sly_foxx

There is a solution and it's very simple:

- Kill the parasites.

Producers are taxed at nearly 50% rate[income + sales tax + property + wage + others] on what they make. If we kill off the parasites, then we would have to work almost 50% less to have the same standard of living as we have now. Imagine: 20 hours/week. You could work 2-3 days and then enjoy the rest. Or 1 person could work and the other one would stay at home and take care of their children.

It makes sense to reward people you love and who are productive. But, these are parasites and the correct course of action is to, not reward them with cash and goods we producers make, but to kill them and enjoy our lives.

Don't you agree?

'STUDENTS' - this word is the problem. Students are those studying to become engineers/surgeons[producers] and those studying sociology/gender_studies[parasites].

That's why so many people in humanities departments are liberals/communists. How else is a sociology student going to get a smartphone? They have to tax producers, take their money by getting a fake job in some non-profit/government agency/college and receive a salary there[taken from tax dollars].

The word 'student' makes it seem like we're all in this together, but we aren't. Parasites are eating us alive.

He had 4 years of lost wages + $65k in debt. When you're in college, you don't work. So, again, he's in much worse situation than someone who learns programming at home in 1 year.

$65k in student loans to learn programming? The author is clearly an idiot. Programming can be learned from home for next to nothing, because you have all the tools you need there. It's not like you're a surgeon and you're working with expensive/complex equipment.

Facebook is the biggest scam for most businesses.

1) They've pulled bait and switch when they decided to charge to reach users that have already liked your page. Most of those users liked your page because you've posted a link to FB on your site.

2) Click fraud is rampant [1]

3) They make money on copyrighted videos + ripping off YouTube content creators [2]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7tA3NNKF0Q

No, because I will kill myself when I get there. I'm doing all the things I want to do before I grow old and incompetent. All the activities you would do when you're old + much more, you can do when you're younger and healthier.

For example, let's say you plan to visit location X when you're old. Well, why not do it when you're younger with the money you would have saved for retirement?

A better registration system for a global company would be one with a phone number(instead of email) + generated code(instead of a password).

"An approximately rational truth seeking community can reasonably be expected to come to a reasonably good approximation of the truth, compared to what they have access to. As such, such a community can be used as an (approximate) indicator of the truth."

- You're writing about a rational truth seeking community when the user @afarrell is writing about majority of people. Do you see the difference? People (members of homo sapiens sapiens species) have not evolved to seek truth, but to survive and reproduce.

"Moral relativism can fall down a well."

- How can moral relativism fall down? What does that even look like? Fall according to what standard? Is the standard relative or not?

"From a gods-eye perspective, this is actually a good thing, as it brings down the costs of serving peoples' needs."

Why do you define 'good' as servicing needs of members of homo sapiens species? What if a good thing(objectively) is actually servicing members of 'fire ant' species? You attitude smells like speciesism.

"From the perspective of someone who loses their job, it sucks because that person now has no way to feed themselves."

Yep, just like a lot of other animals. You look at some of those animals in the jungle - maybe you'll eat if you're lucky and survive long enough to reproduce. It's a struggle for them. When a zebra is killed by a lion, it ain't nice for the zebra.

"So, we want to get around that by being able to say to someone: "Here is a free $700/month. Move to rural Maine and spend 6 months learning to code and eating food delivered by the driverless truck which stole your job. Then join us in automating more people's jobs away."

Again, this smells like speciesism. Why do you want to spend your time helping members of homo sapiens species? Was that the result of brainwashing during your childhood or did you independantly discover that it is your duty to help members of homo sapiens species?

"Very few people think that sex is a basic right or think that the existence of sexually frustrated folks indicates a flaw on the part of society."

You forgot to add 'today' or 'these days'. Why is what majority thinks an indicator of truth?

"Most people don't put sex and food/shelter/medicine/etc in the same categories."

Again, you're going by what majority thinks. Do you care about truth or what majority thinks?

"Also, we can't really automate the production of sex."

Modern tech can certainly help. For example, you spy on people to see who is attractive and having lots of sex. Then, you sexually tax those people. You locate, kidnapp and take them to someone who is unattractive. From the perspective of the receiver, it will be automated, 'cause they'll be getting women frequantly with no effort.

"do you support "euthanasia of economically useless people"? If you don't have a job for whatever reason, should you just be left on the streets to die?"

YES. Old & incompetent people are 'all cost, no benefit' proposition. Children are cost in the beginning, but benefit later on. Saving lives of old and incompetent(lazy, mentally/physically challenged) people is a total waste of resources.

P.S. Just because you don't have a job now, doesn't mean you can't get one in the future or get new skills and work in a different field.

Why are people on HN supporting basic income so much? Do you support 'Guaranteed Basic Sex' as well? You know, there are guys like Elliot Rodgers who would be thrilled with something like that.

Do you also want to go to the kitchen and start bringing your own food and drinks? Getting up a few times, going there and asking if it's done. Imagine if you have dozens of people/kids running around getting food, maybe spilling it on the floor in the process, bothering people in the kitchen etc. Are you better at scanning items and handling errors than someone who's been doing it for years? The same applies to waiters, cooks etc.

I'm saying government will do it with the help of Uber. Just like they spy on people with the help of FB, Google etc. It's already happening with data.

Imagine you have those cars in China. Government just orders some company to spy on its users and then when certain people enters those cars, they will be steered towards some location where they can be arrested/tortured/killed, because they are enemies of the state. They can't get out of the car, because the locks are also controlled by algorithms. Who knows, maybe they can release some poisonous gas while the person is inside of a car.

Many possibilities are there. Governments are getting much more powerful, while the average homo sapiens is the same like when there was no government.

Self-driving cars are not driving themselves, they are driven by algorithms. The problem is that cars then become prisons on wheels. Think about it - since you pay with a debit/credit card, your identity is known when you enter a car. You can then be driven directly to a police station and you can't escape, because the whole thing is controlled by centralized machines. Just look at what's happening to these people in China who are mysteriously disappearing. Vehicles driven by algorithms are the best tool for eliminating protesters, political enemies etc.

Automation is not always the most convenient thing. Think about self-checkout or pumping your own gas at a gas station. Wouldn't it be better for the customer to have someone do the drudgery for them? Even in the context of websites, some companies have generic FAQ instead of a real customer support team, which is not a good experience.

Haven't you got the memo? You are going to die, everyone you know is going to die and when the Sun explodes, Mars is not going to be spared either. This universe will end most likely in a heat death where life and computation will not be possible. Everything that is being done is ultimately pointless.

What is the point of this company? What benefits do I get from government spending my cash on the company? None.

If I want Mars experience, then I'll go to some shitty place in Nevada, which is much cheaper + human body is accustomed to Earth. I really don't get the fascination with SpaceX.

All the YCombinator companies are going to deflate.

AirBnB - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10913151

Stripe - http://venturebeat.com/2015/09/17/paypals-braintree-is-now-l.... Braintree was bought only 2 years ago for $800 million. 6x less than Stripe's valuation.

Dropbox - http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/22/9372563/dropbox-really-is-.... They are bragging about the number of users, but I bet many of these 'users' are fake accounts made to get free space from referrals and never used again. Plus, there is so much direct and indirect competition. Their privacy policy is also very bad.

Zenefits - http://fortune.com/2015/11/11/snapchat-isnt-the-only-startup...

They can obviously make money by raising a transaction fee a little bit from 3.5% to maybe 5%-7%. eBay has done it to 10% + PayPal fees and they are making billions in net profits.

$340 was for Q3, which is when most people take vacations and doesn't reflect other quarters. The projection for 2015 was $800-900 million.

But, that is year 2015, which is 7th year since they incorporated and I was writing about first 6 years of existence.

For the record, eBay's revenue in 2003 (7th year of existence) was $2.2 billion.

Agree. Airbnb's valuation is very close to eBay's. So, that means that it's expected that in the near future AirBnB will generate at least $2-3 billion in net profits per year. Actually, it would have to be more than that, because investors expect even higher valuation on IPO. Peter Thiel stated he thinks AirBnB will be $100+ billion company, which would imply he expects at least $7 billion after tax profits in the near future.

Let's compare eBay to AirBnB.

eBay incorporated in 1996, AirBnB in 2008. After 6 years of existing, eBay's revenue in 2002 was $1.21 billion[profitable]. AirBnB's revenue after 6 years is $400+ million[not profitable].

Now, eBay got that revenue+profits by 2002 when:

> (1) there were only few hundred million people online - 7x less than now. Slow internet connection, ugly websites, no mobile.

> (2) people were somewhat insecure about transacting online and paying was pain in the ass.

> (3) they were only popular in the US, UK, AU and had recently entered Germany.

Compare that to AirBnB, which after the same number of years operates in environment where:

> (1) there are over 3 billion people online.

> (2) payments online are very common(booking hotels pioneered by other companies) and easy.

> (3) says it operates in 190 countries, 20+ languages.

Even after all these advantages, they only got 1/3 of eBay's revenue in 2002 with the same current valuation.

These hypothetical situations need to be taken with a grain of salt. Many big companies have tried expanding and taking over other markers, unrelated to their core business - they usually fail or acquire a company in that space(e.g. Google-YT; Facebook-Instagram etc.)

"Oh, you mean removing yourself from society and illegally living in the wilderness?"

- Yes, living in wilderness illegally or even taking resources from others. You don't pay for anything - you do what you gotta do, take what you want and try not to get caught.

"This is obviously very different from being dead due to lack of food, water or shelter."

Being frustrated or depressed is worse than being dead. When you're dead, you don't feel anything, so good/bad don't even make sense.

What I don't get is dumb companies who post a link to their FB(or some other social media) page on their site:

1. You're advertising another company for free. Is Facebook paying you to put their logo on your site? No.

2. When people like/follow your page, they are trapped by FB(or some other social media) and you can only reach them there. If you're banned or they pull bait-and-switch on you, like Facebook did, you've wasted all this time building user base for Facebook and not building your business.

3. You can't even reach them on Facebook, because you now have to pay Facebook to reach people that have already liked your page.

4. Posting on social media wastes a lot of time and money(tools + people).

- Compare this to getting an email address from your visitors:

1. You are in control of your list.

2. You can reach them anywhere & anytime almost for free.

Yes, comparison works and is spot on.

You can survive without stable income - humans and many other animal species have been doing it for hundreds of millions of years. Yes, it's hard, but so what? Why would that be a reason to create a safety net(by taking from productive people and giving it to parasites)?

'People can live perfectly well without a girlfriend' This is false. Some people who are asexual can do it. But, most will be frustrated, maybe even depressed. Are you familiar with Elliot Rodgers? A mass shooter who over a year ago killed/injured a bunch of people(students) in California. Why? He tells us - because women didn't want him. If you read some comments online, a lot of guys are sympathetic to his feelings, even though they wouldn't go as far as he did.

Also, because straight men have a strong sexual desire + desire for reproduction, women can be like employers. What if you quit relationship with your girlfriend/wife? Will you able to find another one? It would be like you're a low-skilled employee. Women have a lot of leverage.

Who cares about 'Maslow's hierarchy of needs'? It's an arbitrary pyramid - you can create your own if you wish where you can rank internet as the most basic necessity.

Also, the jobs pool is quite diversified and most people can find work during their lifetime. It's not common for highly skilled people to have multiples jobs.

What does GDP have to do with resources? GDP measures volume of transactions. Resources are oil, gas, silver etc. Also, there is real estate. Land on Earth is limited. There are 10s of millions of people who want to live in Malibu, for example. But, number of spots there is limited, so who is going to live there? Those who have the most money.

Do you get it now - more people alive means more competition for land and other resources.

Can you think outside of the communist box?

Competition is in part due to the fact there are more humans alive today fighting for the same resources. It's kinda similar to dating, where things are not getting easier(except for those who inherited good genes). Today with dating you have to do more to get the same result people use to get with less effort.

Lack of social safety net? Why do you care about that? You don't have a safety net when you get dumped. You know, if your girlfriend dumps you, you don't get another girl to give you blowjobs, because otherwise you might get depressed and suicidal. You're expected to figure it out on your own and you might not do it - you might end up lonely, without dates and maybe even commit suicide because of that. So, why not hold wage earners to the same standard? Don't be a hypocrite!

Why isn't office disrupted by transferring to remote work? You have these companies that make tools like 'slack', 'asana', 'dropbox' etc. which help you work remotely and all of them require their employees to be at the office in the most expensive location in the US. Programming/customer_support/sales/design/marketing jobs can all be done from anywhere. What is stopping these startups from going remote?

How about fixing dating/sexual inequality? You know, one guy sleeping with 15 girls is not fair to all the losers/ugly_guys like me who can't get a date. We have to redistribute partners and make sure that even the unattractive guys can get a date. We'll have to kidnap women who are into attractive/successful guys and then take them to losers like me. You think this is rape? It's not, just like taxes on goods are not theft, because the only reason attractive people can get partners is because a lot of unattractive people like me contribute by building roads, bridges, apps, infrastructure, schools, which enables attractive people to arrange dates and then use roads to get there. We are also in the friend zone all the time, while the attractive guys are getting deep inside our female friend. They have to give something back. I am proposing a 'sexual tax'.

ALSO, since pretty people inherited good genes and didn't work for it, I also propose taxing physical beauty by making pretty people look uglier by 30-40%(call it 'inheritance sexual tax'). That way, already ugly people will look great in comparison.