hoaw · HackerTrans

hoaw

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7 年前議論

It is supported because it is accepted, especially in places like hacker news, to not be scientifically literate. In fact it is so obviously problematic that you would to a large degree have to be obnoxious to support it without reserve. Which is why you see all these rhetorical arguments, sarcasm and hostile engagements in this thread. Of course from a reasoned perspective this would indicate that you were wrong. But if you have already realized that they aren't going to win with arguments, it is instead seen a good thing that the discussion isn't about that.

7 年前議論

> If you have no access to better credit, payday loans are often the least-worst option.

Just isn't a very relevant argument. The reason you regulate things are because they provide, often strong, value to one or multiple parties but overall negative effects. Either eventually to the parties themselves or society at large. It is essentially a way to control externalities. So you would have to argue that these benefits are greater than the negatives.

> The only credible solution is to improve access to credit for the poor [...]

If payday loans are legitimate there is unlikely to be a need for such a solution.

7 年前議論

It is an important distinction. Contributions pay for employees, taxes pay for a successful society where companies can be successful. When companies end up not paying much tax, the feedback loop between successful companies and a successful society is broken. Society therefor no longer has an incentive, or even ability, to provide new opportunities for people. Instead you end up in a unsustainable situation where the incentive is to try and capture what is already there and not to creating new things.

7 年前議論

I think little of the advice so far is that useful.

What happens when you burn out is that you engage in a unsustainable situation, often for some time, until the effect catches up with you. To not burn out again you need to regain the connection between e.g. working to much and a decrease in performance. You need the realization that engaging in this unsustainable situation will hurt you again.

Also burn out is often a nice way to say that you are essentially having mental health issues caused by the situation you are in. Not generally something to take lightly. And not something you want to experience repeatedly.

I haven't read it yet but "It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work" might be a good start.

7 年前議論

I think there are a number of companies building modular homes. IKEA has a join venture with a construction company for example [0]. Just that construction isn't generally the problem. We know how to build relatively cheaply.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0dbRKACktA [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgu7ZK894gs

7 年前議論

Right. I am saying that if you take time off you end up being at odds with much of society. You realize that many things, even leisure activities, now only exists in relation to work. And after not working for a while few of these things are exciting anymore.

So I am not saying it isn't a good idea. Just that it is hard from a practical perspective. Which is why younger people who take sabbaticals often end up in e.g. Asia.

7 年前議論

I am not sure it is. At least not in a bad way. Things like sleeping, eating and showering are universal. There is a quite defined line, in terms of space, where things gets fundamentally worse. Even in terms of pure functionality, as in e.g. functionalism, you just can't make things smaller at some point without significant downsides.

7 年前議論

I mostly agree and think there are a number of points to be made.

1. There is nothing wrong with living small, but there is a point when every square meter/feet makes a lot of difference.

2. We really should be getting better standards of living over time as manufacturing gets easier. Most people should be having even modest vacation homes bigger than this.

3. Even if you don't believe in these things, it is to some extent at least an ideal. Maybe especially in the US giving up this ideal is a significant decrease in prosperity.

Ultimately one has to ask themselves "for what?". I can in many ways see the appeal and I am interested in things like house construction. But ultimately it is also a result of the absurd situation where we aren't producing new opportunities anymore. And you can't really compensate for the changes in the bigger picture.

7 年前議論

If you didn't take much vacation you basically cut your own salary by 10% compared to "limited vacation" though?

7 年前議論

Not unlikely, which is why I wrote somewhat vaguely. Ironically I don't have time to read your resources at the moment. My point is that there just isn't that much room for other things these days. So many things, from a $5 coffee to housing, is based on the idea that everyone is working all the time. You can of course quit working, pay the same rent and lock yourself in a room trying to forget the outside world until you can't. But I am not sure that is a road to happiness either. I mean, many people can barely achieve "weekend glory" these days.

7 年前議論

I think that is a very weird conclusion. In Europe, because there is a safety net, there is mostly nothing to "climb out of". Working a menial job and/or playing video games before going on to university or getting a career is mostly ordinary. At least half the people I work with don't have bachelors degrees. The US actually has as high, and often higher, amounts of degrees per capita compared to European countries. Also none of my friends who were into computers growing up are doing badly relatively speaking. Which is largely a factor of the tech industry and not society.

7 年前議論

Only a couple of minutes ago you were saying that effort was the measure, not resources or risk. Which are entirely different concepts. I don't really see the point of arguing if we don't even have common understanding of different words.

7 年前議論

I have done similar things and it generally isn't. Or it is getting very hard to make it so.

Western society has become much more hierarchical in recent years. It is harder and harder to find any "cracks in system" on a fundamental level. Even if you would consider leisure to be neutral, and not in need of meaning, most people aren't even starting from a neutral point. So if you do something else you end up being underprivileged rather than in leisure.

7 年前議論

That is a selective view of the free market. For any company under pressure to succeed there are others whose expertise is extracting, rather than producing, value. Failed projects, both private and public, are often run by such companies that are successful in what they do, just not in what they deliver.

I think if there is any comprehensive reason why companies like SpaceX, Tesla or e.g. Amazon are successful is because they are vertically integrated. The limited the amount of activity, and responsibility, not under their own control. These days the government is often prevented from doing this, and large companies often want to cut cost in the short term.

These companies have understood that their is less of an information gap these days, so there is little reason to let others take care of you core activities.

7 年前議論

No, it is arguing that it is factually wrong based on prejudice. Most obviously that the groups negative factors aren't inherent and their contributions aren't valued.

7 年前議論

Which is essentially the whole argument of the article. For example as summarized in the last paragraph:

"Expert knowledge, of course, has an important place in democratic deliberation, but it can also cut people out of the policy process, dampen the urgency of moral claims, and program a sense of powerlessness into our public discourse."

7 年前議論

Not the mixed market economy as such (though that is losing its meaning as well), but taxing automation.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/08/sweden-social-democracy-m...

7 年前議論

> On-site blue collar jobs are safer, as a percentage. Robots can prefab things in factories, but it will be a long time before automated robots can build or repair anything on-site with the efficiency of humans + power tools.

It is hard to replace someone like that, but you can make their work meaningless. You could e.g. make electrical wiring that is trivial to install and self-diagnoses. So now it is "Uber Electrician".

7 年前議論

People in this thread have essentially been saying that in the future we could pay people to do other things. I am saying that we could already do that today.

Simplified, basics might cost $500 a month, but to live in New York you are paying maybe $5000 a month. The income isn't the problem, the cost of goods isn't the problem and the premium is the problem.

It doesn't really matter which way you do things unless you can remove the premium on success, progress, prosperity or whatever you want to call it. And if we do remove the premium we don't necessarily need these esoteric solutions.

Most, or at least many, people today already have money, it just doesn't go very far. So how is giving people a small amount of money going to change anything? It probably isn't, unless there is social change. Which the lack of is therefor the problem, not providing income as such.

For the record I do think a mixed market economy that keeps the cost of living in check and taxes automation is the most obvious answer. But Sweden already sort of tried that in the 1970's. Unsurprisingly very unpopular.

7 年前議論

I don't see how it can be decoupled. Most programmers have (hopefully) created enough value when in their thirties for basic living the rest of their lives. The reason you can't is because you are, both before and after, paying someone else for opportunities. You could fund whatever human activity you want today if you could pay for housing, food and information at cost.