distic
8mo ago
It's called paradox of value, or water-diamond paradox (water is a lot more useful than diamonds, but the price of diamonds is higher).
distic
8mo ago
I'm not australian either, but I don't think it's affirmative action (where you help individuals get better jobs). It's something more collective. Think about it: in the US (and also in Australia), instead of voting by states, you could vote by race or something like that. For example Lebanon votes by religion. That is not something I would want for my country (and it does not work very well in lebanon) but perhaps it makes sense sometimes, just like taking account of geographic differences makes sense sometimes.
You cannot deduce that people are not born equal from the fact their parents are not equal, it's a mistake. There is a missing argument here. Indeed, assume that A is 10 times richer than B, but A has 10 children and B only has 1. Then the children are born equal, aren't they?
And also, the richest are only rich because everyone else is somewhat rich. You can only sell iphones or cars to people that are somewhat rich. Even amazon needs people to have phones or computers. So it regulates itself a little bit. I suspect the richest become relatively richer because the population grows. If you take 0.1 cent by product sold, it helps that there are more people.
distic
7mo ago
Well it's still as I said, excepted that the old usual system survives and makes it odd. We have something of the sort in the UE: if you are a binational, you can elect 2 governments, and those governments are ruling the EU together (I'm not sure it's not also possible to vote twice for EU parliament). As long as there are few people with two votes, it's not that important.
distic
7mo ago
The paradox of value is that things that are more useful than others as a whole, like water, have a lower price than other scarcer things like diamonds.
Replace water with cleaning ladies and diamonds with software engineers and you get exactly the same situation as above
distic
7mo ago
The Musk example is bad, because Musk is more than thousand times richer than a subsaharan african, children cannot choose their parents, and Musk does not have 1000 children so it's particularly meaningless. And no, it's not better to be the billionth child of Musk than the child of an average american.
But anyway that wasn't my point. My point was that you cannot deduce your conclusion from your hypothesis. Maybe your conclusion is still right, but it remains to prove.
distic
7mo ago
Paradox of value is not a market, it's a phenomenon that can appear in any market: some things have a higher price than others that seem more necessary. It's something that must be explaned by the theory, and every economical theory (eg theory of labour value) has tried to explain it.
Supply and demand cruve intersecting is just a possible explanation of this phenomenon in marginal utility theory. Perhaps someone one day will come with a better theory and a better explanation, but as long as it is an economical theory it will have to provide an explanation for the paradox of value.
distic
7mo ago
No I'm just explaining you the difference between the facts (the explicanda of the theory), like the price of diamonds and water, and the explanation of those facts (the theory itself), like supply and demand. It is true, however, that the theory is always more precarious than the facts
distic
7mo ago
Authority argument are bad arguments, especially when they are about yourself.
A lot of theories (like quantum physics and evolution theory) derive from experiments. How does that make them non-theories? And because they are theories, they might be replaced by something better one day. However, the fact they explain will remain the same (excepted if we prove they were illusory). Things like that occured when subjective theory of value replaced objective theory of value, or when Einstein replaced Galileo.
But some specialist are unable to see the difference between the theory they learned and the fact it's supposed to explain. Most of the time they are the last ones supporting the old theory when everyone has moved on.
distic
7mo ago
When did I say I have a better theory? I just said one day it might be replaced by something else.
distic
7mo ago
You are right, he just needs to provide help. For the discussion he might ask questions like "why do you want to cancel" and let her give her reasons. He can also emphasize that while canceling has a financial cost it's nothing compared to a divorce.
She might find no one now, but she has more chances than when she will be 10 years older and divorced with children. And losing weight is not that difficult compared to being in a terrible marriage
distic
7mo ago
Nigeria and Niger are two different countries. Probably a mistake from your autocorrect
distic
7mo ago
Anarchism has never worked, what are you speaking about when you say "able to exist without a state to protect them"?
Anyway that is not really relevant. The fact is that companies get some advantages from modern states. They are more prosperous when the state protects them. So they have to accept the downsides that come with this prosperity.
distic
7mo ago
But the second situation is not even possible, you cannot have a factory without any workers...
distic
7mo ago
I agree, it would not be an economical problem. However it seems to me it is a problem with your argument: the negociating power of the workers has not increased because there is no need for them.
distic
7mo ago
I'm not sure I understand. First message, you say that negociating power would be better for workers if there were less skilled workers and more factories and you give an example.
Then I proved the negociating power would not be better in this situation. Nothing about what it should or should not be there.
Then, you reply that it's true, but there are better things to do than to protect unions in this situation.
To that I reply that you might be right, but it has nothing to do with my concern that the first message I replied to was based on a false hypothesis.
Now you tell me that it's about the negociating power as it is, and I almost agree: it's about the negociating power as it would be, if we changed the situation. But you still did not answer my concern?
distic
7mo ago
Even if you live in the west, China may use informations about you. Do you work for the army? Do you work for a competitor of a chinese company? Do you hold anti chinese views? Are you an obstacle on the way of a chinese agent?
I understand that you don't trust your government, but trusting a foreign government more is something weird...
distic
7mo ago
I don't think so. I agree that the local government has mire physical power, but its incentives are quite different. The US government has to let americans believe that it acts in their interests. China does not care as much
distic
6mo ago
The question is not about the legitimacy of Israel. Israel was founded on blood like any other state in the world. Before that the territory was british, and before that it was ottoman (turkish) for centuries. So do you think Turkey was the legitimate owner of this territory? Anyway they didn't get it peacefully from the crusaders, who took it by force from the arabs. Those arabs took it by force from the byzantine empire. I don't think I need to continue.
Nowadays, Israel is a strong state and a nuclear power. Perhaps it has no right to exist but it will exist anyway. The earlier you accept it, the earlier a more acceptable solution than this awful status quo can be found.
distic
6mo ago
Even if it was possible (others have proved that it isn't a good idea), what makes you think that all of them would flee?
distic
6mo ago
It wasn't really a suicide mission for everyone, as they took so much hostages.
distic
6mo ago
I don't know what they planned but remember that Hamas has a lot of hostages. They will probably do something spectacular but useless, unless they want to sacrifice the lives of the hostages which I doubt.
That was my question too. And also, they should have taken account of the non economical consequences of said removal. Like people beeing sad forbtheir beloved ones. Would they really like to live in a world where their beloved ones can be "removed" if someone thinks they are not productive enough?
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