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Comment by JohnFen | Hacker News Reader

The author expresses my attitude toward money almost perfectly. I'll even go a step further: I hate money. It's a thing I have to deal with, but I hate every bit of it. I hate that I'm forced to devote so much of my life and mind to it. I hate that it rules every aspect of my life. I hate that its used as a weapon by those who want to subjugate me or harm me (for more money, even). I hate that it tends to ruin everything.

It's a huge downer all around and reduces my ability to enjoy life. But, such is life. I'm forced to deal with it, so I do. But I yearn for a better way.

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Such is not life friend. Society is whatever we want to be. The rules are made up and we, the people, can decide what society should value.

It doesn't have to be this way, it can change. Maybe not in our lifetimes but we plant the seeds so future generations can live better lives.

Big picture, you're absolutely right and I do what I can to plant those seeds. However, while that could help future generations and so is worth doing, it doesn't actually help me in the here and now. There's nothing I can do that will positively change things on this count within my lifetime.

Perhaps there is just something small you can do that is passed down or acknowledged by others who will pass it on. A behavior, an action, or some other change.

There is probably a big change coming with AI. At the moment we need to pay people to work so stuff gets done but if AI can do it instead that goes away.

The actual scenario is that more wealth will be captured by the elites while hundreds of millions of people suffer or die from poverty.

What we actually need is another luddite revolution.

I figure we'll get something like socialism.

The hype is reaching absurd levels. Don't save for retirement, wait for AI instead!

I'll just say this... if you actually believe AI will make money obsolete, I'd be happy to take all your obsolete currency off your hands.

Be careful though. It is very easy to change for what looks like better but is in fact worse. Most of history money was not something the typical person had or used. Adding money greatly increased freedom for everyone though - it became possible to trade things without complex 10 way barter situations.

> The rules are made up

Not much. The rules have emerged, there's only small amounts of deliberate interference with that natural process.* Deliberate societal rules (statute laws, rulings) have to fit to what's politically viable, which is to say, what people in general like: and people in general are incoherent, only diffidently cooperative, and run on intuition, so mostly we get accidental rules instead of deliberately designed ones.

* Interesting instance of when the word "natural" applies to things created by humans.

We could be bonobos, but we chose to be chimpanzees.

It's debatable if even bonobos chose to be bonobos.

I wouldn't want to make out with my neighbors to solve conflicts anyway.

> I wouldn't want to make out with my neighbors to solve conflicts anyway.

You clearly need to move ;-)

I'm trying. My daughter loves Star Trek and I have had over the years extensive discussions with my older sons about how poverty is designed into our society and how eradicating it could be easy with just a couple minor adjustments.

Unfortunately, the world has been turning in the wrong direction - basic human decency is considered "woke" and "leftism". Any attempt to make a just society is called "communism" and shouted down aggressively by the people who would most benefit from it.

We need to change these things.

Something Gorbachev said on the fall of the Soviet Union stuck with me for the past couple decades, that they "failed because they tried to make a better man".

Are we that doomed?

Yes, but no more doomed than that. It'll probably be alright.

"easy with just a couple minor adjustments."

Liking that fictional universal star trek, all you would have to do is eradicate pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttoney, envy, and sloth. Then we could all have nice things.

Or if you don't like that set - eradicate acquisitiveness, rivalry, vanity, and love of power.

Then with those easy changes, we could eradicate poverty

'things can never be improved, and we can't hold our fellow humans accountable nor expect anything out of them'.

Total bs. But helps certain groups explain away/wave away that they are crappy human beings.

Is poverty really 'designed into our society'? It seems to me that the underlying aspects of poverty - particularly resource scarcity and insecurity - are inherent aspects of the 'state of nature', which are only escapable via the cooperative mechanisms associated with the formation of society and governance. Sure, these things aren't 100% effective at eliminating poverty, but the proposition that poverty is somehow an intentionally baked-in objective seems hyperbolic.

Further, the notion that the USSR failed because "they tried to make a better man" is an absurd whitewashing of Soviet history.

Yes, poverty really is 'designed into our society'. Huge parts of our economy are prerequisite on 'zero hour' jobs. Where you are guaranteed zero hours per week, and have to check your schedule at the start of every week. Those working these jobs often have to work multiple zero hour jobs just to survive and somehow juggle that neither job has a fixed, dependable schedule. These jobs then prevent them from being able to use their off time (because they can't schedule around their jobs) to improve their lot in life. It is designed to be chaotic and a trap paying not even enough for survival (hence needing multiple jobs) let alone get ahead.

Zero hours contracts are likely the unintended consequence of other (employment) regulation. People / Organisations (this includes private businesses and organisation, as well as state owned organisation) will try to circumvent any limits placed on it.

You seem to be of the belief that if you "tweak the nobs" just right, things will be magically be fixed, this is naive. The law of unintended consequences has been observed countless times throughout history when people have tried to do exactly that. This is extremely naive.

Even Star Trek itself that you appear to be a fan of. The Earth is post scarcity, they show that the Federation isn't the benevolent force that they pretend to be (This is hinted multiple times in TNG and shown outright in DS9) and that there are others that are negatively affected by the Federation and its policies e.g the Marquis.

I am of the belief that people in zero hour jobs are basically fucked, and that because a large portion of our businesses use zero hour jobs our society in fact has stagnation in poverty systemically built in/designed in.

Star Trek's a cool show. The bible's a cool book. They are guides on how to do better, not reality, not true events. That doesn't change that they can be used to reflect on ourselves/our society to improve them, nor does that condemn us to accept immorality/lower standards as inevitable.

> I am of the belief that people in zero hour jobs are basically fucked, and that because a large portion of our businesses use zero hour jobs our society in fact has stagnation in poverty systemically built in/designed in.

1) People take zero hour jobs for various reasons. I worked on minimum wage for 8 years, I wasn't condemned to a life of poverty.

2) You have no proof of it being "designed in" because zero hour contracts exist. Repeating the statement does not make it true. The fact is that the law of unintended consequences is a thing that has been observed repeatedly.

3) I don't view it as "our" society. I don't even really know what people mean by that. I don't see it like that at all. I live in a country (England) and I see the government/state as adversarial to my interests generally. Many of the people in England and the UK don't share many of the same values as I do.

> Star Trek's a cool show. The bible's a cool book. They are guides on how to do better, not reality, not true events.

The fact that you equate Star Trek with the Bible is very troubling. Star Trek is an entertainment show with a fanbase, it is not a guide to do better. The Bible on the hand is much more important (even if many here don't recognise its importance) and this is coming from someone that is an Atheist.

> That doesn't change that they can be used to reflect on ourselves/our society to improve them, nor does that condemn us to accept immorality/lower standards as inevitable.

The point I was making that many people don't agree on what the improvement should be. What you believe is an improvement / moral etc. maybe seen by others as regressions and/or immoral. The writers in DS9 understood there were those that had this different point of view.

1. Good for you. Did you have kids or was it just you?

2. It is baked in at this point. People with zero hour jobs are at an extreme disadvantage. It's not adversarial government, it's business choice. There are many countries with larger burdens placed on business that have businesses that aren't forced into the zero hour practice. There companies that chose not to adopt zero hour practices. Stating that the government forced business into it doesn't make it true, and the fact the above businesses exist observably shows it's not a direct law of unintended consequences but a choice by business.

3. This position is outside the norm.

Both Star Trek and the bible are moral parables used to shape people's ideas. I'm guessing you are younger and don't understand the 90s tech ethos around Trek. Where I worked Trek was always playing in some room during lunch. Zero people were reading the bible. But I'm from the 80s/90s bay area (ish, Santa Cruz). Trek was definitely a parable that gave people something to aspire to.

Yes, differing views exist. You are the one that seems hostile to them, writing off your entire society because of your personal interests ("I don't view it as "our" society""). Most people agree on what improvement should be (people should be able to afford to raise families and live in some level of dignity and freedom from scarcity, people should not have to fear crime, education should be encouraged) they just don't agree how to fund it nor make it happen.

> 1. Good for you. Did you have kids or was it just you?

It was just me. However it works for people who aren't single and do have kids e.g I know a woman who does deliveries and she can work as little or as much as she wants, while her husband has a full time job. You can't do that with mandated hours. She prefers it and thinks it is great.

You are making a bunch of assumptions about people's needs. People are individuals and they know what is best for them and not you.

> 2. It is baked in at this point. People with zero hour jobs are at an extreme disadvantage. It's not adversarial government, it's business choice. There are many countries with larger burdens placed on business that have businesses that aren't forced into the zero hour practice.

You keep on asserting this as a truism, I know plenty of people doing zero hour jobs and they do just ok. Most of these people are Students, Younger people or people who wish to work part time.

As for burdens. In the UK and Europe economic growth is dead because of these large burdens.

> There companies that chose not to adopt zero hour practices. Stating that the government forced business into it doesn't make it true, and the fact the above businesses exist observably shows it's not a direct law of unintended consequences but a choice by business.

I never claimed that governments forced business. I said government regulation could have created the incentive. I made no definitive statement. People constantly put words in your mouth in these discussions. Businesses will generally follow incentives. Not all will adopt the same practices if it doesn't fit in with it business model.

> 3. This position is outside the norm.

Yes I am aware. That doesn't mean that the norm is correct. I can explain exactly why I think this and give exhaustive examples to back up what I believe.

> Both Star Trek and the bible are moral parables used to shape people's ideas. I'm guessing you are younger and don't understand the 90s tech ethos around Trek. Where I worked Trek was always playing in some room during lunch. Zero people were reading the bible. But I'm from the 80s/90s bay area (ish, Santa Cruz). Trek was definitely a parable that gave people something to aspire to.

You make a lot of assumptions. I am in my early 40s. I understand the feeling at the time. I've moved on from the 90s, I didn't stop evolving my beliefs, they changed when I realised my previous beliefs about how the world operated was incorrect.

Just because people aren't reading the Bible in your break room doesn't mean it isn't important. Star Trek just isn't and will be all but a curiosity in a generation or two. The Bible I wager won't.

> Yes, differing views exist. You are the one that seems hostile to them, writing off your entire society because of your personal interests ("I don't view it as "our" society"").

No I am not hostile to the normal people. You have no idea what I think. Taking one phrase I said and then turning that into how I view everyone is disingenuous.

I had previously lived outside of the UK for many years and it isn't unusual for expats to have a bit of a culture shock when coming home. Travel tends to open your mind to new ideas and when you come back home you see everything with a new set of eyes.

> Most people agree on what improvement should be (people should be able to afford to raise families and live in some level of dignity and freedom from scarcity, people should not have to fear crime, education should be encouraged) they just don't agree how to fund it nor make it happen.

No they don't. That the entire divide in both the US, The UK and Europe. There also will never be freedom from scarcity.

I mean, I've read enough of the Bible to know it's pretty out there. It's packed with the writings of humans who lived in a time so different to now, with interpreted translations. Shakespeare's writings are a lot more relevant to us, although maybe inspirational rather than aspirational, and far better written. A modern take with updated aspirations that is understandable and approachable isn't a bad thing to equate it to, even if it's the basis for an entertainment.

> Zero hours contracts are likely the unintended consequence

That's hard to believe. It's such an obvious outcome.

Considering there are long essays and writings about the law of unintended consequences it would suggest that these thing are not obvious.

They can always claim the consequences were unintentional, but that doesn’t make them less unbelievably convenient for the people who say they had no intention of causing them.

It really depends what you want to believe doesn't it. Purely asserting it is obvious because you believe it to be so, isn't proof that it was deliberate. As I previously said there has been a lot written about the law of unintended consequences and many cases where it wasn't obvious, it seems you haven't cared to read any of it, otherwise you wouldn't have this attitude.

>Further, the notion that the USSR failed because "they tried to make a better man" is an absurd whitewashing of Soviet history.

Isn't he referring specifically to the notion of the 'New Soviet Man' here, the idea that a communist economic model would produce fundamentally different humans as a result? I can see why he would describe that as a flawed approach, but you're right that it'd be an odd thing to blame for the fall of the Soviet Union over the other factors which contributed to it.

I don't think Gorbachev was trying to be precise on that moment. It is, however, a failure of the project that such "New Soviet Man" was not created, and it makes me ask myself what environment would be to create a person with these attitudes.

I agree with you, but frame it slightly differently. Money is fine, even pretty useful. I'm a programmer, and my skill is programming. If I want to eat, I need to find a farmer that needs some programming done so I can trade my skills for his food. If the farmer needs some lumber to fix his fence, he needs to find a lumbermill that needs grain, so he can trade. Instead, with money, we have an intermediate thing we can trade our labor for, and then use it to obtain the other things we need.

Instead, I would suggest what you hate is Capitalism, which is different from money. A "market" is a concept that allows everyone to trade their products and services with each other. A Free Market is an academic ideal, that allows every actor in the market to participate with perfect information and without coercion.

Capitalism exploits the fact that there's no such thing as a free market, and perverts the market in favor those actors with lots of money and power to exploit and subjugate those who don't.

We could tax the wealthy enough that everyone could be given enough money to live on, and do whatever they wanted. Be an artist or a musician, or a programmer. They could work for themselves, or band together with others to produce things and sell them for a profit, and be better off than the minimum. But if they end up working for someone who tries to exploit, subjugate or harm them, then they can just leave without risk, since they'll always have enough money for housing, food and healthcare.

But of course, the billionaires would hate this, since it removes the source of their power. They're willing to spend billions of dollars corrupting politicians, generating propaganda, and convincing the rest of us that being exploited is what's best. We as a society could decide fix this, but we have to figure out how to organize with each other, and overcome the billions of dollars spent to prevent it.

Just wanted to say that I appreciate you calling out the distinction between capitalism and free markets. Too often I see them confounded, even though it's pretty trivial to see that they're not the same.

Sometimes I think the confounding is intentional, as well.

This is life and always has been. It's money today, eons ago it was furs and food. Our hunter gatherer ancestors entire lives were centered around their next meal.

The only thing that has changed is the type of "currency".

> Our hunter gatherer ancestors entire lives were centered around their next meal.

No more so than today. How much time was devoted to survival varies a lot depending on where in the world we're talking about, but a surprisingly large portion of our hunter-gatherer ancestors spent less time devoted to these activities than we do today.

Such a weak response. There was a time I couldn't not crap in my own pants. But because of societies expectations, I learned not to.

You are making an excuse for poor behavior so that you can feel better or at least not look as bad to others. There is no reason society can't change. We no longer crap our pants, we no longer dump piss/crap in the streets, even though modern plumbing comes with a monthly expense.

I don't know many hunter gatherers but you can observe a lot of animals around and they uniformly do not have money and not really currency. They do devote quite a lot of time to their next meal, also quite often mating and fighting, although not always. Not to say it's better or worse but you can do life without currency.

>I hate that I'm forced to devote so much of my life and mind to it.

Your life would be better if you devoted so much time to food, clothing, and shelter? That's what money is. If you dislike money, a mere change in attitude such that you believe you're pursuing the essentials should suffice.

>I hate that its used as a weapon by those

This seems doubtful. Those in warzones have my sympathy, but I think that it's pretty likely that you live in a place where it's not used as a weapon at all. Your family remains unstarved, no one's burning your crops or confiscating famine relief off the UN trucks.

>But I yearn for a better way.

You live in an era of material abundance beyond the wildest imaginations of your ancestors. Even poor people are fat. Clothing is so cheap we throw it away if it gets a cheeseburger stain... your grandma didn't slave away for years to gift you that roughspun, sackcloth shirt. Etc etc.

"Money being used as a weapon" can be applied far more broadly than a literal warzone.

A weapon is just a tool that can be applied to give a person negative consequences by the wielder.

Most people experience money being used as a weapon, on a regular basis.

>"Money being used as a weapon" can be applied far more broadly than a literal warzone.

Sure, people can be histrionic and hyperbolic.

Other people refusing to give you money isn't "weaponizing money". It's called "sane boundaries".

>Most people experience money being used as a weapon, on a regular basis.

Few people in western nations ever experience that in their entire lives. You couldn't even come up with an anecdote that would pass the smell test.

Instead of making up strawmen to tear down like "Other people refusing to give you money isn't 'weaponizing money'", you might consider rereading the site guidelines. Or, perhaps you would be more comfortable with the level of discourse if you moved to one of the more political subreddits?

> you live in a place where it's not used as a weapon at all.

The question is whether you'd continue to do what you do if you didn't have to. I love my work - I find it challenging and engaging, I have great colleagues, furiously creative and smart, who also love what they do, but how much of our work is only accounting for overhead? At which point keeping track of all money flowing through the economy becomes the objective of the economy?

Let's think about means-tested financial assistance: seems reasonable to make sure money doesn't go to people who actually don't need it, but we also need to be careful not to invest too much in fraud detection that we spend more on it than we would covering for fraud. Wouldn't the incentives to get money you don't need vanish if you had something like UBI covering the basics of food, clothing, and shelter?

> The question is whether you'd continue to do what you do if you didn't have to.

Most people wouldn't. People prefer leisure. While I like programming, most of the work I do is tedious. I would rather spend my time riding my mountain bike, working on my Land Rover, or programming a video game.

> Wouldn't the incentives to get money you don't need vanish if you had something like UBI covering the basics of food, clothing, and shelter?

No. The vast majority of people don't just want the bare basics in life. Thinking otherwise is simply naive.

>The question is whether you'd continue to do what you do if you didn't have to. I

It's a dumb question. Would I want to continue to eat, to be warm in the winter, and have the basic tools needed to live? Your question sounds like juvenile fantasy.

>I love my work - I find it challenging and engaging,

My work is a paycheck. I don't have to love it. I don't need it as a lifestyle, or a hobby, or a religion. It's mildly lucrative, long-term, and they seem to get something out of the deal too. If I wanted a family, I've got one at home and those are the people I love.

>Let's think about means-tested financial assistance: seems reasonable to make sure money doesn't go to people who actually don't need it,

Half the people in this thread don't even know what money is. It's been abstracted away beyond their monkey brained ability to understand it's nature. They think billionaires have billions.

>Wouldn't the incentives to get money you don't need vanish if you had something like UBI covering the basics of food, clothing, and shelter?

Never ceases to amaze me that those who grew up comfortably in middle class homes are in such a hurry to go on welfare. "Please, give me the Medicare for everyone". No, I have no great desire to ever be on welfare, and I say in all seriousness that I would prefer to starve to death, slowly and in great pain.

I don't need money for its own sake, but being fungible, it is virtually everything I do need. It is food, it is clothing, it is heat, fuel, tools, household furnishings, shelter, insurance against disaster, security, etc. To hear people talk about "money they don't need" sounds like mental illness. I suspect it actually is.

> You live in an era of material abundance beyond the wildest imaginations of your ancestors.

This does not appear to be making people any happier than they ever have been. Rather, the isolation implicit in an increasingly transactional society is creating a lot of loneliness, which generally has a greater impact on life satisfaction than material comfort.

> Your life would be better if you devoted so much time to food, clothing, and shelter? That's what money is.

That's a very serious oversimplification of the reality, in my opinion. Money, in our society, is much more than a means for survival.

> This seems doubtful.

I'm not sure how that seems doubtful. All you have to do is pay attention to the news, or (even though this is hardly a modern phenomenon) pay attention to what today's ultrawealthy are saying and doing to see the truth of it.

You don't even have to look at the ultrawealthy. For a more common, low-level, example, look at the spying that marketers engage in. They use money to engage in those attacks, and they do it in order to get more money.

> You live in an era of material abundance beyond the wildest imaginations of your ancestors.

Absolutely true, but irrelevant to my point.

> Even poor people are fat.

Not because of abundance, but because eating well is too expensive.

> Not because of abundance, but because eating well is too expensive.

No it isn't. Eating poorly is often (much) more expensive that eating properly. Non-processed food is actually reasonably priced for the most part. Fruit and Veg is reasonably cheap. Premium cuts of meat can be expensive.

Just looking at my recent trip to the supermarket:

* A 6 pack bag of apples (Pink Ladies) was less than £1.50

* A bag of easy peeler oranges was less than £1.50

* A bag of new potatoes £2

* Large Bunch of Bananas are about ~£2

* 12 Pack of Large Eggs - ~£2.50

* 12 Rashers of Bacon - ~£2.50-4

* 1kg packet of Chicken Thighs (Raw) are ~£3.50 (2 chicken thighs a day).

* Broccoli ~£1

* Spouts ~£1

* Beans ~£1

* Berry flavoured Tea Bags ~£2

* Bag of Italian Ground Coffee ~£3-4

* 240 Pack of Yorkshire Tea Bags (will last me a month or two) ~£6

* Store brand Olive oil based Margarine ~£2

* Premium Wholemeal Loaf of Bread ~£2-3

* 4 pints of Semi Skimmed Milk £2.50

* Various table Sauces ~£1-2

That is less than £50 and I don't need to buy some of those weekly. Each day I am eating about 1800-2000 calories (I've put myself on a calorie controlled diet to lose weight) and this will last me most of the week if not the entire week.

If I buy ready meals they are £3-6 each. Premade Pizza is £4-6. So much more expensive and objectively worse for your health than cooking yourself.

One takeaway meal from the local Chinese will cost me £22 (a main and a side), Noodles will cost £7-11 depending on the dish. A pizza from the local pizza shop is £8-10. This excludes delivery. The local deli will charge me £4-5 for a meal deal (Chicken Wrap, Snack and Drink).

McDonalds is about £7 for a Big Mac Meal. KFC is similar for one of their Box Meals.

He doesn't know how to cook though, and at this point it's generational... his grandparents quite possibly never really learned how to cook. Worse still, he doesn't want to spend 1-2 hours every day doing meal preperation... cue the "if I do that I won't have any time at all to watch anime without staying up til 4 am!" stuff.

Eating well and making someone else do the work is expensive. For the lazy, this means eating well really is expensive.

I don't know how to cook either. I just put the thighs in the air fryer with some seasoning and steam the veg.

One thing to consider is that Many people simply do not have the time, energy, and/or equipment to cook food from raw ingredients. These factors are common in poorer households where people are working multiple jobs, etc.

I think it's still manageable, but takes some thought.

* Bananas, a fine inexpensive convenient snack.

* Buy bread and sandwich fillers, add sliced tomato, not awful for you and not time consuming.

* Tea is cheap, I like tea.

* Cereal can be good if you can find one that hits the sweet spot between a bowl of chocolate and a bowl of chaff. Some sort of granola maybe.

I literally just puts the thighs in the air fryer (I have a cheapy one from Tesco) for 30 minutes. The steamer I have was £15 in Sainsburys (it was on offer).

Most kitchen equipment except for the white goods is dirt cheap and even the really cheap stuff can last for years. Most meals take me 30-40 minutes to cook maximum.

That's way too long. Ten minutes is more demand on my time than I really want to give to wrangling food items. I'll be in bed eating cake, thanks.

That isn't 30-40 minutes me standing in the kitchen cooking. That is how long it takes to cook in the air fryer (the thighs take about 30-35 minutes). I literally have a timer telling me when to put on the veg and the potatoes. I think prep time is max 10 minutes and then 10 minutes to wash up.

In any-event. It is objectively more expensive to buy junk food, that includes the cheaper junk. Once I cut out the trips to the takeaway and the deli, I was surprised at how much more money I had per month.

The fact is that people tend to want to eat junk.

That's certainly an improvement, but still involves me planning to eat in half an hour instead of just snacking right now. But I shouldn't be presenting myself as representative of any demographic except maybe bedroom coders. I tend to agree that junk and expense correlate. I don't eat junk, I eat random crap, it's very different.

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