door5

> Is there any indication that people actually understand (and can mathematically demonstrate) how to fix this, or are all suggestions going to be based on economic or political ideologies?

This is an engineer's mindset, but human society is not a purely logical system. Ideology has to be a part of the conversation, because wealth inequality is about our values. Do we want a world in which a small number of people control most of the economic and political power, or do we value a world in which wealth and power are distributed more evenly? This seems like a relatively obvious question for me.

Rent control prevents people who currently have homes from being displaced. It also limits the degree to which housing is a commodity investors can profit off of & the degree to which they can exploit their tenants. It is obviously not a complete solution to the housing crisis (and no housing advocate claims this) -- a complete solution means rent control and building more housing, especially high quality public housing.

> What I find most sad is that most of the people on HN will rail against how evil Google is (or any other company) yet happily use their Open Source code and not complain that they're benefiting from what they claim to despise.

Developers made these products. I'm sure they would be just as happy getting paid the same wage and making awesome products without working for a morally bankrupt company, but those opportunities don't exist. FAANG are the only institutions on the planet that have the resources to fund large-scale open source projects.

>You can't have the government report on the government and expect full independence - even if it is independent of the executive, you still need to fund it somehow, which is going to make it beholden to someone.

And private media, controlled by unaccountable billionaire capitalists and funded by corporate advertising, can be trusted?

With publicly funded media, there can be far more scrutiny, openness and criticism. I mean, look at the UK and compare the BBC, which has its flaws, to the absolutely repulsive, dishonest and dogmatically right-wing private press.

So get engaged and use your privilege to struggle for the rights of workers who have less privilege than you.

>Why stop with code? If code is always better in the open, then why not require all business communication in the open

Sounds good to me, a kind of freedom of information act for private corporations.

>It sounds like you're arguing for a socialism model where a central authority decides how to use capital.

You got it. A democratically controlled central authority representing the interests of working people instead of capital, yes.

You're confusing the actions of yourself with the actions of multibillion-dollar institutions. Corporations are not people, they are massively powerful legal entities.

>This is fucking insane. It’s a terrible suggestion and you should feel terrible for having made it.

It's actually a very good suggestion and I feel good about it. Another way of saying this is that intellectual property restrictions should be greatly relaxed. What's insane is that an overwhelming majority of time, money and energy in the tech sector goes into software that is closed source, and thus technological progress is greatly hindered because research and code is unable to be shared openly. Imagine, for example, the vast public good that would arise from Google or Microsoft opening up their entire code bases for free. Think about how much good has already arisen from their respective open source projects already, & if that was extended to all their products.

Regardless, my point is not that every business acts unethically, but rather that in any business there exists a tension between private profit and public good. This is one specific example -- it is in the interest of a private company to keep their code bases closed and proprietary, but it is in the public good for all software to be free an open.

>When the licence itself and the mantra that goes with it are both hostile to business use, it’s no surprise business doesn’t get involved.

Obviously, but that's because businesses act unethically -- ie, for private profit over public good. They absolutely should be called out for that. Or, more specifically, they should be regulated so that non-free software licenses are illegal or severely restricted.

Also true.

True -- vastly expanding public housing, with the goal of eventually eliminating private housing. Housing should be a public good, not a commodity. Until then, rent control is a good way of minimizing the extent to which landlords exploit their tenants.

It's an issue that not everyone has access to this support, and whether or not any individual person does is random and dictated by birth

Sure it does. The OP assumed that piracy was bad and compared outline.com to piracy to attempt to argue it is bad. Their premise is false, because actually piracy rules and is good.

Both of those articles refer to journal articles if you are so inclined. My point is not that cell phone radiation is unsafe (it probably is safe), but that it's not an obviously resolved issue in the way that vaccine safety is.

The government can blockade roads and impound/boot your car. They also maintain roads. Many low-income people rely on public transit as their only transit option already. If your fear is that the government is going to turn against its own citizens and use public services as a weapon, public transit should be the least of your worries. You could easily say the same thing about municipal water or electricity.

There's a lot of anti-cell phone radiation cranks, but to compare the research to anti-vaxxers is disingenuous. Mainstream publications have raised legitimate questions about it and the research is far from conclusive:

https://www.thenation.com/article/how-big-wireless-made-us-t...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/health/cell-phones-cancer...

Find a business model that doesn't involve a paywall.

Yes that rules also. Information and technology should be free.

The conspiracy theory is "China is wholesale slaughtering political dissidents in order to harvest their organs". Questioning why claims by two researchers funded by the Falun Gong cult get uncritical attention from a Tory writing in the Wall Street Journal isn't a conspiracy theory.

Piracy actually rules

>Mr. Rogers is East Asia Team Leader at the human-rights organization CSW, deputy chairman of the U.K. Conservative Party’s Human Rights Commission

Hm, I wonder what the political motives of the author are.

I condemn the rich who want to isolate their kids instead of working on a public school system accessible to all, yes.

It's oddly transparent to limit your stats to white people.

>During the cold war, he also used to characterize 'capital democratization' as a third way, separate from capitalism and communism

Decentralized workplace democracy was the model in Yugoslavia under communism and in much of China during the Mao era. It was also briefly attempted in the early Soviet Union.

This is pedantic. 10% is proportionally a very small number. I'm far more invested in the interests and priorities of 90% of people than of 10% of people.

Issues like distaster recovery should be handled by governments, not unaccountable private charities. The issue is that the U.S. has systematically destroyed Haiti's infrastructure for nearly a century and overthrown any leader that isn't a puppet regime.

You're right, to some degree, public sector employees have stronger labor protections than private sector employees. However, we disagree in that I think these protections are a good thing, and I support nationalization where possible and private sector unions where not. Everyone should have the right to strike.

Advocacy of a specific religion should not be part of a citizen's formal education. Private religious schools receive public funding and public accreditation, and they should not, nor should any other private school, for that matter.

Are you validating my point? Less than 1/4th of all children in one of the wealthiest metropolitan areas in the country.

People rich enough to put their kids in private school are a tiny minority. It doesn't matter what they think. This is a working class movement for working class people.