Yeah this. I hate this planet. So many problems would go away if people could actually afford to make choices.

dmitrygr 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> So many problems would go away if

Writing it like you did implies that a magical solution exists and we are all maliciously withholding it from you. It does not and we are not.

	▲	john_strinlai 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		>implies that a magical solution exists and we are all maliciously withholding it from you i did not get that from what they wrote at all. they sound frustrated. but that does not mean they are frustrated at you specifically.
	▲	brailsafe an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I disagree with the notion that that's what their word choice implies. Also, there doesn't need be magical solution that's not being implemented for there to clearly be a severely heightened level of precarity in the economy that has a hugely negative impact on people who haven't had time to build a financial safety net, build their careers, or buy a house when it was feasible, in large part due specifically to aggressive, malicious, sometimes coordinated extractions of rent and land value

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9rx 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Resource allocation is entirely a social construct. Not being afford something is a 'pretend' state that only exists because everyone agrees to go along with it.

Even if a magical unicorn were to step in and start distributing resources perfectly, solving that particular problem, if humans can't even get something as simple as resource allocation right, why are you so sure they won't also screw up everything else to ensure that all other problems remain?

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roenxi 8 hours ago | parent [-]

> Resource allocation is entirely a social construct. Not being afford something is a 'pretend' state that only exists because everyone agrees to go along with it.

That can't exactly be true, because scarcity is a physical limit. If there is exactly 1 apple, it is impossible for 2 people to eat it. That is no social construct.

There is a large social element involved, but that in itself is done in such a way as to try and encourage creation of a large amount of stuff to a large number of people. It isn't arbitrary; there are a lot of allocation schemes that lead to mass starvation and poverty. The natural human instincts are beyond terrible at allocating resources; pretty much everyone at this point has discovered that laws and capitalism with some welfare trimmings on the edge is a much better approach than any alternative that got tried.

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altruios 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I hear and understand your point. It is not purely a social construct. But how much available farmland to allocate to grow food from the available farmland becomes a political issue. Pricing, distribution... same deal.

And considering our (humanity's) food production outmatches our total food calorie/nutrition requirements... any argument using food as an example for scarcity indicates that you may be working with incorrect, or outdated information.

And Is "money" a social construct, or is there 'natural' money, some platonic ideal from which all other instantiations of money arise? I'm betting on the former.

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janalsncm 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The amount of resources is not a social construct but how they are distributed is.

The mean American has a net worth of $620k. The median American net worth is $192k.

The global mean net worth is $95k. The median is $9k.

	▲	projektfu 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Putting out numbers, it's good to consider Equalland. https://www.daemonology.net/blog/2011-01-10-inequality-in-eq... Ancient discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2087267

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schmidtleonard 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's interesting that both the USA and China found that the prosperity maximum happened when capitalism was kept in line with a firm hand, even though China approached from the left and the USA approached from the right and later departed back to the right.

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einpoklum 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> That can't exactly be true, because scarcity is a physical limit.

Indeed, but - human productive capacity has become so vast, that the only way for there to be scarcity is for it to be artificially maintained.

> The natural human instincts are beyond terrible at allocating resources

Disagree, in the sense that a lot of what we consider "natural" is the result of social circumstances, emphasizing or encouraging the expression of some sentiments and tendencies over others. In other words, "natural" is usually rather artificial.

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9rx 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> That can't exactly be true, because scarcity is a physical limit.

Hence resource allocation. If there were no physical limit, there would be nothing in need of allocation. Allocation is intrinsically bound to scarcity.

> If there is exactly 1 apple, it is impossible for 2 people to eat it.

Hence resource allocation. If there were an infinite number of apples, there would be nothing in need of allocation. Allocation is intrinsically bound to scarcity.

> There is a large social element involved

There is only the human social element involved. There isn't a magical deity in the sky waving a magic wand or a group of space aliens from Xylos IV deciding who gets what. Resources are allocated only by how people, and people alone, decide they want to allocate them.

You being unable to afford something isn't some fundamental property of the universe. It is simply something people made up at random and decided to run with it. People could, in theory, change their mind on a whim such that suddenly you could become able to afford something.

> The natural human instincts are beyond terrible at allocating resources

Now you're finally starting to get on-topic. So given that you see humans as being beyond terrible at allocating resources, why do you think, if they were relieved of having to handle resource allocation, that they would suddenly become not terrible at everything else in order to see all of those other problems magically disappear, per the contextual parent comment? Not going to happen. The harsh reality is that creating problems is human nature.

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hackable_sand 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That's really funny