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Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

nytimes.com

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Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#221

Post by YokoZar »

tmptmp wrote: post #211
luso_brazilian wrote: post #9

> "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.”…

>I believe this "job creation as priority" approach is inferior to both the "laissez-faire" capitalist alternative and the "basic income" social democratic one. How exactly is "basic income" superior to "hole" digging/filling type of jobs? I believe they are one and the same as far as their fundamentals are concerned, i.e. both do not create/add any value on their own to the society/economy. Actually, I think "hole"…

Hole digging is a waste of labor. Basic income allows the person to do other valuable things, such as work a job part time and care for children or go to school. Or they work a non-hole-digging job full time.

Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#222

Post by YokoZar »

look_lookatme wrote: post #60
dmritard96 wrote: post #47

There is supposedly some reshoring in the US but I don't really see it from hardware startups unless they have something bulky/specialized/low volume. The bigger question is not whether we should employ in one taxation region or another to concentrate wealth as we see fit, but rather how quickly generalized arms, machine vision and new manufacturing processes will impact our ability to rely on labor as a source of so…

The concept of a revival of American manufacturing is a myth promulgated, for the most part, by one company: Boston Consulting Group. (pdf warning) http://www2.itif.org/2015-myth-american-manufacturing-renais...

Questionable revival or not, the fact remains the US manufactures more in terms of dollars than it ever has -- it just does it with dramatically fewer people.

Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#223

Post by dredmorbius »

lgieron wrote: post #95
tw04 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the absolutely embarrassing state of our country, hole diggers are exactly what we need. Legitimately go pay someone to dig holes all day and lay single-mode fiber to every home. Pay them to turn a wrench replacing support brackets on a bridge. The Works program was the single most successful employer in this country's history and we replaced it with welfare because "unemployment is low and we don't need it any…

Today, the ditch digging s done with small excavators, not with hordes of guys with shovels...

Good.

There remains a hell of a lot of fiber needs laying.

Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#224

Post by dredmorbius »

DanBC wrote: post #84
yasky wrote: post #82

Dear Hacker News - after scrolling 3 pages I still haven't seen the 2nd comment. Can you please implement collapsable comments? Please!?

There are a bunch of plugins that provide collapsable comment threads.

They don't work on numerous browser options, including Chrome on Android (which AFAIU doesn't support extensions), or, last I checked, Android.

It's a badly needed basic function.

Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#225

Post by 1stop »

mozumder wrote: post #164
1stop wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have astatement A and conclusion C but no B step. Do people spend money without advertising? I would say, yes they do. People have intrinsic wants and needs. Why would I so fulfilling them, because of a lack of extrinsic wants and needs? Edit: also aren't you just trying to optimise to what is measured. GDP goes up, and that's beneficial because? Greenspan says so?

People spend more money with advertising. The velocity of money increases. If you believe it doesn't, then you should probably tell that to the trillion dollar industry. I get that it's not what you want to hear, but that's your problem to deal with, not mine. "Wishing and hoping" that advertising doesn't work, doesn't actually make it so. Just because you don't like something, doesn't mean it doesn't work.

I didn't say it doesn't work. I said it isn't necessary.

We aren't arguing whether coke tastes nice, we are arguing whether you need to drink it...

I think you need to reread my comments.

Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#226

Post by dredmorbius »

narrator wrote: post #136

The 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…

I think you're right to focus on prices. It turns out that there's a tremendous amount of economics that concerns itself with prices (7 chapters of Wealth of Nations are devoted to it, many other writers as well).

A crucial function of markets is in "price discovery". And there are numerous ways in which this can fail. I'm concerned that this is among the more fundamental flaws in market operations as a whole.

Keep digging at this.

I'm active at G+ ("Edward Morbius") and on reddit (https://reddit.com/r/dredmorbius), where I've been thinking about and musing on price, cost, value, and money. Somewhat frightening ground to cover, but fascinating.

Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#227

Post by botw »

graycat wrote: post #33
kelukelugames wrote: post #2

I majored in circuits because back then that's where the money and talent went in Silicon valley. Many of my classmates have since switched to software. The few remaining IC and fab people make pennies compare to the programmers. They also have PhDs to our BS and Master degrees. Software seems more robust but I don't trust myself to make predictions.

IMHO: Deliver products/services can get paid for. For this, move to new areas with no competition, that is, move products/services forward. For this, use new, powerful, valuable technology. For that, broadly, supply new, valuable information . For that, take in available data, manipulate it, and report the new information as the results. So, with all this data, find where some new, valuable information will make a go…

are you majoring in applied math? can it replace ML and AI?

Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#228

Post by tmptmp »

newjersey wrote: post #214
tmptmp wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I believe this "job creation as priority" approach is inferior to both the "laissez-faire" capitalist alternative and the "basic income" social democratic one. How exactly is "basic income" superior to "hole" digging/filling type of jobs? I believe they are one and the same as far as their fundamentals are concerned, i.e. both do not create/add any value on their own to the society/economy. Actually, I think "hole"…

Basic income is not a complete solution. It is a start. We'd still need ways to motivate people. I think basic income would be great. We could have smaller class sizes in our elementary schools. I'd like to imagine some people volunteering to take care of kids for a few hours after school because they don't have to worry about starving for not making any money. In short, I think people will do useful work if we just…

I am still confused. You said,

>We'd still need ways to motivate people. I think basic income would be great. ... >I think not having to worry about starving would be great for humanity as a whole.

Motivating a person who is not starving and has no worry about starving in future is a damn difficult job. But maybe I will grant this thing for the sake of argument, because, there may be other things that may still motivate people. e.g. yearning for better lifestyle.

So, I guess, the basic income should be very minimum, in fact, should be minimum possible to keep the person barely alive. Anything more will potentially have "spoiling" effect (failed communism and the British welfare system comes to mind here). No more than minimum required shelter (without any kind of "luxury", including TV, more rooms etc as are given in UK), minimum required raw food with minimum required equipment for preparing the food (no pre cooked fancier food of any kind) and minimum clothes to sustain life (no fancier clothes).

Of course, I am aware that terms like "luxury", "minimum" need more precise definitions. I will make a try -

Minimum required shelter/food/clothes for survival - to find the minimum amount of shelter/food/clothes required for survival one must look at the quantities the people/peasants in African/Asian/European poor countries (e.g. Liberia, India, or Russia) survive. In fact, the basic income should be just sufficient to survive, if required err on the side of less but not an iota more; if we can guarantee this, then I guess the basic income scheme will not corrupt the people, else it will be a recipe for economic/societal disaster and ruin.

Luxury - anything beyond/more the minimum is luxury as far as basic income is concerned.

Edit - added definition of luxury.

Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#229

Post by ThomPete »

Spooky23 wrote: post #59
ThomPete wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with a job-centric economy is that it's based on the need of humans rather than the needs of the economy. In reality technology makes it possible for less and less people to increase their output and span of what they can control via technology. Some day a few people will be running large systems that requires only drones, AI's and access to resources to create what today takes millions. By insisting on k…

> The problem with a job-centric economy is that it's based on the need of humans rather than the needs of the economy. Society is made up of humans. The economy in your case is the tail wagging the dog. The problem with your train of thought is that it isn't sustainable. When people get fed up and start burning ubers, the folks betting against people will be the ones finding their backs on he wall.

You are actually proving my point. There is no natural law that says that to have an economy we need humans to produce the output. Yet you speak as if our needs somehow trump the reality we live in.

You are simply confusing what humans need with what humans can expect. Technology is a competitor to humans not just a tool.

My train of thought is exactly sustainable in that it expects technology to take over most jobs instead of ignoring this.

If people start burning uber cars then uber cars will start defend themselves. Again technology is competitor way before we take it into Superintelligence land.

If more people was on my "train" we would be dealing with the problem by introducing something like Unconditional Income.

Technology is like a tsunami, you can try and stop it or try and learn to surf on top of it for as long as possible. I prefer the latter rather than being crushed by the former.

Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#230

Post by ThomPete »

Spooky23 wrote: post #117
thisislame wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you familiar with the term "force multiplier?" How many people has the US military killed over the last 10 years? How many US military personnel have been killed? The ratio is on the order of 100:1. (I'm not making any kind of moral judgement about the US military here, just pointing out it's raw effectiveness at a core competency, which is killing without being killed.) People are not a great bet in the present…

I guess the glow of our glorious and decisive victories in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam blinded me. People matter.

People matter to people. But technology increasingly a competitor to the human workforce more than an ally.

So your argument is preaching to the choir not to that which you need to convert which is technological progress.

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