It is the biggest flaw of the existing instantiation of Capitalism in the USA, that major non-financial factors are simply left out, ignored, or simply unrealized in the calculation of value. There is massive damage being done to the USA by not just Silicon Valley, even though it plays a major roll, that is very short sighted and trades of massive profits and gains and power in the future for short term gains that are primarily financial. It's very much a kind of monopolistic system that is leading to and not many people realize the astronomical cost of the deadweight loss to the American people. To put it in other terms that Silicon Valley types may understand, we have nothing even close to market fit and are operating at negative gross margins if you take all factors into account. It is easy to fool oneself that all things are well when you cherry pick your parameters and measures.
Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
241–250 of 266 posts
Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 motiv…
My premise for a basic I come is that most of the work we do is simply more than necessary. My thought is that a lot of people will be shut out because many entry level jobs and jobs that require minimal training will continue to get automated and disappear as we move towards the future. We need to make sure those who won't be able to find a job don't starve. Maybe we ought to bring in wealthy people in for experimen…
>>Of course, we will have tons of free riders but that's the price we pay. Also we don't care because any welfare system will have free riders.
The price of what? What positive do we get in return? And how much price? The UK seems to be paying exorbitant price for whatever benefit they claim/perceive to be getting from their flawed welfare programme.
Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
While a job might not produce anything of value to a customer, I think it is often forgotten that a job also has the dual purpose of skills training. People doing "useless" jobs might acquire the skills to do other and more useful jobs in the future. Keeping people unemployed has a high cost in the form of loss of skills over time, mental health etc. If you don't keep things going you might risk losing some people fo…
> you might risk losing some people forever as their skills become so obsolete This is likely why I'll likely never be able convince myself to take a break from programming until retirement. Unless, of course, today's chatbots evolve to write code better than we do. Or at least cheaper.
Of course age discrimination will likely have you changing careers well before retirement.
Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure if those are fair analogies, nor an accurate representation of the choices. I live in a social democratic country and low unemployment has always been the cornerstone of social democratic policy. I associate basic income more with liberal politicians. There are a lot ways in which a job centric approach would affect economic policy which doesn't necessarily mean hole diggers. E.g. in my home country Norway i…
Well said. India would be a good example of hole diggers. If software engineers were oil, India produces the most but unlike China you don't see them producing a Baidu, Alibaba, HTC, Lenovo, Tencent etc. Like you say they have given away their oil to the West by being laissez-faire in IT. It's why there are no Jack Ma, Pony Ma type recognizable names out of India. Instead you see a Nadella and Pichai emerge in the US…
Software engineering is a relatively nascent field. While India does produce a lot of software engineers, it will take some time before the expertise in software development that is required to run a successful business is prevalant enough in India to nurture independent companies and allow them to grow big. There are already a few successful Indian startups though e.g. Zomato, Flipkart.
Anecdotally, there is much activity in the startup sector in India and I am willing to bet it won't be long before we start seeing more success stories.
Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
#245> "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.”…
You are invoking the famous, often-misunderstood fiscal policy outlined by Keynes. Here is the often-paraphrased text from The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money Book 3 Ch.10 Section VI [1]: "Pyramid-building, earthquakes, even wars may serve to increase wealth, if the education of our statesmen on the principles of the classical economics stands in the way of anything better...If the Treasury were to…
> It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like;
This is the branch of thinking that should be extended. What exactly should fiscal stimulus _actually_ be building? THAT is the interesting discussion.
We've ruled out burying bottles with banknotes. So, seriously now, what is a truly productive thing for the government to buy?
New water systems? Repaved and widened highways? A super fat information backbone which reaches into every city and town in the nation? What?
Is there ANY category of spending -- ANYTHING AT ALL -- that can put American workers back into a position of global competitiveness?
Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
The advertising industrial complex is paradoxically what employers are willing to pay for, but we humans don't need.
Honestly explain this to me: in what sense do we not need advertising? I don't want to research the 200 brands of almond milk or 85 sushi restaurants in my neighborhood -- I want some proxy, however imperfect, for their quality, availability and value. I want someone to come find me and tell me that their milk or restaurant or whatever exists. And as someone who sells things, how am I supposed to make the public awar…
Advertising has little relation to quality or wellbeing. It's dangerous to be lazy about researching what products to consume. Junk food has great advertising. Other (not well known) brands have great quality but do not have big advertising budgets.
Maybe we (as society) should start to be less lazy about researching the products we consume instead of letting huge brands with different interests decide for us.
Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
#247Earlier 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. 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…
There's no natural law stating that technological progress and capitalism is the exclusive interest of reality.
People make laws. People make technology. If we continue down a path of making technology only serve the accumulation of capital, people will course correct the direction of technology.
Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
No. The veteran is worthy because in his suffering, he provided value to the community.
The beggar provides value by only extracting a pittance. If he were, say, a burglar, he would be taking far more than he needs, and that would actually be costing you something less reasonable.
If everyone only used what they needed, we'd all have plenty of resources to dedicate to the communal good.
Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have to wonder what other price is paid for that state of affairs. Is that the result of some sort of ... rigged game?
Not at all. However Germany has a massive trade imbalance because it's exporting all these products. There are only so many countries this can work for. Recently-ish Germany is also aided by the fact that the rest of the eurozone isn't doing so well economically keeping the euro lower in value than a German currency would be.
You're saying that Germany doesn't control the ECB I think. So I guess it's just coincidence that ECB policy has been consistently and primarily in favor of German economic interest, and has been an unmitigated disaster for everybody else. The trade imbalance is in part a symptom of this.
Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley
#250I 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.
Hardware needs that complete ecosystem that Grove is talking about. Software doesn't need that quite so much, at least in terms of the comparable capital intensive activities.