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Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

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Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#91

Post by primroot »

badpun wrote: post #85
johnklos wrote: post #31

Considering that the amount of computing that could be rented for the price of a house every month could now be bought for $20, this isn't surprising. What's surprising is that with all these resources made available to the world, we still have systems that allow hoarding of wealth to such a degree that most people can't afford to own a home and many can barely afford rent and food.

> What's surprising is that with all these resources made available to the world, we still have systems that allow hoarding of wealth to such a degree that most people can't afford to own a home and many can barely afford rent and food. 1. Why is that surprising? That has been a natural state of human societies from the beginning of civilization. What would be really surprising is if things changed. 2. Roughly two th…

I believe replacing "weapons" for "systems" makes the statement more in line with concrete reality.

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#92

Post by VoodooJuJu »

johnklos wrote: post #38
Auracle wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Land/space are limited. I live where most on HN would consider very rural - the closest town is 600 people and a town of 20,000 is about 30 minutes from me. Even when I was buying a home back in 2011 there were basically no good plots of land for sale. What was there was about $10,000 an acre. I eventually got my house for $180,000 and it’s on 15 acres, meaning my 3,000 square foot house was basically only $30,000 wh…

It's not racist for bringing it up - it's racist for blaming immigrants when it's the wealthy buying up and hoarding land and property, coupled with an out of control healthcare system, stagnant wages while corporate profits are huge, and lobbyists keeping politicians from meaningfully changing anything. I couldn't take you seriously, anyway. 2.7 million illegal border crossings have zero to do with 1.6 million housi…

Just know that the people endorsing mass importation of immigrants are the same ones hoarding property.

They benefit directly from the cheap labor (even child-cheap labor [1]), from the depressed wages, and indirectly from the enlarged voter base of their political friends.

When you deflect the conversation towards racism and related name-calling, you're acting as an agent on behalf of the lords, doing exactly what they want you to do [2]: flinging mud at other peasants, rather than at the lords themselves.

I think one of the best ways to avoid being agentized by the elite class is to just be more skeptical in general, especially when you encounter emotional argumentation. Accusations of racism in particular is a huge red flag. This tactic is by design intended to shut down a discussion rather than engage with it.

[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/06/12/child-labor-is...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28415546 - It is far better for upper class to ensure that people discuss and focus on issues like gender and skin colour than the class differences. Hence, they ensured that this is the issue plebs would hear all over on the media and shift their attention from class divides to gender and skin colour.

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#93

Post by primroot »

barelyauser wrote: post #72
kortilla wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homeless people have cell phones. Why do you think great advancements bringing down the price of computing would solve housing?

I don't understand why this post is being downvoted. What is the point of more compute if everyone will get locked out of the "wealth pool" because they can no longer produce any value?

I agree, but let's not forget that the more (semantically) obvious reason why people get locked out of wealth has more to do with not being able to take it than with not being able to produce it.

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#94

Post by USB5 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #36
USB5 wrote: post #17

American wages have been stagnated for over 30 years.

Yet if you take into account welfare payments and programs, total income growth has been large. If you make 20K a year, you get about 40K of additional government welfare. If you make 45k a year, you get zero. For a vast number of Americans, increasing wage is a bad thing. https://www.illinoispolicy.org/illinois-warped-welfare-syste...

[flagged]

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#95

Post by lumb63 »

chung8123 wrote: post #56
johnklos wrote: post #31

Considering that the amount of computing that could be rented for the price of a house every month could now be bought for $20, this isn't surprising. What's surprising is that with all these resources made available to the world, we still have systems that allow hoarding of wealth to such a degree that most people can't afford to own a home and many can barely afford rent and food.

Things that can be produced and consumed all over seems to have been averaging down (from US perspective) but things that cannot be done somewhere else or have strong limits on their production (services, housing) have inflated a lot. We had inflation with a pool of items I think.

Globalization over the last several decades has greatly reduced inflation and allowed the first world to “gain” far more wealth than would have actually happened otherwise.

For instance, 70 years ago, more American cars were built in America. The money that consumers paid for cars went to American companies. This caused increased demand for (American) workers, which increased workers’ wages, and thus their spending power, and thus increased the price of goods. Their pay increased sufficiently to allow them to maintain, and in fact improve, their quality of life, because the inflation was driven by wage growth.

Compare to a globalized world. The money Americans spend on cars today mostly ends up in foreign nations. The demand for the produce of foreign companies pushes up wages in foreign countries, and causes inflation there. Americans get items for cheaper than they could be produced in their own nation, due to labor cost differences. The rub is that they’re not fueling their own economies, which leaves workers unable to afford items which cannot be produced elsewhere.

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#96

Post by ToDougie »

lph wrote: post #76
tqi wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There were 2.7 million illegal border crossings in FY 2022: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna53517 > It’s unsustainable and people think you’re a racist for bringing it up so it never gets talked about. Not to mention 3.7M live births in the US last year - and I know for a fact not a single one of those freeloaders has a job.

...and the same folks who rail against immigration can often be found lamenting the low national birth rate. It makes one suspect their complaint isn't with the rate of population growth, but with its hue.

wow this really made me think

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#97

Post by coryrc »

soperj wrote: post #75
6DM wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a love hate relationship for led lights. They are more efficient, come in an array of colors for you to personalize your space. But I consider them expensive and a lot of them surprisingly don’t last that long, especially for their price. I’ve already replace two out of three led light fixtures that are supposed to last at least a decade and it hasn’t even been 5 years. I hope the quality improves or there’s s…

> I’ve already replace two out of three led light fixtures that are supposed to last at least a decade and it hasn’t even been 5 years. I think you must be getting cheap bulbs. I bought a bunch before my kid was born, and he's 10 and none have gone out. I've even taken them with me when I moved.

> I bought a bunch before my kid was born, and he's 10 and none have gone out.

You can't buy those bulbs anymore, both literally, and they truly don't make them like that anymore. I have new ones and old ones, the old ones weigh three times as much. There were more components run at a lower limit of peak capacity. I move my old bulbs when I move because new ones won't last as long.

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#98

Post by thatfrenchguy »

Auracle wrote: post #35
johnklos wrote: post #31

Considering that the amount of computing that could be rented for the price of a house every month could now be bought for $20, this isn't surprising. What's surprising is that with all these resources made available to the world, we still have systems that allow hoarding of wealth to such a degree that most people can't afford to own a home and many can barely afford rent and food.

Land/space are limited. I live where most on HN would consider very rural - the closest town is 600 people and a town of 20,000 is about 30 minutes from me. Even when I was buying a home back in 2011 there were basically no good plots of land for sale. What was there was about $10,000 an acre. I eventually got my house for $180,000 and it’s on 15 acres, meaning my 3,000 square foot house was basically only $30,000 wh…

> It’s unsustainable and people think you’re a racist for bringing it up so it never gets talked about.

Yeah what's unsustainable is you living on 15 acres, we can build housing for everyone.

> Canada built 321,000 units of housing in 2021 but is in pace to have over 500,000 immigrants this year.

Given, unlike you, they need to be considered productive by the government to move to Canada, why would they not be allowed to be here?

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#99

Post by thatfrenchguy »

Auracle wrote: post #35
johnklos wrote: post #31

Considering that the amount of computing that could be rented for the price of a house every month could now be bought for $20, this isn't surprising. What's surprising is that with all these resources made available to the world, we still have systems that allow hoarding of wealth to such a degree that most people can't afford to own a home and many can barely afford rent and food.

Land/space are limited. I live where most on HN would consider very rural - the closest town is 600 people and a town of 20,000 is about 30 minutes from me. Even when I was buying a home back in 2011 there were basically no good plots of land for sale. What was there was about $10,000 an acre. I eventually got my house for $180,000 and it’s on 15 acres, meaning my 3,000 square foot house was basically only $30,000 wh…

> It’s unsustainable and people think you’re a racist for bringing it up so it never gets talked about.

Yeah what's unsustainable for the planet is you living on 15 acres in a 3000 sqft detached house, we can build housing for everyone.

> Canada built 321,000 units of housing in 2021 but is in pace to have over 500,000 immigrants this year.

Given, unlike you, they need to be considered productive by the government to move to Canada, why would they not be allowed to be here?

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#100

Post by ltbarcly3 »

johnklos wrote: post #31

Considering that the amount of computing that could be rented for the price of a house every month could now be bought for $20, this isn't surprising. What's surprising is that with all these resources made available to the world, we still have systems that allow hoarding of wealth to such a degree that most people can't afford to own a home and many can barely afford rent and food.

Who can't afford food? An egg costs like 30 cents, rice is like 20 cents a pound. Make some fried rice. Make a sandwich. The cost of great food is like $40 a month per person, with the bonus that they wouldn't be morbidly obese. Now explain why its unreasonable to expect people to eat high quality cheap food. (and no "poor people are too stupid" paternalistic arguments)
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