Hacker News Reader

Comment by tlocke | Hacker News Reader

I agree with a lot of what you write, but in my experience in the UK there can be instances where money from the the wealthy has been used for the common good. For example, until 1945 only the rich could afford to educate their children, but the government decided to use taxpayers' money to provide free education for every child up to the age of 16. It was a utopian idea, and when it was first suggested most people said, 'yeah right, nice idea but of course it'll never happen'.

View on HN

Are you aware that is not the rich people who sustain the state and thus 99% of its income, but the middle class right?

That's why politicians who campaign with ideas like "taxing the rich to fix X problem" are pure populist bullshit. You are the one who is gonna end up paying more.

First there are not enough rich people compared to commoners, and second, they can and will hide their money if possible and worth it.

So in the UK as in any other state, what did and is providing "free" education is your money and the money of the ones like you in the middle and upper-middle class.

Surely it's true to say that in the UK some people simply couldn't afford to send their children to school, but now every child can attend school regardless of their parents' wealth?

Government exists to solve the collective action problem (i.e. prisoner's dilemma). In an unregulated market, at times the winning move has lots of unaccounted externalities, so government steps in to realign incentives.

In this case, free education was possible if everyone collectively decided on it, but the market was unable to coordinate those people effectively. Government stepped in and tada - you have free education.

> I agree with a lot of what you write, but in my experience in the UK there can be instances where money from the the wealthy has been used for the common good. For example, until 1945 only the rich could afford to educate their children, but the government decided to use taxpayers' money to provide free education for every child up to the age of 16. It was a utopian idea, and when it was first suggested most people said, 'yeah right, nice idea but of course it'll never happen'.

And yet you ask people today and they'll moan about never having had it worse, boomers this and billionaires that (or tories I guess, I don't know what the equivalent go-to brainless insult is over there).

Not that there aren't valid reasons for complaint, but as I said envy (and greed) is a fundamental part of the human condition. I don't know why people think some utopia is just around the corner -- we've had thousand-fold multipliers in production. Fossil fuels, internal combustion, farming and construction machinery, factories, chemicals, computers, industrial robots, electricity. From pre-historic farmers and hunter gatherers to now production has increased unimaginably. The utopia never comes because that was never what was preventing it.

People who want there to be a utopia where nobody works and everybody is happy sharing everything fundamentally want to extinguish humanity. Because that's not what humanity is.

So I think there's a distinction between wealth and happiness. Amongst the aristocracy I'm sure there is a lot of misery. I think we've got a good chance of ensuring material abundance for everyone on the planet. Whether those people will be happy is a different question.

There is a distinction, but we already live like aristocracy. And aristocracing a bit more isn't going to change much in the social dynamic. "AI" isn't likely to be any more transformative than the the Haber process or the steam engine or the computer, as far as I can see. Some peoples' jobs will become redundant, same as always.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com