4 ms·

Increasingly it seems like our elites look at The US as a resource to be mined, not a home, not a collaborative project.

MattGaiser 5y ago
The definition of "elites" at this point just seems to mean any government employee or even anyone educated to the point of a bachelor's degree.
- ishjoh 5y ago
  For better or worse I've started to think of 'elites' more as people that have differential outcomes in regards to the law. So in this case these people are 'elites' because they managed to stay out of prison for hacking US citizens and doing corporate espionage. A non-elite would be in prison for these actions, and there are lots of people who are in prison for hacking others.
  - genericuser314 5y ago
    Isn't your definition an example of a No True Scotsman fallacy? Aren't you liable to wind up in situations where you find yourself saying "Ah-hah, now that person I thought was not one of the elite is now one of the elite because they didn't go to prison. Ah-hah, now that person I thought was one of the elite is not one of the elite, because they are going to prison."?
    - ishjoh 5y ago
      From my original comment. "For better or worse I've started to think of 'elites' more as people that have differential outcomes in regards to the law" So it's not that elites don't go to prison, in this case they didn't, it's that they get extremely favorable outcomes as compared to the average population. Epstein is a good example of this. The first time he was convicted he spent a meager 1 year in prison in conditions that would never be afforded to the general public. These hackers are another good example of this, they got a large fine but they're not spending any time in prison, and yet lots of people have gotten prison time for hacking. Being elite is a lot different from being Scottish, in that there are only vague signals for being elite, and none of them are so easy to measure as being Scottish. I think it's safe to say that the vast majority of elites are wealthy, but I don't believe that all wealthy people are elites. There are people with a lot of localized power like mayors or state senators, but those people certainly aren't nationally elite. To my mind the clearest signal is when the system interacts with a person, how does the system behave, versus when it interacts with an average person. Now this is by no means a definition, just how I've started thinking about the question of who is elite.
      - genericuser314 5y ago
        I was being too indirect. Your framework doesn't have predictive value. 'This person had an extremely favorable outcome, therefore they are elite' is a retrospective judgment, it can't be used to form a hypothesis. It is unfalsifiable. Whether someone is Scottish, or any "easy to measure" fact, has nothing to do with the No True Scotsman fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
gorwell 5y ago
Parasites took over at least since the 70s and are still in power today, extracting everything they can. I think it's reaching a breaking point now. https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
- kbenson 5y ago
  The more interesting story with that site is how many of those charts indicate whatever is going on with the data it's showing happened a decade after or a decade before the date in question, and people just blindly take it as evidence of something happening in 1971.
- typon 5y ago
  According to the website the solution is....bitcoin?
  - ghoward 5y ago
    I don't agree with the website, but I think I know where they are coming from. The year 1971 was when the US dollar was made to float, instead of being backed by gold. [1] I think that the website wants to have our monetary system change back to being backed by something that is a limited resource, and I bet Bitcoin fits the bill in their mind. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_standard#In_the_United_States#Bretton_Woods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_standard#In_the_United_St... Edit: punctuation.
  - Torwald 5y ago
    Are you saying this because of the quote at the end of the page?
- ipaddr 5y ago
  Sugar hasn't gone up much. Harvard is so much more expensive. Glad they included 3000bc short term interest rates in the graph.
- lioeters 5y ago
  The historical reference: > The Nixon shock was a series of economic measures undertaken by United States President Richard Nixon in 1971, in response to increasing inflation, the most significant of which were wage and price freezes, surcharges on imports, and the unilateral cancellation of the direct international convertibility of the United States dollar to gold. Nixon shock - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_shock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_shock Nixon and the End of the Bretton Woods System, 1971–1973 - https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/nixon-shock https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/nixon-shock
kbenson 5y ago
I think there have always been powerful people that feel this way, in all countries. The problem is thinking it's something new or unique to here, which leads one to think it can be solved if we just look for what changed to make them that way. No. They've always been there, they've always acted this way. It's not a problem because of increasing lack of patriotism, or a divided populace, it's just power and greed and people that see themselves as not beholden to to any one state. Thinking it's something it's not will just lead to proposed solutions that don't actually do much to affect the problem. Any solution needs to be internalized and divorced from the idea that this is a recent problem that we can stop caring about once we "solve" it.
asdff 5y ago
That's all its ever been. The homestead act made this explicit in law.
vkou 5y ago
Elites across history have seen their countries as a resource to be mined long before the invention of the concept of a nation-state. This concept significantly predates nationalism. What's unusual is that in the past few centuries, the rest of us have been explicitly conditioned to act in national interests.

MattGaiser 5y ago

The definition of "elites" at this point just seems to mean any government employee or even anyone educated to the point of a bachelor's degree.

ishjoh 5y ago
For better or worse I've started to think of 'elites' more as people that have differential outcomes in regards to the law. So in this case these people are 'elites' because they managed to stay out of prison for hacking US citizens and doing corporate espionage. A non-elite would be in prison for these actions, and there are lots of people who are in prison for hacking others.
- genericuser314 5y ago
  Isn't your definition an example of a No True Scotsman fallacy? Aren't you liable to wind up in situations where you find yourself saying "Ah-hah, now that person I thought was not one of the elite is now one of the elite because they didn't go to prison. Ah-hah, now that person I thought was one of the elite is not one of the elite, because they are going to prison."?
  - ishjoh 5y ago
    From my original comment. "For better or worse I've started to think of 'elites' more as people that have differential outcomes in regards to the law" So it's not that elites don't go to prison, in this case they didn't, it's that they get extremely favorable outcomes as compared to the average population. Epstein is a good example of this. The first time he was convicted he spent a meager 1 year in prison in conditions that would never be afforded to the general public. These hackers are another good example of this, they got a large fine but they're not spending any time in prison, and yet lots of people have gotten prison time for hacking. Being elite is a lot different from being Scottish, in that there are only vague signals for being elite, and none of them are so easy to measure as being Scottish. I think it's safe to say that the vast majority of elites are wealthy, but I don't believe that all wealthy people are elites. There are people with a lot of localized power like mayors or state senators, but those people certainly aren't nationally elite. To my mind the clearest signal is when the system interacts with a person, how does the system behave, versus when it interacts with an average person. Now this is by no means a definition, just how I've started thinking about the question of who is elite.
    - genericuser314 5y ago
      I was being too indirect. Your framework doesn't have predictive value. 'This person had an extremely favorable outcome, therefore they are elite' is a retrospective judgment, it can't be used to form a hypothesis. It is unfalsifiable. Whether someone is Scottish, or any "easy to measure" fact, has nothing to do with the No True Scotsman fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

gorwell 5y ago

Parasites took over at least since the 70s and are still in power today, extracting everything they can. I think it's reaching a breaking point now. https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

kbenson 5y ago
The more interesting story with that site is how many of those charts indicate whatever is going on with the data it's showing happened a decade after or a decade before the date in question, and people just blindly take it as evidence of something happening in 1971.
typon 5y ago
According to the website the solution is....bitcoin?
- ghoward 5y ago
  I don't agree with the website, but I think I know where they are coming from. The year 1971 was when the US dollar was made to float, instead of being backed by gold. [1] I think that the website wants to have our monetary system change back to being backed by something that is a limited resource, and I bet Bitcoin fits the bill in their mind. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_standard#In_the_United_States#Bretton_Woods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_standard#In_the_United_St... Edit: punctuation.
- Torwald 5y ago
  Are you saying this because of the quote at the end of the page?
ipaddr 5y ago
Sugar hasn't gone up much. Harvard is so much more expensive. Glad they included 3000bc short term interest rates in the graph.
lioeters 5y ago
The historical reference: > The Nixon shock was a series of economic measures undertaken by United States President Richard Nixon in 1971, in response to increasing inflation, the most significant of which were wage and price freezes, surcharges on imports, and the unilateral cancellation of the direct international convertibility of the United States dollar to gold. Nixon shock - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_shock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_shock Nixon and the End of the Bretton Woods System, 1971–1973 - https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/nixon-shock https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/nixon-shock

kbenson 5y ago

I think there have always been powerful people that feel this way, in all countries. The problem is thinking it's something new or unique to here, which leads one to think it can be solved if we just look for what changed to make them that way. No. They've always been there, they've always acted this way. It's not a problem because of increasing lack of patriotism, or a divided populace, it's just power and greed and people that see themselves as not beholden to to any one state. Thinking it's something it's not will just lead to proposed solutions that don't actually do much to affect the problem. Any solution needs to be internalized and divorced from the idea that this is a recent problem that we can stop caring about once we "solve" it.

asdff 5y ago

That's all its ever been. The homestead act made this explicit in law.

vkou 5y ago

Elites across history have seen their countries as a resource to be mined long before the invention of the concept of a nation-state. This concept significantly predates nationalism. What's unusual is that in the past few centuries, the rest of us have been explicitly conditioned to act in national interests.