An Alternative History of Silicon Valley Disruption • Hacker News Board

Re: An Alternative History of Silicon Valley Disruption

#61

Post by adventured » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 6:09 PM UTC

smacktoward wrote: post #60

paulddraper wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> take advantage What makes it "take advantage" and not "serve"? People want entertainment on their phone. So entertainment is provided. People value seasonal rentals more than permanent housing. So seasonal rentals are provided. What party is being "taken advantage" of? What coercive or dishonest elements at play?

"People want heroin. So heroin is provided."

There's absolutely nothing morally wrong with using heroin.

People want cheeseburgers, they're provided. People want marijuana, it's provied. People want alcohol, it's provided. People want sugar, it's provided. People want to gamble, it's provided. People want pornography, it's provided. People want violent movies and video games, it's provided.

You can outlaw so called sins, negatives, or you can properly regulate them and treat people that become addicts. Heroin is obviously an extreme example of that context. There is only one effective solution to heroin addiction: treat addiction, do not outlaw heroin use. It should be safely, legally provided to people that need it.

Re: An Alternative History of Silicon Valley Disruption

#62

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 6:21 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #27

empath75 wrote: post #5

> For instance, the same year the government loaned $535 million to solar-power company Solyndra, it also loaned Tesla $465 million. “Taxpayers footed the bill for Solyndra’s losses—yet got hardly any of Tesla’s” gains, she says. Solyndra has become “a byword for the government’s sorry track record when it came to picking winners,” a story that has helped keep regulators at bay, she says. I'm no Tesla fan, but that's…

That is how loans work. But in a free-market economy, loans also come from professional lenders, who price loans according to risk. Government loans made to further industrial policy are necessarily subsidies, which is not how loans work. From the view of the economy as a whole, it can work out fine, in that we tax the profits of the successful companies. (Although a great deal less than we used to.) But it does rath…

[deleted]

Re: An Alternative History of Silicon Valley Disruption

#63

Post by dbt00 » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 6:28 PM UTC

paulddraper wrote: post #58

borkt wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, they are too busy being addicted to candy crush without realizing that was precisely the intention. My wife, who is not an engineer (she works in applied science) is disgusted with how the technologies have been used to take advantage of the general public. She hates how airbnb has caused a town we wanted to live in to now lie around 24% of homes unoccupied outside of summer while housing prices continue to ris…

> take advantage What makes it "take advantage" and not "serve"? People want entertainment on their phone. So entertainment is provided. People value seasonal rentals more than permanent housing. So seasonal rentals are provided. What party is being "taken advantage" of? What coercive or dishonest elements at play?

Let them eat skinner boxes.

Re: An Alternative History of Silicon Valley Disruption

#64

Post by dbt00 » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 6:32 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #8

empath75 wrote: post #5

> For instance, the same year the government loaned $535 million to solar-power company Solyndra, it also loaned Tesla $465 million. “Taxpayers footed the bill for Solyndra’s losses—yet got hardly any of Tesla’s” gains, she says. Solyndra has become “a byword for the government’s sorry track record when it came to picking winners,” a story that has helped keep regulators at bay, she says. I'm no Tesla fan, but that's…

Loans are often structured with a penalty if they are paid back early. The provider of the capital wants the scheduled payments more than they want access to the capital. Perhaps big fat government loans should really be purchases of special restricted securities (that do things like limit the control the government has over the company and prevent dilution).

The auto bailouts in the late-08/early-09 timeframe were structured as warrant purchases (similar to options), and the government did see upside.

In-Q-Tel is a program where the government invests in startups and participates in equity growth.

So it's not impossible, but not particularly common.

Re: An Alternative History of Silicon Valley Disruption

#65

Post by mushbino » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 6:39 PM UTC

rchaud wrote: post #59

malvosenior wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, the outside world looks at us with disdain The only people that view the tech industry with disdain are journalists and old media. Regular people happily use their iPhones, Facebook, Uber, AirBnB... Just because a lot of ink is spilled trying to keep outdated media models alive, it doesn't mean the general population feels this way. The success of all of these services is proof enough that people are not b…

> Regular people happily use their iPhones, Facebook, Uber, AirBnB... So when Uber circumvented the law to allow anybody to become a taxi driver, thereby hurting drivers who played by the rules, and the media reports on that, they can be safely ignored because they didn't interview a happy user of the app? Regular people happily use non-biodegradable plastic bags. Maybe the old media should hold off on reporting on i…

Taxi drivers played by the rules written by and for existing taxi drivers. It was a government protected racket badly in need of some free market forces and Uber/Lyft have provided just that.

Re: An Alternative History of Silicon Valley Disruption

#66

Post by DATACOMMANDER » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 6:57 PM UTC

sjg007 wrote: post #39

empath75 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Federal spending accounts for 44% of basic research spending. at one point, it was as high as 70%. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/data-check-us-govern... Generally, the pattern has been that government and university funded researchers make the early discoveries, and then corporations do the research towards applying them. Universities benefit from patents, but the federal government doesn't.

Feds get income tax revenue. They/we benefit.

They would have gotten that revenue even if the research had been privately funded.

Re: An Alternative History of Silicon Valley Disruption

#67

Post by charlesbradshaw » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 7:19 PM UTC

This article deeply disappoints me as Hacker news is the last place that I would expect to find Luddites.

> They promised the open web, we got walled gardens

Google doesn't give out its users data in the same way that a bank doesn't give out it's users balances.

> ...many of the dystopian business practices we associate with fast-growing tech platforms [like] operating with a small group of well-paid engineers, surrounded by contractors

The implication here is that before Amazon, no company applied aggressive and unethical cost saving measures. When was Nestle founded again?

> Uber did not cause this precarious economy. It is the waste product of the service economy

This is the kind of thing that makes you sound smart but means nothing. There is not an explanation of the "waste product of the service economy" that follows this quote. In fact this implies it is not Uber's fault at all for disrupting the taxi industry.

> In the case of venture capitalists, [...] their real genius appears to lie in their timing: their ability to enter a sector late, after the highest development risks had already been taken, but at an optimum moment to make a killing

The implication being that nobody made a competitor company before the internet was around. The other claim is that being n+1 to the market gives you a guaranteed and significant advantage. If this was the case it would be trivial to overtake Google.

> The tech visionaries’ predictions did not usher us into the future, but rather a future where they are kings

This line tells me that the author has gotten used to modern day conveniences that tech has brought us and thinks its unpredictable that people who made companies that span the globe are rich and powerful.

Re: An Alternative History of Silicon Valley Disruption

#68

Post by DoctorOetker » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 9:04 PM UTC

paulddraper wrote: post #58

borkt wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, they are too busy being addicted to candy crush without realizing that was precisely the intention. My wife, who is not an engineer (she works in applied science) is disgusted with how the technologies have been used to take advantage of the general public. She hates how airbnb has caused a town we wanted to live in to now lie around 24% of homes unoccupied outside of summer while housing prices continue to ris…

> take advantage What makes it "take advantage" and not "serve"? People want entertainment on their phone. So entertainment is provided. People value seasonal rentals more than permanent housing. So seasonal rentals are provided. What party is being "taken advantage" of? What coercive or dishonest elements at play?

People want egalitarianism, it's not provided,

People want georgism, it's not provided.

People want privacy, it's not provided.

People want to the signing keys for the whole chain of bootloaders, without false bottoms, it's not provided.

People want universal basic income (or some variation thereof), it's not provided.

And so on...

Re: An Alternative History of Silicon Valley Disruption

#69

Post by nitwit005 » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 9:35 PM UTC

hndude wrote: post #3

Any additional evidence (either for or against) the claim that government pays for tech advances, while the private sector is who sees a return from that?

What's the alternative exactly? What would a government do besides hand it over to corporations to use?

Even if they wanted to use it purely internally, they'd have to hire a company to manufacture what they want. I suppose a country like China could use a state run company instead of a private one?

Re: An Alternative History of Silicon Valley Disruption

#70

Post by paulddraper » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 10:12 PM UTC

smacktoward wrote: post #60

paulddraper wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> take advantage What makes it "take advantage" and not "serve"? People want entertainment on their phone. So entertainment is provided. People value seasonal rentals more than permanent housing. So seasonal rentals are provided. What party is being "taken advantage" of? What coercive or dishonest elements at play?

"People want heroin. So heroin is provided."

Yes, that is libertarian.