HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

> at best a marketing gimmick

Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is not wisdom. A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past; he is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future. The future can be better than the past. According to the data it has been [1][2][3]. So optimism isn't a fluffy ideal to scoff at.

Newton's laws make it clear that approaching vacuum allows for greater speeds. An object in motion will remain in motion unless an outside force acts upon it [4]. Therefore, the greater part of truth is out of reach of cynicism.

What is more likely, that a man who heads a company that works in the space sector would think that moving through a near-vacuum was honestly more efficient [5]? Or that he would propose it merely as a marketing gimmick? And why can't it be both?

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCm9Ng0bbEQ

[2]: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_and_ola_rosling_how_not_to_be...

[3]: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/04/bill-gates-the-world-would-b...

[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_laws_of_motion

[5]: https://themysteriousworld.com/top-10-fastest-man-made-objec...

Just as I expected, your beliefs are by 100% caused by media.

The image of the world as it’s shown in the media is extremely biased. Watch this: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_and_ola_rosling_how_not_to_be... The video is about inequality and education, but the topic of corporate crime is skewed just as much.

There are 6 million companies operating in US, employing 115 million people. If the majority of them were breaking the law, you’d knew about that not just from the media but also from some of those 115 million people who happen to be your friends and family.

> I find it eminently believable that many or even most US companies would comply with an illegal request

I don’t find it believable because I don’t see motivation for such compliance.

In an authoritarian state, a government can abruptly take away your business (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euroset) and optionally throw you in jail for 10 years (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukos) if you don’t comply, and you can’t do anything against it. That’s a strong motivation to comply. I don’t see such motivation for western companies.

⬐ emodendroket

If your argument is "anecdotal evidence is much better than reported, sourced news" then I have to disagree, regardless of what the TED talk says. The examples are some of the biggest and most prestigious companies in the country and I'm gonna guess most of the low-level schmucks like me and my friends and family aren't in on the huge, illegal operations.

⬐ Const-me

Here’s some report on financial crimes in 2010-11: https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/financial-cr...

The total number of financial crime cases in 2011 was around 10000. Even if we assume each case was against different company (that gives us upper estimate), that’s merely 0.17% of the US companies who were charged with financial crimes in 2011.

As you see, real data is pretty close to my anecdotal evidence.

And it very far from your reported, sourced news.

⬐ Const-me

My argument is, you should distinguish two majorities, the majority of media-reported incidents, and the majority of some real-life things.

Those two are very different. If you don’t distinguish between them, you’ll come to absurd conclusions like “the majority of US drivers are drunk”, “vast majority of US citizens voted for Hillary”, or “the majority of US companies are breaking the law”.

> of the biggest and most prestigious companies in the country

Prestigious means nothing ‘coz it’s hard to measure that. But for biggest ones, here’s the list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_r... Good luck finding Enron or Wells Fargo there.

For these things the videos by Hans Rosling are a classic, all of them are great and shine a completely different and positive light on where we stand:

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_and_ola_rosling_how_not_to_be_...

Look for the other videos as well, he has a few.

The same thing is happening with world poverty. Most people think poverty is getting worse, but the opposite is true

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_and_ola_rosling_how_not_to_be_...

⬐ mehwoot

The first graph from those questions is weird. It seems to stop in the mid 2000s... in 2004, at least 280,000 people died in the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. That would make the graph sharply rise again, yet it isn't on there. Does the graph stop at 2003 on purpose, is it not listed, or something else?

⬐ ekianjo

That's what happens when people keep talking about "growing inequalities" instead of focusing on the fact that everyone is actually getting richer with time (and obviously people who already have a lot of capital grow richer faster). There's no zero-sum game at work.

⬐ eru

> (and obviously people who already have a lot of capital grow richer faster)

That's not so obvious, and not trivially true.

⬐ ekianjo

> That's not so obvious, and not trivially true.

Well if you have 1 million dollar and you don't grow your capital faster than someone who has 100 dollars in the bank, you are doing something deeply wrong with your investments. When you have lots of capital you have access to investment opportunities which simply do not exist below a certain level, too. So I'm not sure where the "not trivially true" is coming from.

⬐ eru

First, we have to decide whether we are going to measure absolute differences or proportions.

If we go for proportions, which makes sense since utility of money is roughly logarithmic, it is not at all clear that you can grow 1 million dollar faster than 100 dollar.

If we go for absolute differences, than most of the time the millionair will be ahead. But in the recent financial crisis lots of rich people lost lots of wealth (at least on paper), while poor people can only lose so much in an absolute sense.

⬐ ekianjo

Agree if we talk on proportions - while, as I mentioned, the millionaire has access to investment options unavailable to "normal" people and therefore should still be able to grow faster even in proportion.

But most of the time when the media talk about inequalities, they talk about them in absolute values.

⬐ eru

> the millionaire has access to investment options unavailable to "normal" people and therefore should still be able to grow faster even in proportion.

But the millionaire also needs bigger opportunities. It's much harder for Warren Buffett to find billion dollar opportunities now, than it used to be for him to find million dollar opportunities.

⬐ anigbrowl

Unfortunately, it appears that the rate at which the developing world is catching up with the developed world may be reverting to a much slower mean: http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21616891-ten-years-ag...

While the proportion of people in poverty has fallen significantly over the last 20 years or so, the absolute number of people in poverty is still quite high because the bulk of population growth is in very poor areas.