[vinceguidry]

You can look at numbers on reports, or you can go and actually look at some of these run-down areas. It's actually kinda hard to do, my eyes were opened one day when I was trying to get from point A to point B in Colombia and I took a shared cab some 400 miles. Seeing it in person is way different than looking at pictures online, lemme tell you. It hits you that it's not just that part of rural Colombia that looks like that, rural everywhere does. And you'll never unsee it, but you'll never actually see it either unless you go out there and look.

The world isn't much different now than the one that caused the Buddha to leave his princely lifestyle and dedicate his life to teaching and spirituality. Those material gains over the last 200 years, sorry they just don't seem all that germane.

[NikolaeVarius]

Wait, is your argument really to ignore the data and go with your gut?

Wow, in the past 200 years, we've seen the eradication of smallpox, treatment for Tuberculosis, vaccines for pneumonia, all issues plaguing humanity for pretty much all of recorded history.

A rural farmer in Nigeria can access price data in real time using a cell phone, while democracy in India allows dozens of politicians from every state argue on live TV simultaneously to get their views heard.

What, pray tell, can you say that the world isn't a better place

[vinceguidry]

The world is a better place... For those best positioned to take advantage. Those who aren't, can go work in Amazon warehouses.

[nindalf]

Amazon workers are paid $20/hour plus benefits. What % of humanity had access to such economic opportunities 200 years ago? Those Amazon workers also don’t need to worry about their whole families dying from diseases (smallpox, cholera, TB), famine, and war.

What are you even talking about? 150 years ago a large fraction of the world population were slaves. You’re insulting them and your own intelligence if you think their lives were comparable to Amazon workers.

You go on one trip to Columbia and think your eyes are open. Meanwhile many of the people in this thread have lived their whole lives in such countries, including me.

[mym1990]

I had a feeling you wouldn't want to look at the data and accept the possibility that you are wrong. I see the poverty everywhere, I lived in SF paying $3000 for rent while homeless people were everywhere, I don't disagree that capitalism is hitting a stride that will be hard to recover from. But the fact that you claim to know what the world was like when Buddha was around is even more alarming.

[halo-and-talon]

Do you know how many babies used to die before they were a year old?

It sounds like you saw real poverty and it woke you up to your immense wealth and comfortable existence, so kudos on that. You took the wrong leap though and decided that your life is the default state, when in fact it is in an incredible aberration of history. For millions of years every person was poor, then a few were rich, then more were rich, and now you're one of them.

[slothtrop]

> You can look at numbers on reports, or you can go and actually look at some of these run-down areas.

You're advocating for ignoring research and data in favor of anecdotes. You're not even trying to argue in good faith.

[iammisc]

> The world isn't much different now than the one that caused the Buddha to leave his princely lifestyle and dedicate his life to teaching and spirituality. Those material gains over the last 200 years, sorry they just don't seem all that germane.

In my experience, the people who are typically 'shocked' by this destitution are people who have lived extremely privileged lives, believe this is the default state of the world, and then see this destitution, and are so moved, that they dedicate their lives to eradicating it, while often misidentifying the cause.

Buddha is the archetypical version of this narrative, and it's no wonder -- as a rich prince, he had no idea what the world was really like.

In reality, most of the problems you see in rural areas all around the world are human-caused problems, typically where humans are interfering with individual freedom (civil and economic).

> It hits you that it's not just that part of rural Colombia that looks like that, rural everywhere does.

Except it doesn't. My parents live used to live in rural America and it was quite nice. My brother lives in the countryside and it's also quite nice. It's no less destitute than the area of Portland I live in. Have you ever been to a city? It's not like they're some model of refinement.

[vinceguidry]

> In reality, most of the problems you see in rural areas all around the world are human-caused problems, typically where humans are interfering with individual freedom (civil and economic).

This is exactly what I'm trying to say. Rent-seekers are keeping the world under their callous little thumbs, just like they have been for thousands of years. I think I'm done. HN hivemind, you can have your echo chamber back.

[iammisc]

If you let humans freely exchange goods, and not interfere, you get capitalism. Capitalism is not a creed like marxism. Capitalism is Marx's term used to describe what happens when people can exchange goods freely.

If you're arguing that we should protect free markets in these areas, like Colombia (which would also include curtailing criminal cartels, which infringe on freedom), then sure, we can have a discussion.

If you're going to pretend that rural areas are sometimes impoverished because of 'muh evil capitalism' and that we need 'insert untried, or failed social policy here', then I don't see the point.

[vinceguidry]

Here's an idea, capitalism, without the rent-seeking. When someone wants to do something everyone knows is wrong, we don't let them. Instead of making excuses, we hold people with power and affluence to higher standards.

What a concept.

[NikolaeVarius]

Yes, as long as you can agree on "everyone knows is wrong"/

What the fuck does that mean? The same people who would complain about HFT would also probably complain that a person in the 1800's who could run fast would be doing something 'wrong' after they found out a trade ship had returned.

What is "wrong" with the fast exchange of information in that case?

[iammisc]

Absolutely. This is an angle I didn't even mention in my post, because it had already gotten wrong. Generalized statements like 'everyone knows is wrong' are a dogwhistle for 'whatever I think is wrong'.

[iammisc]

Can you give an example of the rent-seeking?

> When someone wants to do something everyone knows is wrong, we don't let them.

Yes. that's called enforcing criminal law, and most people would agree with it. Although, I dunno, maybe not in the past two years, it seems more people are okay with letting criminals go.

EDIT: If your claim is that we don't put enough people in jail for breaking the law, I agree with you. I don't see the need to regulate businesses per se. For example, many complain about Amazon and Facebook and want to break it up. I can understand why. I sympathize.

However, Mark Zuckerberg ought to be in jail for conducting social experiments on people without their consent, selling our data, etc. WE don't need to regulate the activities of private enterprise and add more regulation. We just need to actually prosecute people who quite obviously have committed criminal activity.

Same with Jeff Bezos, who owns two businesses (Amazon and the Washington Post) that quite obviously form a conflict of interest. We need no new laws to prevent this kind of conduct.

[vinceguidry]

All of those things would be great. But if we, the most affluent people in the world and best positioned to make our voices heard, make excuses for Zuck, make excuses for Amazon, make excuses for all these businesses that extract wealth without supporting their communities, then we'll just keep building unholy unequal pyramids, where what's normal is completely, irreparably broken, replicating the teetering social structures of the Bronze Age. (I don't back up the points I make drawing from ancient history because HN comment section isn't a place to give history lessons)

We need to not leave it up to the Kalanicks of the world to change the social order, reinventing taxis for fun and profit.

It's more than a change in legal and ethical norms. We need to not fire people who speak their minds for the social good against the company, then further marginalize the already marginalized community they're speaking up for.

We need new social norms.

[nindalf]

> Can you give an example of the rent-seeking?

I’m not that person but I’ve noticed this pattern in such people. Rent-seeking is anything they don’t like. So it could be landlords charging tenants rent, it could be Apple charging developers 30% “rent”, could be Google charging “rent” on the ad space next to search results, Microsoft charging for Windows even though an additional copy of Windows doesn’t cost them more to produce.

Basically it can be as broad as you want it to be. And these delusional folks say we can stop it by “not letting it happen”. Lol.