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Thomas Piketty: Clamping down with law and order will not be enough

piketty.blog.lemonde.fr

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Re: Thomas Piketty: Clamping down with law and order will not be enough

#151

Post by Albright »

Bud wrote: post #8
Albright wrote: post #2

Wow. Talk about "when all you have is a hammer."

You didn't address his argument at all. Just an ad hominem. Is that because you can't address it? Because his thesis seems quite reasonable to me. And historically, we certainly know that societies with extreme income inequality are less stable than those with more equality.

Piketty thinks ISIS arose because of income inequality. Greenie professors think ISIS arose because of global warming [1]. Isolationists think foreign interventionism gave rise to ISIS (see elsewhere in this subthread). ISIS themselves think they're following the teachings of their religion and would probably find all these other excuses that the West is trying to make for their existence rather silly.

1: https://archive.is/3cwgG

Re: Thomas Piketty: Clamping down with law and order will not be enough

#152

Post by _prototype_ »

benevol wrote: post #6

It's been clear for a very long time - what's needed is: Opportunities for creation of wealth, access to health care and specifically mental health care and lots of education. Next.

You know, I often ask myself when presented with your argument: How come we don't hear about suicide bombings or mass (targeted) killings against Paris/Europe, US or other western nations by the multitude of poor, highly uneducated peoples of various (christian) countries in Central or South America (or christian majority countries in Africa even). Sure they have killings and other bad things happen, but usually contained within the country.

I see Islam (I don't see a difference between the so called "extreme islam" and "moderate islam" as their holy text is pretty clear that it is extreme"

Re: Thomas Piketty: Clamping down with law and order will not be enough

#153

Post by Bud »

archgoon wrote: post #55
Bud wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

archgoon: We have had extremely frequent domestic terror incidents in the US recently which can be readily linked to religious and political extremism, notably the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shootings.

To me, there is a mild quantitative difference between a civil war with a death count in the hundreds of thousands and millions displaced versus a few dozen killed every year. I don't see anywhere in Piketty's theory a place to plug in "Amount of Inequality" and expected number of deaths. I'd like to see a regression plot at least.

Thing about measuring civil wars is, they are really hard to measure until, all of a sudden, one starts. Then it's quite easy.

Re: Thomas Piketty: Clamping down with law and order will not be enough

#154

Post by jules »

CM30 wrote: post #149
jules wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is simply false. Most terrorists are highly educated. The 9/11 terrorists had a college education, some had PhD's.

Being educated does not mean you're above believing in bullshit. There are a lot of highly educated people with a college education or a PhD who believe him ghosts, crop circles, bigfoot, alien abductions, the 'dangers' of GM food, conspiracy theories or think that vaccines cause autism. That doesn't make those beliefs more plausible, regardless of if a certain amount of smart people believe in them. Similarly, it do…

Exactly. This is not about desperate, mentally unwell, and disaffected people, but about people who sincerely think that the best thing for this world is to implement the Qur'an to the last letter. You can be a rocket scientist and a religious idiot at the same time.

Re: Thomas Piketty: Clamping down with law and order will not be enough

#155

Post by hsod »

criley2 wrote: post #42
nateberkopec wrote: post #29

I don't understand why we shouldn't believe what's coming straight out of ISIS' mouth. ISIS has said they're killing us because of their interpretation of a book written in the first millennia. They say this every time they attack us. Yet (mostly on the left) we keep coming up with reasons why this isn't the case. "No, actually, you're not attacking us for that reason, really it's our fault because we gave the oil to…

"I don't understand why we shouldn't believe what's coming straight out of ISIS' mouth." Because they're proven masters at propaganda and messaging. To take prop at face value is the definition of naive. "ISIS has said they're killing us because of their interpretation of a book written in the first millennia." That's their justification for their actions, not the reason. Come on. Recruiting for ISIS pays $5000 - $10…

> We call that quid pro quo, and yes, it's intentional. If Islam itself is responsible for the actions of a minority of a minority, then it stands to reason that Christianity itself is responsible for the actions of a minority of a minority. So long as conservatives blame Islam in general for ISIS, we will blame Christianity in general for Westboro Baptist, for Clinic Terrorists, for Jehovah Witness child negligence murder, etc.

You are mimicking the rhetoric of the worst, most extreme segment of your opposition, which brings you (and this conversation) down to their level.

Whoever fights with monsters...

Re: Thomas Piketty: Clamping down with law and order will not be enough

#156

Post by dragonwriter »

jules wrote: post #147
dragonwriter wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it's income inequality, then why are most terrorists highly educated and relatively well off? As I understand it, Middle Eastern terrorists are disproportionately from the thin and relatively insecure middle class, neither the oligarchs nor the people at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. I don't think this is at all inconsistent with income inequality being a major contributing factor, though its not as si…

At the very least that data does not really fit the theory. At some point you have to consider that when the facts do not fit the theory perhaps the theory is wrong, rather than to try to spin the facts in such a way that they fit the theory in a weird way. I think some people are too attached to a particular theory being true, rather than finding out the right theory.

> At the very least that data does not really fit the theory.

What theory? It certainly fits a theory: that insecurity (and, thus, plenty of downward mobility), limited upward mobility, and a steep drop to the bottom combine to provide a condition in which members of the middle class become more prone to reject the existing social order and adopt extreme alternatives that are offered.

Re: Thomas Piketty: Clamping down with law and order will not be enough

#157

Post by dragonwriter »

mikeash wrote: post #47
Brakenshire wrote: post #12

I don't really see the controversy, it's just a reframing of well-known issues about the conflict, using different terminology. For instance, there's obviously an economic element to the conflict between the richer, more urban Shia Alawites who live principally in the Western part of Syria, and the poorer, more rural Sunni population. I have read that part of the destabilization is down to mass movements of the urban…

It's amazing to watch phrases that get used in politics take on a life of their own. If you say, "Revolutions happen when the masses can't afford to eat," probably nobody will bat an eye. If you say "Revolutions happen when income inequality grows to the point where the masses can't afford to eat," people freak out.

And don't even think about saying the even more accurate, "revolutions often happen when there is strong income inequality and limited upward mobility, the rich can afford luxury, the poor can't afford to eat, and the middle/working class -- who can afford to eat, and even have some leisure to think about insecurity, and to think about who to blame for their insecurity -- see the conditions of the poor and the luxury of rich and their own risk of joining the poor, and blame the rich for it"...

Its rarely the poor who lead who revolutions, its usually the middle/working class (and often those members of the existing elites that, either from genuine sympathy or opportunism, decide to take up their cause against the rest of the elites.)

Re: Thomas Piketty: Clamping down with law and order will not be enough

#158

Post by scott_karana »

notacoward wrote: post #100
mikeash wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things don't have a single cause. "ISIS grew out of staggeringly unequal distribution of Mideast oil wealth" and "ISIS is motivated by extreme interpretations of Islam" are able to coexist perfectly well. Do you have any examples of "the same people" being inconsistent here? Because usually when people complain about inconsistency like this, it's actually different people being mentally categorized together, not actu…

Unbelievably well stated. Kudos. (And I get downvoted for saying something nice? Some people have way too much invested in the opposing POV, and way too little courage.)

> And I get downvoted for saying something nice? Some

HN (and possibly its rules) frowns on "+1" or "I agree" style posts that don't add additional content to a discussion, and people will sometimes downvote you accordingly.

Hopefully that's all that the downvoting was...

Re: Thomas Piketty: Clamping down with law and order will not be enough

#159

Post by flubert »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #134
fleitz wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling? It's a pretty well established 'fact' covered by Islamic sacred text, Its an assertion held by 1.8 billion Muslims. The books could well be works of fiction, the vast majority of people who assert the truth of the books are Muslim. I'm perfectly willing to accept that Mohammed was neither a prophet, nor a child rapist, but Muslims believe these things bring glory to him. However, to be respectful of their fa…

Keep in mind it's not so much that Mohamed was a 'paedophile' by our modern definition, rather that the definition has changed over time. Even in our own culture it was once the norm to betroth daughters to suitors while they were pre-pubescent, and to marry them as soon as they reached puberty... Polygamy is also a result of a violent era in which there were more unattached women than men - and in which having a hus…

>Even in our own culture it was once the norm to betroth daughters to suitors while they were pre-pubescent, and to marry them as soon as they reached puberty.

I'm interested in learning more. Can you narrow down what you mean by "our own culture", and provide a time frame? Like "Early America 1600-1800", or England in the 1400s, Anglo-Saxon culture, 1200, or Irish-Catholic 1300, or whatever. And then maybe point in the general direction of references where one could look this up. Maybe books or internet search terms?

Thanks.

Re: Thomas Piketty: Clamping down with law and order will not be enough

#160

Post by jules »

dragonwriter wrote: post #156
jules wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the very least that data does not really fit the theory. At some point you have to consider that when the facts do not fit the theory perhaps the theory is wrong, rather than to try to spin the facts in such a way that they fit the theory in a weird way. I think some people are too attached to a particular theory being true, rather than finding out the right theory.

> At the very least that data does not really fit the theory. What theory? It certainly fits a theory: that insecurity (and, thus, plenty of downward mobility), limited upward mobility, and a steep drop to the bottom combine to provide a condition in which members of the middle class become more prone to reject the existing social order and adopt extreme alternatives that are offered.

You see, that's precisely what's twisting the facts to fit the theory is like. If you have a theory that it's all because of income inequality, and then the facts are that it's not the poor who are terrorists, now you have to amend your theory that it's actually the moderately rich who are afraid of becoming poor. And that's why they go on suicide terrorist attacks?!

If it was the poor who did the attacks then it would confirm the theory, but if it is not then that would also confirm the theory...

Lets bring in some new facts: terrorists are disproportionately college educated. The 9/11 bombers were all college educated and some had PhD's from western universities. How will these facts be made to fit this theory?

I'm sorry if I sound disparaging, but I've had this debate 50 times before, and the mental gymnastics to keep an incorrect theory alive are virtually impossible to penetrate to the point that I'm not even sure if there are any conceivable facts that would falsify that theory in the minds of those who believe in it.

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