5 ms·

And thank-you for making the point that utilities should be socialized and not a profit center. EVERYBODY deserves clean water, electricity, housing and food.

nickpp 2y ago
Without profit there is no reason anybody will provide those. Countries that tried socializing food - starved. Capitalism is the only one that brought plenty - because there is an incentive to do so.
- baq 2y ago
  Profit is… not fake, but fiat. Energy and clean water are real. With collapsing demographics the current economic system will fall over anyway, either due to inflation or defaults, so maybe it’s a good time to start thinking about how to separate utilities from money.
  - qwytw 2y ago
    > how to separate utilities from money Forced labour? Central planning? Requisition? How exactly would that work? Somebody still needs to build and operate those power plants. Also commercial and industrial users consume >60% of all electricity in the US, should they also be subsidized? Or subsidize residential users?
    - baq 2y ago
      If I had answers, I wouldn't be saying that it's a good time to think about that. But you shouldn't assume that things will just continue on as they were in the past hundred years. Boomers are retiring now, when the busters start going into retirement it's going to be a huge mess. Inflation is how democracies die.
- nancybelowzero 2y ago
  It certainly brought plenty to some people, didn't it? Other people still get nothing.
  - nickpp 2y ago
    Fewer and fewer get nothing. Capitalism raised billions out of poverty and continues to do so, in every place it is allowed to work.
- bayindirh 2y ago
  Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all. -- John Maynard Keynes. I think he's onto something as I see the lengths Boing, Intel, FAANG, et. al going to benefit us all everyday...
  - qwytw 2y ago
    Well they did overall, throughout their entire existence, didn't they?
    - bayindirh 2y ago
      There are so few corporations which build things to better the world and make money in the process. 99% of the corporations build things to earn money. Their wares sometimes do no harm, but it's the exception. In many cases, the desire for money, not the need, is the driving force behind the technology. See n startups which are discussed here and categorized as "this is better as X. they're just trying to earn money with no real benefit to anyone". Did Exxon hide their global warming research to benefit humanity? Of course not. Did Tetra Ethyl Lead added to gasoline instead of Ethanol, just because it was better? No because it was patentable and ethanol was not. Did WV created "better" diesel engines to benefit the humanity? No the engines were only "better" for their bottom line and problematic for every one. Did DuPont hid the effects of forever chemicals because it was beneficial/harmless to the nature? On the contrary. Companies do whatever they can without breaking laws (or bending them with money) to earn more money. The products we get are side effects of it. I like this take about current (Generative) AI hype: The true purpose of AI is to allow wealth to access skill without allowing skill to access wealth. -- jeffowski (at Twitter/X)
      - qwytw 2y ago
        > Their wares sometimes do no harm, but it's the exception. I disagree with that to a very extreme degree (also it's a very silly thing to say unless you don't see any value in computers, smartphones, planes, automobiles, washing machines, fridges and other appliances). The things you listed are generally the exceptions. Also the question is whether society/people benefited from VW, Exxon, DuPont etc. to such an extent that it outweighed all of those things? Of course it's relative, if we value access to cheap and effective transportation, synthetic clothing, various plastic products etc. more than we care about all the negative externalities that's what we get... It's all down to incentives, corporations are inherently neither good nor evil. > to earn more money. The products we get are side effects of it. I agree that's true on the whole. But that's why humans do anything at all (replace money with other tangible or intangible benefits). Absolute altruism doesn't scale and isn't in any way sustainable.
qwytw 2y ago
Residential users make up ~38% of the electricity market in the US. Where do you suggest the rest of the users should get power from? And how would that work exactly in reality? Even of the government had to ensure that everyone has access to affordable electricity they'd still have to buy it from someone which fundamentally doesn't change anything.
- exe34 2y ago
  they could use renewables?
  - qwytw 2y ago
    Right, and? Will that also be socialized? Or will they have to build their own grid?
wonderwonder 2y ago
Who pays for it? If everybody gets all of the above for free, then why would they ever work and contribute to covering the cost of these free for everyone services? Once a large number of people stop working, who actually works to grow the food? Who builds the houses? Communism does not work.
- mpweiher 2y ago
  Who said anything about "free"?
- ericjmorey 2y ago
  Everyone pays for it. It's interesting that you bring up a large number of people no longer growing food as if that's not the current reality. What do all those people do now that they don't have to work for food?
  - wonderwonder 2y ago
    Someone works grueling hours in the sun to grow it and then the rest of us work and pay those people that grew it money. Is this really a question? If the people doing the growing are getting all of their needs met why would they grind to produce food to sell for money when they get money for free? Why would the vast majority of people in the bottom 50% of the economic ladder work at all if they were getting all of their needs met at no cost to them?
f154hfds 2y ago
Why stop there? EVERYBODY deserves healthcare and education too! I would say in a perfect world everyone should have all of these things. The problem is that the marginal cost to giving each of these things to everyone increases to infinity as we approach 100% of a sufficiently large and diverse population. For example, creating a city water system should efficiently deliver clean water to a large proportion of an urban population. However, not everyone lives in an urban setting and delivering clean water to remote populations can get astronomically expensive. As rational citizens we must acknowledge this unfortunate reality and figure out how to deal with it fairly and equitably. Profit seeking enterprise has been astoundingly effective at driving down these marginal costs for a whole host of goods for centuries. Many of these things you mention only exist because profit seekers developed and distributed them!
- johnchristopher 2y ago
  > Many of these things you mention only exist because profit seekers developed and distributed them! You mean governments signaled the creation of a market by printing and lending free money to build those systems ?
  - wonderwonder 2y ago
    That same government is now over 30 trillion dollars in debt.

nickpp 2y ago

Without profit there is no reason anybody will provide those. Countries that tried socializing food - starved. Capitalism is the only one that brought plenty - because there is an incentive to do so.

baq 2y ago
Profit is… not fake, but fiat. Energy and clean water are real. With collapsing demographics the current economic system will fall over anyway, either due to inflation or defaults, so maybe it’s a good time to start thinking about how to separate utilities from money.
- qwytw 2y ago
  > how to separate utilities from money Forced labour? Central planning? Requisition? How exactly would that work? Somebody still needs to build and operate those power plants. Also commercial and industrial users consume >60% of all electricity in the US, should they also be subsidized? Or subsidize residential users?
  - baq 2y ago
    If I had answers, I wouldn't be saying that it's a good time to think about that. But you shouldn't assume that things will just continue on as they were in the past hundred years. Boomers are retiring now, when the busters start going into retirement it's going to be a huge mess. Inflation is how democracies die.
nancybelowzero 2y ago
It certainly brought plenty to some people, didn't it? Other people still get nothing.
- nickpp 2y ago
  Fewer and fewer get nothing. Capitalism raised billions out of poverty and continues to do so, in every place it is allowed to work.
bayindirh 2y ago
Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all. -- John Maynard Keynes. I think he's onto something as I see the lengths Boing, Intel, FAANG, et. al going to benefit us all everyday...
- qwytw 2y ago
  Well they did overall, throughout their entire existence, didn't they?
  - bayindirh 2y ago
    There are so few corporations which build things to better the world and make money in the process. 99% of the corporations build things to earn money. Their wares sometimes do no harm, but it's the exception. In many cases, the desire for money, not the need, is the driving force behind the technology. See n startups which are discussed here and categorized as "this is better as X. they're just trying to earn money with no real benefit to anyone". Did Exxon hide their global warming research to benefit humanity? Of course not. Did Tetra Ethyl Lead added to gasoline instead of Ethanol, just because it was better? No because it was patentable and ethanol was not. Did WV created "better" diesel engines to benefit the humanity? No the engines were only "better" for their bottom line and problematic for every one. Did DuPont hid the effects of forever chemicals because it was beneficial/harmless to the nature? On the contrary. Companies do whatever they can without breaking laws (or bending them with money) to earn more money. The products we get are side effects of it. I like this take about current (Generative) AI hype: The true purpose of AI is to allow wealth to access skill without allowing skill to access wealth. -- jeffowski (at Twitter/X)
    - qwytw 2y ago
      > Their wares sometimes do no harm, but it's the exception. I disagree with that to a very extreme degree (also it's a very silly thing to say unless you don't see any value in computers, smartphones, planes, automobiles, washing machines, fridges and other appliances). The things you listed are generally the exceptions. Also the question is whether society/people benefited from VW, Exxon, DuPont etc. to such an extent that it outweighed all of those things? Of course it's relative, if we value access to cheap and effective transportation, synthetic clothing, various plastic products etc. more than we care about all the negative externalities that's what we get... It's all down to incentives, corporations are inherently neither good nor evil. > to earn more money. The products we get are side effects of it. I agree that's true on the whole. But that's why humans do anything at all (replace money with other tangible or intangible benefits). Absolute altruism doesn't scale and isn't in any way sustainable.

qwytw 2y ago

Residential users make up ~38% of the electricity market in the US. Where do you suggest the rest of the users should get power from? And how would that work exactly in reality? Even of the government had to ensure that everyone has access to affordable electricity they'd still have to buy it from someone which fundamentally doesn't change anything.

exe34 2y ago
they could use renewables?
- qwytw 2y ago
  Right, and? Will that also be socialized? Or will they have to build their own grid?

wonderwonder 2y ago

Who pays for it? If everybody gets all of the above for free, then why would they ever work and contribute to covering the cost of these free for everyone services? Once a large number of people stop working, who actually works to grow the food? Who builds the houses? Communism does not work.

mpweiher 2y ago
Who said anything about "free"?
ericjmorey 2y ago
Everyone pays for it. It's interesting that you bring up a large number of people no longer growing food as if that's not the current reality. What do all those people do now that they don't have to work for food?
- wonderwonder 2y ago
  Someone works grueling hours in the sun to grow it and then the rest of us work and pay those people that grew it money. Is this really a question? If the people doing the growing are getting all of their needs met why would they grind to produce food to sell for money when they get money for free? Why would the vast majority of people in the bottom 50% of the economic ladder work at all if they were getting all of their needs met at no cost to them?

f154hfds 2y ago

Why stop there? EVERYBODY deserves healthcare and education too! I would say in a perfect world everyone should have all of these things. The problem is that the marginal cost to giving each of these things to everyone increases to infinity as we approach 100% of a sufficiently large and diverse population. For example, creating a city water system should efficiently deliver clean water to a large proportion of an urban population. However, not everyone lives in an urban setting and delivering clean water to remote populations can get astronomically expensive. As rational citizens we must acknowledge this unfortunate reality and figure out how to deal with it fairly and equitably. Profit seeking enterprise has been astoundingly effective at driving down these marginal costs for a whole host of goods for centuries. Many of these things you mention only exist because profit seekers developed and distributed them!

johnchristopher 2y ago
> Many of these things you mention only exist because profit seekers developed and distributed them! You mean governments signaled the creation of a market by printing and lending free money to build those systems ?
- wonderwonder 2y ago
  That same government is now over 30 trillion dollars in debt.