The Demoralization is just Beginning • Hacker News Board

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#741

Post by coolThingsFirst » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 1:18 AM UTC

tokioyoyo wrote: post #721

coolThingsFirst wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just money. There's another aspect which the US has that edges out the competition. The fact that everyone is treated as an American in the place without racism/xenophobia. This is a huge benefit over impenetrable countries like Denmark/Netherlands.

Half of your country actively rallies on the idea of sending back Chinese, Indians, Mexicans and etc. I think you just live in a bubble or educated circles where that’s bot tolerated, but that’s not the experience of every single immigrant.

I'm saying this as an immigrant, muslim name but white.

You've no idea of the blatant ongoing racism in Europe that's so normalised it's basically a non issue. Like Zwarte Piet in Netherlands.

The xenophobia in EU is head and shoulders above the US. I've lived in both places for years. In Germany for example you will never be considered German even if you were born in the country.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#742

Post by buzzert » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 1:30 AM UTC

cyanydeez wrote: post #731

KaiserPro wrote: post #349

Going back to a gold standard will limit the money supply. This means that there will be less capital for building $thing. A gold standard means that when the economy gets overheated it pops, then contracts and you get deflation. This makes crashes last longer and harder. It requires greater fiscal discipline to overcome. The problem with the USA "empire" is that for a trading empire to work you need a plan, and stic…

yeah, it's really bizarre people think economics at this scale works with gold. People really think humanity operates on some kind of fixed physical properties, when everything we rely on in modern society is not real. Borders are not real, the value we place on a human life is not real, the stocks and bonds arn't real. They're all relative relationships with historical and future promises, reliant upon the trust we…

This is such a deranged take, I can't even tell if it's satire or not.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#743

Post by energy123 » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 1:30 AM UTC

gizmo wrote: post #580

energy123 wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason the Chinese solar industry exists is because of so called "brain drain" from China to Australia and Germany. The reality is far less zero sum. These Chinese scientists learned about and contributed to solar research overseas, and some of them went back to China and made China wealthier.

Do you actually believe Chinese researchers are incapable of figuring out photovoltaics by themselves? China has first-rate universities and thousands of PhDs in every field imaginable. They can make solar cells without our help. Having access to western research only sped up the inevitable. China has a solar industry today simply because the Chinese government decided that energy production was a top priority. They…

Why construct a false binary between being incapable of figuring it out by themselves and being capable? Its about velocity and magnitude and matters of degree, not this notion of true or false.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#744

Post by fuzzfactor » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 1:31 AM UTC

glial wrote: post #682

fuzzfactor wrote: post #668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>a gold standard will limit the money supply. I think there's some truth to this. And if you're willing to accept it for what it is, ask yourself about your own supply of money, what it is and where it comes from. What are the current limitations if not gold any more? And it hasn't been gold in quite some time, not just theoretically for a while. How has that "unlimited" money supply worked out ever since? Is there a…

> How has that "unlimited" money supply worked out ever since? Judging that it's been 100 years since the last depression, pretty well.

You're right, of course there are all kinds of of American families who have not suffered any downturns, some going back more than 100 years, without the "Great Depression" even slowing them down much.

But they're in the same boat as everyone else now, as far as guessing how many years til the next depression, whether or not it is overdue, by how much, and what happens this time.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#745

Post by janalsncm » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 2:14 AM UTC

chii wrote: post #263

janalsncm wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intuitively, if a toaster costs 5x in the US what it would cost in China, GDP says that a sale in the US was more productive when in reality it’s the same thing in both places. My opinion is the money is a means to an end and we’d be served better by focusing on those ends instead: healthcare, housing, education, life expectancy etc.

> in reality it’s the same thing in both places. the utility of a toaster is different in different places. It may also be the case that a toaster costing 5x in the US, because this is including an opportunity cost for that toaster being made (which means a different thing wasn't made).

I think we have to be careful that by adding “utility” as an indirection we don’t accidentally traffic in “cost”. Because maybe I am dumb but it seems to me that the utility of a toaster is its ability to toast bread.

If I make 5x as much as someone in China and am willing to pay 5x as much for the same thing, at the end of the day we both just want toast. And if I buy a crappy toaster that only costs 2x as much and can only toast half as fast, “utility” (i.e. cost) says my toaster is still better despite it being an objectively worse toaster.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#746

Post by 1659447091 » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 2:38 AM UTC

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…

I believe your personal experience may be narrowing your view.

I have a similar family experience with drastically different outcome. Including ties to your idealize Iowan people (born to Iowan w/ Iowan grandparents, great grand parents and so on back to Jamestown for a couple), who are simply that, just people. Most Iowans come from late 1800 immigrants, many from East Europe. Some of my Iowan family lines are outliers in terms of origin (first families), but there is at least one from 1800 East Europe that I know of. If you moved on from British history to American History, you would better understand the real mixing of immigrants/cultures, and that is distinctly American. They did not all stick to their kind, as it were.

Some recent family has integrated with Asian immigrants and they are more "American" than some of my Iowan families in-laws that have been radicalized into anti-American values, much to my Iowan families horror. That has nothing to do with "cultural attitudes" etc, and everything to do with living in internet bubbles.

Iowan's I know and come from are blue through and through--Union loving gun toting Democrats. Most of them have kept their values, some have let Fox "news" take that thinking over for them.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#747

Post by tomrod » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 2:42 AM UTC

troupo wrote: post #715

tomrod wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest feedback request: how can I be more explicit when noting a fact without connotation or judgment?

You were explicit. "I'm most other ways crypto isn't that great". Were "other ways" is in juxtaposition to "being limited". But being limited isn't great either

Much obliged.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#748

Post by t-3 » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 2:51 AM UTC

unclebucknasty wrote: post #740

t-3 wrote: post #710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coups in Haiti, supporting gangsters and strongmen, overthrowing democratically elected presidents multiple times - supporting Democracy! Pushing fake candidates in Venezuela - supporting Democracy! Ousting left-leaning governments in Australia - supporting Democracy! Overthrowing the democratically elected government of Iran, returning it to authoritarian monarchy - supporting Democracy! Overthrowing the democratica…

You are judging the U.S. in the context of an otherwise utopian world that doesn't exist. Yes, it gets messy. And, yes, United Fruit Company et. al. happened. We've absolutely had government capture and promotion of special interests. But, even these aren't always so neatly separable from U.S. interests, which are not always so neatly inseparable from promotion of democracy. For instance, a weak economy would make it…

I'm not claiming the US is not democratic - by most definitions of democracy, it is. I'm claiming the US has never promoted or protected democracy.

I'm not judging the US in comparison to anyone else. I'm judging it in comparison to your statement that it has promoted and protected democracy around the world.

US interests justify all kinds of nastiness, sure. But we claim to be civilized, claim to be champions of justice and democracy, and say we act for the good of the world. There is no evidence at all to give any credence to those claims. Claiming that other countries would be even worse is just a strawman. We should be better, and we know we should be better, because we feel the need to hide and deny the things we do. I don't care what other countries do - I don't live in them, have no vote in them, and am not represented by them. I want MY country to be good and just, rather than pragmatically evil because we can't let anyone else "win".

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#749

Post by chii » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 3:40 AM UTC

janalsncm wrote: post #745

chii wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in reality it’s the same thing in both places. the utility of a toaster is different in different places. It may also be the case that a toaster costing 5x in the US, because this is including an opportunity cost for that toaster being made (which means a different thing wasn't made).

I think we have to be careful that by adding “utility” as an indirection we don’t accidentally traffic in “cost”. Because maybe I am dumb but it seems to me that the utility of a toaster is its ability to toast bread. If I make 5x as much as someone in China and am willing to pay 5x as much for the same thing, at the end of the day we both just want toast. And if I buy a crappy toaster that only costs 2x as much and…

> at the end of the day we both just want toast

but the seller doesn't care about that. The seller will attempt to extract the maximum price of a toaster.

It is because americans are more productive, that their maximum price for a toaster is 5x that of china; they can afford to pay 5x. So this is a measure of their utility - not the ability to toast. An american finds that the ability to toast to be worth 5x that a chinese would be willing to pay for toast.

If america was poorer, the seller would not be able to sell the toaster for 5x (and instead would have to lower their price to match the price their customers can afford, up to the minimum margin the seller could afford to cut to).

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#750

Post by kamaal » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 4:42 AM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #441

pif wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That takes planning, money vision and time. And a dictatorship. Democracy does not fit very well with long term plans, unless you either make huge efforts to ensure everyone gets their fair share (see Scandinavia) or you have a good plan for people being rich with not too much effort (see Switzerland and other tax havens). Concerning the USA, the divide between the extra rich and the general poor is nowadays too la…

And further than democracy, the universe doesn't guarantee long-term anything. Sensible regimes (being democracy or else) seems intrinsically more aligned with that. Except maybe clear catastrophes that require "homogeneous" actions / behaviors (like asia approach to the covid 19 pandemic)

Wrote this a while back on this forum. Long term winning has nothing to do with growth. It has more to do with stability. Just don't fight wars and have smooth transition of power.

This more or less guarantees winning on the very longer run.

You still have gradual decay, which can unfold over centuries, and that is ok, but that is cyclical and you rise back in a century or so.

The real issues with the US/West is wars, too many of them. Even if the dollar standard guarantees a money printer. Its not exactly free. Triffin dilemma de-industrializes your country. Your politics has too much ego to stop fighting. In the meanwhile you lose industry, stability, time and just don't have focus for things that matter. Somebody who is more sane wins in the meanwhile.

UK really needed to build more industries instead of fighting WW1/2. Its a shame that Churchill won above Chmaberlain/Halifax. You get the fake thrill of winning a war, you shouldn't have even gone into, destroyed yourself fighting, all for some fake sense of bravado which led to your disaster.

If things go South for US from here. George Bush will likely have the same standing in history.

tl;dr- If you are winning, keep it that way, and don't fight wars.