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SF is a sign of a bigger problem, not the cause. The world is becoming a winner-take-all economy. The best and brightest get bestier and brightier because they get to work on the latest and greatest and know the latest and greatest. If you "miss the train", you have to grovel with the masses for the scraps.

The Internet has made it both easier to find who and what you are looking for, and to filter out the rest. Inefficiency of info sharing used to act as a kind of socialism, giving average people & shops sales and opportunities. Now it's winner take all, the rest be damned.

Same with countries also; it's why the 3rd world is finding it hard to keep up with the big powers.

Let's face it, some of Karl Marx's predictions about "owners" growing ever larger like a snowball rolling downhill are coming true. (Whether his "solutions" work are another matter.)

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I agree with sentiments of parts of what you say. However, the 3rd world countries have had the largest gains in the last 30 years. Global extreme poverty, child mortality, lifespan in 3rd world countries have had the most improvements BY FAR.

They are surviving due to exported social programs and technologies, along with some capitalist altruism.

The improvements are only pulling up the 3rd world to below 1st world poverty standards. The winners keep winning and the winners from the 3rd world ONLY succeed on the world stage, after having migrated to a 1st world country.

In many cases they went from super-poor to just poor. While an improvement, they still lag way behind the so-called industrialized countries.

Put another way, if we divide a family's economic condition into very poor, poor, middle class, and wealthy; the world system(s) appears to be bunching everybody into "poor" (and perhaps a few more into "rich") while the other categories are shrinking. The ideal would be to have most of the population in the middle-class.

It may well be the case that the steady state is '~everyone is poor'.

Can the world function if everyone lives the life of a 50-100K/year income American?

Since machines can do a lot of the "real work", yes. Our methods of income distribution may need to change if robots become the "new slaves". We can maybe learn something from ancient Greek society. Our current problem is that the wealth is not trickling down from the machine owners to regular folks.

This is a genuinely good take, and the downvotes are disappointing. We like to describe new efficiencies in productivity and information-seeking as "good for the consumer," because that's a highly positive effect.

But it's awful for any supplier who hasn't found a way to be better than the best yet - and that in turn can encourage unhealthy consolidation of large businesses at the expense of small ones.

Put another way: let's face it, some of Adam Smith's predictions about the risks of monopoly were right too.

“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”

Downvotes are indeed frustrating. If I am "thinking wrong", I wish to know WHY I am thinking wrong so that I don't do it again. Downvoting rarely gives the necessary feedback to correct faulty thinking. I will "stay broken" without useful feedback.

Sorry to enter the meta-discussion, especially since I voted up. Downvote discussion is tedious since the stance of this website is clear. It is to express value. You being correct is your problem. Us kicking wrong comments out of our way is our problem. Since fixing the former is harder than the latter, we don’t necessarily want to do it.

If I think you’re wrong, I’m going to downvote you and move on. That’s because when I’m reading, I only want to read correct things.

Re: If I think you’re wrong, I’m going to downvote you and move on

If the receiver of the downvote doesn't know why, they may make the same thinking process mistake again, and moderators will have to reinvent their downvotes in the future. It may not be the same person each time, but in agraggrate thinking errors pile up, so that approach doesn't scale for forums full of mostly repeat commentators.

In my opinion, Hacker News should require a non-trivial comment on the reason why something is downvoted, prompting for sufficient counter-details. Maybe that's dreamy feature-creep, but it sure would feel nicer than hit-and-run downvotes. I prefer to learn from my mistakes.

Anyhow, the specific score changed so it's no longer an issue here, but remains a general frustration. Thanks for your feedback; I appreciate it regardless of whether I agree.

I get downvoted all the time, I can usually guess why. But I agree that an explanation would be helpful.

I'd like to request tips on "what not do say" here on H.N.

pretty much anything that goes against the silicon valley consensus on political and ethical matters.

Your thinking is absolutely correct and i feel the same way that you do. The world in general likes to reward those who already have in an exponential fashion. This is why no matter what type of system we adopt, there will always be a 1% and a 99% (In sports, wealth, academia, whatever... with the top .01% having an even more mind boggling share of resources or whatever). I don't mind being part of the 99% if my basic necessities are met, after all the cause of revolutions and the like is because they necessities are not met. I think the efficiency in production and all the technological advances should ultimately at least allow common people their basic necessities without requiring something of them in return. I think a universal basic income will have to be adopted at some point.

I mean there are some solutions here.. Buy local. Hail a taxi. Don't use Google and log off of Facebook/Instagram.

Have we tried enforcing antitrust law?

The (legalized) bribery pockets of the big co's are too strong.

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