5 ms·

I feel like there is a general pattern. The left tends to prioritize all the good ideas: gender equality, racial equality, income gaps, etc. The right tends t

I feel like there is a general pattern. The left tends to prioritize all the good ideas: gender equality, racial equality, income gaps, etc. The right tends to prioritize systems that actually function in the real world with real people who are sometimes jealous, stupid, unethical, liars, etc. This is just a case where the first group has run amok without talking to the second group. It's the good idea of everyone should have good benefits without taking the time to design a system that actually works in the real world. You actually see this sort of dynamic in startups where you have two people at the top. One is the creative one who pushes all the boundaries and stuff. The other person is the more pencil pusher/lawyer/business type who makes sure the bills get paid on time. Lots of good things happen when you can get these two types working together instead of hating each other.

treeman79 6y ago
Good insight. Coming together is tricky when there is no common grounds. One side wants wealth to be fairly Evenly distributed to help the poor. The other side helps the poor by creating so much wealth that that most poor people have a lot of wealth. These days you can be considered poor and have housing, ac, heat, tv, video games, maybe a car, and weight problems because food is so cheap. This only leaves those who truly can not or will not work. Severe physical or mental illness, etc. Some can’t stand that inequality exists. Others “know” that destroying inequality means we create more poor people. That’s not even touching right to own body vs right to life crowd. There is almost no middle ground in that battle. Either it’s removing a sac of cells or killing a baby. Maybe some wiggle room at the start, but none by end
- chillwaves 6y ago
  They are poor because they live on a knife's edge, one accident away from financial insolvency or lack of sufficient access to necessities like health care and education opportunities. Also having to work multiple jobs to break even. The problem isn't "inequality" it is that the floor in the US is so low compared to other wealthy nations.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - bluedino 6y ago
    Lots of people who make decent money live paycheck to paycheck because of poor decisions
  - Consultant32452 6y ago
    This is a great example of having the right ideas but not understanding workable systems with real people. Let's take just one industry and I can show you how it's not as simple as you make it out to be: socialized/single-payer medicine. This is a system which reduces incentives (profits) in exchange for some equity. This is a great idea because we don't like it when people suffer. But what are the costs? Basic economics/psychology informs us that when incentives affect behavior. When the profits in healthcare are reduced there is less incentive to create new products/treatments/services. This is the tradeoff we're making. What happens down the road? Of course no one knows exactly, but we do know what will tend to happen. A new drug that might've been created in 5 years takes 7 instead. And then the next advancement that builds off that one takes even longer still. The whiz-kid who might've invented the new surgical technique which saves hundreds of lives per year might go into finance instead. What does this mean? It means we've slowed the velocity/acceleration of advancement. So people who live 50 years in the future will not have as good of healthcare as they could've if we'd left the greater incentives in place. And the people who live 100 years in the future are relatively even worse off to where they would've been because we've had 100 year at the slower pace. Since the future is functionally infinite, we are causing infinite harm to people in the future (all the advancements they won't get) at the cost of providing some comfort for some people today. And this applies to every industry, every redistribution program, every set of regulations. It's not just politics/law either, we make these decisions in our own lives every day. Are you going to buy that Apple Watch, or are you going to put that extra $ into your 401k? Stoicism teaches us that all negative emotion is rooted in a lack of understanding. So when someone says they don't want to raise the minimum wage, or doesn't want universal healthcare, or whatever... it's helpful not to have that knee jerk reaction of "This person is bad and wants people to suffer." That's almost never the case.
- Fauntleroy 6y ago
  More likely that you'll have weight problems because healthy food and lifestyles are much more difficult to acquire and maintain without sufficient wealth.
  - treeman79 6y ago
    It’s such a reversal. Historically Chunky woman were often considered more ideal since that meant wealth and status. Skinny woman meant poverty. Difficult to carry fat on a diet of turnips.
  - OCASM 6y ago
    No shortage of healthy, yet poor people. Then again we go back to the problem of defining "healthy". Not even the ultra-wealthy are completely illness-free.
    - rayhendricks 6y ago
      Healthy is a BMI in the normal range and following something close to the Harvard nutrition plate (USDA one is bought by big agriculture). Being able to afford a meal service or go to Whole Foods is also much harder when you live in a food desert. Yes we do give people EBT or something but then it is spent on junk food/soda. So how do you fix that? Maybe if you’re overweight medically speaking pay more in insurance/taxes? That would never fly tho so we are in the current national predicament.
  - lopmotr 6y ago
    Really? Walking is free but driving isn't. More food costs more than less food. And lots of boring difficult healthy food (eg. veges) is cheaper than more pleasurable easy food (eg. fast food). Being unemployed provides more time to do healthy things than having a busy job. I'd say the reason poor people are unhealthy is the same as the reason they're poor - unwillingness to work.
    - danans 6y ago
      > Walking is free but driving isn't. Living in safe neighborhood to walk in isn't cheap, nor is a gym membership, nor is having time to drive to a nice neighborhood or trailhead to hike. > Being unemployed provides more time to do healthy things than having a busy job. People who are chronically unemployed but physically able often have a serious mental health issue that prevents them from holding down a job. > I'd say the reason poor people are unhealthy is the same as the reason they're poor - unwillingness to work. The working poor usually have little time in their day to exercise for health, especially when they are working multiple low wage jobs to make ends meet. Many of them work physically demanding jobs that are bad for their health, and are exhausted by the end of their work day - and not a "good" kind of exhaustion at that.
senderista 6y ago
There's a difference between being skeptical of idealistic schemes and fetishizing the status quo, which is what I think the right predominantly does.
- Consultant32452 6y ago
  Don't knock the status quo too much. The status quo is a system that brought billions of people out of abject poverty, gave us human rights, democracy, etc. We take these things for granted, but we're in an incredibly unique and very new situation where you even have the privilege to sit around and pontificate about ideas like global poverty, gender issues, gay rights, etc. Civilizations have crumbled before, and ours WILL crumble at some point in the future. One quote I like about the US is that conservatives are progressives going the speed limit. And your comment about the right fetishizing the status quo is in line with that. A progressive wants to go a mile, conservatives are like, "Ehh... let's walk a few steps in that direction and see how it goes"
  - Fauntleroy 6y ago
    This doesn't hold up under any scrutiny. Progressives say things like "we should have a working healthcare system (like those already in place in other countries)", conservatives say "absolutely the fuck not."
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - Consultant32452 6y ago
      Please see my parallel post here which explains why it's not as simple as those healthcare systems "working" vs ours not working. Particularly the part about those systems causing infinite harm in the future. FWIW I'm not advocating dismantling any social safety nets. I'm only pointing out that it's not as simple as "good vs bad." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24230557 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24230557
- 6y ago
tdeck 6y ago
> The right tends to prioritize systems that actually function in the real world This is a lazy take - plenty of systems have been created by "the right" that don't work, even according to their stated goals. Moreover, how do you define "work", and why are things like gender and racial equality framed as extras rather than integral to evaluating whether a system works? > This is just a case where the first group has run amok How did you determine someone has "run amok" here? Uber/Lyft were shut down for a day - we have yet to see the long term effects of AB5 and that's where the proof is. To take a historical analogy, of course when we outlawed child labor some businesses that relied on it shut down. If we'd just said "oops, let's reverse that decision right away" we might still be left with the impression that child labor laws had failed.
- Consultant32452 6y ago
  >This is a lazy take - plenty of systems have been created by "the right" that don't work, even according to their stated goals. Moreover, how do you define "work", and why are things like gender and racial equality framed as extras rather than integral to evaluating whether a system works? I don't think you understand what the word "prioritize" means. >Uber/Lyft were shut down for a day Uber/Lyft is not the only industry impacted.

treeman79 6y ago

Good insight. Coming together is tricky when there is no common grounds. One side wants wealth to be fairly Evenly distributed to help the poor. The other side helps the poor by creating so much wealth that that most poor people have a lot of wealth. These days you can be considered poor and have housing, ac, heat, tv, video games, maybe a car, and weight problems because food is so cheap. This only leaves those who truly can not or will not work. Severe physical or mental illness, etc. Some can’t stand that inequality exists. Others “know” that destroying inequality means we create more poor people. That’s not even touching right to own body vs right to life crowd. There is almost no middle ground in that battle. Either it’s removing a sac of cells or killing a baby. Maybe some wiggle room at the start, but none by end

chillwaves 6y ago
They are poor because they live on a knife's edge, one accident away from financial insolvency or lack of sufficient access to necessities like health care and education opportunities. Also having to work multiple jobs to break even. The problem isn't "inequality" it is that the floor in the US is so low compared to other wealthy nations.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- bluedino 6y ago
  Lots of people who make decent money live paycheck to paycheck because of poor decisions
- Consultant32452 6y ago
  This is a great example of having the right ideas but not understanding workable systems with real people. Let's take just one industry and I can show you how it's not as simple as you make it out to be: socialized/single-payer medicine. This is a system which reduces incentives (profits) in exchange for some equity. This is a great idea because we don't like it when people suffer. But what are the costs? Basic economics/psychology informs us that when incentives affect behavior. When the profits in healthcare are reduced there is less incentive to create new products/treatments/services. This is the tradeoff we're making. What happens down the road? Of course no one knows exactly, but we do know what will tend to happen. A new drug that might've been created in 5 years takes 7 instead. And then the next advancement that builds off that one takes even longer still. The whiz-kid who might've invented the new surgical technique which saves hundreds of lives per year might go into finance instead. What does this mean? It means we've slowed the velocity/acceleration of advancement. So people who live 50 years in the future will not have as good of healthcare as they could've if we'd left the greater incentives in place. And the people who live 100 years in the future are relatively even worse off to where they would've been because we've had 100 year at the slower pace. Since the future is functionally infinite, we are causing infinite harm to people in the future (all the advancements they won't get) at the cost of providing some comfort for some people today. And this applies to every industry, every redistribution program, every set of regulations. It's not just politics/law either, we make these decisions in our own lives every day. Are you going to buy that Apple Watch, or are you going to put that extra $ into your 401k? Stoicism teaches us that all negative emotion is rooted in a lack of understanding. So when someone says they don't want to raise the minimum wage, or doesn't want universal healthcare, or whatever... it's helpful not to have that knee jerk reaction of "This person is bad and wants people to suffer." That's almost never the case.
Fauntleroy 6y ago
More likely that you'll have weight problems because healthy food and lifestyles are much more difficult to acquire and maintain without sufficient wealth.
- treeman79 6y ago
  It’s such a reversal. Historically Chunky woman were often considered more ideal since that meant wealth and status. Skinny woman meant poverty. Difficult to carry fat on a diet of turnips.
- OCASM 6y ago
  No shortage of healthy, yet poor people. Then again we go back to the problem of defining "healthy". Not even the ultra-wealthy are completely illness-free.
  - rayhendricks 6y ago
    Healthy is a BMI in the normal range and following something close to the Harvard nutrition plate (USDA one is bought by big agriculture). Being able to afford a meal service or go to Whole Foods is also much harder when you live in a food desert. Yes we do give people EBT or something but then it is spent on junk food/soda. So how do you fix that? Maybe if you’re overweight medically speaking pay more in insurance/taxes? That would never fly tho so we are in the current national predicament.
- lopmotr 6y ago
  Really? Walking is free but driving isn't. More food costs more than less food. And lots of boring difficult healthy food (eg. veges) is cheaper than more pleasurable easy food (eg. fast food). Being unemployed provides more time to do healthy things than having a busy job. I'd say the reason poor people are unhealthy is the same as the reason they're poor - unwillingness to work.
  - danans 6y ago
    > Walking is free but driving isn't. Living in safe neighborhood to walk in isn't cheap, nor is a gym membership, nor is having time to drive to a nice neighborhood or trailhead to hike. > Being unemployed provides more time to do healthy things than having a busy job. People who are chronically unemployed but physically able often have a serious mental health issue that prevents them from holding down a job. > I'd say the reason poor people are unhealthy is the same as the reason they're poor - unwillingness to work. The working poor usually have little time in their day to exercise for health, especially when they are working multiple low wage jobs to make ends meet. Many of them work physically demanding jobs that are bad for their health, and are exhausted by the end of their work day - and not a "good" kind of exhaustion at that.

senderista 6y ago

There's a difference between being skeptical of idealistic schemes and fetishizing the status quo, which is what I think the right predominantly does.

Consultant32452 6y ago
Don't knock the status quo too much. The status quo is a system that brought billions of people out of abject poverty, gave us human rights, democracy, etc. We take these things for granted, but we're in an incredibly unique and very new situation where you even have the privilege to sit around and pontificate about ideas like global poverty, gender issues, gay rights, etc. Civilizations have crumbled before, and ours WILL crumble at some point in the future. One quote I like about the US is that conservatives are progressives going the speed limit. And your comment about the right fetishizing the status quo is in line with that. A progressive wants to go a mile, conservatives are like, "Ehh... let's walk a few steps in that direction and see how it goes"
- Fauntleroy 6y ago
  This doesn't hold up under any scrutiny. Progressives say things like "we should have a working healthcare system (like those already in place in other countries)", conservatives say "absolutely the fuck not."
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Consultant32452 6y ago
    Please see my parallel post here which explains why it's not as simple as those healthcare systems "working" vs ours not working. Particularly the part about those systems causing infinite harm in the future. FWIW I'm not advocating dismantling any social safety nets. I'm only pointing out that it's not as simple as "good vs bad." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24230557 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24230557
6y ago

tdeck 6y ago

> The right tends to prioritize systems that actually function in the real world This is a lazy take - plenty of systems have been created by "the right" that don't work, even according to their stated goals. Moreover, how do you define "work", and why are things like gender and racial equality framed as extras rather than integral to evaluating whether a system works? > This is just a case where the first group has run amok How did you determine someone has "run amok" here? Uber/Lyft were shut down for a day - we have yet to see the long term effects of AB5 and that's where the proof is. To take a historical analogy, of course when we outlawed child labor some businesses that relied on it shut down. If we'd just said "oops, let's reverse that decision right away" we might still be left with the impression that child labor laws had failed.

Consultant32452 6y ago
>This is a lazy take - plenty of systems have been created by "the right" that don't work, even according to their stated goals. Moreover, how do you define "work", and why are things like gender and racial equality framed as extras rather than integral to evaluating whether a system works? I don't think you understand what the word "prioritize" means. >Uber/Lyft were shut down for a day Uber/Lyft is not the only industry impacted.