Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Permissionless innovation

learnliberty.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 115 posts

Re: Permissionless innovation

#101

Post by jandrese »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #74
Declanomous wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a bunch of regulations on that stuff in Chicago now. I don't know if it was the same guy, but some people got upset because they thought solar panels were super ugly. Here's a pdf (warning) of all of the hoops you need to jump through to install solar in Chicago: https://www.cityofchicago.org/content/dam/city/depts/bldgs/g... Disclaimer: This is off the top of my head from stuff I read in the paper five or mo…

> I don't know if it was the same guy, but some people got upset because they thought solar panels were super ugly. This is a sad aspect of living in a high-density society. A lot of people are not only boring themselves, but they excessively want everyone else to be boring too.

This is why I bought a home in a neighborhood without a HOA.

Number of problems I have had thus far (8 years) that a HOA would have helped with: 0.

Previous house that I lived in for 5 years:

Number of stupid time wasting problems I had with the HOA: 3.

Number of problems that I tried to get the HOA to help with unsuccessfully: 2.

Number of times the HOA actually helped: 0.

Re: Permissionless innovation

#102

Post by ythn »

scaryclam wrote: post #94
ythn wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do you feel like you need root access? Because I'm a developer and I need to install things to develop. For whatever reason, the vast majority of windows packages require admin to install. If you think it's great that I have to open a ticket to IT every time I want to update VSCode or install Python or Node or whatever, that's good for you, but I find it cumbersome and annoying and would rather work for a compa…

I read your previous comment as you wanting access to the servers that your code will run on. I'm guessing from the reference to VSCode that you're talking about your local work machine, so I apologise for my mistake and I agree, you should have trust from your company to look after your own work machine as you see fit.

Yes, my local work machine is completely locked down by corporate IT. They have a list of "pre-approved" things we can install like Chrome and Firefox and Notepad++, but everything else requires a ticket...

Re: Permissionless innovation

#103

Post by countryslicker »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #50
indescions_2017 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without some risk, however. You may never succeed in breaking the binds that keep us in the dark. I think the canonical example is something like the Wright Brothers first flight in Kitty Hawk, NC. Of course living in more agrarian times helps when you have an impromptu airport runway in your backyard. But the "permissionless innovation" theory probably concludes the reason we are not driving around in flying cars ju…

Things similar to the Wright Flyer are still allowed by default in the US in similar geographic areas. The weight limit under FAA regulation part 103 is lower - 254 pounds empty weight, rather than the Wright Flyer's 605 pounds empty weight - but material science has advanced since then, so the restriction isn't that severe. Ultra-light aircraft is very much regulated under philosophy of "if you aren't endangering ot…

Tell that to people trying to fly any drone in the USA weighing more than 1 kg.

Re: Permissionless innovation

#104

Post by XR0CSWV3h3kZWg »

cbayram wrote: post #71
XR0CSWV3h3kZWg wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a long time econtalk listener I am kind of disappointed with this week's episode. I don't feel like they really elaborated beyond "we should have permissionless innovation"

Same here. It was my first episode of econtalk. There were thought provoking points; i.e. focusing more on systemic mistakes rather than small ones as a result of permitting decision making at the local level (a la N. Taleb). However, it could've been told in 1/3rd the duration. I'll give it another go given this episode might have been one off.

I love econtalk, but there are def some duds. Usually the problem is that they just drag on with Russ and the Guest agreeing upon something.

Here are a few that I enjoyed recently:

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/10/megan_mcardle_o.htm...

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/07/sally_satel_on.html

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/07/chris_blattman_2.ht...

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/06/christy_ford_ch.htm...

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/01/sam_quinones_on.htm...

Re: Permissionless innovation

#105

Post by specialist »

jpetso wrote: post #95
specialist wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm starting to get metaphysical about IP leases. (Request, grant, revokation, expiration.) As in: leases are a cure all for all of societial and organizational woes. I'm having trouble articulating my thoughts. But the basic notion is give all the cruft a TTL, after which the cruft cleans itself up. --- Want a new tax, or tax break? Sure. It expires in 36 months. Want an extension? Then ask again and we'll reassess.…

I'm not sure I would want to operate in a country where the tax situation was likely to change drastically from one term to another. If I need Tea Party people to agree on frequent tax extensions, even the sensible/proven ones, I see nothing but zigzag and uncertainty instead of actual, planned forward progress.

I hear ya. My state’s progressives have been trying to end ~500 tax breaks for years. Whereas reauthorizing taxes, budgets, appropriations is a cyclic fight, these frikkin tax bresks are untouchable. My notion is to apply the rules, mechanics to both ends. Wishful thinking, I know.

Re: Permissionless innovation

#106

Post by Qwertious »

ythn wrote: post #87
sharemywin wrote: post #86

I don't really get the article on the one hand he's complaining about the government picking winners, like the solar failure. On the other he's heralding a service that closed it's api and is built on one of the largest government picks of all time. CompuServe, AOL had solutions long before the internet. What if Darpa had decided to build an infrastructure on top of compuserve, aol, and prodigy. the whole world would…

His point is that innovation is both something that we all want, yet something that is often inadvertently stifled by regulators or competitors. Perhaps the energy innovation that would benefit society most is not pursued because it's too lucrative to pursue solar (the government's "winner"). Perhaps there are streaming video/music innovations we will never see because there is so much red tape put up by Disney, etc.

>His point is that innovation is both something that we all want, yet something that is often best decided by the market, not by regulators or competitors. Perhaps the energy innovation that would benefit society most is not pursued because it's too lucrative to invest in solar.

As a generalisation, I think that solar "subsidies" are a two-part problem. First off, the government is refusing to price the negative externalities of greenhouse gas emissions (in part due to the republicans largely refusing to acknowledge the externalities even exist), which distorts the value of solar by implicitly subsidising fossil fuels.

Second, people acknowledge that solar needs to be made more viable and attempt to correct the market by adding a subsidy to solar instead of removing the subsidy from fossil fuels.

I think this exposes a fundamental flaw in common neoliberal ideology today - the notion that the way to remove market distortions is for government to do less, not more. This is clearly absurd, since climate change will cause trillions of dollars of property damage, and penalising property damage is basically the government's job.

Re: Permissionless innovation

#107

Post by voidmain »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #75
indescions_2017 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without some risk, however. You may never succeed in breaking the binds that keep us in the dark. I think the canonical example is something like the Wright Brothers first flight in Kitty Hawk, NC. Of course living in more agrarian times helps when you have an impromptu airport runway in your backyard. But the "permissionless innovation" theory probably concludes the reason we are not driving around in flying cars ju…

> But the "permissionless innovation" theory probably concludes the reason we are not driving around in flying cars just yet is precisely due to government hamstringing the great inventor. I don't think the "permissionless innovation" theory is something to be applied in isolation. It only covers some aspects of human endeavour. The reason we're not all in flying cars right now are twofold: 1. Flying is much less ene…

> Flying is much less energy-efficient than driving on a solid surface

Small aircraft get 10-20 mpg, and the world record is over 60 mpg. Energy efficiency might be a reason why ground transport would continue to exist, but I'm skeptical that it's the fundamental obstacle to "flying cars"

And since there is a lot more space in the air than on the road, the "self driving" problem is probably much easier.

It's true that the failure modes are a lot worse, not just for human error but for mechanical failures. But it's actually somewhat plausible to me that 100 years of unregulated innovation would have given us some kind of personal air transport.

> With strong AI this proposal is particularly dumb

Yes. So of course AI development is pretty much the only thing in the world that isn't regulated at all. Does this increase your confidence in regulation as a social technology?

Re: Permissionless innovation

#108

Post by drdeadringer »

ythn wrote: post #89
vidarh wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd never, ever consider working a place like that, as it places the power in the hand of managers who may decide something I consider perfectly reasonable is "abuse", and use this "under their name" bit to harass people. Which means I can't evaluate if the company will be a decent work place or a sweatshop. To me, this is disrespectful to employees in the extreme. It shows a total disregard for the power disparity t…

I would rather work at a company with few rules than one where there is red tape around everything. For example, at my current company I don't even have root access on the machines I develop on, and I have to submit tickets to IT to get anything installed or changed. One time I asked them to install Docker and was met with suspicion. IT said they would investigate, and months later it is still is not installed.

I am currently a contractor//temp at a particular company. I am there to do particular work in order to support the real people doing their real jobs for The Company.

Often times I come against some form of permissions issue which prevents me from doing my job because of my non-real status. Because of red tape and nothing else I promise you, nothing about "but proprietary data" or anything like that. It may be root access to a specific computer, it may be casual access to a particular online processing system. "Oh, just go to the group github and... oh, you can't. Let me find a thumb drive and the latest release..." or "Can you access the group's shared data access website yet? ... but, we filed a bug about your access for this a few months ago, and still nothing? Are you sure? Can you try again and send me the error and cc IT?" ... and so on. Everyone's frustrated; I do what I can, push it up the chain, make the noise to maintain hope for improvement.

Re: Permissionless innovation

#109

Post by drdeadringer »

adrianN wrote: post #68
drdeadringer wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't remember if it was on HN or reddit, but there was a comment//post about how a job site operated similar to this. To heavily paraphrase over the gist of the second-hand account from the boss: "Our workplace will be rule-free until people start abusing it. When someone goes overboard, a rule against their abuse will be created under their name which will be applicable to everybody; if you think that rule bullsh…

I'm a bit ambivalent about this. On the one hand, rules are stupid and red tape is one of the most annoying things about offices. On the other hand, rules also protect the employees from bad managers. If everything is allowed until "someone goes overboard", this basically allows the managers to make up rules after the fact to punish people they don't like.

> rules also protect the employees from bad managers

To offer the other side of the coin: I am currently working in a situation where the rules are protecting bad managers against employees.

My current manger is clearly lacking in "good" manager skills, and his direct manager is protecting him. A group of my coworkers is working together "to survive" the both of them. Hopeful questions about re-orgs are asked, regular private meetings about sub-group self-reliance are held. "I'm worried about ageism", "I've lost total hope with this manager", "I'm in survival mode", and similar quotes are regular weekly features.

The team has clear and obvious elevation in productivity and moral when the manager is absent [vacation, off-site business, sick, whatever]. The manager's manager doesn't want to hear it; "just work together" type of "advice". Yea ok that's been tried for a long time now, it's time for departures or re-orgs and those are the solutions at this point.

/rant

Re: Permissionless innovation

#110

Post by TeMPOraL »

blackbagboys wrote: post #96
TeMPOraL wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know if it was the same guy, but some people got upset because they thought solar panels were super ugly. This is a sad aspect of living in a high-density society. A lot of people are not only boring themselves, but they excessively want everyone else to be boring too.

Another way of saying this is that they have preferences about their immediate living environment and express those preferences through the political process, as is their right.

Yues. I'm not saying they're not in their rights to do it; I'm saying they're assholes for doing it.
Post reply on HN