Comment by resters
8 months ago
indeed! HN has gone way to the authoritarian right. Not just socially but also a lot of HN readers favor economically authoritarian policies like tariffs!
8 months ago
indeed! HN has gone way to the authoritarian right. Not just socially but also a lot of HN readers favor economically authoritarian policies like tariffs!
Why do you call tariffs authoritarian? I would generally put them in the protectionist basket but I don't see how a country can be authoritarian towards another or either populations by simply imposing tariffs.
Tariffs are at least anti-libertarian.
Absolutely agree. The libertarian view of tariffs is that they limit free trade, and are often used for inefficiently for market manipulation than as a funding source.
One question this US election cycle has brought up is how to best fund a government. Every reasonable person understands that a government needs funding to operate. But every mechanism employed has trade offs. But I have not found enough information to develop an informed opinion on under what conditions a flat tariff on imports be better than a progressive income tax, a flat income tax be better than capital gains, etc. Tax policy is adhoc, driven by a multitude of factors. If you or anyone can provide an interesting survey on some principle approaches to tax policy I would be grateful.
1 reply →
My guess is the tariff thing is just a fad and no one actually wants a trade war. It's something Trump personally thinks is a good idea, and that sounds good in a stump speech. But all the folks advising him, including the ones from our own subculture (Musk, Ackman, Sacks) know better.
I'm choosing this moment to try to be optimistic: if Trumps turns over the reins of government to a bunch of technocrats... it's not the worst possible thing that can happen.
The real question is who's going to restrain him from turning the DoJ into a revenge organ. The rule of law is historically very hard to get back once its lost.
A major reason for the tariff thing is that free trade has a lot of losers, and those were left out to dry, and even ridiculed.
Another reason is that being economically dependent on foreign countries can be quite risky. E.g. if China gets economically independent from the west but the west is still dependent on China, China will have immense power over the west.
Yeah, I get the arguments. They're just wrong. I'm not aware of a single time in history where a trade war worked to the advantage of the instigator. If you really want this, for the reasons you say, it's because we're already losing and cutting us off from the "enemy" just accelerates the loss.
Trade makes everyone richer, and the cost is that some of the people you don't want to be rich get rich. But willfully choosing to be poor doesn't fix that.
> My guess is the tariff thing is just a fad and no one actually wants a trade war. It's something Trump personally thinks is a good idea, and that sounds good in a stump speech. But all the folks advising him, including the ones from our own subculture (Musk, Ackman, Sacks) know better.
They aren't doing it for economic purposes but for political ones: They are nationalist authoritarians; tariffs are not only nationalistic policy, they undermine international institutions and cooperation.
> if Trumps turns over the reins of government to a bunch of technocrats
That seems like the opposite of Trump's behavior, campaign promises, and plans.
Pretty sure that if Trump learned anything from term one its that he shouldnt rely on technocrats and should try to install as many sycophants as possible.
Well off people are pulling ladder behind them, a tale as old as mass migration become possible.
I realized HN was lost during a thread about having to provide identification to access adult websites.
There we SO many voices in favor. I was shocked. Hackers historically cared a TON about their privacy, yet they were willing to throw it away for the sake of "the children."
Ignoring that there is a huge suite of tools that would allow you to protect children WITHOUT having to register with the government and be tracked to visit a website.
It turns out that "hackers" and "rich boy startups" have much less cultural overlap than the latter would have you believe.
HN is not largely populated by hackers. It's populated mostly by people working for SV-type companies.
People forget - or never realize, if they're new - that the "Hacker" in "Hacker News" refers to startup entrepreneurs "hacking" capitalism. This place used to be called "Startup News," after all.
Age verification that protects privacy can be done using clever cryptographic techniques.
yea but we all know it wont be
Yeah I would be 100% for that, honestly.
I'm not a big anti-adult content person, I don't think it is a big deal. Cockfighting and dogfighting used to be popular pass-times. People used to take their whole family down to the public square for a nice afternoon hanging. Brothels used to be widespread! The old world was so much seedier and dirtier and violent, stuff is tame today by comparison.
But I 1000% respect someone who wants to control their kids access to adult content. I just know there is a lot of danger in implementing a Chinese-style "internet identification system."
I’m very liberal and very much opposed to authoritarianism. I don’t see the problem with forcing online content to be different than offline content. You gotta show ID or otherwise prove age to buy alcohol and pornography offline. Why not for online as well?
Because when you show ID to buy age-restricted things in person, nobody is keeping a record of anything. A clerk looks at your ID and that's the end of it.
Online is a completely different beast on that count.
11 replies →
Yes clearly ISPs, OSs, and everyone involved who is making money should provide easier and better tools for protecting kids from adult content.
But a state mandated thing associated with my ID is... iffy.
People have perfectly good reasons for wanting to protect their privacy.
4 replies →
If you really want to buy pornography on the internet as a minor, you will have difficulties doing the transactions.
Aside from that you haven't thought about the implications of an ID system in the current political climate. Some advocates even state their real goals openly.
I don't think you are very liberal here for that matter. It is just a single issue, but it strongly correlates with positions around this particular topic.
1 reply →
If only you knew why my sweet summer child.
I've been wondering a while, is your username a reference to the comic "stone toss?"
From the perspective of wanting less waste and less pollution tariffs are a good thing.
Why do you say that? Without tariffs, the most efficient producer makes the good or service. With them, someone less efficient may make them.
Efficiency includes, but isn't only, waste and pollution.
By waste I meant the consuming of goods and accompanying trash that comes with it.
7 replies →
Efficiency includes also e.g. child and slave labor.
You could say the same about progressive taxes. Without them, the most efficient do the work. With them, less efficient people below taxable income threshold will do more work.
3 replies →