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>We should be upset that our society has managed to put in our pockets supercomputers connected wirelessly to the world's knowledge?

Sure we should, if the tradeoff required to create a society that can produce such devices is that the vast majority of people have no say in the workings of the system, or spend their whole lives teetering on the edge of insolvency, or transfer huge environmental and economic burdens onto people either close to home or far away.

It's like watching the movie Soylent Green and coming away asking "we should be upset that their society managed to feed everybody consistently and inexpensively?" Ends can't be judged independently of the means used to achieve them.

Do you think that was really the tradeoff? How are we better off as a society if Apple, Google, Samsung don't put powerful, usable smartphones in the hands of a few hundred million people?

The beauty of "CapitalismStan" (God, even Tom Friedman would too embarrassed to coin that one...) is that each and every one of us gets to decide if parting with $200 and a monthly $80 bill is worth the benefit. I certainly think it would be a bargain at twice the price.

The entire point of my comment was that the total price to society of the device can go well beyond the "$200 and a monthly $80 bill" that the individual pays to acquire it.

> How are we better off as a society if Apple, Google, Samsung don't put powerful, usable smartphones in the hands of a few hundred million people?

Respectfully, you're again arguing the merits of ends without discussing any means. Making the argument into "smartphone or no smartphone?" is like asking "candy or no candy?" Which do you think people will choose? But even free candy has costs; put the person who receives it on a scale a week later and you'll see them.

One can certainly point to societal costs that the information economy has imposed that go beyond the costs of individual products. When Marc Andreesen says that "software is eating the world," what he's saying is that it takes wealth that used to be held by people outside Silicon Valley -- travel agents, booksellers, and recording artists, to name a few -- and transferring it to people inside Silicon Valley. And since software requires no human intervention to do the same thing over and over again, the number of people who are on the receiving end of this wealth transfer is naturally much smaller than those who are on the other; once you've got an algorithm for picking the best airline flight, say, money that used to provide a living for tens of thousands of travel agents can all flow instead to one guy -- the guy who owns the algorithm. So that one guy becomes crazy rich, while the travel agents lose their livelihood.

Does the inegalitarian result of that wealth transfer outweigh the benefit to society at large that the algorithm provides? I'm guessing from your comments that you would say it does not, and I would probably agree with you on that. That's a more complicated question than whether or not people would prefer travel sites or no travel site, but it at least attempts to take into account the costs such sites create beyond what the individual user pays for them.

That's a useful argument to have. I'd respond that all that wealth wasn't "transferred" to the SV capitalist. It was generated because millions of people saved a few dollars on airfare. Some of those savings went to the capitalist, but they can't all have: His price then wouldn't be any better than the friendly travel agent down the street. The rest of those savings stayed with the consumer, who can now afford that much more air travel or that many more organic carrots or whatever. In aggregate, when it becomes cheaper and easier to do X, there's more money or time to spend on X or Y or Z, and let the most valuable products and services win.

But all of this is somewhat beside the point. This article doesn't try to spur these kinds of discussions. If it were trying, it wouldn't use phrases like "fat miserable drooling zombies". It's agitprop, and there are much better uses of HN readers' time.

> Luckily, in this world of "skyrocketing" poverty, surely only the top 1% can afford such indulgences, right? It's not as if innovation and a growing economy have put them in the hands of more than a hundred million Americans.

American consumer debt is at $11.15 trillion [1]

and 76% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck [2]

By definition, the masses can't afford those indulgences, they're just putting themselves into servitude for the rest of their lives.

[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/14/us-usa-fed-consume...

[2]http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/24/pf/emergency-savings/

I'm not much of a fan of his either:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=176780

But you might tone it down with the name calling.

I'll spend some time trying to come up with a fairer term than "clown", but it's hard when I come across gems like:

Goddammit I love rolling into hipster cafes at 7:30 am and making them burn with racist anger.

What the hell does that even mean?

I think Umair is Pakistani, he's referring to racist tension he feels at some places. As an Asian, I can actually also attest to racism (though of a more subdued variety) against brown people in hipster'ish cafes.

Incidentally, I do want to comment on the hasty and acerbic reaction to this piece on HN: wow, this got emotional fast, I was hoping for an informed and intellectually honest discussion, not going into people's twitter history and finding all sorts of tidbits. If you guys are finding him at fault for saying things that are actually not that out of line with this very article's sentiments, how do you reconcile with -- for example, the Zuck openly inviting his friend to let in on people's private information and calling FB users "dumb f---s"?

I see.. I looked for that tweet to find context but couldn't find it. However I did find two others in which he claims that white people having beards is racist, or something: https://twitter.com/umairh/status/393721183197483008 https://twitter.com/umairh/status/393722734918004737 As an occasionally bearded white guy, this is distressing news; I was planning on growing a beard in December after "Movember", I hope I don't offend anybody...

Maybe he's got a point in the cafe case, but honestly it seems like from the other posts he is just an purposely inflammatory troll. That seems to be his schtick, which probably explains the harsh reaction on HN. It's the sort of reaction he was looking for.

> "...how do you reconcile with..."

I'm not sure what needs to be reconciled. Can you explain this more?

People are rejecting Umair's piece, in part, by what he's said elsewhere informally and casually. Somehow people continue using FB, and defending it, despite Zuck having said fairly nefarious things. To be clear, my question wasn't charged against you specifically.

> However I did find two others in which he claims that white people having beards is racist, or something: https://twitter.com/umairh/status/393721183197483008 https://twitter.com/umairh/status/393722734918004737

I did not find these tweets to be racist or strange at all. Maybe you're missing the context of what he's like as a person -- maybe that crucial information of tone is lost in pure text. I read it as more casual teasing. Considering he's a Pakistani-American, and probably associates big beards to religious Muslims in his mind, he's drawing some parallel between the two, maybe making note of the dissonant juxtaposition. But I do think he should be more careful with his wording, and make some due effort in not sounding offensive.

In one of those tweets he seems to think that beards are problematic because they are some sort of Muslim culture appropriation (bizarrely ignoring the long history of beards in Europe...). In the other tweet he isn't talking about cultural appropriation or referring to any sort of Muslim connection, he seems to be taking offense to beards on white people because he thinks the beards emphasis their whiteness.

The fundamental incompatibility between those comments leads me to believe that in neither case is he being sincere. He is just out to piss people off. He's 'trolling'.

(Also, I suspect that most people who both know the "dumb fucks" quote, and think that it is significant, do not use Facebook. Facebook users probably mostly consist of people who have never heard the quote, have heard the quote but don't believe it, or don't think that the quote is relevant to Facebook today. Personally, I trust Zuck, so when he says I'd have to be a dumb fuck to use Facebook, I believe him...)

Do you really think he is simply out to 'piss people off'? I'm genuinely interested in your answer. I personally don't think there are many people like that. I think the word 'troll' is overused, very, very few people out there are trolls. When I think 'troll' I think about people who join multi-player games only to cause havoc, people who join IRC channels to paste nazi ascii's. I think people who have unorthodox, or radical beliefs often mistakenly appear intentionally inflammatory, but they really aren't. So, I really don't think Umair is a troll in the traditional way. He's probably (at least in his mind) making a good faith effort to explain something, he's clearly misguided in his ways of elucidation of complicated ideas, but reducing him to a 'troll' just takes the direction of discussion down a confrontational and unproductive path.

Yes, he is ignoring the long history of beards in Europe, instead focusing how beards are viewed today by specific subsets of people, and I think that's probably the source of his errors.

I think he's out to get attention, and one way to do that is to be controversial, something which he seems to have honed to a fine art. I think he must be bright to have gotten so good at it, but it does not strike me as being all that productive, either.

With all due respect, I think that is just a strange conspiratorial type of thinking.

Did he basically find himself to the top, being a writer for HBR by just being purposely controversial?

Maybe it is a strategy, but it's clearly not the end goal. It is maybe just a means to an end, that is conceivable (although unlikely, in my view).

I think the way to go in instances like these is just to engage specifically only on the points presented by the author -- not raise suspicions about their motives. Incidentally I think in this case the evidence points to the contrary: I think his motives are good. I actually happen to be concerned about capitalism in much a way Umair is, and I can promise you that I have good motives: I want my childhood friends (who I know are not doing well, they're living in poverty) to be doing well, in many respects I see them as victims of the current system. If I were to write a long piece of political commentary, criticizing the current system, I know that it would hurt me to be labeled as an "attention-seeker". I would, on the other hand, welcome any and all responses that go directly at my arguments.

> Did he basically find himself to the top, being a writer for HBR by just being purposely controversial?

"Getting to the top" is not evidence of quality. There are plenty of examples of this.

> I actually happen to be concerned about capitalism

I think anyone who thinks about the world has doubts, worries, and wonders if things could be better. That's good, normal, and healthy.

But to actually improve things, you have to go beyond the ranting, the "fat miserable drooling zombies", and so on.

See, for instance, this exchange:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6629890

That's real thinking and questioning. Umair, on the other hand, seems to rant a lot, in very broad terms, and propose little.

Maybe "piss people off" is a bit strong, but it really seems like he is trying first and foremost to "get a rise out of people".

I don't think he simultaneously thinks that white people with beards are trying to "emphasis their whiteness" and a thinks that white people with beards are trying to appropriate/mock Muslim culture. Those two assertions, while fine (if not a little loony) on their own, are contradictory and expressing both of them tips his hand. He doesn't believe either; he is being intentionally inflammatory.

Had I not read both of those comments, I would have been strongly annoyed (indeed, I necessarily read one before the other, and was strongly annoyed until I read the other). Having read both comments, I can only be bemused. I'm onto his game now, so I'm not going to let him get to me.

This is my understanding of what the word "troll" traditionally meant. People on IRC who get people upset by making absurd flamebait statements and pretending to defend them ("Lunix is for communists and virgins", being a prototypical troll in my book).

See my other comment above/below. When I see his byline, I skip the article: I know it's just going to irritate me.

Ad hominem much?

And yet more and more and more US citizens need food stamps. That doesn't sound like a success.

The important take-away from your statement, though, is that these people are still getting food. The fact that developed nations have the basic survival necessities taken care of to the point that everyone has time and money to spend on things as seemingly frivolous as smartphones (and the fact that something as insane as a smartphone is even affordable) is a testament to capitalism, not a point against it.

Sure they may be getting some food, but just barely. "...for 1 in 6 people in the United States, hunger is a reality" "These are often hard-working adults, children and seniors who simply cannot make ends meet and are forced to go without food for several meals, or even days" http://feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/hunger-facts.asp...

"...for 1 in 6 people in the United States, hunger is a reality"

That's simply not true. It's a misreading of the USDA's food security survey results, wherein the standard for "food insecurity"[1] is

[R]eports of reduced quality, variety, or desirability of diet. Little or no indication of reduced food intake.

Note the second sentence. Hunger is not a "reality" for your family just because the USDA judges you to have "low food security".

[1] http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/foo...

Would you agree that "very low food security" translates to "hunger"? If so then the number is close to 1 in 18. In my opinion this is still a high number.

http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/err-economic-research-r...

From your link, of those that reported "very low food security":

96 percent reported that an adult had cut the size of meals or skipped meals because there was not enough money for food.

89 percent reported that this had occurred in 3 or more months.

95 percent of respondents reported that they had eaten less than they felt they should because there was not enough money for food.

68 percent of respondents reported that they had been hungry but did not eat because they could not afford enough food.

47 percent of respondents reported having lost weight because they did not have enough money for food.

29 percent reported that an adult did not eat for a whole day because there was not enough money for food.

23 percent reported that this had occurred in 3 or more months.

*Edited for formatting of percent breakdown

One person in hunger is too many, as I'm sure many politicians before me have said. But there's a massive difference between 1/6 and 1/18, and if we can't be accurate about just how bad things are, how can we know if we're improving? (And of course, we are: Hunger was a much greater problem among the poor decades ago).

What pains me is that some of the people I personally know who are affected by this have jobs. Heck, some have two jobs! Several causes: minimum wage, part-time jobs pay too little, having two or three kids is expensive, housing is relatively expensive, some people prioritize luxury goods like iPhones and cable over necessities like food and savings.

An iPhone can set you back 20 dollars a month. That's a lot, lot less than food. Just how many iPhones are these people buying?

everyone has time and money to spend on things as seemingly frivolous as smartphones

Smartphones are cheap in both time and money. You can have an iPhone in the US for twenty dollars a month, and all you have to do is recharge it every so often.

Food costs a lot more each month. This testament to capitalism is that people can't afford food but that's okay because they can have something that costs less; a phone.

You're picking apart my example of a luxury, not the argument. People aren't forced to spend money on iPhones. If they spend money of iPhones that they need for food they otherwise couldn't afford, then that's their problem, not the world's. Substitute 'iPhones' for any other luxury item. Plus, the agriculture industry is highly regulated, while the cell phone industry is relatively free, which I think has a strong impact on this price discrepancy.

My point is that capitalism allows a significant majority of people to have the basic necessities of life taken care of in exchange for some other contribution to the world.

My point is that capitalism allows a significant majority of people to have the basic necessities of life taken care of in exchange for some other contribution to the world.

Fair enough. My point is that something is going very wrong, as here we are in what is apparently some kind of recovery yet in the United States, one of the richest nations in the world, more people need food stamps than before. Luxury? A phone is cheap. It's not a luxury. Food is becoming a luxury. This didn't happen last time, or the time before that.

>This is so bad it makes my brain hurt

If it's that bad I wonder what its doing sitting on the very top of HN right now. I think what he says cuts through the bullcrap and feels viscerally true. Imagine if, instead of him making these points, it was Obama or RMS or whoever you ideal is, making these exact points. You'd react very differently.

That said, I'm not really sure what the alternative is.

> our society has managed to put in our pockets supercomputers connected wirelessly to the world's knowledge

As a grad student, I remember when the university got access to a supercomputer. Our professors were quite ecstatic & said we could now solve massive problems....as if it was the lack of supercomputers that was holding them back. That was 15 years ago & the university is in the same place in the rankings. All that happened was a bunch of students wrote some parallel processing code & got a thesis & graduated & moved on. Things are no different today. If you datamine the vast majority of queries run by the general public on wolframalpha, they wouldn't be far off from "2+3 = ?" It isn't like the common man is jumping up and down because he can finally crack Goldbach's conjecture. He could care less.

Imagine if, instead of him making these points, it was Obama or RMS or whoever you ideal is, making these exact points. You'd react very differently.

I wouldn't: I had no idea who this guy was before reading this piece, and only decided to learn more about him because I was invited at the bottom of the article to follow him on Twitter.

But it really does make my day that anyone would assume that President Obama or RMS would be just the folks to sell this drivel to me! Much as I disagree with both of them, they're each capable of making far better arguments.

I would be very unnerved if 250 million dollars could arbitrarily disappear from my bank account, even if "I had a lot more anyway".

> Luckily, in this world of "skyrocketing" poverty, surely only the top 1% can afford such indulgences, right? It's not as if innovation and a growing economy have put them in the hands of more than a hundred million Americans.

Way to go on the ethnocentrism.

Most of the article's criticism was directed at the USA, with a contrast to the social democracies in, e.g., Scandinavia. Regardless, if you want to think about the global impact, smartphone unit sales are likely to hit 10^9 this year.

Right. I'm appalled to the ignorance (intentional or not) of the parent to the externalized costs of putting millions of phones in the hands of americans.

Prove they're larger than the benefits. Rough numbers are fine.

Wow, was that a nerve he hit?

The nerve Umair Haque's writing touches in me is that it is handwavy ranting and raving. A lot of his arguments, when looked at closely, seem kind of hollow. They're ... intellectual junk food - they have some flavor when you're chewing them, but there's not much substance, and there are a lot of additives that aren't that good.

The thoughtful comments here by participants I trust prompted me to flag the article. That's about all I have to say about it.

That seem quite hypocritical since you write quite long rambling text yourself. At least show other people, who did upvote it, the respect of reading the article before you flag it.

Rambling? Perhaps. But I would hardly say that tokenadult is known for "handwaving". Quite the opposite actually, his long posts are typically the best researched and cited posts on this site.

It's not about "handwaving" per se, there are numerous reasons I don't enjoy tokenadults posts. All of which are irrelevant since many other people do. I simply ignore most of them and expect the same respect in return.

But if you're a five year member, I'm in the mood and you're breaking basic rules of HN like "don't comment that you flagged" I reserve the right to call you out. Even if I wasn't technically correct about not reading the article this time.

I DID read the article first, and then saw that other participants here had already identified the handwaving. So there is no hypocrisy here on my part.

I see about three participants making the argument of handwaving. One of them breaks one of the rules of HN in his opening sentence, the other is name calling and the third has made up his mind years back. I also see a couple of dozen decent comments discussing the article. Take from it what you will.

I'm always willing to change my mind if I see anything different, but Umair articles are pretty formulaic.

Also, if a bunch of us are pointing to a problem, maybe there is a problem.

Ideologically, I suspect that I have different ideas and opinions than tokenadult. Maybe I have some common ground with Umair. But I cannot stand the hand wavy, ranty approach.

That something this mindless could clear not only the HBR, but race to the top of HN? You bet.

Don't make this mistake of confusing "being irritating" for "having a point". It is easy to be both irritating and very wrong.

"So now the fashion establishment calls designers with real vision, like Westwood, "eccentric". Ah, capitalism. Fuck you so much."

While the ambivalent relationship between fashion and commerce isn't new, it does seems like valid criticism.