On Political Correctness - <AUTHOR> https://theamericanscholar.org/on-political-correctness/#.WL4RHT076Ec <comment><USER2> I find the phrase "Political Correctness" to be hopelessly compromised. It's a real thing (the standard left-liberal 'circular firing squads' that form up almost everywhere, the pointless parsing of language looking fro something that might be offensive), but it's also heavily used as a all-purpose generic insult.

There appears to be a alchemical transformation that results in people's minds, where "<Obnoxious Statement X>" on its own is obnoxious, but "I know it's _politically incorrect_ to say so, but <Obnoxious Statement X>!" makes you a Free Speech Martyr and a real deep thinker.

<comment><USER3> Free speech has never been about protecting popular ideas. It's the ideas that those in power find obnoxious that get censored. Though the particular ideas vary between modern America, communist Russia and medieval Spain, it's the threatening views of outsiders that are met with suppression or violence.

<comment><USER2> You appear to have been moved (triggered, even) to say something about "free speech" and "obnoxiousness". Aside from the fact that post posts contain these words, I am at a loss to understand how it connects in any way to anything I wrote.

<comment><USER4> When you said, "There appears to be a alchemical transformation that results in people's minds, where "<Obnoxious Statement X>" on its own is obnoxious, but "I know it's politically incorrect to say so, but <Obnoxious Statement X>!" makes you a Free Speech Martyr and a real deep thinker.", you were implying that free speech shouldn't protect obnoxious ideas, but that's wrong. Free speech exists specifically to protect unpopular ideas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In my experience with the particular type of situation in the article, stark disagreements come out of a difference in the "reality" that you inhabit. From one reality the claims you make seem perfectly reasonable. From another, they might sound ridiculous. The actual difficulty of the situation is reconciling the two realities, not the assertions themselves.

I was just watching this recording of a debate from 1965: [https://vimeo.com/18413741](https://vimeo.com/18413741) and James Baldwin's speech (starts around 14:30) on the different realities that a white and black person inhabit, and I think it's a good illustration of the issue.

Not for lack of good intention, one person's idea of the reality of the problem is often different from another's, so no wonder these two people might have trouble understanding each other.

Separately from that, I see a particular troubling pattern practiced most commonly by the people who believe in specific causes so ardently that you have to walk on eggshells: when you disagree with them, they attribute the worst possible intent to your disagreement, rather than seeing an opportunity to engage.

<comment><USER6> > In my experience with the particular type of situation in the article, stark > disagreements come out of a difference in the "reality" that you inhabit. > From one reality the claims you make seem perfectly reasonable. From > another, they might sound ridiculous. The actual difficulty of the situation > is reconciling the two realities, not the assertions themselves.

Scott Adams have been talking a lot about it lately. I'm wondering how much his influence has grow. It seems a lot. A truly master persuader.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > _" Unlike the campus protesters of the 1960s, today's student activists are > not expressing countercultural views. They are expressing the exact views of > the culture in which they find themselves (a reason that administrators > prove so ready to accede to their demands)."_

</comment><comment><USER7> The important question about this perspective is, I think, this: How do you fight against harmful, unjust beliefs such as racism without making it socially uncomfortable for people to express them? The author says that racism is a big powerful force that should be fought but then argues only for weakening our social defenses against it.

I recognize that this could seem like an attack, but I'm really not calling the author racist. What I want is to know, how can we have greater agreement that racism is bad, and more diversity of expression about racism, at the same time? It seems contradictory.

<comment><USER8> If your beliefs are correct, you should be able to have a rational debate against someone from the other side and prove your position is correct.

If they won't rationally debate you, sinking to their level and shouting them down / using underhanded means to "win" just puts you on their level and gains sympathy for the other side & hurts your reputation.

Unfortunately, I think that's the main issue that the author is getting at; it's gotten to the point where I can barely tell the far left from the far right anymore in terms of how irrational and sometimes violent they are. It's slogans, it's shouting down, it's even threats or actual violence.

When you disregard civility and resort to those tactics, it's tribalism.

<comment><USER7> I agree that rational debate is good, but in this case the rational debate has to include judgment because the one side of the debate is arguing that the other side (say, racism), is evil. That prevents it from being a perfectly calm, rational debate because the other side ends up (accurately) feeling judged and condemned. That's exactly the thing the author dislikes here--that the people supporting the non-mainstream views on these issues feel that it's not socially acceptable to have those views, so they feel they can't speak up.

So, how can people argue that bigotry is unacceptable and wrong without making it harder for bigots to speak up?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One of the biggest problems I've had discussing issues with people is that many claims go unsubstantiated. Asking someone to cite their claims is seen as an objection or a denial of the "truth".

I think that sometimes people spend more time with retorts about telling you to "just google it" than just saying "I read this book and it's what helped shaped my opinion about this".

<comment><USER10> The underlying problem is that people don't read books. They read other peoples' unsubstantiated opinions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Great essay. As the author explains, we need to get people to have rational discourse when they disagree with each other on important social and political issues.

I used to do workshops on this that worked fairly well. I used a simple method, namely mutual active listening. Two people who are on opposite sides of an issue agree that one will talk for a while, say five minutes, and the other will only listen and say back to them what they think they are saying. Then they exchange roles and the previous talker becomes the new listener, and vice-versa, for five minutes, and then switch again, and so on until each person feels like he or she has expressed their main ideas and been accurately understood. This process doesn't lead to total agreement, but invariably it produces a lot more agreement than the two parties had before they started out, and also friendlier, more respectful relations.

So mutual active listening works, but the question is how you get people to agree to do it. I think the best sell is that most people, I think, feel misunderstood and misrepresented by people on the opposite side of various issues. I would tell them that the people on the opposite side also feel misunderstood and misrepresented by them, and the only way each side can come to feel accurately understood is if they both agree to do mutual listening with each other. I haven't tried this yet, but I think it would motivate a lot of people to try mutual active listening.

</comment><comment><USER12> Well, where is the PC police when you need it? Because that sentence triggered me: "That, by the way, is why liberal students (and liberals in general) are so bad at defending their own positions.".

Edit: My comment was meant humorously, although I consider the main content of the article to be very thoughtful. And the above sentence, seemingly a soundbite from a right-wing talk show, has a nugget of truth in it: Once you stop debating the basic pillars of your society, you risk losing the defensive forces to protect them, e.g. against populism.

</comment><comment><USER13> I do not tell people who I voted for. I don't want to lose half of my friends.

<comment><USER14> You voted for <them>? I could never be friends with someone who voted for <them>. How repugnant!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> When did not wanting to eat shitty banh mi become a case of political correctness gone too far? If I pay for a slice of prosciutto di parma and get ham from some farm in the US, shouldn't I rightfully be pissed off?

It also seems to me that the so called "pc police" feature more prominently in peoples imaginations than they do in their actual lives. Any time I've seen someone called out (in real life) for issues of cultural sensitivity, it has been in a respectful and reasonable fashion, even if the situation has warranted a much harsher response (and occasionally it has).

The situation online or in a college is a bit different, but at the end of the day I would consider it similar to talking to a stranger at a bar; if you talk some shit, expect to get shit talked. If you have a problem with that, you can go crying to the bouncer, but if they are at all good at their job, they will either nod and ignore you, or kick you out if you are out of line.

I realize the analogy is a bit crude, but as other commenters have pointed out, most of these so called "pc police" are just trying to correct centuries of systemic racism, sexism, etc. by having a reasonable discussion. If they are a bit shrill sometimes, just be thankful that they aren't using the same tactics that were once used to keep them from speaking out.

<comment><USER4> Wow, a snarky straw man based off of the first sentence in the article. Then you make points that the author specifically refuted in the article without discussing what he wrote. It's like you tried to read it and gave up so you could regurgitate your opinion.

You: _The situation online or in a college is a bit different, but at the end of the day I would consider it similar to talking to a stranger at a bar; if you talk some shit, expect to get shit talked. If you have a problem with that, you can go crying to the bouncer, but if they are at all good at their job, they will either nod and ignore you, or kick you out if you are out of line._

Him: _A clarification, before I continue (since deliberate misconstrual is itself a tactic of the phenomenon in question). By political correctness, I do not mean the term as it has come to be employed on the right—that is, the expectation of adherence to the norms of basic decency, like refraining from derogatory epithets. I mean its older, intramural denotation: the persistent attempt to suppress the expression of unwelcome beliefs and ideas._

See? He made a point of defining political correctness in the second(!) paragraph, but it didn't stop you from arguing with your own definition. He even anticipated you would use a different definition.

You: _I realize the analogy is a bit crude, but as other commenters have pointed out, most of these so called "pc police" are just trying to correct centuries of systemic racism, sexism, etc. by having a reasonable discussion. If they are a bit shrill sometimes, just be thankful that they aren't using the same tactics that were once used to keep them from speaking out._

Him: _Let me be clear. I recognize that both the culture of political correctness and the recent forms of campus agitation are responding to enormous, intractable national problems. There is systemic racism and individual bigotry in the United States, and colleges are not immune from either. There is systemic sexism and sexual assault in society at large, and campuses are no exception. The call for safe spaces and trigger warnings, the desire to eliminate micro-aggressions, the demand for the removal of offensive symbols and the suppression of offensive language: however foolish some of these might be as policy prescriptions (especially the first two), however absurd as they work themselves out on the ground, all originate in deeply legitimate concerns._

See? He made a point to answer people that think political correctness is just fighting systematic bias, but you just zoomed right past it. He criticizes the methods used to fight systematic bias, not fighting systematic bias itself.

How can any conversation on serious topics be worth having if people refuse to listen and respond? Nothing good can come of dumping the same preconceptions into the other persons eyes and ears.

<comment><USER15> If the author didn't want to talk about the banh mi thing, why even mention it? It is relevant to the discussion after all, since the portrayal of such instances in the media have had a strong influence on the way political correctness is currently defined and understood.

I'd also like to point out that the definition of political correctness, as it's used colloquially, doesn't change just because you say it does. I also don't think that using the term political correctness in the sense that practically everyone understands it constitutes a deliberate misconstrual. Also, to the authors point, I don't think the majority of commenters on the right (when did this become a discussion of partisan politics again?) are talking about "the expectation of adherence to the norms of basic decency, like refraining from derogatory epithets" when they rail against political correctness. More often it seems they are railing against the perceived suppression of their unwelcome beliefs and ideas. Hence my comment to the effect of "don't dish it out if you can't take it."

As for the second passage you copy/pasted, I don't see how that disagrees with what I said.

Of course many of the policies enacted on campuses are what you might call penny smart, pound foolish, but that doesn't mean that the intention is bad, or that we should not even try. It's unfortunate that many of these policies are seen to have a chilling effect on campuses, but I don't feel that asking college students to think before speaking is unreasonable, especially if the net benefit is reducing bigotry, racism, and prejudice. Perhaps these methods are not the most effective, but I don't exactly see the author offering up any better solutions. He seems content to complain about the dozen or so people he's met that were made to feel uncomfortable by these policies, while ignoring the many generations of people who have suffered far worse.

Also, since you seem to have read the article more thoroughly than I, what do you make of the authors closing statement, where he says,

When we talk about political correctness and its many florid manifestations, so much in the news of late, we are talking not only about racial injustice and other forms of systemic oppression, or about the coddling of privileged youth, though both are certainly at play. We are also talking, or rather not talking, about the pathologies of the American class system. And those are also what we need to deal with.

Seems a bit convoluted to me. Is he arguing that we should ignore addressing racism in favor of some sort of attack on the American class system or what?

<comment><USER4> _If the author didn 't want to talk about the banh mi thing, why even mention it? It is relevant to the discussion after all, since the portrayal of such instances in the media have had a strong influence on the way political correctness is currently defined and understood._

The banh mi thing was one example out of a dozen paragraphs of examples. It is relevant, but focusing solely on it is missing the forest for the trees. It's cherry picking.

 _I 'd also like to point out that the definition of political correctness, as it's used colloquially, doesn't change just because you say it does. I also don't think that using the term political correctness in the sense that practically everyone understands it constitutes a deliberate misconstrual. Also, to the authors point, I don't think the majority of commenters on the right (when did this become a discussion of partisan politics again?) are talking about "the expectation of adherence to the norms of basic decency, like refraining from derogatory epithets" when they rail against political correctness. More often it seems they are railing against the perceived suppression of their unwelcome beliefs and ideas. Hence my comment to the effect of "don't dish it out if you can't take it."_

The term "political correctness" is nebulous. He defined the term because he wanted to clarify what he was talking about. If you read what he wrote using different definitions than he gave, then you're not really being fair to him. You have to accept some premises to understand what he's saying. But if he was defending one definition and claiming to use another, you could call him out on it. For instance, if he was defending your colloquial definition, but pretending to use his definition, then you could say he's being disingenuous, but that doesn't seem to be what you're arguing and I don't think he's mixing definitions either.

 _As for the second passage you copy /pasted, I don't see how that disagrees with what I said._

He thinks current methods do more damage than aid. He also thinks they're motivated by selfishness. When you read my response to your next point you'll have a better understanding of why he thinks this.

 _Also, since you seem to have read the article more thoroughly than I, what do you make of the authors closing statement, where he says,_

His article is about two religions. The first religion is the political correctness religion. The second religion is meritocracy. He attempts to relate the two. He says that the elite use the religion of meritocracy as an excuse to further their own gain and political correctness as a religion to place themselves outside of their own system. Professors and college students benefit from systematic bias the most, but they use political correctness to feel morally superior by focusing on problems that don't threaten their life style. It's easy to take responsibility for bias. It's hard to take responsibility for poverty.

<comment><USER15> I fail to see how political correctness is both a nebulous concept and a dogmatic belief system at the same time.

Along the same lines, the idea that their is some sort of over-arching "liberal elite" belief system that colleges slavishly adhere to is laughable, or it would be, if folks like the author of this piece didn't take it serious. While professors in any given discipline often share a number of "beliefs", colloquially known as "facts", if you get a few of them together in a casual setting, they'll more often than not take to arguing about the finer points of their field. In fact, this sort of behavior is often encouraged, in both casual and professional settings. That's why grad students write and defend a thesis.

I also think that accusing professors and students of using political correctness as a tool to further their own aims and to preserve their entrenched power is assuming quite a lot about the actions and motivations of a huge swath of people.

<comment><USER4> _I fail to see how political correctness is both a nebulous concept and a dogmatic belief system at the same time._

I didn't say political correctness was a nebulous concept, I said it was a nebulous term. The issue isn't vague concepts; the issue is that it's hard to tell what concept we are talking about. Lots of words have to be defined. If you're reading something about art you better hope there's a definition for the term "art" toward the front. The same is true for terms like "political correctness", "liberal", "conservative", and "culture". Defining vague terms before using them is very common. This should not be so hard to understand. For an extreme case, look at Guy Steele's speech, "Growing a Language".[0] He defines every word longer than a certain length.

 _Along the same lines, the idea that their is some sort of over-arching "liberal elite" belief system that colleges slavishly adhere to is laughable, or it would be, if folks like the author of this piece didn't take it serious. While professors in any given discipline often share a number of "beliefs", colloquially known as "facts", if you get a few of them together in a casual setting, they'll more often than not take to arguing about the finer points of their field. In fact, this sort of behavior is often encouraged, in both casual and professional settings. That's why grad students write and defend a thesis._ _I also think that accusing professors and students of using political correctness as a tool to further their own aims and to preserve their entrenched power is assuming quite a lot about the actions and motivations of a huge swath of people._

Rather than argue with my summary of someone else's writings and your own second hand perception of him, why don't you read his work and argue against his own points? Did it occur to you that evidence and responses to your very replies might be inside the text or do you just not care to find them?

Actually, don't even bother. I've been telling you to read the article since my first post and you obviously still haven't. There is no worth while discussion happening here. Turn off the computer. Read a book. Practice listening to someone else for a few hundred pages. Then maybe you can handle ten.

[0] [https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/steele.pdf](https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/steele.pdf)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Woz supports Mike Daisey's message and says you should too - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57400104-37/woz-supports-mike-daiseys-message-and-says-you-should-too/

<comment><USER3> Well, Woz is sort of right. The message - some workers in some factories are treated appallingly and that needs to stop and we can help it stop - <USER2> something that most people agree with.

People are not complaining about that. People are complaining that it was used in a journalistic programme, and the he lied about the authenticity of it when asked. If he'd been honest from the start no-one would be complaining now.

<comment><USER4> I think in 'Retraction' the This American Life[1] episode that aired this weekend does a good job of pointing this line of reasoning.

Specifically the second act.

[1][http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/460/r...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/460/retraction)

<comment><USER5> I think it's interesting that a news show, that is now going open kimono (and good on them for that) to examine and explain how they were taken in by an actor presenting his poetically licensed work as "journalism," labels its news show segments "Prologue, Act 1, Act 2 and Act 3."

<comment><USER4> Good point. I have been a long time listener and afaik they clearly mention when a segment is fictitious. That is pretty interesting though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The important thing is trying to get corporations, like Apple, to take charge in human rights. There is the saying "vote with your wallet" and Apple has the power to get people like Foxconn to live up to expectations, just by using their (Apple's) wallet.

What is unfortunate, and hopefully going to change is that some corporations are not interested in human rights, but instead their bottom line - which is understandable, as they have shareholders etc -. However companies like Apple do have a moral obligation to make sure that their products do not negatively impact the well being of human life, and this should be a part of Apple's business plan/strategy.

I think what woz is talking about is that human rights should be included as a factor of the bottom line, and Apple should be taking charge in making this happen, lead by example.

Another company that does this, is Patagonia. Their mission is:

"Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis."

This obviously relates to environmental concerns, however "cause no unnecessary harm" also has human elements. Personally I would like all corporations that I do business with, have this idea ingrained in their business philosophy. One can always dream.

<comment><USER7> > ... Apple has the power to get people like Foxconn to live up to > expectations, just by using their (Apple's) wallet.

This is a fascinating observation. Also in the news this week is what Apple plans to do with their massive profit margins-- surely one possibility is that they could ensure that the people who actually make Apple products are treated humanely.

> What is unfortunate, and hopefully going to change is that some corporations > are not interested in human rights, but instead their bottom line - which is > understandable, as they have shareholders etc...

This is likewise fascinating-- the implication that corporations imply not only legal, but moral absolution. If I own a slave to do my housekeeping, that is clearly immoral; if I am one of a hundred thousand shareholders of an organization which owns a hundred thousand slaves, somehow that becomes simply the nature of business and not something that I have accountability for. It sounds ludicrous to say, but it is plainly true of the way we have structured our economy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> So does this mean that for Woz the ends justify the means? Lying through one's teeth is a valid strategy to create a "message"?

What next, Woz being a spokesperson for Google?

If he thinks that the issue of Chinese workers and Apple is important, he's sinking his own ship by lending credence to a bald-faced liar.

<comment><USER9> I think he's saying the art justifies the means.

Daisey created a piece of art. It is a really good piece of art and it had great success as art. He got into trouble when people started taking his art as fact and he decided to let it ride to see where it led. He may have ended up a 'bald-faced liar' but until he misled TAL he was just a really, really good artist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Mike Daisy exploited a story about violations of human rights to benefit himself. This is not a greater good situation.

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure that was his motivation. He seems genuinely motivated by the plight of workers in poor industrial societies. He just went about it in a way that has actually ended up hurting the very cause he was trying to help.

Which was certainly a stupid thing to do. Just not evil.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If he would have owned up to it and said "No, it wasn't entirely real, I'm an artist", that would be one thing. Instead he denied that he made certain things up, and when This American Life asked him direct and specific questions regarding the nature of his visit, he continued to lie. Perhaps Woz didn't hear that.

</comment><comment><USER13> Key quote:

 _"A lot of people are saying [about Daisey] 'Oh you didn't experience this yourself,'" Wozniak continued, "but in his style of art he's trying to help the audience experience these things. I never expected the show to be real. The 'Pirates of Silicon Valley' [the film about the early rivalry between Apple and Microsoft] was not completely accurate. How could it be? But the movie is very true in the way that matters most."_

What I do like about this is that you can't just dismiss an argument, or a representation, because it makes a couple of mistakes. You can usually form a model of it with the errors removed and see what's left. As an argument it can continue to persuade and compel you.

What I don't like about this is that journalists are operating on the front line of history, and introducing deliberate falsehoods is like rewriting history. If they're not exposed, they might sit there, wrong, forever.

Thrown into this, eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable and will rewrite their own reflections mentally as they recall, on the slightest provocation. So it's important to know how far to trust but verify eyewitnesses.

I would put Daisey firmly in camp B, liar, and his argument firmly in camp A, truthy if not completely accurate.

</comment><comment><USER14> I always feel a little embarrassed when the media quotes Woz. Is that wrong of me?

<comment><USER15> At least Woz isn't talking about technical topics this time. Presumably he has plenty of experience being on the receiving end of the RDF.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I would be astonished if the Daily Show were found to be passing off bullshit as factual (not obvious hyperbole), or that their audience would forgive such a discovery. They take such glee in running clips that prove claims they've made.</comment>


Windows Lock screen/Bitlocker bypass/elevation of privilege in Bitlocker - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/jonasLyk/status/1301245145568997376 <comment><USER2> Direct link to the Google Doc: [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S4jU7knBG_Km_AdHXf8JyE8z...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S4jU7knBG_Km_AdHXf8JyE8zl0SOxQ9VvYFPanQy1g8/edit)

</comment><comment><USER3> For me, this tweet was added as a recommendation below the linked one and was just as interesting:

[https://twitter.com/mohammadaskar2/status/130126355163876147...](https://twitter.com/mohammadaskar2/status/1301263551638761477/photo/1)</comment>


27" imac + lion + playing video = crash - <AUTHOR> https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3194165?start=15&tstart=0

<comment><USER2> The latest comment as of this writing indicates that removing iStat fixes the problem.

<quote>

Great news guys, in my case the problem has been solved completely, just uninstall iStat menus, it seems that this software installed modules in the kernel of OS X, these modules are giving problems after sleep mode.

UNINSTALL ALL I HAVE THIS SOFTWARE AND MODULES AND NO LONGER HAVE MORE FREEZING.

TRY AND SEE.

</quote>

<comment><USER3> The "latest" comment is relative. And no, this doesn't fix the problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yup. Same here on 10.7.0. Not related to Flash, happend with QuickTime video too. Lots of GPU warnings/errors in the system log. Waiting for 10.7.1.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have the Lion installation sitting on my 27 for a week now, I need to wrap up a project before I feel comfortable to backup everything and run it, and in great irony the project involves a ton of video-on-the-browser testing. THANK YOU for linking this on HN, I would never know otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER6> Does Flash makes all MBP hot or just my older one?

<comment><USER7> Makes my 2011 MBP as hot as it did on my 2008 MBP.

Flash's ability to hog resources has scaled in line with moores law.

<comment><USER8> Do laptops running Windows face the same problems with Flash?

<comment><USER9> yes, but it's not as bad

<comment><USER8> So, it's not entirely Adobe's fault is it?

(disclaimer: MB Pro, iMac and iPhone owner, not looking to start a flame war or whatever)

<comment><USER10> Unless you're suggesting it's the user's fault for not running Windows like he should, I'm not sure how you're thinking it's not Adobe's fault.

<comment><USER8> If the same software performs better on other platforms then the one platform that has the biggest problems should do something as well, that's what I am saying.

<comment><USER10> It performs better on _one_ other platform. In my experience, Flash is pretty awful anywhere besides Windows.

And I'm not sure what you mean when you say "the one platform that has the biggest problems should do something as well." Apple and many Linux supporters _are_ doing something — they're aggressively pushing HTML5 and related technologies as an alternative to Flash, over which they have no control.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Digging through the thread, it seems like the workaround is to disable sleep, and shutdown when you're done using it.

</comment><comment><USER12> Apple must not even test their operating systems on their own hardware. That or they released it knowing there was a HUGE bug like this. Either way, pathetic. I used to think their company was so great before they started focusing on iDevice sales and computer build quality dropped through the floor.

</comment><comment><USER13> Same problem here. Has happened a few times when starting to play video but has also happened a few other times. Seems like something with the video card, hopefully Apple can fix it with a driver update.

I don't use iStat.

</comment><comment><USER14> I guess I will have to work then. Pity I looked forward to a week of TED talks.

</comment><comment><USER15> For me, 10.7.2 (Beta) solved the problem. Does not seem to be related to Flash, as it used to crash randomly with any type of video, in/out the browser, in Safari, or in Chrom's own etc.

<comment><USER16> Same here, but introduced an issue with external display sleeping. Still a beta though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Similar thread posted a few days ago <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2850156>

</comment><comment><USER18> The first generation of 27" iMacs (Snow Leopard) also had a lot of trouble with Flash video playback. An update from Apple fixed this later.

</comment><comment><USER19> any eta for 10.7.1?

</comment><comment><USER20> VLC on my MBP (SL & Lion) is completely unable to play 720p MKV files. I don't understand why. I've scoured the Internet and Apple support forums. Seeking within VLC will basically halt the computer. Normal playback will slow the computer down to where it stops responding to user interaction after 20-30 minutes.

Also, all Flash audio has stopped in Lion now, as of a day or two ago. Just don't upgrade to Lion yet, in my opinion.</comment>


Magic: the Gathering is Turing-complete - <AUTHOR> http://www.toothycat.net/~hologram/Turing/index.html

<comment><USER2> Love this. Great post!</comment>


Why I'm Digging Deep Into Alzheimer's - <AUTHOR> https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/Digging-Deep-Into-Alzheimers?WT.mc_id=11_13_2017_00_Alzheimers_BG-EM_&WT.tsrc=BGEM <comment><USER2> It's great to see more investment into this disease.

When my grandma fought Alzheimer's over the span of a decade it was very striking to see that the effect of a lack of hydration and the disease itself kind of overlapped. When she had a particularly bad day we used to give her a saline IV and you could immediately notice how she cleared up and regained her brain powers after each IV.

I'm not up to date on current research into that direction, but I think hydration plays a very big role in Alzeimer's symptoms on the elderly.

I know it sounds ridiculous, but once I'm rich enough I want to build an elderly care center/hospital with urine-based hydration monitoring for each participant so family members can be sure that their loved ones have a healthy water intake each and every day.

<comment><USER3> I think the toilet in general could use an upgrade... for how many years have they been built exactly the same way? Has anyone ever done a study of the flow as urine impacts the toilet and bounces back? Or as we learn more about the importance of stomach bacteria, can our toilet start to do more monitoring of the bacteria in our stomach? Love your idea of hydration monitoring and think the application is probably more far reaching than just Alzheimer's

<comment><USER2> Yes, I think it makes more sense to monitor and gather data on what comes out of your body instead of monitoring what goes into it(e.g. all smartwatches/diets).

I'd like to one day have a room-sized analysis unit which screens feces/urine of all attached toilets and performs various tests on it. Analysis results could be assigned to individuals based on the DNA footprint.

It could immediately tell you that your sugar intake is too high or that you should drink more water. With this kind of immediate feedback people will be able to live healthier because they can correlate food <-> result on their body.

Also we could do so many interesting studies..

<comment><USER4> It'd be great to be able to pull glucose, hydration and more out of urine samples real time, so long as we stay away from say live telemetry to insurers or something like SmartPipe[1] it'd be enormously beneficial.

1 - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ)

<comment><USER2> In health this would be massively beneficial. Imagine a digital hospital where you monitor excrements for every patient during their stay. When my father was in the stroke unit recently they had him drink a shitload of water and they monitored water intake by making him write down how much he drank and when.

Stupid thing is I need a 100M exit first to sponsor this kind of thing.

<comment><USER5> I do not think you need an exit to sponsor this. How about starting a web site that outlines all your ideas? Start building interest in the idea. Invite discussion.....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's interesting to note that tetrahydrocannabinol and other compounds found in marijuana may reduce the amount of beta amyloid in the brain. Beta amyloid is commonly thought to cause Alzheimer's disease.

see: [https://www.nature.com/articles/npjamd201612](https://www.nature.com/articles/npjamd201612)

Last I heard in the US, the Federal government was still making it difficult to run clinical trials for Alzheimer's using marijuana. I think any federally funded medical trial using marijuana needs to be approved by the DEA.

<comment><USER7> It's more complex than just that. At CTAD just a couple of weeks ago there was a presentation on drugs that managed to reduce AB (biomarker was inferred by a PET scan) and it did not result in increased cognition.

<comment><USER8> A simple hypothesis which could explain this might be that the plaques cause effectivelt permanent brain damage. The question is whether degenerative patterns ceased or slowed after substantial clearing of plaques from the brain.

I would expect this test (and therefore the hypothesis) to fail if the plaques themselves are a byproduct rather than the cause of degradation in brain function. That said, I'm surprised I haven't read much in Gates' Notes or other funding sources on potential ties to HSV1 considering all the increasingly supportive research between the two.

<comment><USER9> They used several techniques that clear beta amyloid from the brain.(antibodies and ultrasound). And they've have little if any effect on cognition. I'm starting to think beta amyloid is a red herring, or maybe just important in the prodromal stages of the disease.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Michael Fossel and his biopharmaceutical company Telocyte claim[0] to have a novel, effective treatment for Alzheimers, one that does not simply target the amyloid and tau pathways. Telocyte's treatment is based on telomerase gene therapy, and is currently undergoing FDA safety trials.

According to Fossel, their telomerase gene therapy reverses cognitive decline in animal models, and they're confident the same will apply to humans. Human trials begin in 2018.

I wonder whether Gates has seen Telocyte's work.

[0]: [http://www.michaelfossel.com/blog/?p=249](http://www.michaelfossel.com/blog/?p=249)

</comment><comment><USER11> The Buck Institute has been doing a lot of great research on alzheimers. They are taking a very different approach though. Tinkering with everything from diet, to infections, to heavy metals, to hormone optimization. Here is a good podcast with one of the main researchers from the Buck Institute. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS7VZydS8HI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS7VZydS8HI)

It's crazy how much focus has been on clearing amyloid without much luck at all. 224 clinical trials and only 2 drugs going through.

</comment><comment><USER7> I work for a company[1] in this space. We make software that analyses EEG recordings and predicts if the subject will develop Alzheimer's. We are currently working on Class 2 CE mark for our AD product.

[1]: [http://www.mentiscura.com/](http://www.mentiscura.com/)

<comment><USER12> Is this promising tech? EEG may be sensitive but not very specific.

<comment><USER7> Wouldn't be working on it if it weren't. I can't go into specifics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Funny, I remember contacting the Gates foundation many years ago now about chronic illnesses and the then-new discovery of ipRGCs/pRGCs (which we will find have a critical role in Alzheimer's) and hitting a total brick wall. Paraphrasing them, "this wouldn't help the third world" \- we know better now.

<comment><USER14> The burden of aging falls most heavily on the poor, though it has to be said that the differences between rich and poor are small in comparison to the absolute degree of harm done by aging.

It has been a disappointment to see the Gates Foundation near entirely bypass this area of research up to fairly recently, presumably because they do hold this strange view of aging being either a non-issue, or a problem of wealthy regions.

From a utilitarian perspective, nothing that goes on in the poorest parts of the world rises to the level of harm done by age-related disease. Not even close.

<comment><USER15> The point, though, is that there is a whole lot of wealthy older people who can or do put money into research on aging related problems, exactly because it affects rich people too.

There is no danger that aging will be overlooked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The slow pace of progress towards clearance of amyloid, in that only in the past year has one of the immunotherapy trials actually looked promising, has provoked a lot of alternative theorizing these past five years. Some it is clearly not so great, such as the fellow who argues that it is caused by rising use of paracetamol (see [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3921468/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3921468/) ), but some lines of theory are much more compelling. A more encompassing synthesis is emerging in which microbial infection by spirochetes and gum disease bacteria (e.g. see [https://doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2017.00336](https://doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2017.00336) ) that can provoke amyloid formation as well as failing drainage of cerebrospinal fluid (e.g. see [https://doi.org/10.1002/ana.24271](https://doi.org/10.1002/ana.24271), [https://www.ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth- news/news/2017/11...](https://www.ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth- news/news/2017/11/exit-through-the-lymphatic-system.html), etc) that stops removal of amyloid, tau, etc are as important as purely cell focused considerations of the biochemistry of amyloid beta.

For an example of the new type of venture emerging now as a result of all of this you might look at Leucadia Therapeutics, working on a way to restore drainage through the cribiform plate, but there will be more in the years ahead to complement the immunotherapy for amyloid and tau mainstream.

<comment><USER16> >> A more encompassing synthesis is emerging in which microbial infection by spirochetes and gum disease bacteria

Wow, I did "notice" a strong correlation between gum disease and dementia in my own Family. This is obviously my own uneducated guess but it's humbling to see serious people looking into it! There very well could be some sort of dementia that is indeed related to gum disease!

<comment><USER17> I believe gum disease is also correlated with cardiovascular disease.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The documentary "Under our Skin" details Alan MacDonald's breakthrough research on how Lyme disease causes Alzheimers. The 4 minute trailer is worth a watch[1], but basically Lyme disease is found in 7 or 10 brains of Alzheimers patients (small sample set). The Lyme disease spirochete literally drills countless pathways in the brain and that causes slow dementia. That spirochete also creates a biofilm which makes it challenging to detect in a living patient. His research is from a decade or two ago.

Also I wonder how a citizen scientist like Gates does a deep dive on this topic a like this. There are 10's of thousands of research papers on the subject[1] and countless books.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCLwauRh2gQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCLwauRh2gQ) [2] [http://archive.sciencewatch.com/ana/st/alz2/journals/](http://archive.sciencewatch.com/ana/st/alz2/journals/)

<comment><USER19> Re Gates; he and his staff identify Subject Matter Experts (SME) for the topics he's interested in. As you can imagine he has a good network. SMEs are always looking for funding, so he'll use one of his funding vehicles to invite the SME to apply for funding or meet with the organization. By the time you meet with Bill Gates he would have read your most recent papers and competing theories and will be prepared to challenge you on your approach. Pass his final intellectual test and you are added to his collection of SMEs. <source: me, I've seen the process>

Edit: When I had the pleasure of watching Bill Gates do this, it was one of the most impactful moments in my life. When he would question a SME on a topic he came across as knowledgeable as the SME who has dedicated years to the topic. Bill Gates literally will have read all around the topic and his mind operates like a poker player or chess player who is thinking on multiple levels. His questions are probes to see how many levels you are thinking on, and I think it also informs him of other angles. He's a brilliant guy.

<comment><USER20> SME seems be "subject matter expert".

<comment><USER21> I think it's "small and medium-sized entreprises" aka SMB

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > We need to use data better. Every time a pharmaceutical company or a > research lab does a study, they gather lots of information. We should > compile this data in a common form [...]

We could use all sorts of data, not just from research or pharmaceutical companies. Is there an overview of what data is available or planned for, from clinical to commercial? And what data-integration platforms are planned for? I suspect many countries are trying to invent this on their own, while a world- wide approach could yield better results.

<comment><USER23> How do you motivate a pharmaceutical company to share R&D they spent millions acquiring?

<comment><USER24> Require it for FDA approval

<comment> mark-r The flaw in that plan is that they'll share it in the most unhelpful way possible. See: Patents.

<comment><USER22> Solution: let the data gathering be done by the FDA (or subsidiary).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> >Most of the major pharmaceutical companies continue to pursue the amyloid and tau pathways. Dementia Discovery Fund complements their work by supporting startups as they explore less mainstream approaches to treating dementia.

That's very encouraging. Because what if it's something else?

<comment><USER26> The amyloid and tau pathways are our best hope of finding a _simple_ solution, something we can reasonably fix with drugs.

If it's something else, then chances are good it'll be far harder to fix, perhaps even requiring genetic engineering or medical nanotechnology. Finding out is still valuable, of course...

<comment><USER27> We're batting 000 on drugs that target amyloid or tau, and not for want of trying.

<comment><USER26> Fortunately, we have enough resources to try multiple approaches.

I'm happy that we're doing so. For a very long time this was treated as just a fact of life, immutable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Cynical answer: "because I'm getting old" :)

Whatever the reason, this has the potential of being life-changing for a lot of people. Would love to see more billionaires involved with this kind of initiative.

<comment><USER26> The reason doesn't really matter, this is still incredibly valuable work.

Death is terrible, and should be eradicated, but Alzheimer's is a few steps above that. There's _nothing_ worse than seeing a loved one be slowly destroyed by that horrific disease, and I'm so glad there are people willing to work on it.

<comment><USER29> "Death is terrible, and should be eradicated"

We are sensitive to death but it is the only mechanism I know that would control overconsumption of natural resources. If nobody dies, then we would deplete the resources in a few decades.

<comment><USER30> We have death and at the same time over-consumption, so the control is not working that well. Did you mean that it would effectively control the over- consumption if better implemented (with a higher rate)?

<comment><USER31> Parent merely stated that we are already over-consuming with rather high death rates, not having any deaths at all most certainly wouldn't help with our current unsustainable ways, as we'd most likely overpopulate the planet pretty quickly with all it's resulting woes (even more pollution, killing off the rest of the biosphere).

Imho it'd only work the other way around: For us to beat death, we first have to solve our sustainability/resource problems. What point is there to "endlessly living" if the reality of that boils down to being stuck in overcrowded and miserable living conditions? That sounds more like hell than utopia.

<comment><USER26> You're making the mistake of changing one parameter, but not projecting the entire world forwards. Immortality would be impossible without massive technological improvements that certainly would have other benefits; you can pretty well assume that both molecular nanotechnology and genetic engineering will be mature by then.

In combination, those should dramatically increase the carrying capacity of the world.

Ignoring all of that, though... Don't you think it's likely that people will start caring more about the future onceb they know they'll live to see it?

<comment><USER32> > _Immortality would be impossible without massive technological improvements > that certainly would have other benefits; you can pretty well assume that > both molecular nanotechnology and genetic engineering will be mature by > then._

I don't think we'll see anything like increased exponential progress of the kind that has been (and has already slowed down) during the industrial age. All low hanging fruit have been gathered, and at this point there are diminishing returns.

We will have a few breakthroughs here and there but nothing to write home about the way the steam engine, electricity or the computer have been.

> _Ignoring all of that, though... Don 't you think it's likely that people > will start caring more about the future once they know they'll live to see > it?_

Most people are terrible managing their own lives a few years ahead, much less decades ahead. So no reason to think they'll be any more apt when its something so vague as centuries ahead.

<comment><USER33> Then we probably won't cure death without large technological improvements. Problem solved.

This conversation is going in circles. Has anyone brought up "death gives life meaning"?

[https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2017/03/28/stories-that- should-...](https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2017/03/28/stories-that-should-be- banned-from-hacker-news-immortality/)

<comment><USER26> > This conversation is going in circles. Has anyone brought up "death gives > life meaning"?

A platitude uttered by people who believe they have no way out, and are desperate to make themselves feel better about that. Not necessarily a bad thing, _so long as there really is no way out_ , but catastrophic once that changes.

Destroying death will lose us something, most certainly; there are any number of great works of art and philosophy that would never have been created without the pressures and emotions it creates. But none of that, I think, can even remotely make up for the sheer awfulness of the downside.

There has to be a better solution than this creeping horror.

<comment><USER33> I imagine immortality will be optional. If it creeps you out, there will be other options...

<comment><USER15> The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect [1] (full text available for free; be warned it's extremely violent and sexual) is an interesting novel where immortality is not optional:

An AI was "let loose" with a variation of Asimovs laws of robotics, and interpreted the requirement not to let anyone come to harm through inaction as requiring it to literally end death.

The main character is a woman that feels it left her life without meaning, and who in response started gruesome competitions involving designing the most outrageous ways to die. Or rather, getting as close to the moment of death as Prime Intellect will let them before reviving them.

[1] [http://www.localroger.com/prime- intellect/](http://www.localroger.com/prime-intellect/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Just relistening through some of RadioLab's podcast. I came across this apt episode about Gamma Light Therapy. Adding it to the mix. When I listen to this episode, I had a hint of hope for my dad who is suffering dementia in the past few years.

[http://www.radiolab.org/story/bringing-gamma- back/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/bringing-gamma-back/)

<comment><USER35> It seemed like such a simple treatment, that it should be relatively easy to test more widely... But whenever I've searched, I've not seen an update.

For those who haven't listened to the podcast, the treatment is effectively just being exposed to a 40Hz (IIRC) flashing light. Which sounds surprisingly simple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Even younger people can be afflicted with Alzheimer's (called Early-onset Alzheimer's), and it's even more terrible to witness. It's one thing to watch a human mentally deteriorate when they are at the end of their life, it's another thing to watch it happen to someone in their 40's—who should be in the prime of their life and raising their children.

<comment><USER37> Yes. The thing is once you are an Alzheimer's patient, you are doomed because your brain basically stop being able to function at the very end. It's like a death kiss from the above. Unlike cancer, which is scary as hell, and has a high death rate, has better chance of surviving. The pressure on Alzheimer's patient and on the family is just unbearable. While there are some treatments to slow down the progress, we are far from understanding the disease itself, let alone knows how to combat the plaque and tangles effectively. Right now I think one of the best treatments is let patients be more active, whether it's playing chess or gardening, while receiving family support. The more positive we are the better we are overall health wise. This is evident in patients who suffered depression.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Dear Bill, to spend money wise and efficiently I suggest that you look at the work of Dr Dale Bredesen. Dr Bredesen has fantastic results with his Alzheimer treatment and has published about it. In short, his treatment cures 9 out of 10 patients with mild Alzheimer. His scientific work is solid and a larger study is currently done. Check it out!

<comment><USER39> I've been interested in his work, but discouraged by the case-report based evidence. Can you link me to this larger study?

<comment><USER38> sorry, no link. It was said in a video and I am not 100% sure but I believe that part of the study is done at the Cleveland Clinic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> His first donation is $50 million to this private organization:

[http://theddfund.com](http://theddfund.com)

</comment><comment><USER40> I remember that ultrasound[0] was very promising a few years back. Does anyone have any more recent info?

[0]: [http://www.sciencealert.com/new-alzheimer-s-treatment- fully-...](http://www.sciencealert.com/new-alzheimer-s-treatment-fully- restores-memory-function)

</comment><comment><USER41> I believe there are already studies out there that link excess sugar intake with increased risk of Alzheimer's?

I think this is yet another case for a ketogenic diet/intermittent fasting...

</comment><comment><USER42> Archived copy, which can be read with JS disabled:

[https://archive.is/rDJ6G](https://archive.is/rDJ6G)

</comment><comment><USER43> Emphasis added:

>"Most drug trials to date have targeted amyloid and tau, two proteins that _cause_ plaques and tangles in the brain."

This is assumption, not fact: [https://bmcneurol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12883-...](https://bmcneurol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12883-014-0169-0)

</comment><comment><USER44> [https://www.brainwavebank.com/](https://www.brainwavebank.com/)

</comment><comment><USER45> Heh, the blog fails to load in Firefox 57...

<comment><USER46> Same thing (the text does not appear) happens if you have Ghostery on blocking all the trackers.

<comment><USER47> Same. And with nearly thirteen thousand lines in the source of the page you'd think the text would be there too.

edit: oh, there it is, 25 lines beginning at line 8201.

<comment><USER48> > oh, there it is, 25 lines beginning at line 8201.

This comment made me laugh with the tragedy that is the modern web.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I love that Gates is driving money into this needed area. We need new ways of attacking cures and the tech arena should be the driver not science. IMO, traditional science has gotten in the way and their agenda isn't where it needs to be: to find a a cure and save lives (take cancer research for instance).

<comment><USER50> I don't understand why you think tech companies will be any better at this than biomedical companies. All businesses have the same incentives to make things chronic issues (subscription revenue!) rather than curing them.

<comment><USER49> Because I recently read a really interesting story that talked about how science tends to get in the way of real progress. I hope you don't mind me sharing it with you but it struck a real note with me. [http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/saving- science](http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/saving-science)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> The new research [0] on similar causes of diabetes, Alzheimer's, and cancer is exciting as one could target major killers at once.

[0]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSo-p7DafpA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSo-p7DafpA)

</comment><comment><USER52> Say you had a $80 million dollar budget. How would you deploy it to have maximum impact on Alzheimer's?

In other words, what would you do if you were in Gates position?

</comment><comment><USER53> Alzheimer is essentially type 3 diabetes. I'm happy to see Gates behind this.

<comment><USER54> What?

<comment><USER55> I'm guessing they mean because it may be related to insulin resistance / sugar consumption, but I'm not sure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Prevention, prevention, prevention.

</comment><comment><USER57> Disable the shitty auto-pausing of youtube video on scroll by pasting this on the console:

      getEventListeners(document.getElementById('tgnbody')).scroll.forEach(function(el){document.getElementById('tgnbody').removeEventListener("scroll", el.listener)})

<comment><USER58> Thanks!

I'd love to have a browser extension which automatically augments shitty websites with community-sourced javascript snippets. E.g. you'd visit idk Forbes.com, and saw that the site is unusable b/c of some shitty undismissable paywall overlay. You "fix" the issue with a few lines of JS, and then upload it via the extension. After going through some kind of vetting/review, the extension will automatically fetch and run your JS fix for everyone who visits the site.

<comment><USER59> Grease Monkey?

<comment><USER58> Does GreaseMonkey suggests you scripts based on the current site you're visiting?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> no need to have Alzheimer to see these poor old guy / women that can't do anything. We should die sooner, waste less resource and enjoy more.

<comment><USER61> What would you suggest?

<comment><USER60> Don't extend life...we discovered these things because we are older and older. I don't think that the solution is getting older. Don't know why I'm always getting down vote too. Life and his mystery.

<comment><USER61> What about the elderly people who don't have problems?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> xkcd-sucks Finally, a cause that can eat up the entire Gates fortune without breaking a sweat

</comment><comment><USER62> FYI, taking sauna 4x a week seems to lower the risk of developing Alzheimer significantly (at least in Finland). I can also observe myself that taking hot phase 4-5x for 10-15 minutes followed by 2 minutes cold immersion every time in roughly 1.5 hours clears my brain/senses. Maybe the sweating helps overloaded brain drainage as well?

I think Bezos must be applying some of these hacks on himself; he got recently in shape while in previous decades he seemed to let himself go. Bill might think about the same as he is visibly deteriorating and his liver seems to be not functioning well (spots on his skin everywhere). They should add calorie restriction/frequent fasting as well. It's unlikely they will beat the death, but might make their final moments less horrible.

<comment><USER63> Liver spots are the result of aging sun exposure. A long time ago they were thought to indicate an issue with the liver, but there is no connection between the two. They are not at all an indicator of health. The only affect they have medically is that they can make it harder to detect skin cancer when doing a visual exam.

<comment><USER62> Thanks, I'll update my knowledge :)</comment></comment></comment>


Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom - <AUTHOR> http://blog.rongarret.info/2016/01/income-inequality-is-not-problem-its.html <comment><USER4> If I could give away all my hn points and apply them as up-votes to this, I would.

The op explains very succinctly the problem in this quote:

> what is happening is that the ultra-wealthy are using their disposable > income to buy political influence, then using that influence to get laws > passed that allow them to collect rents.

My primary beef with American politics is the "solutions" are always in the form of bandaids - they focus on the effect, not the root cause. The recent healthcare laws are a prime example. How to handle the rise of ISIS is another. Both were caused, or at least compounded by misinformed short-sighted policy. The answer is rarely "more laws". Especially when more laws was what lead to most of these problems in the first place. It's like writing more code around terrible code when what is really needed is a total refactor and proper test coverage.

Ending cronyism is fairly straight-forward. But stacking on more law is only going to exacerbate the issue, because like the op explained - the well- connected are just going to buy more political influence and have the laws crafted to benefit them. Taxation is more complex. Increasing taxes is often a solution proposed. Fine, but first - the government needs to prove that they are good stewards of our money before reaching into my back pocket for more. Otherwise, that increase is going to end up as farm subsidies and in the pockets of "defense" contractors.

<comment><USER5> Interesting perspective. I wonder how much "cronyism" costs. It is a problem, but how big?

Sort of the issue is that their is a systemic change taking place globally and it moves at a compounding rate.

Most governments on a micro scale, are inefficient snd comprised of largely unaccountable people. They make (benevolent/naive view) decisions but are ill equipped with the skills to make the proper ones or (cynical) intentionally extract bwnefit. On a macro stage, we are still dumping money into infrastructure in competition with eachother. If we had all the best engineers working on space for example and collaborating, this would be good, or working to solve things collaboratively.

Luckily as PG notes there is a massive defragmentation. I would argue this is great. Agency is redestributed to people in this way and the effects of this will be evident in ~5 years when the laggard affects of technology overtake many legacy industries.

Cable is being challenged.

The monetary system is being challenged.

This election cycle will highlight apathy. It will be realized soon enough that the government will have much less power and is thus, less neccessary.

Etc.

Also, I just saw The Big Short. The L3 money supply (which is super complicated and I don't pretend to fully grasp) is basically mbs in ~2005.

<comment><USER6> >Cable is being challenged.

cable tv is being replaced by internet service through the same provider, with the fiber optic deployments being limited by legislation lobbied for by the original cable tv providers.

>The monetary system is being challenged.

Total BTC is about 4 billion usd, much smaller than most nations currency circulation.

<comment><USER5> i would have to disagree. SpaceX and OneWeb are making strides to do LEO satellite internet[0] and the successful recapture of the F9 rocket means that launch costs are going down. Couple that with the commoditization of cellphone hardware and there will be many distributed systems in space by 2020.

Google has bid on spectrum bandwith, don't have time to cite but Chris Sacca mentions it in basically every interview, just to keep Telecom players in check. They are an ISP now and have other holdings in the space.

Facebook is trying to bring internet to india.

People are building their own networks.

NYC announced it would put wifi in where phonebooths once stood.

> BTC marketcap is 4B

It has a cap of ~6.5[1] according to coinmarket. Obviously not a lot however the upside potential is large and there are many uses for the technology. Ethereum and Stellar are pretty awesome and Patrick Collison helming stripe might be keen to expand their BTC. So if stripe increases the infrastructure and people become more receptive it will become larger. I am not saying that it will replace u.s currency next year but obviously paper money isn't the currency of the future and clearly there needs to be oversite on how money is created. So something like BTC will obv win long term.

[0][http://www.wired.com/2015/06/elon-musk-space-x-satellite- int...](http://www.wired.com/2015/06/elon-musk-space-x-satellite-internet/)

[http://coinmarketcap.com](http://coinmarketcap.com)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Mr. Garret quotes Sanders:

> The reality is that for the past 40 years, Wall Street and the billionaire > class has rigged the rules to redistribute wealth and income to the > wealthiest and most powerful people of this country.

I am rather puzzled that this idea gets so much traction. Does anyone really believe that if only the rules weren't "rigged" local shops and businesses would be able to compete against Wal-Mart and Amazon? Do people really believe that it's only because of "rigged" rules that big employers are downsizing and shipping production overseas?

It's wishful thinking. The rules don't drive rewards to the top. It's intrinsic to the free market.

<comment><USER8> It took me years to realize that economics isn't physics - and it isn't ruled by physics-like laws. Instead, economics is governed by laws created by our society. And what we think of as "free market" is really just norms of trade which are created by our society. There is no reason why the bulk of the billions taken-in by WalMart should go to the Walton family while their employees live on food-stamps - that is just a legal arrangement. And there is no reason why the Walton family should continue to be allowed to use offshore corporations to loan themselves money to run all their WalMart stores - <USER2> is just a legal arrangement which allows them to avoid taxes and hide their billions offshore. Really, when you start to closely examine "free market", you come to realize that is it a chimera made real by those with power and money.

<comment> UK-AL Do you believe in property rights?

Having a legal/police system to catch people who forcebly take property?

Using trade to exchange property?

This is the core of our system. And that system will always generate inequality.

Not necessarily a bad thing.

You can have laws to take the edge off inequality generated, but at the core of the system you can't really avoid it.

<comment><USER9> > Do you believe in property rights?

Not the OP, but I think a lot more people nowadays should read (or re-read) Locke's "Two Treatises of Government". That book is famous mostly for the second part, where Locke actually intellectually imposes private property as a thing in the Western world, but I found the first part equally interesting, where Locke fights against a guy called Filmer, who was of the opinion (prevalent until then) that all property was rightfully owned by the King, transferred to him from generations past since Adam.

The thing I'm trying to say is that yes, private property is just a social construct, there's no divine nor moral thing about it, the concept came alive (so to speak) only because some guys in England didn't like that their possessions were in danger of being confiscated by the King's men.

In the end private property is indeed theft, more exactly the imposition of someone's moral values over the other's by intrinsic force (if you "steal" you might go to prison or worst). The sooner we realize this the better, there's no second-guessing about it.

<comment><USER10> >In the end private property is indeed theft,

Private property can't be "theft" if there is no private property.

If you don't believe in private property, you're sort of poisoning the well of any economic conversation, since it's the foundation of basically all of peaceful civilization.

Without private property there is only tribalism and, "might makes right."

<comment><USER11> One counterpoint:

[http://io9.gizmodo.com/5872764/the-greatest-mystery-of- the-i...](http://io9.gizmodo.com/5872764/the-greatest-mystery-of-the-inca- empire-was-its-strange-economy)

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure this is much of a counterpoint. The Inca didn't have a centralized currency, but we really don't know whether they had private property or not, how disputes were handled, or so on. They also seem to have had civil wars, child sacrifice, and other violent traditions.

That being said, many things are possible in groups with smaller populations, I've heard stories of large communes being fairly successful with up to several thousand people. However, at some point they tend to become too disorganized and break down, in one way or another.

In contrast, the concepts of private property and trade have enabled our human family to grow to 7 Billion, and population growth is barely even slowing down yet. Civilization allows things to work on an entirely different scale by providing a somewhat standardized framework for our territorial disputes.

This is also the most non-violent time in history by far, according to researchers, presumably due to the end of tribalism.

So, for me personally, there would have to be extremely compelling arguments to even begin to argue against the utility of private property as a social and economic system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There is a very common tendency to focus on consumption, in terms of where rich people's money flows. This argument that the rich spend most of their money on ostentatious goods (e.g. fancy cars) or, in the case of this posting, donations to political or even charitable causes. While there is of course some truth to this, it ignores the elephant in the room which is that the rich DON'T spend most of their money. The vast majority of wealth (individual, corporate, and sovereign) is tied up in investments and other liquid or illiquid assets. One of the biggest symptoms of the current malaise in terms of inequality are the abnormally high asset prices globally (and thus lower yields), and most essential, very low inflation. There are huge sums of money in the economy that have been pumped in since 2008, but inflation has not shown up in 7 years largely because velocity of money is down. The concentration of wealth, and possible talk about technological deflation, are both closely tied up in this. The lower classes which tend to spend all their money - and sometimes money they don't even have - <USER3> disproportionately to velocity, now likely don't collectively have enough money to really drive economic and monetary trends anymore. Especially, if they are burdened by debt repayments which many in this day are.

</comment><comment><USER13> I think one of the biggest problems that we have today is that intelligent, hard-working people are the poorest they've ever been.

In the past, if you studied and worked really hard, you would usually achieve something. Today you can study and work very hard for a very long time and still end up with nothing.

Being smart or trying hard has very little value, it's all about who you know and what assets you own. Today, most people are just living off of their assets. Assets which they received as a result of a lot of luck and perhaps a bit of hard work.

Instead of the government stepping in to protect the people - The government is facilitating this inequality by allowing corporations to carry-out mutually-beneficial deals with one another at the expense of regular people.

People are being enslaved; not just less-educated people, but also highly educated people (who can actually see/understand what is happening).

I think we have a new economic class in our society, the 'highly educated lower class'.

<comment><USER14> You've a peculiarly brief view of "ever".

But yes, from a mid-20th century all-time peak, real middle class wealth in the US is declining.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> >> The reality is that for the past 40 years, Wall Street and the billionaire class has rigged the rules to redistribute wealth and income to the wealthiest and most powerful people of this country.

> This is the problem.

That is a very good way to put it. I agree with that.

> So why doesn't Graham recognize and advocate this?

He doesn't advocate because it won't help his cause. As I posted in the comment of the original article (which got downvoted, nobody likes pg being accused of manufacturing pr? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10827175](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10827175), hey! it's a submarine ;-).

He created a strawman and a narative around how to interpret and think about income inequality to give his followers and those involved in startups a framework. He understands he is part of what can create inequality, and that's bothersome to him and those around the startup culture. Startup environment needs myths to operate. These are promises to investors, promises to early employees, these are things founders are supposed to be telling others ("I want to make the world a better place") and perhaps themselves as well. There has to be a myth created that addressed income inequality, because it is talked about in the media.

As a joke, someone wrote (and I forgot who) how the wealthy and powerful in this country are devout Marxist followers. They internalize the rules and assumptions of the class struggle. Except they don't identify with the working class, they identify with the bourgeoisie. They understand there are the two classes and what class they belong to. They will actively try to control and supress the lower classes.

</comment><comment><USER16> >So why doesn't Graham recognize and advocate this? Perhaps it's because two of his biggest golden geese — Uber and AirBnB — are actually relying on exactly the kind of political influence I'm calling out here in order to survive and prosper.

Whether this is true or not, we need to realize PG has motives. He doesn't write essays just for his health.

<comment><USER17> Having read PG's essays since 2002, I suspect his motive is that he wants to have good ideas. The kind that will be remembered after his death. He even said as much in one of his essays [1]. He's writing for legacy, not for profit.

YC itself was one of those ideas - it started out as an experiment [2], derived from a talk at Harvard Computer Society [3]. The easiest way to test if an idea is a good one is to go do it, so he did, and it turned out it was, and that led to profit.

I don't think it's fair to attribute Machiavellian scheming to PG. There are some other people in Silicon Valley that will take a position and then influence public opinion to make that position come true, but it's pretty rare, and I don't think it's the case here. Rather, it's the same reason all VCs talk their book: they start with a hypothesis about how the world is, then invest their book according to the hypothesis, and then tell everyone what the hypothesis is. The worldview comes first, the investments come second.

[1] [http://paulgraham.com/speak.html](http://paulgraham.com/speak.html)

[2] [http://www.paulgraham.com/bronze.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/bronze.html)

[3] [http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html)

<comment><USER9> From half a world away I wouldn't say his motives are "Machiavellian", but his style and the subjects he wrote about definitely changed just after reddit and especially YC became important, mostly for the worst/not-interesting.

I think I started reading his essays in 2004 or so, and he was a cool guy, not as cool as jwz, for example, but pretty interesting nevertheless because of his story of actually making some good money out of having used LISP (which back then was like a Nirvana-reaching thing, I mean, making big money out of LISP) and for being a programmer who was actually showing interest for other things outside programming, like Renaissance painting (Christopher Alexander and his Turkish rugs' patterns was also a thing back then among programmers).

But then reddit launched, YC was founded, somehow they started making money, and things like Arc and trying to make LISP a world-dominating language became things of the past. That's when his writings became a lot less interesting for guys like me, i.e. for average programmers who just wanted to read what other guys smarter than them had to say.

<comment><USER18> Coming also from half a world away from Silicon Valley (Europe), I also think there is a large discrepancy in PG's essays before and after YC became successful. Before YC was successful, I felt that his essays were written by a very smart guy who thought a lot about various topics, and his advice made lots of sense (don't go for prestigious fields for prestige's sake, find what you really love, etc.), while now it feels that he's thinking that everything converge to make startup the only path to success (I'm exaggerating a bit, but not that much). I don't think he does that to bring more and more people to apply to YC, but I can feel the influence on spending lots of time with VCs and startups.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> UK-AL Uber hired lobbyists because they had no choice. Traditional companies have captured the regulatory system so bad you have idoitic laws designed to protect them.

In London one law was proposed for a minmium wait time of 5 minutes. It was directly aimed at uber.

</comment><comment><USER19> >The Baumol Effect, in case you didn't know, is the tendency of wage increases that come from increases in productivity to "spill over" into jobs where there have been no productivity increases. In other words, it's trickle-down economics under a fancier name.

Mr. Garret gets the definition of the Baumol Effect more or less right, but then mislabels it as trickle down economics and proceeds to attack that. Here is an example of the Baumol Effect:

As improving technology makes computer scientists more productive they will receive higher salaries in the business world. Meanwhile, computer scientist teachers in academia may not see similar productive gains (they still can only teach X number of students a semester). Nonetheless, universities must increase computer scientist teacher pay to prevent them from leaving academia for the business world.

In the context of PG's essay, he is saying that high pay for entrepreneurs forces companies to pay competitive salaries:

>anyone who could get rich by creating wealth on their own account will have to be paid enough to prevent them from doing it.

If Mr. Garret, or others, disagree with this assertion they should attack it directly. Personally, the logic and direct incentives at work seem self evident to me.

</comment><comment><USER20> > It is possible to address this problem without killing the golden goose. > How? By rolling back some of the legislation that was put in place by undue > political influence.

Using the political system to reduce the influence of money in politics is prohibitively difficult because the system is already captured by money. We should try, but we need other options when that fails.

When government stops responding to the wishes of the people, revolution is the typical answer. Luckily, we don't have to do that. We can end the influence of wealth on our politics without needing the government to do it for us.

Instead of trying to get the government to stop excess political spending, we should eliminate the incentive to accept excess political spending. People accept money to influence our democracy because they can use that money to get whatever they want from almost anyone, including you. You can't opt out because economic power is invisible. But we can make it visible, and give every individual the freedom to reject economic power that they feel is misused.

This is merit capitalism. [http://meritcapitalism.com/](http://meritcapitalism.com/)

</comment><comment><USER21> @pg is basically arguing that fragmentation is leading to the end of oligarchy and this author is arguing we are headed toward it.

Who's right? The comments I've read today on a few of these posts today are so divisive that I'm not certain they come from the same universe.

FTA: _On the other hand, I also want an effective, democratic government to provide infrastructure, protect people from extreme economic contingencies (like war and hurricanes), prevent people from profiting from economic externalities (like pollution) and provide oversight for well-regulated, free and transparent markets. And that 's not the direction we're heading. We're heading towards political power being concentrated irreversibly in the hands of a small minority. We're heading towards oligarchy.

And that is a problem._

</comment><comment><USER22> > If the differences in income and wealth were entirely reflective of people's > productivity and contributions to society there would be no problem. But > they aren't. Instead what is happening is that the ultra-wealthy are using > their disposable income to buy political influence, then using that > influence to get laws passed that allow them to collect rents.

If you're arguing the problem is the ability of the political class to pick winners and losers instead of creating rules that are beneficial to society generally and applied to all equally - amen.

</comment><comment><USER23> It's a symptom but not as claimed of the ultra-wealthy buying influence. That matters too but it's not the number one reason. If that was the case, other countries with much less ability to affect the political process (like the scandinavian countries) wouldn't be experiencing the same problems (although at a different scale)

No. Wealth is a symptom of a system where the winner takes all and the winner is increasingly technologically based companies.

Wealth allow you to increasingly affect the political process but only as a function of you being rich to begin with. No one starts with the political system to gain wealth at least they wont' be wealthy for very long if thats how they came to their wealth.

Income inequality is increasingly a symptom of systems with little friction to become the first or second in a field but a lot of friction to challenge them.

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't think Uber is a YC investment. It's certainly not listed as such under CrunchBase, nor have I seen any public article mentioning them as an investment.

<comment><USER24> Yeah I was wondering the same thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Access to resources & social attention are key concerns.

Some harmful effects of inequality when people do not have access to:

* needs (i.e. Maslow Hierarchy); particularly autonomy * ability to express perspective * ability to have perspective considered, paid heed to, & respected * ability to influence local systems * protection from those who are abstracted away from local systems; those who will not feel immediate consequences of their actions

If we can create systems where these concerns are prioritized, then inequality of wealth may not matter.

Some people are good at playing the game of gaining wealth. Some are good at other games. In the end, we all benefit from respecting and having compassing & empathy for all life & natural systems.

</comment><comment><USER26> It looks to me like Garret and Graham are actually in violent agreement. :-) Garret wants to keep people from getting rich through political influence rather than creating wealth; Graham wants to make sure people can still get rich through creating wealth, even if they can't get rich through political influence.

</comment><comment><USER27> Wealth inequality and income inequality are often touted as the incentive for people to do actual useful work.

However, if you think about it for a second, it's clear that having more money in a bank or on a payslip doesn't make you work harder.

What makes you work harder is the possibility of improving your status, getting richer.

So, one would imagine that a society with drastically reduced inequality (both wealth and income) but with extra high social mobility could work perfectly well.

</comment><comment><USER28> >So once again, let me be clear: I do not want to kill Y Combinator, nor do I want to kill Uber or AirBnB.

AFAIK Uber is not a YC portfolio company.

<comment><USER16> [https://twitter.com/paulg/status/678653529288916996](https://twitter.com/paulg/status/678653529288916996)

PG on Uber. "No, just a user."

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, you're right. I've published a correction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> As long as technology enables people to scale their efforts to serve vast numbers of people, there will be vast differences in what people can earn.

Those that sell to millions will make a lot more than those who only sell to a few.

Instead of trying to force equal outcomes, we should be teaching people about how they can benefit from leveraging technology.

</comment><comment><USER30> Um, am I the only one here confused at why this guy is arguing with PG? From what I can tell they are in full agreement.

Ron here is saying we shouldn't kill startups (what PG calls "creating wealth"), we should instead fight against practices that actually take money from the poor and give to the rich (what PG calls "zero-sum games"). After reading PG's article, I got the impression that he wants the exact same thing as Ron does. What's there to argue?

PG even has a paragraph in his essay that is almost equivalent to the title of the article:

> There are lots of things wrong with the US that have economic inequality as > a symptom. We should fix those things. In the process we may decrease > economic inequality. But we can't start from the symptom and hope to fix the > underlying causes.

</comment><comment><USER31> This is a great discussion on the single most important issue of our day. I like Paul Graham's perspective on this but I would like him to elaborate on how he would curb corruption. In the past, he said that "transparency" was key but they are doing this in the open and they direct the media to put a spin on it which the non-critical thinking masses can't detect. Politics/economics is an imperfect entity. I think the "pragmatic" solution may lie somewhere between Graham's Libertarian view and Sander's Democratic/Socialist view.

</comment><comment><USER32> Thank you. Glad you wrote this.

</comment><comment><USER33> "At the very least, we should strive for a non-regressive tax system, which is what we have now."

I'm super pro regressive taxes. Regressive taxes are fantastic for the poor. They get more than they put in AND the elite are less able to avoid paying them. The socialized promised lands of Scandinavia are highly regressive.

[http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/why-im-soft- on-s...](http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/why-im-soft-on-sales- taxes/?_r=0)

<comment><USER34> > The socialized promised lands of Scandinavia are highly regressive.

No, they aren't. Regressive means that the rich pay less, percentage-wise, than the poor do.

<comment><USER33> Did you even read the link I gave?

<comment><USER35> Your link's graph shows that nordic countries have highest social transfers and highest consumption taxes. This means that they are countering the regressive effects of consumption taxes with other income transfers. What the graph doesn't show is that income tax (and many other fees/taxes) are also quite progressive in these countries. So the graph supports Krugman's claim of high consumption taxes in these countries, but not your claim of on "highly regressive" taxation.

Krugman's other reference has a broken link but his text does not sound like your claim either.

But in the big picture, income transfers do seem to be more favoured in strong welfare states than progression in the tax system. The US has a mongrel system with EITC because you get a "negative income tax" by social criteria (basis of which are quite 1950's...) - it's more like a social transfer in many respects than a tax progression.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Adam Smith, in the second discussion of his title's topic in _Wealth of Nations_ : "Wealth, as Mr Hobbes says, is power."

Oddly this insight is lacking from much the rest of economic literature.

</comment><comment><USER36> Did YC fund Uber? I had thought they weren't a YC company.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, they didn't. I've added a correction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Pg's main point is that the major source of wealth inequality comes from wealth creators as opposed to wealth exploiters. The wealth creators are typical startups and people creating new industries while wealth exploiters are the one playing high frequency trading, lobbing congress, buying up real estate, creating monopolies, investing with insider info and so on. My gut feeling is that wealth creation part is in reality less than 20%. This intuition is based on simple fact that wealthy people have managed to far more disproportionately increase their wealth than what comes from increase in GDP or other measures of productivity. There is plenty of analysis available in Capital book that clearly suggests that wealthy people mainly invests in non- productive investment instruments such as real estate that has nothing to do with increasing productivity of the society. It just constraints the supply side, inflating prices and thus increasing value of the investment. These investment tools enables them to transform themselves to become passive wealth exploiters with a setup that generates massive multi-generational income and wealth increase without proportional need for positive contribution to society. There was a very well written article with data analysis on HN that proved that most increase in wealth for top 1% came from these non-productive investment tools such as real estate. This is like wealthy people grouping up to buy loads of the fresh water and inflating prices so average people now must pay majority of income in buying water. So wealth transfer from common people to rich occurs through inflated water prices. Of course, if wealthy people really did this for water, they will be in trouble and revolutions will break out. However doing this for real state raises no eye brows even though real estate is essential need for humans.

A fun fact: Despite of giving billions and without starting any new blockbuster companies, Bill Gates has managed to increase his wealth by more than 50% since he officially retired. He has sure helped few startups but it would be too funny as well as cruel to think that most of his wealth gain comes via helping startups or causing productivity gains in society. Last I checked his billions are managed by hedge fund like setup who typically have goal to maximize returns through non-productive instruments such as real estate, HFT, commodity market games, derivatives etc and they rarely devote more than 20% of portfolio to truely productive activities such as startups.

It is also marvelous how some of the wealthiest have outright bought the laws for themselves, for example, middle class in US universally pays almost twice the tax rates than top 1%. This would be unthinkable in previous generation. The entire capital tax gimmic is put in to law with a full knowledge that it does not benefit majority of citizens who have little or no savings, let alone investments for short term trading. It is purely designed to benefit top 1% who derives large chunk of income as capital gains. The most depressing thing is that the field is becoming less and less level playing, for example wealthy can buy out admissions in best universities while average citizens are getting priced out from same institutions. The significant increase in mortgage and student debt load combined with long term stagnant wages now eliminates possibility of savings or investments and therefore risk taking. I suppose this wasn't exactly like this in 70s when many more people had decent savings, had ability for some risk taking and lot of them even actually were able to retire. In our generation most people don't even think of retirement anymore except in tech industry which is probably less than 5% of population. We in tech field are perhaps not so much impacted and so world looks little different from our glasses, especially if you had been college dropout or without family. However for a common citizen with a family, mortgage, healthcare bills, no savings, retirement funds uncertainty and student loans it is much more difficult to cross the chasm than it used to be in 70s.

</comment><comment><USER38> Some decent points, but why can't anyone acknowledge the centralization of capital?

Sure, Uber lobbies city mayors, but what about the financial system that gives $6.6B to a single startup? The inception of all problems.

Politicians and lobbyists? I'd worry about the Fed.

</comment><comment><USER39> "I think the propaganda of "The Communists" has been drilled into the American public so solidly"

You mean the part where communists murdered 100 million people in the last century? That "propaganda"?

<comment><USER40> We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10829000](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10829000) and marked it off-topic.

<comment><USER39> Your house, your rules. Still won't make the stink of all those bodies go away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> It can all be reduced to the problem of man-made law. It is wide open to abuse. So, yes, the ultra-rich abuse man-made law to make more money. But then again, machine guns easily overrule money. That is why there are now islamic insurgencies, in 30+ countries, of which the primary purpose is to get rid of man-made law (and to establish their favoured alternative). The problem goes way beyond the distribution of income. At some point, everybody who believes in the legitimacy of man-made law will have to prove that he is willing to risk his life and die for what he believes in.

<comment><USER42> What alternative to man-made law would you propose?

<comment><USER41> Scriptural law, for example. Each religion enforces its own law. This solution may not be ideal in every possible respect, but to the extent that it puts a halt to the invention of new man-made laws, it will certainly mitigate the problem. Every man-made law represents a reduction in your freedom with the purpose of serving the interests of someone else. Therefore, I am in favour of any alternative solution that will put a halt to people inventing new laws.

<comment><USER43> Does any scripture cover traffic violations?

<comment><USER41> A consistent set of traffic rules is a mathematical problem. Mathematics emerges from the laws of nature. Traffic rules are a prime example of what would go totally wrong if you tried to solve it with typical man-made laws. Instead of giving priority to traffic coming from the right, we would end up giving priority to traffic of the members of the elite instead. In fact, that is what happens in many countries. Furthermore, in case of a traffic accident they always find man-made "legal" reasons why the elite is right and everybody else is wrong.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>