Our goal is to help everyone achieve a better life, right? Then some people are more valuable to that goal than others. They aren't more valuable in an absolute sense (no one is) but according to our current problems they are relatively more useful. Governments are trying to spend their money in the smartest way possible. I'm saying that we should prioritize a certain type of spending over another. With enough tech, we will be able to achieve real equality that is today impossible. Once that is achieved, we can forget about tech or value of human beings. These will be problems of the past.
Note that internet does not necessarily help education. Most people waste their time on the internet, including most of us on HN.
You can have as much info available to you as you want, if you go in the wrong direction or take no real action then it will all be for naught.
>Sorry just saw your strange reference to Newton as well. >You are saying technological advancement is more important >than people, and we should prioritise advancement over people...
>why? Why should we advance technology for technologies sake?
That's not what I said at all. On the contrary, I'm saying that if you want to help people technological progress will be vastly more efficient than anything else, and particularly aid programs. I don't care about progress for its own sake, nobody does. I'm saying that some people are objectively more valuable than others in the long term and that we should help them instead of helping huge numbers of less productive people. A single great invention could save all those people better than any amount of aid money.
Yes, but who gets the better time spots? People are already pissed that time zones are based on England's time, how angry do you think they will be when they get some illogical time zone while the anglo-saxons get to keep the am in the morning and the pm in the actual afternoon?
You've got it the wrong way: with his billions and fame, he is more likely to be honest and to mock others. People will listen to him and respect no matter what he says.
Disclaimer: I am not a STEM guy so don't go calling me an elitist.
This might seem like a callous view but I think it's better to invest money on helping the scientist caste (wherever they might have been born) than to simply cure a bunch of random people. In the movie Elysium (2013), they send magic machines to help the masses, which achieves nothing since they are just as poor as before but a bit healthier. I left the movie theater feeling depressed and angry.
What we need is real technological progress. If we could for example synthesize objects or food easily à la Star Trek, we would solve poverty and inequality more efficiently than thousands of years of social programs.
Consider the fact that Isaac Newton's scientific output was worth more than 99% of the work of every other intellectual in the world in the past few centuries leading up to his birth. What's even more amazing is that Newton spent only a tiny fraction of his time doing actual science; he was obsessed with mysticism and other pseudo-scientific doctrines. So giving a billion dollars to the next Newton will be many order of magnitudes smarter than spending that same billion curing laborers. However, it's not politically correct, so I doubt it will be feasible.
People have tried building such societies many times: all have failed. The problem is that you've got ambitious humans and less ambitious ones. So how is it ridiculous to claim that a leader caste automatically appears in every situation? It doesn't have anything to do with gender or race. It's the simple fact that we are not born equal and have different abilities.
Patriotism has many definitions. Some people are more than happy to serve the US as it currently stands. Why is that so hard to understand for you? Not everyone shares the usual Hacker News anti-government stance.
A libertarian anarchy will simply lead to another hierarchy being set into place. You can't have a society where there is no ruling class. It's unnatural.
I honestly find that surprising. Germany is the place in Europe where there is the most white guilt. I stayed there for a few months and experienced zero problems.
With regards to your female friend: I think what she meant by broke is that she isn't really broke, she just doesn't have enough money for the lifestyle she's accustomed to or desires.
No. I just think it's posturing on his part. He's pretending to be something he's not, so that people see the friendly brogrammer instead of the ambitious "They trust me — dumb fucks" CEO who disregards privacy.
I don't generally support socialism, but your statement is completely wrong. What about Scandinavia and Germany? What about worker's rights? The US itself has plenty of measures which were deemed socialist years ago[1] but are now so common that we take them for granted.
[1] Note that socialism designates a vast array of different ideologies and its meaning is continually evolving. It certainly did not mean the same thing in Steinbeck's time as it does today.