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I don’t follow this logic, it seems to say Bill Gates is poor because he can’t buy a whizbang from the year 3,000. That doesn’t make sense. Also Irish were way

by mint2 3y ago

I don’t follow this logic, it seems to say Bill Gates is poor because he can’t buy a whizbang from the year 3,000. That doesn’t make sense. Also Irish were way poorer than English during the height of England colonial empire and in a large part due to the colonization - I.e. Britain was literally taking wheat from Ireland when Irish were starving and fleeing to America. Please stop making up stuff or just saying random words not grounded in any facts.

astrange 3y ago
> I don’t follow this logic, it seems to say Bill Gates is poor because he can’t buy a whizbang from the year 3,000. That doesn’t make sense. That's correct, he would not be rich in year 3000 dollars if he can't afford the year 3000 equivalent of CPI. We'll have to wait until then to see how his investments do. > Also Irish were "Were". I didn't say "were", I said "are". > Please stop making up stuff or just saying random words not grounded in any facts. How about trying harder to read what I actually said?
- mint2 3y ago
  The comment talked about how much wealth a Victorian would need to buy a flu vaccine. You’re talking past history buying present items. It makes no sense. Wait you’re talking present day Ireland?! seriously jumping to present day Ireland to say past colonialism didn’t benefit England in the past. Wow this logic is so broken it’s not possible to fix.
  - astrange 3y ago
    > You’re talking past history buying present items. It makes no sense. The past causes the present. You can only get the present economy by developing in the past. > seriously jumping to present day Ireland to say past colonialism didn’t benefit England in the past. I did not use the word "benefit". I said it didn't make them rich. I don't care if it made English people slightly less miserably poor; that still makes it a bad idea because of opportunity costs from eg your sailors all dying of scurvy when they could've been inventing handwashing and toothpaste. Though if English colonialism of Ireland results in one of them being richer than the other, that does not mean it was good for England. It can be negative-sum, and so it was.
    - mint2 3y ago
      And thus an online expert has declared it is so, drawn a line in the sand and will defend their position until the end of time.
      - astrange 3y ago
        If you like the classics, there were two guys named Karl Marx and Adam Smith who wrote books on how England became (relatively) wealthy, and neither of them thought it was colonialism. In the modern age you can see nobody thinks it's a good idea because nobody does it.
        defrost 3y ago
        Marx specifically wrote about English colonisation of Ireland - and apparently had a whole other set of 20,000 print page long notebooks on such matters that never made it into the standard "Big Books of Marx". At least according to a Marx scholar: https://developingeconomics.org/2022/10/13/marx-and-colonialism/ https://developingeconomics.org/2022/10/13/marx-and-colonial... Many other British historians are happy to go on at length about the wealth England extracted from India and elsewhere making the trading classes and adventurers the (relative) uber billionaires of their day with vast estates and fabulous gardens, etc.
        astrange 3y ago
        Making the trading classes rich did not make the country or the median person rich. That was, like, the problem. (Or if it did make the country rich, you'll notice it wasn't good for anything, as they aren't any richer now.)
        defrost 3y ago
        > it wasn't good for anything, as they aren't any richer now. No such thing as a pendulum because they swing back? Seems a very flawed position given the well documented wealth and power of the British Empire upon which once the sun never set. Like the USofA and every other country peak positions never last, but we don't therefore claim that they never existed, and the wealth is never evenly distributed, what varies are parameters of the curve of wealth distribtion.

by mint2 3y ago

astrange 3y ago

> I don’t follow this logic, it seems to say Bill Gates is poor because he can’t buy a whizbang from the year 3,000. That doesn’t make sense. That's correct, he would not be rich in year 3000 dollars if he can't afford the year 3000 equivalent of CPI. We'll have to wait until then to see how his investments do. > Also Irish were "Were". I didn't say "were", I said "are". > Please stop making up stuff or just saying random words not grounded in any facts. How about trying harder to read what I actually said?

mint2 3y ago
The comment talked about how much wealth a Victorian would need to buy a flu vaccine. You’re talking past history buying present items. It makes no sense. Wait you’re talking present day Ireland?! seriously jumping to present day Ireland to say past colonialism didn’t benefit England in the past. Wow this logic is so broken it’s not possible to fix.
- astrange 3y ago
  > You’re talking past history buying present items. It makes no sense. The past causes the present. You can only get the present economy by developing in the past. > seriously jumping to present day Ireland to say past colonialism didn’t benefit England in the past. I did not use the word "benefit". I said it didn't make them rich. I don't care if it made English people slightly less miserably poor; that still makes it a bad idea because of opportunity costs from eg your sailors all dying of scurvy when they could've been inventing handwashing and toothpaste. Though if English colonialism of Ireland results in one of them being richer than the other, that does not mean it was good for England. It can be negative-sum, and so it was.
  - mint2 3y ago
    And thus an online expert has declared it is so, drawn a line in the sand and will defend their position until the end of time.
    - astrange 3y ago
      If you like the classics, there were two guys named Karl Marx and Adam Smith who wrote books on how England became (relatively) wealthy, and neither of them thought it was colonialism. In the modern age you can see nobody thinks it's a good idea because nobody does it.
      - defrost 3y ago
        Marx specifically wrote about English colonisation of Ireland - and apparently had a whole other set of 20,000 print page long notebooks on such matters that never made it into the standard "Big Books of Marx". At least according to a Marx scholar: https://developingeconomics.org/2022/10/13/marx-and-colonialism/ https://developingeconomics.org/2022/10/13/marx-and-colonial... Many other British historians are happy to go on at length about the wealth England extracted from India and elsewhere making the trading classes and adventurers the (relative) uber billionaires of their day with vast estates and fabulous gardens, etc.
        astrange 3y ago
        Making the trading classes rich did not make the country or the median person rich. That was, like, the problem. (Or if it did make the country rich, you'll notice it wasn't good for anything, as they aren't any richer now.)
        defrost 3y ago
        > it wasn't good for anything, as they aren't any richer now. No such thing as a pendulum because they swing back? Seems a very flawed position given the well documented wealth and power of the British Empire upon which once the sun never set. Like the USofA and every other country peak positions never last, but we don't therefore claim that they never existed, and the wealth is never evenly distributed, what varies are parameters of the curve of wealth distribtion.