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Comment by Chathamization | Hacker News Reader

It seems like a larger and larger percentage of our economy is being taken up by parasitic sectors that have a net negative value for society. Advertising, soda, highly processed food, credit cards, car dealerships, (most) sales people, etc. We'd probably be better of as a society paying these people to do nothing than to do what they do now; we'd be even better off if we paid them to do something actually productive.

There's a lot of talk about what impact mass automation will have on our society, and what kind of work people will have once they're replaced by machines. This is always framed in such a way as if it's a problem we're about to face, but it looks like it's actually a trend that's been going on for decades (at least). And the answer is that, unless there is an effort to direct these people towards productive ends, many will continue to flow to these parasitic sectors.

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You'd be smart to accuse me, here, of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, but the core parasite is Capital, which siphons value from the labor of mankind in a Byzantine labyrinth of social games meant to obscure this essential truth.

But capital through markets is how we get around the "labyrinth" that is the economic calculation problem. I think it's like complaining about how you lose power when you transfer electricity over wires. It's true, but there's always going to be a transmission cost.

There is no economic calculation problem: http://flowing.systems/economy/politics/2017/08/16/calculati...

>The Mises Institute has put it up for free, which is surely off-message but whatever.

Ah, a clearly well-rationed article is at foot. Here’s a hint, if someone isn’t able to model free things in their understanding of capitalist systems, they don’t understand them enough to critique them.

Anyway, the rest of that “critique” isn’t actually a critique. It’s just goal post shifting to the point where it assumes socialist systems by nature have perfect demand discovery mechanisms (none of which are alluded to) and can never produce a surplus. Conveniently, it follows that clearly socialist systems are perfectly efficient and do not allow surpluses because they have this neat built in mechanism of perfect demand discovery.

So it’s “not true socialism” if there are any inefficiencies in food production, energy production, etc because “true socialism” has a mechanism by which everyone gets exactly what they need.

Did someone inform the author of this that such a mechanism has never existed and the most efficient mechanism we have discovered so far is markets?

Also in true socialism there will be no exchange of consumption goods between people. How will this be enforced? Hmm, let’s not think about that.

It's not a question of enforcement, but incentivization.

> the most efficient mechanism we have discovered so far is markets?

This thread originated in a discussion of the detriments of advertising, I would remind you. The "markets" we're currently employing to "discover demand" find greater profit in engendering it.

The core parasite is government, which siphons value from private citizens under the threat of violence.

that is one way of looking at it.

Another way would be to say that effective government ensures that the rule of law is maintained, that contracts are enforced, that the environment is protected, that trade is conducted efficiently etc ..

Granted, none of the above are absolute, some governments will do better than others and some will abuse their power.

What is the alternative? Somalia in the late nineties? All government functions handled by corporations? something else?

I know people love to parrot this libertarian talking without really thinking it through. Generally young, logic-minded people that end up following some kind of Randianism and cannot fathom the possibility that people are, by and large, basically bastards to each other.

The truth is the government is a social contract designed to actually protect people from violence. Yeah, it taxes people. But it also protects them from mobsters and racketeers and is at least supposed to offer a chance to poor people. A libertarian paradise dooms the poor to never be able to afford education and basic necessities unless they sacrifice through slave wages. In a libertarian paradise, the rich run amok, and children of rich people start with an insane advantage that no amount of smartness or slaving away will ever erase. And no, by and large, people are not Howard Roarks in hiding. Most people are within 2 sigma of the mean--i.e. not geniuses. In a situation with no social contract, the 5 sigmas both in terms of intelligence and aggressiveness prey on and suppress the rest. Inequality skyrockets. It ultimate results in violent revolutions, like France. In short, libertarianism is madness.

In general it'd be great to have a discussion about these things, but since this comment is just some non-thinking spouting of absurdity, I'll just leave it here. I already said too much.

I agree that libertarianism is ignorant at best.

But your example of the French Revolution detracts from your argument, because that occurred in the context of a strong monarchist government, not a libertarian dystopia.

Yes. The point was more that inequality will result in revolution, no matter how it arose.

I do think the period directly following the revolution in which the rival factions fought over the country is a context of a libertarian dystopia, if only a glimpse of one.

Indeed, and economists seem to be a bit puzzled by this [1].

[1] https://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/

In a system where we (richly) reward people who buy and sell securities back and forth, or who manipulate people into wanting to buy mountains of crap (with lovely side effects such as the above post mentions), or produce clothing and food, transport them half the world, then set it on fire, when the system rewards these behaviours then of course this is exactly what will happen.

> Advertising, soda, highly processed food

Did you see this? -

> Crossfit, Inc. Suspends Use Of Facebook And Associated Properties - May 23, 2019

https://www.crossfit.com/battles/crossfit-suspends-facebook-...

It's not like there's some central planning committee that sits down and decides what to pay everyone.

Citizens decide where to spend their money -- at least the part that the government doesn't tax and spend for them -- and all of these industries you name exist and pay well because people value them and choose to spend their money on them.

Almost correct. Governments have a strong say in what is incentivized and what is not through taxation and monetary policy.

The people running government are (in most places) elected by the people but that is affected by political manipulation, gerrymandering and politicians often represent the moneyed interests that got them into power.

Okay, explain to me how the government is incentivising 'advertising, soda, highly processed food, credit cards, car dealerships, (most) sales people, etc.' through taxation and monetary policy.

Well, to start, corn is highly subsidized. This means corn syrup is cheaper than it should be, making soda and most processed foods cheaper than healthier options.

Low quality ingredients will always be cheaper than high quality ingredients, regardless of subsidies and taxes. That's an unfortunate fact of life, not a government decision.

And there's nothing to stop people buying diet soda.

Here's an article backing up my point:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-diet-farm-subsidie...

Why do we need the govt making cheap unhealthy stuff even cheaper?

Wrt soda, and highly processed food, I think that FDA and similar agencies could make an effort to evaluate the consequences of prolonged consumption of such food and figure out what quantities are safe. They could require proper labeling and not allow children to buy such foods (as with cigarettes and alcohol).

For credit cards, maybe he meant that in some countries, where individuals cannot default, banks are comfortable taking too much risk and advertise credits aggressively. I have personally witnessed several victims of this (yes, people can be dumb).

Wrt "car dealerships and (most) sales people", it is probably not affecting the individual so much, but if you look closer at "enterprise sales" and government spending, you will certainly notice some "interesting" practices. However, I think that this is a lot harder to solve than the other case above, because it is not so directly aimed at the masses.

But you're talking about guiding your children, not observing your neighbours. This is 'how do I make other people choose the same things I would choose', not 'people aren't free to make their own choices because [the government somehow]'; it's not 'people aren't free to choose', it's 'I don't like what they choose'.

I also don't like what they choose, and I don't disagree with any of your suggestions; I think these would all be good ideas. But you're asking for less freedom, not more.

How about the chicken tax [1]? Or how any truck is allowed to bypass CAFE standards for emissions [2]? Or the fact that if a truck or SUV is used for "business" it can be written off completely over time as opposed to a limited amount [3]?

That's off the top of my head. Taxation is control. And the wealthy & powerful have undue influence over who chooses what gets taxed - using the above methods I referenced.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax

[2] https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/small-business-taxes/bu...

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/cafe-lo...

Governments have a strong say in what is incentivized and what is not through taxation and monetary policy.

Governments have similar competition problems as individuals and companies. If taxes are raised too much, the people with money will take it to other countries with more lenient tax systems.

And unpopular policies will cause other political parties to seize the power from their promoters. Money and advertisement also plays a part in campaigns.

Finally, if you try to extract competition from politics, you get a tyranny.

People on HN likes very much to write comments with the "we as a society" or "we as a species" or "we should do that", but there is really no such we.

> Citizens decide where to spend their money.

It's almost criminal the way we propagate the narrative that advertising is ineffectual. Of course, if it were, there wouldn't be so much money in it.

So it's very hard for me to take seriously people who believe in consumer choice.

What percentage of the products that you see advertised every day do you buy? 100%? 50%? I'm guessing it's probably less than 1%.

No one would argue that businesses spend a lot of money on targeted advertising, and targeting is something that marketers are constantly trying to refine.

What is targeting? Showing things to the people who are most likely to buy them.

In the world you're describing, targeting wouldn't exist, because the mind control techniques of advertising have made free will a thing of the past, and people will just buy whatever the all powerful advertising agencies tell them to buy.

> and all of these industries you name exist and pay well because people value them and choose to spend their money on them.

I think his point is, these industries are not valuable to people; they are just aggressive at extract wealth from other people. In net, they have a negative value (from his perspective) and thus society will be better without them.

No one's being forced to buy soda, eat highly processed food, have a credit card, or use a car dealership. Yet people voluntarily choose to spend their money on these things, so they obviously do find some value in them.

When you characterise them as 'not valuable to people', you're making a prescriptive moral judgement (and not one I necessarily disagree with), as opposed to a descriptive observation of where free agents choose to spend their money.

I don't drink soda or eat highly processed food, I don't have a credit card, and I didn't buy my car from a dealership. But the fact that many people choose to spend their money on all these things tells me that those people do see value in them, and I don't think my preferences are right and theirs are wrong.

You lost me on "free agents", under the kind of system of advertising and PR we are under there is a very narrow window of "free agency".

If the advertising industry is such a powerful force of mind control that we literally have no free will anymore, then why did they let _you_ figure it out?

You're giving them way too much credit. Do you notice how the world is full of failed advertising campaigns? How the world is full of failed companies and failed products that the evil geniuses in advertising weren't able to make people buy?

There's a world of difference between 'we can use some principles from psychology to try to exploit people's fears and make them more interested in our product' and 'our unlimited powers of persuasion make free will an illusion'. And despite the hype, most big-data, machine learning, 'downloading your thoughts from Facebook before you've even had them'-style targeted advertising amounts to showing you ads for the thing that you just bought.

> Citizens decide where to spend their money

That's the problem, to a large extent we don't because of the pervasive manipulation the advertising industry does to us, the industries reason for existence is literally undermine our free will.

suggesting that you come over for dinner because my desserts are tasty is not “literally undermining your free will”.

Advertising, sales, dealerships, middlemen, and snake oil salesmen all existed long before the automation started.

You claim sales and advertising are parasitic, but what is the alternative? A central planning committee that decides what products we can buy?

How are soda, highly processed food, and credit cards parasitic? They provide a service that people find very useful.

Just like heroin and hitmen.

Gee wiz, sugary drinks and hitmen. What similarities they share!

Seriously, this is total nonsense and it frustrates me to even read such a wild comparison.

This is such a hugely snobby attitude.

The value of soda for example is that some people like the taste and sensation. It brings them a little bit of joy. Not everything has to be coldly utilitarian.

Or people enjoy soda because the of insane amount of sugar put in it by people intending to make the product as addictive as possible.

Remove the sugar from soda and you have awful-tasting water.

Sugary drinks are no better than cigarettes, and the people pushing them know exactly what they are doing and what they are exploiting.

You can make anything sound absurd by reducing it to its ingredients like that.

And anyway, value is determined by the buyer. You can't say as an individual that something has no value to society.

> And anyway, value is determined by the buyer.

I disagree. You can make anything seem valuable by defining value in the most cynically narrow terms possible like that.

By that same logic, heroin has great value in society, and hitmen and we shouldn't be trying to stop these things. However we do, because the popularity of the product is no measure of its contribution to society.

Continue on with that logic and literally everything is valuable, making it a meaningless distinction.

> You can't say as an individual that something has no value to society.

I can and did. It's an opinion not an assertion.

If you are creating a need that didn't already exist, like targeting people's predisposition to addictions to substances like sugar, or nicotine, or heroin, then I posit that you have created no real value whatsoever.

By your logic music and art have no value to society, because there was no need for those until they were invented, someone could assess their value as zero, they consume natural resources which harms all of us, and the people could be doing something more productive (by some unstated metric of yours) instead.

You just don't enjoy soda. There's nothing wrong with other people enjoying it. Either in moderation, or irresponsibly in our opinion, which is their own business. Other people don't enjoy music and art and should probably think they should be done away with you like you with soda.

Art and music aren't produced with the intention of fostering addictions in people. They don't cause death and suffering simply by being sold, or even being abused (how would one abuse art or music?).

So no, that's not my logic at all. There was already a need for art and music. There wasn't already a need for Coca Cola and Lucky Strikes.

I don't accept that sodas are either. I think they're a honest product. They aren't healthy, but they don't pretend to be. They say very clearly what they contain and they're marketed as a treat. They are optimised to be as delicious as possible I'm sure, but singers also optimise their songs to be as pleasing as possible so you'll buy their next album.

> hey aren't healthy, but they don't pretend to be. They say very clearly what they contain and they're marketed as a treat

Soda manufacturers include this information because they are required to by law. It is in their interests to hide this information from you.

Lobbysists for junk food manufacturers are always hard at work fighting against these kinds of regulations, because you knowing what is in their product is harmful to their bottom line, because they are selling you what amounts to a mild poison.

People fought to get this labelling required by law. These companies aren't doing it out of the goodness of their hearts.

> They are optimised to be as delicious as possible I'm sure, but singers also optimise their songs to be as pleasing as possible so you'll buy their next album.

The difference being my health isn't harmed by a pop singer trying to improve their voice. Nor are they creating a need or addiction to music that didn't already exist. There has always been a need for music among humans. Even tribal war drums count as music.

I'll concede that most pop music is lowest-common denominator crap manufactured and marketed to as as wide a demographic as possible for no other reason than profit, but really, pop music is such a small part of the entire musical landscape.

Even if it were, what damage to people is pop music causing? What addictions is it fostering?

You could debate about the dumbing down of music that manufactured pop music encourages, but we are talking about actual harm caused by fostering addictions here, which things like sodsa and cigarettes do, as a result of their being addictive as well as damaging to health.

The pop music analogy isn't a very good one, because music doesn't damage your health by encouraging your addiction to substances harmful to your health.

> I'll concede that most pop music is lowest-common denominator crap manufactured and marketed to as as wide a demographic as possible for no other reason than profit

Bah I think you're showing yourself to be a cynic and a snob with statements like this. You don't like that music so it's 'lowest-common denominator crap' and you can't see any purpose for it apart from profit, no matter if other people chose to enjoy it.

I'm not being a cynic and a snob. There are studies showing how much simpler, more generified and more homogenous and less dynamic pop music has become over the last few decades.

It's an actual thing that has happened.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/is-pop-mus...

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/jul/27/pop-music-soun...

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

You didn't address the point of my post though, the pop music analogy was just an example you used that I felt didn't work very well because music, even pop music, doesn't harm your health or exploit addictions in the ways many advertised products do.

If they're an "honest product" then why do they put caffeine in them? Caffeine doesn't change the flavor to make it "as delicious as possible".

Kola nuts, which contain caffeine, were in the original formulation. It's a stimulant - that's partly what some people are drinking Coca Cola and similar drinks for in the first place. It wasn't added later to increase sales.

Right, but nowadays there's no reason for it to be in there. You said they're marketed as a treat, and optimized to be as delicious as possible. So what's the caffeine for then? They're not marketed as energy drinks or designed to be as stimulating as possible.

I say that the caffeine is in there solely to keep people addicted to it even more.

> So what's the caffeine for then?

Part of being an enjoyable experience - not literally part of being delicious but part of being a sensation people enjoy.

The answer is that caffeine is addictive and the soda companies are selling drugs.

There was a scientist who's work was to find the optimum amount of sugar to put in soda - the "bliss point" that would get people to keep drinking it without getting fed up with the sweetness - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_point_(food)

You aren't making any decisions when you enjoy soda: a large corporation paid some people to conduct studies and ensure that you can't not enjoy it on a basal level.

Of course it's not bliss - it's not good for you in anyway. In fact we know - completely - that it has massive long term deleterious effects on your overall happiness - because it's not optimized to actually "make you happy" - it's optimized to keep you drinking it.

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