13 ms·

"You will own nothing and be happy" [1]. I think the general idea is that the idea of private possessions is being phased out for the average person. You'll ren

by bArray 4y ago

"You will own nothing and be happy" [1]. I think the general idea is that the idea of private possessions is being phased out for the average person. You'll rent your car, eat the bugs and get your Big Corp tokens to rent items. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/worldeconomicforum/2016/11/10/shopping-i-cant-really-remember-what-that-is-or-how-differently-well-live-in-2030/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/worldeconomicforum/2016/11/10/s...

scrlk 4y ago
Don't forget CBDCs with smart contracts, plus your social credit score hanging over you like a sword. "You Will Eat The Bugs" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_8LTUmHWP0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_8LTUmHWP0 edit: I should add that the video above is a joke, but what scares me is the fact that the technology to make this reality already exists, and is a large political crisis away from being imposed.
- notinfuriated 4y ago
  The scam contract in this video reminds me of playing Eve Online.
- ravenstine 4y ago
  I know the video is a joke, but the whole thing about meat having an unacceptable carbon footprint pisses me off to no end. The fact that eating insects is being suggested as an alternative makes it even worse. Meat is a part of the carbon cycle. The carbon in plants is largely atmospheric. The plants eat the carbon, the animals eat the plants, the animals belch CO2 and methane, and that methane becomes CO2 again after ~12 years. The kind of carbon rising in the atmosphere isn't even that of animals (by stable isotope testing). Guess what, those who believe that bugs are the answer. Bugs eat plants. Bugs don't burp, but to grow insects at scale, the plants need to be processed and brought to them. Guess what that means? Burning fossil fuels in transportation. Cows, on the other hand, can feed on grassland. As someone who is has eaten plenty of bugs, I sincerely hope that the globalists try something other than bugs. The "science" behind it is extremely flimsy. You can't just take livestock out of the carbon cycle and think that's going to do anything for climate change.
  - scrlk 4y ago
    >Guess what, those who believe that bugs are the answer. Bugs eat plants. Bugs don't burp, but to grow insects at scale, the plants need to be processed and brought to them. Guess what that means? Burning fossil fuels in transportation. >Cows, on the other hand, can feed on grassland. That's a feature, not a bug (hah) for them. As you point out, bug farming requires a large number of inputs and a complicated process. This makes it highly amenable to centralisation & control. Whilst modern livestock farming is similar in complexity, in theory, it can go back to having more decentralised inputs, with a drawback of lower yield.
  - mlyle 4y ago
    We just need to tax CO2 (and perhaps methane). Accounting for CO2 intensity is all squishy-squashy. But if we tax the actual emissions then the true energy impact will be reflected in prices and the market will adapt to whatever actually really is optimum--whatever lends the most utils of resource use.
    - lend000 4y ago
      +1 but generalize to all major pollutants, with the taxes levied being theoretically equal to the cost to "undo" that pollution.
      - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
        So who gets to define "pollutant" and "cost"? That kind of exercise is far more likely to get kinetic than defining "truth" (or whatever) because it is more directly linked to peoples livelihoods and standards of living.
        lend000 4y ago
        Pollution is probably the most objectively measurable of externalities. Much more so than say economic externalities/deciding what the exact values should be for tax brackets. We could just start with the easiest case, which is a product/process that inherently releases pollutants (anything that releases gases) that may have some negative effects on others or the environment (the threshold should be low), then determine the market rate for capturing that pollution back from the environment and tax accordingly. This would also apply to medicines and lotions that don't get metabolized by the users and are inherently are going to end up in the ocean. It gets trickier when we consider things that directly harm some people nearby, like smoking, and at a certain level of harm, these things should just be banned outright (i.e. you can't really undo lung cancer or mercury poisoning). Or things that aren't inherently pollutants (plastic containers), but in practice end up causing a lot of pollution. Our government is too incompetent to approach the problem in a first-principles based way like this, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Banning individual things after they get out of control and doing complex mental gymnastics like cap and trade are much worse solutions.
- claytongulick 4y ago
  I got to thinking about this a lot. It brings to mind the scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom where they were all sitting at the high table eating huge beetles. As a kid, I was super grossed out when I watched it. Now, I'm not so sure. I eat a ton of crawfish, and love them. Pretending that they aren't bugs is just marketing. Are there other bugs I'd like with the appropriate amount of Zatarain's? Probably.
noduerme 4y ago
Wow. And painted as a utopia for the proles.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mark_l_watson 4y ago
Thanks, perfect +1 explanation. You might find this useful: Blackrock, Zillo, etc. cornering residential housing market. Sorrelle nails it: https://youtu.be/pwmEJWKCLF8 https://youtu.be/pwmEJWKCLF8 What I find so interesting is that the super rich don’t even seem to be trying to hide this mischief.
- scrlk 4y ago
  Do they care about hiding it? After all, they control or have influence over: all mass media, forms of instant & mass communication, and the state security apparatus. As long as the last group continues to provided for (food on the table, roof over the head, good quality of life), they have nothing to fear.
  - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
    Yep.... the problem is, that revolution is just two missed meals away, and with people living on the edge (due to huge costs of living), just a tiny unforseen "thing" happening, can cause those two missed meals, and angry hordes of people lynching the politicians.
- caeril 4y ago
  > the super rich don’t even seem to be trying to hide this mischief They don't need to. Talk to normies, they love their pods, Doritos, Xtreme Mountain Dew, sportsball, porn, celebrity drama, and Instagram. The product that elites provide to normies is far, far, superior to bread and circuses by every single hedonistic metric you can think of. They love it.
verisimi 4y ago
Conspiracy theorists have been saying this for at least a year. On the basis of primary source data. Still, its surprising to see comments like this on HN - stuff like that is usually flagged and downvoted. Which is a problem if you want to get real information and there really is a conspiracy. And this is a possibility. Mainstream sources are plainly politicised and owned by a very small, 'elite' section of society - they will not say what needs to be said - their paychecks, training and editors prevent this. So... The conspiracy world seems far closer to the truth nowadays, with a deeper, more meaningful take on reality that attempts to explain what is going on, than anything you can find on a TV or mainstream source.
- the_only_law 4y ago
  > stuff like that is usually flagged and downvoted. Lol maybe several years back.
- michaelmrose 4y ago
  Richer storytelling isn't a reliable indicator of truth. The real world is messy, complicated, stupid, chaotic, and often nonsensical. It often doesn't make a whole lot of sense because its the result of mashing together billions of barely developed monkeys operating in a world more complicated than they evolved for with incomplete and contradictory information. The conspiracy world wraps the world in a compelling narrative that is more coherent than actual reality relying on surface level understanding of numerous topics and trivial fabrications. If you dig into it then you soon find out that its a tremendous pile of bullshit amenable only to people who are willing to spend hours scouring niche sites for entertaining nonsense but unable or unwilling to pick out the trivial flaws in the reasoning of the narratives they push. This statement > The conspiracy world seems far closer to the truth is tremendously suspect. I suggest you examine your beliefs more carefully.
greenthrow 4y ago
This quote gets way too much play on here. I see it being referenced every day, and I don't read most comment sections on HN. This guy was predicting where things were going based on the principles of capitalism; it's more profitable to charge people in perpetuity than to charge them only once. It is not a conspiracy beyond that. If you don't like it, then avoid products with continuous payments and favor ones that don't as much as you can. If businesses see there is more appetite for buying things permanently than renting them, then they will sell things. DVD beat DivX. If you want to own things cancel your streaming service subscriptions and buy movies and TV shows and books and music instead. Stop posting the same tired, worn out quote and do something.
- peteradio 4y ago
  Big difference between infinitely copyable digital goods and sharing physical objects like living space.
- account42 4y ago
  > If you don't like it, then avoid products with continuous payments and favor ones that don't as much as you can. The problem is the "as much as you can". Even for devices that you can still "buy" you are often not really the one in control of that device and the maker will continue to try to extract more money from you using that device. > DVD beat DivX. And streaming beat physical media. Movies and TV are a really bad example for your point as it is prohibitively expensive to "buy" these compared to a streaming subscription and that difference is only going to get bigger as less and less people make the effort to own things. This isn't something you can affect on your own.
- bArray 4y ago
  > This quote gets way too much play on here. I see it being referenced every day, and I don't read most comment sections on HN. It's getting referenced a lot because people can actively see the rug getting pulled beneath their feet. > This guy was predicting where things were going based on the principles of capitalism; it's more profitable to charge people in perpetuity than to charge them only once. It is not a conspiracy beyond that. I think it's actually being driven by a rise in cost of living, with an expected standard of living that is unchanging. You aren't for example going to downgrade your phone or car whilst working at the same company, and if they thing itself is getting more expensive, the only thing left is the type of ownership. It's already here in terms of loans, where you make lots of small payments (rent) to eventually own the item. In the UK there is a scheme "right to buy", where the rent is counted towards your eventual bid to buy a property. > If you don't like it, then avoid products with continuous payments and favor ones that don't as much as you can. That's not how it will happen. To work at X company and interact with Y service (which allows you to live), they require you have some minimum piece of equipment. You can either buy it outright (which your wage does not allow for) or loan the item (essentially rent it). You end up being forced into the system. An example could be a car to get to work, but you have to drive through a low emissions zone which is dictated by car manufacturing year. Another example could be an app on a phone where it requires a minimum OS version, only supported my the latest and greatest model. > If you want to own things cancel your streaming service subscriptions and buy movies and TV shows and books and music instead. You're preaching to the wrong person - but these things are only a matter of time. Music for example is becoming less and less of a choice, many artists have nothing but digital versions, and those are purposefully setup to prevent distribution, locking you into some hellish platform.
JetAlone 4y ago
This morning, for the first time this year, I heard Cicadas once again in big, beautiful Tokyo. Maybe I'll get used to that as the overture for the crunchy, (nutty-tasting, I'm told) harvest that will feed my children, if I can keep my papers in order. https://cookpad.com/search/蝉 https://cookpad.com/search/蝉 It'll give our sustainability leaders a raging せみ.
nunez 4y ago
why is this a bad thing?

by bArray 4y ago

scrlk 4y ago

Don't forget CBDCs with smart contracts, plus your social credit score hanging over you like a sword. "You Will Eat The Bugs" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_8LTUmHWP0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_8LTUmHWP0 edit: I should add that the video above is a joke, but what scares me is the fact that the technology to make this reality already exists, and is a large political crisis away from being imposed.

notinfuriated 4y ago
The scam contract in this video reminds me of playing Eve Online.
ravenstine 4y ago
I know the video is a joke, but the whole thing about meat having an unacceptable carbon footprint pisses me off to no end. The fact that eating insects is being suggested as an alternative makes it even worse. Meat is a part of the carbon cycle. The carbon in plants is largely atmospheric. The plants eat the carbon, the animals eat the plants, the animals belch CO2 and methane, and that methane becomes CO2 again after ~12 years. The kind of carbon rising in the atmosphere isn't even that of animals (by stable isotope testing). Guess what, those who believe that bugs are the answer. Bugs eat plants. Bugs don't burp, but to grow insects at scale, the plants need to be processed and brought to them. Guess what that means? Burning fossil fuels in transportation. Cows, on the other hand, can feed on grassland. As someone who is has eaten plenty of bugs, I sincerely hope that the globalists try something other than bugs. The "science" behind it is extremely flimsy. You can't just take livestock out of the carbon cycle and think that's going to do anything for climate change.
- scrlk 4y ago
  >Guess what, those who believe that bugs are the answer. Bugs eat plants. Bugs don't burp, but to grow insects at scale, the plants need to be processed and brought to them. Guess what that means? Burning fossil fuels in transportation. >Cows, on the other hand, can feed on grassland. That's a feature, not a bug (hah) for them. As you point out, bug farming requires a large number of inputs and a complicated process. This makes it highly amenable to centralisation & control. Whilst modern livestock farming is similar in complexity, in theory, it can go back to having more decentralised inputs, with a drawback of lower yield.
- mlyle 4y ago
  We just need to tax CO2 (and perhaps methane). Accounting for CO2 intensity is all squishy-squashy. But if we tax the actual emissions then the true energy impact will be reflected in prices and the market will adapt to whatever actually really is optimum--whatever lends the most utils of resource use.
  - lend000 4y ago
    +1 but generalize to all major pollutants, with the taxes levied being theoretically equal to the cost to "undo" that pollution.
    - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
      So who gets to define "pollutant" and "cost"? That kind of exercise is far more likely to get kinetic than defining "truth" (or whatever) because it is more directly linked to peoples livelihoods and standards of living.
      - lend000 4y ago
        Pollution is probably the most objectively measurable of externalities. Much more so than say economic externalities/deciding what the exact values should be for tax brackets. We could just start with the easiest case, which is a product/process that inherently releases pollutants (anything that releases gases) that may have some negative effects on others or the environment (the threshold should be low), then determine the market rate for capturing that pollution back from the environment and tax accordingly. This would also apply to medicines and lotions that don't get metabolized by the users and are inherently are going to end up in the ocean. It gets trickier when we consider things that directly harm some people nearby, like smoking, and at a certain level of harm, these things should just be banned outright (i.e. you can't really undo lung cancer or mercury poisoning). Or things that aren't inherently pollutants (plastic containers), but in practice end up causing a lot of pollution. Our government is too incompetent to approach the problem in a first-principles based way like this, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Banning individual things after they get out of control and doing complex mental gymnastics like cap and trade are much worse solutions.
claytongulick 4y ago
I got to thinking about this a lot. It brings to mind the scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom where they were all sitting at the high table eating huge beetles. As a kid, I was super grossed out when I watched it. Now, I'm not so sure. I eat a ton of crawfish, and love them. Pretending that they aren't bugs is just marketing. Are there other bugs I'd like with the appropriate amount of Zatarain's? Probably.

noduerme 4y ago

Wow. And painted as a utopia for the proles.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

mark_l_watson 4y ago

Thanks, perfect +1 explanation. You might find this useful: Blackrock, Zillo, etc. cornering residential housing market. Sorrelle nails it: https://youtu.be/pwmEJWKCLF8 https://youtu.be/pwmEJWKCLF8 What I find so interesting is that the super rich don’t even seem to be trying to hide this mischief.

scrlk 4y ago
Do they care about hiding it? After all, they control or have influence over: all mass media, forms of instant & mass communication, and the state security apparatus. As long as the last group continues to provided for (food on the table, roof over the head, good quality of life), they have nothing to fear.
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  Yep.... the problem is, that revolution is just two missed meals away, and with people living on the edge (due to huge costs of living), just a tiny unforseen "thing" happening, can cause those two missed meals, and angry hordes of people lynching the politicians.
caeril 4y ago
> the super rich don’t even seem to be trying to hide this mischief They don't need to. Talk to normies, they love their pods, Doritos, Xtreme Mountain Dew, sportsball, porn, celebrity drama, and Instagram. The product that elites provide to normies is far, far, superior to bread and circuses by every single hedonistic metric you can think of. They love it.

verisimi 4y ago

Conspiracy theorists have been saying this for at least a year. On the basis of primary source data. Still, its surprising to see comments like this on HN - stuff like that is usually flagged and downvoted. Which is a problem if you want to get real information and there really is a conspiracy. And this is a possibility. Mainstream sources are plainly politicised and owned by a very small, 'elite' section of society - they will not say what needs to be said - their paychecks, training and editors prevent this. So... The conspiracy world seems far closer to the truth nowadays, with a deeper, more meaningful take on reality that attempts to explain what is going on, than anything you can find on a TV or mainstream source.

the_only_law 4y ago
> stuff like that is usually flagged and downvoted. Lol maybe several years back.
michaelmrose 4y ago
Richer storytelling isn't a reliable indicator of truth. The real world is messy, complicated, stupid, chaotic, and often nonsensical. It often doesn't make a whole lot of sense because its the result of mashing together billions of barely developed monkeys operating in a world more complicated than they evolved for with incomplete and contradictory information. The conspiracy world wraps the world in a compelling narrative that is more coherent than actual reality relying on surface level understanding of numerous topics and trivial fabrications. If you dig into it then you soon find out that its a tremendous pile of bullshit amenable only to people who are willing to spend hours scouring niche sites for entertaining nonsense but unable or unwilling to pick out the trivial flaws in the reasoning of the narratives they push. This statement > The conspiracy world seems far closer to the truth is tremendously suspect. I suggest you examine your beliefs more carefully.

greenthrow 4y ago

This quote gets way too much play on here. I see it being referenced every day, and I don't read most comment sections on HN. This guy was predicting where things were going based on the principles of capitalism; it's more profitable to charge people in perpetuity than to charge them only once. It is not a conspiracy beyond that. If you don't like it, then avoid products with continuous payments and favor ones that don't as much as you can. If businesses see there is more appetite for buying things permanently than renting them, then they will sell things. DVD beat DivX. If you want to own things cancel your streaming service subscriptions and buy movies and TV shows and books and music instead. Stop posting the same tired, worn out quote and do something.

peteradio 4y ago
Big difference between infinitely copyable digital goods and sharing physical objects like living space.
account42 4y ago
> If you don't like it, then avoid products with continuous payments and favor ones that don't as much as you can. The problem is the "as much as you can". Even for devices that you can still "buy" you are often not really the one in control of that device and the maker will continue to try to extract more money from you using that device. > DVD beat DivX. And streaming beat physical media. Movies and TV are a really bad example for your point as it is prohibitively expensive to "buy" these compared to a streaming subscription and that difference is only going to get bigger as less and less people make the effort to own things. This isn't something you can affect on your own.
bArray 4y ago
> This quote gets way too much play on here. I see it being referenced every day, and I don't read most comment sections on HN. It's getting referenced a lot because people can actively see the rug getting pulled beneath their feet. > This guy was predicting where things were going based on the principles of capitalism; it's more profitable to charge people in perpetuity than to charge them only once. It is not a conspiracy beyond that. I think it's actually being driven by a rise in cost of living, with an expected standard of living that is unchanging. You aren't for example going to downgrade your phone or car whilst working at the same company, and if they thing itself is getting more expensive, the only thing left is the type of ownership. It's already here in terms of loans, where you make lots of small payments (rent) to eventually own the item. In the UK there is a scheme "right to buy", where the rent is counted towards your eventual bid to buy a property. > If you don't like it, then avoid products with continuous payments and favor ones that don't as much as you can. That's not how it will happen. To work at X company and interact with Y service (which allows you to live), they require you have some minimum piece of equipment. You can either buy it outright (which your wage does not allow for) or loan the item (essentially rent it). You end up being forced into the system. An example could be a car to get to work, but you have to drive through a low emissions zone which is dictated by car manufacturing year. Another example could be an app on a phone where it requires a minimum OS version, only supported my the latest and greatest model. > If you want to own things cancel your streaming service subscriptions and buy movies and TV shows and books and music instead. You're preaching to the wrong person - but these things are only a matter of time. Music for example is becoming less and less of a choice, many artists have nothing but digital versions, and those are purposefully setup to prevent distribution, locking you into some hellish platform.

JetAlone 4y ago

This morning, for the first time this year, I heard Cicadas once again in big, beautiful Tokyo. Maybe I'll get used to that as the overture for the crunchy, (nutty-tasting, I'm told) harvest that will feed my children, if I can keep my papers in order. https://cookpad.com/search/蝉 https://cookpad.com/search/蝉 It'll give our sustainability leaders a raging せみ.

nunez 4y ago

why is this a bad thing?