986 karma · joined October 9, 2013
hnchat.com:3Qm9yJCNy40eKuCR8XFY
That's what we already do. Duplicating content without the copyright owner's permission is copyright infringement which is illegal.
> I would argue that Kickstarter does the same thing as the current model, but has none of the same safeties in place. I agree it's not apples to oranges, but I think we could put those legal safeties in place.
Corporate bonds are a relatively safe way to lend.
How does the duplication of digital goods being free mean capitalism no longer makes sense?
Kickstarter is essentially risky lending and charity (you put in money and possibly get rewards which may not be commensurate with the money you put in).
If I subscribe to a magazine and journal, only I benefit.
So, why should the people who don't use mail pay for the people who do use mail?
> but is still the one with the least capability of censorship (yes, it can be done, as Communist and Fascist dictorships did, but it requires massive manual effort).
Why do you think it has the least capability of censorship, especially versus the internet?
But wouldn't it be more equitable (people will send different amounts of mail) and more utilitarian to just directly transfer the cost of the subsidy to everybody below an income or wealth threshold?
Instead of the government saying "you can only spend this on mail", let people decide whether they want to get access to mail, or buy other things.
The problem here is that you're taking for granted that people would want to spend that money on mail rather than other things.
I thought perpetual motion violates the laws of thermodynamics. Does quantum physics cause the laws of thermodynamics to break down?
"Ejidatarios do not actually own the land, but are allowed to use their allotted parcels indefinitely as long as they do not fail to use the land for more than two years. They can pass their rights on to their children."
Taking land from landlords doesn't work because then no one will buy land in the future out of that risk, unless it is very clearly done as a one-time thing. See: one-time tax.
I'm not saying collective ownership does not exist but you haven't shown it works empirically or theoretically.
> A random salting of pure-theory, Econ-101 points is the sort of lazy, free-market fundamentalism that I have no time for.
What is wrong with pure-theory and Econ-101 points?
Mainstream economic theory is a refinement of Econ-101 with more complex modelling (imperfect competition, sticky wages).
Econ-101 can be used to rebuke many bad economic policies like what Venezuela is doing (capital control, etc).
> And, just as important, working in ways and yielding outcomes that matched their values.
Do famines and poverty reflect their values? Does food rationing reflect their values?
Does only the Politburo having access to the ZIL-111 reflect egalitarianism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIL-111)? Does Chaikas only being available for purchase by the Soviet government reflect egalitarianism?
> Communists weren't stupid.
Most communism (such as LTV) is bad economics (that's why the Marxist school of economics is very much outside the mainstream). Communism forgets the Laffer curve at 100%. Complete equality does not work.
> communal approaches working pretty well for them at smaller scales
It works at smaller scales of family, neighbors, etc because then the people are roughly homogeneous. Even then it is not optimal. Have you heard of horrible stories involving housing societies?
> Laughing alternatives off like this is just a knee-jerk defense of the status quo.
It's not a knee-jerk defense because I gave some thinking.
> But it's somehow common and acceptable whenever economics comes up.
I have been downvoted at times for my "fundamentalist capitalist" views. The earliest post in this thread that I wrote is at 0 points (maybe you downvoted it).
I just said how collective ownership fails and how capitalism is a better solution. Is there something I said that I shouldn't have?
> There's no point in discussing the details with you, because you aren't interested in learning anything.
I am. Go critique my points. Maybe show me some empirical examples to rebuke me. Send me research articles. Or write your own explanation of how collective ownership would be managed.
> When called on your drama, you pretend to be purely rational.
What drama? I was just a little bored and decided to poke a low hanging fruit (collective ownership).
> If you can't even admit your reaction or look at your own post honestly, why would I ever engage with the details of what you claim your point to be?
I'm pretty sure I wasn't angry or anything. Uncharitably, I was thinking "haha, commies are stupid", but I don't think I let that affect my comment.
To me, it seems like you're the more angry one. Perhaps it is just an effect of you being text on a screen as opposed to a person I can see and talk to.
Who?
> Who can't even quietly consider other approaches that might work just fine in particular circumstances.
I explained how it might not work.
You are attacking me but not my reasoning.
I am just criticizing communal ownership since it does not work.
> I have no idea why people find that so threatening.
Who?
How so? Especially regarding the part about "government sanctioned"?
Just like how when purchasing a car, buyers check MPG to ensure the cost of fuel will not be too high.
The company can just make it clear that they are not selling the product.
Look at housing societies in India; they enforce rules like no single women or no Muslims.
It's convenient when you're in the majority but inconvenient when you're in the minority.
How would you decide between so many different wants? I can not decide between say whether this land should be used for a mall or a factory.
In fact, in the real world if I knew, I could earn good money by building whichever is better. Information is money.
This system is also poor as people who value land less end up with excess land and people who do value land more end up with a lack of land. How do you measure this "value"? Money.
> There's one just north of San Francisco, a lovely hostel and beer garden in Muir Woods. If you want to be a member there, you have to consistently contribute labor to maintaining it.
This ignores specialization, i.e. I could be doing something that I'm good at (like programming) and the labor can be done by someone else (who doesn't have any better option) with the money I earn.
EDIT: replaced LTV criticism with specialization argument
Even a small amount of charity would provide anybody who can't work at all with sufficient food. Just like how today data storage in hard drives is dirt cheap; and we can provide billions of bytes of storage at nominal cost.
Looking at current society, starvation and mass famines have decreased greatly. Malnutrition is the next concern.
So, in some sense we may have reached post-scarcity for food for a large portion of human population. But there is still scarcity for quality and healthy food, such as fruits and vegetables.
I mean if we're going to go to this level of paranoid; then we might as well look at attacks on Firefox (which have been suspected to be used by the NSA against Tor Browser).
What data does Google own?
Modems are anyways way more insecure due to the default password being admin or 123456, etc. And many are accessible from the public internet.
I think my modem got hacked due to that (I saw some login attempts a little before the DNS got changed causing Youtube to stop working).
If privacy improves that will benefit the internet (privacy has real costs that don't involve state actors like hackers, etc). Many people, especially in developing countries, are afraid of transactions over the internet and use cash on delivery.
There's no reason why NIT needs to involve large amounts of paperwork. NIT only involves income, so a person simply needs to give their income (unlike taxes, which are much more complicated).
The NIT would presumably have a minimum amount given even if you earn 0$. That amount can be given to everybody can't do the paperwork. Then, the amount remaining above that can be distributed as a NIT.
Basically, give UBI to people who can't do the paperwork to cover them. The rest can use NIT.
The time lag is not a necessary property of the tax system. The NIT can be done on a monthly basis.
Anyways, this is just an implementation issue. Either way they both redistribute money.
Regarding automation, see the lump of labour fallacy. Humans will just switch to tasks that aren't automated (this has always been happening and it's happening now). If humans are not needed at all, then we've reached utopia/post-scarcity society.
Humans don't work less because of the hedonistic treadmill. For example, most HNers have enough food and other things to survive which might be considered paradise by people 500 years ago (famines were common back then). Historically, poverty often meant death from starvation.
Our standards of living have been constantly going up, so even though there are productivity gains we end up working more. Of course, that's a voluntary choice so I don't see anything wrong with that.