Comment by PaulHoule | Hacker News Reader

Comment by PaulHoule | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

It's usually hard to say if people are better or worse off. Back in the 19th century Europeans weren't all that sure if they were better off or worse of than the Romans.

Today's cars are better than cars were in the 1960s in every way. People live in bigger and better houses. Post-Starbucks you can find a good independent espresso bar even in small towns in the flyover states.

I remember the demagogue

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_LaRouche

talking about the decline and fall of the US in terms of the decline in the number of hospital beds. But the truth is it's a good thing and not a bad thing: back in the day you would spend weeks in the hospital after getting heart surgery, now they know you're better off going home and being moderately active as soon as you can.

The marxist argument that capitalism is a scam because somebody other than the worker makes a profit doesn't ring true with me because I've had jobs where I didn't produce enough value to earn my pay and it was always an enormously stressful situation that ended in tears.

Kings of old could not go buy Wagyu at the super market.

We don’t need the patronizing and pontificating of the past to see some people do real work producing stuff and services and some use a pen to claim a portion for themselves.

Ye olde English gibberish to make sense of that is unnecessary. Physical reality does not operate on human philosophy.

"Pen to claim a portion for themselves" ignores capital risk, entrepreneurial thinking, connections, and other value those pen-bearers brought to the table. There would be no "real work" or stuff to produce if not for those creating well-defined and stable roles for the rest of us.

There are many arguments you can make about how the pen-bearers have an unfair advantage from the start, or how their risk is at times unnecessarily subsidized, but deciding their entire existence is evil is silly.

All the risk is distributed among the population; failure on the part of the corporation means the real resources and energy used prior to failure are lost to others, and plenty of instances of a business failure being given another shot with extensive capital infusions is common.

Physical laws don’t care about human philosophy.

I don’t actually care what you think is “silly”. I never used evil, you inferred.

There’s no greater good, no higher purpose; what’s happening is unchecked exhaustion of resources. Call it good, evil, silly; personally I see such arguments as a thought ending cop out. At best, acquiescence you have no power to change things so you toss your hands up and call it some adverb.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com