3 ms·

Why do I get the impression that the economy in 2023 is based on primarily fake things? So many things are either illusions, legal grifts, and outright ripoffs

Why do I get the impression that the economy in 2023 is based on primarily fake things? So many things are either illusions, legal grifts, and outright ripoffs. This isn't anything new per se, but I think we may have gone beyond a critical threshold. Will the chickens come home to roost, or have things become so simulated that too many people believe ambiguously in the system for it to fail?

nerdponx 3y ago
It won't fall over (there are still lots of real things out there), but it's pretty much just basic economics. If you can make a fake thing instead of a real thing for significantly less cost, but could sell it for a similar price, why would you make the real thing?
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  To stay out of jail. Executives need to go to jail. Anything less won't fix this because the fish is rotting from the head.
orange-mentor 3y ago
History teaches us things can change fast. Think USSR in 1984. At some point things are going to give. We have the technical means to provide a decent life for everyone. And I mean everyone, including illegal immigrants sneaking across the border. And we could do all that while everyone struggles less. So yea. Most jobs are fake and stupid and don't need to be done. The ones that need doing could be given more support, distributed more evenly. This was a mainstream economic viewpoint less than a century ago. What happened?
- kube-system 3y ago
  It is a good thing that we have an economy where there are jobs for people to do things that 'don't need to be done'. This is the only way that a highly specialized capitalist society can provide income and purpose for everyone, and drive further innovation. People need income and jobs, even as we add more automation. As long as our society produces enough basic needs to actually support people, it is better that people are doing 'unnecessary' jobs rather than being unemployed as the result of automation. Everyone is worried that automation is going to steal people's jobs, and jobs won't exist anymore, but that has already been happening in full swing for 100+ years. 'Useless' jobs are and will continue to be the solution to that problem. (And I am using 'useless' rather tongue-in-cheek. The jobs do have real functional value, even if they're in higher parts of Maslow's hierarchy)
  - htss2013 3y ago
    >It is a good thing that we have an economy where there are jobs for people to do things that 'don't need to be done'. This is the only way that a highly specialized capitalist society can provide income and purpose for everyone, and drive further innovation. People need income and jobs, even as we add more automation. For most families with two parents who work, it would be better for one to stay home and tend to life and children. It's inefficient, alienating and demoralizing to have both parents forced into specialized wage labor that amounts to a useless make work.
    - kube-system 3y ago
      Well yes, the optimum number of full time jobs in a household is >=1 and <2. This isn't really a function of useless jobs existing or not, but more of a function of CoL and income distribution.
      - htss2013 3y ago
        COL is itself a function of the prevalence of useless jobs. They increase the cost of everything, they increase the need for infrastructure, they create friction for real work, etc. Put another way, if society allocates more resources to people who work outside the home doing useless things, then fewer resources are available to people staying in the home doing useful things. One way this manifests is inflation, ie, higher COL.
  - orange-mentor 3y ago
    Innovation? Really? All meaningful advancements come from public funding of basic research. As for "purpose"...wow. Ask the next GrubHub employee that comes to your door if it gives them purpose. Working less should be a social goal, a targeted outcome of public policy.
    - kube-system 3y ago
      I didn't mean "innovation" as in "novel and groundbreaking technical innovation". Innovation that is meaningful and valuable to society can be as simple as generating art, music, ideas, cultural contributions, etc. > As for "purpose"...wow. Ask the next GrubHub employee that comes to your door if it gives them purpose. I bet they have enough purpose in their life that they aren't committing violent crimes for shits and giggles.
- pauldenton 3y ago
  Romans had the technical means to integrate all the Barbarians crossing their borders, but they didn't. A lot of American Politicians who are waving Mexican Flags today would be welcoming in their new Barbarian constituency as Roman politicians. After all Barbarians were Rome's strength, they just wanted to work jobs regular Romans didn't want to do. They are just moving for a better quality of life. Economic Migration into Rome.
- Racing0461 3y ago
  We just gotta keep spending more of other people's money and properity will be sure to come.
lovich 3y ago
It’s basically the guaranteed end state of a society that both highly values individualism and has been kneecapping regulations/regulators/rule of law for decades. You don’t need a very high proportion of the population to poison the well with bad behavior enough that everyone just accepts that as regular behavior and then even the ethical portion of your society starts engaging in the bad acts. One of the main benefits for having a government is to go in and regulate bad behavior away that would never occur organically because each individual actor in society loses far too much trying to fix the situation on their own to rationally try.
qwerty_clicks 3y ago
Ultimate capitalism is to sell nothing for money.
- Racing0461 3y ago
  Ultimate capitalism is selling the contracts to sell nothing for money.
htss2013 3y ago
The chickens won't come home to roost in anything like a dramatic moment of reconing. The USA will just slowly become more and more like many Latin American countries that should be prosperous in theory, and for some of their people there is incredible prosperity, but for most people it just appears like the only way to get ahead is to join some kind of thinly veiled racket masquerading as "business" or whatever.

nerdponx 3y ago

It won't fall over (there are still lots of real things out there), but it's pretty much just basic economics. If you can make a fake thing instead of a real thing for significantly less cost, but could sell it for a similar price, why would you make the real thing?

paulryanrogers 3y ago
To stay out of jail. Executives need to go to jail. Anything less won't fix this because the fish is rotting from the head.

orange-mentor 3y ago

History teaches us things can change fast. Think USSR in 1984. At some point things are going to give. We have the technical means to provide a decent life for everyone. And I mean everyone, including illegal immigrants sneaking across the border. And we could do all that while everyone struggles less. So yea. Most jobs are fake and stupid and don't need to be done. The ones that need doing could be given more support, distributed more evenly. This was a mainstream economic viewpoint less than a century ago. What happened?

kube-system 3y ago
It is a good thing that we have an economy where there are jobs for people to do things that 'don't need to be done'. This is the only way that a highly specialized capitalist society can provide income and purpose for everyone, and drive further innovation. People need income and jobs, even as we add more automation. As long as our society produces enough basic needs to actually support people, it is better that people are doing 'unnecessary' jobs rather than being unemployed as the result of automation. Everyone is worried that automation is going to steal people's jobs, and jobs won't exist anymore, but that has already been happening in full swing for 100+ years. 'Useless' jobs are and will continue to be the solution to that problem. (And I am using 'useless' rather tongue-in-cheek. The jobs do have real functional value, even if they're in higher parts of Maslow's hierarchy)
- htss2013 3y ago
  >It is a good thing that we have an economy where there are jobs for people to do things that 'don't need to be done'. This is the only way that a highly specialized capitalist society can provide income and purpose for everyone, and drive further innovation. People need income and jobs, even as we add more automation. For most families with two parents who work, it would be better for one to stay home and tend to life and children. It's inefficient, alienating and demoralizing to have both parents forced into specialized wage labor that amounts to a useless make work.
  - kube-system 3y ago
    Well yes, the optimum number of full time jobs in a household is >=1 and <2. This isn't really a function of useless jobs existing or not, but more of a function of CoL and income distribution.
    - htss2013 3y ago
      COL is itself a function of the prevalence of useless jobs. They increase the cost of everything, they increase the need for infrastructure, they create friction for real work, etc. Put another way, if society allocates more resources to people who work outside the home doing useless things, then fewer resources are available to people staying in the home doing useful things. One way this manifests is inflation, ie, higher COL.
- orange-mentor 3y ago
  Innovation? Really? All meaningful advancements come from public funding of basic research. As for "purpose"...wow. Ask the next GrubHub employee that comes to your door if it gives them purpose. Working less should be a social goal, a targeted outcome of public policy.
  - kube-system 3y ago
    I didn't mean "innovation" as in "novel and groundbreaking technical innovation". Innovation that is meaningful and valuable to society can be as simple as generating art, music, ideas, cultural contributions, etc. > As for "purpose"...wow. Ask the next GrubHub employee that comes to your door if it gives them purpose. I bet they have enough purpose in their life that they aren't committing violent crimes for shits and giggles.
pauldenton 3y ago
Romans had the technical means to integrate all the Barbarians crossing their borders, but they didn't. A lot of American Politicians who are waving Mexican Flags today would be welcoming in their new Barbarian constituency as Roman politicians. After all Barbarians were Rome's strength, they just wanted to work jobs regular Romans didn't want to do. They are just moving for a better quality of life. Economic Migration into Rome.
Racing0461 3y ago
We just gotta keep spending more of other people's money and properity will be sure to come.

lovich 3y ago

It’s basically the guaranteed end state of a society that both highly values individualism and has been kneecapping regulations/regulators/rule of law for decades. You don’t need a very high proportion of the population to poison the well with bad behavior enough that everyone just accepts that as regular behavior and then even the ethical portion of your society starts engaging in the bad acts. One of the main benefits for having a government is to go in and regulate bad behavior away that would never occur organically because each individual actor in society loses far too much trying to fix the situation on their own to rationally try.

qwerty_clicks 3y ago

Ultimate capitalism is to sell nothing for money.

Racing0461 3y ago
Ultimate capitalism is selling the contracts to sell nothing for money.

htss2013 3y ago

The chickens won't come home to roost in anything like a dramatic moment of reconing. The USA will just slowly become more and more like many Latin American countries that should be prosperous in theory, and for some of their people there is incredible prosperity, but for most people it just appears like the only way to get ahead is to join some kind of thinly veiled racket masquerading as "business" or whatever.