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Comment by mikkupikku | Hacker News Reader

If the government would like to pay me to also not build wind turbines, hit me up. I mean, I wasn't going to build any in the first place, but I think this makes me qualified to continue not building any.

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> [Major Major’s father's] specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn’t earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce. Major Major’s father worked without rest at not growing alfalfa. On long winter evenings he remained indoors and did not mend harness, and he sprang out of bed at the crack of noon every day just to make certain that the chores would not be done. He invested in land wisely and soon was not growing more alfalfa than any other man in the county….

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

Shit like this has been happening since the first colonists came to the US. On of the first thing the Massachusetts Bay Company did in the 1630s was subsidizing the Winthrop Salthouse for decades ... which never successfully produced salt. Another thing commonly done was the English government or charters would gift land and then turn right around and buy it back at market price.

Just look at it as America going back to the colonial ages and then everything that's happening makes sense. The bad news is that people were willing to put up with that for over 100 year so there's no guarantee anyone will do anything for a long time.

These things are common. For instance, we pay dockworkers to not work so that they would let us do containerization. When they say they're striking, half of those striking dockworkers wouldn't be working anyway. They're paid not to so that we could use containers. When US ports finally automate, it will be the same. The boss of that union wears a Rolex because he's good at extracting these concessions from us. So here's a variant for them:

> His specialty was containers, and he made a good thing out of not loading any. Ever since containerization came in, he was paid handsomely for every crate he did not touch. The more containers he did not load, the more money he was given, and he spent every penny he didn’t earn on securing more seniority on the docks to increase the amount of cargo he did not handle. He worked without rest at not working the piers. On long evenings he lingered by the hiring hall and did not sling a single hook, and he sprang out of bed at the crack of noon every day just to make certain that no breakbulk cargo had somehow returned.

Enjoy.

As much as I agree the longshoremen situation is "unappealing" from a policy perspective, it's not really a valid equivalence to compare a trade union trying to protect itself from being automated out of existence with a multinational corporation asking an historically corrupt government to let them use the $1bn that they were given for something other than its intended purpose.

Everyone always has a story to tell for why they deserve the Rolex and the other guy doesn’t. And nothing is equivalent except perhaps fundamental particles in each class. That’s the nature of reality.

I’m not this guy or that guy. I’m just a victim of both of them. And both of them are happy to conspire against me. So until they’re willing to give the rest of us Rolexes for sitting at home I don’t see much of a difference.

> The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

I'm not saying that the longshoremen deserve Rolexes. I'm saying that if you had to choose between a handful of longshoremen with Rolexes and a Captain Planet villain with a Rolex and private jet and a bunch of new fossil fuel projects, I think the latter is clearly a worse outcome overall. False equivalence is a propaganda tool to confuse priorities and deflect.

So Major Major‘s father is being paid to let land be available for rich biodiversity. Sounds not unreasonable to me.

Henry George would like a word.

I think it’s in part returning money this company paid the government

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