4 ms·

I think you don't actually disagree with Chomsky. This is what you'd expect (1) shifting resources from the public sector to the private sector and (2) financia

I think you don't actually disagree with Chomsky. This is what you'd expect (1) shifting resources from the public sector to the private sector and (2) financializing the economy because a corporation is by design oriented towards short-term profits and highly trained workers such as mathematicians and physicists are being tied up in finance.

mcv 7y ago
The smartest people today are working on optimizing the number of ad clicks for Facebook and Google, or on optimizing profits on stock market manipulations for Goldman Sachs and the like. A lot of talent is used not to create new value for society, but to optimize profits for rich people.
- closeparen 7y ago
  Why are business paying Google and Facebook for those ads?
wolfgke 7y ago
> and highly trained workers such as mathematicians and physicists are being tied up in finance. The problem in my observation (in Germany) rather is: I know quite some excellent mathematicians and physicists who would love to work somewhere else (even for less money etc.), but the only place where they found jobs was in finance. Quite some great mathematicians and physicists that I know have/had lots of trouble finding jobs because they are/were rejected because they are "overqualified", "too specialized", "too academic" etc. Specifically the finance domain seems to be somewhat more open towards highly-intelligent applicants.
- avmich 7y ago
  I understand it like you mean that mathematicians and physicists don't want to become entrepreneurs (i.e., create jobs for themselves) - they want keep their main professions, but in traditional workplaces they are overqualified, startups are few and far between, and finance offers much better (though still not outstanding) salaries than freelancing. Interesting that finance turns out to be more flexible than traditional economy.
  - closeparen 7y ago
    Quant finance is nakedly a battle of wit. The one with the smartest technical staff wins. So of course you go out and collect all the smartest people you can find, no matter what it costs. Typical businesses are based on customer and partner relationships, acquisitions, deals, strategy, licensing, lawsuits, marketing, and business processes that can be executed reliably by interchangeable cogs. Any snowflake intellectual superstars they're interested in are for executive roles.
    - avmich 7y ago
      > Quant finance is nakedly a battle of wit. I'm afraid it's also a battle of least ethics. Ethics can be considered in a broad sense here.
      - wolfgke 7y ago
        > I'm afraid it's also a battle of least ethics. Ethics can be considered in a broad sense here. Ethics is something that not everybody is able to afford. If you believe that ethics is something important, you should consider where people who are really smart or have a marked moral sense are supposed to find jobs.
    - mikojan 7y ago
      > So of course you go out and collect all the smartest people you can find, no matter what it costs. Yes, but also: Why is there so much money in finance in the first place? This isn't just the way the world is. We consciously financialized our economies. Them being able to afford basically anything has everything to do with deregulation and an insanely low tax burden in that sector.
mgamache 7y ago
What Chomsky points to as a cause (wealth distribution) I might argue is an effect. Those few with the ability to do so, continue the growth while others are left behind. Eventually for the wealthy too the growth will stop. This leads to violence and large scale violence resets the wealth inequality (temporarily). Peace depends on continued real growth.

mcv 7y ago

The smartest people today are working on optimizing the number of ad clicks for Facebook and Google, or on optimizing profits on stock market manipulations for Goldman Sachs and the like. A lot of talent is used not to create new value for society, but to optimize profits for rich people.

closeparen 7y ago
Why are business paying Google and Facebook for those ads?

wolfgke 7y ago

> and highly trained workers such as mathematicians and physicists are being tied up in finance. The problem in my observation (in Germany) rather is: I know quite some excellent mathematicians and physicists who would love to work somewhere else (even for less money etc.), but the only place where they found jobs was in finance. Quite some great mathematicians and physicists that I know have/had lots of trouble finding jobs because they are/were rejected because they are "overqualified", "too specialized", "too academic" etc. Specifically the finance domain seems to be somewhat more open towards highly-intelligent applicants.

avmich 7y ago
I understand it like you mean that mathematicians and physicists don't want to become entrepreneurs (i.e., create jobs for themselves) - they want keep their main professions, but in traditional workplaces they are overqualified, startups are few and far between, and finance offers much better (though still not outstanding) salaries than freelancing. Interesting that finance turns out to be more flexible than traditional economy.
- closeparen 7y ago
  Quant finance is nakedly a battle of wit. The one with the smartest technical staff wins. So of course you go out and collect all the smartest people you can find, no matter what it costs. Typical businesses are based on customer and partner relationships, acquisitions, deals, strategy, licensing, lawsuits, marketing, and business processes that can be executed reliably by interchangeable cogs. Any snowflake intellectual superstars they're interested in are for executive roles.
  - avmich 7y ago
    > Quant finance is nakedly a battle of wit. I'm afraid it's also a battle of least ethics. Ethics can be considered in a broad sense here.
    - wolfgke 7y ago
      > I'm afraid it's also a battle of least ethics. Ethics can be considered in a broad sense here. Ethics is something that not everybody is able to afford. If you believe that ethics is something important, you should consider where people who are really smart or have a marked moral sense are supposed to find jobs.
  - mikojan 7y ago
    > So of course you go out and collect all the smartest people you can find, no matter what it costs. Yes, but also: Why is there so much money in finance in the first place? This isn't just the way the world is. We consciously financialized our economies. Them being able to afford basically anything has everything to do with deregulation and an insanely low tax burden in that sector.

mgamache 7y ago

What Chomsky points to as a cause (wealth distribution) I might argue is an effect. Those few with the ability to do so, continue the growth while others are left behind. Eventually for the wealthy too the growth will stop. This leads to violence and large scale violence resets the wealth inequality (temporarily). Peace depends on continued real growth.