Is everything an MLM • Hacker News Board

Re: Is everything an MLM

#151

Post by petra » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 4:57 PM UTC

seibelj wrote: post #96

bluetomcat wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However the majority of society still does “normal” things like construction, manufacturing, sales, etc. "Normal" is when you build schools, hospitals, community centers and affordable houses and you produce only several kinds of refrigerator for the whole world, streamlining their production and servicing. Not when you construct factories, warehouses, office skyscrapers and shopping areas where those same goods wi…

You are coming from the socialist angle, which is a loaded word that will probably derail the conversation, but essentially you see the free market and competition as a waste of resources that harms society. The base argument is that we don’t need 80 brands of deodorant, and the fact we have so many is a colossal waste of resources, duplication, and moral failure of society. Whereas I see 80 brands of deodorant and t…

>> A government bureaucrat managing the country’s only deodorant factory could never possibly match the range of options and preferences that the market has provided me.

There aren't only two options - the free market, or soviet russia. there are many more.

Re: Is everything an MLM

#152

Post by sverige » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 4:59 PM UTC

petra wrote: post #149

sverige wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?

So far, all of the experiments to make everyone equal have resulted in soviet-style housing for the many and well-appointed dachas for the few -- and that's at best. I'm doubtful that future experiments will have a different result.

Re: Is everything an MLM

#153

Post by orthecreedence » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 4:59 PM UTC

johnisgood wrote: post #115

rleigh wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not entirely voluntary. It's a necessity to live. I might be able to pick and choose between several employers, but ultimately I'm going to have to choose one of them. There's a power imbalance between employee and employer, and that will translate into a negotiating disadvantage; the future employee is at a disadvantage here.

> No, it's not entirely voluntary. In this case, it is not entirely voluntary for the employers either as they need employees for their business to function. > but ultimately I'm going to have to choose one of them No, you can become your own employer, for example. > There's a power imbalance between employee and employer, and that will translate into a negotiating disadvantage It depends on the state of the market.…

Capital holders have most of the power, due to the unemployment pool.

> No, you can become your own employer, for example.

Not without capital, and you generally get capital by already having capital (collateral).

> It depends on the state of the market. Right now, the job market is supposedly very good for programmers (employees).

Good for programmers! But in general, the job market is not as good for most people as it is for programmers.

> Employers are offering to trade their money in exchange for other people doing some task they want done.

Right, this is a "voluntary" transaction entered by both people, but the argument is that there is a power imbalance that influences this transaction and tips the scales toward the employer (in the general sense, I'm sure we can find single examples where this is not the case).

Not only this, but the balance is tipped even further by a system that overwhelmingly encourages debt (yes, voluntary, I know, but socially involuntary), essentially shackling people to needing higher amounts of income (and therefor relying on their employer more).

It's possible to be debt-free and have a high-paying job, but it's exceedingly difficult, and you're essentially limited to a handful of industries.

Re: Is everything an MLM

#154

Post by sverige » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 5:01 PM UTC

grawprog wrote: post #146

sverige wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

I understand, but from that perspective, pretty much everything in "developed" countries is non-essential, including personal computers (whether desktop, laptop, smartphone, or tablet) and forums like this one to discuss such things. Think of the toxic waste created by all those computers, and the greenhouse gases created by shipping them all over the place! And to what end?

Re: Is everything an MLM

#155

Post by orthecreedence » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 5:02 PM UTC

ericd wrote: post #134

Retra wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you think every person should be willing to walk away for some other job? How will that play out?

Absolutely they should be willing to walk away. This is why scrimping and saving until you have some form of emergency fund is so important.

And you should be born with a trust fund and not have let people convince you to take on overwhelming debt when you were 17 and naive. It's all very simple.

Granted, I agree with you about emergency saving, but a lot of people don't have the extra laying around when they're shackled to debt.

Re: Is everything an MLM

#156

Post by hexane360 » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 5:07 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #150

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”.

> 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 fo…

>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.

You arguing this is really ironic because the only reason they're working only 40 hour weeks to begin with is labor regulation. The free market didn't give factory workers 8 hour shifts.

Re: Is everything an MLM

#157

Post by gcb0 » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 5:09 PM UTC

seibelj wrote: post #106

cheerlessbog wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often the choices made by "the individual" don't account for externalities that aren't built into the price. Viz landfills, climate change, effect on those with less economic resources.

Are you suggesting it's better to ban individual choice because of the existence of landfills and climate change? The market could effectively and efficiently price those into products, if society would pass a law.

yes. ands this already happens everywhere around you.

you can't import cars from one place to another, because of emissions. you do not have the rigth to roam on most of the world like you have still in some very select places (e.g. scotland), because of property rights and national security. You can't market any food becuase of public health. Etc.

so your capricious question is already done and answered for. individual choice is already banned in many aspects. and you are still choosing to not see it. including in your arguments for buying a smart fridge. you never had the choice either way.

Re: Is everything an MLM

#158

Post by saltcured » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 5:10 PM UTC

njepa wrote: post #17

jaggederest wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's another big aspect to this: the orientation of the economy towards growth. When you start asking "What happens when the population and the economy are in a steady state, where we don't expect things to increase at 2% forever", and the answers are pretty grim. Retirement systems, for example, need a certain ratio of productive workers for each retiree, and I can't figure out any math that makes sense for the n…

I see what you are saying, but I largely disagree with the premise. We have had, and continue to have, enormous growth through technical and organizational achievements. Growth is relative, but life mostly remain constant. The requirements to house, cloth and transport people remain largely the same. The idea that we can't have retirement becomes absurd viewed over a lifetime of spending on housing, insurance and oth…

I think that people who argue a perpetual growth requirement are fundamentally doubting that an economy can store (sufficient) value for the future. They are rejecting that life-long earnings can be saved and invested in a person's own non-productive retirement. They are presupposing hand-to-mouth living and assigning roles to the actors in that final scene.

I suppose it is true in isolation. How many years of food, energy, and medicine could you stockpile for yourself to consume in your end years? There are practical limits due to spoilage, etc. If you instead have to devise a way to keep producing for yourself, we might quibble over whether that is really retirement...? It's also easy enough to run thought experiments and demonstrate how a collapsing population has an unpleasant end-game. Like musical chairs, eventually someone loses. The last people to die will die alone, with nobody to nurse them. Before that, systems will collapse, reducing the efficiencies that survivors depend on for quality of life.

But, what are all the phases in between? How long can a society sustainably function at a fixed or slowly reducing size? Could we gracefully transition to earlier modes such as functioning agrarian, hunter-gatherer, or frontier communities? Can those retro communities still enjoy technological benefits developed by their larger forebears? Or do we have to assume war, famine, and post-apocalyptic wasteland?

This seems like more of a psychology test than a useful debate. We can establish our various moods and dispositions, but not prognosticate a large-scale future. At a more personal level, can't we live a good life even if we are the last one to turn out the lights? Don't we all die alone, regardless of the number of attending nurses and medical billing?

Re: Is everything an MLM

#159

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 5:12 PM UTC

grawprog wrote: post #117

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…

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.…

[deleted]

Re: Is everything an MLM

#160

Post by carapace » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 5:13 PM UTC

foxhop wrote: post #71

My goal is to extract as much money as I can out of the tech industry, without compromising on my values. While I'm doing that I'm trying to build up a small food forest which will help me avoid the pyramid altogether. My only hope for humanity is for at least 30% of the population to do the same, but I'm not holding my breath.

That's awesome! More power to ya!

I'm trying to work on ways to get people to basically do the same thing: live in ways more integrated with ecological systems. The weird thing I see is that there seems to be a lot of pent up demand, but people can't articulate what they want, so no one is selling it to them, leading to inadequate supply.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_Homes

> Village Homes is a planned community in Davis, Yolo County, California. It is designed to be ecologically sustainable by harnessing the energies and natural resources that exists in the landscape, especially stormwater and solar energy.