Comment by Communitivity | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Communitivity | Hacker News Reader

I saw comments talking about a hypothetical utopia where no one needs to go hungry and where talent gets notice without having to sell their body or soul.

As with many things, the problem is not technological. We have the technology to create such a utopia (there would still be other problems, but the world would be utopian from those aspects). The problem is sociological. In order to do this we need to both all work together, and think long term (on the order of 50-100 years). The problem is that nations can't even stay together in just an economic union when it's in their best interests economically (Brexit, Paris Accord), and internally those same nations bicker and vote on party lines (Tories vs Labor, Democrats vs Republicans), instead of voting what's best in the long term for the nation.

What's happening in Texas right now is an example. Texas had the money to buy snowplows. They didn't. Texas had the money to winterize wind turbines. They didn't.

We have to get beyond our short term greed and work together in long term action to succeed at addressing these problems. Otherwise there will always be Epsteins, etc. in any industry where people are vying for attention (most of them).

> What's happening in Texas right now is an example. Texas had the money to buy snowplows. They didn't. Texas had the money to winterize wind turbines. They didn't.

Why would a state that only sees things like black ice distribute snow plows everywhere? I lived in that state for 20-something years and never saw these kinds of conditions. It always made sense for them to salt and sand the roads or expect to miss a couple days of work or school.

Re: Texas had the money to buy snowplows. They didn't. Texas had the money to winterize wind turbines. They didn't.

They worship tax-cuts and D.I.Y. social Darwinism (survival of the fittest). So when the weather gets bad, many there are okay with social Darwinism per survival. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/17/texas-mayor-...

Note I didn't say all are happy with it, but enough that they tend to lightly fund infrastructure.

It's a case study in why putting public utilities on a free market is self destructive. The company that neglects maintenance drives the costs down and wins, driving out the competition. Once they have an effective monopoly the utility collapses from a pileup of deferred maintenance and has to get bailed out by the taxpayers.

On the upside some very rich people got way richer than they would have under a traditional regulated utility situation.

sounds like poor management. Why do you think the same individuals overseeing the private utilities would do a better job of managing public utilities? Public utilities rot on the vine and get bailed out as well.

The market rewarded short term thinking that resulted in lower prices at the expense of much more expensive repairs later. Companies that were properly managed were outcompeted and got bought out by the short term thinking competitor.

Doesn't politics favor short term thinking as well?

Elected officials yes. Civil Servants that don't get swapped out with each administration not so much. People like your county water commissioner.

[edit] having just read https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ as posted by /u/phreack, it turns out Scott Alexander has already written what I wrote below, point by point, much more eloquently than I ever could. Read that instead of this comment, if you have the time.

The problem is that bad behaviour is incentivised. It's like the prisoner's dilemma - what you're wishing for is for everyone to cooperate, even though any given individual stands to benefit from betrayal - some individuals will betray, and in an iterated prisoner's dilemma others will see that "crime pays" so to speak and do the same.

What we need to do as a society is to reshape the incentives, through systems engineering, so that the best incentives encourage cooperation. This is a herculean task, I have no idea whether it's even possible, and if it is, who would be in a position to enact such widespread societal changes. But as long as one can personally benefit from a collective harm (or even just reducing the collective benefit), collective harm will be done.

I think some of these arguments are Marxist ones, to be honest - but so far, Marxist attempts to reorganise society have produced even worse societies. I think the only way forwards is incrementalism, tweaking our social structures little by little in the right direction, as total societal reinvention was clearly a catastrophe when attempted.

That's entirely right - here's an article you might like about your idea in case you haven't read it already. It's lately got me thinking a lot about the difficulties in simple organization.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

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