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Is everything an MLM

annehelen.substack.com

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Re: Is everything an MLM

#251

Post by petra »

westiseast wrote: post #221
p1esk wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of marketing efforts in various forms are designed to subtly persuade you that owning a car is cool, that driving it is a pleasant experience, that it signals respect and social status. Even people who don’t need cars are influenced by that. Same techniques are used in real estate advertising. Keep in mind that marketing also influences other people, including those whose opinions you value. If PR/advertising/m…

I guess I’m saying, marketers aren’t persuading me I need a car. I made a fairly practical choice that I needed a car (maybe I’m not typical?). But perhaps instead of buying the cheap Japanese one, I bought the expensive German one. So marketers persuaded me to spend 20% more? The idea that marketers are somehow controlling people’s lives assumes that without marketers, we’d all be living some kind of radically diffe…

Without marketing, people buy a Toyota that's reliable for 20 years, instead of 4 German cars.

Of course fuel-efficiency complicated matters a bit, but in an efficient economy, engines may be replace.

Re: Is everything an MLM

#252

Post by Viliam1234 »

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #241
rectang wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The alternative to letting the individual determine what they want is to let someone else choose for them. In real-world "free" markets, the poor have their choices made for them by the wealthy.

Really? The wealthy are to blame? Wealthy tell poor mothers to buy junk food instead of healthier (and cheaper) options? Wealthy tell poor kids to watch TV instead of doing homework? Wealthy tell poor that having a budget and sticking to it is a dumb idea?

> Wealthy tell poor kids to watch TV instead of doing homework?

No. That happens naturally, while the parents are working at their second jobs.

Re: Is everything an MLM

#253

Post by teucris »

ehmish wrote: post #240
teucris wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that disposal costs are highly distorted - depending on where you are, it’s much cheaper than it should be because of cheap land for landfills, cheap shipping to shift the problem away, etc. Proposals to add cost to disposal are meant to correct for these distortions - to really represent the collective cost to the world. This absolutely should not be done arbitrarily - massive, ongoing research should be done…

Depends what you burying, if it's paper and food waste, it is sequestering. Paper and food contain carbon pulled from the atmosphere, and by preventing it from decomposing by excluding oxygen (e.g most landfills) you get carbon sequestration

That causes anerobic composting which turns the carbon into methane. This is either recaptured and burned or goes into the atmosphere.

Re: Is everything an MLM

#254

Post by ddingus »

madez wrote: post #215
ddingus wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes they are. They are a very poor tool in some use cases and are a great tool in others. Denying that is literally pulling triggers.

No, denying that is at most failing to understand some connection. Attacking others doesn't help you make others understand the problems you are seeing.

None of that is an attack. It is a statement.

I cannot, nor want to own how others take information like that.

Ignorance takes many forms. Willful ignorance tends to be one of the more painful.

Frame it all however you want to. Does not change the brutal impact we are seeing today.

There is absolutely no reason to coddle, sugarcoat these things.

If that is rough? Not my problem. It is our problem, and being brutally honest about it is the right thing to do.

Re: Is everything an MLM

#255

Post by objectivetruth »

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #241
rectang wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The alternative to letting the individual determine what they want is to let someone else choose for them. In real-world "free" markets, the poor have their choices made for them by the wealthy.

Really? The wealthy are to blame? Wealthy tell poor mothers to buy junk food instead of healthier (and cheaper) options? Wealthy tell poor kids to watch TV instead of doing homework? Wealthy tell poor that having a budget and sticking to it is a dumb idea?

Yep.

The wealthy control the society that...

a) ...has food deserts where poor people can't access fresh food and vegetables, and in many of these areas, junk food IS the cheapest option.

Learn more: https://www.moveforhunger.org/harsh-reality-food-deserts-ame...

b) ...has tons of enriching and educational and recreational activities for wealthier students compared to poor students. In addition, just being poor has HUNDREDS of correlating factors for poor academic performance -- it's very lazy to just say "poor people are bad parents who just let their kids watch TV, that's why they are bad at school."

Learn more: https://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/education

c) ... does NOT, despite your strawman point, ever tell poor people "that having a budget and sticking to it is a dumb idea." Every financial counseling service for poor people includes budgeting classes. But if you're a single parent of two kids with $1900/month gross income (well above minimum wage) and the median rent for a 2BR apartment in your city is $1200/month, good luck with that budget.

Learn more: https://povertyusa.org/facts

So, we might not blame an individual wealthy person but it's fair to blame the people holding the cards in society.

By the way, when people repeat the arguments above, it reads to many people as incredibly uninformed and displaying an astonishing lack of empathy. I don't mean that as an attack, since many people on this site pride themselves on their lack of empathy and their ability to never have to interact with any lower-class people, other than complaining about homeless poop in the Tenderloin.

One more thing: rarely, there are incredibly driven and talented and lucky poor people who break through every possible disadvantage of childhood poverty and become successful. Sometimes those people will reply to a post like this and say "Well, I did it, so it's possible! [fuck the rest of them!]" But MOST of the people in that situation developed enough empathy and real word apperception to realize the rarity of their success, and agree that society should strive to offer more pathways up for everyone.

Re: Is everything an MLM

#256

Post by zdragnar »

teucris wrote: post #253
ehmish wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends what you burying, if it's paper and food waste, it is sequestering. Paper and food contain carbon pulled from the atmosphere, and by preventing it from decomposing by excluding oxygen (e.g most landfills) you get carbon sequestration

That causes anerobic composting which turns the carbon into methane. This is either recaptured and burned or goes into the atmosphere.

Only small amounts of the carbon are converted to methane... enough that capture is worthwhile, but there is certainly a significant portion remaining below ground.

Re: Is everything an MLM

#257

Post by nradov »

bluetomcat wrote: post #88
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…

> 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…

Central production planning and restriction of consumer choice has already been tried. It didn't work. I can't imagine why anyone would want to repeat the same mistake.

Re: Is everything an MLM

#258

Post by objectivetruth »

p1esk wrote: post #208
sridca wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah, exactly. Capitalism is not perfect; apparently it is the better of the alternatives we have right now. In order to effect fundamental change, and find a better alternative to capitalism, each human being needs to fundamentally change themselves--yet apparently no one is willing to do that. As long as we let instinctual passions like desire, and social emotions like envy, hold sway over us so will continue to exi…

Don’t know why this is being downvoted. To someone who witnessed the transition from forced “socialism” to brutal capitalism in Russia it makes total sense.

Probably being downvoted because of the implied stark "socialism/capitalism" dichotomy, and describing the need for a fundamental change of human nature, and the downvoters have seen that a regulated capitalist economy with a strong social safety net seem to work pretty well. :)

Re: Is everything an MLM

#259

Post by teucris »

zdragnar wrote: post #249
teucris wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that disposal costs are highly distorted - depending on where you are, it’s much cheaper than it should be because of cheap land for landfills, cheap shipping to shift the problem away, etc. Proposals to add cost to disposal are meant to correct for these distortions - to really represent the collective cost to the world. This absolutely should not be done arbitrarily - massive, ongoing research should be done…

My point was that the added cost should be reflected in the collection of waste, not the point of sale, because there aren't any externalities yet, and so there isn't anything to calculate. As for landfills being cheap, that isn't a bad thing. That means the externalities at those sites are low. I live near an old one that was turned into a 50 acre prairie restoration space with about 2 miles of walking paths and ful…

1. There are tons of externalities at point of sale. Was the item produced using water from a common source like a river? How were non-solid waste products disposed? When it’s source materials were extracted, what impact did that have on the extraction site? Not even counting the fossil fuels needed to make the item...

2. Assuming that certain places have lower externalities doesn’t make sense. Aside from the global footprint of trash in general, there have been tons of rehabilitated sites but they will need maintenance and monitoring for hundreds years.

Re: Is everything an MLM

#260

Post by teucris »

zdragnar wrote: post #256
teucris wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That causes anerobic composting which turns the carbon into methane. This is either recaptured and burned or goes into the atmosphere.

Only small amounts of the carbon are converted to methane... enough that capture is worthwhile, but there is certainly a significant portion remaining below ground.

I get the idea but I had learned it wasn’t an effective sequestration method. Do you have references I can check out?
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