6 ms·

Imagine if the current protests against inequality (and thereabouts) going on all around the world would be reported, scrutinized, and debated as much as when a

by jahaja 7y ago

Imagine if the current protests against inequality (and thereabouts) going on all around the world would be reported, scrutinized, and debated as much as when any of the established "enemies" have civil unrest. How quickly would things change?

douglaswlance 7y ago
Imagine if instead of people protesting against income inequality, they protested against value contribution inequality...
- flmontpetit 7y ago
  > The World's Top 26 Welfare Recipients Now Own as Much as the Poorest 3.8 Billion, Says Oxfam
- jahaja 7y ago
  Protest against imagined slackers? What kind of a dystopia is that?
  - danharaj 7y ago
    Reaganomics
- rcMgD2BwE72F 7y ago
  What do you say to people who are protesting against income inequality because they benefit from it and know how unfair the whole thing is? Say I received a million $ from my father (that's income inequality, isn't it?) and now I'm saving all my work income because I can live on my capital gains from "gifts" and watch all my friends work harder and harder to try and earn few extra cents while I'm getting richer doing very little. My dad did "things", I'm doing "things", and I'm getting paid for it! How would you evaluate my "value contributions" anyway? . My income is growing, I can wait. PS: for some reasons, my taxes in % of my income keeps decreasing because where I live, capital is less taxed than work. And the politicians who chose that explains they're lowing taxes because other countries are doing the same. So all countries are help the rich because rich are being helped elsewhere. How cool is that?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - douglaswlance 7y ago
    How are you earning capital gains with that million, specifically?
    - rcMgD2BwE72F 7y ago
      Mostly by buying stocks and it works: the SP500 doubled in the past 10 years, and I did far better than that. You can consider my investment as contributions, because I most certainly bought stocks from other rich persons and the stock markets is growing fast mostly thanks to the bank central policies (note that my free money never directly helped the company of which I bought stocks). I purchased an apartment too, and that did not cost me a dime because my family offers free mortgages and the government does not tax any of that! Plus, real estate prices keeps growing where I live thanks to the continued gentrification of big cities. When will that stop?
      - lotsofpulp 7y ago
        SP500 tripled in the last 10 years.
      - douglaswlance 7y ago
        Any investment can fail. You spent money to bet on the price going up and won. Someone else lost. The markets aren't exclusively available to the rich. Anyone can buy and sell stocks. Successful people get to live better than the poor. That is why we should do more to encourage more poor people to live better by contributing more. The economy is not zero-sum.
        AstralStorm 7y ago
        Second part is a lie. Tried managing stocks on your own? And having no leverage? It's not even close to competitive with hired specialists dedicated to the task. You cannot compete. It is not contributions not success that makes people live better or longer. It is ownership, diet, mental health (including low stress) access to medical care. Check out how many of successful people actually live shorter or painful lives. Your argument only works for have-nots. Economy is negative sum, unless you discount externalities. It does not break physics. Mined out and used up materials do not suddenly reappear. We just move the goalposts to have the same "positive money" outlook, keep everything from deflation. Until recently inventions (esp. energy and mining, then production efficiencies), made the economies grow. But it is not an infinite resource.
- KirinDave 7y ago
  To even have such a conversation you'd have to define value, and I think you'll have a tough time doing this. You're also essentially defining an economic aristocracy. Folks with more resources can contribute more value, which in common worldviews associated with what you said suggests they deserve more profit. That's the crassest form of economic attachment, and it's silly to pretend that it's efficient or fair.
  - douglaswlance 7y ago
    Software engineers contribute more value to society than do McDonald's fry cooks. A McDonald's fry cook could be a software engineer, but they choose not to. McDonald's fry cooks protest for $15 minimum wage; instead of spending that time studying programming. If we protested about not fully utilizing our lower contributing members of society, instead of condemning the highest contributing mebers; we'd have a healthier society.
    - raxxorrax 7y ago
      Yeah, protesting against inequality is pretty dumb. He could just solve it by frying the software engineer if he just tried and put in a little effort.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - KirinDave 7y ago
      You're using Burke's theory of value: rich people make things have value by deciding they want them and being rich. That position is not considered very strong by modern economic standards.
- ClumsyPilot 7y ago
  I am not sure i understand you here. Does the list include hermits, the Amish and Buddhist monks?
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > Imagine if instead of people protesting against income inequality, they protested against value contribution inequality... All protests are against perceived value contribution inequality, and against those perceived as contributing the least (or most negative) value; perhaps more precisely, against those perceived as producing the greatest negative externalized value contribution. Of course, value being subjective, there are often sharp disputes about who is worthy of that treatment.
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  How does this apply to the value contribution of children, the elderly, the chronically ill?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
pvaldes 7y ago
Protests will not work, only young people deciding massively to vote a third party would make a dent on the current fossilised power inbalance. No matter how many times you ask for gun control or a fair healthcare system. It will not happen. The alternative is what we are seeing in Europe, with students 15 yo playing real world Resident Evil in Barcelona with chainsaws and torches (and finding it more funny and rewarding than they expected)
- jddj 7y ago
  Just on the chainsaw point, take care: unless it somehow happened in the only corner of the city with police and protestors but without 100 smartphone cameras pointed at them at all times, it's utter bullshit. These police have been totally disproportionate in their use of force and hence have a huge incentive to sensationalise the actions of those 15 year olds.
  - pvaldes 7y ago
    I find chainsaws perfectly plausible in this context You forgot that there is a policeman in critic state at the hospital after being hit with a rock in the head by this merry people (while bearing a security helmet that was perforated by the force of the impact). And also that a police helicopter was videotaped being attacked with fireworks and the responsible faces now charges of attempt of homicide by trying to take down the helicopter And that thousands of policemen were injured with broken hands and arms, and had being attacked with acid and steel balls launched with professional slingshoots But yeah, sure, disproportionate use of force, foam bullets hurt a lot, police is evil, whatever...
    - jddj 7y ago
      I didn't forget that, and thousands of police weren't injured, actually. That's wrong by an order of magnitude. The point is that there is so much video evidence of the entire conflict that we don't really need to deal in hyperbole. There's so much footage and - as you so graciously demonstrated - so much incentive to exaggerate the misdeeds of the other, that we don't need to believe anything which either side says to support their aggressions. The footage might eventually emerge of the hatchas, lavadoras and motosierras, but let's wait until it does before we take it as gospel. The videos we do have show that the police have already demonstrated that they are willing to lie. There's a video of someone using a pickup to plow into a group of mossos. Talk about that, don't casually lap up their unsubstantiated talking points.

by jahaja 7y ago

douglaswlance 7y ago

Imagine if instead of people protesting against income inequality, they protested against value contribution inequality...

flmontpetit 7y ago
> The World's Top 26 Welfare Recipients Now Own as Much as the Poorest 3.8 Billion, Says Oxfam
jahaja 7y ago
Protest against imagined slackers? What kind of a dystopia is that?
- danharaj 7y ago
  Reaganomics
rcMgD2BwE72F 7y ago
What do you say to people who are protesting against income inequality because they benefit from it and know how unfair the whole thing is? Say I received a million $ from my father (that's income inequality, isn't it?) and now I'm saving all my work income because I can live on my capital gains from "gifts" and watch all my friends work harder and harder to try and earn few extra cents while I'm getting richer doing very little. My dad did "things", I'm doing "things", and I'm getting paid for it! How would you evaluate my "value contributions" anyway? . My income is growing, I can wait. PS: for some reasons, my taxes in % of my income keeps decreasing because where I live, capital is less taxed than work. And the politicians who chose that explains they're lowing taxes because other countries are doing the same. So all countries are help the rich because rich are being helped elsewhere. How cool is that?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- douglaswlance 7y ago
  How are you earning capital gains with that million, specifically?
  - rcMgD2BwE72F 7y ago
    Mostly by buying stocks and it works: the SP500 doubled in the past 10 years, and I did far better than that. You can consider my investment as contributions, because I most certainly bought stocks from other rich persons and the stock markets is growing fast mostly thanks to the bank central policies (note that my free money never directly helped the company of which I bought stocks). I purchased an apartment too, and that did not cost me a dime because my family offers free mortgages and the government does not tax any of that! Plus, real estate prices keeps growing where I live thanks to the continued gentrification of big cities. When will that stop?
    - lotsofpulp 7y ago
      SP500 tripled in the last 10 years.
    - douglaswlance 7y ago
      Any investment can fail. You spent money to bet on the price going up and won. Someone else lost. The markets aren't exclusively available to the rich. Anyone can buy and sell stocks. Successful people get to live better than the poor. That is why we should do more to encourage more poor people to live better by contributing more. The economy is not zero-sum.
      - AstralStorm 7y ago
        Second part is a lie. Tried managing stocks on your own? And having no leverage? It's not even close to competitive with hired specialists dedicated to the task. You cannot compete. It is not contributions not success that makes people live better or longer. It is ownership, diet, mental health (including low stress) access to medical care. Check out how many of successful people actually live shorter or painful lives. Your argument only works for have-nots. Economy is negative sum, unless you discount externalities. It does not break physics. Mined out and used up materials do not suddenly reappear. We just move the goalposts to have the same "positive money" outlook, keep everything from deflation. Until recently inventions (esp. energy and mining, then production efficiencies), made the economies grow. But it is not an infinite resource.
KirinDave 7y ago
To even have such a conversation you'd have to define value, and I think you'll have a tough time doing this. You're also essentially defining an economic aristocracy. Folks with more resources can contribute more value, which in common worldviews associated with what you said suggests they deserve more profit. That's the crassest form of economic attachment, and it's silly to pretend that it's efficient or fair.
- douglaswlance 7y ago
  Software engineers contribute more value to society than do McDonald's fry cooks. A McDonald's fry cook could be a software engineer, but they choose not to. McDonald's fry cooks protest for $15 minimum wage; instead of spending that time studying programming. If we protested about not fully utilizing our lower contributing members of society, instead of condemning the highest contributing mebers; we'd have a healthier society.
  - raxxorrax 7y ago
    Yeah, protesting against inequality is pretty dumb. He could just solve it by frying the software engineer if he just tried and put in a little effort.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - KirinDave 7y ago
    You're using Burke's theory of value: rich people make things have value by deciding they want them and being rich. That position is not considered very strong by modern economic standards.
ClumsyPilot 7y ago
I am not sure i understand you here. Does the list include hermits, the Amish and Buddhist monks?
dragonwriter 7y ago
> Imagine if instead of people protesting against income inequality, they protested against value contribution inequality... All protests are against perceived value contribution inequality, and against those perceived as contributing the least (or most negative) value; perhaps more precisely, against those perceived as producing the greatest negative externalized value contribution. Of course, value being subjective, there are often sharp disputes about who is worthy of that treatment.
SolaceQuantum 7y ago
How does this apply to the value contribution of children, the elderly, the chronically ill?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

pvaldes 7y ago

Protests will not work, only young people deciding massively to vote a third party would make a dent on the current fossilised power inbalance. No matter how many times you ask for gun control or a fair healthcare system. It will not happen. The alternative is what we are seeing in Europe, with students 15 yo playing real world Resident Evil in Barcelona with chainsaws and torches (and finding it more funny and rewarding than they expected)

jddj 7y ago
Just on the chainsaw point, take care: unless it somehow happened in the only corner of the city with police and protestors but without 100 smartphone cameras pointed at them at all times, it's utter bullshit. These police have been totally disproportionate in their use of force and hence have a huge incentive to sensationalise the actions of those 15 year olds.
- pvaldes 7y ago
  I find chainsaws perfectly plausible in this context You forgot that there is a policeman in critic state at the hospital after being hit with a rock in the head by this merry people (while bearing a security helmet that was perforated by the force of the impact). And also that a police helicopter was videotaped being attacked with fireworks and the responsible faces now charges of attempt of homicide by trying to take down the helicopter And that thousands of policemen were injured with broken hands and arms, and had being attacked with acid and steel balls launched with professional slingshoots But yeah, sure, disproportionate use of force, foam bullets hurt a lot, police is evil, whatever...
  - jddj 7y ago
    I didn't forget that, and thousands of police weren't injured, actually. That's wrong by an order of magnitude. The point is that there is so much video evidence of the entire conflict that we don't really need to deal in hyperbole. There's so much footage and - as you so graciously demonstrated - so much incentive to exaggerate the misdeeds of the other, that we don't need to believe anything which either side says to support their aggressions. The footage might eventually emerge of the hatchas, lavadoras and motosierras, but let's wait until it does before we take it as gospel. The videos we do have show that the police have already demonstrated that they are willing to lie. There's a video of someone using a pickup to plow into a group of mossos. Talk about that, don't casually lap up their unsubstantiated talking points.