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Comment by kcaseg | Hacker News Reader

Probably the money gambled away on slop AI startups in a single week could sustain thousands of museums like this for decades

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"Gambled away" is an unfair characterization. People will get rich off of AI, too. We just don't know who yet.

Nobody is going to make money on museums. As such, you either provide for them through tax dollars or you convince people to donate.

Or the money they sent to Ukraine.

Money spent on startups isn't charity, you do it in the expectation of (in aggregate) profit -- so it's not rivalrous with charities. People who might support museums earn money on investments that they can then use for charities.

If you believe that you are better at picking winners (slop startups vs non-slop startups) than the rest of the investment world, then that's a valuable skill that you could use to earn a lot of money that you could then use to support museums if you choose.

It's a deeply capitalist perspective to respond to a criticism of the excesses and inefficiency of wild, unfounded capital speculation with 'Well if you so smart, why ain't you rich?!?'

It's a deeply non-capitalist perspective to demand that everyone respond to dumb posts with sentiment instead of analysis.

> a deeply non-capitalist perspective

This seems to have been said as if it is a bad thing. Is it, or did I misread what you meant?

It turns out they were being triggered by sentiment to respond with more sentiment, but they think their sentiment is "analysis."

Well, let's go with a learning exercise. Do you think that you should dismiss the fact that someone said something dumb because you perceive them as being on the right side? Then I guess it's good for you.

Well if you are very against capitalism, that would be pretty bad, but ONLY if you are then also a hypocrite working for amounts of money that would make anyone not in the top 20 percent of the world population's eyes pop;

Deduct extra points if you ever accepted stock options, ever tried to start a startup or did a side hustle because you wanted MORE than the bare minimum you need to survive. (Like those capitalist pigs do!)

Or if you are typing this from a mobile phone or laptop computer that costs an amount of money that would be unimaginable to the typical person for most of human history.

Otherwise you're golden. Socialism truly is the superior moral position. It's so obvious we can all agree. And you should lead by example by giving away everything that you might need less than some other random poor person out there.

Whew, it's like strawman bingo!!

You're right, depending on what someone's position is. If someone full on HATES capitalism, then I don't think it's a strawman. But if someone is an average mixed economy guy, sure then it would be an unfair strawman I agree. Also it's a bit tongue in the cheek, because I got a bit tired seeing a lot of anti-capitalist rants here in HN comments that likely come from iPhone socialists typing this while living lives absolutely blessed by the fruits of capitalism. It's prettt easy to disagree about the amount of capitalism we want in our society, but to be anti-capitalist? Seems weird and hypocritical if you are a highly paid tech worker that uses most of his/her money for their own benefit, or otherwise personally acting very "capitalist" in your own life but wishing everyone else to act more socialist.

Is that so unreasonable? Lots of people post that Wall Street corporations are dominated by short term, next quarter thinking. If that were true, then shorting those stocks would be a profitable plan. It seems reasonable to point out that if one is so sure corporations were going to tank because of short term thinking, they could get rich by shorting the stock.

Alas, the market can remain irrational longer than I can remain solvent.

Looking at a chart of the S&P 500 over decades, it's hard to see how anyone could make money by betting on corporations only being interested in short term results.

The S&P 500 is a list. 80+% of the companies on that list when it started are no longer on it.

Betting on business in general over long time periods tends to be a winning proposition. Betting on an individual company tends to be less of a winner in general.

Businesses do tend to fail eventually. Their business model become obsolete, the market for their product fades away, they strangle themselves with bureaucracy, they zig instead of zag. That isn't short-term-itis.

But you cannot grow a small company into a large one by concentrating on short term profits. The S&P 500 is composed of 500 large companies.

Imagine if you were selling MSFT short every quarter since they IPO'd in the '80s.

I agree completely. Museums, culture, and other wasteful/pointless excesses should be deducted from profits - at the discretion of the profiteer - only after the actually useful work of poisoning the drinking water to generate pornography is complete.

Long live the overlords.

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