After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020) • Hacker News Board

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#211

Post by jseban » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 5:29 PM UTC

AlwaysRock wrote: post #62

soared wrote: post #39

Meh. I’ve seen a lot of these short essays about how after the pandemic we either should not or simply will not return to the status quo. It doesn’t really do anything to say “the economy doesn’t work” in 5 paragraphs and then say nothing else. Yes, lots of poor people are getting screwed. Some jobs don’t pay well despite the higher moral standing of directly assisting others. The environment looks pretty bad. But yo…

Did you expect a new country wise economic model to be purposed in this article? I believe the author was trying to say, "Poor people are getting screwed, some jobs dont pay well, the environment is bad, lets do something and not forget it." It is a solution? No. I don't think it is trying to be though. It's just trying to be a reminder that letting everything go back to the way it was is the easiest route forward an…

Yeah but it gets tiresome when leftists never bother themselves with any form of practical solutions of even a path forward, always just point out that things are not perfect, and then hint at some vague ideal. What's the point of instigating and persuading people on such grounds, I don't understand

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#212

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

halo-and-talon wrote: post #123

dwater wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain what you mean by "the natural state"? Your argument assumes an understanding of what that is, but the picture I have in my mind when I read that phrase is not scarcity of everything.

Imagine waking up in a forest with your tribe. One of your cousins has an infected foot after stepping on a branch a few days before and it is known that he will soon die in agony. Everyone is hungry and there is nothing to eat, so you prepare hunting and foraging parties and hope that you will find food before starving to death. That's the default state.

[deleted]

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#213

Post by rmah » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

nightski wrote: post #202

KittenInABox wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in the example you provided a labor-led, democratically funded entity can only receive 5M while capital-led, private investor funded entity has no real limit.

Investing in startups is hard, as I am sure Y-Combinator would attest. The layperson is not prepared to invest in them. To vet the companies, their leadership, the feasibility of their ideas, etc... Especially with a low payout. I can understand the SEC's hesitation as this could easily lead to scams. Just look at kickstarter and all the things that have gone down there. Really what the parent is proposing is somethi…

"I can understand the SEC's hesitation as this could easily lead to scams."

It's not "could", it's will. With 100% certainty. The only question is how many and hard they will be to control. We know this because it has happened before.

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#214

Post by vinceguidry » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 5:46 PM UTC

iammisc wrote: post #209

vinceguidry wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the idea of hailing cab drivers with an app, and then encouraging people to drive (i.e., ridesharing) is a great one. I didn't think I'd have to explain this, I thought most here already understood it. But okay. Nothing about hailing cab drivers with an app changes the economics of transportation. What changed the economics was exploitation . Not that the cab industry was really all that much better. But what's wro…

> Not that the cab industry was really all that much better. But what's wrong with Uber and the gig economy at large is that we're letting huge companies with big budgets get away with not respecting labor norms Hold on hold on. You previously blamed our current corporate system for preventing workers from owning their means of production. Uber exemplifies the vision you seek... where individual workers own their own…

That's... pretty laughable. A worker-owned business would get together to determine what an acceptable and transparent comp scheme would be. Instead the drivers rebel all the time against corporate's intransigent and blatantly-exploitative shenanigans. Hint: it's not because the company sees its workforce as people. If you think there's a viable way to get from here to there, well, I think I can get Bezos to sell you a bridge, on Amazon of course. And we... mostly don't care because who cares about the people who run our cabs, and if they succeed it means ubers are more expensive for us.

Sigh, sometimes I regret being a liberal rather than a leftist, because I can see all the complaints they have about us. I think I'm really done now, I've heard enough. In a nutshell, it's easy to defend the existing order when we're the one's benefiting from it.

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#215

Post by dang » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 5:48 PM UTC

glogla wrote: post #163

jdgoesmarching wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. This article is pretty clear about its intent: don’t be lulled into a false sense of economic security after the pandemic and build this experience into our understanding of our system. The first step of any solution is convincing people there is a problem. Not just the obvious “things are bad,” but an understanding that these issues are systemic in a way that challenges American ideology. These articles frus…

Based on what gets up and downvoted, most of people on HN are ancap or fascists. I guess it makes sense - startups are gold rush, VC's are the ones giving away shovels for portion of gold should there be any, and founders are people who either found gold or believe they will. I wonder if most of people have political outlook like this. If they do, it is both sad and comforting, because then the humanity is doomed to…

> most of people on HN are ancap or fascists

This sort of generalization is notoriously unreliable and subject to cognitive bias. People are far more likely to notice what they dislike, and to weight it more heavily. This produces false feelings of generality:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

That's why users with opposing views to yours make the opposite generalization [1]. It's not that HN is any different—they simply dislike different things. This is one of the most reliable phenomena I've seen on HN. It's so reliable that one can accurately predict people's politics (or other preferences) simply by flipping a bit on the generalizations they make.

[1] A few are here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26368875.

Edit: it looks like we've had this conversation before:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20343865 (July 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14200623 (April 2017)

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#216

Post by jseban » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

iammisc wrote: post #150

dbingham wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That didn't seem like the point you were making, what you seemed to imply is that some form of the current system has existed forever. But lets work with your new point. Saying "all the economic systems we've tried produced inequality" with the implication being there's no point in attempting to devise new ones is rather like saying "all materials we've devised produced some amount of friction". Sure. But some produc…

> That didn't seem like the point you were making, what you wrong seemed to imply some form of the current system has existed forever. My meaning was very plain. I said many people would be unconvinced that anything could be done to achieve equality. I then stated they could point to thousands of years of human life (which, as you correctly stated, contained many economic systems). If you put both points together, yo…

> But ultimately, if the world is extremely unequal, but no one is destitute, then that economic system is good. And we're very close to that by continuing with current trends

Yes. If everyone is actually better off compared to the equal society, then the only problem is jealousy really. So why not attack that instead, people will never be equal anyway since nature is unfair, and some will always be much more beautiful, talented etc, even in a perfectly "equal" society. Capitalism just amplifies the human condition, raises everyone, and raises the best even more.

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#217

Post by EthanHeilman » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 6:04 PM UTC

montagg wrote: post #74

zohch wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The current system created artificial scarcity The current system has been responsible for creating actual abundance that has vastly improved the living conditions of the vast majority of people. Scarcity is the default state, not artificial.

Abundance for some. Built on scarcity for others.

Humanity managed to create an abundance but thus far has failed to distribute the abundance. This is not surprising and I'm very hopeful we will solve the distribution problem over the next two hundreds years. In the last hundred years we have made enormous progress to solving the distribution problem and expanding the abundance.

Solving the abundance problem was the high priority as distribution was purely theoretical concern until we achieved abundance. It took us about 200,000 years develop the ideas, technology and to put the infrastructure in place to achieve post-scarcity for food and water.

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#218

Post by iammisc » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 6:13 PM UTC

vinceguidry wrote: post #214

iammisc wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not that the cab industry was really all that much better. But what's wrong with Uber and the gig economy at large is that we're letting huge companies with big budgets get away with not respecting labor norms Hold on hold on. You previously blamed our current corporate system for preventing workers from owning their means of production. Uber exemplifies the vision you seek... where individual workers own their own…

That's... pretty laughable. A worker-owned business would get together to determine what an acceptable and transparent comp scheme would be. Instead the drivers rebel all the time against corporate's intransigent and blatantly-exploitative shenanigans. Hint: it's not because the company sees its workforce as people. If you think there's a viable way to get from here to there, well, I think I can get Bezos to sell you…

> Instead the drivers rebel all the time against corporate's intransigent and blatantly-exploitative shenanigans. Hint: it's not because the company sees its workforce as people.

For what it's worth, it's not like co-ops are immune to this criticism. For example, Winco had a case a while ago where employees were claiming that they were being mistreated. In a worker co-op with sufficient numbers of members, no individual member is powerful enough to effect change.

> If you think there's a viable way to get from here to there, well, I think I can get Bezos to sell you a bridge, on Amazon of course.

Except there is. Now that Uber has pioneered the model, I've seen worker co-ops pop up in my own town. I imagine these models will grow, as more people feel emboldened to take on such professions now that the model is validated. I don't see why this is such a stretch. It seems to me you have reached a conclusion, and don't seem interested in listening to alternatives.

> Sigh, sometimes I regret being a liberal rather than a leftist, because I can see all the complaints they have about us. I think I'm really done now, I've heard enough. In a nutshell, it's easy to defend the existing order when we're the one's benefiting from it.

Alright man. My family immigrated to this country, my father was working as a slave for a while, and my parents started off with nothing when we were small kids. Trust me, I've not benefited a whole lot from this system. I've probably seen it worse than you. So sick of being gaslit by people who think I'm some privileged WASP kid, and that they know better. Maybe try listening?

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#219

Post by iammisc » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 6:15 PM UTC

jseban wrote: post #216

iammisc wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That didn't seem like the point you were making, what you wrong seemed to imply some form of the current system has existed forever. My meaning was very plain. I said many people would be unconvinced that anything could be done to achieve equality. I then stated they could point to thousands of years of human life (which, as you correctly stated, contained many economic systems). If you put both points together, yo…

> But ultimately, if the world is extremely unequal, but no one is destitute, then that economic system is good. And we're very close to that by continuing with current trends Yes. If everyone is actually better off compared to the equal society, then the only problem is jealousy really. So why not attack that instead, people will never be equal anyway since nature is unfair, and some will always be much more beautif…

It seems to me that our consumeristic culture makes people extremely jealous. As I've stated countless times here, I don't like Mark Zuckerberg, or Jeff Bezos. I want to make sure that their wealth cannot buy them the ability to affect my life (and I've called openly for their prosecution for when they've done those things based on existing criminal law).

That being said... I don't begrudge them their wealth. I don't begrudge them their private jets. I have nothing to complain about. I have a home, a wonderful family, a lovely spiritual life, a fantastic community, etc. I have things that their money would never buy. Half the time I feel sorry for them.

It seems to me many of my fellow citizens are simply jealous of their material goods and want their private jets and all that nonsense for themselves. No thanks. We should discourage this kind of materialism.

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#220

Post by kkjjkgjjgg » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 6:29 PM UTC

dgfitz wrote: post #124

kkjjkgjjgg wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by the 40h work week as an example? Example for what? It was an idea by Ford, but I guess then the unions jumped on it? Who is forcing you to work 40h? I personally don't do that. You are free to negotiate your own contracts.

> Who is forcing you to work 40h? I personally don't do that. You are free to negotiate your own contracts. This is such a privileged and arrogant stance to take. The VAST majority of people are NOT free to negotiate.

Of course they are. Why wouldn't they be free to negotiate? Of course if you have few skills that are in demand, you are in a worse negotiating position compared to people who are in demand. You can try to acquire skills that are in demand, though.