Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not • Hacker News Board

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#211

Post by prennert » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 4:27 PM UTC

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #132

eaenki wrote: post #9

Imo Education is overvalued, Capital is under appreciated, And, Because Capital is trapped into networks, that Capital is squandered among an infinite array of companies employing the talent and producing products that don’t make you, or the planet, better, healthier, smarter or happier. (Apple’s SJ era, Google until 2014~ and Tesla fit the useful smarter happier paradigma, and not many other) My solution is: take a…

I don't think just giving the money to whoever has a prototype is a good idea. Some culturally relevant projects aren't the sort of thing you can make a prototype of, but I like where you're going. I'd amend it like so: Once I've been a citizen long enough (i.e. paid enough taxes) I get to invoke my free year, which is a year where the government pays me enough to cover my bills and maybe a bit extra for projects and…

This is kind of how research at universities and public research institutes is funded by grants. You get money to do research, you publish a paper on your research and if it is deemed to have made enough impact, more grants will be funded and you get more money to continue.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#212

Post by tempguy9999 » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 4:30 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #87

eaenki wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything that’s meant to bring a x10 improvement in how fast or far humans move, how fast humans can learn and communicate, how long humans live, any creature’s freedom, environment cleanliness

That's an impressive list and it's entirely different than what mine would look like. My list would be entirely focused around quality of life and happiness which would mean significant funding for artistic endeavors. It also might lead to slowing the rate we communicate, living healthier (not necessarily longer) lives, building stable communities which might lead to less long distance movement (which would likely be…

I'm going to be a bit bolshy here. Every time I see or hear the word Art, my back goes up. I'd never say that art is worthless, it might be one of the few valuable things in life, but a lot of Art that gets done seems to have no value, even aesthetic.

What art would you say is a valuable artistic endeavour? To note, I can quite consider science to be largely artistic (as well as applied philosophy), so it's not a clear area.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#213

Post by arbitrary_name » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 4:38 PM UTC

eaenki wrote: post #155

teddyh wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Full list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index

It would have been faster if you just replied with “CA and NZ”, since those are the only other countries on that list, which btw, I’m skeptical of.

NZ is surprisingly corrupt, especially at the regional and district health board (DHB) level. Not in an absolute sense, just compared to expectations.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#214

Post by mncharity » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 4:46 PM UTC

PostOnce wrote: post #15

petra wrote: post #2

How many talented people , in advanced economies, with good technical degrees , do take part in inventing important stuff ? Very few. Educating more kids and having more "ideas" won't change that. We're not lacking ideas. We're lacking the right incentives to make ideas happen.

Everything is a hassle. Building permits, operating licenses, legal compliance, etc. All those things arguably exist for good reasons, but it's a huge hurdle to doing anything useful. I can't have a 20 foot radio tower in town, I can't subdivide smaller than 10 acres outside of town, I can't build any facility out there to operate the experimental tower without building permits, radio licenses, compliance with tracki…

> Everything is a hassle. Building permits, operating licenses, [...]

Tesla's politically-connected Shanghai Gigafactory 3 looks to be going from bare field to production in around a year. Part of that was apparently government inspection being done in parallel with construction, to minimize sign-off delays.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#215

Post by sokoloff » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 4:50 PM UTC

jlokier wrote: post #208

sokoloff wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From where I stand, I seems not very far from that argument to arguing in favor of trickle down economics being a success by the same mechanism.

I see parallels too, but trickle down economics is about sending capital "up" in the hope that what's produced trickles back down from wealthy people, whereas the idea of investing in lots of people is more like sending capital "down", or at least sideways. I think a plausible factor in the failures of trickle down economics to enrich the masses as much as hoped by those who advocate it, is wealthy groups of people a…

The minute you give a bunch of people $1-3MM as upthread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21034871), you're sending $30-90BB "up", by definition, from the perspective of the typical American (median household wealth of $97,300). It's perhaps just not as far up, so not as far that it needs to trickle down, but it seems more or less the same on a zoomed out level and puts the recipients at 10-30x the median wealth. Simply investing that sum in index equity funds would typically provide a income to place a household around the median household income over a four decade period without working.

Maybe trickle down actually works. Maybe we all got a return on it in invisible ways. Maybe things would be a lot worse for the median taxpayer than they are after the policy was enacted. How would we know for sure?

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#216

Post by ericmay » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 4:52 PM UTC

ecorithm wrote: post #66

ericmay wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Primarily not a silver bullet in this case because it takes like 6 months and it’s a pretty involved submission. A VC firm just writes you a check. I have personal experience with this. The issue comes down to speed and decision making. The government can’t ever let a single person be responsible for something like this, so there is a lot of CYA.

Phase 1's are really not that hard to get, and the process is not nearly as stifling as you are alluding too. Most people without prior funding or reputation don't just get instant money from VCs. Convincing them to give you money can take a decent amount of time too. Especially if you are trying to do something actually out of the box not just something like "Its like UBER but for ..." Just speculating, but I would…

I can only speak from my experience, which is watching a good friend go through the process. It's been very lengthy for them.

You're right that it takes time in many or most cases to get funding from a VC - but they can write a check the same day - that was my point. And there are a lot of them to go pitch your idea to as well.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#217

Post by unreal37 » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 4:52 PM UTC

eaenki wrote: post #9

Imo Education is overvalued, Capital is under appreciated, And, Because Capital is trapped into networks, that Capital is squandered among an infinite array of companies employing the talent and producing products that don’t make you, or the planet, better, healthier, smarter or happier. (Apple’s SJ era, Google until 2014~ and Tesla fit the useful smarter happier paradigma, and not many other) My solution is: take a…

I don't know that I agree that capital is "under appreciated".

Capital is infinite. The US just prints an unlimited supply of dollars, and that has no effect on the value of the dollar. Governments around the world are now offering negative interest rate bonds and investors are buying them. The stock market will keep going up and never crash. Money just churns. There's no way to stop it.

Basically, there is too much money looking to invest around the world. Billions in hedge funds, pension funds, retirement accounts... Just billions and billions looking for a home.

And there's not really a good reason it will ever go away. Investors can't stop investing. They can't just sit there with a pile of cash. So investment will never end. We've entered a time of infinite capital.

Borrow $15 billion and we'll pay you to take it from us.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#218

Post by marmaduke » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 4:55 PM UTC

everybodyknows wrote: post #203

marmaduke wrote: post #10

> list of innovations we need is long but subsequent included nothing vis-a-vis the expensive, industrial lifestyle we have these days. It is unfortunate that cultural innovation doesn't make the list, since it would go a long way toward address some pertinent problems

I'd go farther and suggest that culture is the central problem. Only better culture can deliver peace and a modicum of justice. In particular, a social culture in which neighbors do not seek to rob or enslave each other. Self-driving cars, or even a cure for cancer, will not advance this central goal. Better schools on the other hand, just might.

Spot on. In this vein, I think culture can be seen as a form of 'wetware' technology. Crime, inequality and so on are technical debts of early decisions by a few, it is a sector ripe for disruption but with very strong encumbents.

Unfortunately said encumbents know how important schools are in this.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#219

Post by sokoloff » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 4:59 PM UTC

unreal37 wrote: post #217

eaenki wrote: post #9

Imo Education is overvalued, Capital is under appreciated, And, Because Capital is trapped into networks, that Capital is squandered among an infinite array of companies employing the talent and producing products that don’t make you, or the planet, better, healthier, smarter or happier. (Apple’s SJ era, Google until 2014~ and Tesla fit the useful smarter happier paradigma, and not many other) My solution is: take a…

I don't know that I agree that capital is "under appreciated". Capital is infinite. The US just prints an unlimited supply of dollars, and that has no effect on the value of the dollar. Governments around the world are now offering negative interest rate bonds and investors are buying them. The stock market will keep going up and never crash. Money just churns. There's no way to stop it. Basically, there is too much…

The US does not "[print] an unlimited supply of dollars" for if we did, they would cease to be the world reserve currency and be valueless.

Dollars are basically a claim on labor or natural resources. That we print slightly (in relative terms) more each year is what causes the slow devaluing of existing dollars in circulation. This is also known as inflation. (The linkage isn't quite that direct, but it's fairly close to it.)

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#220

Post by danenania » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 5:03 PM UTC

eaenki wrote: post #9

Imo Education is overvalued, Capital is under appreciated, And, Because Capital is trapped into networks, that Capital is squandered among an infinite array of companies employing the talent and producing products that don’t make you, or the planet, better, healthier, smarter or happier. (Apple’s SJ era, Google until 2014~ and Tesla fit the useful smarter happier paradigma, and not many other) My solution is: take a…

If you offer millions of dollars to anyone with a far fetched idea and a prototype, everyone will have a far fetched idea and a prototype, and you'll need some way to filter millions of applicants down to the 30k you can afford to give the money. It would be extremely competitive, just like VC is now, and picking the winners smartly/fairly would be just as difficult.

This doesn't mean that having some public subsidies for entrepreneurs is necessarily a bad idea, but it's not going to be a dramatic cure-all like you describe. The students in the top < 1% that would be getting funded from this system could most likely already raise that money from private investors. I think something like UBI would have a far wider and more equitable impact.