4 ms·

Why would you say that people don't deserve money that others willing gave to them in return for something they wanted and found to be worth it?

by csallen 4mo ago

grim_io 4mo ago
First, I'm assuming that you are not a free market maximalist, and that you believe that a market without any regulation will result in mega monopolies where it no longer matters if you find the price of the product to be fair. The distribution of the wealth created by the massive increase in productivity has been trending towards the organisational top for many decades now. I don't think that the management has gotten exponentially more efficient and better at their job to justify their increasingly bigger share of the profits.
- anubistheta 4mo ago
  That's not your determination to make. Other people, obviously, disagree. I think capital has been the primary driver of the increase in productivity. So it's sensible that a larger share of the gains go to that.
- WalterBright 4mo ago
  Wealth isn't distributed in a free market, it is created.
- csallen 4mo ago
  Nitpick: There's no such thing as a "market with any regulation," because regulation is what creates markets in the first place, by making most unsavory forms of profit illegal, in order to incentivize people to innovate and create. If you only look at nominal dollars, you could say the wealth has trended toward the top. But the average person is materially richer today than at pretty much any point in the past, in terms of real income + real consumption + net worth + access to goods and services adjusted by quality + safety. There's a lot to be happy about, and I know few if any people who'd rather go back in time and live a worse life just so they're part of a time period where inequality is less. Also, inequality has always been high throughout human history. The brief period of time in the mid 20th century where things seemed a bit closer, was the exception, not the rule, as far as I understand. And again, if you only look at nominal dollars, maybe inequality seems extreme. But thanks to technology, the actual lived experience and quality difference between middle and upper classes is lower than it's ever been. What exactly is Bill Gates doing in his day-to-day life that's so much higher quality than what the average American is doing? He's eating the same burgers, wearing the same clothes, driving on the same roads, consuming the same entertainment, and getting more-or-less the same healthcare. His improvements on these things are incremental at best. Compare to the gap between the rich and poor at any other time in history, and it's miniscule today. Housing and education and healthcare, imo, are the real areas to focus on the most. And I'm a big believer in raising the floor. But lowering the ceiling just so you can say things are more equal in nominal dollars isn't going to help anyone.
inigyou 4mo ago
Good question. When the robber pointed his gun at my head, I thought: since I am willingly giving this man my wallet in return for my life, he must have earned it.
- csallen 4mo ago
  All of your analogies fail because you ignore the fact that (a) most people are happy shoppers who genuinely enjoy buying much of what they buy, and who anticipate newer and better releases of games, movies, restaurants, and other products; and (b) most people could simply opt out, own nothing, and go live in the woods if they wanted to, but would strongly prefer not to. You yourself are using an expensive phone or computer to type Hacker News comments, presumably not at gunpoint because you choose to do so. Which means you think it's better than the alternative that you're apparently glorifying.
  - deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
  - titzer 4mo ago
    People share a terrifyingly large amount of DNA with mice and apes and other creatures that can become hopelessly addicted to self-destructive behaviors. What is also interesting is the susceptibility of many people to believe really insane things. People join cults. People start cults. People do the cinnamon and tide pod challenges. People jump of bridges. People commit copycat suicide. People do lots immoral and stupid things when that's society's standards. And no, I don't think that most people are "happy shoppers" but seem deeply disaffected about their lives, and shopping might be a compulsive behavior that helps them soothe underlying fears of dread.
    - csallen 4mo ago
      The most insane belief that people currently possess is that we should all be miserable, despite living in what is undoubtedly the best, most prosperous, safest, healthiest, and most abundant age of all of human history. It's a cult, and its members don't even realize they're a part of it.
gkoberger 4mo ago
I think there's a bit of nuance here. AOC is directionally correct, but of course there's exceptions. I do think Taylor Swift and JK Rowling "earned" a billion dollars. I don't think Elon Musk or Donald Trump "earned" their wealth. Elon, for example, did earn a lot of it. People gave him money for Teslas. But he disproportionally makes profit off regulatory credits, selling his own companies to each other, and burdening his companies with debt. He's forced people to work through pandemics, undermined the SEC, stolen data from the government, bought elections, and (if you want to believe recent stories) may have even helped cheat in the most recent presidential election. He directly caused hundreds of thousands of deaths due to DOGE budget cuts, all while getting billions of dollars worth of contracts via SpaceX and xAI. Or Bezos. Amazon uses our roads and infrastructure. A majority of Amazon warehouse workers rely on public assistance. I believe Bezos is a phenomenal founder, but his returns have subsidized by us. There's a reason Taylor Swift doesn't get brought up when people talk about the rich. You _can_ earn a billion dollars, but more often than not you have to screw over a lot of people to get there.
- ieatcandlewax 4mo ago
  I don't understand this dichotomy between the people you've mentioned—nobody makes hundreds of millions of dollars in a vacuum by themselves. Swift had her parents, staff, record companies that helped push and advertise her and rowling has a similar story. That and Taylor does get brought up the whole time for being rich and wasteful, I can't count how many times I've heard about her incredibly short private jet trips in the past few years. Your criticism of Bezos are also a bit ridiculous. Nearly every company that isn't B2B SaaS junk uses roads in some degree. I fail to see how the warehouse workers being on public assistance have anything to do with Bezos—if you wanted them to be self sufficient a politician could increase the minimum wage. Your criticisms of Musk dishonest, but I would also argue that he didn't "earn" a lot of the money for Tesla, as he's just a jackass with a bachelors in econ that did none of the work on it. AOC/Bernie types have never been directionally correct, as allowing the government to rob you in America will usually not correlate with any increase in QoL for the general populace. Someone on here described taxes in America and Western countries as "tithes" like you would pay to the mafia as "protection" money, where every dollar you give them makes them more capable of extorting the next one out of you.

Why would you say that people don't deserve money that others willing gave to them in return for something they wanted and found to be worth it?

by csallen 4mo ago

Why would you say that people don't deserve money that others willing gave to them in return for something they wanted and found to be worth it?

grim_io 4mo ago

First, I'm assuming that you are not a free market maximalist, and that you believe that a market without any regulation will result in mega monopolies where it no longer matters if you find the price of the product to be fair. The distribution of the wealth created by the massive increase in productivity has been trending towards the organisational top for many decades now. I don't think that the management has gotten exponentially more efficient and better at their job to justify their increasingly bigger share of the profits.

anubistheta 4mo ago
That's not your determination to make. Other people, obviously, disagree. I think capital has been the primary driver of the increase in productivity. So it's sensible that a larger share of the gains go to that.
WalterBright 4mo ago
Wealth isn't distributed in a free market, it is created.
csallen 4mo ago
Nitpick: There's no such thing as a "market with any regulation," because regulation is what creates markets in the first place, by making most unsavory forms of profit illegal, in order to incentivize people to innovate and create. If you only look at nominal dollars, you could say the wealth has trended toward the top. But the average person is materially richer today than at pretty much any point in the past, in terms of real income + real consumption + net worth + access to goods and services adjusted by quality + safety. There's a lot to be happy about, and I know few if any people who'd rather go back in time and live a worse life just so they're part of a time period where inequality is less. Also, inequality has always been high throughout human history. The brief period of time in the mid 20th century where things seemed a bit closer, was the exception, not the rule, as far as I understand. And again, if you only look at nominal dollars, maybe inequality seems extreme. But thanks to technology, the actual lived experience and quality difference between middle and upper classes is lower than it's ever been. What exactly is Bill Gates doing in his day-to-day life that's so much higher quality than what the average American is doing? He's eating the same burgers, wearing the same clothes, driving on the same roads, consuming the same entertainment, and getting more-or-less the same healthcare. His improvements on these things are incremental at best. Compare to the gap between the rich and poor at any other time in history, and it's miniscule today. Housing and education and healthcare, imo, are the real areas to focus on the most. And I'm a big believer in raising the floor. But lowering the ceiling just so you can say things are more equal in nominal dollars isn't going to help anyone.

inigyou 4mo ago

Good question. When the robber pointed his gun at my head, I thought: since I am willingly giving this man my wallet in return for my life, he must have earned it.

csallen 4mo ago
All of your analogies fail because you ignore the fact that (a) most people are happy shoppers who genuinely enjoy buying much of what they buy, and who anticipate newer and better releases of games, movies, restaurants, and other products; and (b) most people could simply opt out, own nothing, and go live in the woods if they wanted to, but would strongly prefer not to. You yourself are using an expensive phone or computer to type Hacker News comments, presumably not at gunpoint because you choose to do so. Which means you think it's better than the alternative that you're apparently glorifying.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- titzer 4mo ago
  People share a terrifyingly large amount of DNA with mice and apes and other creatures that can become hopelessly addicted to self-destructive behaviors. What is also interesting is the susceptibility of many people to believe really insane things. People join cults. People start cults. People do the cinnamon and tide pod challenges. People jump of bridges. People commit copycat suicide. People do lots immoral and stupid things when that's society's standards. And no, I don't think that most people are "happy shoppers" but seem deeply disaffected about their lives, and shopping might be a compulsive behavior that helps them soothe underlying fears of dread.
  - csallen 4mo ago
    The most insane belief that people currently possess is that we should all be miserable, despite living in what is undoubtedly the best, most prosperous, safest, healthiest, and most abundant age of all of human history. It's a cult, and its members don't even realize they're a part of it.

gkoberger 4mo ago

I think there's a bit of nuance here. AOC is directionally correct, but of course there's exceptions. I do think Taylor Swift and JK Rowling "earned" a billion dollars. I don't think Elon Musk or Donald Trump "earned" their wealth. Elon, for example, did earn a lot of it. People gave him money for Teslas. But he disproportionally makes profit off regulatory credits, selling his own companies to each other, and burdening his companies with debt. He's forced people to work through pandemics, undermined the SEC, stolen data from the government, bought elections, and (if you want to believe recent stories) may have even helped cheat in the most recent presidential election. He directly caused hundreds of thousands of deaths due to DOGE budget cuts, all while getting billions of dollars worth of contracts via SpaceX and xAI. Or Bezos. Amazon uses our roads and infrastructure. A majority of Amazon warehouse workers rely on public assistance. I believe Bezos is a phenomenal founder, but his returns have subsidized by us. There's a reason Taylor Swift doesn't get brought up when people talk about the rich. You _can_ earn a billion dollars, but more often than not you have to screw over a lot of people to get there.

ieatcandlewax 4mo ago
I don't understand this dichotomy between the people you've mentioned—nobody makes hundreds of millions of dollars in a vacuum by themselves. Swift had her parents, staff, record companies that helped push and advertise her and rowling has a similar story. That and Taylor does get brought up the whole time for being rich and wasteful, I can't count how many times I've heard about her incredibly short private jet trips in the past few years. Your criticism of Bezos are also a bit ridiculous. Nearly every company that isn't B2B SaaS junk uses roads in some degree. I fail to see how the warehouse workers being on public assistance have anything to do with Bezos—if you wanted them to be self sufficient a politician could increase the minimum wage. Your criticisms of Musk dishonest, but I would also argue that he didn't "earn" a lot of the money for Tesla, as he's just a jackass with a bachelors in econ that did none of the work on it. AOC/Bernie types have never been directionally correct, as allowing the government to rob you in America will usually not correlate with any increase in QoL for the general populace. Someone on here described taxes in America and Western countries as "tithes" like you would pay to the mafia as "protection" money, where every dollar you give them makes them more capable of extorting the next one out of you.