And preferably from insurance companies too.
184 karma · joined February 5, 2021
No, the gold standard worked because at that time, manipulating the value of money to tweak the economy was not a practice. And besides-which, gold is a terrible standard anyway. We use tons of the stuff in basic, cheap electronics all the time. We use it on boutique audio connectors. It's not uncommon or rare at all. It's like diamonds, the only reason they're worth a goddamn thing is that everybody just agrees they should be, even though the same substance that sits on the end of a $10,000 ring is ground up and coats the outer surface of saw blades.
> Without the anchor to gold our money can freely be manipulated for personal or political gain at the expense of the public.
As we've seen though, this can be done with virtually any asset now, which is why land remains basically the only thing that holds value, because increasing or decreasing the supply of it is really ridiculously hard.
"Standard of living" is more complicated than good and bad.
Your imagination is limited. I don't care about business or business owners. I'm exploited by every business I interact with, either as a consumer or an employee. They don't have my loyalty.
> We’re not going to get anywhere productive as long as the goal is to punish the rich no matter the cost. The economy isn’t a zero-sum game where every dollar of Bezos’ net worth is a dollar subtracted from the poor.
Yes, it literally is. Amazon makes money by selling whatever product at a cost higher than it cost them to complete the logistics to get that product to a consumer. That means their profits are whatever they can scrape off of paying people to shuffle boxes through their warehouses, drive their trucks, and write their code. That is exploitation by definition: those employees are not paid what their labor has generated in terms of wealth. Every employee is paid less than they are worth, because otherwise profits would not exist.
> Amazon had created value across the economy, far beyond Bezos’ net worth.
Amazon has also decimated numerous other businesses, and used the resulting holes in the market to grow.
> Likewise, arbitrarily destroying Amazon or Bezos would likewise destroy value across the economy, as well as destroy the institutional trust that enables the economy in the first place.
I don't want to destroy Amazon, necessarily. I want them to pay their workers enough to live. The problem is every time people suggest that, people like you come in and say "well if we paid them a living wage the business would die, do you want that?" To which I say, yes. If your business must pay poverty wages and force people onto Government welfare, that is literally the Government subsidizing your workforce and why the hell should we do that? If we're going to pay, by proxy, for people to work at Amazon, then let's just fucking own Amazon as a public utility and cut out fucking Bezos. We don't need Bezos. He is doing nothing essential at Amazon, he just had the capital to start it, and he certainly doesn't do fucking anything worthy of earning what he does. No human being can EARN 4.5 million dollars an hour.
We saw in the pandemic what happens when the workers can't go to work, but the finance guys, and the CEOs and everyone else can. The economy ground to a fucking halt. Bezos was able to do everything he does at Amazon just fine, just like every other CEO, because what they do is functionally nothing. Their workers, on the other hand, were essential! They were heroes! So they had to go to work, and get sick, and die to avoid this entire ponzi scheme coming crashing down. And still huge sectors of it are on the verge of collapse precisely because the people actually generating wealth are having a hell of a time doing it.
Mind you these things were invented at companies, yes, but almost every time if you dig deep enough you'll start finding the lists of the various grants given to said companies to fund this research, because otherwise they just tend to not do that. This is not controversial stuff, it's very normal.
You explain how this shit is working for anyone not in the C-level or political classes.
The only time I hear about Supply and Demand is when poor people get fucked. Nobody is worried about the money supply when we're pissing streams of BILLIONS into the military industrial complex, when we already have a military multiple factors larger than anyone else on the fucking planet. Yet in the midst of shitloads of people not being able to afford rent, we can't like, defer mortgages or just give the people money, noooo, that'll hurt the moooneeeey.
I suppose instead of "moneyless" society, I'm saying we need a money reboot.
Yeah, that happened to Argentina, who is not America. I'm saying if that's the consequence, which you seem to agree it is for nonpayment, then America is immune from that consequence. If someone tried that shit on a US Naval ship, they would be bombed out of existence.
Mind you, this is brutally unfair to the Global South. That's my point. Global capitalism just exploits countries to small too play the game like we do, and the countries that do play said game, do so largely with stolen wealth from those same exploited countries.
If America owes money but the mechanisms to enforce that don't exist, then why do we owe it? We owe it exactly as long as we agree we owe it. And this is not to say America should just move on, this is to say the world should move on.
> Plus you want Americans to be free from money but everyone else use our currency at gunpoint?
Fuck no, I want no one to use money.
Yes and on an individual scale like that, it makes complete sense. It's borrowed against my future income, and that I will someday pay off (I mean probably not I'll buy a different house but you know what I mean.)
I'm saying, on a scale of Nations and megacorporations, it's fucking bananas nonsense. According to the Goog, US national debt is 27 trillion. Who do we owe? How did we qualify to borrow that, apart from being if not the center, at least a good chunk of the center, of the world economy? Is anyone in a position to say we can't borrow it? Is there a credit check? Who fails that check, if there is one, because we haven't despite the last several decades of absolutely racking it up.
At this point to analogize the US to a single person (which is reductive and useless but bear with me, I'm making a point), we'd be someone with hundreds of thousands in credit card debt, making a lot of money to be sure, but also carrying four mortgages and making interest only payments, and the bank in question is just still handing us money. And like, I don't think that's great, but also, it's been chugging along more or less fine for as long as I've been around. So... why don't we just stop pretending it means anything? We "owe" some foreign banks... do we? Says who? Who's gonna enforce that? Are they gonna foreclose America? The only time I've ever seen countries actually brought to their knees by banking is when a tiny one gets too uppity about getting screwed on the global economy scale, at which point we send in Marines to remind them who's in charge. Who's gonna do that to us?
Take all of Bezo's wealth away, and just leave the number there. He'll never know nor will anyone else, because there is nothing you can do with that much money. There's nothing to buy.
Being more efficient than the 1700's is an astonishingly low bar.
99% of private sector "innovation" is repackaging the stuff created under DoD/DARPA research projects. Then once that's done, they corner cut.
This is a jawbreaker of hyperbole around a chewy gum center of truth.
Hell, even the different cellular carriers fail this definition because you can't use a Verizon sim card to access AT&T.
This fails every commonly held definition of a monopoly. We're not even talking like, cable company monopoly here that's entered into by virtue of buying or renting property in a given space, which at least you have a lot of friction there to claim "I can't reasonably be expected to go elsewhere just to buy from a different cable provider." You literally just buy an Android phone, and you're free of the restrictions imposed by Apple, immediately.
"We found we can increase the number of people subbing for the newsletter by skipping double opt in"
"Why are we getting so many spam flags?"
Because the increase you gained was all the people who didn't want it, cosmic brain. The people who wanted it already had it.
My phone, ultimately, is communications and quick research. I need it to make calls, send messages, send emails, and use the browser. And off-duty, I use the camera to capture memories. I got the big one because I wanted the bigger screen (though ultimately I miss the smaller size one I had before, so that will likely change whenever I get around to replacing it.)
And I also do projects. I build 3D printers, I play with Pi's, I build PC's. I do all kinds of tinkering shit. I just don't feel the need to do it on my phone, and therefore what are cited as "limitations" of it are just irrelevant to me. It does everything I need it to do, and more.
Android and iOS in my mind aren't really even in competition. They're two very similar products that should appeal to two entirely different userbases. They're pickups and sportscars, both great for what they do, but utlimately trying to have a pickup that's also a sportscar just means it's probably going to be lousy at both.
I don't understand this position at all. Google is by far and away the market leader. Their ecosystem is free and you can do just about anything in it. Their Play store's standards are utterly bare bones. The devices are cheaper. If what you want is an open source (ish) platform that you can hack on, modify, install software yourself, whatever, all of that is available to you, at a lower price, over there. This feels to be the ultimate first world problem, to pay a handsome premium for a top-tier device, then to complain about it's shortcomings. So take it back! Nobody made you buy one.
It's not like there aren't Android handsets that do all the stuff iOS ones do, occasionally even better, for similar prices. The main reason I stick to iOS is precisely for the locked down OS, and the curated App Store, so to see so many people complaining that they purchased the device when those things are like, the most obvious part of what comprises an iOS device, then complain about those things, is utter madness to me.
Why the fuck must Apple also do that, with a higher priced device, that everyone claims is inferior to Android handsets with their quad core processors and is "just a fashion item?" Android users seem unhealthily obsessed with turning iOS into Android. Just let us do our own thing over here for fuck's sake.
Yet again and again on here and elsewhere, iOS is constantly positioned as this MONOLITH of anti-consumer anti-developer DOOM, absolutely RUINING the mobile market. Again, FOUR. TEEN. PERCENT.
Well that depends highly on what's considered a crime in a protest, who determines that, and whether or not the person in question agrees with the protest.
I have no problem at all catching porch pirates. I have big, big ethical concerns with surveillance footage being used to track public organizers who haven't committed any crimes.
I think these sticky situations are always going to be a problem as long as the Police insist on operating in opposition to the people they claim to want to protect. Police do not feel like they are part of my community, they feel like an upper class of citizen who are permitted to, well, police the community by any means necessary up to and including violence, with basically no oversight.
That's not someone to look to for help. That's someone to fear.
> To the extent they someone does match the list, all that really does is note that he'd match the characteristics of a few governments in the early 20th century. But that's only one kind of totalitarianism, and obsessive focus on it allows other kinds to slip through the cracks.
I think this comes down to Fascism just being a bit of an odd duck in the political discussion. Fascism seems to be an ever-present undercurrent of basically all Democratic and Republic-style societies, always there but not always apparent. There is always a subset of the population that believes their Government doesn't work, for any number of reasons, and to any given extent: Fascism plays well with a certain subset of those people. And the appeal is very easy to understand: if you perceive the systems that rule over you are fatally flawed, wouldn't it be so much better and easier to circumvent those systems and put in place people who would break the rules, but improve the nation?
But that of course alone does not constitute Fascism. I was listening to one of Robert Evan's podcasts where he and his guest (I'm sorry I forget the episode and show) were remarking that Fascism is less an ideology or even a movement, and more of just, an aesthetic that could be adopted by basically any ideology or movement, if the appropriate leader comes along, which is one of the reasons it gets thrown around so much, besides just the historical connotations to the Nazis, of course. They theorized that the values of most Fascist movements (appeals to tradition/a mythic past, hatred of weakness, hatred of the other) make them more compatible with those of a conservative bent, but leftists are not immune from it either.
People tend to forget that most of the Axis powers, save perhaps for Imperial Japan, were also extremely Fascist. Italy especially. And, prior to the United States' involvement in WWII, Hitler and Mussolini were renowned for their invigorating of their respective countries and their abilities as orators.
> This is a bit ironic, no? He's amalgamating aspects of different cultures into a generalized descriptor of a culture that's still being referenced decades later.
I mean, it keeps showing up. There are authoritarians seemingly all over the place at our particular moment of world history, many of which tick off numerous boxes on Eco's list. Does this mean they are all Fascists? I would say, yes, to a degree. I don't think one must wait for all the boxes to be checked before asking some questions. Does that mean they all merit interventions ala World War II? No. I just think it's something worth keeping in mind. And besides, America, the world police, are currently ticking far too many of those boxes ourselves to be throwing any stones out of our glass Fascist house anyway.
Probably because you aren't in a position of social influence, and/or your friends aren't propagating dangerous ideas? That's all the more reason to skewer those that do and are, precisely because of the platforming effects they have.
These social morays have applied to everyone, everywhere, forever. One does not need to be rich to have social capital.
> You know the Senate will vote to acquit Trump today, right?
This just in: two things can be bad at the same time. Perhaps more than two! Details at 11.
I will never understand the pearl clutching that goes on when things like this happen.
As a person you are judged constantly by others, as a public figure this increases exponentially. You are judged on everything: the clothing you wear, the way you speak, and yes, the company you keep. In the age of social media influencing, each of us has a platform built upon the platform we choose. Each of us via that platform can spread influence, be it marketing, ideas, or (dis)information.
If you utilize your platform upon a platform (or just your platform) to spread bad ideas, purported by bad people, it is a perfectly rational reaction by your audience to reclaim the social capital they have given you. This is not wrong. This is not censorship. This is how social networks have worked since long before any of us had a smart phone, or indeed, when the social network was a fire in a cave, we have operated this way.
And reading this summation, yeah that sounds about right. It sounds as if he is embroiled in a social space that is spreading bad ideas. He has denounced one person who was in that social space, but he is still in contact with two others spreading similar ideas. This calls into question the sincerity of his denouncement.
I.e. if you say you're done drinking, and resolve to quit, and refuse to spend time with your alcoholic friend, but still spend time around two others who drink regularly, people would be right to question your sincerity in that resolve.
> If you link to someone who supports X, then you're actually supporting every other person who has ever supported X? Link to a pro-vegan website, you must support every terrible ideology that has had at least one vegetarian supporter?
This impulse to boil this activity into a set of always absurd sounding "rules" is probably comforting to those who would call themselves Rationalist, the sorts who fetishize facts and logic, while usually having a dearth of both in the things they say. But ultimately this isn't hard to understand: If you associate with people known to believe and spread bad things, you will in turn be viewed as possibly endorsing those things.
And all of this comes up against the simple and obvious truth that all someone in this position has to do is speak what so many would like to hear; that they didn't understand what this person was doing, that it isn't what they believe, and to create distance. But they won't. I wonder why?
And my reply to that is, in the context of mainstreaming Linux to the wider computer using audience, that's ridiculous. You might as well tell every person who owns a car to never pay for repairs again, because you can, via the proper hardware, reprogram the ECM. That "solution" applies only to an interested subculture of (awesome) people who hack shit.
To say to my aunt Doris that Ubuntu can be better for her to use than Windows and then require her to learn a fair bit of bash script and C# to complete that journey is ridiculous.