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Comment by analognoise | Hacker News Reader

Why is GDP implicitly the thing we should maximize? It's like this weird unstated thing everyone agrees on without critical examination.

I'd rather have less GDP and no CCP; I'd also "sacrifice" max GDP for universal healthcare, fewer wars, jail reform...all kinds of things.

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Yea. Also if you want to look at GDP - US is #1. And on a per-capita basis we're just below Norway and ahead of countries like Denmark and the UK.

Personally I'd propose things like longevity, obesity, parks per-capita, household wealth, etc.

Yeah infant mortality, press freedom, corruption index, childhood educational rankings? There are a TON of things I'd put over GDP.

And if you look at the past 200 years that we've made large progress towards all the things you mentioned, with each of those accomplishments have been enabled by...GDP growth

But China is better than the US in all of those things. They don't wage war, they have better health care (no massive drug monopoly charging obscene prices for cheap insulin), higher life expectancy, way fewer people in jail per capita, less of a drug problem (no opoid epidemic), less obesity, not nearly as much violence, practically no school shootings (as opposed to weekly shootings), etc.. this iist is LONG.

But is China better than Norway? Or New Zealand? Or Switzerland?

The US (pockets at least) are dysfunctional but other countries demonstrate the model of not having to live under a dictatorship that commits genocide and restricts liberties and have high values in the things you mentioned.

Not to mention that obesity comes from… consuming too much food. Chinese will be obese too soon as they become wealthier. Well, unless the government mandates calories or something like they do hours playing video games..

China will probably become much better than Norway, New Zealand and Switzerland once they increase their GDP. They have made major strides already despite their relatively low GDP per capita.

The US is the only country committing genocide. They have killed over a hundred innocent civilians in Afghanistan just the past few weeks. Over the past decodes they've killed around a million innocent civilians in the name of the hyper-aggressive and hypocritical "war on terror". Indirectly, they're responsible for several millions criminal murders during the same timespan, and they've not once been put to trial. They're not only failing their citizens, they're a genocidal, terrorist state.

Yikes....

Hard to have a response to something so far removed from what I'm seeing. Not really any reconciliation possible here I think. Have a good day/evening!

It's tough to admit, but these are the bare facts.

Yea sorry I don't think those are facts at all, and certainly not so without proper context and analysis.

In fact, reading what you wrote just strengthened my conviction that they're not true at all.

That's an odd, but unfortunately not uncommon, way of forming convictions. What are you unconvinced about? You openly admit that instead of uncomfortable information triggering your curiosity, it strengthens your already made up convictions to the contrary.

There's plenty of research, and leaks have uncovered much of the extent of US war crimes. The proportion of civilian casualties in Afghanistan (and Iraq) are immense, bordering 80%. This is because of the extremely low bar for claiming someone are enemy combatants.

See for example just the past few days: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/30/an-afghan-family-ki...

A "suspected" car bomb (not a car bomb at all), triggered the US to kill 10 innocent civilians. They claimed they targeted ISIS, and that no civilians were known to have died. This is the rule rather than an exception, which leaks and whistleblowers have extensively shown.

Ok, take everything you said and reverse it and let me know if your convictions are lessened. Are they?

Yea thought so. No engagement possible here when we just live in two completely different worlds. Have a good day!

Why would I reverse statements that are made on the basis of facts and research, of leaks and serious news reporting? Wikileaks is a thing for example, look it up. Not sure why you choose to refuse doing research into the topic and ignore evidence-based reporting to the contrary of your opinion that is presented to you, which you've been insulated against by a world of US & UK corporate media. You got to admit that you choose to live in that world, which is probably comfortable to you.

Sorry I'm just too comfortable in my world of US and UK corporate media to be able to see the facts any other way.

Cheers!

I don't think that was the statement made, just that strong government is correlated with strong economies. Strong economies/governments are a necessary, but not sufficient requirement for those other things.

GDP is the thing we should measure because without it, you can't have all the things you mentioned - you might be able to not start wars but you still need a strong army.

To say that money isn't everything is already a luxury

I never said it wasn't important, but we literally have the largest GDP - we won, game over! And we don't have universal healthcare.

It's like we've confused a metric (GDP) with success; we maximized the metric and can't even wake up and realize it's not what we were actually trying to accomplish.

what is success then? what are you trying to accomplish?

I'd argue the best way to accomplish whatever you're thinking about that we should be accomplishing - something that is hard to measure - is by maximizing GDP. Because GDP is correlated with everything you're thinking about accomplishing.

>I'd also "sacrifice" max GDP for universal healthcare, fewer wars, jail reform...all kinds of things.

Because GDP pays for universal healthcare, for example...?

Not in our case, so apparently not - it COULD but it obviously doesn't.

Also countries "worth" less seem to pay for it, so maybe it's that we have fucked up priorities?

These are minor details - US probably should pay for it. But directionally, if you're a developing country, you can't afford it.

The best way to progress has been GDP growth - modern medicine is not driven by good-will, kindness, or faith. It's driven by profit

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