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see what you don't understand is that the owning class actually bring crucial long term strategic vision. i wonder though: we always talk of ai replacing the working class, but wouldn't it be more economical for ai to provide that long term strategic thinking? i'm sure the operating costs for ai would be way less than the operating costs of billionaires. everyone would be better off.

If there is anything worse than the tyranny of greed, it is the tyranny of a machine that's trying to optimize you 24/7.

if we optimize the billionaire class everyone's better off, like i said. of course we can go orange catholic, but my comment was premised on how we might apply ai.

The billionaire class don't want universal childcare, they don't want medicare for all, they don't want a public jobs program, they don't want a welfare state, and they sure as fuck don't want to be told no.

I'm failing to see how caring about billionaires is suppose to help everyone else. The current American society, via neoliberal economics, is already optimized to help the billionaires (hence why they extract all the wealth and why income inequality is at its highest in the US since ever).


How do you figure that "the billionaire class" doesnt want those policies? Plenty of examples of them supporting those policies. Seems like the opposition is more to the tax hike they know is coming along side it but even then we still see billionaires supporting those policies.

If they do not want to fund it they do not support it.

The purpose of the system is what it does. Or in this case, the actions of the billionaire class and their capital are their values and morals.


They mean put billionaires on a chopping block.

read "optimize the billionaire class" as "trim the fat."

> Historically, more efficient agriculture meant a population boom. That's kinda the opposite of people starving to death.

not necessarily. you're inadvertently conflating things. just more people alive doesn't mean they aren't starving. a population boom can be had in the starving population too.


While you are not wrong, it is still historically correct to say that "more efficient agriculture meant a population boom". We don't know what they were doing for birth control back then (because this was a woman's job and they didn't write history), but there is plenty of evidence they must have been doing something that was effective (rhythm is more than good enough to explain this, and so likely what they were doing). People had a good idea of how much the farm could support and they tried to get just enough kids to ensure it would pass on - with enough spares for war, infant mortality and the like.

> Everyone has different situations and different level of risk.

that's true, and also why it's prudent to not go around giving unsolicited family advice to strangers.

also it's why, when you're talking about one particular woman you've never met, you should keep the demographic insights you think you have about her to yourself.


i've been waiting for you to share your conclusion for the last ten years. finally, i can sleep again.

> Greed isn't a problem.

you listed

1. buying the cheapest groceries you can reasonably find 2. trying to get the highest salary you can 3. literally any time you try to get more for yourself

that's a weak list from which to conclude that greed isn't a problem, especially since in the case of 1. and 2. someone's making money off you, the person who's supposedly greedy in these scenarios.


2. is literally you making money off someone else. That someone else might not also be making money off your work - you might be selling services to an individual for their personal consumption, or more commonly, you might be doing that through an intermediary (employer) that connects consumers with producers and launders the guilt of demanding more money.

1. Do farmers count as greedily making money off you for trying to get the highest prices for their produce from distributers and retailers who are trying to compete for customers with low prices? Yes but that's good! Every player in that supply chain is optimizing for themselves and it ends up working pretty well for everyone. Maybe you think farmers are too rich and should not demand so much money for their produce because greed is bad?


The beauty of capitalism is that both parties can benefit from trade.

why did anyone trade prior to capitalism?

Consensual trade between rational actors leads to both of them benefiting. Before capitalism, the ideology which focused on property rights and individual freedoms didn't really have a name...

so how's it the beauty of capitalism?

'cause that's the one where you get to own things?

if that's the one where you get to own things then there wasn't trade before capitalism, because you can't trade things without ownership. is that what you're saying?

i like my union because they force the management to actually take care of our equipment. every non-union job i've had involves a lot of making fucked up shit kind of work. that's what i want from a union, tangible benefits to my working conditions. it's not a social club, and i'm not one to be worried about the caliber of people i associate with.

seems like the ad was superfluous. the doctor treating your friend's condition would be aware of new drugs relevant to your friend's condition. i go to a doctor because i don't know about medicine, i don't want to be educated on medicine from snake oil salesmen.

How does it seem like the ad was superfluous?

The ad triggered a series of events that helped my friend.

The doctor, for whatever reason, was not the primary motivation.


> How does it seem like the ad was superfluous?

just to be clear i don't know your friend or their life or their medical condition or if the drug you saw an ad for treats their condition or if you saw an ad for a drug or if your friend has a medical conditon or if you have a friend at all... and i don't know if every event in a chain of events is necessary to the eventual outcome of that chain of events... and i can't see into the alternate reality wherein you didn't see that ad for a drug, to know your friend would've been fine in the end... and so on.

i'm speaking more generally, saying advertising is superfluous to medicine.


Conspicuously absent from your scenario is the way the doctor becomes aware of the new drug. How does that happen?

By accepting SWAG from the pharma rep, or accepting free trips to conferences sponsored by pharma. If a doctor has not heard about a new drug the their reps just haven't made their way to them yet because they're in a smaller market. The yet is key, eventually a rep will make their way to them. More than likely much sooner than the TV ads run

By researching new drugs? Though sadly at the moment the doctor is also a target of advertising. The point being that this should generally be a pull process driven by a demand (and mediated by neutral review and publication processes) and not a push being driven by a supply (mediated by a process that goes to the highest bidder).

By doing their job instead of hoping a stranger's friend happens to land on a useful ad?

It’s not an either-or situation. A doctor is a human and has a job and a family. I don’t expect my doctor to be spending every second researching everything related to all his patients. There simply isn’t enough time to know everything.

If I wanted that level of care, I expect to pay for a personal physician who only has one patient. Me.

The reality is most of the time my Dr knows more technical info than the patient. But sometimes I know something they don’t. The information asymmetry lasts about 60 seconds before my doctor validates the info against his professional sources.

My doctor is providing a value commiserate with what I pay him.


There are other ways of making information available

The role of search


so in your mind "advertisement" covers any transmission of information?

so in your mind, a pharmaceutical company telling a patient that a drug exists is "advertisement" but a pharma company telling a doctor that a drug exists magically isn't?

Yes.

The first gets blasted all over the internet to be shoved in the faces of all and sundry.

The second goes quietly and efficiently to the professionals tasked with helping the individuals in society with problems that may directly benefit from new thing.

The distinction, to me, is obvious.


Ah this world where doctors are perfect and know everything

ah the world where ads are a good form of education.

what do you know about the pre-industrial world, really?

> Only marketing has been using “it’s not X, it’s Y”

i'm not even remotely convinced that's true.


It's not true, it's false.


i would expect emdashes in a professionally published website.


Same. I believe Word and most other word processors and desktop publishing applications convert standard keyboard-typed hyphens to em- or en-dashes automatically, and have for decades.


particularly academic writing... said having worked as an editor at an academic journal long before ChatGPT was a thing, and having corrected many hyphens to m-dashes.


Did you go to law school?


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