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Comment by Lichtso | Hacker News Reader

The article mentions this in the very end, but isn't the "Shirky principle" just a case of perverse incentives? Allocating a budget to solving a problem continuously does set the incentives to prolong the problem.

I wonder how much paying after the problem is solved would help vs. paying in advance as it is often done for agencies / institutions.

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> I wonder how much paying after the problem is solved would help vs. paying in advance as it is often done for agencies / institutions.

If only more government programs operated this way. Yet instead of (for example) a solution to poverty, we get The Poverty Industrial Complex.

Poverty is famously a one time, single solution issue. /s

It might be. How can we say when all be get are "solutions" that deepen it, perpetuate it, normalize it, etc.?

So yeah, I'm glad we agree. Thanks for proving my point.

Hint: Start by reading Matt Desmond's "Evicted" and then go from there.

Also, watch the Rob Redford film "The Candidate". Make note of how many of "the issues" - and the associated narratives - persist today. Imagine selling a product that promises a solution but ultimately only keeps selling you promises.

I ate lunch yesterday, why am I hungry today?

Clearly there's a lunch industrial complex

Have you read the Desmond book? A simple yes or no will suffice.

Of you had a family crop field or partnership in a sandwich company I can tell you you'd forget about hunger

There's more to it than that. That's the behaviour of protecting your dungeon. See the example of the bus company in Ontario.

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