181–190 of 199 posts
Peter Thiel (who works with YC) will tell you that monopolies are good for the world.
Oh, heavens, no! Nobody associated with YCombinator (especially a demi-god like Thiel) is ever wrong about any topic involving our economic (or socioeconomic) system. Ever.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "I don't think people have come to grips with the nature of manipulation." I agree that this is a big question. What are the divisions between manipulation, persuasion, coercion, influence, information, and education? Intent? Whether or not we agree with the position? I know that this can come off as flip, but it's not at all meant to. In the case of the poster, what if there were two posters, an additional one for…
For me it underscores the point, we are under the influence of external forces (manipulated), for better or worse. We are also told, by some actors, that this isn't the case. These folks would have us believe, we are free to choose to enter the military or join college. But... In this new scenario, students read the signs, the messages are brought to their attention, and of all the possible things they might do, the…
In the lunchroom example, so long as lots of other folks are putting posters on the wall, and presumably some kids don't look at the lunchroom posters, I don't have a problem with either the college or the military changing behavior that way. There were many alternatives, and the poster wasn't forced on anyone. The influence we're seeing now is expensive (much higher proportional impact if you can pay), and effectively guaranteed (everyone is tuned to the same channel or two).
I hope we don't have to analyze individual interventions, I'd much rather just break up the channels, or increase the diversity of the programming. Mostly because I'm not sure how to (and I'm not sure we should) answer your question.
Monopolies are a natural phenomenon in capitalism. I'm not sure why people glorify capitalism as much, given the fact that competition is impossibly hard in many areas, and that to reduce costs, and remove competitive pressure, companies tends to consolidate, i.e. reduce competition. Neither socialism nor capitalism makes sense today. We need a totally new system, but it's really hard to make a dent into the status q…
I think it would be like everyone living in and contributing to the US as an idea. The block chain of the "US" has a good social security net, good public non-profit infrastructure, ample opportunity etc... Or theoretically would/should anyway. In reality it's too prone to corruption and manipulation.
If smart contracts get stable and consistent enough (and build up a correspondingly large body of contract law) we end up being able to create entities of faith, things to believe in and rely on but are also fragile in that they need faith to persist as well. "gods" if you will.
Monopolies are a natural phenomenon in capitalism. I'm not sure why people glorify capitalism as much, given the fact that competition is impossibly hard in many areas, and that to reduce costs, and remove competitive pressure, companies tends to consolidate, i.e. reduce competition. Neither socialism nor capitalism makes sense today. We need a totally new system, but it's really hard to make a dent into the status q…
This is brilliant. I recently wrote in to my senator about net neutrality. His reply was a breathtakingly convoluted justification of not regulating companies like Comcast because antitrust laws would take care of it. I've never felt so insulted.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not that there's truly unlimited wired Internet in the US, but as far as I'm aware, most wireless Internet plans are limited, and throttled, so, those are not the same service to compare anyway. More than 10 years ago, some mesh wireless providers were offering some competition, but I don't think they exist anymore, so, Cox' only competition is the ridiculous AT&T DSL service.
I have AT&T Fiber - $70 a month all in no extra fees are taxes. Gigabit up and down theoretically. I can get 600Mbps/600Mbps on a bad day wired and 900 u/d on a good day. It's unlimited. I'm not saying that wireless is a good alternative for everyone but I know a lot of people that could get away with the "unlimited" plans that carriers offer. In the future it could provide real competition. The plans aren't throttle…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But in this case, we're not talking about business. We're talking about the funding to pave our roads, run our schools, be able to fight fires, and all that other good stuff we need.
The gov't is well within their right to change the tax code as they see fit. And they do all the time. It's not like we're seeing tax receipts declining. They've done nothing but increase over the last 100 years.
Have they increased in line with the larger national budgets required for basic public services?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You’re not mentioning the outsize influence that corporations have on government which leads to them permitting these loopholes. It can be fixed by legislation. In 1952 corporate tax in the US was 33% of total revenue. Today it’s less than 9%.
Corporations have outsize influence on the government because they control jobs, which is the single thing Americans care about more than anything else. The Fortune 500 directly employ 17% of the U.S. workforce, and indirectly employ many more ( e.g. employees of parts companies that sell to Ford/GM, contractors who install fiber for AT&T). The tax provisions companies take advantage of aren't "loopholes," they exist…
And this is one of the many reasons I despise the UK currently (I'm British). The citizenry do not benefit from these arrangements. If anything people seem to becoming more aware of it and more pissed off about it.
I love how the UK likes to torpedo any EU attempt to overhaul and address these greedy little sweetheart deals as well.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, we need someone to show us how to make America great again?
No, I think the opposite: current leadership is driven a lot of FUD. We need some honest optimism.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Socialism" and "capitalism" are not switches you turn either on or off, they're a set of policies and practices you can apply to varying degrees and extremes. The military is quite socialist as when you enlist you're given food, housing, equipment, medical care, and other things to perform your job, but it's also part of a large capitalist system where equipment and supplies are provisioned from a (theoretically) co…
I disagree that the solution is a balanced one somewhere between the only two puristic and unrealistic options as in both money is key, and I disagree that it should be the centerpiece of our society as it's already proven to be a weak motivator and leads to very negative consequences. There are good things in both orders, we need to learn from them, but something in the middle we already have in EU, and it's not wor…
The difference between the EU and America is actually pretty slight on these two scales, but tiny shifts in policy can have a huge impact on society.