What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922) • Hacker News Board

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#631

Post by imtringued » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 9:22 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #545

VirusNewbie wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflationary monetary policy is wealth transfer into the upper class without most people realizing it. Wealth, be it institutions or individuals, will always push for central banking as it entrenches their power.

> Inflationary monetary policy is wealth transfer into the upper class No, it is a means of wealth transfer to the government without raising taxes. Where does the trillions in deficit spending come from? Inflation! The politicians, of course, know this. But they keep up the misdirection by blaming it on greedy capitalists and/or unions. The notion that it is for monetary stability is also propaganda. Milton Friedman…

>No, it is a means of wealth transfer to the government without raising taxes. Where does the trillions in deficit spending come from? Inflation!

Saving creates a hole in the economy, the trillions of deficit spending are a very stupid way of filling that hole. It works better than doing nothing which is why we do it.

>The notion that it is for monetary stability is also propaganda. Milton Friedman in "Monetary History" showed that instability increased after the creation of the Fed.

Uh, that is a property of capitalism. It's great at first when debts are low then it gets worse and worse.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#632

Post by imtringued » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 9:26 PM UTC

throwawayyear22 wrote: post #509

verisimi wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very hard conversation to have on HN. It is impossible to consider that the whole of society has been created and planned in advance. To think that the upper classes manage everyone (they always did), that the schooling system produces people that are incapable of seeing the outside the box (and yet believe that they are free, nay - they 'know' it), that finance is the main weapon in the wealth extraction,…

"This is a very hard conversation to have on HN." Yes because it implies there is a conspiracy requiring God-like abilities to plan the long term outcomes of a multitude of decisions and actions many of which have conflicting goals. What is more probable, that the current situation just emerged organically or that some elite group has conspired and executed flawlessly to make the world just like it is ? There are sub…

>Yes because it implies there is a conspiracy requiring God-like abilities to plan the long term outcomes of a multitude of decisions and actions many of which have conflicting goals.

Are you sure? You don't need a conspiracy theory. All you need is compound interest. Just think about it. An asset produces returns above what you spend on consumption. I.e. you are a net winner of the financial system. But milk, eggs, cars, houses have to be built by someone and you can clearly see poor people at the construction site of your house. You don't see rich millionaires build your house.

Meanwhile most people are paying into this system and they are net losers.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#633

Post by imtringued » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 9:29 PM UTC

verisimi wrote: post #361

bilbo0s wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I disagree with the underlying ideas, but I'd argue we're not slaves. I'll concede that in practice we can definitely be thought something more akin to peasants, but what we live in today is not slavery. Now, is being a peasant, with all the concomitant limitations on one's livelihood any better than being a slave to the mental health of the bright and ambitious? Perhaps not, but it would be significantly mo…

If I am forced to give any percentage of my income to a government I do not want, I think that is slavery. You wouldn't think it ok if an individual forced you, or the mafia. The government is just big mafia. But that is not really the nub of it. Slavery is really a mental state - having been through the system we have been propagandised that the government is a good thing, it's the right way to manage ourselves - an…

> If I am forced to give any percentage of my income to a government I do not want, I think that is slavery. You wouldn't think it ok if an individual forced you, or the mafia. The government is just big mafia.

The government uses your money to build infrastructure that makes the land the rich own more valuable. The government itself is also a victim.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#634

Post by imtringued » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 9:35 PM UTC

didericis wrote: post #150

jollybean wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Central Banking has been one of the most powerful and liberating achievements of civilization. And you now have the 'freedom' to strike and sue your employer, women have the 'freedom' to actually have a job, you have the 'freedom' to attend college which only about 5% did at the time, you have the 'freedom' to do almost anything in life. And what 'freedoms' have you lost? Well, there's more taxation. And you have to…

Can you explain why the freedoms you mention are the result primarily of central banking and not social and technological change? The key freedom lost via central banking (at least irresponsible central banking) is the freedom of those in the future to do anything other than meet debt obligations. Debt and credit is obviously necessary, and making money easily accessible and keeping markets liquid is a good thing, bu…

The problem, the reason why we don't have a free market economy, is that the saver gets to decide how much debt there is.

The saver gets to decide whether to lend out his money, to spend it or to simply keep it forever. The money is no longer circulating within the economy, which means someone, usually the government, is forced to borrow the money back into the economy at an interest rate that is simply not sustainable.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#635

Post by queuebert » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 9:40 PM UTC

camgunz wrote: post #621

queuebert wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that one sounds nuts: "In reality, the district court judge was in favor of the gun control law and ruled the law unconstitutional because he knew that Miller, who was a known bank robber and had just testified against the rest of his gang in court, would have to go into hiding as soon as he was released. He knew that Miller would not pay a lawyer to argue the case at the Supreme Court and would simply disappear…

Yeah, sometimes legal strategies are odd. I guess the point is that 2A was always about militias; essentially everything up until Thomas' concurrence in Printz considered 2A in the context of militia readiness, and the draft of 2A was even more explicitly about militias. It's sort of unassailable, but obviously not actually unassailable, because now we have Heller . Myself, I think 2A is just an anachronism. Militias…

You make several good points, but this whole "what can civilians with pew-pew weapons do against a modern army?" argument has been put to bed in actual combat now. See Vietnam and Afghanistan for humbling examples. Not to say it wouldn't be bloody, but victory is not assured by the technologically superior force, apparently.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#636

Post by vkou » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 9:50 PM UTC

VirusNewbie wrote: post #619

vkou wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your contrived example very conveniently excludes what inflation buys (Infrastructure, public spending)[1], and also who pays for the majority of it (The lender - who happens to be neither of the two people in your example.) So yes, if we have an incorrect contrived example that doesn't even attempt to serve as a proxy the ground facts, and we ignore half the consequences of it, yes, of course, we can draw whatever c…

>our contrived example very conveniently excludes what inflation buys Yes I did this on purpose because you seemed to misunderstand some very basics of economics. That poor folks holding cash has wealth indirectly transferred to debtors who are leveraged into assets is not a controversial economic theory. It's fucking basic math. So once the contrived example made sense to you your first response is to move the goalp…

You're still missing the part where its not poor folks who hold cash. The bottom quartile owns next to zero cash. All that an average person in that position owns is the clothes on their back, their personal effects, and maybe a shitty beater car.

The rest of your argument unravels, because you've based it on this fundamentally flawed assumption.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#637

Post by VirusNewbie » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 12:12 AM UTC

vkou wrote: post #636

VirusNewbie wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>our contrived example very conveniently excludes what inflation buys Yes I did this on purpose because you seemed to misunderstand some very basics of economics. That poor folks holding cash has wealth indirectly transferred to debtors who are leveraged into assets is not a controversial economic theory. It's fucking basic math. So once the contrived example made sense to you your first response is to move the goalp…

You're still missing the part where its not poor folks who hold cash. The bottom quartile owns next to zero cash. All that an average person in that position owns is the clothes on their back, their personal effects, and maybe a shitty beater car. The rest of your argument unravels, because you've based it on this fundamentally flawed assumption.

You seem to be all over the place, I picked $500 cash because YOU used that as an example. Do you remember? Scroll up a bit.

   >The rest of your argument unravels, because you've based it on this fundamentally flawed assumption.

No, it's not flawed, it's not my argument, it's logic and economic theory that anyone without some weird learning disability can follow.

If there are two groups of people and you give them both newly created money, but one group more money, the group that got less is worse off. Just because number go up doesn't mean they're better off.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#638

Post by thegrimmest » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 4:31 AM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #622

thegrimmest wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess we're just disagreeing about definitions then. What word would you use to describe the freedom I'm referring to?

Absolutely! I do not know any single word or short phrase that describes "the freedom [you are] referring to", since as far as I can tell, the concept you use is known only among certain libertarians where it is called "freedom". Perhaps it would be "the absence of a hypothetical[0] threat of legally sanctioned violence from 'the government' in response to actions outside of a certain limited range". (Personally, if…

I'd take my definition from The Declaration of the Rights of Man[1]:

> Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights.

> you go into a convenient Half-Price Books mask-free

The problem with this scenario isn't the liberty of the patron, but the liberty of the proprietor. Mask mandates have been varyingly enforced, but generally the government will issue extremely stiff fines or force closure of noncomplying businesses. I'm of the opinion that, like my house, under what conditions I choose to admit people to my business is none of anyone else's concern. I support the right to discriminate against masked and unmasked, shirted and shirtless, tall or short, and any other arbitrary criteria that the proprietor solely chooses.

> What is the dividing line between 'the government' and any other human institution

The government is the sole authority which is able to legitimately use force against you. They also govern public spaces, where you have a right to be, and reach into private interactions. If your family tells you that you have to wear a mask to see them, you can tell them to go to hell and face no consequences. If they beat you up or take your property, you have recourse: you can call the police or take them to court. None of this is true if the action (deemed "legitimate") is taken by the government. They can kidnap you, confine you against your will, and seize your property, and you have no higher power to hear your case.

> but it's not really very far from "round'em up and shoot'em"

I hope you're not comparing election fraud with mass murder. I would implore you to watch some videos of actual mass murders and see if you change your mind. Even a beheading video would do it I imagine.

1. http://www.hrcr.org/docs/frenchdec.html

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#639

Post by thegrimmest » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 4:49 AM UTC

wbsss4412 wrote: post #615

thegrimmest wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxation isn't theft, it's robbery, since it involves the threat of force. The only remaining question is "What services is it ethical to rob people in order to fund?". My answer is "Not nearly as many as most people today suppose".

This doesn’t square with your definitions of legitimate claims on property. Taxes are “lawful”, therefore under your framework, they are neither theft nor robbery. Unless, somehow, lawfulness has nothing to do with laws. In which case what you’re saying is just straight up nonsense.

Anything that we enact into law is "lawful", it's circular reasoning. It doesn't say anything about the ethics of the situation. If 80% of people agree democratically to murder the other 20%, it will be lawful, but does it suddenly become ethical? And if they change the word so that it's "lawful execution" does that make it OK?

In the same vein, I'm using the common definition of "robbery" without any legitimizing window dressing. I'm asking "under what circumstances is it ethical to rob people?" and "under what circumstances is it ethical to enslave them?"

Surely some exist. For instance, being drafted to fight a war and being enslaved are basically equivalent in terms of lived experience. We've decided that yes, in order to defend society against existential threats it's ethical to enslave people. I don't disagree, and would like to point out adherence to the maxim of violating liberty only in direct defense of liberty.

But this does frame the draft to fight WWII and the Vietnam War differently. It's much harder to make the case that North Vietnam was an existential threat to US liberty, so drafting/enslaving people to fight there seems much less ethical.

Following this line of reasoning, the question is "Is it ethical to rob people to pay doctors?". And since lacking a doctor doesn't deprive anyone of liberty, the answer must be "No".

You'll note that all of this can basically be derived from the following (from the Declaration of the Rights of Man)

> 1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights...

> 4. Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights...

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#640

Post by thegrimmest » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 5:05 AM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #630

thegrimmest wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A free dictatorship would be one where the dictator's powers are very limited, but he is not democratically elected. > liberty as non domination, one isn’t subject to the arbitrary will of another. Yes exactly. I just see things like "interfering in private negotiations/transactions between free, equal people" as fundamentally authoritarian/dominating.

If that is your reasoning then consider barter vs money exchange. With money one party has to borrow it first and pay interest. With barter nobody is paying interest. The money lender is clearly abusing his "authority" over money by excluding it from the economy. He uses that power to charge interest and thereby render economic activity that can only cover its own costs unprofitable. Here is an example. I sell you an…

Well, none of this has anything to do with liberty until some force is used. What happens if you just fail to pay the money lender? If he can imprison or enslave you then you're absolutely right. If all he can do is spread the word that you're not likely to repay your loans then it's not a matter of liberty.

Money is just cut paper, a convenient medium of exchange. If you have bad credit, your liberty is not in danger. The only thing in jeopardy is the willingness of others to cooperate/transact with you. Since they don't owe you anything to begin with, the point is moot.