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The economy only works when everyone has money to spend. If 30% of the population is broke, that's going to cause a huge drop in economic activity. Most economi

The economy only works when everyone has money to spend. If 30% of the population is broke, that's going to cause a huge drop in economic activity. Most economic activity is driven by consumer spending.

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
Agreed. Current response plans won't handle 30% of the population being broke; if that happens something very different will be needed.
- atomi 7y ago
  The way you fix that is by redistributing wealth. The government is doing this in a roundabout way by borrowing the money for a massive stimulus and recouping that money by increasing taxes on the wealthy later - likely with a Democrat administration so Republicans can maintain their rhetoric.
  - viklove 7y ago
    Privatize the gains, socialize the losses. It's the American way.
    - dang 7y ago
      Would you please stop posting in the flamewar style to HN? You've been doing it a lot lately, unfortunately, and it's not what this place is for. In fact it destroys what it is for, so we ban accounts that do it. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
      - viklove 7y ago
        Yes yes, I understand, it makes sense that y-combinator has an imperative to protect the narrative that VC and big corps are good for America. Thoughtcrime is a serious offense, I'll just delete my account, no need to ban me. edit: Oh... seems I can't delete my account. Nice feature! Just reading through all my flagged comments... seems like calling out any sort of inequality in America or pointing out unjustifiable valuations for companies like Bird, WeWork, Uber, etc. is "flame baiting." I was half-joking when I said "thoughtcrime," but that really does seem to be my offense. It's now starting to make a lot more sense as to why HN is the way it is. Average people don't really think this way, but rather HN bans people who suggest VC wastes a lot of money on pointless ideas, or that there is a massive class divide in this country and that some people are very out of touch with how the average American lives... Guess this is just the world we live in now. There's no place for free discussion, you just have to choose which echo chamber you want to live in.
        dang 7y ago
        Plenty of HN users post about all those issues without difficulty, and the idea that HN bans people for criticizing VCs is just silly; criticizing VCs is the house special. The issue is ideological rhetoric, internet ranting, and other forms of flamebait. We don't want that because it leads to shitty flamewar threads that are all the same and drive away the best users. On HN, the idea is: if you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do. I know that when your comments are moderated, whether by users (through downvotes and flags) or by moderators, the temptation is to feel like you're being suppressed because of your views ("thoughtcrime" is a common term; "groupthink" is another). But if you read the site guidelines at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and think sincerely about the intended use of the site, you'll soon notice how your posts have been breaking that. In terms of helping YC's business interests, our imperative is simply to try to keep HN a good place for curious conversation on the internet. That's what keeps the community happy and what keeps the best users—the users who come for intellectual curiosity, not smiting enemies. A happy, high-quality community is by far the most valuable thing about HN [1], so it wouldn't make sense for us to optimize for anything else [2]. That's one reason why we moderate HN less, not more, when YC or YC startups are the topic [3]. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20yc%20business%20interests&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20curiosity%20optimiz&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... [3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20moderate%20less%20not%20more%20yc&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
        viklove 7y ago
        Is there a public log of comments and users that have been banned under this policy? Just looking at the comments you responded to in those searches, they all seem to slant one direction -- stating that HN overmoderates anti-VC rhetoric. I can't find a single person on the other side complaining, so it seems to just prove exactly what I was saying earlier. Can you find a single example in your moderation history where you called out an anti-Democratic Socialist comment for flamebaiting? Or where you found someone deriding wage workers and their inability to climb the economic ladder? There are plenty of these comments on HN, at least as many as the opposite, and yet I can't find one comment in your history that responds to them. Is it possible that your political bias is affecting your moderation? Have you become the very thing you sought to destroy?

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago

Agreed. Current response plans won't handle 30% of the population being broke; if that happens something very different will be needed.

atomi 7y ago
The way you fix that is by redistributing wealth. The government is doing this in a roundabout way by borrowing the money for a massive stimulus and recouping that money by increasing taxes on the wealthy later - likely with a Democrat administration so Republicans can maintain their rhetoric.
- viklove 7y ago
  Privatize the gains, socialize the losses. It's the American way.
  - dang 7y ago
    Would you please stop posting in the flamewar style to HN? You've been doing it a lot lately, unfortunately, and it's not what this place is for. In fact it destroys what it is for, so we ban accounts that do it. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
    - viklove 7y ago
      Yes yes, I understand, it makes sense that y-combinator has an imperative to protect the narrative that VC and big corps are good for America. Thoughtcrime is a serious offense, I'll just delete my account, no need to ban me. edit: Oh... seems I can't delete my account. Nice feature! Just reading through all my flagged comments... seems like calling out any sort of inequality in America or pointing out unjustifiable valuations for companies like Bird, WeWork, Uber, etc. is "flame baiting." I was half-joking when I said "thoughtcrime," but that really does seem to be my offense. It's now starting to make a lot more sense as to why HN is the way it is. Average people don't really think this way, but rather HN bans people who suggest VC wastes a lot of money on pointless ideas, or that there is a massive class divide in this country and that some people are very out of touch with how the average American lives... Guess this is just the world we live in now. There's no place for free discussion, you just have to choose which echo chamber you want to live in.
      - dang 7y ago
        Plenty of HN users post about all those issues without difficulty, and the idea that HN bans people for criticizing VCs is just silly; criticizing VCs is the house special. The issue is ideological rhetoric, internet ranting, and other forms of flamebait. We don't want that because it leads to shitty flamewar threads that are all the same and drive away the best users. On HN, the idea is: if you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do. I know that when your comments are moderated, whether by users (through downvotes and flags) or by moderators, the temptation is to feel like you're being suppressed because of your views ("thoughtcrime" is a common term; "groupthink" is another). But if you read the site guidelines at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and think sincerely about the intended use of the site, you'll soon notice how your posts have been breaking that. In terms of helping YC's business interests, our imperative is simply to try to keep HN a good place for curious conversation on the internet. That's what keeps the community happy and what keeps the best users—the users who come for intellectual curiosity, not smiting enemies. A happy, high-quality community is by far the most valuable thing about HN [1], so it wouldn't make sense for us to optimize for anything else [2]. That's one reason why we moderate HN less, not more, when YC or YC startups are the topic [3]. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20yc%20business%20interests&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20curiosity%20optimiz&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... [3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20moderate%20less%20not%20more%20yc&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
        viklove 7y ago
        Is there a public log of comments and users that have been banned under this policy? Just looking at the comments you responded to in those searches, they all seem to slant one direction -- stating that HN overmoderates anti-VC rhetoric. I can't find a single person on the other side complaining, so it seems to just prove exactly what I was saying earlier. Can you find a single example in your moderation history where you called out an anti-Democratic Socialist comment for flamebaiting? Or where you found someone deriding wage workers and their inability to climb the economic ladder? There are plenty of these comments on HN, at least as many as the opposite, and yet I can't find one comment in your history that responds to them. Is it possible that your political bias is affecting your moderation? Have you become the very thing you sought to destroy?