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"Why it's so hard to fix <X>?" Very easy question. There are people who profit from how <X> fails. The reason it bothers you is because you are not one of the
by erikb 8y ago
"Why it's so hard to fix <X>?"
Very easy question. There are people who profit from how <X> fails. The reason it bothers you is because you are not one of the people who are profiting. You might not be profiting from <X> but you are likely profiting from some <Y>. And when it comes to <Y> you are probably not recognizing how it fails on the cost of others and are not really bothered by it. So good luck convincing the people who profit from <X> to change it.
- galfarragem 8y agoI read somewhere, probably Nietzche, the following statement (paraphrasing): There are only 3 types of people: the poor that wants to be rich, the rich that wants to continue to be rich and the idealist, that using his ideals, wants to be rich. edit: I always read it figuratively. Getting rich meaning to improve position in whatever hierarchy the person cares about.
- Angostura 8y agoAnd do you think that’s true? Why category do you think - say- Tim Berners-Lee falls into?
- talltimtom 8y agoThe last one obviusly.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- jeremyjh 8y agoHe's worth tens of millions. Is it really hard to understand?
- Angostura 8y agoI chose a poor example. Do you really believe there’s no such thing as altruism?
- kelnos 8y agoAltruism exists, but it very rarely makes you money. And that's really only ok if you already have a good amount of money and can afford to give some away, or work for nothing.
- tialaramex 8y agoI've spent some time around Tim, my impression is that he's a nerd, who got very lucky with a side project. You are correct that he has not avoided getting wealthy off that, but high level meetings with Tim tended to get distracted by fixing whatever is not working on Tim's laptop or playing with some demo he's built that (Newsflash) doesn't change the world and is soon forgotten. He's now simply a wealthier nerd.
- fwdpropaganda 8y ago> There are only 3 types of people: the poor that wants to be rich, the rich that wants to continue to be rich and the idealist, that using his ideals, wants to be rich. This is great. It resonated with me because I guess subconsciously I've always had the intuition that this is true. However, I can't really find the original quote. Help?
- Nursie 8y agoSo.... 100% down to entrenched interests, nothing to do with complex regulations, a complex and expensive space to operate in or anything else?
- jessaustin 8y agoCan we assume that the complexity and expense are inherent to the situation? Perhaps they have been created and "entrenched" by... interests?
- Nursie 8y agoAssume? No, but neither can we discount that they may be. Financial regulations in particular usually come about in response to failures and abuses.
- jessaustin 8y ago...usually come about... That's the just-so story they tell children, but in living memory the only function of new financial regulations has been to exempt rich assholes from consequences of already-illegal things they already did and decided they want to do more of. One wonders if one went back in history far enough, would this aetiology ever be correct?
- Nursie 8y agoThis is just wrong, sorry. Lots of measures have been put in place in the last decade to prevent '08 style crashes happening again. The entrenched interests want less regulation, not more.
- jessaustin 8y agoAre the big banks smaller? When they screw up again, will their ironclad control of the relevant political entities fail to bail them out as it has before?