11 ms·

I wrote the paper, ask me anything.

by skilesare 12y ago

ForHackernews 12y ago
What makes this an academic paper and not a blog post?
- wavefunction 12y ago
  It's not served up via a blog for one, I guess.
- LesZedCB 12y ago
  He called it a paper. It doesn't need to appear in a peer-reviewed journal to be a paper...
  - skilesare 12y ago
    They called for papers and I wrote one.
- mgob 12y ago
  I'm not an academic so I won't profess to be an expert about papers, but it struck me as odd that it was written in the first person. Felt like a blog post with lipstick. I'm under qualified to address the paper itself, but it was an interesting read.
- BrainInAJar 12y ago
  LaTeX
  - VMG 12y ago
    Looks like LibreOffice to me to be honest.
asciimo 12y ago
This is what the PDF looks like in Chrome 41.0.2272.101 (64-bit) on Ubuntu 14.04.2: http://imgur.com/T1ln9Cl http://imgur.com/T1ln9Cl Looks fine when I download it and read in Document Viewer.
shredprez 12y ago
Not a question, just some thoughts: It seems to me that economic rent, far from being an immoral oversight, is the fundamental law of capitalism. In all cases a capitalist seeks to charge more than it cost them to produce an item, or to gain some information, or to acquire a property. The more that item, or information, or property is worth to the market, the greater rent/profit the rentier can extract. While this function can clearly be abused by those with great means, the basic concept is exactly what makes capitalism so efficient when it comes to growth: any person has the chance (hypothetically) to find and exploit differences in cost and value to increase their personal wealth. I can't find anything immoral with this form of rent-seeking. Which seems to imply it isn't so much the practice that we hate, but who chooses to practice it. When the laborer exploits, he makes a living. When the banks exploit, our whole economy shifts. We applaud the former and fear the latter, and that fear appears to be the motivator behind most criticism along the lines of that in your paper (apt criticism). But, fear aside, there is no effective way to control inequities of power. If you cap access to power too low, you rob your economy of potential growth. If you cap access to power too high, the cap is meaningless: the powerful will circumvent your laws and do as they wish. And no matter how you cap it, the real effect will be to entrench the current elite and prevent new blood from cycling into the upper echelons (which is to say, you will have institutionalized inequality). Those currently in power will simply find a way to conceal or transform their power and rule in a shrinking market of rivals. All of this is to say: inequality is an issue of power, not money. And in that context, inequality is a law of nature. If our goal is ending inequality in nature, we are wasting our time. If our goal is unseating those currently in power, we need to be honest with ourselves about that. In the end, questions of fiscal inequality are about power (a real force), not morality (an imagined one). While power can be taken, it can't be destroyed. And if we take fiscal dominance from the powerful, that dominance will just take a different form. tl;dr What we're really grappling with is fear of nature, inequality being a natural and unavoidable result of differing degrees of individual and collective power. Really enjoyed the paper, and I'd love to see these principles tested in the coming years. Any plans to develop the blockchain protocol you described anytime soon?
- skilesare 12y ago
  Economic rent is immoral...and awesome. Like being able to collect taxes and defend ourselves. That is why I propse a new social contract that keeps the power of economic rent. I'm launching a kickstarter tomorrow to build an experiment on test net.
free2rhyme214 12y ago
What's your alternative?
mjfl 12y ago
I'm not sure I totally understood the system that you are envisioning. For example, at one point you say something like: banks will need to find some other way, besides lending at interest, to get profits. How does your system not just disincentive lending all together? And if lending money at interest is immoral, how should a first-time home buyer find money to buy a house?
- skilesare 12y ago
  Great questions! I'm not sure interest is immoral really. I just think it make more sense for it to be low. In the specific instance of a first time home buyer, this person is typically young and has a lot of earning ahead of them. They can get a lower rate because the banker is thinking more like a VC now and will issue a low interest rate loan to bet that this person will have a significant amount of cash go through their account over the next 80 years that will add up to a nice profit for the banker. The banker's interest in the well being of the person also extends far beyond the repayment of the principle. Win-win for everyone other than the vampire bankers out there.
dnautics 12y ago
Thank you for delineating the difference between "natural" and "artificial" returns. I think that this is something that Piketty totally misses as the causal factor for inequality. I suppose I would consider myself a non-objectivist (or "humanist") capitalist in your classification... I run a nonprofit science research organization, so I accept that profit is often a good indicator of creating social value but see a role for nonprofit activities and also do not see profit as an 'end onto itself' (capital-ism). One interesting observation that you may like is that relative poverty in the US ('the divide between the rich and the poor', if you will), which has generally been getting better over the course of 200-or-so years took a turn for the worse in 1972, when Nixon closed the gold window, and hasn't clawed back. Drop a line, I have some interesting thoughts that I'd like to share (contact info in profile).

I wrote the paper, ask me anything.

ForHackernews 12y ago

What makes this an academic paper and not a blog post?

wavefunction 12y ago
It's not served up via a blog for one, I guess.
LesZedCB 12y ago
He called it a paper. It doesn't need to appear in a peer-reviewed journal to be a paper...
- skilesare 12y ago
  They called for papers and I wrote one.
mgob 12y ago
I'm not an academic so I won't profess to be an expert about papers, but it struck me as odd that it was written in the first person. Felt like a blog post with lipstick. I'm under qualified to address the paper itself, but it was an interesting read.
BrainInAJar 12y ago
LaTeX
- VMG 12y ago
  Looks like LibreOffice to me to be honest.

asciimo 12y ago

This is what the PDF looks like in Chrome 41.0.2272.101 (64-bit) on Ubuntu 14.04.2: http://imgur.com/T1ln9Cl http://imgur.com/T1ln9Cl Looks fine when I download it and read in Document Viewer.

shredprez 12y ago

Not a question, just some thoughts: It seems to me that economic rent, far from being an immoral oversight, is the fundamental law of capitalism. In all cases a capitalist seeks to charge more than it cost them to produce an item, or to gain some information, or to acquire a property. The more that item, or information, or property is worth to the market, the greater rent/profit the rentier can extract. While this function can clearly be abused by those with great means, the basic concept is exactly what makes capitalism so efficient when it comes to growth: any person has the chance (hypothetically) to find and exploit differences in cost and value to increase their personal wealth. I can't find anything immoral with this form of rent-seeking. Which seems to imply it isn't so much the practice that we hate, but who chooses to practice it. When the laborer exploits, he makes a living. When the banks exploit, our whole economy shifts. We applaud the former and fear the latter, and that fear appears to be the motivator behind most criticism along the lines of that in your paper (apt criticism). But, fear aside, there is no effective way to control inequities of power. If you cap access to power too low, you rob your economy of potential growth. If you cap access to power too high, the cap is meaningless: the powerful will circumvent your laws and do as they wish. And no matter how you cap it, the real effect will be to entrench the current elite and prevent new blood from cycling into the upper echelons (which is to say, you will have institutionalized inequality). Those currently in power will simply find a way to conceal or transform their power and rule in a shrinking market of rivals. All of this is to say: inequality is an issue of power, not money. And in that context, inequality is a law of nature. If our goal is ending inequality in nature, we are wasting our time. If our goal is unseating those currently in power, we need to be honest with ourselves about that. In the end, questions of fiscal inequality are about power (a real force), not morality (an imagined one). While power can be taken, it can't be destroyed. And if we take fiscal dominance from the powerful, that dominance will just take a different form. tl;dr What we're really grappling with is fear of nature, inequality being a natural and unavoidable result of differing degrees of individual and collective power. Really enjoyed the paper, and I'd love to see these principles tested in the coming years. Any plans to develop the blockchain protocol you described anytime soon?

skilesare 12y ago
Economic rent is immoral...and awesome. Like being able to collect taxes and defend ourselves. That is why I propse a new social contract that keeps the power of economic rent. I'm launching a kickstarter tomorrow to build an experiment on test net.

free2rhyme214 12y ago

What's your alternative?

mjfl 12y ago

I'm not sure I totally understood the system that you are envisioning. For example, at one point you say something like: banks will need to find some other way, besides lending at interest, to get profits. How does your system not just disincentive lending all together? And if lending money at interest is immoral, how should a first-time home buyer find money to buy a house?

skilesare 12y ago
Great questions! I'm not sure interest is immoral really. I just think it make more sense for it to be low. In the specific instance of a first time home buyer, this person is typically young and has a lot of earning ahead of them. They can get a lower rate because the banker is thinking more like a VC now and will issue a low interest rate loan to bet that this person will have a significant amount of cash go through their account over the next 80 years that will add up to a nice profit for the banker. The banker's interest in the well being of the person also extends far beyond the repayment of the principle. Win-win for everyone other than the vampire bankers out there.

dnautics 12y ago

Thank you for delineating the difference between "natural" and "artificial" returns. I think that this is something that Piketty totally misses as the causal factor for inequality. I suppose I would consider myself a non-objectivist (or "humanist") capitalist in your classification... I run a nonprofit science research organization, so I accept that profit is often a good indicator of creating social value but see a role for nonprofit activities and also do not see profit as an 'end onto itself' (capital-ism). One interesting observation that you may like is that relative poverty in the US ('the divide between the rich and the poor', if you will), which has generally been getting better over the course of 200-or-so years took a turn for the worse in 1972, when Nixon closed the gold window, and hasn't clawed back. Drop a line, I have some interesting thoughts that I'd like to share (contact info in profile).