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Comment by CoreSet | Hacker News Reader

Sometimes I just have to laugh / cringe reading HN.

The detailed analysis of how this woman who wants to hold on to a piece of sentimental property is actually mistaken, is destroying the neighborhood, is willfully naive for not exploiting her position to make as much money as possible, etc, etc is predictable but tiring.

Fears about about "cash being the sole nexus between human beings" seem pretty realized on HN. It's as if no one - or at the very least the VC crowd - accepts that anyone could be doing anything _other_ than living their life in pursuit of profit.

And if they are, they're ignorant, naive - even selfish - for not aligning their intent with a profit motive.

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Reminds me of the last cornfield in the middle of Silicon valley. The field is worth millions if sold to a real estate developer but every year without fail there is a new crop of corn planted and harvested. I imagine it belongs to some aging retiree who sits on his/her rocking chair and watches the corn grow while harried tech executives in Teslas navigate rush hour traffic on the Lawrence expressway.

https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3622129,-121.9960813,3a,75y,...

The corn palace is owned by two 90-year old brothers who have farmed it forever. I don't know if they're still around.

I believe there is a documentary movie someone made about it maybe in the 90's.

It used to be bigger but the part furthest from lawrence expressway must have been parceled out because it was developed into homes.

And every year the corn field presumably becomes even more valuable.

Sounds like a smart investment strategy.

I live in Irvine, CA. Broadcom just built a multi-billion dollar campus (that's my crude understanding, maybe it's wrong; I work with what I hear). They are juxtaposed on 2 sides by agriculture fields. It's interesting to think about, as I drive by it frequently (it's on the way to my wife's office and the freeway).

Except for one thing that I don't think anyone has mentioned. This is a common ploy on behalf of owners of real estate to get the highest price for the property w/o appearing openly that that is what they are doing. Of course it's always suspected that is what they are doing. But it's really old school. You say you don't want to sell, won't sell, not at any price, reject all offers until one comes along that is so high you finally engage in the transaction.

I have actually run into this before many times.

Also part of the tell tale sign is that she plans to rent it out. That is another signal that she just plans to wait. Most likely the lease will be written in a way that allows her to terminate it if she wants with some kind of liquidated damages payment.

Now I have seen people not want to sell 'at any price' genuinely because they do run a business, don't need the money, and most importantly (and this is key) it gives them something to do. Typically they are older people who want to show up for work every day. This woman doesn't fit that MO though.

My bet is it's a selling strategy.

I never really cared about making more than $5m until I realized that the profit motive[0] is going to destroy everything because it dumps everything into arms races and as human power goes up, due to increased scientific advancement and the accelerating search space for technological combinations that provide greater economies of attack asymmetry, negative externalities begin to dominate the world. Especially in areas where attribution is impossible, since deterrence isn't possible, or in areas where outcomes are unpredictable, for the same reason.

I just wanted to have fun and create a little garden for myself. Now I have to become some ugly combination of Soros, Orwell, and Nader[1] because the people with money right now are all people that cared about money, or—ethically better, but consequentially worse—they're techno-optimists.

[0] The feedback function, really. Startups are just organizations in search of a feedback function.

[1] Yes. I'm aware of the irony.

Why do negative instead of positive externalities have to dominate?

because then someone would step in to profit from the positive externalities

You're making some big leaps in your interpretation vs what's actually being said. I don't see a single comment saying she should sell because money is all that matters. A few comments are saying if she sold it to a housing developer that would create more housing - which is objectively true - and then asserting that more housing would be a good thing given the housing shortage - which is a value judgement you are free to disagree with, but not at all the same as saying profit is all that matters.

if she sold it to a housing developer that would create more housing

Maybe. In that neighborhood, it would likely be very expensive condos, which would likely not be rented by someone already living in New York. I really doubt the extent to which all this new luxury construction is actually easing the housing problem, versus just creating additional demand akin to what happens when you add a lane to a highway.

I feel like profits need a re-branding campaign. It's so easy to paint them as a negative, and even the most vocal capitalists will shrug and suggest they're something neutral.

Profits are a signal, and a powerful one at that. Outside of rent seeking, which I regard as fairly rare, profits signal that an entrepreneur is delivering value in excess of the costs to produce the value. Spread out over the size of a community, region, or nation, that's like magic!

Furthermore, they're not cold and unemotional, as is suggested here. Value almost always has an emotional component. The profitable condos that people want to build aren't going to be inhabited by automatons. They'll be inhabited by people - people who will date, get married, have children, people that will graduate from high school and college, people that will march in parades, protest in political movements, enjoy and create culture. To look at the value that companies want to create in this space like a shameless cash grabs ignores the very humanity that assigns that value in the first place.

Profits are not evil. They're a signal of efficient production of value, and value implies a benefit for humanity.

I feel like sweatshops need a re-branding campaign. It's so easy to paint them as a negative, and even the most vocal capitalists will shrug and suggest they're something neutral. Sweatshops are a tool, and a powerful one at that. As opposed to outright slavery, which I regard as fairly rare, sweatshops are used by entrepreneurs to deliver value in excess of the costs to produce the value. Spread out over the size of a community, region, or nation, that's like magic!

Furthermore, they're not cold and unemotional, as is suggested here. Value almost always has an emotional component. The profitable clothes that sweatshops produce aren't going to be worn by automatons. They'll be worn by people - people who will date, get married, have children, people that will graduate from high school and college, people that will march in parades, protest in political movements, enjoy and create culture. To look at the value that companies want to create in sweatshops like a shameless cash grab ignores the very humanity that assigns that value in the first place.

Sweatshops are not evil. They're a tool for efficient production of value, and value implies a benefit for humanity.

Yup!

Sweatshop (n.) Factory located in a country whose peasant farmers are so poor that I'd rather not think about them, and serving an export market.

People who work in sweatshops do so because the alternatives are worse. The sweatshops tend to disappear as the surrounding economy gets more prosperous, and people have more choices.

Profits are not evil on their own: the choices of which costs that are paid, and which costs are externalized (read: paid for by someone else without a correct combination of consent and total knowledge) all together add up to some value on the virtuous-neutral-vice scale.

> Outside of rent seeking, which I regard as fairly rare

This is a big assumption to make. Successful rent seeking is very much a constant interest of profitable organizations--why would a business leave low risk, high margin money on the table? Competition for rentier status would be just as lively as market competition were it not for regulation, and even with it the focus only shifts to competition for regulatory capture.

That’s too reductionist.

Big corps are making huge profits while laying people off.

Pursuit of an outcome alone isn’t enough. The process too must be in service to humanity at large to reach your conclusion.

Too many processes today benefit a minority.

Profits are what drives the economy forward. They provide the capital to expand operations and create new ones.

They also provide the surplus needed to deal with pollution and other externalities. It's not a coincidence that unfree economies are the worst environmental disasters.

Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy a jet ski, and I've never seen a sad person on a jet ski.

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