Hugo and Jake Politics Chat Log

[Elliot Temple]

7 hour chat log about politics and economics (stuff like single payer healthcare and the iron law of wages), but all my messages are deleted:

https://curi.us/files/hugo-jake-chat.html

A problem with the log is it users ppl’s discord id, but u can change ur display name, so sometimes i and others addressed ppl by their display name, but the log uses their real name which is sometimes not even similar.

I found the chatroom via:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T_--0CwtUo

I have a small section of the log, with my messages, which i copy/pasted when trying to search for a quote. But discord makes it hard to copy/paste much so i gave up finding stuff with that (also their built in search sucks really badly).


[10:07 PM] curi: in the scenario with 5 companies and 300 workers, wages will be $20.01 for all workers no matter how desperate they are. it makes no difference. if wages drop, company 2 will start getting employees so companies 3-5 will be worse off. or do you disagree with that math?
[10:08 PM] curi: this is the same as selling the used car quickly that i talked about earlier. you can be super desperate and still get a good price b/c the car buyers compete with each other.
[10:08 PM] DM Spider Vagene (and bob): Why are you starting it at $20.01? That's the ideal scenario. And if company 2 doesn't have room for more employees, it can't get more employees.
[10:08 PM] curi: at the $20.01 wage rate, company 2 has zero employees and room for 100.
[10:08 PM] curi: what else would the wage rate be?
[10:10 PM] Vinny The Mushroom: @curi The Basic math doesn't account for how unpredictable human behavior for my own example is the seller might like or dislike the person and give them a worse or better price .
[10:11 PM] curi: can you give a specific type of unpredictability, model it with basic math, and then get a different result for wages?
[10:11 PM] DM Spider Vagene (and bob): Why is it starting at $20.01? All 5 businesses will want to maximize profit as much as possible. Accruing the maximum capital is kinda the main focus of capitalism.
[10:11 PM] curi: b/c if they bid less thne company 2 will take away employees and they will be understaffed
[10:12 PM] curi: company 2 has a max bid of 20
[10:12 PM] Vinny The Mushroom: @curi You cant that's my point and with no government intervention the company with the most power wins
[10:12 PM] Vinny The Mushroom: And now theres only 2 companies
[10:12 PM] curi: vinny, employers might dislike ppl but if they change their wage offers then they lose out on profits. their greed stops that. (in practice, they certainly do it some anyways and lose money. but not a ton, cuz greed. and it doesn't make much difference, a guy gets hired at company 2 for a penny less cuz the other companies underbid him.)
[10:13 PM] curi: vinny you're rejecting mathematical modelling and think it can't show any problems in capitalism. it's just a bad method ?
[10:13 PM] Vinny The Mushroom: @curi If they were to take out the other companies and become the only one it doesn't matter
[10:13 PM] curi: take them out how?
[10:14 PM] DM Spider Vagene (and bob): (Also, profit allows for expansion. Let's keep that in mind as well.)
[10:14 PM] Vinny The Mushroom: @curi any way like buying them out offering larger wages or anything else and then after that they do whatever they want
[10:15 PM] curi: the more you overpay to buy out companies, the easier it is to make new companies – either to get bought out for more than their value, or to compete with a company that keeps making bad purchases.
[10:15 PM] Prof. Sass: you're still talking?
[10:16 PM] DM Spider Vagene (and bob): The top 3 pay the same base wage, the top 2 expand until they can pay higher than Biz3, then Biz5 will expand until they can pay higher than Biz4. There's now only one business.
[10:16 PM] curi: spider, are you dropping the claims about desperation and we're moving on?
[10:16 PM] Vinny The Mushroom: @curi You would have the market share and you bully the other companies
[10:16 PM] curi: bully them how?
[10:17 PM] Vinny The Mushroom: @curi By doing things like going after there workers or lowering there own prices
[10:17 PM] Curry: Sell your own product at a loss until the competitors go out of business, and then jack up the prices again to recoup the cost and continue profitting
[10:18 PM] Vinny The Mushroom: @Curry yeah my point
[10:18 PM] curi: ok changing wage bids for some or all workers, or changing sale prices, are both things that we can totally model with math. right?
[10:18 PM] DM Spider Vagene (and bob): Bad conditions exist in more than just salary. If you can't live without a job and the only chocies don't have any standards, there won't be any standards.
[10:18 PM] DM Spider Vagene (and bob): But you can't just not work, because you can't live without a job.
[10:18 PM] Vinny The Mushroom: @curi my point is if there is only one company they can abuse there power
[10:19 PM] curi: we were talking about a scenario with multiple companies. if there is one shitty company, what exactly is going to stop lots of ppl from starting new businesses, trading with each other, hiring each other, etc? the main reason americans today aren't in a great position to do that is b/c there are so many companies they aren't worried about that scenario, so they stopped keeping that option open.
[10:20 PM] DM Spider Vagene (and bob): It's hard to start a new company.
[10:20 PM] Vinny The Mushroom: @curi The shitty company would not seem like one till later also companies are hard to make
[10:21 PM] curi: it was much easier to start new companies when companies were much simpler.
[10:21 PM] curi: you just hire some ppl and get some axes and go chop some wood to sell, for example. or you go fishing
[10:21 PM] Vinny The Mushroom: @curi Is your idea of a company 2 guys and a dream
[10:21 PM] HoneyDrops: it's as almost as if external realities break the model's assumptions.
[10:22 PM] Curry: But you won't be able to compete against large industrialized fishing or logging companies
[10:22 PM] DM Spider Vagene (and bob): *Facepalm*
Or some people with a shovel go find some oil to sell.
[10:22 PM] curi: the reason it's harder to start companies now is there are so many companies which are far better than those simple easy-to-start companies which can outcompete for all the labor. ppl aren't better off going and doing a very low productivity job like that.
[10:22 PM] HoneyDrops: also you prob need a boat, to buy an axe, those trees are on someone's land...
[10:23 PM] curi: if a ton of ppl were starving and there were no jobs, then they'd be better off going and fishing or whatever, they'd start doing things like that.
[10:23 PM] curi: they only don't do that b/c they have better options. that's what happened with the collapse of the roman empire btw: ppl stopped having better options, went and lived in the country side doing lower productivity work.
[10:23 PM] HoneyDrops: I think the French went with another plan.
[10:24 PM] Vinny The Mushroom: I knew most Libertarians were less reasonable Anarchists
[10:24 PM] Curry: Stealing wood from trees on someone else's land, you mean?
[10:24 PM] curi: can we drop the subject of land ownership you're now raising until after we settle the other issues? we can't discuss everything at once.
[10:24 PM] Vinny The Mushroom: Also what's to stop someone from stealing someone else's stuff
[10:24 PM] curi: if you want to make progress we need to go a couple things at a time, reach a conclusion, then a couple more.
[10:25 PM] Vinny The Mushroom: @curi I know most of your answers though and there pretty bullshit
[10:25 PM] DM Spider Vagene (and bob): Point being, it's hard to start a new business.
[10:25 PM] HoneyDrops: The point is"start a business" isn't just something one goes and does. Thus it is to be removed from the model.
[10:25 PM] Curry: But with your wood-gathering example, that literally can't be done if someone owns the land the trees are on.
[10:25 PM] HoneyDrops: (or the difficulty needs to at least be accounted for)
[10:25 PM] curi: stealing? i've advocated laws and police. vinny, if my answers are bullshit point out a specific thign i said and how it's bullshit instead of bringing up new issues.
[10:27 PM] Vinny The Mushroom: I`m good
[10:27 PM] Vinny The Mushroom: answer other people
[10:27 PM] curi: well if you dont' want to discuss, fine. but don't call my answers bullshit then ask for new answers without giving details.
[10:27 PM] Vinny The Mushroom: Other people have better questions than i do answer them
[10:28 PM] curi: i've asked to drop the land ownership issue until the prior matters are resolved. i feel ignored about that.
[10:28 PM] curi: you guys have endless ignorance and i can't teach you everything at once!
[10:28 PM] curi: and you keep trying to move on b4 conceding/learning.
[10:28 PM] HoneyDrops: the land ownership issue is pertinent to your point of just "start a logging business"
[10:28 PM] DM Spider Vagene (and bob): Alright, do you need more examples of how it's hard to start a business?
[10:28 PM] curi: it is pertinent but we can nevertheless table it temporarily.
[10:28 PM] Curry: You're going to have to come up with better examples then, because land ownership is a necessary part of exploiting the land for its resources.
[10:29 PM] Jar of Mayo: you can rent the land or buy it
[10:29 PM] curi: they're going to say you have no money, and the rent is too high, and then it'll get into competition of land owners to rent out land and bidding against each other, and a lot of the same issues we were just trying to resolve.
[10:29 PM] DM Spider Vagene (and bob): If you're looking at debate as you teaching and us learning, you're not going to get very far.
[10:30 PM] Curry: Why would I rent my land out to you so you can exploit its resources, when I can exploit those resources myself?
[10:30 PM] curi: well you certainly don't seem to know a single thing that i haven't heard twnety times before, and you seem to have no knowledge of econ, Mises, Reisman, etc
[10:30 PM] Jar of Mayo: because they are going to pay you
[10:31 PM] Curry: But the amount they pay me has to be greater than the amount I could make utilizing the land myself
[10:32 PM] Jar of Mayo: that's what should happen
[10:32 PM] HoneyDrops: I'm not bored yet, and I like the distraction from the snow outside.
[10:32 PM] curi: no, you will rent it for less than that if you have soething better to do with your time
[10:32 PM] DM Spider Vagene (and bob): You haven't really said much I haven't heard before. You told me a law which I don't really think holds in practice.

And my point is that the way you phrased it seems as if you want things to be one-sided.
[10:32 PM] curi: i would love if you could teach me somethign but there are no signs of that
[10:33 PM] Curry: Ugh... Talking down to people is not a good look
[10:33 PM] curi: meanwhile, you don't seem very interested in finding out e.g. what Mises said, and if he was right, and whether there exists any refutation, and so on.
[10:33 PM] curi: i'm just stating the facts. should i lie?
[10:33 PM] Curry: Your opinions are facts now?
[10:33 PM] curi: which statement was factually false?
[10:34 PM] Prof. Sass: but hitler
[10:34 PM] Curry: That people are arguing in bad faith. Actually that people "don't want to learn" but even then you're approaching this from the wrong place
[10:34 PM] curi: i did not state that anyone was arguing in bad faith. (well not for a while? moggy was so i blocked him)
[10:35 PM] Curry: No, what you said is that people don't want to learn, from which I extrapolated that people were arguing in bad faith
[10:35 PM] curi: ppl have openly stated their disinterest in learning, understanding or addressing certain ideas.
[10:35 PM] Curry: Drop a quotation my guy
[10:35 PM] DM Spider Vagene (and bob): Projecting much?
[10:35 PM] curi: did i openly state that about something?
[10:36 PM] curi: i'm the one who is familiar with both mises and marx. i'm the one who told you what the iron law of wages is, b/c i know ur side more than u do.
[10:36 PM] Curry: You told them a vocab word
[10:36 PM] curi: i wrote a few paras of explanation
[10:37 PM] Curry: You did. Simply because you assumed they needed that explanation because they referred to the phenomenon with the wrong word


Elliot Temple
www.fallibleideas.com

[Anne B]

Prof. Sass's line could be an attempt at puppet-string-pulling.
There's a cultural norm that people shouldn't be too interested in any
one thing. They shouldn't still be talking about the same thing after
a long time. Many second-handed people would read "you're still
talking?" and think *oh no, people think I'm too focused on one thing,
they might think I'm autistic and that would be awful for my
reputation here, so I'd better stop now*. In this case everyone
ignored Prof. Sass and continued on.