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Did you expect a new country wise economic model to be purposed in this article? I believe the author was trying to say, "Poor people are getting screwed, some

Did you expect a new country wise economic model to be purposed in this article? I believe the author was trying to say, "Poor people are getting screwed, some jobs dont pay well, the environment is bad, lets do something and not forget it." It is a solution? No. I don't think it is trying to be though. It's just trying to be a reminder that letting everything go back to the way it was is the easiest route forward and the quickly route to getting back on the shitty path the country has been on for the past 20 years.

refurb 5y ago
Ok let me try: Our current approach to curing cancer sucks and everyone should be reminded how many people die needlessly each year. Do you disagree? Of course not. Did I contribute anything worthwhile? Not really.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
dTal 5y ago
"The country"? What country is that? These issues seem pretty global.
jdgoesmarching 5y ago
Agreed. This article is pretty clear about its intent: don’t be lulled into a false sense of economic security after the pandemic and build this experience into our understanding of our system. The first step of any solution is convincing people there is a problem. Not just the obvious “things are bad,” but an understanding that these issues are systemic in a way that challenges American ideology. These articles frustrate HN because they aren’t pitching some technocratic reformism, but instead are seeding ideas about the structure of our society that need to be absorbed before we can hope to change it. I’m honestly surprised to see this pop up at all here, HN isn’t a crowd that is demographically primed to challenge the assumptions of capitalisms.
- glogla 5y ago
  Based on what gets up and downvoted, most of people on HN are ancap or fascists. I guess it makes sense - startups are gold rush, VC's are the ones giving away shovels for portion of gold should there be any, and founders are people who either found gold or believe they will. I wonder if most of people have political outlook like this. If they do, it is both sad and comforting, because then the humanity is doomed to kill ourselves via climate change, but we would deserve it.
  - qsort 5y ago
    I really hope dang sees this. It's a nice candidate for inclusion in his list of [f"most people on HN are {x}" for x in ridiculous_ideologies]
  - mdp2021 5y ago
    Upvote and downvote do not work that way at HN and should not be interpreted that way without analysis. Here it is not about how you feel: it is about whether you make sense. Experience mostly reflects the principle (some noise must be expected).
    - dang 5y ago
      I think you may have a mistaken impression of how downvotes work on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314
    - moistly 5y ago
      Your claim is fallacious. It is not rooted in any formal study of HN voters or voting outcomes. It is just a story HN members tell themselves to feel special. Reality is, HN is like every other social media platform, and feelings deeply influence voting around here. IMO it is obvious.
      - mdp2021 5y ago
        There is little need for formal studies. HN is very surely different from «other social media platform[s]»: you must have never been on Reddit or YT, to provide examples of diametrically opposite places. A quick look at information density and "where the uttering came from" (say, above the neck, below the hips or other guts) should clearly show a massive, radical difference. That feelings influence voting, in terms of "hear, hear" or "thank you", is not undesirable: it is still agreement on reasoning. Expression of disagreement through downvoting is limited already through a technical limitation, which also contributes to indicate the form. Some foolish snipers (hitting without leaving any justification) are around: bad apples are not curbed, also because it apparently is not a mission for HN to create an optimal system of moderation and debate. In fact, there are several shortcomings to adopt HN as a model for moderation and debate - it was evidently not the objective. But civilization wise, there is no comparison with many other places. By the way: > a story HN members tell themselves to feel special Please. Accusing others to have unclean grounds in their evaluations, gratuitously? And, when one is "special", it is not out of some free membership that confirmation comes.
qsort 5y ago
> Did you expect a new country wise economic model to be purposed in this article? No, I didn't, but I'm frankly growing tired of cookie-cutter article like this one that just enumerate problems that have existed since the literal dawn of civilization. The entire "economy bad" brigade is, as parent comment puts it, "r/im14andthisisdeep". They see problems everyone else sees, but they don't have any actual insight, just empty rethoric.
- dbingham 5y ago
  There are quite a number of solutions on offer - they just have a difficult time gaining traction in our media (and therefor in the public debate). Part of that has to do with the fact that a majority of those with economic and political power - those who have succeeded in the current system - still refuse to recognize that the problems are systematic. They refuse to recognize that the problems are intrinsically caused by our economic and political systems and necessitate systematic change to those systems. And since these people wield economic and political power, they have the ability to prevent the conversations about these problems and their solutions from being held in the halls of media and power. Thus, the solutions are only discussed among fairly niche political and academic communities who have a hard time broadcasting the ideas widely. But if you go looking for it, there is a wide array of work that has been done divising ideas for the systematic change we need to solve these problems. I have a whole bookshelf of authors proposing alternatives. Projects like The Next System project, and the Democracy Collaborate, have been working on divising ways to grow alternative systems with in the confines of the current one. The challenge of course, remains funding. Because those with the wealth got that wealth through the current system and continue to benefit from the current system. So actually making change is going to take either a mass popular uprising (electoral or otherwise) or enough people with enough wealth recognizing the problems and being willing to give up their wealth and power to solve them. Knowing that the solutions will forever disempower them and their peers. Edit: To provide some clarity of the sort of solutions on offer, I'll provide my favorite. Stop prioritizing capital, start prioritizing labor. Right now, Capital basically gets to call the shots - because we allow for any kind of contract in business formation and you can't start a business with out capital and we don't restrict what capital can demand. This allows capital to take advantage of that power imbalance at the time of business formation to demand control. If instead, we restricted what capital could demand to say - a reasonable interest on a loan - and legally structured businesses as institutions democratically run by those working in them, this would have the effect of empowering labor and disempowering capital. People would still have the ability to make money from their money, but it would vastly reduce the current multiplier effects on the growth of wealth, and thus the tendency for wealth to concentrate. It would tend to spread wealth out to a much wider proportion of the population - because the people doing the work would get to vote for the leaders of their businesses, and those leaders then have a much, much strong incentive to take care of the people doing the work. Likewise, the people doing the work would have a much stronger incentive to take care of the communities in which they operate, because they are much more likely to live in those communities than distant investors. It has the effect of reconnecting businesses with their neighbors and communities in a much more real way, and empowering those involved in the business who are most aware of the effects it has to change those effects. Would this system be perfect? Nope. It's really a pretty gentle refactor of the current sytem (though one with wide ranging effects). Would it be better? Yeah, I really believe it would. There are many other effects this change would have - I've wanted to write a book on it for years, but haven't been able to find the time or bandwidth. Someday. If I ever get to take a long leave of absence or get to cash out, someday. Another alternative you could consider, one I've played with as a thought experiment many times, what would happen if we simply banned people from making money directly from their money in all forms? It's a challenging thought experiment, because where do you draw the line? Money is just a representation of property, so how do you define money made from money versus, say, renting a machine you own? But it's a worthwhile thought experiment - could we devise a system where you could only make money by working, and not by simply owning property or holding wealth? There are many more alternatives out there, from gentle refactors to whole rewrites. Some fleshed out, some just thought experiments. And everything in between. They should really - all of them - be a much bigger part of our public dialog than they are. Further edit: Many threads are on-going but I've been at this all morning so I'm going to call it a day and go make lunch. I've appreciated the dialogs, and maybe I'll write that book some day. If I do find the time to write that book, I know exactly where to come to harden it against criticism. If I can convince a forum full of capital investors and would be capital investors that making capital investment illegal is a good idea, then I'll be able to convince anyone!
slothtrop 5y ago
> Did you expect a new country wise economic model to be purposed in this article? Coming from a publication like theanarchistlibrary.org, purporting a new system is implicit. And the following quote: "to create an “economy” that lets us actually take care of the people who are taking care of us. " - with economy in quotes removes ambiguity on that question.
mostertoaster 5y ago
Yeah it kind of reminds me of why I thought Bernie Sanders was once a useful voice. He was willing to point out realities that most political elites wanted to keep hidden. His solutions though are crap, and he has profited greatly off the misfortune of the poor.
- nindalf 5y ago
  Sanders has profited off the misfortune of the poor? How so?
  - mostertoaster 5y ago
    Because he exploits their situation to promise them free stuff by taking from the wealthy. That wealth taken might give some poor a token gift, but mostly it ends up in the pockets of bureaucrats. Maybe not, maybe he only has one modest home which is still more than the people he appeals to, but not utterly hypocritical.
eli_gottlieb 5y ago
>Did you expect a new country wise economic model to be purposed in this article? Well yeah.
karaterobot 5y ago
While it is not completely without value, just confirming to readers that a problem they are well aware of already exists is probably the least value you can provide to them. You'd hope for more than just criticism.
jseban 5y ago
Yeah but it gets tiresome when leftists never bother themselves with any form of practical solutions of even a path forward, always just point out that things are not perfect, and then hint at some vague ideal. What's the point of instigating and persuading people on such grounds, I don't understand

refurb 5y ago

Ok let me try: Our current approach to curing cancer sucks and everyone should be reminded how many people die needlessly each year. Do you disagree? Of course not. Did I contribute anything worthwhile? Not really.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

dTal 5y ago

"The country"? What country is that? These issues seem pretty global.

jdgoesmarching 5y ago

Agreed. This article is pretty clear about its intent: don’t be lulled into a false sense of economic security after the pandemic and build this experience into our understanding of our system. The first step of any solution is convincing people there is a problem. Not just the obvious “things are bad,” but an understanding that these issues are systemic in a way that challenges American ideology. These articles frustrate HN because they aren’t pitching some technocratic reformism, but instead are seeding ideas about the structure of our society that need to be absorbed before we can hope to change it. I’m honestly surprised to see this pop up at all here, HN isn’t a crowd that is demographically primed to challenge the assumptions of capitalisms.

glogla 5y ago
Based on what gets up and downvoted, most of people on HN are ancap or fascists. I guess it makes sense - startups are gold rush, VC's are the ones giving away shovels for portion of gold should there be any, and founders are people who either found gold or believe they will. I wonder if most of people have political outlook like this. If they do, it is both sad and comforting, because then the humanity is doomed to kill ourselves via climate change, but we would deserve it.
- qsort 5y ago
  I really hope dang sees this. It's a nice candidate for inclusion in his list of [f"most people on HN are {x}" for x in ridiculous_ideologies]
- mdp2021 5y ago
  Upvote and downvote do not work that way at HN and should not be interpreted that way without analysis. Here it is not about how you feel: it is about whether you make sense. Experience mostly reflects the principle (some noise must be expected).
  - dang 5y ago
    I think you may have a mistaken impression of how downvotes work on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314
  - moistly 5y ago
    Your claim is fallacious. It is not rooted in any formal study of HN voters or voting outcomes. It is just a story HN members tell themselves to feel special. Reality is, HN is like every other social media platform, and feelings deeply influence voting around here. IMO it is obvious.
    - mdp2021 5y ago
      There is little need for formal studies. HN is very surely different from «other social media platform[s]»: you must have never been on Reddit or YT, to provide examples of diametrically opposite places. A quick look at information density and "where the uttering came from" (say, above the neck, below the hips or other guts) should clearly show a massive, radical difference. That feelings influence voting, in terms of "hear, hear" or "thank you", is not undesirable: it is still agreement on reasoning. Expression of disagreement through downvoting is limited already through a technical limitation, which also contributes to indicate the form. Some foolish snipers (hitting without leaving any justification) are around: bad apples are not curbed, also because it apparently is not a mission for HN to create an optimal system of moderation and debate. In fact, there are several shortcomings to adopt HN as a model for moderation and debate - it was evidently not the objective. But civilization wise, there is no comparison with many other places. By the way: > a story HN members tell themselves to feel special Please. Accusing others to have unclean grounds in their evaluations, gratuitously? And, when one is "special", it is not out of some free membership that confirmation comes.

qsort 5y ago

> Did you expect a new country wise economic model to be purposed in this article? No, I didn't, but I'm frankly growing tired of cookie-cutter article like this one that just enumerate problems that have existed since the literal dawn of civilization. The entire "economy bad" brigade is, as parent comment puts it, "r/im14andthisisdeep". They see problems everyone else sees, but they don't have any actual insight, just empty rethoric.

dbingham 5y ago
There are quite a number of solutions on offer - they just have a difficult time gaining traction in our media (and therefor in the public debate). Part of that has to do with the fact that a majority of those with economic and political power - those who have succeeded in the current system - still refuse to recognize that the problems are systematic. They refuse to recognize that the problems are intrinsically caused by our economic and political systems and necessitate systematic change to those systems. And since these people wield economic and political power, they have the ability to prevent the conversations about these problems and their solutions from being held in the halls of media and power. Thus, the solutions are only discussed among fairly niche political and academic communities who have a hard time broadcasting the ideas widely. But if you go looking for it, there is a wide array of work that has been done divising ideas for the systematic change we need to solve these problems. I have a whole bookshelf of authors proposing alternatives. Projects like The Next System project, and the Democracy Collaborate, have been working on divising ways to grow alternative systems with in the confines of the current one. The challenge of course, remains funding. Because those with the wealth got that wealth through the current system and continue to benefit from the current system. So actually making change is going to take either a mass popular uprising (electoral or otherwise) or enough people with enough wealth recognizing the problems and being willing to give up their wealth and power to solve them. Knowing that the solutions will forever disempower them and their peers. Edit: To provide some clarity of the sort of solutions on offer, I'll provide my favorite. Stop prioritizing capital, start prioritizing labor. Right now, Capital basically gets to call the shots - because we allow for any kind of contract in business formation and you can't start a business with out capital and we don't restrict what capital can demand. This allows capital to take advantage of that power imbalance at the time of business formation to demand control. If instead, we restricted what capital could demand to say - a reasonable interest on a loan - and legally structured businesses as institutions democratically run by those working in them, this would have the effect of empowering labor and disempowering capital. People would still have the ability to make money from their money, but it would vastly reduce the current multiplier effects on the growth of wealth, and thus the tendency for wealth to concentrate. It would tend to spread wealth out to a much wider proportion of the population - because the people doing the work would get to vote for the leaders of their businesses, and those leaders then have a much, much strong incentive to take care of the people doing the work. Likewise, the people doing the work would have a much stronger incentive to take care of the communities in which they operate, because they are much more likely to live in those communities than distant investors. It has the effect of reconnecting businesses with their neighbors and communities in a much more real way, and empowering those involved in the business who are most aware of the effects it has to change those effects. Would this system be perfect? Nope. It's really a pretty gentle refactor of the current sytem (though one with wide ranging effects). Would it be better? Yeah, I really believe it would. There are many other effects this change would have - I've wanted to write a book on it for years, but haven't been able to find the time or bandwidth. Someday. If I ever get to take a long leave of absence or get to cash out, someday. Another alternative you could consider, one I've played with as a thought experiment many times, what would happen if we simply banned people from making money directly from their money in all forms? It's a challenging thought experiment, because where do you draw the line? Money is just a representation of property, so how do you define money made from money versus, say, renting a machine you own? But it's a worthwhile thought experiment - could we devise a system where you could only make money by working, and not by simply owning property or holding wealth? There are many more alternatives out there, from gentle refactors to whole rewrites. Some fleshed out, some just thought experiments. And everything in between. They should really - all of them - be a much bigger part of our public dialog than they are. Further edit: Many threads are on-going but I've been at this all morning so I'm going to call it a day and go make lunch. I've appreciated the dialogs, and maybe I'll write that book some day. If I do find the time to write that book, I know exactly where to come to harden it against criticism. If I can convince a forum full of capital investors and would be capital investors that making capital investment illegal is a good idea, then I'll be able to convince anyone!

slothtrop 5y ago

> Did you expect a new country wise economic model to be purposed in this article? Coming from a publication like theanarchistlibrary.org, purporting a new system is implicit. And the following quote: "to create an “economy” that lets us actually take care of the people who are taking care of us. " - with economy in quotes removes ambiguity on that question.

mostertoaster 5y ago

Yeah it kind of reminds me of why I thought Bernie Sanders was once a useful voice. He was willing to point out realities that most political elites wanted to keep hidden. His solutions though are crap, and he has profited greatly off the misfortune of the poor.

nindalf 5y ago
Sanders has profited off the misfortune of the poor? How so?
- mostertoaster 5y ago
  Because he exploits their situation to promise them free stuff by taking from the wealthy. That wealth taken might give some poor a token gift, but mostly it ends up in the pockets of bureaucrats. Maybe not, maybe he only has one modest home which is still more than the people he appeals to, but not utterly hypocritical.

eli_gottlieb 5y ago

>Did you expect a new country wise economic model to be purposed in this article? Well yeah.

karaterobot 5y ago

While it is not completely without value, just confirming to readers that a problem they are well aware of already exists is probably the least value you can provide to them. You'd hope for more than just criticism.

jseban 5y ago

Yeah but it gets tiresome when leftists never bother themselves with any form of practical solutions of even a path forward, always just point out that things are not perfect, and then hint at some vague ideal. What's the point of instigating and persuading people on such grounds, I don't understand