Most people who criticize capitalism have little idea of what capitalism actually is. Capitalism of course is the private control and ownership of capital. There's going to be minimal intervention by the state and that's mostly going to be revolving around enforcing that private ownership and enforcing contracts. The reason people do things is primarily because they can make a profit, and not because anyone in particular has ordered them to do so.
Capitalism per se peaked about 150 years ago, and for the past 110 years has been on the decline. A lot of people who don't know economics would fight me on this, but. Depending on the country, the government used to be maybe 1 to 5% of GDP and now it can be as much as 60% of GDP.
The fundamental problem that any economic system is trying to solve is scarcity. Now people blame capitalism scarcity, when in reality they need to be blaming the universe. There's a limited amount of energy, there's a limited amount of stuff, and when that stuff is turned into other stuff there's a limited amount of other stuff. Indeed, this is one of the problems that capitalism solves the best, because it directly creates incentives to create more stuff so that you can get more money and get more stuff. This is an improving in systems such as socialism where the only way to make socialism work is to keep market systems so that individuals are incentivized to do a good job. When China opened its markets and stopped being quite so pure communist they went from starving 100 million people to being one of the most productive countries on the planet.
People end up looking at the problems are today, particularly political corruption and crony capitalism, and they want to blame the capitalism part of things, but both are problems of the state that would not go away even if you completely abolished capitalism. Crony capitalism might go away, but cronyism would get worse because there would be no mechanisms for people who aren't in bed with the state to succeed.
Elon Musk didn't become the world's richest man by being the best capitalist, he did it by making the best use of the state's distortions of the market. As a capitalist he's a bit lame, his car company is small and barely profitable.
I think I would be the first to admit that just because our system today isn't pure capitalism doesn't necessarily mean that that's what's wrong with it. I think it's safe to say most people wouldn't want to live under pure capitalism, which is one reason why most of the world has moved away from it. My core argument here rather than being a defense of capitalism is more that we need to understand what we have when we are criticizing what we have.
It reminds me of people who drive on ice for the first time in a rear wheel drive vehicle. The back end breaks loose, and they want to steer hard to correct, but what they don't realize is the problem isn't that there's aiming the wrong way, it's at the rear wheels have lost traction and their front wheels are pointing in the wrong direction, so rather than doing what you think might be the right thing and trying to correct by steering in the direction you want to go, you have to steer in the direction that's going to straighten out your wheels and let your vehicle recover from the loss of traction.
Capitalism per se peaked about 150 years ago, and for the past 110 years has been on the decline. A lot of people who don't know economics would fight me on this, but. Depending on the country, the government used to be maybe 1 to 5% of GDP and now it can be as much as 60% of GDP.
The fundamental problem that any economic system is trying to solve is scarcity. Now people blame capitalism scarcity, when in reality they need to be blaming the universe. There's a limited amount of energy, there's a limited amount of stuff, and when that stuff is turned into other stuff there's a limited amount of other stuff. Indeed, this is one of the problems that capitalism solves the best, because it directly creates incentives to create more stuff so that you can get more money and get more stuff. This is an improving in systems such as socialism where the only way to make socialism work is to keep market systems so that individuals are incentivized to do a good job. When China opened its markets and stopped being quite so pure communist they went from starving 100 million people to being one of the most productive countries on the planet.
People end up looking at the problems are today, particularly political corruption and crony capitalism, and they want to blame the capitalism part of things, but both are problems of the state that would not go away even if you completely abolished capitalism. Crony capitalism might go away, but cronyism would get worse because there would be no mechanisms for people who aren't in bed with the state to succeed.
Elon Musk didn't become the world's richest man by being the best capitalist, he did it by making the best use of the state's distortions of the market. As a capitalist he's a bit lame, his car company is small and barely profitable.
I think I would be the first to admit that just because our system today isn't pure capitalism doesn't necessarily mean that that's what's wrong with it. I think it's safe to say most people wouldn't want to live under pure capitalism, which is one reason why most of the world has moved away from it. My core argument here rather than being a defense of capitalism is more that we need to understand what we have when we are criticizing what we have.
It reminds me of people who drive on ice for the first time in a rear wheel drive vehicle. The back end breaks loose, and they want to steer hard to correct, but what they don't realize is the problem isn't that there's aiming the wrong way, it's at the rear wheels have lost traction and their front wheels are pointing in the wrong direction, so rather than doing what you think might be the right thing and trying to correct by steering in the direction you want to go, you have to steer in the direction that's going to straighten out your wheels and let your vehicle recover from the loss of traction.
That's one of those things that's kind of tough.
I will say though, don't you want a guy like that putting electrodes in your brain? Lol
I will say though, don't you want a guy like that putting electrodes in your brain? Lol
One thing that I think everyone needs to keep in mind is that the MAGA coalition is just that -- a coalition.
Different parts of the coalition will have different goals, and those goals are not going to fully align.
Of course the industrialists want low taxes, little regulation, and a workforce that can be paid next to nothing and treated like virtual slaves under the threat of going back to their third world country. This is in direct opposition to the populist nationalist elements of the movement which of course want to keep jobs in the US for US citizens. Social conservatives may or may not have an opinion on the matter, libertarians probably don't really want the state intervening and labor at all, and the disfected liberals probably lean closer to the populist nationalist elements.
Part of the work of having a coalition is the fact that there's going to have to be negotiation. Not everyone in the coalition is going to get everything that they want, but everyone should get something, and hopefully enough that everyone can agree to stick together in that coalition.
The fact that autistic Elon is representing the industrialists is kind of nice, because he doesn't bother trying to be sneaky about it, he's just saying straight up what he wants -- more h1b workers. Considering that Tesla has some of the lowest wages not just in Tech but also I think in the Auto industry, this shouldn't be surprising to anyone.
If certain elements of the coalition don't feel like they're getting what they bargained for, then it falls apart. Trump has developed a pretty broad coalition, and it'll be his job, not Elon musk's job, to ensure that the different parts of his coalition feel like they are getting enough to justify continuing to support it.
Different parts of the coalition will have different goals, and those goals are not going to fully align.
Of course the industrialists want low taxes, little regulation, and a workforce that can be paid next to nothing and treated like virtual slaves under the threat of going back to their third world country. This is in direct opposition to the populist nationalist elements of the movement which of course want to keep jobs in the US for US citizens. Social conservatives may or may not have an opinion on the matter, libertarians probably don't really want the state intervening and labor at all, and the disfected liberals probably lean closer to the populist nationalist elements.
Part of the work of having a coalition is the fact that there's going to have to be negotiation. Not everyone in the coalition is going to get everything that they want, but everyone should get something, and hopefully enough that everyone can agree to stick together in that coalition.
The fact that autistic Elon is representing the industrialists is kind of nice, because he doesn't bother trying to be sneaky about it, he's just saying straight up what he wants -- more h1b workers. Considering that Tesla has some of the lowest wages not just in Tech but also I think in the Auto industry, this shouldn't be surprising to anyone.
If certain elements of the coalition don't feel like they're getting what they bargained for, then it falls apart. Trump has developed a pretty broad coalition, and it'll be his job, not Elon musk's job, to ensure that the different parts of his coalition feel like they are getting enough to justify continuing to support it.
Just imagine Jack Layton peeks down from heaven "What? The Liberals are self-destructing and they're in third? Well! I'm excited to see if my NDP is in first or just second!"
I still have a legit copy of BeOS 5.0 in a cd sleeve somewhere.
Which makes me strange in at least 3 ways...
Of course that doesn't mean I have a CD drive ready to go anywhere...
Which makes me strange in at least 3 ways...
Of course that doesn't mean I have a CD drive ready to go anywhere...
I thought it might be a good idea, but then the one in my city immediately has the current thing flag flying, and I immediately understood this wasn't the place for someone like me.
CRT Simulation in a GPU Shader, Looks Better Than Black Frame Insertion
Link: https://blurbusters.com/crt-simulation-in-a-gpu-shader-looks-better-than-bfi/
Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42506211
People talk about the US healthcare system as if it's a choice between capitalism and socialism.
It's a false dichotomy. The Americans already spend as much public money on healthcare per capita as single payer systems like Canada or the UK.
In a sense, the insurance industry exists in part because the state solution is a failed one.
Some people claim that the United States hasn't tried a state solution and that's why things are so bad. That's a lie. If they chose not to pursue a state solution then they wouldn't be spending as much public money as they are. They have a state based solution that's incompetent.
Then people find it ironic that in spite of their poor system now they don't trust the government to implement a healthcare system for everyone. The fact that the state based system is so broken doesn't seem to be at all ironic that people don't trust the state to do the thing they're currently failing to do.
People might argue that government involvement in healthcare isn't axiomatically inefficient and just is by how the US government has chosen to do it, which is self-evidently true based on the fact that I'm not comparing the United States to a perfect system I am comparing the United States to other countries in the anglosphere which have single-payer healthcare for comparable or even lower amounts of money than the United States gets virtually nothing for. However, the proof in the pudding is in the eating, the reason that the US government is incompetent at healthcare is immaterial next to the fact that they are in fact incompetent at healthcare.
Some people might say that it's because of political partisanship, but the last major piece of healthcare legislation occurred when the Democrats had a supermajority in Congress and thus could pass any piece of legislation they wanted. What they chose to pass was more spending and no improvement to healthcare accessibility.
The idea that partisanship might block reforms even during super majorities? The answer is that it doesn't. At that point, one party is fully in charge. Now it's true that poorly implemented or unpopular reforms could be easily moved back in the next political session where the other party was in charge, but that assumes that they will be poorly implemented or unpopular. As an example, in spite of the issues with healthcare in canada, it is considered a third rail that no political party, even the far right populist party The People's party of Canada, is remotely willing to discuss ending it. If a political party with a supermajority and majorities and the presidency and the supreme Court where to implement something that immediately had a tangible improvement on outcomes for people, it would just become the way things are done.
I think that if anything, the government really does a great job of avoiding all blame. They they act with extreme incompetence, and extreme corruption, and they are the ones who ultimately make the decision about what happens but they get to blame lobbyists as if congressman and senators don't have any agency of their own, they just do whatever they're told by lobbyists.
People want to pretend lobbyists only exist in the United States, and they want to act like fragmentation only exists in the United States. Neither of these are true of course, but they provide easy scapegoats to incompetent lawmakers. For people who claim that it isn't possible to have the federal government fund a program that is managed by the states, they once again only need look to Canada, whose public healthcare program is funded by the federal government and implemented by the provinces, and although imperfect provides universal health Care in every province and territory.
Medicare, Medicaid, and VA are limited in scope which is why not everyone gets access to them. However, if Medicare was so great then it could achieve its mission with a fraction of its budget and people would go "oh, we have all this money left over we could implement single-payer healthcare" but instead these extremely limited programs are constantly complaining that they're underfunded. Notably, the Swiss hybrid system actually results in record low public expenditure on healthcare across Europe.
All of these realities based on comparative analysis with other countries act as a tactical nuke, more or less destroying every argument that lets the US government avoid blame for the current situation in healthcare.
It's also a kill shot to arguments saying the problem with the US healthcare is but they aren't willing to pay for something that is socialism. The failures of private insurance are in fact a direct result of the failures of government to implement effective public health Care with the money that they already have.
So we are perfectly clear here, if the government legalizes something, and they make something tax deductible, and massively funds something, then it is responsible for that thing. If instead of healthcare we were talking about crack cocaine, we wouldn't be talking about the individual people selling crack cocaine we would be asking why the government has set up a system like that.
The US has a system that protects tens of millions at a cost that should protect hundreds of millions. What is the human cost of leaving hundreds of millions of people without healthcare so we can give tens of millions of people healthcare? Clearly the real issue is that the government needs to fix their shit.
It's a false dichotomy. The Americans already spend as much public money on healthcare per capita as single payer systems like Canada or the UK.
In a sense, the insurance industry exists in part because the state solution is a failed one.
Some people claim that the United States hasn't tried a state solution and that's why things are so bad. That's a lie. If they chose not to pursue a state solution then they wouldn't be spending as much public money as they are. They have a state based solution that's incompetent.
Then people find it ironic that in spite of their poor system now they don't trust the government to implement a healthcare system for everyone. The fact that the state based system is so broken doesn't seem to be at all ironic that people don't trust the state to do the thing they're currently failing to do.
People might argue that government involvement in healthcare isn't axiomatically inefficient and just is by how the US government has chosen to do it, which is self-evidently true based on the fact that I'm not comparing the United States to a perfect system I am comparing the United States to other countries in the anglosphere which have single-payer healthcare for comparable or even lower amounts of money than the United States gets virtually nothing for. However, the proof in the pudding is in the eating, the reason that the US government is incompetent at healthcare is immaterial next to the fact that they are in fact incompetent at healthcare.
Some people might say that it's because of political partisanship, but the last major piece of healthcare legislation occurred when the Democrats had a supermajority in Congress and thus could pass any piece of legislation they wanted. What they chose to pass was more spending and no improvement to healthcare accessibility.
The idea that partisanship might block reforms even during super majorities? The answer is that it doesn't. At that point, one party is fully in charge. Now it's true that poorly implemented or unpopular reforms could be easily moved back in the next political session where the other party was in charge, but that assumes that they will be poorly implemented or unpopular. As an example, in spite of the issues with healthcare in canada, it is considered a third rail that no political party, even the far right populist party The People's party of Canada, is remotely willing to discuss ending it. If a political party with a supermajority and majorities and the presidency and the supreme Court where to implement something that immediately had a tangible improvement on outcomes for people, it would just become the way things are done.
I think that if anything, the government really does a great job of avoiding all blame. They they act with extreme incompetence, and extreme corruption, and they are the ones who ultimately make the decision about what happens but they get to blame lobbyists as if congressman and senators don't have any agency of their own, they just do whatever they're told by lobbyists.
People want to pretend lobbyists only exist in the United States, and they want to act like fragmentation only exists in the United States. Neither of these are true of course, but they provide easy scapegoats to incompetent lawmakers. For people who claim that it isn't possible to have the federal government fund a program that is managed by the states, they once again only need look to Canada, whose public healthcare program is funded by the federal government and implemented by the provinces, and although imperfect provides universal health Care in every province and territory.
Medicare, Medicaid, and VA are limited in scope which is why not everyone gets access to them. However, if Medicare was so great then it could achieve its mission with a fraction of its budget and people would go "oh, we have all this money left over we could implement single-payer healthcare" but instead these extremely limited programs are constantly complaining that they're underfunded. Notably, the Swiss hybrid system actually results in record low public expenditure on healthcare across Europe.
All of these realities based on comparative analysis with other countries act as a tactical nuke, more or less destroying every argument that lets the US government avoid blame for the current situation in healthcare.
It's also a kill shot to arguments saying the problem with the US healthcare is but they aren't willing to pay for something that is socialism. The failures of private insurance are in fact a direct result of the failures of government to implement effective public health Care with the money that they already have.
So we are perfectly clear here, if the government legalizes something, and they make something tax deductible, and massively funds something, then it is responsible for that thing. If instead of healthcare we were talking about crack cocaine, we wouldn't be talking about the individual people selling crack cocaine we would be asking why the government has set up a system like that.
The US has a system that protects tens of millions at a cost that should protect hundreds of millions. What is the human cost of leaving hundreds of millions of people without healthcare so we can give tens of millions of people healthcare? Clearly the real issue is that the government needs to fix their shit.
This summer I came to a different conclusion.
I've made a habit of going to going out with my son.
The first year he was alive it was too hot that summer. We read a lot instead, and there aren't many toddlers on the planet who have been read as many words as mine.
The second year, we went for walks in his stroller but he wasn't really mobile enough to go to a park for real, so we'd stop and swing on a swing now and again but not much else, and the focus was walking.
This year is the third year, and we've gone to the park from early spring until late fall. I got into the rhythm of going friday after work, twice or three times on Saturday, twice or three times on Sunday, and at least once on Monday. (Always once in the morning and once in the evening, and some days before supper and after supper)
I did this because I'm nuts and really think it's important to be getting outside like that and reading a ton and doing all these things, but I don't think everyone should hold themselves to the same standards I keep. However, one thing I eventually realized is that we basically had the park to ourselves. It wasn't just one park we went to, either. We went to several, and we almost always had them to ourselves.
We went on walking paths, had them to ourselves. We went to beaches, had them to ourselves.
I've called this phemonenon "living in ghost world". Walking around an empty world with no people, no parents, not even any kids.
I think people end up making the wrong arguments. I heard some people saying "Oh, parents don't have the money to do stuff with their kids", but I didn't spend a penny going to the park, walking on the walking trail, going to the beach (It wasn't anything fancy, just a rocky outcropping next to a creek you could sit on). These things were free, but nobody else was there. Sure, perhaps parents are working a lot, but I don't think most households have both parents working straight 12 or 16 hour days, there are such things as days off. You'd expect at least some parents would be able to spend an hour at the park.
I think it's devices.
I think after a long day's work, the parents sit on their phones, the kids sit on their tablets, and they just sit there consuming content. It's one of the few models that makes any sense to me. Even for parents who don't work (It isn't like welfare went away), why go outside when you can just slap a tablet in their hands and keep them quiet?
But the fact is, we are seeing the negative consequences of doing what everyone does. Parents have already built themselves up to whatever extent they will, but kids have not and if they don't get a chance to experience the world they'll head out not realizing there's an amazing creation just outside their door. If they aren't read to early, they won't have a chance to realize they have a grand cultural inheritance. If they aren't being taught letters and numbers early, then they'll lose the chance for their minds to wire themselves to these unintuitive concepts early. If they don't have morality taught to them early, they'll fall prey to the problems of liberal ideology (intended to apply to a state) becoming a totalizing ideology and the harm that causes.
I've made a habit of going to going out with my son.
The first year he was alive it was too hot that summer. We read a lot instead, and there aren't many toddlers on the planet who have been read as many words as mine.
The second year, we went for walks in his stroller but he wasn't really mobile enough to go to a park for real, so we'd stop and swing on a swing now and again but not much else, and the focus was walking.
This year is the third year, and we've gone to the park from early spring until late fall. I got into the rhythm of going friday after work, twice or three times on Saturday, twice or three times on Sunday, and at least once on Monday. (Always once in the morning and once in the evening, and some days before supper and after supper)
I did this because I'm nuts and really think it's important to be getting outside like that and reading a ton and doing all these things, but I don't think everyone should hold themselves to the same standards I keep. However, one thing I eventually realized is that we basically had the park to ourselves. It wasn't just one park we went to, either. We went to several, and we almost always had them to ourselves.
We went on walking paths, had them to ourselves. We went to beaches, had them to ourselves.
I've called this phemonenon "living in ghost world". Walking around an empty world with no people, no parents, not even any kids.
I think people end up making the wrong arguments. I heard some people saying "Oh, parents don't have the money to do stuff with their kids", but I didn't spend a penny going to the park, walking on the walking trail, going to the beach (It wasn't anything fancy, just a rocky outcropping next to a creek you could sit on). These things were free, but nobody else was there. Sure, perhaps parents are working a lot, but I don't think most households have both parents working straight 12 or 16 hour days, there are such things as days off. You'd expect at least some parents would be able to spend an hour at the park.
I think it's devices.
I think after a long day's work, the parents sit on their phones, the kids sit on their tablets, and they just sit there consuming content. It's one of the few models that makes any sense to me. Even for parents who don't work (It isn't like welfare went away), why go outside when you can just slap a tablet in their hands and keep them quiet?
But the fact is, we are seeing the negative consequences of doing what everyone does. Parents have already built themselves up to whatever extent they will, but kids have not and if they don't get a chance to experience the world they'll head out not realizing there's an amazing creation just outside their door. If they aren't read to early, they won't have a chance to realize they have a grand cultural inheritance. If they aren't being taught letters and numbers early, then they'll lose the chance for their minds to wire themselves to these unintuitive concepts early. If they don't have morality taught to them early, they'll fall prey to the problems of liberal ideology (intended to apply to a state) becoming a totalizing ideology and the harm that causes.
I'm just glad no former Marines were around or a real tragedy could have occurred. Thankfully nobody important got hurt (according to the state of New York at least).
With just a little more money they could lobby to have the laws of physics repealed.
I was sitting with my dad one day and we figured taking a dash-8 plane off the ground was probably about 5MW of energy. Good luck doing that with even 50 years from now technology, let alone today. You might be able to electrify light aircraft for short trips, but nothing commercial.
I was sitting with my dad one day and we figured taking a dash-8 plane off the ground was probably about 5MW of energy. Good luck doing that with even 50 years from now technology, let alone today. You might be able to electrify light aircraft for short trips, but nothing commercial.
State experts have confirmed that this is just what water smells like, stop being so homophobic all the time.