Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Demoralization is just Beginning

geohot.github.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 812 posts

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#271

Post by torlok »

tokioyoyo wrote: post #223
pfannkuchen wrote: post #194

This feels too all over the place and contains a lot of assertions without evidence. I say this as a person who is very bearish about America. > The sun never set on the British empire. Now they put you in jail for memes. I’m pretty sure they put people in jail for the equivalent of memes during the imperial days, no? The king couldn’t put you away for speaking against him?

Author has decent points, but then again falls into “europoor” trap. He keeps saying how things are bad in Europe because X, Y, Z, but China also does X, Y, Z and for some reason he doesn’t comment on that. And as usual, no comments on quality of life for an average citizen. Some people really need to go out, sit at random bars, and talk to people. They would get a better pulse check on society than 24/7 Twitter shit…

You can also spend 8 hours furiously typing at Google to confirm your biases and vomit out a bunch of theories.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#272

Post by Aeolun »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #13
ryandamm wrote: post #11

I prefer my economic takes from economists, or people who actually study these things. -there is more to an economy than manufacturing. Using manufacturing metrics to rate an economy is like scoring a soccer game based on how far your players run: in some contexts correlated with “winning” but in others it’s not. -gold is not a good currency or basis for monetary policy. -these ideas only sound self consistent withou…

“there is more to an economy than manufacturing” Not really, no. If China cut off the US, for any reason, who gets hurt more? Who has a bigger house of cards to collapse? Who will have a harder time rebuilding? If the next leader is bolder than Xi, and is of the same kind that once killed tens of millions of people, losing an arm and a leg to behead an enemy might be a viable strategy.

I daresay the US has all the resources it currently gets from China on its own landmass as well. It’s just not doing anything with it.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#273

Post by TeMPOraL »

dbtc wrote: post #35
janalsncm wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> like scoring a soccer game based on how far your players run That’s a pretty good analogy for what GDP is counting, actually. But I think the larger point is that manufacturing is grounded in something real. It’s a measure of how many tanks and fighter jets you can make, no matter how much they cost to make.

Interesting, so to extend the metaphor - in the game of soccer it's the scoring of goals that matters, not the raw physical stamina of the player, but if that facade of civilized competition breaks down, then it's back to the basics.

Right. This facade is what makes soccer a sport instead of a brawl. In sports, and in life in general, there's all sorts of extra rules that make activities interesting and/or prevent them from decaying into violence. Playing for keeps - like, really, seriously, going for the win no matter what, is universally frowned upon and basically a telltale sign of dangerously pathological sociopathy.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#274

Post by ks2048 »

georgeecollins wrote: post #143

I get tired of people talking about how the US doesn't "make anything". I spent my adult life creating software that was super valuable. Along the way I worked with a bunch of people (from all over the world) who-- because of their brains and their education-- could have made almost anything very well. They didn't make steel or automobiles because that wasn't where their skills were best deployed.

Also, the steel mills and automobile factories are powered by software (along with the raw materials and manual labor).

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#275

Post by torlok »

danny_codes wrote: post #77

Well this was embarrassing to read. Good god man read an economics textbook or at least talk to an economist before posting. Is industrial capacity important? Sure. Is it the top of the value chain? No.

This guy spent a few hours trying to "solve" covid from "basic principles", ran some python on the DNA sequence, and then gave up. None of this is serious.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#276

Post by powerapple »

ryandamm wrote: post #11

I prefer my economic takes from economists, or people who actually study these things. -there is more to an economy than manufacturing. Using manufacturing metrics to rate an economy is like scoring a soccer game based on how far your players run: in some contexts correlated with “winning” but in others it’s not. -gold is not a good currency or basis for monetary policy. -these ideas only sound self consistent withou…

What is a good economy and what's the purpose of economy?

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#277

Post by foota »

logicchains wrote: post #183
ryandamm wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think economics itself has gone wrong -- I think the US economy in particular has done a poor job of distributing the wealth it has created. Ironically, that has created a populist backlash that has vaulted even worse economic ideas into power. Anyone read "Capitalism in the 21st Century"? It's long and dense, but it does make some excellent, well-supported points about the structure of an economy that explai…

> I think the US economy in particular has done a poor job of distributing the wealth it has created. The US financial system is structurally orientated towards distributing wealth poorly. It's an unavoidable economic fact that when someone spends newly created money there's a wealth transfer from currency holders to them (that's why counterfeiting is illegal), and in the US means there's a persistent, systematic tra…

The sibling commenter was nicer about this, but what are you even talking about?

If anything, I think the finance industry is more built on stock markets, real estate, etc., and manipulating or trading on them to extract value from people participating in them, which are generally wealthier people and businesses.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#278

Post by Aeolun »

lxgr wrote: post #28

> Back the dollar by gold [...] The second will prevent a lot of the scams. Oh boy... Bitcoin in many ways is idealized gold (unlike the real one, its supply is actually limited), yet there is no shortage of scams around it. On the contrary, a gold standard would remove one of the most essential tools modern governments have: That of monetary policy. That sounds like a good idea if and only if there's an extreme shor…

> That sounds like a good idea if and only if there's an extreme shortage of trust in the government and institutions

Umm, yes. Doesn’t that make this a perfect moment to do such? I can’t recall any other point during my life my trust in the US government was this low.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#279

Post by sergiomattei »

sakras wrote: post #182

> Sure, we don’t produce anything, but we have companies with high revenues and we can raise money based on those revenues. We’ll both be rich! I think this is the central hole in the argument that the US is stagnant. The money that investors give you has to come from somewhere! Particularly in venture capital, you only get returns if you produce value. Nevertheless, I do agree with a lot of the points here.

In my view, the stagnant part begins when extractive industries grow uncontrollably (think financial services). Yes, money is slushing around and line goes up, but ultimately the value production behind it remained the same.

Money is detached from real output. Especially true in a zero interest rate environment like we had until recently.

There is no reinvestment when rent-seeking activities and financialization take place. Wealth is accumulated but not reinvested for greater growth.

> in venture capital you only get returns if you produce value

Is that so?

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#280

Post by Parae »

rayiner wrote: post #109
rat87 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India despite flaws is a democracy same as the US. It's a very different country then China. Plenty of immigrants from tyrannical countries are as if not more committed to democracy as those born here And just because someone was born in China or India it doesn't make them any less American then someone born in Iowa. Their children might be born in Iowa

Democracy isn't created by intentions or "commitment," but rather the culture of the people, their attitudes, and mental processes. An Iowan born in Iowa to Iowan parents who were born to Iowan parents is steeped from birth in a culture that is very different from someone born in India or China--or even the American-born children of Indians and Chinese immigrants. Immigrants may become legally American overnight, but…

Tocqueville was a colonialist who wanted to apply a racial segregation system in Algeria. He also wanted to indemnify slave-owners and traders if the slave went free. In France, we see Tocqueville as an "egalitarian but for the bourgeoisie". That's what the French Revolution was about : abolishing nobility so nobles and bourgeois are equals.
Post reply on HN