Comment by iriNjfk993 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by iriNjfk993 | Hacker News Reader

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The frustrating thing is though: we have plenty of real demand

Social work, infrastructure repairs, mental health services.

But all the effort coalesces around BIG Corp. and Douche Co. needs first

Somehow we’re convinced that Bezos and Koch’s are more important than our neighbors

Some looney economists will tell you it’s proven in physics these people are just better

Ignoring the history of violent imperialism and collusion, and oppression that prevented and neutered whole swaths of people from catching up or getting ahead

My take is humans are ignorant animals who are emotionally captured by novelty and special interests keep peddling it to stoke that dopamine buzz

Then when you read in open access government documents they’ve been studying exactly that since WW1, and handing that research to unis who turned it into journalism, advertising, marketing, and management courses, you don’t go “oh deep state!” You go holy shit are we dumb. This is right in front of our faces, no conspiracy theory needed. Documented in official record, in plain view, how government has been dictating what we work on in the land of the free

The first topic that got me onto this pattern: was doing a research paper on thorium reactors since they were all buzzwordy a few years ago

In the 50s they were THE leading effort for energy

That all stopped when a Naval officer realized submarines could be equipped with quieter nuclear engines and weapons and be parked on the coast of whenever undetected

Thorium research was archived and we got to build unstable, by comparison, reactors as a result

And then you see it’s like that all over the historical record from the era

And you realize Bezos and Koch’s aren’t special. They were lucky to be alive now in a heavily curated system with a plain paper trail

I might be missing a lot of what you're saying, but say I worked for FAAMG - they just pay a lot more than what my neighbor could pay me. Even if repairing the neighbors deck or planting new trees in their yard or whatever might be "better" for society than submitting code for review on some feature. I guess I'm trying to understand what you're getting at because I think a lot of people don't believe Bezos or Koch are special, but they can simply pay them more.

> they just pay a lot more than what my neighbor could pay me

My wife is a pediatric occupational therapist specializing in early intervention. She gets paid bupkis by the children's hospital but working super interesting cases. She gets paid reasonably by the county for providing homecare to some kids who really need help as the county is the Medicaid payor of last resort and the kids really need help. She gets paid handsomely by private parties, but the work is often dull.

I'm not sure people work at the corps because the pay is better. I suspect many are attracted by some of the crazy problems on offer.

That’s the pragmatic acquiescence that makes them “special”.

I don’t mean to suggest people literally consider them special in thought (though there are folks that do believe wealthy folks are divine).

But an objective view, minus culture bias, of economic activity would show a lot of activity swirling into Bezos’s bank accounts

What are Bezos ideas? Selling books online. Today that seems rather quaint, so yeah it was a different thing in 199-whenever

But that’s it. Everything else has been curated around him — cloud and such, he didn’t invent shared compute time.

But the system inherently protects that now. Ownership is the root of power. And the public, through government, has taken on debt to prop up ownership of new ideas and achievements as described in the anecdote about nuclear subs

IBM refused to invest in transistor computers. So the government did. And gifted it to IBM for mass production.

There’s a paper trail to tell a narrative that shows Bezos, etc, got lucky to live now, after all this government invention

And now he just says work on cloud and homes for me with 25 toilets and that’s how it goes. He’s that special in the system that he can command such

But he’s not elected. He’s not divine. And the species has plenty of demands that aren’t related to what he needs.

I’m picking on Bezos, but to me the notion applies to any super rich “my great grandkids can retire on inheritance.”

Those are the conversations we should be having.

I’ve tutored kids in comm college, algebra and basic coding, who can absolutely build web apps and shit, but all their lives assume adulthood is pragmatic acquiescence their future

Not working with the neighbors they grew up knowing, but for elites a world away

Pragmatic acquiescence has us literally discussing the value of Bezos and the stock market and not opioid addiction, and mental health — where there is plenty of demand

Can we really say we agree with the way the rules are written?

All demand is "real demand." Someone wants something and is willing to pay you. That's real.

"is willing" != "has means to". And to what extent "has means to" ~= "is worthy of" is the age old debate.

That's just an oversimplification to avoid discussion. By that definition, a shortage is "real" even if it's been artificially caused by an interested party, because there's a whole bunch of people who really don't have access to whatever is in "shortage".

"All demand is real demand" is true only when the demand is not intentionally manipulated.

Except I like what Bezos does for me. He gets my capital because I get something in return. I'd much rather my money go to one of Bezos services than it be taken from me by the government to pay someone to fill holes. And filling holes doesn't create jobs, it sucks capital from places that do. Bezos on the other hand created whole new industries.

> it sucks capital from places that do

We have more than enough "capital". There is no shortage of (completely made up virtual) "money". There always is plenty of money for any worthwhile project - because it is created new for that new project. And if the economy is in trouble because "money!" the government steps in and through intermediaries creates a few trillion, see last crisis. So, please clarify for me, how does anything "suck away" capital from useful endeavors? According all that I read the last decade "money" is scrambling to find even half-decent places to invest itself.

The concept of money is an incredibly corrosive social and mental poison. It forces debates about ethics and social costs/benefits into a value system that's completely artificial and has very obvious and dangerous limitations.

I guess you’ve never heard of inflation. When the government prints more money it steals value from the money in my pocket. See Venezuela printing money for people to fill holes other people are digging instead of letting a free market allocate reaources.

I guess you don't know how money works in the modern economy. The majority of money is not created by commercial banks out of thin air, but not unreasonably (at least the actual concept is not unreasonable) - they can only do so when they have a "partner" (customer) willing to sign a debt agreement that they will pay back that amount, plus interest. So banks can't just create what they want.

The government GIVES you the money in the first place, you would be nothing living in a mud hut in the swamp without the "evil government". It's not "your" money to begin with. If you want to know what is "yours" go to the middle of the forest and live there, all the stone tools and grass huts you manage to build are all yours, no "stealing" from government. Everything you have you owe to luck of birth, that you were not born nearer the beginning of humanity but today. You live off of network effects of connected humanity in time and space. Don't give me that BS of "your money". Everything you are is 99.999999999999999999% NOT made by you.

By the way, we have had a HUGE increase in money over real economy for decades - and only very low inflation. Your ignorance is a bit too extreme for my taste.

Very low inflation nominally, according to a measure that does not factor in 1. Rent 2. Medical Expenses and Health Insurance 3. Education, stuff that matters more than the eggs and milk the CPI measures

> Social work, infrastructure repairs, mental health services.

But not everyone is suited for that work, much less qualified to perform those services, and perhaps most importantly, not everyone WANTS to.

Raise the salaries for those professions and more might, and of course with a UBI people are less incentivized by earnings to get into a specific job.

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