And he doesn't even touch on the inefficiency of public research spending which has ballooned since 2000 with disappointing returns
You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook
31–40 of 230 posts
Re: You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook
#32Only 4 more years until Elon Musk puts a $30,000 Tesla on Mars where solar power roofs cost the same as conventional. I believed it until about 3 years ago, when I realized spaceX is Elon's government subsidized advertisement for his other projects. Also the 30k car is never coming. And the roof price is loaded with astricks to be 'correct". We really need to wake up to the next gen marketing tactics.
That's not how marketing works. You don't try to make reusable interplanetary rockets just to sell cars. That would be the worst marketing tactic of all time.
Re: You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook
#33I've told myself countless times lately, that it is simply not possible for young graduates to come to work knowing basically nothing, surfing fb and youtube all day long and then go buy cars and going to Greece as their very first vacation. Something, somewhere, just stinks badly. I've literally never seen a challenging and well run project in almost 10 years in this business. Always late, always overstaffed, always…
> I've told myself countless times lately, that it is simply not possible for young graduates to come to work knowing basically nothing, surfing fb and youtube all day long and then go buy cars and going to Greece as their very first vacation. Something, somewhere, just stinks badly.
What is this in reference to? Where do buying cars and holidays in Greece come into this article? Is there a stereotype of programmers holidaying in Greece?! And tech types mostly hate buying cars don’t they?
Re: You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook
#34It sounds like people are forgetting the world before Facebook. Isolated, repressed locations, limited flow of information from tiny amounts of sources. The Connected-Information Age seems to have brought on some great advances and has been self-sustaining from a profitable perspective. Sure, the worlds' governments could have spent billions / trillions building bases on Mars or even terraforming it. But for what pur…
i m not against facebook , but no, the world was "more" connected before facebook and mobile (which i think both represent a shift in the way internet was used). People were connected in open pseudonymous platforms and engaging in continuous explorative mystery with each other, everyone, not just their friends. It's fair to say i haven't read radical ideas online in a decade, and a lot of the edgy stuff of the old internet has been censored / outlawed. Real names BS and phone numbers turned the internet to a phonebook.
Re: You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook
#35Mars colonies don't come from the private sector, Elon and Jeff notwithstanding. The problem is that public science has been starved of funding for decades through tax cuts.
If the author would take off his (it's always a he) blinkers of technocracy he might see that profitability is not the only measure of "why." Some things are not profitable, yet are still worth doing. Andrew Yang-lite doesn't account for this at all (see "blinkers" above), which is pretty much par for the course for the "Facebook is the be-all end-all" attitude.
To paraphrase JFK, we pay taxes for public benefit not because it is cheap, but because it is expensive.
Re: You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook
#36It sounds like people are forgetting the world before Facebook. Isolated, repressed locations, limited flow of information from tiny amounts of sources. The Connected-Information Age seems to have brought on some great advances and has been self-sustaining from a profitable perspective. Sure, the worlds' governments could have spent billions / trillions building bases on Mars or even terraforming it. But for what pur…
What misery is Earth enduring now, because we built Facebook instead of building next-generation mass transit to link continents and cities? Instead of optimizing food and water logistics, so less food is wasted and more of the world were fed? Instead of taxing petro and plastics companies for the externality of destroying the climate? My point being that if you or most people really gave a damn about human misery, there would be far fewer people tolerating the kind of unfettered capitalism that exists today.
I don't completely demonize Facebook's general concept. I appreciate and advocate for the idea of a federated Internet with single identity and no central authority on content. I'm not attacking that. I am challenging your idea (and the article's) that profit should be that important, or that the existence of Facebook is mutually exclusive to costly research/welfare/exploration.
Re: You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It sounds like people are forgetting the world before Facebook. Isolated, repressed locations, limited flow of information from tiny amounts of sources. Facebook is not the internet. This problem was solved long before 2005.
Depends where you live. https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/facebook-is-the-internet-f...
You can also argue that Facebook was the death of local communication and socialisation and thus a step back for that goal.
Re: You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook
#38I have talked to VCs who told they love to fund "deep tech", but when they realize that basic research is binary result, they get surprised, and say it's too risky. And sometimes the VCs who evaluate this are people who are young enough to never lived on their own during a recession.
Re: You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook
#39NASA hasn’t been actively trying to drive down the cost of space. If the had it would of unlocked space for all of us decades ago.
It took SpaceX investing their own profits into building a reusable booster. And now they’re doing the same for the entire vehicle with Starship. NASA does pay SpaceX for flights to the IIS, but most of that money goes into building Dragons and the rockets to support them.
What if NASA actually invested in truly low maintenance fully reusable vehicles decades ago? You might actually have Mars colonies today. But what do we have? Continued investment in SLS when the writing has been on the wall for years now.
Re: You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook
#40"You get what you measure" - talk to VCs that could finance your idea and then weep when you see what ideas do they actually select. Quick boring ROI + veiled scams are the way to go these days if you want to get external funding.
VCs have investors too. Want to change VC behavior? You need to change LP behavior. And if you think VCs are unoriginal with herd mentalities then LPs are 10x more so. If we want Mars colonies we need firms like Sequoia—-who effectively have the financial equivalent of tenure—-to step up, or it will come from billionaire entrepreneurs who have the risk tolerance and vision to think differently. Let’s hope all these tech unicorns are successful because it will be that generation that goes on to fund meaningful innovation, not University endowments or pension funds.