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Comment by Lammy | Hacker News Reader

Perhaps instead we should construct a society where nobody has to be miserable.

That seems utopian. Norway is among the happiest nations in the world, yet a guy once decided it’s a good idea to go to an island fully armed and kill a bunch of teenagers

... A guy who consumed too much far-right wank, much of it from other countries. Especially America.

And that was about the definition of an isolated incident, or the exception that proves the rule.

So, I'm left wondering what your point is? You think utopia isn't something to strive for? We must accept our fate because of an isolated incident in a country that while much much better at taking care of its people than America is still far from actually a utopia?

"Maybe we should just create a utopian society" isn't a real discussion to have.

“Kids, you tried your best, and you failed miserably. The lesson is: never try.”

I find it a weird response to deny technology's role in making the problems we do have worse but simply saying "why don't we just fix all the previously unfixable problems in our society?"

Is that really helpful to the discussion ?

How?

Universal Basic Income (just print the money) and open borders!

I dunno, maybe the people running our economy could lay off the induced-scarcity a little? It’s not like our money’s value is tied to any tangible real-world thing, after all. They seem to think it builds character: https://www.bostonfed.org/-/media/documents/education/pubs/w... (PDF warning)

On the other hand, humanity appears to have an endless capacity for hierarchy. In the absence of natural scarcity, humans create the artificial.

Also, who are the people running the economy? I think it’s an emergent phenomenon of humans natural behavior, amplified by our current scale and low friction interconnectedness.

> Also, who are the people running the economy?

I don’t know. I assume there has to be at least some intended direction for them to be able to write comics about it, but I am just a peon in this system :)

The emergent phenomenons arise from an environment defined by certain rules and external factors.

Many of those rules are defined by a small group of people (laws), and a very important external factor (money) is directly influenced by central banks. These people decide pretty directly how much and into what types of investments money should go.

While our money may not be tied to any tangible real-world thing, our ability to actually buy tangible real-world things with it absolutely and obviously is. I can't imagine most people would feel better off if they had twice the money on paper but couldn't afford anything more than they can now. Also, one really alarming thing about modern society is just how much social media, the press and populist politicians have been feeding miserable people conspiracy theories about how all their problems are created by a plot of a shadowy group of individuals to oppress them and could trivially be ended if those people were overthrown.

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