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Did something happen to cause mutual cooperation between most of the planet to be viewed as a bad thing? All these countries have come to an agreement by negoti

by lovich 5y ago

Did something happen to cause mutual cooperation between most of the planet to be viewed as a bad thing? All these countries have come to an agreement by negotiation instead of economic or martial war. Why is there such pessimism/paranoia about this deal in this thread?

brodouevencode 5y ago
Operating under the assumption that most replies are from US citizens: the people of the US have a love/hate relationship with taxes. Most of the time theyre fine with taxing others so that they could reap the benefits, they just dont want to be taxed themselves.
- sushid 5y ago
  Isn't that like... everyone?
  - lovich 5y ago
    I like to think I don’t make every decision with a sociopathic level of self interest. I hope at least some others do too
burnafter182 5y ago
Globalism is inherently fragile. This is part of a continued trend which has enough inertia to carry us to an inflection point where it could conceivably destroy everything human, either in real terms or something less tractable. We made a wrong turn a very long time ago, and since we've been extraordinarily misdirected but inextricably committed to the mistake we've made. We're totally in the dark, and truth becomes ever more indefinite as we travel down this timeline and the path we [never] elected. You see, the way that we made exchange was translated from a moral domain to a material domain, which was finally transposed to a symbolic one. Dollar valuations of a lifetimes is an intrinsically abhorrent concept. A life can never be repaid, thus it can never be valued in real terms - yet it is, billions of times over. Globalism is just a long-range result of this. Exploitation and undervaluing of billions of lives in order to create increasingly competitive products to grow dollar values of a investments in the hands of an increasingly small proportion of the population. This itself founded on false pretense. Every move towards globalism is increasingly dangerous, this is no exception.
- feoren 5y ago
  This is a lot of doomsaying, with no evidence and very little details or logic. It's like you expect your reader to already agree with you and nod along to "mistake" and "misdirected" and all the other negative language you use without any explanation of what you're actually talking about. > We made a wrong turn a very long time ago What, inventing agriculture? Certainly some think that. Otherwise: what are you talking about? > translated from a moral domain to a material domain, which was finally transposed to a symbolic one. What? Can you explain what this is supposed to mean?
  - gxt 5y ago
    I don't understand the comment you replied to either. To my naive mind it sounds like a lot of words put together to make it look like something deep, but that doesn't actually mean something. It'd be happy to be showed wrong here with historical events to describe "the wrong" turns and such to be able to tell if it's not just a abstraction or feelings that went a bit to far. Could it be a lot of words to describe an interpretation of globalization as a perceived single point of failure across every subsection of civilization/humanity?
  - joconde 5y ago
    >> We made a wrong turn a very long time ago > What, inventing agriculture? Certainly some think that. Are there really people who believe that? I've only read it in Sapiens by YN Harari, and it sounded like a ridiculous idea written to provoke thought, not an actual opinion. "Yes, hunter-gatherers could starve on a bad year, and they sometimes got eaten by tigers, but look at how un-alienated they were!" The author probably wouldn't have been to write his book or share these thoughts to more than 30 people without the invention of agriculture...
    - throwaway34241 5y ago
      > I've only read it in Sapiens by YN Harari, and it sounded like a ridiculous idea written to provoke thought, not an actual opinion. "Yes, hunter-gatherers could starve on a bad year, and they sometimes got eaten by tigers, but look at how un-alienated they were!" The argument I saw put more emphasis on things like nutritional deficiencies after the switch [1], reflected in average male height going from 5'9" to 5'3". Obviously in the long run agriculture became very efficient, but he makes a reasonable case that in the short run individual quality of life went downhill, with the main advantage being reaching higher population densities before being at the limit of the food supply, and so winning any conflicts with hunter-gatherer societies. [1] http://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake.html http://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake.html
huwnang 5y ago
HN is dominated by temporarily embarrassed billionaires. At least in the sense of loud writers and not quiet readers.
I_am_tiberius 5y ago
Corporate tax in general is the wrong type of taxation. Corporate tax can be controlled by the company itself. If you run your business economically, you pay more corporate tax. This is just wrong.
- brodouevencode 5y ago
  You, the consumer, pay the corporate tax.
  - tertius 5y ago
    Nope, the tax is paid on the profit (i.e. post consumer).
  - throwaway34241 5y ago
    When people talk about the "corporate tax", they're talking about the tax on corporate profits, which belong to the shareholders. You could theoretically tax the shareholders directly instead when they receive those profits as dividends etc (and there might be some advantage to doing so - it's more clear which country taxes should be paid in, and you can have a lower dividend tax rate for people with low incomes). There's no reason for a company to raise consumer prices in response to a change in the corporate tax rate - if a company can make more profits just by raising prices, they should do so anyway regardless of what the tax rate is.
    - negativez 5y ago
      That's true - but taxes *always* disincentivize the thing being taxed. If investment in a company is less profitable under taxation than it otherwise would be, there will be less investment in that company, no exceptions. Now the size of that effect is quite likely to be negligible for the companies in question here. But it's at least theoretically possible that taxing corporate profits could lead to a change in the marketplace, including market dropout, that might actually lead to consumers paying higher prices to the remaining members of a market with reduced competition. Further, if all companies in an already low-competition marketplace are equally affected by the tax, then it's quite possible for all of them to ~simultaneously raise prices to offset the tax, with or without explicitly illegal coordination, knowing that the others will follow suit.
TechBro8615 5y ago
Personally, I'm a strong believer that decentralized systems are more robust than any centralized or distributed alternative. I see no reason why geopolitics would differ from software in this case. In fact, the most effective use case for decentralized software occurs when centralized (geo)political governance creates friction or reduces optionality. For examples, see Napster, Bitcoin, Tor, etc. – their decentralization provides robustness against failure modes created by centralized governance and regulatory capture. So if the principles of software and politics are already so closely aligned, isn't it reasonable to assume that 136 independent governing bodies would be more robust than one?

by lovich 5y ago

brodouevencode 5y ago

Operating under the assumption that most replies are from US citizens: the people of the US have a love/hate relationship with taxes. Most of the time theyre fine with taxing others so that they could reap the benefits, they just dont want to be taxed themselves.

sushid 5y ago
Isn't that like... everyone?
- lovich 5y ago
  I like to think I don’t make every decision with a sociopathic level of self interest. I hope at least some others do too

burnafter182 5y ago

Globalism is inherently fragile. This is part of a continued trend which has enough inertia to carry us to an inflection point where it could conceivably destroy everything human, either in real terms or something less tractable. We made a wrong turn a very long time ago, and since we've been extraordinarily misdirected but inextricably committed to the mistake we've made. We're totally in the dark, and truth becomes ever more indefinite as we travel down this timeline and the path we [never] elected. You see, the way that we made exchange was translated from a moral domain to a material domain, which was finally transposed to a symbolic one. Dollar valuations of a lifetimes is an intrinsically abhorrent concept. A life can never be repaid, thus it can never be valued in real terms - yet it is, billions of times over. Globalism is just a long-range result of this. Exploitation and undervaluing of billions of lives in order to create increasingly competitive products to grow dollar values of a investments in the hands of an increasingly small proportion of the population. This itself founded on false pretense. Every move towards globalism is increasingly dangerous, this is no exception.

feoren 5y ago
This is a lot of doomsaying, with no evidence and very little details or logic. It's like you expect your reader to already agree with you and nod along to "mistake" and "misdirected" and all the other negative language you use without any explanation of what you're actually talking about. > We made a wrong turn a very long time ago What, inventing agriculture? Certainly some think that. Otherwise: what are you talking about? > translated from a moral domain to a material domain, which was finally transposed to a symbolic one. What? Can you explain what this is supposed to mean?
- gxt 5y ago
  I don't understand the comment you replied to either. To my naive mind it sounds like a lot of words put together to make it look like something deep, but that doesn't actually mean something. It'd be happy to be showed wrong here with historical events to describe "the wrong" turns and such to be able to tell if it's not just a abstraction or feelings that went a bit to far. Could it be a lot of words to describe an interpretation of globalization as a perceived single point of failure across every subsection of civilization/humanity?
- joconde 5y ago
  >> We made a wrong turn a very long time ago > What, inventing agriculture? Certainly some think that. Are there really people who believe that? I've only read it in Sapiens by YN Harari, and it sounded like a ridiculous idea written to provoke thought, not an actual opinion. "Yes, hunter-gatherers could starve on a bad year, and they sometimes got eaten by tigers, but look at how un-alienated they were!" The author probably wouldn't have been to write his book or share these thoughts to more than 30 people without the invention of agriculture...
  - throwaway34241 5y ago
    > I've only read it in Sapiens by YN Harari, and it sounded like a ridiculous idea written to provoke thought, not an actual opinion. "Yes, hunter-gatherers could starve on a bad year, and they sometimes got eaten by tigers, but look at how un-alienated they were!" The argument I saw put more emphasis on things like nutritional deficiencies after the switch [1], reflected in average male height going from 5'9" to 5'3". Obviously in the long run agriculture became very efficient, but he makes a reasonable case that in the short run individual quality of life went downhill, with the main advantage being reaching higher population densities before being at the limit of the food supply, and so winning any conflicts with hunter-gatherer societies. [1] http://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake.html http://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake.html

huwnang 5y ago

HN is dominated by temporarily embarrassed billionaires. At least in the sense of loud writers and not quiet readers.

I_am_tiberius 5y ago

Corporate tax in general is the wrong type of taxation. Corporate tax can be controlled by the company itself. If you run your business economically, you pay more corporate tax. This is just wrong.

brodouevencode 5y ago
You, the consumer, pay the corporate tax.
- tertius 5y ago
  Nope, the tax is paid on the profit (i.e. post consumer).
- throwaway34241 5y ago
  When people talk about the "corporate tax", they're talking about the tax on corporate profits, which belong to the shareholders. You could theoretically tax the shareholders directly instead when they receive those profits as dividends etc (and there might be some advantage to doing so - it's more clear which country taxes should be paid in, and you can have a lower dividend tax rate for people with low incomes). There's no reason for a company to raise consumer prices in response to a change in the corporate tax rate - if a company can make more profits just by raising prices, they should do so anyway regardless of what the tax rate is.
  - negativez 5y ago
    That's true - but taxes *always* disincentivize the thing being taxed. If investment in a company is less profitable under taxation than it otherwise would be, there will be less investment in that company, no exceptions. Now the size of that effect is quite likely to be negligible for the companies in question here. But it's at least theoretically possible that taxing corporate profits could lead to a change in the marketplace, including market dropout, that might actually lead to consumers paying higher prices to the remaining members of a market with reduced competition. Further, if all companies in an already low-competition marketplace are equally affected by the tax, then it's quite possible for all of them to ~simultaneously raise prices to offset the tax, with or without explicitly illegal coordination, knowing that the others will follow suit.

TechBro8615 5y ago

Personally, I'm a strong believer that decentralized systems are more robust than any centralized or distributed alternative. I see no reason why geopolitics would differ from software in this case. In fact, the most effective use case for decentralized software occurs when centralized (geo)political governance creates friction or reduces optionality. For examples, see Napster, Bitcoin, Tor, etc. – their decentralization provides robustness against failure modes created by centralized governance and regulatory capture. So if the principles of software and politics are already so closely aligned, isn't it reasonable to assume that 136 independent governing bodies would be more robust than one?