Unlike some here, I came away with a deep sense of empathy, and today’s HN snark and frustration bounced off me pretty hard. The public order issues - homelessness in parks, the challenges of shared spaces—have certainly impacted me. But more than that, I struggle with how to translate the state of the world to my boys. I always remind them: every unhoused person was once a little boy or girl. We might be older now, but we’re still kids inside, and nobody dreams of growing up in these circumstances.
What struck me most was the balance of compassion and pragmatism that Amanda brings to her work. It’s easy to be frustrated with the policies and bureaucratic inefficiencies that slow down real solutions - but they are, in some ways, understandable.
The biggest frustration for me is the gap between the mental state of many unhoused individuals and the requirements needed to secure housing. The city surely understands the long-term costs of its policies, and it’s run by highly pragmatic people with limited budgets. But rules are rules, and at some point, top-down accommodations (including medical interventions...) are necessary to bridge this gap.
Nothing about this article strikes me as pragmatic. She's spending all her energy attempting to help people with the least likelihood of success and then gets angry at the system when they inevitably fail. The city didn't kick Morrisette out of the hotel because they like zero-tolerance policies, but because other people deserve a chance a chance to live in a free hotel room as well.
Even then, the problem could be Elon buying so much steel, or it could be steel manufacturers deliberately limiting steel production and only selling it to Elon to keep prices high. The latter is what is happening with landlords and building restrictions.
(There are of course some who only got rich by transferring wealth away from others - but they're not the ones people mostly complain about wrt. 'the rich'.)
Well, nobody's perfect. After all, perhaps you could've been perceptive enough to understand that I meant that for a long time, and even now, Elon's cars have been premium products at the high end in their category, priced accordingly, and tend to be less affordable for working class people than the alternatives (and even out of reach for some of them), without getting wound around the axle on these "exchanges on semantics." And yet, here we are.
> Anyway, of course a cheaper product is more affordable than a more expensive one, that's a vacuous, trivially true statement that does not add anything to the discussion being made in this thread.
In my experience, it's the trivially true propositions that internet debaters most readily overlook.
I could say the same if I had no real argument to provide too. I understood perfectly fine what you are saying about Teslas being premium products, but I don't see how it is relevant to the question at hand, because the person above said "Elon got rich by creating goods and services for other people," so saying that you personally don't know anyone who is middle class who could afford them is a non-sequitur; no one said anything about Teslas being affordable for middle class at all (even though they are now starting to be, whether there are more affordable options or not), as "goods and services for other people" does not specify anything about the types of people or their income levels; if he sold superyachts to only the rich, then he'd have also gotten rich himself.
If you'll then say something about how "he should make things more affordable for people," or "he shouldn't have gotten so rich selling rich things to rich people," well, I'm not sure what to tell you, that's shifting the goalposts at the very least, and it looks like you have an axe to grind against rich people in general. "[Billions of dolalrs] worth of productive capacity [are] being redirected away from other uses that benefit many people" is not how economics and value creation works, much as you believe so.
That's not all they said. They also said, "such as EV cars, or low-cost space launches. It's a wash. Oh wait, actually it isn't because every trade of goods and services is advantageous to both parties by definition."
What's the significance of "low-cost" for space launches? What do they mean by, "It's a wash." What do they mean by, "every trade of goods an services is advantageous to both parties."? Do they mean that low-cost space launches benefit all or most Americans, because we all benefit from satellites for weather and GPS? Maybe. Do they mean that with both space launches and EV cars, the benefits of Elon's activities to all or most Americans wash out any drawbacks of him being rich? Maybe. Do they mean that this balancing of benefits and drawbacks always occurs because it's built into free-market capitalism? Maybe. Those interpretations aren't ruled out so far. You can't be certain they aren't what they intended any more than I can be certain that they are. It certainly would be in keeping with a common line of argument, which is that wealthy people return as much or more to any economy as they extract from it. I don't know that this is this person's line of argument, but it could be, and if it is then it's not a non-sequitur to attack that line of argument by throwing into doubt the universality of the benefits of Elon's products.
> If you'll then say something about how "he should make things more affordable for people,"
Let me stop you right there. I practically never hand out recommendations for what people "should" do.
I'm not persuaded you're in a position to know what zozbot234 implied.
> where are you getting the idea that that relates to the American people at large
From my experience talking to other people on related topics.
> nothing was said as to whether these transactions benefit the average American
Something was said as to whether the class of people to which one of the parties to these transactions (Elon Musk, that is) belongs benefits the average American. It was said by me near the root of this sub-thread, in the comment to which zozbot234 replied.
> that is why I said your comment is a non sequitur.
If you're handing out non-sequitur demerits, hand one to zozbot234 then, if that person's comment and everything after it doesn't relate to the American people at large, as you seem to imply. Or, hand one to yourself. Take your pick.
> hand one to zozbot234 then
No, they were directly responding to your claim that
> Elon owning 10 megayachts means 10 megayachts (as much as $5 billion) worth of productive capacity being redirected away from other uses that benefit many people, to a use that is frivolous insofar as it largely benefits just one person.
They are saying that there is no relationship to wealth by billionaires and helping "the average American," only that they can get rich by creating value, whether it be for one person or many, and that it is not redirection but creation of wealth that benefits both parties. Their statement does not have anything to do with "the average American" because they were directly refuting that there may (or may not be) "uses that benefit many people," yet you misunderstood to thinking that they were still somehow talking about the "many people" part. This is quite clear in their comment but I still don't think you quite understood the thread of logic of the thread, particularly how their refutation redirected the topic of conversation, to which I replied.
> I'm not persuaded you're in a position to know what zozbot234 implied.
If you do not know the basics of the economics of comparative advantage, particularly in terms of how people talk about "both parties" in a transaction, then I can see why you are not persuaded.
> From my experience talking to other people on related topics.
Sure, but that is not this thread however.
Again, sounds like you have an axe to grind against billionaires which is biasing your argumentation.