4 ms·

News are always easier to ingest as short, reactionary comments.

by isodev 2y ago

oblio 2y ago
I'm guessing you're making fun of me, too, for my reaction? :-p I'll expand, then. The EU demands USB charging for mobile devices, Apple didn't suddenly become good. The EU demands longer software updates for mobile devices, Samsung nor Google didn't become angels all of a sudden. Similar situation here. Everything needs to be dragged away from them, one painful law at a time. And then corporations turn it around as their "largesse".
- sofixa 2y ago
  > Everything needs to be dragged away from them, one painful law at a time. But the anarcho-capitalists told me that market will fix it all on its own if only we let corporations do whatever they want and not burden them with regulations! It's honestly shocking to me how many anarcho-capitalists there are, especially here on HN. I get the aversion to taxation on a primal level, but surely nobody with any work and life experience can believe in that, right?
  - Rinzler89 2y ago
    >It's honestly shocking to me how many anarcho-capitalists there are, especially here on HN. Because HN is full of 'temporarily embarrassed billionaires'[1]. A lot of people here are either vested in big tech or see themselves creating the next big-tech in the future hoping to become the next Steve Jobs. They saw how the likes of Meta, Apple, Google and Microsoft got super rich through exploiting various legal and market loopholes, so they see these upcoming regulations as a threat to their own enrichment. Kind of like technological NIMBYism. It's difficult to have unbiased discussions on big-tech regulations when many here have built their wealth or careers on big-tech being deregulated and exploiting every trick in the book, and now suddenly get to watch as the ladder is pulled from under them shuddering at the though that SW engineering will be paid like other professions (like in Europe) instead of being a professional get-rich quick ticket it was/still is for now. [1] https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/temporarily_embarrassed_millionaire https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/temporarily_embarrassed_mil...
  - passwordoops 2y ago
    Depends. If your life experience is one of wealth and privilege but you are constantly told you deserve your wealth and privilege because you are smarter and more hard working than everyone else. And if your work experience amounts to exploiting the connections you made as a direct result of the wealth and privilege you were born with, but everyone says you are smarter and more hard-working than everyone else. If that has been your experience, then I can easily see how a person would genuinely believe the anarcho-capitalist philosophy could work in real life, if not for the stupid, lazy plebs
  - surgical_fire 2y ago
    > It's honestly shocking to me how many anarcho-capitalists there are, especially here on HN All that anarcho-capitalism hubris faltered when SVB went under, and suddenly libertarians were begging daddy government to make them whole. "Free market"? You can find it in the dictionary, somewhere in between "Bullshit" and "Hypocrisy".
    - throwway120385 2y ago
      It's almost like all these philosophies of "communism" and "socialism" and "capitalism" and "conservatism" are just tribes that a few people want us all to identify with so we can be whipped up. Life is a negotiation between you and all the people around you and in negotiation you have to give to get. Absolutism, the concept of "my way or the highway" is the real danger here.
    - roughly 2y ago
      The joke in 2008 was “there are no atheists in foxholes and no libertarians in banking crises.”
      - panick21_ 2y ago
        Except there were plenty of libertarians in bank crisis. There just weren't any in powerful position in governments. There is a reason actual libertarians don't end up in those positions. A tiny amount of people who claim to have some libertarian conservative leanings maybe changed their minds, but overwhelmingly those were just politicians who talked libertarianism to get some gun fans to vote for them.
        roughly 2y ago
        I get that no true scotsman would call for government intervention even under the direst of circumstances, but a whole hell of a lot of people who days earlier were loudly decrying the notion that there was any place at all for government within the perfect operations of the one true market were suddenly very, very concerned that that same government wouldn't do enough to rescue the poor innocent bankers who'd just made a couple trillion in bad bets and whose failure would surely end the world economy, and they persisted in that concern right up until it became clear they and their friends would be fine and there was a possibility that someone might actually present them with a bill for the carnage they'd caused, at which point they saw the light again and went back to their former fervent belief that there was no circumstances ever under which the government had any business getting involved in their business. I'm sure you and all your friends are all pure of heart and intent, but boy have there been an awful lot of craven assholes operating under your banner who sure seem to lose their spine once there's actual stakes for them.
  - icemelt8 2y ago
    I live in UAE, there is no tax here, just capitalism, and life is good.
    - oblio 2y ago
      > I live in UAE, there is no tax here, just capitalism, and life is good. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_Arab_Emirates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_Arab_Emi... All good, just burning the planet, nothing to see here, move along. https://condenaststore.com/featured/the-planet-got-destroyed-tom-toro.html https://condenaststore.com/featured/the-planet-got-destroyed... Also, LOL: > As of 2020, foreigners represent 88.1% of the population. + > UAE law does not allow trade unions to exist. The right to collective bargaining and the right to strike are not recognised, and the Ministry of Labour has the power to force workers to go back to work. Migrant workers who participate in a strike can have their work permits cancelled and be deported. Consequently, there are very few anti-discrimination laws in relation to labour issues, with Emiratis – and other GCC Arabs – getting preference in public sector jobs despite lesser credentials than competitors and lower motivation. In fact, just over eighty per cent of Emirati workers hold government posts, with many of the rest taking part in state-owned enterprises such as Emirates airlines and Dubai Properties. Western states, including the United Kingdom, were also warned by the Emirati Trade Minister, Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi to keep politics separate from trade and the economy, as it dilutes the agreements' main objectives. In 2023, Al Zeyoudi indicated that these countries should "tone down" the human and workers' rights provisions in the trade deals, in order to gain greater market access and business opportunities. So, yeah... When your workforce is disposable and cash squirts out of the ground, yeah, yay capitalism!!! if you're the right category of person, I guess.
    - sofixa 2y ago
      There is corporation tax. And the emirates are super lucky with national resources, and don't use all of them for personal vanity projects. Is the government giving extremely generous allowances to its citizens based on profits from finite natural resources "capitalism" now? https://u.ae/en/information-and-services/social-affairs/social-welfare/social-welfare-programmes/social-welfare-for-low-income-nationals https://u.ae/en/information-and-services/social-affairs/soci...
  - JeremyNT 2y ago
    > It's honestly shocking to me how many anarcho-capitalists there are, especially here on HN. I get the aversion to taxation on a primal level, but surely nobody with any work and life experience can believe in that, right? Allow me to be surprised by your surprise - take a look at this site's domain name! This is a web site that originated from (and which still has deep roots in) the American tech startup scene - so of course many users are of the "move fast and break things" mindset. Regulation is anathema to this culture as it slows down tech progress / profits.
  - eikenberry 2y ago
    Not an anarcho-capitalist but I'd guess one of the biggest "regulations" they'd be against would be the laws that allow corporations to exist at all. Pure capitalism exists without government and corps are a legal (ie. gov) created entity.
  - lenkite 2y ago
    This would probably work if corporations were NOT permitted to infinitely assimilate via mergers and acquisitions. Then yes, the marketplace becomes a real competitive marketplace not Behemoth Krakens assimilating or crushing all lifeforms.
  - panick21_ 2y ago
    As somebody that flirted with anarcho-capitalism, I surprised to hear this. Actual anrcho-capitalists are an incredible small minority. You act like as if there is this big anarcho-capitalist block out there. I read a lot of these discussion and I almost never come across any anarcho-capitalists. Are maybe mixing this up with people who like markets in general? In terms of this debate about charging points and software updates it hardly makes a difference. Also, its totally disingenuous to only talk about one side of this from an actual market perspective. These big companies make massive use of the legal system to protect themselves, protection that they wouldn't have. ARM couldn't protect its ISA, any company could make chips. You could reverse engineer the specific Apple chip and build it exactly the same. You could make the device and sell it with Apple software on it. Apple couldn't project its proprietary charger with patent and copyright law for example. Apple depends on a global system of agree on laws and enforced copy right and patent protection along with many other such aspects legal systems and the modern world. Apple would require and extremely complex arrangement of trade secrets to get even close to what they have now. Look at how much the Soviets simply took over and copied, or China during its rise. Its a fundamentally different game if you are not required to follow the law of the place where the cooperation is from. You would but 100% of the burden on the devices protecting themselves, something that is only recently becoming routine and still isn't a thing for chargers for example. You can't just look at the current world, imagine it as fundamentally the same and then change one thing. The whole way modern cooperation's are design simply wouldn't be possible in the same way. Such system are therefore fundamentally theoretical, so arguing about such system is quite difficult. Legal and economic systems can't just be pulled from nothing, there needs to be some historical and institutional development that backs it up. Different visions of how such a system would work and would be structured have been considered. A more interesting question is in the current system we actually have. The government should get involved in these things. You can just make that argument for that specifically instead of saying 'checkmate anarcho-capitalists and patting yourself on the back'. Just like its idiotic for people to say 'checkmate communist' anytime any publicly owned train company makes some insanely idiotic decision. > I get the aversion to taxation on a primal level, but surely nobody with any work and life experience can believe in that, right? The US government in the last 25 years got involved in many wars killing millions of people. Its also using a lot of its power to prevent housing construction that leads a massive housing shortage. And uses its power to systematically deprive the people of Iran from basic goods. I think its unfair to paint anybody who thinks about these ideas as 'simply doesn't like taxes' as if that is the only reason why anybody would consider forms of anarchism. But I grant you that most people are less interested in a fundamental argument and its intellectual underpinnings, if you try to have broad libertarian movement just screaming 'no guns laws, legal weed and no taxes' seems more effective. And why such movements end up not being intellectually 'pure'. Communist history know a thing or to about easy slogans and trying to build a 'pure' political base.
- isodev 2y ago
  Not at all, I was agreeing with you. It's spot on. I myself have posted the occasional reaction as well, but for example, the "whatabout" folks leave one to wonder if it's some kind of karma tactic or are they really asking here instead of googling the answer with way more depth.

News are always easier to ingest as short, reactionary comments.

by isodev 2y ago

News are always easier to ingest as short, reactionary comments.

I'm guessing you're making fun of me, too, for my reaction? :-p I'll expand, then. The EU demands USB charging for mobile devices, Apple didn't suddenly become good. The EU demands longer software updates for mobile devices, Samsung nor Google didn't become angels all of a sudden. Similar situation here. Everything needs to be dragged away from them, one painful law at a time. And then corporations turn it around as their "largesse".

sofixa 2y ago
> Everything needs to be dragged away from them, one painful law at a time. But the anarcho-capitalists told me that market will fix it all on its own if only we let corporations do whatever they want and not burden them with regulations! It's honestly shocking to me how many anarcho-capitalists there are, especially here on HN. I get the aversion to taxation on a primal level, but surely nobody with any work and life experience can believe in that, right?
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  >It's honestly shocking to me how many anarcho-capitalists there are, especially here on HN. Because HN is full of 'temporarily embarrassed billionaires'[1]. A lot of people here are either vested in big tech or see themselves creating the next big-tech in the future hoping to become the next Steve Jobs. They saw how the likes of Meta, Apple, Google and Microsoft got super rich through exploiting various legal and market loopholes, so they see these upcoming regulations as a threat to their own enrichment. Kind of like technological NIMBYism. It's difficult to have unbiased discussions on big-tech regulations when many here have built their wealth or careers on big-tech being deregulated and exploiting every trick in the book, and now suddenly get to watch as the ladder is pulled from under them shuddering at the though that SW engineering will be paid like other professions (like in Europe) instead of being a professional get-rich quick ticket it was/still is for now. [1] https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/temporarily_embarrassed_millionaire https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/temporarily_embarrassed_mil...
- passwordoops 2y ago
  Depends. If your life experience is one of wealth and privilege but you are constantly told you deserve your wealth and privilege because you are smarter and more hard working than everyone else. And if your work experience amounts to exploiting the connections you made as a direct result of the wealth and privilege you were born with, but everyone says you are smarter and more hard-working than everyone else. If that has been your experience, then I can easily see how a person would genuinely believe the anarcho-capitalist philosophy could work in real life, if not for the stupid, lazy plebs
- surgical_fire 2y ago
  > It's honestly shocking to me how many anarcho-capitalists there are, especially here on HN All that anarcho-capitalism hubris faltered when SVB went under, and suddenly libertarians were begging daddy government to make them whole. "Free market"? You can find it in the dictionary, somewhere in between "Bullshit" and "Hypocrisy".
  - throwway120385 2y ago
    It's almost like all these philosophies of "communism" and "socialism" and "capitalism" and "conservatism" are just tribes that a few people want us all to identify with so we can be whipped up. Life is a negotiation between you and all the people around you and in negotiation you have to give to get. Absolutism, the concept of "my way or the highway" is the real danger here.
  - roughly 2y ago
    The joke in 2008 was “there are no atheists in foxholes and no libertarians in banking crises.”
    - panick21_ 2y ago
      Except there were plenty of libertarians in bank crisis. There just weren't any in powerful position in governments. There is a reason actual libertarians don't end up in those positions. A tiny amount of people who claim to have some libertarian conservative leanings maybe changed their minds, but overwhelmingly those were just politicians who talked libertarianism to get some gun fans to vote for them.
      - roughly 2y ago
        I get that no true scotsman would call for government intervention even under the direst of circumstances, but a whole hell of a lot of people who days earlier were loudly decrying the notion that there was any place at all for government within the perfect operations of the one true market were suddenly very, very concerned that that same government wouldn't do enough to rescue the poor innocent bankers who'd just made a couple trillion in bad bets and whose failure would surely end the world economy, and they persisted in that concern right up until it became clear they and their friends would be fine and there was a possibility that someone might actually present them with a bill for the carnage they'd caused, at which point they saw the light again and went back to their former fervent belief that there was no circumstances ever under which the government had any business getting involved in their business. I'm sure you and all your friends are all pure of heart and intent, but boy have there been an awful lot of craven assholes operating under your banner who sure seem to lose their spine once there's actual stakes for them.
- icemelt8 2y ago
  I live in UAE, there is no tax here, just capitalism, and life is good.
  - oblio 2y ago
    > I live in UAE, there is no tax here, just capitalism, and life is good. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_Arab_Emirates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_Arab_Emi... All good, just burning the planet, nothing to see here, move along. https://condenaststore.com/featured/the-planet-got-destroyed-tom-toro.html https://condenaststore.com/featured/the-planet-got-destroyed... Also, LOL: > As of 2020, foreigners represent 88.1% of the population. + > UAE law does not allow trade unions to exist. The right to collective bargaining and the right to strike are not recognised, and the Ministry of Labour has the power to force workers to go back to work. Migrant workers who participate in a strike can have their work permits cancelled and be deported. Consequently, there are very few anti-discrimination laws in relation to labour issues, with Emiratis – and other GCC Arabs – getting preference in public sector jobs despite lesser credentials than competitors and lower motivation. In fact, just over eighty per cent of Emirati workers hold government posts, with many of the rest taking part in state-owned enterprises such as Emirates airlines and Dubai Properties. Western states, including the United Kingdom, were also warned by the Emirati Trade Minister, Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi to keep politics separate from trade and the economy, as it dilutes the agreements' main objectives. In 2023, Al Zeyoudi indicated that these countries should "tone down" the human and workers' rights provisions in the trade deals, in order to gain greater market access and business opportunities. So, yeah... When your workforce is disposable and cash squirts out of the ground, yeah, yay capitalism!!! if you're the right category of person, I guess.
  - sofixa 2y ago
    There is corporation tax. And the emirates are super lucky with national resources, and don't use all of them for personal vanity projects. Is the government giving extremely generous allowances to its citizens based on profits from finite natural resources "capitalism" now? https://u.ae/en/information-and-services/social-affairs/social-welfare/social-welfare-programmes/social-welfare-for-low-income-nationals https://u.ae/en/information-and-services/social-affairs/soci...
- JeremyNT 2y ago
  > It's honestly shocking to me how many anarcho-capitalists there are, especially here on HN. I get the aversion to taxation on a primal level, but surely nobody with any work and life experience can believe in that, right? Allow me to be surprised by your surprise - take a look at this site's domain name! This is a web site that originated from (and which still has deep roots in) the American tech startup scene - so of course many users are of the "move fast and break things" mindset. Regulation is anathema to this culture as it slows down tech progress / profits.
- eikenberry 2y ago
  Not an anarcho-capitalist but I'd guess one of the biggest "regulations" they'd be against would be the laws that allow corporations to exist at all. Pure capitalism exists without government and corps are a legal (ie. gov) created entity.
- lenkite 2y ago
  This would probably work if corporations were NOT permitted to infinitely assimilate via mergers and acquisitions. Then yes, the marketplace becomes a real competitive marketplace not Behemoth Krakens assimilating or crushing all lifeforms.
- panick21_ 2y ago
  As somebody that flirted with anarcho-capitalism, I surprised to hear this. Actual anrcho-capitalists are an incredible small minority. You act like as if there is this big anarcho-capitalist block out there. I read a lot of these discussion and I almost never come across any anarcho-capitalists. Are maybe mixing this up with people who like markets in general? In terms of this debate about charging points and software updates it hardly makes a difference. Also, its totally disingenuous to only talk about one side of this from an actual market perspective. These big companies make massive use of the legal system to protect themselves, protection that they wouldn't have. ARM couldn't protect its ISA, any company could make chips. You could reverse engineer the specific Apple chip and build it exactly the same. You could make the device and sell it with Apple software on it. Apple couldn't project its proprietary charger with patent and copyright law for example. Apple depends on a global system of agree on laws and enforced copy right and patent protection along with many other such aspects legal systems and the modern world. Apple would require and extremely complex arrangement of trade secrets to get even close to what they have now. Look at how much the Soviets simply took over and copied, or China during its rise. Its a fundamentally different game if you are not required to follow the law of the place where the cooperation is from. You would but 100% of the burden on the devices protecting themselves, something that is only recently becoming routine and still isn't a thing for chargers for example. You can't just look at the current world, imagine it as fundamentally the same and then change one thing. The whole way modern cooperation's are design simply wouldn't be possible in the same way. Such system are therefore fundamentally theoretical, so arguing about such system is quite difficult. Legal and economic systems can't just be pulled from nothing, there needs to be some historical and institutional development that backs it up. Different visions of how such a system would work and would be structured have been considered. A more interesting question is in the current system we actually have. The government should get involved in these things. You can just make that argument for that specifically instead of saying 'checkmate anarcho-capitalists and patting yourself on the back'. Just like its idiotic for people to say 'checkmate communist' anytime any publicly owned train company makes some insanely idiotic decision. > I get the aversion to taxation on a primal level, but surely nobody with any work and life experience can believe in that, right? The US government in the last 25 years got involved in many wars killing millions of people. Its also using a lot of its power to prevent housing construction that leads a massive housing shortage. And uses its power to systematically deprive the people of Iran from basic goods. I think its unfair to paint anybody who thinks about these ideas as 'simply doesn't like taxes' as if that is the only reason why anybody would consider forms of anarchism. But I grant you that most people are less interested in a fundamental argument and its intellectual underpinnings, if you try to have broad libertarian movement just screaming 'no guns laws, legal weed and no taxes' seems more effective. And why such movements end up not being intellectually 'pure'. Communist history know a thing or to about easy slogans and trying to build a 'pure' political base.
isodev 2y ago
Not at all, I was agreeing with you. It's spot on. I myself have posted the occasional reaction as well, but for example, the "whatabout" folks leave one to wonder if it's some kind of karma tactic or are they really asking here instead of googling the answer with way more depth.