6 ms·

"Value."

by artsytrashcan 4y ago

"Value."

amanaplanacanal 4y ago
I’m sure all those ads have made my life better, somehow.
- alex_sf 4y ago
  You are literally reading and posting on an ad for Y Combinator. Everything that you use every day that you don't pay for is a direct result of ads. Yes, they definitely have made your life better.
  - oefnak 4y ago
    No no no! Ads are terrible! Marketing is lying! If there were no ads, people would judge based on the quality of products, instead of being manipulated to buy things. I obviously block ads. I understand that lots of things would cost money that currently are free, but many things would still be free. The old internet consisted mainly of free things and was not infested with ads. Please, tell me one positive effect that ads have on society as a whole. (So not for you personally, because I know they make money)
alex_sf 4y ago
Again, this is your bubble talking. Look around you, and compare your life to any human 50 years ago, or anyone outside a first world country today. You are outrageously privileged entirely because of that very real value generated.
- artsytrashcan 4y ago
  The vast majority of the net value present in my life compared to a like individual from 50 years ago is attributable to 1) gay and black civil rights advocates, 2) university researchers, and 3) Japanese and Chinese/Taiwanese manufacturers, in that order. I can also confirm that there are millions of Chinese and Indians living better than me, if only because their countries have a functional (if corrupt) college-placement-test-score-to-comfortable-employment pipeline. As for bubbles, I would hazard that your accusation is a confession.
  - alex_sf 4y ago
    Your evaluation of yourself and your position in the world is apparently solely informed by what Twitter tells you to think and the availability of gadgets around you. And clearly not informed by ever actually having visited China or India, or having formed any significant friendships with people there. To think the 3rd most significant source of value in your life is cheap microcontrollers is.. wild. Indoor plumbing? Refrigeration? A health department that ensures you aren't eating food fried in gutter oil? You are taking these entirely for granted, because everyone has those, right? This is a great example of what privilege actually is. Let's make this simpler for you. Your original proposal is that, of course, the wealthy (read: anyone that makes more than you) have too much, the homeless have too little. So, like a child faced with this problem, you surmise we should take things from the wealthy and give them to the poor. SF spends $100,000 per year, per homeless resident, on 'fixing homelessness'. Exactly how much more should they be spending, and why would that change anything?
    - ESTheComposer 4y ago
      Good luck, this kind of logic doesn't seem to work too much with people who don't think too far ahead about the economics or don't want to think too much about it. Throwing more money at things usually doesn't solve it and taking it from others for reasons(?) doesn't either. Had someone like this tell me Venezuelans should be supporting Democratic candidates...like what. A country whose people are so poor a lot of them wonder what they're going to eat next should be focusing on another country's politicians?
    - gentoo 4y ago
      they should stop spending it on bullshit bandaid solutions and just give people permanent housing. there are a lot of countervailing forces that make that difficult, but conceptually the solution is pretty simple.
      - alex_sf 4y ago
        Ok, everyone gets permanent housing. You've now just fired 2 million people, just in the immediate vicinity of the real estate and mortgage markets. The US homeless population is only a quarter of that, but, let's not actually think about numbers or anything. Next will be the inevitable fallout of destroying ~45 trillion in wealth. The consequences of which, bluntly, I can't even really fathom at the moment. I'm assuming you'll be planning to tax more to give the effected some sort of UBI? Please confirm and I'll explain how that will also blow up in your face. > conceptually the solution is pretty simple It is if you don't actually think about it. At all.
- squeaky-clean 4y ago
  How much of that "real value" correlates with currently held value? By your metric Bell Labs should be worth more than any other company in existence. Having loads of money isn't just about generating value. It's about extracting value.
  - alex_sf 4y ago
    > How much of that "real value" correlates with currently held value? It might lag a bit, but almost exactly. That's the whole idea. Real household incomes in the US from 1950 to 2000 very nearly doubled, and purchasing power increased even more. The 'rich get richer' is irrelevant if everyone else is, too. > By your metric Bell Labs should be worth more than any other company in existence. The fact that they aren't means that no, they shouldn't be. It's the capitalism equivalent of "the guy with a great idea for an app". If you aren't actually delivering that value to people that need it, you aren't getting paid for it. > Having loads of money isn't just about generating value. It's about extracting value. Generating and extracting value are the same thing, ignoring the connotation. If you create a device where, with one press of a big red button, you can cure cancer/world hunger/war/disease, but you never actually press that button? You haven't actually created any value. You haven't done anything.
    - squeaky-clean 4y ago
      The argument here feels like only tangible things are actually valuable. Without the transistor, none of these other increases in value would exist. How much would the world agree to pay if some genie came out of a lamp and someone could wish us back to 1946 and prevent the invention of the transistor forever? > If you create a device where, with one press of a big red button, you can cure cancer/world hunger/war/disease, but you never actually press that button? What if you create such a device and decide to publicly share the design, with no plans to monopolize it? You'd probably be the lose financially, but did you not create the most value? Have Linux or Git created no real value except for the companies that can build service models around them?
  - docandrew 4y ago
    Extracting it from where?

"Value."

amanaplanacanal 4y ago

I’m sure all those ads have made my life better, somehow.

alex_sf 4y ago
You are literally reading and posting on an ad for Y Combinator. Everything that you use every day that you don't pay for is a direct result of ads. Yes, they definitely have made your life better.
- oefnak 4y ago
  No no no! Ads are terrible! Marketing is lying! If there were no ads, people would judge based on the quality of products, instead of being manipulated to buy things. I obviously block ads. I understand that lots of things would cost money that currently are free, but many things would still be free. The old internet consisted mainly of free things and was not infested with ads. Please, tell me one positive effect that ads have on society as a whole. (So not for you personally, because I know they make money)

alex_sf 4y ago

Again, this is your bubble talking. Look around you, and compare your life to any human 50 years ago, or anyone outside a first world country today. You are outrageously privileged entirely because of that very real value generated.

artsytrashcan 4y ago
The vast majority of the net value present in my life compared to a like individual from 50 years ago is attributable to 1) gay and black civil rights advocates, 2) university researchers, and 3) Japanese and Chinese/Taiwanese manufacturers, in that order. I can also confirm that there are millions of Chinese and Indians living better than me, if only because their countries have a functional (if corrupt) college-placement-test-score-to-comfortable-employment pipeline. As for bubbles, I would hazard that your accusation is a confession.
- alex_sf 4y ago
  Your evaluation of yourself and your position in the world is apparently solely informed by what Twitter tells you to think and the availability of gadgets around you. And clearly not informed by ever actually having visited China or India, or having formed any significant friendships with people there. To think the 3rd most significant source of value in your life is cheap microcontrollers is.. wild. Indoor plumbing? Refrigeration? A health department that ensures you aren't eating food fried in gutter oil? You are taking these entirely for granted, because everyone has those, right? This is a great example of what privilege actually is. Let's make this simpler for you. Your original proposal is that, of course, the wealthy (read: anyone that makes more than you) have too much, the homeless have too little. So, like a child faced with this problem, you surmise we should take things from the wealthy and give them to the poor. SF spends $100,000 per year, per homeless resident, on 'fixing homelessness'. Exactly how much more should they be spending, and why would that change anything?
  - ESTheComposer 4y ago
    Good luck, this kind of logic doesn't seem to work too much with people who don't think too far ahead about the economics or don't want to think too much about it. Throwing more money at things usually doesn't solve it and taking it from others for reasons(?) doesn't either. Had someone like this tell me Venezuelans should be supporting Democratic candidates...like what. A country whose people are so poor a lot of them wonder what they're going to eat next should be focusing on another country's politicians?
  - gentoo 4y ago
    they should stop spending it on bullshit bandaid solutions and just give people permanent housing. there are a lot of countervailing forces that make that difficult, but conceptually the solution is pretty simple.
    - alex_sf 4y ago
      Ok, everyone gets permanent housing. You've now just fired 2 million people, just in the immediate vicinity of the real estate and mortgage markets. The US homeless population is only a quarter of that, but, let's not actually think about numbers or anything. Next will be the inevitable fallout of destroying ~45 trillion in wealth. The consequences of which, bluntly, I can't even really fathom at the moment. I'm assuming you'll be planning to tax more to give the effected some sort of UBI? Please confirm and I'll explain how that will also blow up in your face. > conceptually the solution is pretty simple It is if you don't actually think about it. At all.
squeaky-clean 4y ago
How much of that "real value" correlates with currently held value? By your metric Bell Labs should be worth more than any other company in existence. Having loads of money isn't just about generating value. It's about extracting value.
- alex_sf 4y ago
  > How much of that "real value" correlates with currently held value? It might lag a bit, but almost exactly. That's the whole idea. Real household incomes in the US from 1950 to 2000 very nearly doubled, and purchasing power increased even more. The 'rich get richer' is irrelevant if everyone else is, too. > By your metric Bell Labs should be worth more than any other company in existence. The fact that they aren't means that no, they shouldn't be. It's the capitalism equivalent of "the guy with a great idea for an app". If you aren't actually delivering that value to people that need it, you aren't getting paid for it. > Having loads of money isn't just about generating value. It's about extracting value. Generating and extracting value are the same thing, ignoring the connotation. If you create a device where, with one press of a big red button, you can cure cancer/world hunger/war/disease, but you never actually press that button? You haven't actually created any value. You haven't done anything.
  - squeaky-clean 4y ago
    The argument here feels like only tangible things are actually valuable. Without the transistor, none of these other increases in value would exist. How much would the world agree to pay if some genie came out of a lamp and someone could wish us back to 1946 and prevent the invention of the transistor forever? > If you create a device where, with one press of a big red button, you can cure cancer/world hunger/war/disease, but you never actually press that button? What if you create such a device and decide to publicly share the design, with no plans to monopolize it? You'd probably be the lose financially, but did you not create the most value? Have Linux or Git created no real value except for the companies that can build service models around them?
- docandrew 4y ago
  Extracting it from where?