I've never really understood the sentiment that "articulation of a problem = solving that problem." Articulation seems to me to be Step 0 in solving a problem, there needs to be people on the ground advocating for why this new ideological framework is "better" than the status quo and actively convincing decision makers or acquiring decision making positions. Otherwise any amount of highly articulate complaints are just sophistry.
I think calling problem articulation "just sophistry" is overly reductionist. People who make the effort to articulate the problems (e.g., some Chronicle of Higher Ed writers) offer thoughtful readers other possibilities for consideration. Then, in the rare case that a powerful decision-maker perceives a tension in the status quo, there exist well articulated potential actions to resolve the tension. This is why think-tanks write white papers. The narrative that "people on the ground" is a necessary condition for reform dissuades thoughtful problem articulation. "People on the ground" is one way to influence decision-makers, but it is not necessary. Watch CSPAN when a septuagenarian Senator references his/her granddaughter's comment as influencing his/her vote.
I think a senator being influenced by a grand child is a good mental case study in productive dissemination of an ideology. There are many people in leadership roles who may sometimes be on the lookout for strategies to tackle problems, but the only way those strategies become actionable is if someone nearby 1) has had the idea communicated to them and 2) is able to rhetorically sway those commanding the decision making process (the is an instant victory if sufficient decision making position has been captured by allies). Ultimately the ideas themselves only gain material action with a dissemination network with a connection to the people making decisions.
I see. For you, "people on the ground" includes a grand child's comment. In my experience, "people on the ground" has implied "don't try to do anything on your own," which dissuades action and consequently promotes the status quo's persistence. When you say "dissemination network," I hear you saying a group of people is necessary. But a group is not necessary. A group is one possible way. But powerful people are influenced by far less than a group of people every day. See also: lobbyists. "Start a popular ideological movement" and "become a lobbyist" warrant very different life choices.
Unfortunately there are many popular ideological movements with little to no penetration in the structures that actually swing material conditions. That disconnect between the holders of an ideology and the existing power centers leads to intense cognitive dissonance. Generally organizing is helpful in achieving anything political (i.e. affecting distribution of resources). I feel like it'd be very hard to form a popular ideological movement without any form of collectiveness, as if a movement is one individual writing for themselves to read, it doesn't seem like it's popular.
The concept of lobbying itself has been basically shattered in our modern world with businesses having a near infinite amount of resources to exploit it. I don't think there's anything implicitly unreasonable about conveying your understanding of the importance, impact, and potential consequences of major choices onto key decision makers.
Most political lobbying pertains to matters that are completely out of the radar of news media. In fact if the topic you're lobbying on is in the news you are probably failing.
They tend to be intensely practical and specific, rather than hot morally heated topics. Like building infrastructure, securing a government contract, or amending/removing a new regulation from your sector of business (e.g. making sure a new law on tobacco exempts cigar manufacturers).
Yeah, I really feel like Brenden pretty much screwed over the entire browser scene by going all political and not doing his heavy lifting of reading the mid 00s political zeitgeist better. Feels like he doomed us all to live under Google's boot for his poorly timed performative activism.
Investing back into yourself is generally true, but only under healthy economic conditions. Boeing exists in a really weird place of being "too big to fail" (ie a monopoly) where investing money into personnel and improved processes is actually wasteful towards the shareholders because it isn't necessary to maintain the core business.
Looks like that mentality is exactly what caused them to lose out to SpaceX. They thought they were the monopoly and now find themselves out of the picture.
Same mentality with their civil aviation business. Their failure to invest in the core of the company (making great planes) has led to spectacular - and deadly - failure.
The main reason they are still an important player in civil aviation is because Airbus can't make planes fast enough.
Boeing is only too big to fail in the business of building passenger airliners. Maybe there is some strategic interest in keeping their defence arm afloat. But their space business is subject to market forces. There are plenty of players willing and able to replace Boeing in that specific industry.
The defacto assumption that internet discourse is a "discussion" is pretty implicitly wrong or at least very misguided. Most forums are much more in the mode of loud public arguments, which is why we have votes.
Even my own comment, by continuing this conversation serves in rhetorical, political, and philosophic capacities; many of which I don't intend but are implicit to how the medium is presented
> assumption that internet discourse is a "discussion" is pretty implicitly wrong…many forums
We aren’t on many forums. We’re here. I wouldn’t think twice about that comment on e.g. Reddit. But that’s why I’m no longer there. The people who go into “loud public arguments” and win often had an adult discussion before. That an increasing fraction of world chooses to only engage in the former is creating problems and the necessity of moving important debates, including political debates, away from them.
People use comments as a substitute for reading the article, that means whatever ideological thread is dominating the comments is also defacto going to be the mass interpretation of events. "Winning" a comment section can have relative major ideological concerns as it makes a whole community start framing events around them with certain sets of priors
The issue pointed out by these two comments come from a conflation of vocabulary (which is typically intentional at least at some point in the education). A truly "free market" would ensure that things like WeWork wouldn't happen because the ultimate material inputs and outputs of the company don't square. "Capitalism" is the seeking of profit at the expense of all others, where having a viable company no longer is an objective in itself but simply is a means to increase personal wealth. In such a system, WeWork makes a lot of sense because the long term solvency of the company does not impact how the market measures it's success.
No capitalism is private ownership of capital. The profit seeking at the expense of others is a leftist caricature of capitalism just as laziness is the right wing caricature of socialism. No economic system exists to incentivize the stuff that happened during the rise and fall of WeWork.
We have the largest wealth inequality since the gilded age, and the Federal Reserve solution to runaway inflation was forcing workers to either settle for lower salaries or become unemployed.
In what was is predatory capitalism not the rule of the day?
If we're trying to define precise terms here, "free market" and "capitalism" don't overlap at all. Capitalism is a type of government, free markets are a (group of) polic[y/ies].
I don't see where the logic of your comment comes from either way though - capitalists are typically in favour of a free market, no? And typically the "purpose" of a free market is accruing wealth as part of a private enterprise?
Free markets are sometimes useful tools in making profits but are also sometimes hinderences towards being able to extract the highest amount of profit from consumers.
That's why we see so many mergers and intensive lobbying for government regulation in things like healthcare, telecoms, and air travel, it's way easier to make money if you can restrict competition in your market and it's something essential to consumers
South Park is written by a pretty atypical crew, most of the writers/actors I follow (from middle budget sci Fi shows I like) just seem like they're mostly politically unengaged folks just trying to get paid and make their specific product, but obviously ymmv
I'm not really sure what "the problem" with this is? Like we all do know that the point of pharma companies is to make money, and that things like 'helping people' are just incidental byproducts of that fact.
If pharmaceutical development was government run, I'd understand the outage at lowering the quality of life of US citizens; but faceless corporations literally cannot act in a way that is not financially optimal without committing a crime.
> I'm not really sure what "the problem" with this is?
I think you found it:
> corporations literally cannot act in a way that is not financially optimal without committing a crime
The “problem” is that perverse incentives lead to unethical behavior that most would find distasteful and morally reprehensible.
I don’t understand the criteria for outrage that you’re hinting at. The fact that it’s not government run doesn’t make this less disturbing. It does change where one might direct their outrage.
Maybe it would be more accurate to say that, for a corporation to act in such a way that maximizes financial gain, it must disregard ethics. Perhaps the optimal behavior from a financial perspective is also ethical, but in many cases it will not be ethical.
As for crimes, in many cases, criminal behavior results in a fine that doesn’t make the behavior uneconomical. I’d like to say I don’t understand why this happens :-)
The US government has fallen so far from the days of Jimmy Carter selling his peanut farm to avoid any conflict of interest to people being okay with aids to supreme court justices being given envelopes full of money.
Decades of partisan politics really does have cool effects on a nation state
The 'rich white people' shorthand typical serves as an obvious stand in for 'those who have the political autonomy and systemic support to fight against harmful government and corporate actions'.
The vast majority of readers can quickly make the connection between 'politically powerful' and 'rich white people' assuming they live in America. It's not on random HN commenters to be egalitarian humanities writers who deconstruct every concept
>The vast majority of readers can quickly make the connection between 'politically powerful' and 'rich white people' assuming they live in America.
Sounds like intentional racism to me. If you want to say the rich and powerful why wouldn't you just say that instead of committing to racist comments?
> The vast majority of readers can quickly make the connection between 'politically powerful' and 'rich white people' assuming they live in America. It's not on random HN commenters to be egalitarian humanities writers who deconstruct every concept
They shouldn't have to make such a connection, because such sloppy racism is not in keeping with the tone of this forum, nor with any international audience.
Also it's crazy ignorant. Durango is filled with white people, all the way from poor to god level rich (their tiny town aquarium has nurse sharks in the back for the mansions around there).
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