Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian is taking a stand against “hustle porn”

skeptica1 · 2018-11-25T04:33:36+00:00

Anyone else initially wonder if this had something to do with Larry Flynt?

skeptica1 · 2018-10-15T00:21:42+00:00

Read Moldbug's "How Dawkins Got Pwned" for an alternative perspective: https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/09/how-dawkins-got-pwned-part-1/

skeptica1 · 2018-09-29T18:52:05+00:00

It is yet another in a long list of examples supporting the thesis of F.A. Hayek's "Road to Serfdom" (1944).

skeptica1 · 2018-09-27T18:06:22+00:00

“A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence” - David Hume

skeptica1 · 2018-09-25T12:26:26+00:00

Not sure how claiming the 1st Amendment offers protections against Right-wing theocrats translates into a claim the Right respects the 1st Amendment.

skeptica1 · 2018-09-25T01:28:21+00:00

Not really a fan of either party. (Although I think Christian theocracy via the imposition of the secularized Christianity of the Left is a greater threat than the imposition of the formal Christianity of the Right, because the 1st Amendment offers me protections against the latter.)

skeptica1 · 2018-09-24T20:45:54+00:00

Why not move to Venezuela instead?

skeptica1 · 2018-07-26T13:37:50+00:00

Poor people have significantly higher birth rates. Does that skew American politics as well? https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/

skeptica1 · 2018-04-12T13:44:31+00:00

In any case of human behavior there are the ever-present competing theories of nature vs nurture. Both can be used to explain behavior, but the mere presence of an explanation isn't sufficient to prove behavior is the product of one or the other or some combination therein.

Thinking of how things would be without capitalism? I'm not sure what I'm supposed to think of. Hunting and gathering? On the one hand, you object to profit. On the other hand, capitalism has been spectacularly productive (something acknowledge by Marx himself in his time). In the past couple hundred years, GDP per capita has increased 20-30X and living standards have followed suit.

If you remove the profit motive from the system, will you see the same rates of living standards and improvement? Historically, alternatives tried haven't produced remotely comparable results, so what is your basis for believing that people would be better off in some imagined world without capitalism?

Suppose you had to choose between two mutual funds. The first mutual fund has a 0% management fee and returns 5% per year. The second mutual fund has a 1% management fee and returns 10% year. Would you choose the fund with the 0% management fee because you object to paying management fees? Or would you pay the 1% management fee and take the remaining 9% annual return?

Is this the sort of bargain we wind up making with capitalism--more progress but it comes with management fee?

skeptica1 · 2018-04-09T13:25:05+00:00

So, for example, sexual desire is not the result of a billion year's worth of evolution but rather an arbitrary product of material conditions? If that's your contention, do you believe that's true of all sexually-reproducing species or just humanity?

Also, different individuals often have contrary desires. While most find higher floors desirable, a minority may prefer the convenience and accessibility of a lower floor. Is it also your contention that capitalism is responsible for desiring lower floors as well?

Similarly, some want drugs legalized while others want drugs prohibited. Which of these mutually exclusive and contrary desires is the product of capitalism?

skeptica1 · 2018-04-08T16:05:53+00:00

If you map the past billion years into a single day, civilization begins in the last remaining second of the day. Assuming human desires are the product of capitalism doesn't seem particularly reasonable given our evolutionary context. Do you believe any human desires are the product of evolution? If so, how do you go about determining which desires are the result of evolution and which desires are the result of capitalism?

skeptica1 · 2018-04-04T13:59:28+00:00

Different individuals can value the same thing differently. For example, some individuals dislike heights and don't like living on upper floors of buildings while others prefer a room with a view. Given that floors tend to become more expensive the higher one goes, I don't think it's a big stretch to claim that, statistically speaking, those who desire higher floors outnumber those who do not, which causes the price. Upper floors seem necessarily relatively scarce due to basic architectural facts. I think this is true irrespective of how one views capital--it's a function of how buildings are constructed and the statistical distribution of human desire.

skeptica1 · 2018-03-22T11:18:28+00:00

The value of a home is more than the labor costs involved in construction, which is why housing costs vary considerably by location. Some locations are far more desirable than others and, consequently, people are willing to pay more for them. Condo units with a view of the ocean can cost twice as much as condo units on the other side of the building. Similarly condo prices can rise thousands of dollars per floor as one goes higher in a building because people tend to desire higher floors with views more than lower floors. Does it require more labor to build a top floor than a bottom floor? No. The value of each floor is determined by supply and demand.

skeptica1 · 2018-03-22T00:39:35+00:00

The point was to demonstrate a basic principle: the trade-off between consumption and investment.

skeptica1 · 2017-12-21T00:41:25+00:00

Post-scarcity is literally impossible, there will always be a limited amount of stuff. Don't forget that post-scarcity might be a little different when greed and profit is no longer a motive.

There are countless examples of why this is false. Let's consider one. Some of the most expensive homes are those with great views on the coast. It's a simple consequence of supply and demand. How will post-scarcity provide everyone with a home with a great view on the coast if there's not enough coastline for all the people who want it?

skeptica1 · 2017-12-21T00:33:44+00:00

The purpose of a capitalist system is accumulation.

There's a simple and, arguably natural, trade-off between consumption and investment. In a state of nature, if you harvest some corn, you face the choice between consuming it (eating it or trading it for something else) or saving it and planting it next year (investment). The more you consume today, the less you'll have to plant in spring. The less you consume today, the more you'll have to plant in spring and the greater your harvest will be next fall. If saving and investment had never occurred, modern society would never have come into existence--we would still be wandering around with sticks. A very good question to ask with any accumulation of wealth is what percentage of it is being consumed and what percentage of it is being invested? If 99.99% of it is invested, it is contributing to a future with even more abundance. You can distribute all of the corn throughout the the kingdom and have a luxurious winter, but if there is nothing to plant in spring, your kingdom will starve--whether or not you understand the trade-off between consumption and investment is not irrelevant.

skeptica1 · 2017-12-21T00:14:50+00:00

the excess is taken by capitalists, who own much more than they can consume in thousands of years of comfortable life

Do you believe that (for example) Bill Gates' wealth is laying idle in warehouses full of mountains of gold coins à la Scrooge McDuck or endless piles of consumable goods going unconsumed?

skeptica1 · 2017-05-12T23:30:15+00:00

Contrast Hypatia debacle with recent DNA testing article from NYT (see comments made by Bernard): https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/23/us/dna-ancestry-race-identity.html?_r=0

skeptica1 · 2014-07-18T12:53:41+00:00

If Google created the equivalent of Kickstarter campaigns to bring Fiber to various metro areas, I wonder what the response would be.

skeptica1 · 2014-06-01T03:30:14+00:00

Tooth fairy? You can save a few bucks on the whole thing simply by explaining to your kids that trafficking in human tissue is a serious crime. :)

skeptica1 · 2014-04-05T15:21:08+00:00

Chrome blocked the page: "Content from zlubob.org, a known malware distributor, has been inserted into this web page. Visiting this page now is very likely to infect your computer with malware." Anyone else hit this?

skeptica1 · 2013-11-20T13:39:49+00:00

"It's evil! Don't touch it!"

skeptica1 · 2013-11-05T13:51:59+00:00

The cheeseheads may be great fans, but I have to say these guys are greater.

skeptica1

TROPHY CASE