Comment by jackschultz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jackschultz | Hacker News Reader

>Then I realized that we are already surrounded by machines that demonstrate a complete lack of insight, we just call them corporations. Corporations don’t operate autonomously, of course, and the humans in charge of them are presumably capable of insight, but capitalism doesn’t reward them for using it. On the contrary, capitalism actively erodes this capacity in people by demanding that they replace their own judgment of what “good” means with “whatever the market decides.”

Excellent quote. We say we're in a rational world where we make rational decisions in our societal game we've all been told we have to play - capitalism where money is the determinant of success vs failure for corporations, families, individuals.

But step back and when looking at the question of whether it's rational to us as humans be playing this game and it is not rational at all. Why are we not deciding that food and places to live for everyone is the determinant of success of a country, society? Or happiness?

60 Minutes has a segment about Bhutan from a couple weeks ago [0] about this. They lived by something they named "Gross National Happiness". Which feels weird to type but again stepping back, it's because our whole lives we're told that "Gross Domestic Product", overall money, is the determinant of "best" and that's so engrained for us.

On a different note, Ted Chaing's short story books [1][2] are incredibly, incredibly good. I'm reading them again and read "Story of Your Life" earlier today. Being able to write fiction like that makes it much more trusting to listen to what someone has to say on other topics. And saying that seems like another topic - how we're told to downplay fiction compared to non-fiction, when our brains evolved for stories. But that's for another comment.

[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g_t1lzn-1A

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stories_of_Your_Life_and_Other...

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhalation:_Stories

Why are we not deciding that food and places to live for everyone is the determinant of success of a country, society? Or happiness?

I think a lot of countries do, just not the USA. Money is truly king in the USA. But in Europe, developed parts of Asia, people are definitely not as rich, but decent quality basics are much much more accessible and considered a basic right.

People in USA have an extremely rose-tinted view of the rest of the world.

People in the USA are just trying to figure out how to pay their bills. This USA rhetoric is really tired. Nope, most people are actually poor as fuck.

There’s a certain type of American who sees Scandinavian countries as having 100% cracked the code to every possible problem. It’s not a viewpoint that allows for a lot of nuance.

Do we? In mainstream American politics people recoil at the notion of “European” political ideals. On HN most of the “Europe is so much better” sentiment seems to come from actual Europeans.

The right wing, perhaps. The American left wing is convinced Europe is utopia.

Because once that’s the priority it becomes easier to game the system rather than delivering food and places to live.

It's not a priority, it's part of the culture, go to most cities in Spain, Italy any night of the week, it feels like new years eve. People out all over the place at bars, eating and drinking good food.

I think in America food and it's price are the priority personally. Every meal that I actually enjoy and isn't fast food is painfully expensive. The only exception is Mexican food IMO.

Btw, USA has more accessible housing than EU. Food is also cheaper.

What is screwing Americans - healthcare and urge to buy things people don't need.

But access to healthcare is what makes most of developed world much better and more civilized? It's one of the most important things you have to have in a society.

I have read about people in the USA forgoing basic procedures like endoscopes because they cannot afford it. Can you believe that?

I was recently in Spain, what's different is "good" food is cheaper and it's part of the culture, crap food is less acceptable. I had one of the best sandwiches and coffees of my life and at airport, an airport...at 6am. It was also cheaper than what I'd get at most US airports.

And I've heard many stories people in EU waiting for years for basic procedures like endoscopes.

Your sandwich was cheaper in absolute terms but more pricey in relative terms, if you count it as a fraction of your daily rate.

Bhutan is about to create a special economic zone where this idea is relaxed, because they are facing a brain drain. The Bhutanese also want shiny things.

> Why are we not deciding that food and places to live for everyone is the determinant of success of a country, society?

That is what people do decide. That is why everyone slowly converged on capitalist economies with some level of social safety net - it is the system that best resists mass starvation and provides material comfort for as many people as possible. There is no alternative that is better at feeding (or housing, for that matter) people; otherwise that'd be the economic system of choice.

Bhutan is having some serious problems.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bhutan-emigration-crisis-60-min...

Gross National Happiness is a made up statistic that means nothing, it’s just used to distract from other atrocities. Don’t be naive.

> it's because our whole lives we're told that "Gross Domestic Product", overall money, is the determinant of "best" and that's so engrained for us.

I grew up in the US and literally never heard this. It’s a way to measure economic behavior but nobody actually cares about that number. For the people who are money focused, they look at things like PPI and individual incomes. I’m not making a value judgement on how much focus should be put on that, but the point is that GDP is irrelevant to citizens.

For a concrete example, Biden/Harris got backlash about the economy sucking despite GDP being great because of the massive erosion in purchasing power during 2022/2023. Them pointing to GDP to show how strong the economy was even made it worse.

>when our brains evolved for stories. But that's for another comment

Go ahead !

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