> This is beyond my wildest dreams of what I expected to make.
Therefore the app creator did not have an accurate perception of what money he would make. Therefore he is a counter-example to your claim, and your claim is false.
>Either they believe in paying a bigger share or they don't.
First, They believe in rules to enforce everyone paying a bigger share, and are lobbying to bring that about. There's nothing inconsistent in doing that whilst not individually making a bigger voluntary contribution. One might think that one's efforts are far better spent lobbying for a general rule then individually donating.
Second, people like Buffett have commitments to philantropy that I think would easily count as making a bigger contribution.
Well, one of HN's aims is to avoid the eternal september that is very much affecting reddit at the moment. Given that, superfluous jabs at reddit might actually be effective in maintaining a barrier between the communities, or at least strongly remind people of the very specific conversational norms which apply here.
Although I started using HN a while ago, I would definitely count myself as someone who uses HN to get interesting stories after going through digg and then reddit (and I'm sure there are a lot of us here) but I'm strongly aware of the particular rules here and do find myself making more of an effort to converse in good faith / be less snarky.
Your comment is beside the point. The issue isn't the quality of the comment the "This isn't reddit" comment is in reply to. Rather, it's the "This isn't Reddit" comment itself. Unless things have changed, you cannot upvote or downvote a post you reply to, or that replies to you (at least, your vote doesn't count). Replying means you are doing nothing more than calling attention to the comment.
If the comment is not worthy of being on HN, then it's also reasonable to conclude that most comments it sparks will be of equal or lesser value. Read that part again.
Understand that if a comment sparks intelligent discussion, it's generally a good comment. And comments that spark intelligent discussion should be supported.
So, either you are part of the problem, or you are wrong, by posting "This isn't Reddit. Please keep on topic." comments. The best solution? Vote accordingly and contribute.
I can't see that your argument engages with anything I've said. I've spelt out a plausible mechanism by which some comments would add value to the community (by preventing deterioration of standards of discourse). If you want to say otherwise, you'll have to take issue with that argument. As it stands, you've not done so.
Regarding this:
> If the comment is not worthy of being on HN, then it's also reasonable to conclude that most comments it sparks will be of equal or lesser value.
I don't see any reason to accept it, but even if it did we're talking about a specific subset of responses, and so I've presented an argument for why that subset would add value. This is not inconsistent with the general claim, and so your general claim does not do much in the way of response - it is beside the point.
Finally, 'adding value' is more than just 'sparking valuable comments'. Comments can add value without sparking valuable comments by, e.g. re-enforcing valuable community norms.
> If you want to say otherwise, you'll have to take issue with that argument.
Meta is death. Some meta discussion can be interesting and lead to useful discussion, but in general meta discussion sucks.
Imagine a content free meme-spew post.
Either it gets downvoted by the community (down vote ability appears after 500, maybe 750, maybe higher karma), and the poster knows what they did wrong.
Or it gets downvoted and the baffled new user asks why, and someone then posts "TINR; but here's our guidelines so that's why you got the downvotes". I'd suggest that the TINR in this case is useless, and the rest of the post is of dubious value. If a person is unable to grok the style of HN from the faqs and existing posts without someone having to handhold them then maybe they need to lurk more. But at least it's welcoming and helping people become productive. Notice that this is a tiny subset of TINR posts.
Imagine the content-free post gets a TINR comment before it gets a downvote. It antagonises other communities, it adds no value to the thread, it makes people think that TINR posts are acceptable, it clutters threads, it encourages meta-discussion, etc.
> I can't see that your argument engages with anything I've said.
The GP remarked that comments that amounted to "This isn't Reddit. Please keep on topic." (TIR) are worthless. You disagreed, and tried to explain why by suggesting that these comments discourage people from commenting.
My assertion is that not only does this not work within the system of HN, but that the TIR comment itself is of equal or less quality to that of the comment it's in reply to.
> I've spelt out a plausible mechanism by which some comments would add value to the community (by preventing deterioration of standards of discourse).
Yes: discouragement through an off-topic comment that contributes nothing to the discussion. By replying, your vote does not count (should up or downvote), and you also highlight the discussion. In essence, rather than using the existing tools and protocol of HN (voting or flagging, ignoring trolls, and contributing posts that add to the discussion), your simply adding a TIR post.
You've made this claim (thought without specifying why it's superior to the existing methods), and yet ignored the simple fact that a TIR post is just as bad, if not worse, then the post it replies to. At the very least, the post it replies to is at least, usually, on topic (Topicality is, of course, not the sole contributing factor to whether a comment is worthwhile).
> If you want to say otherwise, you'll have to take issue with that argument. As it stands, you've not done so.
Your inability to understand, or simply your attempt to dismiss my argument, does not negate my argument. It's clear to any reasonable person the arguments I made. If you are interested in an actual discussion, make an attempt. Otherwise, you just come off as a troll. Judging by your profile (which does matter, considering the nature of this discussion), I wouldn't be surprised.
> I don't see any reason to accept it, but even if it did we're talking about a specific subset of responses, and so I've presented an argument for why that subset would add value.
You've done so while ignoring the harm that the a TIR reply causes. Maybe you aren't aware of the ability to upvote and downvote (I forget the threshold for those features), or flagging. This is highlighted by your final comment:
> Finally, 'adding value' is more than just 'sparking valuable comments'. Comments can add value without sparking valuable comments by, e.g. re-enforcing valuable community norms.
Yes. Adding value is more than just sparking valuable commentary or discussion. What you fail to grasp is that your support of TIR is in direct contrast to valued community norms. We have tools (upvotes, downvotes, and flagging) to handle these issues already. A TIR does not enforce these norms, and in fact, flies in the face of what the community wishes to be.
The two that are important to this discussion are here:
"Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did."
And:
"If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)"
TIR very much falls into both those categories. Submissions are not just news stories, but comments as well. If something is worth of a TIR comment, it also means you should just flag it.
Yes, public shaming (what TIR amounts to) can be effective in other environments. HN chooses not to work that way. It's what makes the community so mature and effective.
>You've made this claim (thought without specifying why it's superior to the existing methods), and yet ignored the simple fact that a TIR post is just as bad, if not worse, then the post it replies to. At the very least, the post it replies to is at least, usually, on topic (Topicality is, of course, not the sole contributing factor to whether a comment is worthwhile).
I'm not ignoring that fact - it's just that I haven't accepted it. I agree that TIR posts do not derive value from adding valuable on-topic content. But I've suggested a way for them to derive value from another source. Given that, I don't accept the claim that they are just as bad as the posts they reply to. I thought (and still do) that the argument you were offering takes that as a premise. That's the point I made in the last comment, and I took it to be sufficient to show why your argument doesn't go through. I'm very much happy to be corrected if that's not the argument you had in mind.
The point about using existing tools/protocols is a different argument, and I think a good one. However, it doesn't bear on whether TIR posts are in themselves valuable or not - it only bears on the comparative value they have. Evaluation of that argument would require more knowledge than I have of the efficacy of different ways online communities enforce norms. Re the other points - I think there are interesting things to say about them, but I suspect that would take us off the central disagreement. I am however familiar with the other points about comment policy and downvotes etc... - I've used HN far longer than I've had this account. Whilst we're on issues of civility, I would say that suggesting comments come off as trolling, claiming people 'don't grasp' (which can mean 'don't understand'), and judging them on two sentence profiles don’t seem to me very useful. I was slightly brusque in claiming your comment was 'beside the point' - but did so to echo your comment.
I think I should point out that I don't commit to the claim that TIR posts actually are valuable - I just think it's plausible that they are.
> I think I should point out that I don't commit to the claim that TIR posts actually are valuable - I just think it's plausible that they are.
Not in this community, which is the context we are discussing this in, after all. Given the other tools available, and given what is valued here, TIR are no better then the comments they reply to. Something you seem to be ignoring is value. Value in terms of respect, and of time, both yours, and others.
A TIR post is not respectful. It's used as an insult. It's an open insults. Given that their are other, more effective means to communicate disapproval, and that be replying, you are removing those means from your arsenal, it's clear that your intent is merely to insult.
A TIR is not respectful to others. By highlighting the post with further discussion, it wastes others time. Not only are you not operating to remove the parent comment from the discussion, but you are asking people to read your comment in reply, and to judge the merits of what is now a discussion. See, if the TIR post is left as is, then I must read the parent in order to understand context. If the TIR post is left as is, it's also a symbol that the comment is a good comment, and worthy of reading.
Do not confuse the intended goal of a TIR. I agree, the intent is good. But even if it accomplishes it's goal of having the parent retract his statement, it does so in a manner that is immature and rude. Being able to bully people into a position is not valuable.
I guess we'll continue to disagree on it's value. That being said, HN has it's policies, and I tend to agree with them, and will continue to down vote both TIR posts and the posts they reply to.
Well, we can probably agree on downvoting them, even if we don't agree on their value (I don't think I'm ignore value - I just think there are more potential sources of it)! - the faq does ask people to refrain from posting them, and I feel duty bound by the requests of the site owner.
1. I wouldn't think for a second that Michael Portillo is a reasonable unbiased analyst here.
2. How do we prevent individuals from spending recklessly? Seems like government is going to have to play a large part in that story.
On (2), it's not an issue of blame, and personally I'm not interested so much in who to 'blame' - we're doing economics, not philosophical ethics. Rather it's an issue about what we do about it. Simply telling people to act differently is unlikely to be a sensible solution.
That might be a start, but probably only if banks were suitably sized and regulated in the first place which wasn't the case this time. Better bank regulation / breaking up banks going forward seems more sensible.
I would look into Hisotry and Economic Theory befor you make such clames. Specially about the size of banks, the US had strong regulations on bank sizes for a long time (I dont know when the stoped exactlly) and that lead to a massiv amount of bank failure in the great depression. About 8000 Banks failed in the US, most of them single branch (this is in a system with a central bank), while you look at canada where you dont have a central bank (until 1935) you have only one bank failure.
The History shows that some of the banking system with less regulation (and sometimes not central bank) have shown to be much stronger. This is large subject if you are intressting look for "free banking".
The most comprehensive book on the subject is: The Theory of Free Banking: Money Supply under Competitive Note Issue by George Selgin
'Many commentators have stated that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act’s repeal of the affiliation restrictions of the Glass-Steagall Act was an important cause of the late-2000s financial crisis.'
Here in the UK we had something similar with the 'big bang' of bank liberalisation in the 1980s, resulting in the City of London becoming the world's largest financial centre - and subsequent problems.
Whilst I'd look into History and Economic Theory, I wouldn't look to Cato Institute fellows for sensible views on this matter.
Fanny Mea and Fredy Mac pushed down the cost of housing (the where allowed to directly lend from the fed, that had low intresst rates) and set false insentives to build houses. That (among some other small things) was the big thing that led to the crash.
The deregulations allowed banks to be more agressiv, that is only bad if you give them a strong insentiv to be agressiv. Maybe it mad some of them more unstable but it would not have changed the fundamentals of the crash and it is in such a situation only more importent that YOU DONT BAILE THEM OUT.
Prof. Selgin is btw a well regard specialist on banking and money, he does not earn his money from the Cato Institute and they dont direct his research. Its nice that only attack where somebody is working not what they say.kj
Since all you did was paste the first counter argumetn you fund on wikipedia I highly doute that you even no any ecnomics, and only posted it because of your 'deregulation = bad' bias.
I was only mentioning the Free Banking School because of the comment "suitably sized and regulated" is not the only way of looking at things. Infact I think pretty much every economist agrees that the banking regulation pre 1933 where very bad and made the great depression worse. Passing rules to make banks smaller does not really help in itself.
If you have read the article by Stigliz that is refrenced after your comment on wikipedia, you will see that stigliz agrees that the bubble was caused by inflation ("Greenspan presided over not one but two financial bubbles. After the
high-tech bubble popped, in 2000-2001, he helped inflate the housing
bubble.") and he says:
"The most important consequence of the repeal of Glass-Steagall was
indirect - it lay in the way repeal changed an entire culture. Commercial
banks are not supposed to be high-risk ventures; they are supposed to
manage other people's money very conservatively. It is with this
understanding that the government agrees to pick up the tab should
they fail."
What you will notice that he is pro bailing out bank! The banks that failed in the crash where not acctually banks that where "Commerical banks" but the government bailed them out anyways! Its funny that the free-market guys are the ones that are "pro-buissness" acctually its the other way arount people like him are the reason taxpayer are paying for failed banks.
Free Market guys dont go deregulate and then bailout, if a bank investment or not goes done thats what they deserve!
I don't tend to respond to ungrounded accusations of bias (and to pre-empt a claim, it does not follow that it's inappropriate to choose not to devote much time listening to members of the Cato Institute on the grounds they are members of the Cato Institute). Good day.
It sounds fine to me to have small banks failing with FDIC around. People don't lose their money, and someone with better business sense starts a new branch.
I think deposit insurence is great but Im not sure why the state should provide it. Most of the Bankruns happend befor the FDIC (1933). The problem with the FDIC is just that it makes, that people dont run on banks. Bank runs or often 'good' in the sence that banks that are overleveriged get finally taken down. As sooner as banks are taken town the more return you get for every doller in the bank.
With the FDIC and the FED banks can go on longer then the should and therfore pay back less when they are finally go down.
You don't need to regulate banks if you prove to them you are not going to bail them out when they are too loose in their lending practices. They'll go out of business or tighten their lending standards. The real problem here is banks the world over have convinced their people and their governments that having debt-financed possessions is the key to happiness and prosperity.
What does one have to do with the other? Bailing out banks does not happen so people can still keep spending recklessly, it comes from the belief that letting banks fail will cause major harm to the financial system.
"Financial bailouts of lending institutions by governments, central banks or other institutions can encourage risky lending in the future if those that take the risks come to believe that they will not have to carry the full burden of potential losses."
> 2. How do we prevent individuals from spending recklessly? Seems like government is going to have to play a large part in that story.
The Reserve Bank of India (India's equivalent of the Federal Reserve) does this by encouraging saving in small ways.
In India, savings accounts are the default for retail individuals, not current/checking accounts. Most banks only permit you to open an interest-free current account as a business account. The small amount of interest earned in a savings account acts as some incentive to keep the money in it. I believe no overdrafts are permitted on savings accounts either, so easy credit in the form of spending more liquidity than you have becomes just a little more inaccessible.
In relation to point one. Everyone is biased no matter how hard they try not to be, at least with Portillo you know what you are getting and can treat it with a pinch of salt.
2 is a good question. One answer is presumably mandatory payments for social security and health insurance. You can't spend money recklessly anymore that you gave to the taxman.
On the other hand, if you can't save money, spending it recklessly is much more likely. Politicians who choose not to spend money now cannot expect to choose to spend it later (due to the uncertainty of being reelected), which creates a strong incentive to just spend it. It would be a rare politician who could be elected repeatedly while running on a policy of saving money for the next generation's government to spend.
So Mark Zuckerberg wears the regulation silicon valley uniform to a meeting with bankers wearing their regulation wall street uniform? I'm not sure what the interesting content to this story is, but would be happy to be enlightened!
Sorry, but a pet peeve of mine is people claiming 'that's a fallacy' on the internet, without much grip on the kind of reasoning or underlying argumentative structures are work.
Suppose I have good reason to believe you are unreliable in your testimony. If so, it's perfectly reasonable for me to assign low credence to your claims.
The other guy was basically suggesting we have a good reason to believe you are unreliable, as they were suggesting the effort you've gone to is indicative of a motivation that would make you biased, and therefore unreliable.
The correct response is not to engage in claims of fallacies, but to provide further reasons to believe your claims the audience can accept, or suggest you have other motivations. You've gone for the latter option here, but I have to say your option is not as it stands very persuasive.
This is not to say your claims are false. But it is to say that more work is needed to make then suasive.
A market segment just is a market according to the dictionary definitions. And legally, a lot of EU competition law concerns exactly how one individuates such markets/market segments.
Not really as its very simple assertion. Apple do not have a monopoly. They control a segment of a rather large, and competitive marketplace. To say that they have a monopoly over their products is not a cogent statement as every manufacturer has such a 'monopoly'. The EU laws that you are referring to concern the abuse of a dominant position in a market, something which Apple as we are all too often reminded do not have.
The fact remains semantically and legally that you a monopoly of the segment or niche of a market is not possible. A company can be abusive (which is what you mean when you say monopoly - something which in and of itself isn't illegal), but unless they control the significant majority of the whole the it is legally not an issue. Morally is different debate.
> To say that they have a monopoly over their products is not a cogent statement as every manufacturer has such a 'monopoly'.
Well, I don't know what you mean by 'cogent', as that's generally taken to be a property of arguments and not statements (there may be loser notions, but as I say you'd need to spell out what one you intended). However, the statement that 'Apple have a monopoly over Apple products' is a true statement, which is all that matters to establish the semantic point. It might be trivial, but it's trivially true.
If I might try a helpful suggestion, it seems to me your confusion is arising because you're thinking something like 'if x is a market segment, then x isn't a market'. But of course that doesn't follow, as one can individuate markets at different levels (more or less fine grained).
"It might be trivial, but it's trivially true." It's trivial to the point of not being relevant. If the justice system were to punish every manufacturer that had a monopoly over their own product then nothing would get made. Cogent isn't perhaps the right word. As statements go "$megaCorp has a monopoly over their own products" is meaningless, yet it is constantly cited in these discussions as reason to pursue damages.
Look, there are several issues here. There's a narrow semantic point. On that point (which I think you explicitly denied), you can have monopolies over market segments. Personally, I like semantics, and think semantics is often less trivial then people suppose, but I accept others may be less interested.
Then there's a legal point about whether one opens oneself to legal action for dominance when operating in certain ways over market segments - I think it's also true you can be. But I'm not that advanced in my legal training, so don't take a strong position on that.
Further, there are normative and moral issues about what should be the law, and what one should do in these cases - but discussing those would take a long time...
Sure, it's not a deductive proof that Blizzard is right and derpmeister is wrong, but it would be unreasonable to require such a thing.