Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by eugenejen 3439 days ago
how about the possibility that the whole system's complexity outgrow our abilities to manage the system for the moment?
2 comments

Capital expenditure drives productivity. Companies/individuals are holding onto that potential energy at unpreccedentaded levels. These are the seeds of revolutions and war and that's when the 'system' will correct itself.
That sounds like one mighty crappy system though, considering the next set of global wars could spell the end of human civilization as we consider it worthwhile, so I came up with one I like better in 3 seconds: every 3 years, a random number between 0.001 and 1.0 gets generated for every person on the planet (no age restrictions), all those numbers get added and everybody gets their respective share of global wealth. Call it Fununism. It'd be the only argument you'd ever need to convince me to go totally cashless forever.
If physical assets (land, gold bars) are not redistributed under Fununism, then what stops a new aggregation of wealth?

Otherwise, how would you redistribute the assets? Gold bars can be shipped, but land ownership is difficult. For example, would a random illiterate from a developing nation be assigned ownership of a Manhattan skyscraper? One could imagine a system of guardianship in place to steward the property, but that system would enable a new aggregation of wealth through fees.

It seems to me that your proposal would be an extremely efficient way for a small group of people to rapidly consolidate wealth.

> It seems to me that your proposal would be an extremely efficient way for a small group of people to rapidly consolidate wealth.

Sounds like capitalism.

Or maybe it is just flawed.