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I almost totally agree with you, but have a few reservations- 1. We could have cheaper, more abundant food, but a lot of grain is dumped into the ocean to creat

I almost totally agree with you, but have a few reservations- 1. We could have cheaper, more abundant food, but a lot of grain is dumped into the ocean to create an artificial scarcity to keep prices high. 2. We have planned obsolescence in electronic devices, to increase profits 3. Closed source technology have made it unreasonably hard for small groups with limited funding to innovate If you want innovation and technology to thrive, you will have to notice that valuing money as highly as it is, is detrimental to progress. And if like you said, UBI reduces the value, that's precisely what can help, right?

pdonis 4y ago
> 1. We could have cheaper, more abundant food, but a lot of grain is dumped into the ocean to create an artificial scarcity to keep prices high. And governments pay farmers not to grow grain in the first place. These kinds of problems are solved by removing the top-down policies that create them. > 2. We have planned obsolescence in electronic devices, to increase profits To the extent this is a problem (and not just in electronic devices, many products are not built to last any more), it's a problem with corporate governance and is not something that is easily solved. The corporate governance problem is that most stock in publicly traded corporations is no longer owned by individuals, it's owned by mutual funds, since that's where most people's retirement savings are now. So the corporate entities that have to meet long time horizons, which is what enables things like building products to last a long time, rather than focusing on short-term profits, are the mutual funds, not the individual corporations--but the mutual funds don't build anything, they just move money around. The actual corporations that build things have short time horizons because the mutual funds will sell their stock if they don't meet the desired short-term returns. As I said, this problem is not easily solved; certainly UBI does not solve it. Nor will it improve it, since anyone who depends on UBI for their income is not going to be running a corporation anyway. To the extent UBI affects the incentives of the people running corporations at all, it increases their incentive to take short-term profit, since the long-term effect of something like UBI is to make human labor scarcer and more expensive, which means corporations that build things need to either automate or go out of business--so the executives that run them have more incentive to take short-term profits and then exit with their golden parachutes before the long-term problems surface. > 3. Closed source technology have made it unreasonably hard for small groups with limited funding to innovate This is only true to the extent that closed source technology is better and would spark innovation if it were open. I do not see this being the case. > valuing money as highly as it is, is detrimental to progress I'm not sure I agree. I think what is detrimental to progress is focusing on short term gain rather than long term stability, particularly of the social institutions that are required for progress to occur in the first place. I don't see "valuing money" in and of itself as much of an effect. Many people who "value money" are willing to work for years on startups in order to get rich, producing much innovation and progress.
- shreyshnaccount 4y ago
  > > These kinds of problems are solved by removing the top-down policies that create them. I agree almost wholehearedly, this makes sense. >> To the extent this is a problem (and not just in electronic devices, many products are not built to last any more), it's a problem with corporate governance and is not something that is easily solved. The corporate governance problem is that most stock in publicly traded corporations is no longer owned by individuals, it's owned by mutual funds, since that's where most people's retirement savings are now. So the corporate entities that have to meet long time horizons, which is what enables things like building products to last a long time, rather than focusing on short-term profits, are the mutual funds, not the individual corporations--but the mutual funds don't build anything, they just move money around. The actual corporations that build things have short time horizons because the mutual funds will sell their stock if they don't meet the desired short-term returns.As I said, this problem is not easily solved; I see where you are coming from, and it makes sense. But you have to admit that the focus of this practice is to increase profits more than increasing value for customers. And that's a consequence of money being of more importance than solving a problem. So the store of value (money) is more "important" than the value the product is supposed to create.. I haven't been really eloquent here but I hope you get where in coming from, even if I might be a bit naive >>certainly UBI does not solve it. Ofc, it won't. It'll just serve as a buffer instead of socialised Healthcare, housing and more, right? >> Nor will it improve it, since anyone who depends on UBI for their income is not going to be running a corporation anyway. To the extent UBI affects the incentives of the people running corporations at all, it increases their incentive to take short-term profit, since the long-term effect of something like UBI is to make human labor scarcer and more expensive, which means corporations that build things need to either automate or go out of business--so the executives that run them have more incentive to take short-term profits and then exit with their golden parachutes before the long-term problems surface. after this short term effect dies down, we would have more efficient corpos in the long tern, right? And its all gonna "go to the moon" until there's a looming recession and suddenly all the worthless things lose a bunch of value.. (this is my first market cycle, and I see this with NFTs) >> This is only true to the extent that closed source technology is better and would spark innovation if it were open. No, better or worse aside, walled gardens make it harder to try new things. >> I'm not sure I agree. I think what is detrimental to progress is focusing on short term gain rather than long term stability, particularly of the social institutions that are required for progress to occur in the first place. I don't see "valuing money" in and of itself as much of an effect. Many people who "value money" are willing to work for years on startups in order to get rich, producing much innovation and progress. Interesting, but I disagree. Imo startup founders who succeed in the long run often place greater importance on creating value for their customers than they value the concept of money. Ofc they still care about it, because, well, obviously I'd like to thank you for taking the time to reply so thoroughly

pdonis 4y ago

> 1. We could have cheaper, more abundant food, but a lot of grain is dumped into the ocean to create an artificial scarcity to keep prices high. And governments pay farmers not to grow grain in the first place. These kinds of problems are solved by removing the top-down policies that create them. > 2. We have planned obsolescence in electronic devices, to increase profits To the extent this is a problem (and not just in electronic devices, many products are not built to last any more), it's a problem with corporate governance and is not something that is easily solved. The corporate governance problem is that most stock in publicly traded corporations is no longer owned by individuals, it's owned by mutual funds, since that's where most people's retirement savings are now. So the corporate entities that have to meet long time horizons, which is what enables things like building products to last a long time, rather than focusing on short-term profits, are the mutual funds, not the individual corporations--but the mutual funds don't build anything, they just move money around. The actual corporations that build things have short time horizons because the mutual funds will sell their stock if they don't meet the desired short-term returns. As I said, this problem is not easily solved; certainly UBI does not solve it. Nor will it improve it, since anyone who depends on UBI for their income is not going to be running a corporation anyway. To the extent UBI affects the incentives of the people running corporations at all, it increases their incentive to take short-term profit, since the long-term effect of something like UBI is to make human labor scarcer and more expensive, which means corporations that build things need to either automate or go out of business--so the executives that run them have more incentive to take short-term profits and then exit with their golden parachutes before the long-term problems surface. > 3. Closed source technology have made it unreasonably hard for small groups with limited funding to innovate This is only true to the extent that closed source technology is better and would spark innovation if it were open. I do not see this being the case. > valuing money as highly as it is, is detrimental to progress I'm not sure I agree. I think what is detrimental to progress is focusing on short term gain rather than long term stability, particularly of the social institutions that are required for progress to occur in the first place. I don't see "valuing money" in and of itself as much of an effect. Many people who "value money" are willing to work for years on startups in order to get rich, producing much innovation and progress.

shreyshnaccount 4y ago
> > These kinds of problems are solved by removing the top-down policies that create them. I agree almost wholehearedly, this makes sense. >> To the extent this is a problem (and not just in electronic devices, many products are not built to last any more), it's a problem with corporate governance and is not something that is easily solved. The corporate governance problem is that most stock in publicly traded corporations is no longer owned by individuals, it's owned by mutual funds, since that's where most people's retirement savings are now. So the corporate entities that have to meet long time horizons, which is what enables things like building products to last a long time, rather than focusing on short-term profits, are the mutual funds, not the individual corporations--but the mutual funds don't build anything, they just move money around. The actual corporations that build things have short time horizons because the mutual funds will sell their stock if they don't meet the desired short-term returns.As I said, this problem is not easily solved; I see where you are coming from, and it makes sense. But you have to admit that the focus of this practice is to increase profits more than increasing value for customers. And that's a consequence of money being of more importance than solving a problem. So the store of value (money) is more "important" than the value the product is supposed to create.. I haven't been really eloquent here but I hope you get where in coming from, even if I might be a bit naive >>certainly UBI does not solve it. Ofc, it won't. It'll just serve as a buffer instead of socialised Healthcare, housing and more, right? >> Nor will it improve it, since anyone who depends on UBI for their income is not going to be running a corporation anyway. To the extent UBI affects the incentives of the people running corporations at all, it increases their incentive to take short-term profit, since the long-term effect of something like UBI is to make human labor scarcer and more expensive, which means corporations that build things need to either automate or go out of business--so the executives that run them have more incentive to take short-term profits and then exit with their golden parachutes before the long-term problems surface. after this short term effect dies down, we would have more efficient corpos in the long tern, right? And its all gonna "go to the moon" until there's a looming recession and suddenly all the worthless things lose a bunch of value.. (this is my first market cycle, and I see this with NFTs) >> This is only true to the extent that closed source technology is better and would spark innovation if it were open. No, better or worse aside, walled gardens make it harder to try new things. >> I'm not sure I agree. I think what is detrimental to progress is focusing on short term gain rather than long term stability, particularly of the social institutions that are required for progress to occur in the first place. I don't see "valuing money" in and of itself as much of an effect. Many people who "value money" are willing to work for years on startups in order to get rich, producing much innovation and progress. Interesting, but I disagree. Imo startup founders who succeed in the long run often place greater importance on creating value for their customers than they value the concept of money. Ofc they still care about it, because, well, obviously I'd like to thank you for taking the time to reply so thoroughly