly.

Ultimately, from what I've seen, people with this mentality, often end up becoming quite well off. Those who want to engage in 'dream work' often have the self-motivating spirit that almost inevitably leads to material success.

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