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Comment by PicassoCTs | Hacker News Reader

If the world sentences you to isolated confinement with hard labor- is it unreasonable to torch such a world to the ground, hoping for better things in the ruins?

PS: Please don't downvote, just because the idea of your lifes invisible infrastructure buckling makes you angry.

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I would argue that only the phoenix is guaranteed to raise from the ashes. Everything else may come out worse or not at all. Sometimes when you burn something to the ground it just remains burnt.

Stretching your analogy (perhaps too much): when you're in isolated confinement there is at least someone ensuring you get fed, clothed, receive at least some basic care and are kept somehow safe. When you're in the ruins of a city you may starve, get beaten to death, die from a preventable disease, etc. And nothing ensures that the labor will be any lighter.

For a more software-related argument, here's an essay on why rewriting Netscape from scratch was a mistake: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...

One argument for why this is unreasonable is that you can assume there is a wide variety of would-be torchers with different and conflicting agendas for the ruins.

That makes the occurrence more likely, even if the outcome is less successful.

I think it is unreasonable and probably naive to think that the giant vacuum you create would attract good people with honorable motives aligned to your well being.

My life's infrastructure isn't all that invisible and I'm grateful for it.

How can you be sure that the people you will be torching are not also victims?

If you could avoid hurting anyone out of proportion to their level of complicity, maybe you do have grounds. But I don't think you can. Because it's the entire world you'd be torching, you'd need to know at least a little about every person in it first, and how your actions would impact them, and I don't think that's realistic.

These ideas interest me. How does this happen practically? All money is devalued? An end to ownership of everything? All infrastructure destroyed and if not, who would keep it running and why? After the fall of the Soviet Union are things now more fair?

i can't tell if you're trolling or not but its crazy that we've been brainwashed into believing the the only possible worlds are "10 rich men control everything" and "all laws rules and structure is abolished"

I don’t think the way things are today is good or right. Just wonder what the process would look like to “burn it to the ground” and start over. In other words, how do we realistically get to a better place that doesn’t involve electing better people and getting better laws?

maybe they are also "experiencing a crisis,...of depersonalisation" and a need for "‘recognition’, ‘mattering’ or ‘being seen"

Aren’t those just other word for attention whoring? I think the main issue is people see social media celebs and want to be like them and so when they don’t get enough attention they cry out and claim “invisibility”.

I find your wording very poignant.

I too remember when Aristotle said “please don’t downvote”

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