6 ms·

This is one of the main reasons I am so heavily in favor of UBI, even though I am quite the anarchist if we are talking about idealism and not pragmatism. Ther

This is one of the main reasons I am so heavily in favor of UBI, even though I am quite the anarchist if we are talking about idealism and not pragmatism. There IS money being made out there by large firms and small firms alike, but it is absolutely NOT based on merit or skill at all. Whether a business is a failure or a success is 99% based on the relationships and contracts it forms. Typically, unskilled managers and executives will forge the deal FIRST, and then go get the expertise and skilled laborers after. Startups are an exception to this rule, since the technology is all so new. But rapidly, we all see the "money guys" and the "business guys" coming in to the profession day by day, buying up tech, creating bogus certifications and so on that just add the cruft and bureaucracy that monopolies need to survive. For every trucker making $130,000 a year, there's 100 truckers making $35,000 a year. For every trucker making $30,000 a year, there's probably 10,000 unemployed or underemployed people begging for the chance to make middle class money rather than $10 an hour at Burger King

oconnor663 8y ago
> There IS money being made out there by large firms and small firms alike, but it is absolutely NOT based on merit or skill at all. That's a pretty broad generalization. I'm not sure I know how to frame that question in an answerable way, much less that I know the answer off the top of my head.
EGreg 8y ago
You can be an anarchist and still be for UBI!
- dimensi0nal 8y ago
  How can UBI exist without statism?
  - EGreg 8y ago
    Voluntary redistribution of wealth by a cryptocurrency. Look at groupcurrency.org
    - fiblye 8y ago
      People could voluntarily distribute their wealth today if they wanted to. Few do. The crypto meme won't be changing that.
      - EGreg 8y ago
        And how would they airdrop money to everyone else in the community every day?
        corodra 8y ago
        Yea, but how do you airdrop electronic devices to utilize crypto for those that don't have electronic devices? If utilizing crypto and all it's blockchain glory to those who don't have access to computers/smartphones/internet has been answered, I'm all ears. Then cool. But I see that as an infrastructure issue that no one has directly answered.
        EGreg 8y ago
        POS debit cards. But in most unbanked areas like rural African villages or Brazilian favelas people have smartphones. That’s one thing almost all of them have.
    - richjdsmith 8y ago
      When's the last time you voluntarily redistributed your wealth? It's certainly available today by literally making a donation to a non-profit, or hell, some homeless guy on the street. But people don't. No amount of crypto 'disruption' is going to change that.
      - EGreg 8y ago
        Yesterday. I gave some homeless guys money for food. I would rather live in a system where no one legitimately begs for food, because they have an app that eliminates food insecurity for everyone. Do you know how much money is donated around the world every day, to hard hit areas, universities and so on? This can be done way better. Look at what GiveDirectly does in Africa. We can do better than that. Watch the video at https://intercoin.org https://intercoin.org — this is not theoretical! We are doing it.
refurb 8y ago
Isn't the ability to develop business relations and close deals a skill in and of itself? That pretty much describes sales skills perfectly. I know this is NH, so skills are viewed as technical with all other skills regarded as "unnecessary fluff", but at the end of the day business is built on human relationships, so I'd argue the ability to make and maintain relationships with the right people is one of the most important skills one could have.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  It's not about HN's technical focus. It's that for many of us here - myself strongly included - sales and marketing can be seen as a large-scale defection in the game of free market. In the ideal world, when you want to buy a product or a service, you would consider the value it brings to you based on hard facts, consider other circumstances impacting the costs - like e.g. product A is a bit better, but product B has support people in your country, speaking your language, etc. Suddenly, comes product C. It's very much inferior compared to A and B, but the producers of C spent most of their budget on sales and marketing. Your boss knows all about C from on-line ads. A C salesman comes to you, promising you features they know they won't deliver, but also know they'll be able to weasel their way out of along the way. Oh, and he brings some nice "off-the books" benefits for you personally, as part of "building customer loyalty". Sales and marketing as applied in practice distort the market. What a salesman says can be - and often is - completely disconnected from reality, so in presence of salesmen, products are no longer chosen based on objective value they provide. The incentive structure this creates makes everyone else have to lie too, or go out of business. That's why many people don't like those skills and practices.
  - b1daly 8y ago
    I don’t mean to be glib, but nothing is perfect. What some of the other posters are alluring to is that the ability to organize deals and market a product is an essential skill in running a business. If product A is technically superior, but there is not sufficient business talent to sustain a business on it, then the quality is moot. What you’re describing here, sales people lying about capabilities and then failing to deliver, is something that maybe happens in complex business to business transactions, where the product is a set of services and products that defy “apples to apples” comparison. Again, the sales and marketing are integral to the product. I don’t believe companies will survive if they practice outright fraud on their customers. This is not an easy problem. For the example, simpleminded approaches like forcing government to accept the lowest cost bid on complicated products has tremendous downside. FWIW, managing people, organizations, setting up deals, marketing...these are “hard” skills. What makes them hard is that the parameters of the “problem space” are almost infinitely complex, the work product is ambiguous, and often the involves the focused cooperation of people, who are notoriously unpredictable. Managed systems comprises of “soft components” is a very hard challenge.
jezclaremurugan 8y ago
> Whether a business is a failure or a success is 99% based on the relationships and contracts it forms. Typically, unskilled managers and executives will forge the deal FIRST, and then go get the expertise and skilled laborers after. Maybe - forming the relationships and contracts and forging the deal - is a valuable skill too, and since I've been on a lot of interview panels - getting the skilled laborers and expertise to work for you is also another very valuable "skill".
- ItsMe000001 8y ago
  Of course it is, that's the whole point? Those guys get the deals, OPs point. So if you measure success by their individual success it's a tautology. However, hoe is it for the rest of society? I would claim it is not so clear. There is quite a bit of "success is when you are successful" in a lot of arguments I see around such topics, where the assumptions directly lead to the outcome followed by a "Q.E.D.". For example, "Rich people deserve to be rich because they showed the ability to accumulate wealth." - Well, that was easy... Or another one "good enough" products are good enough because they are bought. Investing any more, e.g. into making a software have less bugs, or an electronic device, or anything, last longer, are useless, or the market would already have provided that outcome. What a nice and easy circular argument. Imagine Gillette produced razors that last ten years, including blades. Very bad for them! Would it be bad for the mankind overall? If you believe in "the market" then yes, it would be bad for mankind. You can take any other product and company, incl. all the "lemon market" stuff. If the market prevents you from voluntarily doing better (because you will be outcompeted) it must be what is good for everyone or the market would not have produced that outcome, Q.E.D. I think that while the skill is obviously extremely valuable, also to society, what you can get with it is too much. It always leads to optimal outcomes if you already believe it does (because "market", magic word). Just like in biochemistry a reaction can be enzyme-limited or substrate-limited, i.e. the path is too hard or there is not enough supply, I think the rewards for being well-connected are oversized because we don't have an issue with too few people desiring to be well-connected, but that the path is hard. Paying more does nothing to how hard it is to become well connected, and increasing the desirability of being well-connected doesn't do anything either.

oconnor663 8y ago

> There IS money being made out there by large firms and small firms alike, but it is absolutely NOT based on merit or skill at all. That's a pretty broad generalization. I'm not sure I know how to frame that question in an answerable way, much less that I know the answer off the top of my head.

EGreg 8y ago

You can be an anarchist and still be for UBI!

dimensi0nal 8y ago
How can UBI exist without statism?
- EGreg 8y ago
  Voluntary redistribution of wealth by a cryptocurrency. Look at groupcurrency.org
  - fiblye 8y ago
    People could voluntarily distribute their wealth today if they wanted to. Few do. The crypto meme won't be changing that.
    - EGreg 8y ago
      And how would they airdrop money to everyone else in the community every day?
      - corodra 8y ago
        Yea, but how do you airdrop electronic devices to utilize crypto for those that don't have electronic devices? If utilizing crypto and all it's blockchain glory to those who don't have access to computers/smartphones/internet has been answered, I'm all ears. Then cool. But I see that as an infrastructure issue that no one has directly answered.
        EGreg 8y ago
        POS debit cards. But in most unbanked areas like rural African villages or Brazilian favelas people have smartphones. That’s one thing almost all of them have.
  - richjdsmith 8y ago
    When's the last time you voluntarily redistributed your wealth? It's certainly available today by literally making a donation to a non-profit, or hell, some homeless guy on the street. But people don't. No amount of crypto 'disruption' is going to change that.
    - EGreg 8y ago
      Yesterday. I gave some homeless guys money for food. I would rather live in a system where no one legitimately begs for food, because they have an app that eliminates food insecurity for everyone. Do you know how much money is donated around the world every day, to hard hit areas, universities and so on? This can be done way better. Look at what GiveDirectly does in Africa. We can do better than that. Watch the video at https://intercoin.org https://intercoin.org — this is not theoretical! We are doing it.

refurb 8y ago

Isn't the ability to develop business relations and close deals a skill in and of itself? That pretty much describes sales skills perfectly. I know this is NH, so skills are viewed as technical with all other skills regarded as "unnecessary fluff", but at the end of the day business is built on human relationships, so I'd argue the ability to make and maintain relationships with the right people is one of the most important skills one could have.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
It's not about HN's technical focus. It's that for many of us here - myself strongly included - sales and marketing can be seen as a large-scale defection in the game of free market. In the ideal world, when you want to buy a product or a service, you would consider the value it brings to you based on hard facts, consider other circumstances impacting the costs - like e.g. product A is a bit better, but product B has support people in your country, speaking your language, etc. Suddenly, comes product C. It's very much inferior compared to A and B, but the producers of C spent most of their budget on sales and marketing. Your boss knows all about C from on-line ads. A C salesman comes to you, promising you features they know they won't deliver, but also know they'll be able to weasel their way out of along the way. Oh, and he brings some nice "off-the books" benefits for you personally, as part of "building customer loyalty". Sales and marketing as applied in practice distort the market. What a salesman says can be - and often is - completely disconnected from reality, so in presence of salesmen, products are no longer chosen based on objective value they provide. The incentive structure this creates makes everyone else have to lie too, or go out of business. That's why many people don't like those skills and practices.
- b1daly 8y ago
  I don’t mean to be glib, but nothing is perfect. What some of the other posters are alluring to is that the ability to organize deals and market a product is an essential skill in running a business. If product A is technically superior, but there is not sufficient business talent to sustain a business on it, then the quality is moot. What you’re describing here, sales people lying about capabilities and then failing to deliver, is something that maybe happens in complex business to business transactions, where the product is a set of services and products that defy “apples to apples” comparison. Again, the sales and marketing are integral to the product. I don’t believe companies will survive if they practice outright fraud on their customers. This is not an easy problem. For the example, simpleminded approaches like forcing government to accept the lowest cost bid on complicated products has tremendous downside. FWIW, managing people, organizations, setting up deals, marketing...these are “hard” skills. What makes them hard is that the parameters of the “problem space” are almost infinitely complex, the work product is ambiguous, and often the involves the focused cooperation of people, who are notoriously unpredictable. Managed systems comprises of “soft components” is a very hard challenge.

jezclaremurugan 8y ago

> Whether a business is a failure or a success is 99% based on the relationships and contracts it forms. Typically, unskilled managers and executives will forge the deal FIRST, and then go get the expertise and skilled laborers after. Maybe - forming the relationships and contracts and forging the deal - is a valuable skill too, and since I've been on a lot of interview panels - getting the skilled laborers and expertise to work for you is also another very valuable "skill".

ItsMe000001 8y ago
Of course it is, that's the whole point? Those guys get the deals, OPs point. So if you measure success by their individual success it's a tautology. However, hoe is it for the rest of society? I would claim it is not so clear. There is quite a bit of "success is when you are successful" in a lot of arguments I see around such topics, where the assumptions directly lead to the outcome followed by a "Q.E.D.". For example, "Rich people deserve to be rich because they showed the ability to accumulate wealth." - Well, that was easy... Or another one "good enough" products are good enough because they are bought. Investing any more, e.g. into making a software have less bugs, or an electronic device, or anything, last longer, are useless, or the market would already have provided that outcome. What a nice and easy circular argument. Imagine Gillette produced razors that last ten years, including blades. Very bad for them! Would it be bad for the mankind overall? If you believe in "the market" then yes, it would be bad for mankind. You can take any other product and company, incl. all the "lemon market" stuff. If the market prevents you from voluntarily doing better (because you will be outcompeted) it must be what is good for everyone or the market would not have produced that outcome, Q.E.D. I think that while the skill is obviously extremely valuable, also to society, what you can get with it is too much. It always leads to optimal outcomes if you already believe it does (because "market", magic word). Just like in biochemistry a reaction can be enzyme-limited or substrate-limited, i.e. the path is too hard or there is not enough supply, I think the rewards for being well-connected are oversized because we don't have an issue with too few people desiring to be well-connected, but that the path is hard. Paying more does nothing to how hard it is to become well connected, and increasing the desirability of being well-connected doesn't do anything either.