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Our patron saint has this to say about it > For example, let's attack poverty, and if necessary damage wealth in the process. That's much more likely to work t
by Firmwarrior 4y ago
Our patron saint has this to say about it
> For example, let's attack poverty, and if necessary damage wealth in the process. That's much more likely to work than attacking wealth in the hope that you will thereby fix poverty. [9] And if there are people getting rich by tricking consumers or lobbying the government for anti-competitive regulations or tax loopholes, then let's stop them. Not because it's causing economic inequality, but because it's stealing. [10]
> If all you have is statistics, it seems like that's what you need to fix. But behind a broad statistical measure like economic inequality there are some things that are good and some that are bad, some that are historical trends with immense momentum and others that are random accidents. If we want to fix the world behind the statistics, we have to understand it, and focus our efforts where they'll do the most good.
http://paulgraham.com/ineq.html http://paulgraham.com/ineq.html
- lm28469 4y ago> And if there are people getting rich by tricking consumers or lobbying the government for anti-competitive regulations or tax loopholes, then let's stop them. Not because it's causing economic inequality, but because it's stealing. If we did that Bezos&co wouldn't have nearly as much money. A big part of the wealth of these individual is tax evasion or """optimisation""", taxes which are supposed to be used to fix these inequalities... Again, these people don't exist in a vacuum, these massive companies became what they are by squeezing as much as they're legally (and some time not so legally) allowed to squeeze, it's our collective job to set the boundaries. Not doing anything is letting them decide and their end goal is squeezing us and the planet dry You don't "attack poverty" with good intentions and nice speeches
- Firmwarrior 4y agoYou also don't attack poverty by randomly trying and failing to lash out at everyone who isn't in poverty How about we talk about actually attacking poverty? Coincidentally, the way that Gates, Buffett, Bezos, etc seem to be doing with all their money and time
- lm28469 4y ago> Coincidentally, the way that Gates, Buffett, Bezos, etc seem to be doing with all their money and time What ? They do that once they absolutely milked the world for decades because they're approaching death and start to get worried about their karma. Too little too late, it's like burning a random house and going in to save the cat while the family is burning, you don't get to be applauded for that If they truly attacked poverty you wouldn't have a single homeless person in the west
- ttoinou 4y agoIf we want to stop them from milking us we should stop with intellectual property and patents so that more companies can compete with their big companies
- WastingMyTime89 4y agoNo offense but a significant proportion of HN readers and contributors (me included) are here for the tech news and don’t think much of PG as the essays you quote brightly illustrate.