Earlier quoted context omitted.
Laying single-mode fiber with emacs?
There'll be a plugin for that.
*major mode
Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
131–140 of 266 posts
Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think there is a significant confluence among those who find prosperity and purpose through jobs to conflate the concepts of employment and purpose. That to not have a job is to not have a purpose, and vice versa. If we had a planned economy built around peak employment, we would have many fewer entrepreneurs and many more, as you say, hole diggers. Socially we already do that. We have created a gargantuan advertis…
Wow! Fantastic comment that I woefully can only upvote once. This is why I come to HN, for thinking like this. That said, I think you are totally wrong about this. Just look at surnames: Baker, Smith, Shoemaker, etc. The actual names of people and their families were completely centered around their employment, or more generally, what it was they did all day long. Yes, this was medieval Europe, and conditionals aboun…
They're talking about consumption not standard of living. It's possible to imagine a future where everybody will get that superior standard of living but with far less consumption required to support it - innovation and creativity (and fewer wasteful wars) will deliver that future.
Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
#133Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
#134Note he didn't provide a solution to scaling companies domestically other than taxing offshore products.
That type of protectionism may work domestically but it means that American companies cannot compete overseas if they are being undercut on price.
It looks like technology will fix the problem in time. American companies will start manufacturing in the US but there will be no jobs, just automation.
The focus should really be: how can we increase the intelligence of the average worker so they can compete in the new economy and not just "live life on basic income" or "get an overseas job waiting to be automated".
Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
#135> "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.”…
It can also be spectacularly successful . Although it wasn't a jobs program, WWII and its aftermath, driven by the state and centrally planned, resulted in great economic prosperity -perhaps unprecedented prosperity. Why can't we have a WWII on infrastructure, green energy, science funding, pollution cleanup, transportation, hyper-loops ?
WW II didn't cause that, it was the effects of the war including the subsequent dismantling of the British Empire and its trade barriers. In other words, a precursor to globalization.
Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
#136The mystery at the center of all this is "Why is it so astronomically cheap to do the x in Asia vs the U.S?". Not just cheap as in low wage, but cheap as in finished goods costing less than the cost of materials delivered to the American factory. It's not just manufacturing.
In Thailand you can live in a high rise condo with a gym and maid service and eat out every day and do some traveling for $2000/month. That life style is 8x more expensive in San Francisco. In Argentina before the 2002 crash, the country was very expensive, but it wasn't some luxurious paradise, so it's not just that it's a developing country. AFter the 2002 crash the prices were absurdly cheap. Something just doesn't make sense, and there's an enormous amount of denial that anything's amiss. Prices are a mystical sacred phenomenon it would seem. American companies don't care why prices are cheap, they just build stuff where the prices are cheap and sell it where they are high. They couldn't care less about the mystery, neither could the politicians. It's just the magical mysterious market.
Health care prices are also a mystical sacred phenomenon. Why are they 10x in the U.S what they are in other countries? Other people get sick and die there and are willing to pay whatever money they have to get better. Prices don't necessarily scale with income per capita either. I am sick of pat answers to this question and "just-so" stories. Someone should take some cost accountants and figure out where all the money is actually going for these kinds of things and write some journal articles. It would probably reveal a lot of bizarre and interesting rough edges on the economy and maybe a fair amount of business opportunity.
Some researcher should go look at the cost to build an Intel fab in Taiwan vs the U.S and start asking why. Start with why is it 1/5 the price to build the fab in Taiwan: 1. Because the construction company charges that much. Why? 2. Because the labor is 1/2 and the materials are 1/3. Why? Because the labor's rent is 1/5? Why? Because the land for the apartment building was 1/10 the price? Why? Because there are no mortgages and the land had to be bought with savings from an export business, etc, and follow it all the way down for everything. Depth first search! Piles of fascinating economic nuggets are just sitting there untouched.
Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
No but it does tend to take a fairly dedicated effort to be stupid about your economy.
Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am reminded of what George Orwelles wrote in "Down and out in Paris and London": > Beggars do not work, it is said; but then, what is work? A navvy works by swinging a pick. An accountant works by adding up figures. A beggar works by standing out of doors in all weathers and getting varicose veins, bronchitis etc. It is a trade like any other; quite useless, of course — but, then, many reputable trades are quite us…
You cannot pay a cost you impose on others with self induced suffering. I cannot steal and break my own toe to "pay it back". That justification is nonsense.
I think you missed the point of the quote:
Orwell is saying that to see someone suffer is in line with our ethics; someone who suffers can be ethically reasoned to have earned what dues come their way.
Compare the beggar in orwell's quote, if you will, to the injured war veteran who benefits from a fundraiser. He has suffered, so we consider it worthy for him to benefit through community actions.
Why is he worthy of the benefit? Because he suffered. I am not worthy because I have not suffered as he has. The beggar? Suffering.
You are thinking very stringently if you are interpreting the quote as a 'literal' trade, broken toe for dinner for a week
Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
And when they're done? What about the jobs!
When they're done they start all over again. Unless you've invented some magical material that never needs replacing it will have broken down by the time they finish. It's not like we have so many unemployed people that we're going to replace/upgrade every piece of infrastructure that needs it in a year.
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Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think there is a significant confluence among those who find prosperity and purpose through jobs to conflate the concepts of employment and purpose. That to not have a job is to not have a purpose, and vice versa. If we had a planned economy built around peak employment, we would have many fewer entrepreneurs and many more, as you say, hole diggers. Socially we already do that. We have created a gargantuan advertis…
Indeed. I think this is a strong argument in favor of basic income. If the risk of an enterprise failing were separated from the risk of not being able to eat next week, then we would have far more entrepreneurs.
The paradox is that in many societies where something approximating basic income does exist, there is not a particularly great wealth of entrepreneurship. If anything I think there's a negative correlation.