3 ms·

Very much this. The incentive to create and invent is often largely financial, however that incentive need not be constructed as “winner takes all” rather we sh

Very much this. The incentive to create and invent is often largely financial, however that incentive need not be constructed as “winner takes all” rather we should lift each other up in our mutual accomplishments. Unfortunately in my own ruminating on the topic the only practical alternatives seem to be one or more variations on the scary boogey man of socialism.

WalterBright 2mo ago
> The incentive to create and invent is often largely financial, however that incentive need not be constructed as “winner takes all” rather we should lift each other up in our mutual accomplishments. The Wrights definitely were in it for the money. The government project was the Langley Prototype, which cost 20 times more than what the Wrights spent, and fell into the Potomac like a sack of wet cement. > the scary boogey man of socialism For good reason. Socialism's track record is pretty bad. They're always running out of other peoples' money.
- natpalmer1776 2mo ago
  Certainly socialism is a heavy and dangerous solution to most problems, the critiques of it are many, and of the many most are fair. I say boogeyman not to imply it is without problems but rather to say that in the problem spaces that it is often deplored the incumbent alternative is often categorically worse for all those who do not directly benefit from it, which is usually a supermajority at a minimum. Thus, to make the incumbent more tolerable a caricature of an idea is brought forth to scare those who would otherwise support an aspirational idealist into backing the known “lesser” evils.
- robocat 2mo ago
  > Socialism's track record is pretty bad However the track record for developed countries communally sharing "intellectual property" is much much better. Universities, open source, and public domain all have some crossover with the ideals of socialism. Yes, communism has repeatedly failed spectacularly. The softer socialism of public welfare has worked (so far) for many countries including the US. Although I'm skeptical about the future given modern demographics and our governments' choices to appease a majority. The governments of most developed countries smell socialist to me. I'm from New Zealand and most private income/property is taxed up the wahoo to pay for our social welfare programs: it doesn't take much squinting to see my own society as broadly socialist. Somehow I see people in the US complaining that the Chinese are beating the US at capitalism (regular complaints of price undercutting and monopolistic behaviours) - what's weird since the Chinese are supposed to be pinkos.
  - WalterBright 2mo ago
    The Chinese switched from communism to free markets. Prosperity resulted.
    - anthk 2mo ago
      Hybrid system, actually. No 100% pure system survived, ever. Be capitalist, communist, or technology philosophy bound. The GNU project tried to expand Unix with ITS editors (Emacs), utilities, ITS'like freedom and Lisp (Emacs and Scheme, again). For a while the most used editor for Unixen wasn't vi or a vi descendant (vim), but Emacs, an editor alien to Unix. Knowing Vi was almost something 'mandatory' in order to manage servers' configuration under any Unix like OS, and ed on hard emergencies where even the terminal wasn't reliable enough. Windows needs WSL2 and POSIX compat to be relevant today. Win32 itself doesn't run on top of a DOS like VM having almost a 95% of control of the machine, but on a VMS'like kernel with objects a la IBM. MacOS itself it's just a Macintosh like UI made from NeXTStep scraps, a Mach kernel and pieces from a FreeBSD useland.
    - close04 2mo ago
      > switched from communism to free markets Free markets are a component of capitalism just as they are a component of market socialism. China is a planned economy which stands in contrast to a market economy. But China has taken bits and pieces from many systems to create something that works for them, a hybrid that's probably specific to China alone. It's just capitalist enough to be able to interface with big wallets around the world, but we can all agree China itself is very far from being free market capitalism.
      - WalterBright 2mo ago
        Compare China today with China of the Cultural Revolution.
  - WalterBright 2mo ago
    I'm not a particular fan of intellectual property. It's a made-up form of property, and seems to be more of an impediment to progress than a help. I'm not joking - the D language is as open source as possible. We give it away for free.
- close04 2mo ago
  > Socialism's track record is pretty bad. There aren't many pure socialist countries like there aren't many (any?) pure capitalist countries. Most of Europe operates in mixed mode, half socialist. Some countries are very bad (and against) at implementing any measures that directly benefit the lower classes (as opposed to the typical capitalist "trickle-down economics") so they vilify anything that has even the faintest smell of socialism. > They're always running out of other peoples' money. I wish people would stop parroting this as some sort of deep insight. Capitalists don't run out of other people's money but they do collect all of it. Ask the capitalists who sink other people's investments with no recourse. Ask the capitalists who get funded from people's pension funds, with "interesting" IPO strategies. Don't turn a blind eye for the sake of a remark which was witty a few decades ago and sounds just ignorant today.
  - WalterBright 2mo ago
    > Capitalists don't run out of other people's money but they do collect all of it No, they don't "collect all of it". Musk's trillion dollars was created, it was not "collected". > which was witty a few decades ago and sounds just ignorant today. Countries that turn to socialism are always running massive deficits paid for with inflation. American states and cities that lean into socialism are all having major problems with running out of money and raising taxes.
- benj111 2mo ago
  >For good reason. Socialism's track record is pretty bad. They're always running out of other peoples' money. Define socialism. Isn't the collectively owned road outside your property essentially socialism? Would that work better if it were privately owned?
  - WalterBright 2mo ago
    [flagged]
  - letmehelpyou 1mo ago
    [dead]

WalterBright 2mo ago

> The incentive to create and invent is often largely financial, however that incentive need not be constructed as “winner takes all” rather we should lift each other up in our mutual accomplishments. The Wrights definitely were in it for the money. The government project was the Langley Prototype, which cost 20 times more than what the Wrights spent, and fell into the Potomac like a sack of wet cement. > the scary boogey man of socialism For good reason. Socialism's track record is pretty bad. They're always running out of other peoples' money.

natpalmer1776 2mo ago
Certainly socialism is a heavy and dangerous solution to most problems, the critiques of it are many, and of the many most are fair. I say boogeyman not to imply it is without problems but rather to say that in the problem spaces that it is often deplored the incumbent alternative is often categorically worse for all those who do not directly benefit from it, which is usually a supermajority at a minimum. Thus, to make the incumbent more tolerable a caricature of an idea is brought forth to scare those who would otherwise support an aspirational idealist into backing the known “lesser” evils.
robocat 2mo ago
> Socialism's track record is pretty bad However the track record for developed countries communally sharing "intellectual property" is much much better. Universities, open source, and public domain all have some crossover with the ideals of socialism. Yes, communism has repeatedly failed spectacularly. The softer socialism of public welfare has worked (so far) for many countries including the US. Although I'm skeptical about the future given modern demographics and our governments' choices to appease a majority. The governments of most developed countries smell socialist to me. I'm from New Zealand and most private income/property is taxed up the wahoo to pay for our social welfare programs: it doesn't take much squinting to see my own society as broadly socialist. Somehow I see people in the US complaining that the Chinese are beating the US at capitalism (regular complaints of price undercutting and monopolistic behaviours) - what's weird since the Chinese are supposed to be pinkos.
- WalterBright 2mo ago
  The Chinese switched from communism to free markets. Prosperity resulted.
  - anthk 2mo ago
    Hybrid system, actually. No 100% pure system survived, ever. Be capitalist, communist, or technology philosophy bound. The GNU project tried to expand Unix with ITS editors (Emacs), utilities, ITS'like freedom and Lisp (Emacs and Scheme, again). For a while the most used editor for Unixen wasn't vi or a vi descendant (vim), but Emacs, an editor alien to Unix. Knowing Vi was almost something 'mandatory' in order to manage servers' configuration under any Unix like OS, and ed on hard emergencies where even the terminal wasn't reliable enough. Windows needs WSL2 and POSIX compat to be relevant today. Win32 itself doesn't run on top of a DOS like VM having almost a 95% of control of the machine, but on a VMS'like kernel with objects a la IBM. MacOS itself it's just a Macintosh like UI made from NeXTStep scraps, a Mach kernel and pieces from a FreeBSD useland.
  - close04 2mo ago
    > switched from communism to free markets Free markets are a component of capitalism just as they are a component of market socialism. China is a planned economy which stands in contrast to a market economy. But China has taken bits and pieces from many systems to create something that works for them, a hybrid that's probably specific to China alone. It's just capitalist enough to be able to interface with big wallets around the world, but we can all agree China itself is very far from being free market capitalism.
    - WalterBright 2mo ago
      Compare China today with China of the Cultural Revolution.
- WalterBright 2mo ago
  I'm not a particular fan of intellectual property. It's a made-up form of property, and seems to be more of an impediment to progress than a help. I'm not joking - the D language is as open source as possible. We give it away for free.
close04 2mo ago
> Socialism's track record is pretty bad. There aren't many pure socialist countries like there aren't many (any?) pure capitalist countries. Most of Europe operates in mixed mode, half socialist. Some countries are very bad (and against) at implementing any measures that directly benefit the lower classes (as opposed to the typical capitalist "trickle-down economics") so they vilify anything that has even the faintest smell of socialism. > They're always running out of other peoples' money. I wish people would stop parroting this as some sort of deep insight. Capitalists don't run out of other people's money but they do collect all of it. Ask the capitalists who sink other people's investments with no recourse. Ask the capitalists who get funded from people's pension funds, with "interesting" IPO strategies. Don't turn a blind eye for the sake of a remark which was witty a few decades ago and sounds just ignorant today.
- WalterBright 2mo ago
  > Capitalists don't run out of other people's money but they do collect all of it No, they don't "collect all of it". Musk's trillion dollars was created, it was not "collected". > which was witty a few decades ago and sounds just ignorant today. Countries that turn to socialism are always running massive deficits paid for with inflation. American states and cities that lean into socialism are all having major problems with running out of money and raising taxes.
benj111 2mo ago
>For good reason. Socialism's track record is pretty bad. They're always running out of other peoples' money. Define socialism. Isn't the collectively owned road outside your property essentially socialism? Would that work better if it were privately owned?
- WalterBright 2mo ago
  [flagged]
- letmehelpyou 1mo ago
  [dead]