4 ms·

How much does a cable like that cost? I feel like governments should be funding healthcare, housing and connectivity instead of missiles thousands of miles awa

How much does a cable like that cost? I feel like governments should be funding healthcare, housing and connectivity instead of missiles thousands of miles away from their borders.

eru 2y ago
Why those specific things? Why not eg bread or circuses? The standard economic answer is that governments should at most finance public goods. But nothing of what you mentioned is a public good. (Well lobbing missiles at foreigners perhaps is a public good, but not one that's necessarily worth funding. Just like a light-house in the middle of nowhere might not be worth funding.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good_(economics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good_(economics)
- bottom999mottob 2y ago
  You're being a bit reductive lol. Also the parent comment doesn't seem to realize that a subsea cable would enable better connectivity for millions of people. 1. Herd immunity and clean air from that Wikipedia link fall under public goods. Both of those are a subset of healthcare. 2. Basic human needs: many people would argue healthcare, housing, and connectivity should be universally accessible as a moral imperative 3. Broader social benefits. If people have these 3 things, they can be more productive. 4. "bread and circuses" is drawing a false equivalence between basic needs and entertainment/luxury goods. That's just bad argumentation.
  - dietr1ch 2y ago
    I'm all in for connectivity, which is very needed all around the world. It's my 3rd spending only behind really pressing social issues, even before education because I think it boosts it so much that we might not need to spend so many resources on it (right now we devote people's lives to teach and pay them miserably), and communication also helps culture and reaching out to more niche interests groups that if you were to simply hang out in your local town.
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    > Also the parent comment doesn't seem to realize that a subsea cable would enable better connectivity for millions of people. That comment specifically listed "connectivity" as something he thought governments should fund, and only complained about governments funding weapons.
  - eru 2y ago
    > 2. Basic human needs: many people would argue healthcare, housing, and connectivity should be universally accessible as a moral imperative Governments can give money to poor people. Poor people can use money to buy goods and services. (We don't need the government to provide housing etc to rich people. Rich people can help themselves, if we let them.)
    - fragmede 2y ago
      Would these poor people buy these goods and services via some sort of network of interconnected computers that talk to each other? Or the stores they buy them from also use this network of connected computers to buy goods and services to stock the store with and run credit card (read EDT) machines? It would have to be some sort of crazy network of interconnected computers. What should we call such a thing though? This interconnected network of computers. How about the Inter-Conn-Net-of-Computers. Maybe someone could help me shorten that name.
      - eru 2y ago
        Have you heard of a 'store'? (You can also buy stuff over the Internet these days, sure. And you can buy internet access with money, too. Isn't money wonderful?)
        fragmede 2y ago
        How do poor people on food stamps (EBT) in this crazy made up "store" place pay for (approved) food goods? The card terminal that reads their card connects to their balance via the Internet. without that, they're not able to buy food. How do goods get to the store for purchase? Does any of that need the Internet? Like when the merchant pays for goods using a credit card? For better or worse the Internet is critical infrastructure for modern society these days, it's not just scrolling on TikTok.
        eru 2y ago
        > How do poor people on food stamps (EBT) in this crazy made up "store" place pay for (approved) food goods? I suggested to give money to poor people. Not weird stamps and a list of approved goods in some approved store. But yes, just like you can use money to buy food (a critical component of staying alive), rich or poor alike can also use money to buy internet access. I'm not sure what your point is?
  - eru 2y ago
    > 1. Herd immunity and clean air from that Wikipedia link fall under public goods. Both of those are a subset of healthcare. Maybe, but that doesn't mean that the superset is automatically a good expense. > 2. Basic human needs: many people would argue healthcare, housing, and connectivity should be universally accessible as a moral imperative You can give poor people money, so they can spend that on their basic human needs as they see fit. > 3. Broader social benefits. If people have these 3 things, they can be more productive. The benefits of extra productivity mostly accrues to the individual. And again, they can use money to buy these three things.
- dietr1ch 2y ago
  Why does the standard economic answer have any credibility yet? Standard economics are a simplistic model that fails hard to account for the effects of their own simplifications. No one sees physicists saying that a bouncy ball will bounce forever because it loses a negligible amount of energy in each bounce, but we see economists talk about a magical system where they get pretty much every assumption wrong and don't account for how it makes the model deviate from reality. (I had a list of aspects where the assumptions go wrong, but it's a bit too long to fit in the margin of this post)
  - eru 2y ago
    It sounds like those mythical economists you mention are men of straw?
    - dietr1ch 2y ago
      Today economists use things like GDP to understand the economy and you still hear about it and still guides decisions with big impact. Things like the Gini coefficient is over 100 years old and it showed that the economy could be doing great based on averages, despite it only being true for a few, yet there's still no push away from metrics that misrepresent how most people are doing. Well, maybe they are also ignored scientists that we all know have ideas on how to improve things, but are powerless too. Things obviously going downhill for 40+ years, but maybe working as intended, - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_inequality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_inequality
      - eru 2y ago
        GDP correlates really well with just about anything we value. > Things obviously going downhill for 40+ years, [...] Global economy inequality has decreased markedly over the last few decades. More and more people have it better than ever before.
        torginus 2y ago
        Not it doesn't - capitalism has been off the rails for at least a decade or two. Not going to go into a rant here, but just observing the basic fact that capitalism cannot create certain resources we value - such as living space - which comprise a certain percentage (lets say a third) of things we value. This leads to these goods with inflexible supplies inflating in dollar value (see housing crisis). If housing price increase outpaces wage growth (which it does), with GDP growth being concentrated in very few pockets, this leads to decreasing living standards for most of the population, at least in this aspect.

How much does a cable like that cost? I feel like governments should be funding healthcare, housing and connectivity instead of missiles thousands of miles away from their borders.

eru 2y ago

Why those specific things? Why not eg bread or circuses? The standard economic answer is that governments should at most finance public goods. But nothing of what you mentioned is a public good. (Well lobbing missiles at foreigners perhaps is a public good, but not one that's necessarily worth funding. Just like a light-house in the middle of nowhere might not be worth funding.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good_(economics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good_(economics)

bottom999mottob 2y ago
You're being a bit reductive lol. Also the parent comment doesn't seem to realize that a subsea cable would enable better connectivity for millions of people. 1. Herd immunity and clean air from that Wikipedia link fall under public goods. Both of those are a subset of healthcare. 2. Basic human needs: many people would argue healthcare, housing, and connectivity should be universally accessible as a moral imperative 3. Broader social benefits. If people have these 3 things, they can be more productive. 4. "bread and circuses" is drawing a false equivalence between basic needs and entertainment/luxury goods. That's just bad argumentation.
- dietr1ch 2y ago
  I'm all in for connectivity, which is very needed all around the world. It's my 3rd spending only behind really pressing social issues, even before education because I think it boosts it so much that we might not need to spend so many resources on it (right now we devote people's lives to teach and pay them miserably), and communication also helps culture and reaching out to more niche interests groups that if you were to simply hang out in your local town.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  > Also the parent comment doesn't seem to realize that a subsea cable would enable better connectivity for millions of people. That comment specifically listed "connectivity" as something he thought governments should fund, and only complained about governments funding weapons.
- eru 2y ago
  > 2. Basic human needs: many people would argue healthcare, housing, and connectivity should be universally accessible as a moral imperative Governments can give money to poor people. Poor people can use money to buy goods and services. (We don't need the government to provide housing etc to rich people. Rich people can help themselves, if we let them.)
  - fragmede 2y ago
    Would these poor people buy these goods and services via some sort of network of interconnected computers that talk to each other? Or the stores they buy them from also use this network of connected computers to buy goods and services to stock the store with and run credit card (read EDT) machines? It would have to be some sort of crazy network of interconnected computers. What should we call such a thing though? This interconnected network of computers. How about the Inter-Conn-Net-of-Computers. Maybe someone could help me shorten that name.
    - eru 2y ago
      Have you heard of a 'store'? (You can also buy stuff over the Internet these days, sure. And you can buy internet access with money, too. Isn't money wonderful?)
      - fragmede 2y ago
        How do poor people on food stamps (EBT) in this crazy made up "store" place pay for (approved) food goods? The card terminal that reads their card connects to their balance via the Internet. without that, they're not able to buy food. How do goods get to the store for purchase? Does any of that need the Internet? Like when the merchant pays for goods using a credit card? For better or worse the Internet is critical infrastructure for modern society these days, it's not just scrolling on TikTok.
        eru 2y ago
        > How do poor people on food stamps (EBT) in this crazy made up "store" place pay for (approved) food goods? I suggested to give money to poor people. Not weird stamps and a list of approved goods in some approved store. But yes, just like you can use money to buy food (a critical component of staying alive), rich or poor alike can also use money to buy internet access. I'm not sure what your point is?
- eru 2y ago
  > 1. Herd immunity and clean air from that Wikipedia link fall under public goods. Both of those are a subset of healthcare. Maybe, but that doesn't mean that the superset is automatically a good expense. > 2. Basic human needs: many people would argue healthcare, housing, and connectivity should be universally accessible as a moral imperative You can give poor people money, so they can spend that on their basic human needs as they see fit. > 3. Broader social benefits. If people have these 3 things, they can be more productive. The benefits of extra productivity mostly accrues to the individual. And again, they can use money to buy these three things.
dietr1ch 2y ago
Why does the standard economic answer have any credibility yet? Standard economics are a simplistic model that fails hard to account for the effects of their own simplifications. No one sees physicists saying that a bouncy ball will bounce forever because it loses a negligible amount of energy in each bounce, but we see economists talk about a magical system where they get pretty much every assumption wrong and don't account for how it makes the model deviate from reality. (I had a list of aspects where the assumptions go wrong, but it's a bit too long to fit in the margin of this post)
- eru 2y ago
  It sounds like those mythical economists you mention are men of straw?
  - dietr1ch 2y ago
    Today economists use things like GDP to understand the economy and you still hear about it and still guides decisions with big impact. Things like the Gini coefficient is over 100 years old and it showed that the economy could be doing great based on averages, despite it only being true for a few, yet there's still no push away from metrics that misrepresent how most people are doing. Well, maybe they are also ignored scientists that we all know have ideas on how to improve things, but are powerless too. Things obviously going downhill for 40+ years, but maybe working as intended, - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_inequality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_inequality
    - eru 2y ago
      GDP correlates really well with just about anything we value. > Things obviously going downhill for 40+ years, [...] Global economy inequality has decreased markedly over the last few decades. More and more people have it better than ever before.
      - torginus 2y ago
        Not it doesn't - capitalism has been off the rails for at least a decade or two. Not going to go into a rant here, but just observing the basic fact that capitalism cannot create certain resources we value - such as living space - which comprise a certain percentage (lets say a third) of things we value. This leads to these goods with inflexible supplies inflating in dollar value (see housing crisis). If housing price increase outpaces wage growth (which it does), with GDP growth being concentrated in very few pockets, this leads to decreasing living standards for most of the population, at least in this aspect.