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A comment on Ask HN: How can I do social good through programming?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: How can I do social good through programming? by arglebarnacle on Friday May 19, 2017 @04:39PM (#14379158)
Honestly the idea that capitalism itself systematically causes inequality is not a crazy thing to believe. You obviously don't agree and that's fine, but it's not the case that every smart person believes the "negative outcomes found in capitalist societies" can be resolved without a fundamental change in the underlying system.
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Re:Ask HN: How can I do social good through programming? by thomastjeffery on Friday May 19, 2017 @04:50PM (#14379244)
My thought process:

Inequality causes capitalism. Liberty allows inequality. Those "negative outcomes" come from inequality, not capitalism. Fighting capitalism is a workaround. It's an appealing workaround because the "underlying system" is centralized, and inequality is not.

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Re:Ask HN: How can I do social good through programming? by sheraz on Friday May 19, 2017 @06:37PM (#14379864)
Can you expand on how capitalism is an outcome of inequality?
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Re:Ask HN: How can I do social good through programming? by thomastjeffery on Friday May 19, 2017 @11:30PM (#14380894)
I just reread my post, and noticed that I wrote the first sentence completely wrong. It's too late to edit, so here is what I meant to say:

Inequality does not come from capitalism. Liberty allows inequality. Those "negative outcomes" come from inequality, not capitalism. Fighting capitalism (socialism) is a workaround. It's an appealing workaround because the "underlying system" is centralized, and inequality is not.

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Re:Ask HN: How can I do social good through programming? by thomastjeffery on Friday May 19, 2017 @11:25PM (#14380885)
It is not.

The negative effects of inequality are free to do harm in a society with capitalism. That does not make capitalism the cause of those effects, it simply means that capitalism does nothing to prevent them.

Socialism does (claims to) do some things to fight inequality, but that does not mean I must prefer it to capitalism.

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