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Comment by eviks | Hacker News Reader

> The hard question is how do you find the balance?

That's an easy question - you find the balance by letting people do what they want, then it automatically balances. Banning that, you can't find the balance because you've banned the mechanism that balances.

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That's the economists answer, but not the human answer. In the case of an emergency, especially one involving the sudden loss of housing in one area, economics doesn't cover the answer. If we simply "let the market do it's thing", you'd end up with only the richest people getting housing, even though they are the ones that can afford to leave the area, while leaving even the middle class and poor completely homeless.

The real answer here is to figure out a way for the people who need it most to get it, and the people who need it most aren't always the richest.

Besides dehumanizing economists, your "real answer" doesn't provide an answer, though that's also human...

I'm not dehumanizing economists, I'm dehumanizing the particular theory I was replying to, which is "let the market do its thing". Which is a very rational and uncaring way to look at things.

And I'm aware I didn't provide an answer. I specifically said there is no answer.

You provided a partial answer.. the general idea to work out how need vs ability to pay can be reliably signalled. Don't give up! Or at least keep the idea around, until something shoes up. The general theory of auctions provides other sorts of partial answers, and it doesn't look like there are any mathematical or physical laws that forbid the kind of answer some of us would like to see. I reckon I'm not dehumanizing anybody here :) this is more interesting than imo problems, you might not even want to ask LLMs because that'd make it boring-er. Uber and Airbnb would have peeps on this if they do care*!

Edit: the same basic problem appears everywhere, e.g.

-*the need to make money exceeds the ability to solve general problems

-your need to understand exceeds my ability to explain

-my ability to focus exceeds your need to continue this thread

-healthcare insurance ie try to get tptacek on your side

But you're the only one doing dehumanization! The theory is "let people freely do their thing", why do you speak like an economist and replace humans with markets? Where does the lack of care appear?

That's capitalism in general, the moneyd get the cream of all crops while the rest of us fight for the scraps. The only respected virtue is unadulterated greed.

It's a hard question because we don't live in Anarcho-Libertarian society, and we have laws.

The issue isn't "what should we do here," which is a political question, for whom each person will have their own answer. The question is what do you do about a "we're just a venue, we're not actually conducting business" company that is very clearly facilitating mass-violation of laws.

This undermines rule of law, simply because our legal system isn't designed for centralized vehicles for criminal behavior, without being able to charge the catalyst for the behavior, the app, with penalty such that it compels behavior going forward. Facilitating these crimes is criminal behavior.

It's a tough question, both politically, and practically. We like the idea of AirBnB, but if we can't find a way to create an enforcement mechanism for local hotel rules, then we're basically endorsing lawlessness... which isn't politically sustainable.

It's a tough situation mostly because you've decided to reject reality.

Let people sort it out, they know what's going to work best for them far better than you.

Again, what you think should happen is just more politics.

Extorting an emergency and telling someone they either pay upwards of their entire life savings or die is not acceptable. There cannot be a free market in short term, life-changing moments there's no time or deliberation or competition that capitalism requires to find "balance".

> entire life savings or die is not acceptable

Making stuff up for dramatic effect is also not an acceptable argument.

> there's no time or deliberation or competition that capitalism requires to find "balance".

That's not a requirement, but also there is time and all that- otherwise how did the people manage to use airbnb in the first place if they had no time? And you can deliberate for 5 minutes looking at a very high price and decide that you can temporarily stay in a much smaller place and further away than you wanted/used to. Or maybe move to your friends /relatives instead

The argument is there should be no balance, I am absolutely allowed to use worst-case. There is a reason it is illegal to price gouge water in emergency situations.

That law, like many, is written in blood.

> The argument is there should be no balance.

No, there is a balance, you've made up an argument

> I am absolutely allowed to use worst-case.

And I'm allowed to call out this faulty rhetoric

> That law, like many, is written in blood

That law, like many, is causing blood. It was the same thing with masks - instead of incentivizing people to drive far away to get masks from places of low demand and move them back to the city with high deficit, the FBI cracked down on gouging grounds, leaving people in cities exposed to the deadly virus without a mask.

> No, there is a balance, you've made up an argument

Don't fucking gaslight me like I'm illiterate and can't look up three damn messages. You literally said that there should be no controls, ergo no balance between free market capitalism and controlled emergency economy.

Talking with people like you is such a waste of time.

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