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Dear Marc Andreessen

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Re: Dear Marc Andreessen

#161

Post by gress »

bokonist wrote: post #104
sanswork wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your plan depends on everyone being able to work. There are a lot of illnesses and disabilities(physical and mental) that make that assertion not true. Would you have these people starve?

No, I said very clearly in my original comment that everyone gets a job, even schizophrenics and quadriplegics. There is something that everyone can do. If you are physically disabled you can monitor security cameras or transcribe city council recordings or something. If you are mentally disabled you can still probably pick up trash in city parks. There is some make work job available for almost anybody. The only exc…

What you are describing is prison workshops.

Re: Dear Marc Andreessen

#162

Post by bokonist »

gress wrote: post #161
bokonist wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I said very clearly in my original comment that everyone gets a job, even schizophrenics and quadriplegics. There is something that everyone can do. If you are physically disabled you can monitor security cameras or transcribe city council recordings or something. If you are mentally disabled you can still probably pick up trash in city parks. There is some make work job available for almost anybody. The only exc…

What you are describing is prison workshops.

I'm not sure how both you and rodgerd could mis-comprehend me so badly.

What I am describing is exactly how things work in the U.S. now, except that if you cannot find a job and your benefits run out, the government will give you a job. The free market for all other jobs still exists. You don't have to take a job if you do not want to. The only difference between the current America and my proposal, is that in the current America if you cannot find a job you go without food and shelter, while in my proposal you always have the option of getting a job. I do not know if you are trolling or arguing in bad faith, but I don't know how you guys are spinning this as some prison camp or soviet style thing.

Re: Dear Marc Andreessen

#163

Post by bokonist »

rodgerd wrote: post #129
bokonist wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I said very clearly in my original comment that everyone gets a job, even schizophrenics and quadriplegics. There is something that everyone can do. If you are physically disabled you can monitor security cameras or transcribe city council recordings or something. If you are mentally disabled you can still probably pick up trash in city parks. There is some make work job available for almost anybody. The only exc…

This sounds horribly like the old Soviet Union, where everyone had a right to a job, whether you liked it or not.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7908527

Re: Dear Marc Andreessen

#164

Post by bandushrew »

bokonist wrote: post #22

I'm with Alex generally, but disagree with this sentence: "We could make the choice to pay for universal health care, higher education, and a basic income tomorrow" In the last sixty years, a tremendous amount of money has been poured into education. Much money has been allocated to increase college enrollment. But, IMO, for the vast majority of people, college education is a luxury social club. Spending more money o…

Money has beenb poured into education, but not spent on actually teching people.

check out the budgets for the universities, and tell me where the money has gone.

Re: Dear Marc Andreessen

#165

Post by bandushrew »

bokonist wrote: post #149
thwest wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The degeneration you fear sounds like a fine alternative to me. I'd rather deal with happy drunks than stressed out angry workers. Idleness doesn't bother me. The crime you allude to is usually committed by the young men who have no income in those situations and result to crime to obtain funds.

For reference, this is what I fear: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/10/world/europe/10britain.htm... >In its four most deprived neighborhoods, some 30 percent of the residents of working age are considered “economically inactive,” neither holding jobs nor looking for them. > "The housing projects in Wythenshawe represent an extreme pocket of social deprivation and alienation. But the problems here — a breakdown in fam…

being unemployed, with no access to resources you can use to build things, is a very different environment than being unemployed with full access to things you can build.

Re: Dear Marc Andreessen

#166

Post by glesica »

bokonist wrote: post #149
thwest wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The degeneration you fear sounds like a fine alternative to me. I'd rather deal with happy drunks than stressed out angry workers. Idleness doesn't bother me. The crime you allude to is usually committed by the young men who have no income in those situations and result to crime to obtain funds.

For reference, this is what I fear: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/10/world/europe/10britain.htm... >In its four most deprived neighborhoods, some 30 percent of the residents of working age are considered “economically inactive,” neither holding jobs nor looking for them. > "The housing projects in Wythenshawe represent an extreme pocket of social deprivation and alienation. But the problems here — a breakdown in fam…

"...social deprivation and alienation."

I think this part is important, though. The poor in our society are alienated and often cut-off from the larger society and culture. If unemployment was a socially accepted norm I do not think you would see this, I think you would see more people acting like "natural aristocrats".

On the other hand, I don't necessarily disagree with you entirely. Maybe people do need to work, it is possible. In that case, my solution would be to find the absolute minimum that people "need" to work in order to remain socially-balanced and force them to work that much, preferably doing something that contributes to the general welfare.

Re: Dear Marc Andreessen

#167

Post by gress »

bokonist wrote: post #162
gress wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are describing is prison workshops.

I'm not sure how both you and rodgerd could mis-comprehend me so badly. What I am describing is exactly how things work in the U.S. now, except that if you cannot find a job and your benefits run out, the government will give you a job. The free market for all other jobs still exists. You don't have to take a job if you do not want to. The only difference between the current America and my proposal, is that in the cu…

How does it differ from Soviet full employment?

Also the discussion isn't about a comparison with how the US is now. It's about how to deal with a future where much less work is needed.

Suggesting that when humanity finally conquers scarcity, we should institute a mandatory full employment program where people must do unnecessary make-work jobs or face starvation in the streets is a totalitarian nightmare of the most inhumane order.

Re: Dear Marc Andreessen

#168

Post by MichaelGG »

wpietri wrote: post #72
jdminhbg wrote: post #15

> Taxi drivers protesting Uber aren’t saying that they want apps out of their cabs. Of course they aren't saying that, it would be political suicide to say it. But given the stubborn resistance to even using the credit card readers forced on them by utility commissions, do people really think that cabbies are aching to have apps between them and their customers that would thwart their ability to skip inconvenient far…

What's your evidence? I regularly use Flywheel, which lets me summon normal cabs. Every driver I've talked to is excited about it. And they say the reason they've not liked the credit card machines is that the cab companies force them to use a particular one and tack on substantial fees. I suspect that if anybody is using regulation to make riders' lives worse, it seems to be the cab companies.

In SF the other night, coming from the airport, the cabbie told me the company CC reader had a 10% charge for him. Whereas if I used his Square account, it was only 3% or so. He seemed pretty excited about it and mentioned it several times.

He also shared my disgust at those ad-screens and provided a towel to cover up the bright display that would have otherwise assaulted my face.

Re: Dear Marc Andreessen

#170

Post by nationcrafting »

Well, we’re three decades into an era of systemic deregulation and financialization. The result? Global recession, lingering structural unemployment, and an accumulation of capital at the top of the economic pyramid.

To blame systemic deregulation for the recession is to be profoundly unaware of the system in question. One cannot speak of a free market when the very thing at the core of that market - i.e. money, the one thing that everyone buys when they're selling something, and that everyone sells when they're buying something - is in the hands of a monopoly, and a politically motivated one at that: its raison d'etre is not even the quality of the product it provides.

If money were edible, you would see much more clearly just what a centrally managed, soviet style style system this really is, because there'd be queues of starving citizens just as we saw back in the era of soviet resource management.

If anything, it could be argued that without the level of free market we've enjoyed, things would be much, much worse. After all, the one sector where there's been close to zero regulation, the internet, has been the sector that's enjoyed massive growth over the last few decades. Compared to the days when telephony was state managed and nothing worked, we've been progressing in seven league boots, thanks to the free market.

PS: how does one quote on HN?

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