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Comment by adwhit | Hacker News Reader

HN tends to be extremely reactionary to posts like this. Perhaps because the tech/startup scene is all about getting rich quick, or perhaps because HN has come to partially reflect the personal views of PG.

There will be a reckoning. The world is 'unsustainably unequal' at the moment. There are huge problems on the horizon - superbugs, climate change, resource depletion, environmental degradation, overpopulation. These problems can only be solved when governments act in the interests of all of humankind. This will not happen when the 1% hold all the money and all the power (which is the same thing).

I hope we can reign in the rentiering, tax-avoiding, propaganda-publishing rich and reclaim democracy before Something Bad happens. Otherwise, when the SHTF, the 1% will deservedly shoulder all the blame. And that will be the reckoning.

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i understand your sentiment here, and in the view of history this is true. The problem is that now, or very soon, we are/will be in a state where the 1% can easily put down the 99% politically, socially, financially and yes militarily. So there may be a reckoning at some point. But it will and badly for the 99%. This was mostly true throughout history as well, it's just become a more certainty now.

100.000 british men simply cannot control 350 million Indians, if those Indians refuse to cooperate.

Throughout history it has been the case that sustained perceived inequality inevitably leads to revolution. We're nowhere near that point, but if trend lines continue and the middle class gets wiped out, it will happen. Democracy is supposed to prevent things from getting that bad, but we have seen that free elections are easily manipulated when you control the money and the message people hear, which is why these presidential elections will once again be a vote for either of two pro-super-rich candidates.

Ironically it is in the super-rich's best interest to raise taxes on themselves to stop this from getting out of hand.

If you look at previous eras of great wealth inequality such as the French revolution or the events leading up to the New Deal, the working classes were desperate enough to rise up. Either through force, or through sufficient threat of force they brought about changes that restored some balance to the system.

Nowdays, particularly in America, there is enough wealth to go around such that nobody is really that desperate. The masses are sufficiently pacified, but not so secure that they get funny ideas or opt to drop out and become hippies. We've got them exactly where we want them. So long as no substantial portion of the population goes hungry for more than 3 days everything is cool.

There's other things that have been working well. The ongoing threat of terrorism, black people, and mass surveillance keeps people in their place. Replacing mainstreet with wal-mart, increasing secularism, and the killing off of local media outlets with the internet is very useful for destroying community cohesiveness. It all helps to cultivate the perception that if everything goes to hell, you are alone in the universe and no one will help you. Unless some unknown unkown emerges to throw this all out of balance, there won't be any meaningful pushback, and the 99% will continue to serve us as a natural resource to be exploited.

Sure they can. Their weapon is the media instead of bullets. They just have to convince at least half of them the British policies benefit them. Plus provide them with guns. They'll shoot the other half for the British. Just like Democrat vs Republican politics and media in the U.S.. Nation can't win if it's divided and fighting each other over the actions of elites who they continue to fund and vote in. ;)

... And yet Gandhi was right. Those 100,000 British men failed and India is today the world's largest democracy.

He was right and wrong. He was right that 100,000 British men couldn't use lead with obviously-bad situation to control India. He was wrong given small numbers of men used a careful combo of military, money, and media to control U.S., Britain, and India. Currently, India mainly serves as cheap labor to support money-making operations in U.S., Britain, and other countries.

Gandhi was ultimately wrong: original exploitation was simply using tactics without psychological acceptance today's tactics have.

But in the case of India, didn't they try the other way and it didn't work for them, so they decided to go on the way of liberal economic reforms, while still adapting patent law to their unique circumstances(which i fully support) ?

You'd have to be more specific. I haven't studied India's history that much. I just know the result of globalization have been a fraction of a few countries' populations get rich essentially doing nothing while most population produces that wealth. And some countries almost totally do that for benefit of others. India appears to be one of those countries. So, it's in a modern form of economic slavery to rich, imperialist countries that now use capitalist tactics instead of bullets.

I'd still be interested in whatever historical points or patent differences you're talking about. I'm also assuming you're Indian as well?

Not Indian, Israeli.

Patent differences i'm talking about: The justified way India doesn't follow the western law on pharma patents.

Historical point: Up until relatively recently,India did have a closed economy, but did a lot to open their economy to foreign trade and investment(for example in the past you couldn't open a foreign subsidiary in India, Now there's even Amazon in India).

As for capitalistic tactics etc, that's definetly true. Just look at how much of the important contributions to silicon valley came from Indian people, both brain-drained and outsourced.

"Not Indian, Israeli."

Cool. Always like to see you all in security or legal discussions as you have interesting perspectives. :)

"Patent differences i'm talking about: The justified way India doesn't follow the western law on pharma patents."

I didn't realize they did that. I love that as I want serious changes to pharma patents here. It's basically legalized murder and unacceptable given what U.S. top causes of death are. So, I guess they did resist in some key ways. :)

"Up until relatively recently,India did have a closed economy, but did a lot to open their economy to foreign trade and investment"

Even the U.S. was isolationist for a while. It usually fails as both capitalists and consumers want the benefits of international trade. That opens them up to concessions. From there, we look at how they fair in ratio of benefit to their country vs to foreign countries. Germany, South Korea, Japan, and China seem to be examples of winners that ensure trade is very positive for them vs major countries. India seems to be one of the losers but has potential that's untapped.

"Just look at how much of the important contributions to silicon valley came from Indian people, both brain-drained and outsourced."

I actually don't know how many did outside smart people being hired at Google, etc to build key techs. Most of the groundbreaking stuff was American with VC or defense funding. Lots of improvements and experimental stuff (eg small players) involved foreigners. Big companies like IBM have their R&D in Israel, China, whatever brain-draining the crap out of them. So, it seems like a mix to me.

I guess what I'm getting at is that American innovators often got things started, becomes stagnant a bit, and then they start boosting it with foreign innovators. Other times, it's foreign innovators straight up making a contribution either here or over there. That gets monetized somehow by big players either through feature parity or acquisition.

Same, always a pleasure to to discuss stuff with you, you usually bring a lot of depth.

>> I actually don't know how many did outside smart people being hired at Google, ...

Leaving aside the entrepreneur(and the excessive hero worship around them), it's clear that startup companies highly depend on high quality employees. And the stats: Asian tech workers in Santa Clara are 50%[1].

Other stats: around 20% of US scientists and engineering are Foreign born. International students earn more than half of advanced STEM degrees in the U.S(and are probably behind half the university research). And what about second generation foreigners ?

And what about startups ? most of the successful startups in my country, which is known for startup quality, are bought before they can grow into to full form employing thousands.

And let's not forget - the effects are not linear - it's about ecosystems and power laws, things building on top of each other.

>> Germany, South Korea, Japan, and China seem to be examples of winners that ensure trade is very positive for them vs major countries. India seems to be one of the losers but has potential that's untapped.

Usually such growth path was through manufacturing, but there's some data from india hinting that china and manufacturing don't offer that path anymore, which is pretty worrying.

The election is looking like it will come down to Trump v. Sanders. Both of whom were the LAST choice of the "elite" who supposedly are pulling all the puppet strings.

I don't know how you can look at the democratic primary an think it looks like Sanders will be the nominee.

>Trump v. Sanders

Why do you think this?

Moreover, it there ends up being a violent reckoning, the outcome will be the 1% will be swapped out for a different 1% which will likely be worse than they are now. E.g. military junta or a bunch of mobsters.

"I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half."

We can boycott the rich. And when we cant, we can just choose to buy from the least rich

Try. Boycot banks by giving them no money, maintain social lending in your local area, see what happen then.

That sounds more like a theoretical solution than a practical one. You'd need to get most of the population to ignore short-term convenience and pay higher prices for things (optimizing for a different metric than lowest cost). I don't think that will happen.

Just saw your comment. You beat me to it. Here's mine, though, which provides a key detail:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11797166

-French Nobles just before the revolution

> The problem is that now, or very soon, we are/will be in a state where the 1% can easily put down the 99% politically, socially, financially and yes militarily.

They don't seem to be doing so hot politically. The poor Koch brothers can't even buy a primary election anymore.

Why does government have to do something? Don't you suppose it's part of the problem? We have an economic system imposed on us that is unsustainable and redistributes from the poor to the wealthy in the name of economic stability, "growth" and "creating jobs" as if optimizing those metrics will necessarily be to the benefit of anyone but the top.

Because in the end, the "government" is the only thing maintaining some order. There is no civilization without it - and anyone that tells you differently just can't visualize where "government" exists in their example.

When the rules of society get out of whack, government can either help solve the issue, or double down on bad policies. When they do the latter, they eventually become chapters in history books.

Yes, certain (many) actors in government now are reinforcing the problems, but to solve many of them at scale, you need government to be involved, if not in charge.

Government is far from the only thing that maintains "order". I sincerely doubt that the 'fear of getting arrested' is the only thing that keeps me from murdering people on the street, for example.

Government is merely one component of society, (or "civil"-ization, if you want to be somewhat more colonial about your usage). Specifically, it's the axis of society where we condone the non-consensual use of physical harm (or threats thereof) for various purposes.

I guess what you are saying is that the list of purposes should be unconstrained ('whatever it takes to meaintain order'). My contention is that in general, an unconstrained mandate exacerbates social inequality because the agents of government will have self-reinforcing biases, and their unconstrained judgements can be weaseled into whatever justification they choose. Specifically to address your position, the pursuit of 'order' is ill-defined, and historically has led to very bad things like colonialism in the somewhat distant past, and things like racial profiling in more recent memory.

What constitutes 'order' is a very normative and subjective concept - for example, you might consider a group of young minorities hanging out on a stoop to be 'disorderly' and sic the police on them.

I agree government should be constrained. That said, while government may not be the only thing keeping you from murdering people, other reasons are not shared across the whole of society. We don't all organize around your religion or moral code, let's say, and because of that, we have government.

It's true that government as a group of representatives of all people is slightly different from the now self-aware monster the (U.S., insert-your-personally-experienced-representative-government-here) government has become. But it's still the single organization we all agree to work through, and so changes made across an entire society most likely have to go through that government.

If something has to be done on a large scale, government has to do it.

Massive change has to be through a medium that is culpable and transparent. That is, in theory, a position only a government can or should hold.

US government needs thorough reform, but the mechanism of change has to be a government in the end.

Since when are governments "culpable and transparent"?

They aren't completely, but they are more so than private institutions can (or should) be. What alternative is there?

Also, non-military portions of government in the US tend to be surprisingly transparent.

The problem is one of gross, immoral and unjustifiable inequality.

Everything else is just semantics, conjecture and informed or misinformed opinion.

I hope I live to see the day when the parasites of society meet their reckoning as I believe the idea of a more equal society coming about by reason as totally naive and foolhardy.

I hope we can reign in the rentiering, tax-avoiding, propaganda-publishing rich and reclaim democracy before Something Bad happens.

Frankly, I don't believe anything really bad happens to very rich people. A nice perk of becoming super-rich.

you must've missed your history lessons then.

the mobs always went for them first and killed their hole families. it hasn't happend in over 100 years though and its likely that it won't happen again, as the rich can buy automated defense systems nowadays that could slaughter any amount of revolutionaries that come knocking on their doors

When monarchy was hereditary, there was an obvious target. Now most rich persons are unknown out of a small circle. And they will take a jet to Switzerland or the Tropics.

The power is outsourced to politicians.

The funny thing is that the leaked memos to the super-rich describe exactly those threats to their wealth and existence.

http://politicalgates.blogspot.com/2011/12/citigroup-plutono...

Yeah, and to some degree, this feeling is what a lot of reactionary and anti establishment parties are doing well off of at the moment. Growing inequality means that there's a lot of votes for political parties on the far left and right whose solution to this is basically 'destroy everything'.

I suspect fears of this are also why 'identity politics' has become a scourge in the last few years or so. Why immigration is often used as the fear of the moment. Why so much of the media tries to paint people as bigots.

Because things were getting quite bad against the 1% beforehand, with stuff like Occupy being a good example. Getting people to turn against each other over gender, race, personal hobbies and interests, religion and minor social differences diverts the anger to targets that don't threaten them.

> HN tends to be extremely reactionary to posts like this. Perhaps because the tech/startup scene is all about getting rich quick

Claims like this are common but seem mostly to be cognitive bias. The community is divided, and people on each side of the divide perceive it as skewing the opposite way. I think it's because statements we disagree with stand out more starkly than the ones we agree with. Painful experiences are more memorable than pleasurable ones.

Violence can come from the left or the right. Sure, there might be a "reckoning" where the 1% are punished for their alleged misdeeds. Their might also be a "reckoning" where leftists are punished for spreading an allegedly subversive and counterproductive ideology. Both have certainly happened in the past.

The problem with your reasoning, is that you have already assumed that you've won the intellectual debate and so your opponents are only acting from self-interest. But the main "reactionary" posts (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11796842 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11796746) contain good counterarguments to the article that you haven't addressed.

Western society/governments will start looking more and more like the Chinese I feel, cause western society hasn't found any serious alternate way of reigning in the 1%. It will most likely happen after the "something bad" stuff does.

China has greater ratios of inequality than the US. See World Bank figures: http://wdi.worldbank.org/table/2.9

Which would support the hypothesis. Greater inequality greater the tendencies for authoritarian control. US inequality is on a increasing trajectory with nothing likely to stop it. So where else do we end up?

For nth time can we please stop talking about 'tax-avoiding' as if it's something we should not do? Every sensible individual so arranges their affairs so as to avoid tax as much as possible within the law. Governments of whatever stripe set the tax rules. We citizens obey. Government is always free to change the rules to suit its tax raising objectives. Tax evasion is of course illegal.

As UK Judge Lord Clyde stated 'No man in the country is under the smallest obligation, moral or other, so to arrange his legal relations to his business or property as to enable the Inland Revenue to put the largest possible shovel in his stores. The Inland Revenue is not slow, and quite rightly, to take every advantage which is open to it under the Taxing Statutes for the purposes of depleting the taxpayer's pocket. And the taxpayer is in like manner entitled to be astute to prevent, so far as he honestly can, the depletion of his means by the Inland Revenue'

Can I lobby the government to change the law to lower my tax bill? No, I'm not wealthy enough.

Top marginal income tax rates in the UK during the 60s were 98%.

The top marginal rates don't reflect what is actually paid in taxes. The tax laws are complex, very complex for high income people. Although the top marginal rates for individuals has come down dramatically from the highs of decades ago in the USA, the actual tax paid as a percentage of total income has gone up in the US for the top 10%.

The USA has a very progressive tax system. The top 20% of earners in the USA make 51% of total US income(2014) and pay 84% of total US income tax.

This data is pretty easy to find: OECD publications, see [1], WSJ see [2]

[1] http://darp.lse.ac.uk/resources/books/GrowingUnequal_OECD.pd...

[2] http://www.wsj.com/articles/top-20-of-earners-pay-84-of-inco...

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