Hacker News Reader

>The issue is that our economic system is coercive. You need a job.

That's hardly the problem of the economic system, and more of a underlying problem with the the universe (ie. entropy and all).

When people say “the problem is that our economic system…”, I’ve stared to simply ask, “which economic system is the one where you do not need a job?”

One that isn't built on debt bondage and a massive wealth transfer to the old and wealthy. Student debt, housing debt and medical debt are all designed to keep you a complaint worker who will increasingly never escape that debt. We have increasingly just replaced the dukes and kings of old with centibillionaires. Together we're bouldering towards what many of us call "neofeudalism".

This is one thing that Karl Marx and Adam Smith agreed on: landlords are parasitic that reduce economic output. It's another way we're returning to a virtual aristocracy as land gets concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.

This is all going to further fall apart once we don't need everyone to be employed. Arguably we're already there. What are the rest of the people meant to do? Starve and die? At some point you realize the only way forward is to collectively own the wealth you help create.

>This is one thing that Karl Marx and Adam Smith agreed on: landlords are parasitic that reduce economic output.

But going back to the original premise, everyone still has to work, even without landlords. The soviets even codified it as a crime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_parasitism_(offense)

We will eventually reach the point where not everyone needs a job. Many basic functions of life like agriculture and food production will be automated. Construction will probably be automated.

AI is being used to reduce the labor pool to suppress wages. You not only save on wages for laid off people but the remaining workers need their jobs and won't be asking for raises. They'll probably be doing extra unpaid work to boot.

If 20% of the workforce is no longer necessary, society as it stands now will collapse. That's the point.

Your moral compass seems to be very close to some very powerful magnets

> This falls under the umbrella of "there's no ethical consumption under capitalism".

No it doesn't. There is a time and place for the "no ethical consumption under capitalism" mantra, but increasingly (as is the case with your comment) it is being deployed as piece of whataboutism to distract from clearly unethical behavior by implying it is no worse than anything else. There's actually a massive difference between businesses which have complicated tradeoffs in the means of delivering what is basically a social good, and facilitating sports gambling, a negative-sum activity which ruins people's lives for basically no upside whatsoever.

(It's deeply ironic that a slogan originally coined by socialists has found its most use by capitalists trying to get off the hook for their actions, but I guess most rebellious anti-establishment sentiments are ultimately co-opted for profitable ends.)

Is any form of entertainment or art a social good?

People can get "addicted" to practically any type of entertainment in that they spend a massive chunk of their time on it to the point it stifles their development.

Is sports gambling worse than f2p games? Are f2p games worse than regular video games? Is someone addicted to video games worse than someone addicted to reading fantasy novels? What about smutty novels?

I'm not sure is disagree with you but I think it is hard to start drawing these lines without saying you are now the arbiter of good art and bad art and you can ban some forms of art if you don't like them and have decided they are bad.

Now are you just banning things you don't like because you point to the societal harms as a fig leaf defense that could be applied to the art you do like as well?

> I'm not sure is disagree with you but I think it is hard to start drawing these lines without saying you are now the arbiter of good art and bad art

There's a super easy line to draw actually and it has nothing to do with art

Are you selling a product or an experience?

If you're talking about someone addicted to fantasy novels or video games, they are addicted to products.

If you're talking about someone addicted to opening Magic the Gathering booster packs, or videogame loot boxes, or sports gambling, or prediction markets, they are addicted to experiences. In the case of loot boxes they are experiences shaped like products but the addiction is about the experience of opening the box, not really whatever is inside

So.. easier than you seem to think

Of course once lawyers get involved they'll quibble over this shit until the sun goes out

Is selling a ticket to a movie an experience, or a product? Is a subscription to netflix a ticket or an experience? What about a subscription to world of warcraft?

If you paid for world of warcraft by the hour does that change if it is an experience or a product?

This doesn't really work because products and experiences have too much overlap.

What you are really against I think is the different ways in which we are gift wrapping a skinner box, but there are an infinite number of ways to wrap it that will bypass your specification system.

> there are an infinite number of ways to wrap it that will bypass your specification system.

Which will matter to no one except lawyers

When most people smell shit they don't care if it's rat shit or cat shit, they just know it smells bad

Yes, banning video games would probably be a win for society.

No, you probably won’t get anyone to admit to that here.

So would banning air travel, but such an example is purely to highlight how subjective “a win for society” is.

Luckily all those companies have done tons of research to exactly qualify and quantify exactly this. Those companies don't seem to have problems identifying those addictive mechanisms, why should the government?