Hacker News Reader

I'm not arguing that it isn't uncomfortable, nor that people aren't justified in their unhappiness, I am arguing that the desire to use policy to express that unhappiness and uncomfortability upon the polity is wrong (I would even say it's selfish). Their comfort when "things were better" was built upon the market at the snapshot in time they enjoyed it. To demand that the market revert to that time is, by definition, regressive.

View on HN

I mostly agree, but the point I'm making is that the people who made Austin a mecca for interesting culture moved there precisely because it was not a market oriented culture. So of course they're unhappy about the change in cultural orientation, and without money themselves, they have little recourse outside of policy (though they do have the ability to shape policy given the long term power structures there). And I'm not sure it's wrong to try to prop up established elements of the culture they like, though I do suspect it's untenable.

> I would even say it's selfish

> (previously) cultures are emergent properties from markets

Honest question: Do you think selfishness is a bad thing? As you seem to have such apparent respect for the primacy of markets, I would think not. Why then would you choose to jab people with this idea that they're being selfish? Is it because you think they would be against selfishness and are therefore being hypocrites?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com