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Comment by bilbo0s | Hacker News Reader

But none of what you just outlined has any effect on Amazon's bottom line, or on NoVA and NYC's tax base. The job of Amazon is to increase their bottom line. The job of the governments of the NoVA and NYC areas are to increase their tax bases. None of those entities have "draw some of the groupthink apart" or "bring new blood into areas that need new blood" as part of their job descriptions.

I just think you're being a little idealistic and naive. You're attempting to advance what seem to be almost quasi-political objectives using the market. But market participants in NYC or NoVA don't really care if Wisconsin needs new blood, or if SF has too much groupthink. Those are not issues the market is meant to address. You only set yourself up for more frustration and failure trying to use what are at their root market based devices to achieve these sorts of quasi-political goals.

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The job of Amazon, or any corporation, is not to just "increase their bottom line" nor is the job of governments to "increase their tax bases". Both classes of entity are allowed to exist by communities of human beings in order to make our lives better than they would be otherwise. We're smart enough to know that we don't have all the answers, so we allow people to create different structures under different rules and with different incentives. But the root reason corporation (and governments) are allowed to exist is the public good. A corporation that exists only for itself is just a weak attempt at a gray goo scenario.

This is very much philosophy rather than practical rules, and perhaps you were speaking on a practical level rather than a philosophical one. But too many people seem to think that corporations (and governments) have some inherent right to exist and do what they chose, and forget that both exist only with our collective permission.

> Got bad news for you.

...

> I just think you're being a little idealistic and naive.

In reading your initial reply to me and this subsequent comment of yours, it seems you're more focused on scratching an itch for a debate. I have no interest:

My initial reply to you was entirely fantastic; it had absolutely no basis in reality. I can assure you that my personal pipe dream of dispersing rational and grounded ideologies for the sake of making more states purple during elections was not intended to be confused with a legitimate argument.

I do hope someone else gives you the debate you're seeking. I'm just informing you that that wasn't the intent of my initial reply to you. I still stand by the idea that it's in everyone's best interests for Amazon to plant large satellite offices in locations that aren't thought-centers because they're more likely to get the tax breaks that they need and they won't have any issues attracting the necessary talent (it's Amazon), but I won't entangle that argument with my dreams.

Cheers

Not looking for a debate at all. (There's not really one to be had.)

>My initial reply to you was entirely fantastic; it had absolutely no basis in reality...

As long as you realize this, it's good. But there have been so many comments on HN the past week or so putting forth ideas of the sort you, rightly, see as more fantasy based that it's become difficult to ascertain exactly when someone is being serious. Such people have to be "sobered up" if we're going to effectively concert in seeking a solution to the larger problem:

The "winner take all" nature of the tech economy.

> The job of the governments of the NoVA and NYC areas are to increase their tax bases.

Must we always have such a narrow monetary view of everything?

The primary job of governments is to be for the people, meaning the primary objective function must be the wellbeing of the people.

Increasing the tax base may or may not be a suitable means towards that goal -- but certainly it's not an end in itself.

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