4 ms·

Imperialism is not capitalism, they are orthogonal concepts. You're right, imperialism did cause problems, but the extreme poverty has been shrinking. And now

Imperialism is not capitalism, they are orthogonal concepts. You're right, imperialism did cause problems, but the extreme poverty has been shrinking. And now we have the mechanisms for almost anybody to get out of it. I grew up very poor, as in barely enough money for basic food and new clothes once-twice a year. Now I'm in the top 3% of US earners (not counting Bitcoin).

adjkant 9y ago
> Imperialism is not capitalism, they are orthogonal concepts. I would argue they are very tied, but that is a much larger argument not needed here. To give the short and incomplete version, they are both derived from the idea of exploiting others for profit. The level of exploitation is just much less in capitalism and masked behind the guise of fairness, ignoring power dynamics, original capital, and exponential growth considerations, etc. Again, this argument is very incomplete as stated here, but they are not orthogonal concepts. How much of a connection they have is a very valid debate, one not needed here fully though. > extreme poverty has been shrinking. And now we have the mechanisms for almost anybody to get out of it. Getting better does not mean that everyone can get out of poverty. We also haven't gotten that better. Most of Africa is still being exploited and most living there do not have any realistic means to get out of it. The countries as a whole still struggle on a macroeconomic level to get out of poverty due to the exact exponential growth issue seen in Bitcoin but with general investment. The US is not representative of the rest of the world, and also is still far from equal opportunity. While we're on that subject, good luck easily buying cryptocurrencies (accessible to a non-tech audience) while living outside the US. Even my Canadian friends struggle getting Coinbase to let them. Bitcoin is only really accessible to the tech community, an already privileged community.
- bufferoverflow 9y ago
  I think you're a hypocrite. If you think people in Africa aren't getting paid enough, why are you not selling your PC / smartphone to help them out? It's easy to tell other people how to spend their money helping the poor, but when it comes to your own wealth, you're still typing into this tech forum.
  - adjkant 9y ago
    > If you think people in Africa aren't getting paid enough, why are you not selling your PC / smartphone to help them out? Because that would not solve the problem, and it's quite naive to think it would. This gets into lots of debates in ethics that are far from solved. I do however donate regularly to groups that do economic development in African communities across the world though (more than the cost of a new iPhone annually), so no, I am not a hypocrite (fully at least). In fact, if you want a great non-profit idea, make a company that translates bitcoin profits into economic development in those communities. My donations have recently been coming from said profits. --------------------------------- Regardless of whether I am a hypocrite or not, it does not change the facts of the world and bitcoin. Just because my actions do not match perfectly does not mean they shouldn't. That's not a valid argument against my ideas, just against me personally. > you're still typing into this tech forum I didn't know using technology is immoral now if others are suffering injustices. Not to mention that there's plenty of utilitarian arguments about cascading effects of convincing others.
    - bufferoverflow 9y ago
      It would not solve the problem globally, but you can feed a person making a dollar a day for a long time. Yet you're not doing it. And that's why I'm not buying your argument. You want the redistribution of wealth, but not your wealth.
      - adjkant 9y ago
        Again, that argument doesn't work. Let's look at an example of Bill Gates - if instead of investing any money or time in Microsoft, he gave away everything he could, he would not help as many people in the end. Again, you need money to make money. Of course you need to also consider the other effects of Microsoft in the calculation, which is no easy matter, but the general point is that investment by him eventually led to greater helping of those suffering injustices. This does not consider that subsidizing someone's current lifestyle doesn't nearly have the impact of helping them develop economic means. It's a classic give a fish versus teach fishing. And again, someone being hypocritical is not an argument against the logic. It just means that person is selfish and hypocritical. I don't claim that solving these problems is easy or not in direct conflict with human instincts. There are also issues of fixing injustices justly. It's hard to give up x% of your wealth for a good cause when others are not. I would love to see something like a global 5% reparations tax (scaled by income, benefit from injustice, etc) that I would happily pay because it would be just for all. Of course, getting that to happen is kidding yourself at best. All of your flawed arguments are still based on you assuming that I'm a hypocrite and no information that I gave you. I would call double BS on your reasoning for disagreement given that you had no knowledge of it when you took the position. Your argument neither had the knowledge nor logic to stand even with the knowledge present.
open_bear 9y ago
Imperialism is the final stage of capitalism. > but the extreme poverty has been shrinking Indonesian 12 y.o. who makes Nike sneakers for 1$ a day will probably disagree. Humanity as a whole have made tremendous advancements in medicine, engineering and agriculture, technology as a whole have been advancing in giant leaps, yet benefits of those advancements are largely felt by 10-20 countries and 3-5% of the population. Even in the US some people cannot afford insulin and other types of basic healthcare. Workers's wages are stagnant for the past 50 years, while their productivity was steadily rising (https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/02/why-the-gap-between-worker-pay-and-productivity-is-so-problematic/385931/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/02/why-the...). > And now we have the mechanisms for almost anybody to get out of it. I grew up very poor Survivorship bias, "if I've made it, then anyone can".

adjkant 9y ago

> Imperialism is not capitalism, they are orthogonal concepts. I would argue they are very tied, but that is a much larger argument not needed here. To give the short and incomplete version, they are both derived from the idea of exploiting others for profit. The level of exploitation is just much less in capitalism and masked behind the guise of fairness, ignoring power dynamics, original capital, and exponential growth considerations, etc. Again, this argument is very incomplete as stated here, but they are not orthogonal concepts. How much of a connection they have is a very valid debate, one not needed here fully though. > extreme poverty has been shrinking. And now we have the mechanisms for almost anybody to get out of it. Getting better does not mean that everyone can get out of poverty. We also haven't gotten that better. Most of Africa is still being exploited and most living there do not have any realistic means to get out of it. The countries as a whole still struggle on a macroeconomic level to get out of poverty due to the exact exponential growth issue seen in Bitcoin but with general investment. The US is not representative of the rest of the world, and also is still far from equal opportunity. While we're on that subject, good luck easily buying cryptocurrencies (accessible to a non-tech audience) while living outside the US. Even my Canadian friends struggle getting Coinbase to let them. Bitcoin is only really accessible to the tech community, an already privileged community.

bufferoverflow 9y ago
I think you're a hypocrite. If you think people in Africa aren't getting paid enough, why are you not selling your PC / smartphone to help them out? It's easy to tell other people how to spend their money helping the poor, but when it comes to your own wealth, you're still typing into this tech forum.
- adjkant 9y ago
  > If you think people in Africa aren't getting paid enough, why are you not selling your PC / smartphone to help them out? Because that would not solve the problem, and it's quite naive to think it would. This gets into lots of debates in ethics that are far from solved. I do however donate regularly to groups that do economic development in African communities across the world though (more than the cost of a new iPhone annually), so no, I am not a hypocrite (fully at least). In fact, if you want a great non-profit idea, make a company that translates bitcoin profits into economic development in those communities. My donations have recently been coming from said profits. --------------------------------- Regardless of whether I am a hypocrite or not, it does not change the facts of the world and bitcoin. Just because my actions do not match perfectly does not mean they shouldn't. That's not a valid argument against my ideas, just against me personally. > you're still typing into this tech forum I didn't know using technology is immoral now if others are suffering injustices. Not to mention that there's plenty of utilitarian arguments about cascading effects of convincing others.
  - bufferoverflow 9y ago
    It would not solve the problem globally, but you can feed a person making a dollar a day for a long time. Yet you're not doing it. And that's why I'm not buying your argument. You want the redistribution of wealth, but not your wealth.
    - adjkant 9y ago
      Again, that argument doesn't work. Let's look at an example of Bill Gates - if instead of investing any money or time in Microsoft, he gave away everything he could, he would not help as many people in the end. Again, you need money to make money. Of course you need to also consider the other effects of Microsoft in the calculation, which is no easy matter, but the general point is that investment by him eventually led to greater helping of those suffering injustices. This does not consider that subsidizing someone's current lifestyle doesn't nearly have the impact of helping them develop economic means. It's a classic give a fish versus teach fishing. And again, someone being hypocritical is not an argument against the logic. It just means that person is selfish and hypocritical. I don't claim that solving these problems is easy or not in direct conflict with human instincts. There are also issues of fixing injustices justly. It's hard to give up x% of your wealth for a good cause when others are not. I would love to see something like a global 5% reparations tax (scaled by income, benefit from injustice, etc) that I would happily pay because it would be just for all. Of course, getting that to happen is kidding yourself at best. All of your flawed arguments are still based on you assuming that I'm a hypocrite and no information that I gave you. I would call double BS on your reasoning for disagreement given that you had no knowledge of it when you took the position. Your argument neither had the knowledge nor logic to stand even with the knowledge present.

open_bear 9y ago

Imperialism is the final stage of capitalism. > but the extreme poverty has been shrinking Indonesian 12 y.o. who makes Nike sneakers for 1$ a day will probably disagree. Humanity as a whole have made tremendous advancements in medicine, engineering and agriculture, technology as a whole have been advancing in giant leaps, yet benefits of those advancements are largely felt by 10-20 countries and 3-5% of the population. Even in the US some people cannot afford insulin and other types of basic healthcare. Workers's wages are stagnant for the past 50 years, while their productivity was steadily rising (https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/02/why-the-gap-between-worker-pay-and-productivity-is-so-problematic/385931/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/02/why-the...). > And now we have the mechanisms for almost anybody to get out of it. I grew up very poor Survivorship bias, "if I've made it, then anyone can".