Earlier quoted context omitted.
Today, the ditch digging s done with small excavators, not with hordes of guys with shovels...
Today's ditch digging is done with emacs and vim, building useless CRUD apps
Laying single-mode fiber with emacs?
Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
121–130 of 266 posts
Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We have created a gargantuan advertising industry that has zero net material gain for society Why do people say this, when they know full well that advertising drives people to buy things, and therefore, drive the economy?
Because it doesn't. These people wouldn't just hoard their money because there is no ad telling them what to buy... They'd just be exercising their own agency, rather then cokes, or nikes.
They might often buy an inferior product instead.
If there were no advertising, not many people would know about—let alone buy—video games. But dollar for dollar video games are much better for them than alternatives like drugs.
Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
#123Manufacturing isn't coming back. Do you think your average American would put up with the conditions in a Chinese iPhone factory?
Have you been in one? I have. It is not something I would want to do, but it is not as bad some low paying jobs in the US.
Sweatshops exist in China, but the top electronics manufacturers (mostly Taiwan-owned) have relatively good conditions.
Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
#124Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
#125> "There was room for improvement, he argued, for what he called “job-centric” economics and politics. In a job-centric system, job creation would be the nation’s No. 1 objective, with the government setting priorities and arraying the forces necessary to achieve the goal, and with businesses operating not only in their immediate profit interest but also in the interests of “employees, and employees yet to be hired.”…
Hong Kong is a prime example of the government improving quality of life by staying out of the way of business. http://triblive.com/mobile/6727056-96/hong-kong-free
Hong Kong's prosperity in the 80's and 90's had more to do with being the gateway between China and the West as trade started to open up, and less to do with policy or entrepreneurship, as much as some people would like to take credit for such.
Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't it already happening. If you put a population of flies in a closed container, even with an unlimited food supply, their population will grow and grow until it hits a peak and collapases. We are smarter than flies but to think we are not also constrained by nature is folly?
The only reason the fly colony would collapse is if it ran out of a resource. No point in giving them an unlimited food supply because it's a resource like any other.
That's exactly the point. Sooner or later, human consumption is going to hit a wall.
Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
#127Technology can help us to make the fundamental economic structures more sophisticated in order to handle more complex goals.
The problem with running everything with simple money is that it is like running a body on doped water alone. I can't even say blood because money is one dimensional and blood has many useful components.
I think something like Ethereum is going in the right decentralized and high-tech direction. If we can have a common information platform then we can wire up our systems to be more decentralized and also have the capability to do holistic calculation and goals as well as evolve the system.
So I think having society integrate common information platform is key to turning this from a bunch of monopoly games into more like a wired game of Eve Online, or at least something where we can keep track of more than one stat ($) per entity.
Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't it already happening. If you put a population of flies in a closed container, even with an unlimited food supply, their population will grow and grow until it hits a peak and collapases. We are smarter than flies but to think we are not also constrained by nature is folly?
No one denies that we are constrained by nature and limited resources. There are two things that preclude your hypothetical "collapse" event from happening. 1. Scientific discovery and innovation. People were all in huge panic in the 17/18/19th century about the ability of our limited amount of land to feed the (exponentially-growing) populace, yet discovery of new methods/technologies increased the hypothetical yiel…
I don't see how you're ignoring all the countries that have had economies collapse. It's not impossible.
Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
#129Make America great again.
Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because it doesn't. These people wouldn't just hoard their money because there is no ad telling them what to buy... They'd just be exercising their own agency, rather then cokes, or nikes.
> These people wouldn't just hoard their money because there is no ad telling them what to buy... wut? People see an ad, they're more likely buy that thing. If they don't see an ad, they don't buy that thing. You think people are still going to be spending their money if they aren't talked into buying things? lol. The economy grows when people spend money. Disincentivizing people from spending money is a good way to…
Related to this... Maybe as we become more and more advanced in tech, we will spend less and less.
Let's see some examples : uber, usually cheaper than normal taxis,great economy of scale. So transportantion in general should decrease in absolute value.
Same thing with airbnb, we improve the usage of rooms in the City,and make it cheaper. So, it should make it decrease too.
And other start-ups in tech space make this. We optimize things to a lower cost. And this is good. But in macroeconomics, it can reduce the gdp of a country.
Just a tought I have sometimes. Sometime in the future we will need to think another way to measure economic improvement.