You have what I refer to as “root cause syndrome”. It happens a lot to engineers and tech adjacent people.
You see a problem and you refuse to fix it, and instead look for a root cause that should be addressed instead, that will then fix the problem itself.
The problem with that kind of thinking is that that’s not how the real world works. The problem of homelessness is that people don’t have homes. It’s not something else. Give people homes and you solve it. But people with RCS try to solve it through jobs, training, education, etc. All those things are nice but they won’t fix the problem, which is that people are homeless.
Likewise, the problem of wealth inequality can only be solved by reducing wealth inequality. There is no other solution. Just tax rich people until they’re not rich anymore.
> The problem of homelessness is that people don’t have homes. It’s not something else. Give people homes and you solve it.
Have you considered how this is supposed to work? If being homeless means you get a free home, millions of people would purposely become "homeless" so they could eliminate their housing costs. Also, homes are quite expensive, especially in areas with high homelessness, so where does the money come from?
Meanwhile one of the primary actual causes of homelessness is zoning that prevents new housing from being built, causing people to be unable to afford it. If you just have the government buy up existing housing stock for the homeless, the scarcity is not resolved at all, you just cause new people to become homeless because you remove the housing they'd have bought from the market.
To actually solve it you can't just do the naive "have the government pay for it" thing, you have to understand the root cause, which is that you have to not just give housing to the homeless but build new housing across the overall market so it isn't in undersupply.
> Likewise, the problem of wealth inequality can only be solved by reducing wealth inequality. There is no other solution. Just tax rich people until they’re not rich anymore.
This is exactly the same level of not thinking it through. Mark Zuckerberg has billions and it gives him control over Facebook. But if you take his money and leave Facebook, someone will still be the CEO and that person will still have all of that power. The problem is not the money, it's the size of the company.
I get what you’re saying, but it really comes down to just addressing the problem directly.
Homelessness crisis -> provide housing for all -> not enough supply? build more -> can’t build because of zoning? fix the zoning -> etc
It’s the same thing with wealth inequality. Tax him until his wealth isn’t that unequal. If you then decide that the CEO of facebook has too much power you can break up Facebook, but that’s a separate issue.
> You have what I refer to as “root cause syndrome”.
This is an ad hominem fallacy/attack. Instead of discussing the actual argument, you instead attack the person making it.
> Likewise, the problem of wealth inequality can only be solved by reducing wealth inequality.
This is an opinion, completely non-factual and unjustified by any reasoning. And, the only possible underlying belief from this paragraph is "some people having more wealth is intrinsically bad" - completely separate from the negative societal effects of that wealth, and from any moral framework that even allows you to describe "bad". You just believe that it's bad.
If you took it as an insult that’s on you. I just stated a fact.
Like the fact that wealth inequality is bad, and we know that it’s bad. It’s just a fact, and if you want to ignore the facts because your opinion doesn’t agree why them that’s ok, but it doesn’t make it any less true.
> If you took it as an insult that’s on you. I just stated a fact.
This is factually and objectively wrong, in multiple ways.
First, don't understand the difference between "an insult" and an ad-hominem attack. An ad-hominem is a logical fallacy where you attack the character of a person making an argument, rather than addressing the argument itself. Whether or not it is insulting is completely irrelevant - they're orthogonal axes, and the fact that you conflated them means that you don't know what they are.
Second, you did not state a fact, you expressed an opinion. You can't read my mind, you don't even know me in person, and even if you did, there's no objective test for “root cause syndrome”, which, as you said, is a term that you have invented yourself. (your statement "Likewise, the problem of wealth inequality can only be solved by reducing wealth inequality." is also an opinion that is not a fact) You don't even know the difference between an opinion and a fact. You should stop claiming that your opinions are facts, and learn the difference.
> Like the fact that wealth inequality is bad, and we know that it’s bad.
Provide a citation for the fact that wealth inequality is bad. If it's factual, it should be easy for you to provide a study that proves that it's bad by establishing a causal link between them, and doesn't merely express a correlation. (prediction: you won't, because I've never seen any evidence ever cited despite having read hundreds of comments expressing opinions like yours)
> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.
Accusing others of astroturfing doesn't help the quality of HN, or your case against the poster. Please respond in a chill manner. Use the downvote and flag buttons if people are breaking the HN guidelines.
this is so weird because astroturfing is real, extremely prevalent, and people have pointed put “russian bots” on HNany times without being flagged or deleted. such a weird tging that you cant point it out
Yes, astroturfing is real - however, you do not know how prevalent it is, or which comments are it. You don't have access to the internal server logs that dang does. You don't know whether someone is astroturfing or just really invested in an ideology. And it's against the guidelines to point out.
> people have pointed put “russian bots” on HNany times without being flagged or deleted
Because dang didn't see those comments and they weren't flagged by other users. If you see what you think is astroturfing, or dishonest/manipulative/HN-guideline-breaking comments (like those above), downvote and flag it, and if you want to respond, don't accuse the user of astroturfing, but actually respond to their points. If the people on the other end are really FSB officers or whatever, you literally waste their time and money, and divert their resources from other things they could be doing (e.g. the war in Ukraine). Accusing someone of astroturfing isn't just against the guidelines, it's counterproductive!
You see a problem and you refuse to fix it, and instead look for a root cause that should be addressed instead, that will then fix the problem itself.
The problem with that kind of thinking is that that’s not how the real world works. The problem of homelessness is that people don’t have homes. It’s not something else. Give people homes and you solve it. But people with RCS try to solve it through jobs, training, education, etc. All those things are nice but they won’t fix the problem, which is that people are homeless.
Likewise, the problem of wealth inequality can only be solved by reducing wealth inequality. There is no other solution. Just tax rich people until they’re not rich anymore.