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Based on this article at least, he is not disagreeing with those claims, he is not even acknowledging they exist. The original claim, as I understand it, is ba

by hjkl0 4mo ago

Based on this article at least, he is not disagreeing with those claims, he is not even acknowledging they exist. The original claim, as I understand it, is basically this: you can’t be an honest actor in a dishonest system. And it’s not even necessary to claim that billionaires did something uniquely wrong to become billionaires. It’s just that their share of the exploitation is so, so, so much bigger.

tyre 4mo ago
From an HN comment recently: > There are three ways to make a living: > 1) Lie to people who want to be lied to, and you’ll get rich. > 2) Tell the truth to those who want the truth, and you’ll make a living. > 3) Tell the truth to those who want to be lied to, and you’ll go broke.
csallen 4mo ago
He explicitly and clearly disagreed with the claims, and argued against them: > What [AOC] meant was that it's impossible to get that rich without doing something bad — without cheating in some way... The reason [my founder's] startup was growing so fast was simply that users loved what she'd built. So she could feel from her own experience how wrong [AOC] was. She wasn't exploiting anyone. Exactly the opposite in fact. The reason her startup was growing so fast was that she and her cofounder had been working their asses off to make their users happy, and as a result the users had been telling their friends. And that gets you exponential growth. To any honest reader, it's clear he's saying the system isn't necessarily dishonest, and that it's possible (if not common) to rapidly earn money in the system by simply creating things of value and selling them to willing customers.
- MattRix 4mo ago
  Except he says nothing about the system, he only talks about the founder.
  - csallen 4mo ago
    I don't know what you're reading, but he's talking about the fact that her startup is growing, and has happy end users, who are purchasing her product, and telling their friends. That is the system.
    - ModernMech 4mo ago
      The system is a lot bigger than her product and users. Also no one in that anecdote is a billionaire so it's not even relevent to the claim.
snapplebobapple 4mo ago
The original claim is stupid because it is applying a personal moral judgment to a legal system at the individual level, usually for the purposes of justifying theft or other punishments for the person being talked about. it is irrelevant whether the person is honest or dishonest by your own personal moral compass, what matters is whether what they did was legal or not by the legal standard we are all operating under. The criticism needs to be leveled at the legal system and its ability and desire to change to accommodate the criticisms is the measure of the total system. By this correct measure what we have is amazing vs what has come before and alternate systems tried in the 20th century (looking at you *isms, which have all been terrible in the long run and usually also in the short and medium run). The marxist nonsense about exploitation is getting really tired and needs to die already. Yes, we get it, marxists don't value anything that grows total output, don't think it should be compensated and are totally fine living in the stagnation that view creates. If they could all just skip a few steps and go to the end game of their philosophy that would be great because I'm tired of hearing from them.
- ModernMech 4mo ago
  > what matters is whether what they did was legal or not by the legal standard we are all operating under. Last election cycle, the world's richest man made the nation's largest political donation to the most expensive campaign in US history. In return he was given unprecedented (and arguably illegal) access to take a figurative chainsaw (his imagery) to our institutions. We're all under the same laws, but we are not all operating under the same rules. To quote the President, "when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything."
  - snapplebobapple 4mo ago
    This doesn't contradict my claim at all. This is and should be a criticism of the system because the system has an ambiguity of outcome built in. If I can hire the same lawyers and skew my outcome to the better for me side then we are all still operating under the same rules. I do agree with you that it would be nice to fix this so that the only difference between hiring the 50 dollar an hour and the 2000 dollar an hour lawyer is spending an additional 1950 dollars. I don't really see a way to fix this without also losing the ambiguity that makes other aspects of the system work though (i.e. the ability to do illegal things like same sex marriage/relationships enough that the overton window moves in the population enough to allow a legislative change to allow those things).
aloe_falsa 4mo ago
> The original claim, as I understand it, is basically this: you can’t be an honest actor in a dishonest system. Right, but, taken to its logical conclusion, you cannot earn any amount of money honestly at all, because you'll always create negative externalities to some extent, or supporting people who do/companies who exploit their workers, even as a rank-and-file employee.

by hjkl0 4mo ago

tyre 4mo ago

From an HN comment recently: > There are three ways to make a living: > 1) Lie to people who want to be lied to, and you’ll get rich. > 2) Tell the truth to those who want the truth, and you’ll make a living. > 3) Tell the truth to those who want to be lied to, and you’ll go broke.

csallen 4mo ago

He explicitly and clearly disagreed with the claims, and argued against them: > What [AOC] meant was that it's impossible to get that rich without doing something bad — without cheating in some way... The reason [my founder's] startup was growing so fast was simply that users loved what she'd built. So she could feel from her own experience how wrong [AOC] was. She wasn't exploiting anyone. Exactly the opposite in fact. The reason her startup was growing so fast was that she and her cofounder had been working their asses off to make their users happy, and as a result the users had been telling their friends. And that gets you exponential growth. To any honest reader, it's clear he's saying the system isn't necessarily dishonest, and that it's possible (if not common) to rapidly earn money in the system by simply creating things of value and selling them to willing customers.

MattRix 4mo ago
Except he says nothing about the system, he only talks about the founder.
- csallen 4mo ago
  I don't know what you're reading, but he's talking about the fact that her startup is growing, and has happy end users, who are purchasing her product, and telling their friends. That is the system.
  - ModernMech 4mo ago
    The system is a lot bigger than her product and users. Also no one in that anecdote is a billionaire so it's not even relevent to the claim.

snapplebobapple 4mo ago

The original claim is stupid because it is applying a personal moral judgment to a legal system at the individual level, usually for the purposes of justifying theft or other punishments for the person being talked about. it is irrelevant whether the person is honest or dishonest by your own personal moral compass, what matters is whether what they did was legal or not by the legal standard we are all operating under. The criticism needs to be leveled at the legal system and its ability and desire to change to accommodate the criticisms is the measure of the total system. By this correct measure what we have is amazing vs what has come before and alternate systems tried in the 20th century (looking at you *isms, which have all been terrible in the long run and usually also in the short and medium run). The marxist nonsense about exploitation is getting really tired and needs to die already. Yes, we get it, marxists don't value anything that grows total output, don't think it should be compensated and are totally fine living in the stagnation that view creates. If they could all just skip a few steps and go to the end game of their philosophy that would be great because I'm tired of hearing from them.

ModernMech 4mo ago
> what matters is whether what they did was legal or not by the legal standard we are all operating under. Last election cycle, the world's richest man made the nation's largest political donation to the most expensive campaign in US history. In return he was given unprecedented (and arguably illegal) access to take a figurative chainsaw (his imagery) to our institutions. We're all under the same laws, but we are not all operating under the same rules. To quote the President, "when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything."
- snapplebobapple 4mo ago
  This doesn't contradict my claim at all. This is and should be a criticism of the system because the system has an ambiguity of outcome built in. If I can hire the same lawyers and skew my outcome to the better for me side then we are all still operating under the same rules. I do agree with you that it would be nice to fix this so that the only difference between hiring the 50 dollar an hour and the 2000 dollar an hour lawyer is spending an additional 1950 dollars. I don't really see a way to fix this without also losing the ambiguity that makes other aspects of the system work though (i.e. the ability to do illegal things like same sex marriage/relationships enough that the overton window moves in the population enough to allow a legislative change to allow those things).

aloe_falsa 4mo ago

> The original claim, as I understand it, is basically this: you can’t be an honest actor in a dishonest system. Right, but, taken to its logical conclusion, you cannot earn any amount of money honestly at all, because you'll always create negative externalities to some extent, or supporting people who do/companies who exploit their workers, even as a rank-and-file employee.