7 ms·

The problem is, in the minds of these people 'firing at 100% all the time' generally means doing busywork and/or thinking of ways to cheat/manipulate their cust

• WalterBright 6mo ago
  Profit maximization is a continuous process that has generated our high standard of living. P.S. I welcome all attempts to prove me wrong!
  • spiorf 6mo ago
    No, the process has impeded even higher standard of living, because it misallocates resources from value generation to value appropriation. It's the extreme short term profit maximization that makes the economy a zero sum game. Otherwise it is not.
    • WalterBright 6mo ago
      Do you really think the economy is zero sum? For example, who was Elon Musk's wealth transferred from? What do you think about all that money being invested into AI? Is that "extreme short term profit maximization"?
      • cowmix 6mo ago
        I don’t know who his wealth was transferred from, exactly. But I do know what he’s using it for now: as a gravitational force to unilaterally screw with public institutions and systems the rest of us depend on. Even if you agree with some of DOGE projects’s goals, the way it operated was wildly thoughtless about consequences beyond Musk’s personal wishes, and almost completely unaccountable. I’m honestly sick that my personal Model Y purchase helped add to that power. And I say that as someone who was a huge Musk fan for years, despite the warning signs — the Thai “pedo” comments, and his very public turn during COVID.
        • WalterBright 6mo ago
          Musk's money came from creating a business that was worth a lot of money. I.e. he created his wealth. It was not transferred to him. The same goes for Bezos, Jobs, Gates, etc.
          • kmijyiyxfbklao 6mo ago
            You can always trick investors. For example all the overpromising Musk has done over the years. Also when you are that famous you can sell lower quality goods for a higher price that people will buy because they are associated to you.
            • WalterBright 6mo ago
              All true. That's why there are laws against fraud. What do you think of the tricks that California pulled to have billions vanish with not a mile of track laid? Or all those hospices with no beds? Or this fun one: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/does-nothing-work-unfortunately-seattle-has-another-case-study/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/does-noth... Unfortunately, as a taxpayer, I am on the hook for those tricks. With a business, I can do some due diligence and then decide if I want to get in or not. I suspect you and I are being fleeced far more by government waste and fraud than by businesses.
              • lossyalgo 6mo ago
                > I suspect you and I are being fleeced far more by government waste and fraud than by businesses. And do you think that firing half of the employees at various gov't agencies has and/or will decrease the waste and fraud?
                • WalterBright 6mo ago
                  It depends on which half.
              • breezybottom 6mo ago
      • deleted 6mo ago
        [deleted]
      • SquibblesRedux 6mo ago
        Musk got a huge leg up through the government, whether it be tax credits, incentives, side-stepping regulations, etc. Bezos ran at a loss for so long it drove out actual and potential competitors. Most (or all?) of the recent titans seem like each has his own company town. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town ) While their activities certainly fall in the realm of capitalism, and are just blips at longer time scales, it certainly feels like capitalism has been a bit under the weather for the past couple decades. Regarding the money invested in AI, it all gives me "irrational exuberance" vibes.
        • WalterBright 6mo ago
          > Musk got a huge leg up through the government, whether it be tax credits, incentives, side-stepping regulations, etc. Nope. (Any government incentives were available to all the other car companies.) > Bezos ran at a loss for so long it drove out actual and potential competitors. Where do you think he got the money to sustain those losses? Investors! Including me. That is not a "transfer" of wealth, as in exchange the investors received an ownership share of the company. > Regarding the money invested in AI, it all gives me "irrational exuberance" vibes. It still is the opposite of short term thinking.
          • SquibblesRedux 6mo ago
            I was not making an argument that the economy is zero-sum, or that Musk or Bezos did not build wealth. I merely pointed out methods they used to build their empires. For example, Musk did take advantage of government incentives, sidestepped regulations, etc. Again, I never claimed there was any sort of zero-sum transfer of wealth. I'm simply pointing out there are varied ways to build up wealth; people have various opinions about those ways. It's right to call out misconceptions or outright falsehoods, but it's also good to understand what leads people to form or accept those misconceptions in the first place.
            • WalterBright 5mo ago
              Government incentives were available to all the car companies. There were no government incentives for SpaceX or Twitter or Starlink. As for "sidestepped regulations", you'll need to be more specific. He did have some court battles with regulators, and won them.
      • rkuodys 6mo ago
        What is the point on Musk you are making? The monetary success does not neccesserily correlate to the common good they have created. In case of Musk there is a lot of governement subsidies, lots of market manipulation and false claim s. So not all activieties that bring profit to the richest are good to the rest. And stats on inequality just highlights that trend
        • WalterBright 6mo ago
          > subsidies. The government gave Musk a trillion dollars? > So not all activieties that bring profit to the richest are good to the rest I didn't say they were all good. I said he created his wealth, it was not transferred to him. > And stats on inequality just highlights that trend All those stats highlight is some people create more wealth than others.
      • YZF 6mo ago
        These two positions are not mutually exclusive: - Over-optimizing for short term profit can hurt innovation and value creation. - The economy is not a zero sum game and new value is created out of thin air.
      • AngryData 6mo ago
        On the short term every economy is effectively zero sum. Even if you invented something magical that is worth trillions, the economy can't pull trillions of dollars out of nowhere in any short period of time without devaluing everything else.
        • WalterBright 6mo ago
          Sigh. A brief explanation of how money is created. If I create something of value, you can go to a bank and borrow money based on that value. Where did that borrowed money come from? The bank created it out of thin air! Yes, that's right. Created value can be transformed into money. The books balance. And this is unlimited. What happens when you pay back the money? Yes, it is symmetric, the money is destroyed! (wild, isn't it!) So why does the bank do this? They make money on the interest from the loan. This is how "free banking" works, and it applies to your scenario. Creating value does not devalue the rest of the economy. The supply of money is not fixed, it rises and falls relative to the value in the economy. I know this is a difficult thing to describe briefly, there are college degrees on this topic.
      • Unmotivator2677 6mo ago
        I don't know but I will speak: Cantillon Effect How much does your bread cost and how much did it cost in the 90s? Where do you think all that value gone? Has bread some what become much better quality or something? Are they lacing it with gold? They are stealing from your pocket, in many ways than one. Another point to consider is that musk wealth is on paper only, real value if he wanted to cash out would turn much smaller, it's all hypothetical.
        • WalterBright 6mo ago
          American bread was worse in previous decades. Now I have many more options, and I buy organic bread. > They are stealing from your pocket, in many ways than one. You need a more compelling argument than that. Agriculture is not a particularly lucrative industry. > Another point to consider is that musk wealth is on paper only, real value if he wanted to cash out would turn much smaller, it's all hypothetical. Back to "what is value?" There is no such thing as intrinsic value. Value is what people are willing to pay for something. That's it. If people are willing to pay more, then the value is higher. If the are only willing to pay less, then the value is lower. And certainly the value of x is different for different people, and varies moment by moment. The value of a TSLA share of stock is no different from the value of that piece of paper you have that says "One Dollar" on it.
      • ryandrake 6mo ago
        When it comes to what actually matters, people's standards of living, what matters most is percentages, which are zero sum. In a simplified economy where 10 people have $100 each, everyone is worth 10% of the economy, have about equal buying power, equal standards of living, equal political power, and so on. If one of those people suddenly "creates wealth" and now has $100,000, then the average value of the dollar goes down and the cost of everything goes up. Person X can trivially afford the increase, but the other nine now have lower buying power, lower standards of living, and the $100,000 now can exert coercive control over those with less. We are all slightly worse off every time there is a new billionaire.
        • WalterBright 6mo ago
          > We are all slightly worse off every time there is a new billionaire. I responded to the zero sum theory in another reply. I'll just say that every country that decided to get rid of its wealthy people wound up poorer, a lot poorer. For a specific example, Massachusetts has a luxury yacht industry. The government decided that they wanted to tax the wealthy, and slapped a hefty tax on yachts. The billionaires simply took their yacht buying elsewhere, and the yacht industry collapsed, costing thousands of highly paid jobs. The government rescinded the tax.
          • ryandrake 5mo ago
            > I responded to the zero sum theory in another reply. You have ~40 responses in this thread in defense of billionaires, not sure which one exactly you're talking about.
            • WalterBright 5mo ago
              See my posts saying that wealthy people create wealth, they do not transfer it. The transfer theory is the zero sum theory.
      • Yizahi 5mo ago
        It transferred from the S&P-493, obviously :) .
      • afpx 5mo ago
        Partly this is because total global debt is 3x global GDP.
  • danmaz74 6mo ago
    "Profit maximization" on its own would have left most people working 12+ hours a day 6 days a week, like it was very common in the 19th century. Luckily, it's never been the only force shaping our societies.
    • WalterBright 6mo ago
      Working long hours was necessary in those days because productivity was much lower. Productivity has gone up so much people can work a lot less, and vast part of the population doesn't work at all.
      • amanaplanacanal 6mo ago
        Depends what you mean by work. Most people do a lot of work themselves that the Richie Rich would pay somebody else to do, like cooking, cleaning, childcare, gardening, etc. If it counts as work when you hire somebody to do it, it should equally count as work if you do it yourself.
        • WalterBright 6mo ago
          People still did cooking, cleaning, childcare, and gardening in those times of 12 hour work days. BTW, cooking in those days was an all day affair. The wood stove required continuous feeding and watching. Today one can just put the food in a microwave. I cook a steak now and then, it's the only cooking I do. It takes about 10 minutes. The dishwasher does the cleaning. Rich people hire others to do the cooking because the rich peoples' jobs pay off far more per hour of work. For example, if my profession pays me $100/hr, it makes perfect sense to pay someone $30/hr to do the cooking for me, as I am still $70/hr ahead.
          • nobodyandproud 6mo ago
            Division of labor. The men worked, the women stayed home. Things went to hell for single-parent families
      • 6mo ago
  • keeda 6mo ago
    I think it's more accurate to say it is a process that has resulted in our high standard of living faster than other processes... so far. There is no guarantee it will keep working for the majority of us going forward; as is becoming very clear all around the world, it also has downsides especially without checks and balances (which was predicted and observed in the past, which is why other processes were conceptualized in the first place!) As a trivial example, profit maximization is directly responsible for the enshittification we're seeing everywhere, which definitely is negatively impacting our standard of living.
    • WalterBright 6mo ago
      > I think it's more accurate to say it is a process that has resulted in our high standard of living faster than other processes... so far. Nobody has found a better process. Not even close. > As a trivial example It's not an example, it's a generalization. If you have a specific example, let's have a look at it! Have you ever wondered why communist countries never exported products? Also, if you want better products and believe people will want to buy them, go into business making them and make yourself wealthy!
      • striking 6mo ago
        Which country experiencing communism at any point in time didn't export any products?
        • WalterBright 6mo ago
          The Soviet Union. I don't recall ever seeing USSR products in stores, while plenty of manufactured goods from other countries were. (By products I meant manufactured products, not extracted resources like oil.)
          • Yoric 6mo ago
            I did, so it probably depends of where you live.
  • Yoric 6mo ago
    I would argue that profit maximization has had very many effects. On the one side, it has succeeded at reducing costs, which has indeed given rich societies unprecedented access to consumer goods. On the other, it has outsourced from us both jobs and knowledge, which has resulted in higher unemployment and dissatisfaction, with as consequences the political dominoes we see falling internationally. That and the shoddy US health system (which the rest of the world seems to have decided to follow, for some reason). And there is the small fact that we're in the process of optimizing the planet to death, and that not-so-rich countries (as well as formerly-rich ones) have starved to death for this high standard of living. So, let's appreciate our standard of living, but not assume that it's necessarily a good thing in the grand scheme of things.
    • WalterBright 6mo ago
      Outsourcing happens when it is cheaper to build something somewhere else. Tariffs can compensate for that. Where are the starving people in capitalist countries? The US health care system is pretty much run by the government. It is not a result of free markets. A large part of profit maximization (i.e. optimizing) usually means reducing the amount of material needed. Isn't that a good thing? The people who "rough it" in the wilderness still seem to be backpacking in hi tech equipment. I read about the kit that Lewis & Clark carried. No thanks. (Even on that "Alone" show, they bring hi tech equipment.)
      • Yoric 6mo ago
        > Outsourcing happens when it is cheaper to build something somewhere else. Tariffs can compensate for that. Is that free market? > Where are the starving people in capitalist countries? The first example from the top of my head is Argentina. > A large part of profit maximization (i.e. optimizing) usually means reducing the amount of material needed. Isn't that a good thing? This very much depends on the industry. In software, for instance, it's exactly the opposite. > The people who "rough it" in the wilderness still seem to be backpacking in hi tech equipment. I read about the kit that Lewis & Clark carried. No thanks. (Even on that "Alone" show, they bring hi tech equipment.) No idea what you're talking about.
• buzzerbetrayed 6mo ago
  > generally means doing busywork and/or thinking of ways to cheat/manipulate their customers and the market for maximum gain whole delivering minimum value When I read comments like this I can’t help but wonder where people like you work. It’s completely unrepeatable to me. I work with really good people, all the way to the tip, and no try to make money by increasing value for our customers. Apple, Google, Walmart, Amazon, Home Depot, Anthropic, Toyota, and a hundred other companies all offer me incredible value for so cheap. Why are people so cynical about a world that offers them unimaginable riches everywhere they look. Sure there are bad companies. And if you work at one of those, go get a new job.
  • rapnie 6mo ago
    The parents are talking about things in-the-large, negative societal trends, while you are talking your anecdotal experience and perhaps survival bias striking it so lucky with your employer. The world offers unimaginable riches, but at what cost really? Who benefits most? Where does it lead? Big picture.
  • mikewarot 6mo ago
    >Apple, Google, Walmart, Amazon, Home Depot, Anthropic, Toyota, and a hundred other companies all offer me incredible value for so cheap. Try to find something with Google these days. Try to use an Apple product past it's planned obsolescence. They crowd out innovation with their monopolistic rent seeking.
  • vader_n 5mo ago
    Really?
• joquarky 6mo ago
  This is what happens when companies become so nepotistic that they only believe in their own bullshit. "Can they really breathe fire or did we make that up?"