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We need more interesting people to be obscenely rich. Not a dig against the people in the article, but basically we need more people that are nothing like them

We need more interesting people to be obscenely rich. Not a dig against the people in the article, but basically we need more people that are nothing like them, from other walks of life to be extremely rich and free to pursue things. Also a lot of problems in society seem to be linked to wealth disparity. Dystopian visions of the future are almost always dystopian due to wealth disparity. Who’s working on solving that?

WalterBright 4y ago
> Who’s working on solving that? The communists. Didn't work out well. Edit: Don't believe me? Check out the history of communist countries.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  Communists weren't the only movement specifically working on wealth disparities. Eugenicists attacked the same problem from the other side, by trying to eliminate the poor.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    The eugenicist movement appears to be quite dead, and good riddance.
    - bessiesboobies 4y ago
      ;)
- hardwaresofton 4y ago
  That's a pretty weird way to answer! Communism is not the only solution to the problems facing current revisions of capitalism. The solution is allowed to be different capitalism. I saw a comment on HN that actually put it wonderfully just the other day (will try and find it) -- the crux was that the real core of government policy failing is corruption, and Capitalism is the most robust to corruption socioeconomic and political structure we've seen so far, because of things like "free market" competition, etc. Turns out if you view it with this lens, monarchies, communism and other forms of government that we've seen fail are quite easily explained at least at a basic level. I think of capitalism like a greed/ambition driven engine. It turns greed into progress of many kinds -- we just need to tweak the inputs/gears of the engine. Clearly a certain amount of greed will lead to proletariat revolt (some people might be fine with that since at some point the proletariat probably won't be able to revolt), and clearly some amount of unchecked greed/ambition is necessary for societal advancement in aggregate. [EDIT] I couldn't find what I was looking for, maybe it wasn't on HN -- this was the closest thing I found[0]... Wealth disparity under the current system has fluctuated over the last 50-100 years -- it is controllable. We know some of the knobs. I just never see anyone trying explicitly to figure out what the right setting for those knobs are, it's always obscured in one way or another. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24194806 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24194806
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    > Communism is not the only solution It turns out communism is a fine solution to nothing at all. Communist countries have never even managed to feed themselves - they either allow some capitalism in agriculture or import food from capitalist countries. > the real core of government policy failing is corruption Government policy fails even with zero corruption. It's because the incentives are all wrong. Even shooting all the corrupt people won't fix anything. > I think of capitalism like a greed/ambition driven engine You got that right. It turns out that harnessing peoples' self-interest works amazingly well.
    - hardwaresofton 4y ago
      > It turns out communism is a fine solution to nothing at all. Communist countries have never even managed to feed themselves - they either allow some capitalism in agriculture or import food from capitalist countries. Communism wasn't even suggested as a solution by me -- it was reflexively argued against by your earlier comment. You clearly don't like communism, I get it, thank you for contributing that. > Government policy fails even with zero corruption. It's because the incentives are all wrong. Even shooting all the corrupt people won't fix anything. Do you know of any government-policy-free societies that have scaled and prospered? I guess this also depends on your definition of "failure" for a society -- no idea what that is, but given how un-constructive your comments have been I'm not that excited to find out. > You got that right. It turns out that harnessing peoples' self-interest works amazingly well. No one said it didn't. Any thoughts on how to harness self-interest in a way that doesn't bifurcate society socio-economically quite so much?
      - sokoloff 4y ago
        Is bifurcating to the current extent so bad if both cohorts are made better off than under an alternative arrangement?
        hardwaresofton 4y ago
        I think so, because there's no proof that either cohort wouldn't have been better off under an alternative arrangement. To make things a little bit more concrete -- I know the typical argument here is that the poorest are moved forward more by rapid expansion/growth/harnessing of greed, but the problem is that we do not consider the right tail trajectory of those below. Making life better at a rapid rate is great, but it seems to be at a tradeoff -- a cap is developing on the "better off" part (widening wealth disparity). If it always trended up then the problem would be easy (and people wouldn't be too worried). It's a problem because the graph seems to go up for the poorer cohort then level off yet continue growing for one cohort. The derivatives are the problem, essentially. Also I'd argue that what people are seeing is a future where quality of life for the poorer cohort actually goes off a cliff and starts to go lower. Since we have no idea if/how that will happen (robots/automation most likely), the only way to ensure trajectories for the both cohorts is for both cohorts to have similar influence/power/decision making input. [EDIT] - I should note, the current extent is not that bad. It could be much much worse, and I think that's what people should be tinkering/trying to prevent.
- thisisthenewme 4y ago
  > Also a lot of problems in society seem to be linked to wealth disparity. Dystopian visions of the future are almost always dystopian due to wealth disparity. Who’s working on solving that? >> The communists. Didn't work out well. Just wondering why you would think your comment adds any additional context to the original post? Is that a snide at communism just because you dislike it? Or are you saying that communism is the only way to solve the problems of wealth disparity and that it has failed in the past and we can never have any semblance of equality in the world?
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    I replied to "who is" with an answer. BTW, replying to a post by adding "all" or "only" is simply being argumentative if what you're replying to did not include those words, and so adds no value. For example: Statement: "Humans are bipedal" Riposte: "Not all humans are bipedal, some only have one leg!"
  - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
    This seems like a defensive comment based on your disagreement with GP’s direct answer to a question. Sorry if this sounds snarky, but I really think you are overthinking their response.
- incompatible 4y ago
  > Check out the history of communist countries. I can only find the history of the authoritarian communist countries, the Leninists, Stalinists, Maoists, etc. I'd be happier to write off communism if there'd been more practical exploration of the libertarian communist theories.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    It's perfectly legal in America to set up a commune. I think more than 10,000 have been set up. They all failed. The Israeli kibbutzen are communes, but they are only kept afloat by government funding taxed from capitalist enterprises. The Pilgrims set up a commune their first year here, and starved. So did the Jamestown colony. There was the "Summer of Love" commune in San Francisco in 1969 that collapsed after 3 months. The Woodstock concert was a 3 day commune, which worked great until you consider they left behind a mountain of trash for other people to clean up. Apparently people were fine with getting free stuff, not so fine with doing work.
    - incompatible 4y ago
      I'm curious about where "they all failed" comes from. Presumably that means there are none currently in existence? I suspect that a lot of communes are set up for religious reasons, or because somebody fancies themselves as a petty dictator. This may be inevitable when a commune has to be set up on private property, and somebody will be the "owner". I thought the Plymouth Colony was successful? I don't know what system of governance it had.
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        > I'm curious about where "they all failed" comes from Can't find a successful one. Plymouth switched to capitalism after starving for a year.
    - pcthrowaway 4y ago
      This commune has been doing well for quite a while now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Farm_(Tennessee) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Farm_(Tennessee) I don't agree that a working commune means communism as a political system could also work. I'm also not saying communism can't work, though I personally like socialism with some capitalist elements better.
cokeandpepsi 4y ago
> Who’s working on solving that? usually people just cut off their heads after a while
nicbou 4y ago
Interesting and rich can get you John McAfee

WalterBright 4y ago

> Who’s working on solving that? The communists. Didn't work out well. Edit: Don't believe me? Check out the history of communist countries.

thaumasiotes 4y ago
Communists weren't the only movement specifically working on wealth disparities. Eugenicists attacked the same problem from the other side, by trying to eliminate the poor.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  The eugenicist movement appears to be quite dead, and good riddance.
  - bessiesboobies 4y ago
    ;)
hardwaresofton 4y ago
That's a pretty weird way to answer! Communism is not the only solution to the problems facing current revisions of capitalism. The solution is allowed to be different capitalism. I saw a comment on HN that actually put it wonderfully just the other day (will try and find it) -- the crux was that the real core of government policy failing is corruption, and Capitalism is the most robust to corruption socioeconomic and political structure we've seen so far, because of things like "free market" competition, etc. Turns out if you view it with this lens, monarchies, communism and other forms of government that we've seen fail are quite easily explained at least at a basic level. I think of capitalism like a greed/ambition driven engine. It turns greed into progress of many kinds -- we just need to tweak the inputs/gears of the engine. Clearly a certain amount of greed will lead to proletariat revolt (some people might be fine with that since at some point the proletariat probably won't be able to revolt), and clearly some amount of unchecked greed/ambition is necessary for societal advancement in aggregate. [EDIT] I couldn't find what I was looking for, maybe it wasn't on HN -- this was the closest thing I found[0]... Wealth disparity under the current system has fluctuated over the last 50-100 years -- it is controllable. We know some of the knobs. I just never see anyone trying explicitly to figure out what the right setting for those knobs are, it's always obscured in one way or another. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24194806 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24194806
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > Communism is not the only solution It turns out communism is a fine solution to nothing at all. Communist countries have never even managed to feed themselves - they either allow some capitalism in agriculture or import food from capitalist countries. > the real core of government policy failing is corruption Government policy fails even with zero corruption. It's because the incentives are all wrong. Even shooting all the corrupt people won't fix anything. > I think of capitalism like a greed/ambition driven engine You got that right. It turns out that harnessing peoples' self-interest works amazingly well.
  - hardwaresofton 4y ago
    > It turns out communism is a fine solution to nothing at all. Communist countries have never even managed to feed themselves - they either allow some capitalism in agriculture or import food from capitalist countries. Communism wasn't even suggested as a solution by me -- it was reflexively argued against by your earlier comment. You clearly don't like communism, I get it, thank you for contributing that. > Government policy fails even with zero corruption. It's because the incentives are all wrong. Even shooting all the corrupt people won't fix anything. Do you know of any government-policy-free societies that have scaled and prospered? I guess this also depends on your definition of "failure" for a society -- no idea what that is, but given how un-constructive your comments have been I'm not that excited to find out. > You got that right. It turns out that harnessing peoples' self-interest works amazingly well. No one said it didn't. Any thoughts on how to harness self-interest in a way that doesn't bifurcate society socio-economically quite so much?
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      Is bifurcating to the current extent so bad if both cohorts are made better off than under an alternative arrangement?
      - hardwaresofton 4y ago
        I think so, because there's no proof that either cohort wouldn't have been better off under an alternative arrangement. To make things a little bit more concrete -- I know the typical argument here is that the poorest are moved forward more by rapid expansion/growth/harnessing of greed, but the problem is that we do not consider the right tail trajectory of those below. Making life better at a rapid rate is great, but it seems to be at a tradeoff -- a cap is developing on the "better off" part (widening wealth disparity). If it always trended up then the problem would be easy (and people wouldn't be too worried). It's a problem because the graph seems to go up for the poorer cohort then level off yet continue growing for one cohort. The derivatives are the problem, essentially. Also I'd argue that what people are seeing is a future where quality of life for the poorer cohort actually goes off a cliff and starts to go lower. Since we have no idea if/how that will happen (robots/automation most likely), the only way to ensure trajectories for the both cohorts is for both cohorts to have similar influence/power/decision making input. [EDIT] - I should note, the current extent is not that bad. It could be much much worse, and I think that's what people should be tinkering/trying to prevent.
thisisthenewme 4y ago
> Also a lot of problems in society seem to be linked to wealth disparity. Dystopian visions of the future are almost always dystopian due to wealth disparity. Who’s working on solving that? >> The communists. Didn't work out well. Just wondering why you would think your comment adds any additional context to the original post? Is that a snide at communism just because you dislike it? Or are you saying that communism is the only way to solve the problems of wealth disparity and that it has failed in the past and we can never have any semblance of equality in the world?
- WalterBright 4y ago
  I replied to "who is" with an answer. BTW, replying to a post by adding "all" or "only" is simply being argumentative if what you're replying to did not include those words, and so adds no value. For example: Statement: "Humans are bipedal" Riposte: "Not all humans are bipedal, some only have one leg!"
- DiggyJohnson 4y ago
  This seems like a defensive comment based on your disagreement with GP’s direct answer to a question. Sorry if this sounds snarky, but I really think you are overthinking their response.
incompatible 4y ago
> Check out the history of communist countries. I can only find the history of the authoritarian communist countries, the Leninists, Stalinists, Maoists, etc. I'd be happier to write off communism if there'd been more practical exploration of the libertarian communist theories.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  It's perfectly legal in America to set up a commune. I think more than 10,000 have been set up. They all failed. The Israeli kibbutzen are communes, but they are only kept afloat by government funding taxed from capitalist enterprises. The Pilgrims set up a commune their first year here, and starved. So did the Jamestown colony. There was the "Summer of Love" commune in San Francisco in 1969 that collapsed after 3 months. The Woodstock concert was a 3 day commune, which worked great until you consider they left behind a mountain of trash for other people to clean up. Apparently people were fine with getting free stuff, not so fine with doing work.
  - incompatible 4y ago
    I'm curious about where "they all failed" comes from. Presumably that means there are none currently in existence? I suspect that a lot of communes are set up for religious reasons, or because somebody fancies themselves as a petty dictator. This may be inevitable when a commune has to be set up on private property, and somebody will be the "owner". I thought the Plymouth Colony was successful? I don't know what system of governance it had.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      > I'm curious about where "they all failed" comes from Can't find a successful one. Plymouth switched to capitalism after starving for a year.
  - pcthrowaway 4y ago
    This commune has been doing well for quite a while now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Farm_(Tennessee) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Farm_(Tennessee) I don't agree that a working commune means communism as a political system could also work. I'm also not saying communism can't work, though I personally like socialism with some capitalist elements better.

cokeandpepsi 4y ago

> Who’s working on solving that? usually people just cut off their heads after a while

nicbou 4y ago

Interesting and rich can get you John McAfee