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Is everything an MLM

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Re: Is everything an MLM

#141

Post by SubiculumCode »

iheartpotatoes wrote: post #137
seibelj wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sorry that this is your world view, because it is deeply flawed and focusing on such cynicism leads to depression. Most of HN lives in a tech bubble where everyone is focused on building semi-useless software like you describe. However the majority of society still does “normal” things like construction, manufacturing, sales, etc. and some sort of fundamental reorganizing of society on non-market principles doesn…

"If I make more money there is not someone else losing." Actually, that's exactly how it works: we can't both own the same dollar. Duh.

No. But if both persons are productive then the Fed is more likely to inject another dollar or two into circulation.

Re: Is everything an MLM

#142

Post by kurthr »

seibelj wrote: post #68
bluetomcat wrote: post #53

Most of the economy in the so called "developed countries" is nowadays a zero-sum game between winners and losers. Seen from a macro perspective, it resembles a multi-agent system where independent agents compete to provide inessential products and services in exchange for being able to afford basic necessities like housing, food and child care. The finite resource that such companies are fighting for is people's att…

I’m sorry that this is your world view, because it is deeply flawed and focusing on such cynicism leads to depression. Most of HN lives in a tech bubble where everyone is focused on building semi-useless software like you describe. However the majority of society still does “normal” things like construction, manufacturing, sales, etc. and some sort of fundamental reorganizing of society on non-market principles doesn…

Having travelled a fair bit, I have to say that this sort of klepto-capitalism is much more common in western countries (esp Britain, Italy, US, even Mexico) than in still growing eastern countries (e.g. Korea, Japan, China, or even Germany and the Nordics) which seem to still care about their local populations.

The key seems to me is that the political-economic elite (and every society/country has them) in some of the more wealthy, but stagnant economies has decided that extracting money from the rest of their countrymen (including externalized costs) is more profitable (or higher utility) than trying to make productive economic growth. Basically, beggaring your neighbor pays better than a rising tide lifting all boats.

As a result, you still have countries/cultures that invest in education, infrastructure, manufacturing versus those who create influencers, renovate houses, and serve ads. I don't actually put most software/services (even search) in the second boat, because they actually help increase productivity. But don't argue that ad based social media, ad based reality TV, or MLM Yoga (and debt based post secondary educational child care) are more healthy for society than the lower profit businesses they replaced. Also, don't argue "picking winners and losers", because corrupt government officials (and captive regulators) are doing that in every country, but some of them seem to do a much better job of actually making things (and their people better off) for the last 30 years.

It seems to me to be a social thing... and maybe it just comes in waves as large groups of people become complacent and the elite just figure, "I've got mine". The poor and the workers pay for it, and eventually there's likely to be some fairly expensive social upheaval in the reckoning.

Off shoring your workers, exporting your IP for quarterly results, and keeping the kids ignorant consumers may make you a little money or keep costs low, and labor cheap, but only for a few decades. Eventually, you'll need to compete with those who have been investing.

Re: Is everything an MLM

#143

Post by orthecreedence »

p1esk wrote: post #125
seibelj wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative to letting the individual determine what they want is to let someone else choose for them. I’m arguing on fundamental principles because the parent commenter is advocating a reorganization of market-based economies. I don’t care how complex the system is. If you aren’t letting me, the individual, determine what is best for my life, then you are coming from a place of superiority and belief that you kn…

How can you be that naive? On the large scale, marketing (which includes paid for by industry, biased scientific studies) is what shapes people’s desires. Vast majority of people are perfectly happy with letting someone else choose for them, and even smart people fall for it. It has truly became a fundamental principle of our society.

Not only this, but the capitalists talk of economic free choice, but you can't just go "start a business"...you need capital. And you can be lucky enough to already have it, or you need to convince someone to give it to you. In essence, we're all either lucky, forced to beg for capital (ie, someone else making decisions for you, there goes "freedom"), forced to sell our labor for less than what it's worth, or live in a van. But, hey, we have 2000 different refrigeration options, yay...

On top of this, the commodification of basic essentials like housing constantly drives prices up to meet productivity levels. So, we're being more productive, but expenses are growing to match because, well, the invisible hand wants it that way, and who are we to argue?

Re: Is everything an MLM

#144

Post by coliveira »

jblow wrote: post #87
coliveira wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> It’s not on someone else to tell me what I should and should not want. Let me give you the news: companies have like..., forever, being in the business of telling others what they should want or not. This is called advertising. This is essentially what every company in the so called new economy, large or small, does to make money. In a modern capitalist economy, nobody cares about the needs of others. The goal is…

Try running a company this way and we’ll see how long it lasts.

Google is not doing bad...

Re: Is everything an MLM

#145

Post by throwawaytoday5 »

njepa wrote: post #122
rectang wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The alternative to letting the individual determine what they want is to let someone else choose for them. In real-world "free" markets, the poor have their choices made for them by the wealthy.

It is less "real-world markets" and just markets. Markets are one dollar one vote.

If one dollar equal one vote, you can't honestly say markets are free because by design they favor those with wealth and power.

There is nothing "free" about a system that favors the wealthy.

Re: Is everything an MLM

#146

Post by grawprog »

sverige wrote: post #135
grawprog wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost every job i've worked outside of tech is pretty much some non essential service or product. Right now I turn mountains into countertops and fireplaces using large, expensive machines so rich people can have stone inside their homes. I provide nothing that is essential, yet every day customers spend tens of thousands of dollars and my spends thousands so rich people can have nice shiny stone inside their homes.…

Why aren't you arguing directly that we should all live in soviet-style housing blocks? Concrete is good enough, right? Then we'd all be equal.

I'm not saying they're wrong to have them. I'm pointing out spending $20,000 on some piece of stone for you to prepare your food on is fairly non-essential.

Though again, they remove mountains for this, the shop produces a bunch of toxic, fish killing dust and sediment every day that's slowly killing me and my coworkers and destroying the planet.

But my main point was, the things I create every day are not essential. They are luxury items. Many of the other jobs i've had were also along the same line.

Not that they don't make people happy or improve their lives I suppose,(though the people that got soapstone in their kitchen recently are in for a some trouble the first time they drop something on it or spill something acidic on it.) But, in the end, it's definitely not essential and detrimental to the world as a whole in many ways.

Re: Is everything an MLM

#147

Post by aiisjustanif »

johnisgood wrote: post #51
soVeryTired wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess any sort of significant power imbalance. Does your team generate good revenue for the company but you still get paid peanuts? Does your work ask for overtime but fail to allow you to take time off when you need it? Do they ask for commitment to the job, while being prepared to terminate you at a moment's notice when time gets tough?

Yeah, but you get into that contract voluntarily , so you sort of know what you signed up for, and regardless, you have the option to quit. This is why I do not understand the complaints.

Sounds like it isn't the most sane option in a society where human needs are attached to a job.

The job provides health care and covers housing cost, and retirement pay. The job can short you and thus you look for a side hustle.

But people also look for a side hustle to move up to the higher side of where they are in the class scale, or find retirement safety.

Re: Is everything an MLM

#148

Post by klearvue »

coliveira wrote: post #82
DataWorker wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silliness. Why has the 40 hour week persisted? Market forces. Climate change? Market forces. The persistence of the slave trade? Market forces. Prostitution and human trafficking, opioids, disintegration of the family, Facebook; all your good friend “market forces”.

[flagged]

"Market forces" is just another way of saying "individual choices". Restricting individual choices has certainly been practised across a number of political and economic systems but there is always a question - who decides what to restrict?

Re: Is everything an MLM

#149

Post by petra »

sverige wrote: post #135
grawprog wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost every job i've worked outside of tech is pretty much some non essential service or product. Right now I turn mountains into countertops and fireplaces using large, expensive machines so rich people can have stone inside their homes. I provide nothing that is essential, yet every day customers spend tens of thousands of dollars and my spends thousands so rich people can have nice shiny stone inside their homes.…

Why aren't you arguing directly that we should all live in soviet-style housing blocks? Concrete is good enough, right? Then we'd all be equal.

soviet-style housing is a bit extreme.

But what's wrong with being equal ?

Re: Is everything an MLM

#150

Post by AnthonyMouse »

DataWorker wrote: post #64
jopsen wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...because market forces will mostly solve only small "consumer" problems and cannot reorganise our society in a more efficient way. Market forces have repeatedly reorganized our society from farms to factories and increasingly from factories to offices.. But we might need to tweak the incentives and refactor regulation.

Silliness. Why has the 40 hour week persisted? Market forces. Climate change? Market forces. The persistence of the slave trade? Market forces. Prostitution and human trafficking, opioids, disintegration of the family, Facebook; all your good friend “market forces”.

> Why has the 40 hour week persisted? Market forces.

Mostly zoning laws, burdensome regulations and government subsidies, really. If housing, education and healthcare still cost in real terms what they did in 1950 then people could afford to work 20 hours a week if they wanted to, but they're stuck working 40 hours because of government policies that cause price inflation and cost disease.

> Climate change? Market forces.

Markets require consent to operate. The victims of climate change didn't consent and should have every right to sue.

> The persistence of the slave trade? Market forces.

It was actually market forces that destroyed the slave trade. The rise of factories gave the slaves something much better to run away to, which made "slaves running away" a thing that happened so much more often that the entire system started to disintegrate. It's not a coincidence that the Civil War was between the industrialized North and the slave-owning South.

Also, slavery is obviously the epitome of not being a free market.

> Prostitution and human trafficking, opioids, disintegration of the family, Facebook; all your good friend “market forces”.

Prostitution is dangerous primarily because it's illegal.

Human trafficking is slavery again.

The opioid crisis is caused primarily by the War on Drugs and failed government policies that make it hard and expensive to seek medical treatment while causing black market drugs to have high but inconsistent potency and all the other issues.

Disintegration of the family is mostly a result of social assistance programs replacing the need for social ties with government programs.

Facebook is lame but it's also in decline. That is how the market is supposed to work -- things people hate fall out of favor.

You haven't chosen very good examples.

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