151–160 of 1001 posts
I don't know why soaring skyscrapers should be viewed as some sort of penultimate view for the future. With remote work tech, we can rid ourselves of the need for dense urban cores, and we can decentralize our population centers more appropriately.
Let's build what we need to make remote work fully practical and available to many more people!
I'm in the process of reading _Why Nation Fails_. The central thesis is that the rich and poor countries are separated by inclusive vs extractive institutions. The extractive institutions are characterised by elites that attempt to defend their own wealth and status by maintaining the status quo and resisting the creative destruction that may threaten that position. It seems to resonate a bit here, when Marc speaks o…
> why not write simpler laws and regulations and leave it to the courts What incentives do lawmakers have to make laws simpler?
(Not that they are accessible now... but it could be worse.)
If you buy it, people will build it.
Ok, assume I'm bought into this idea - where would I even begin? What are some companies working on these kind of fundamental building things problems? I know of the Boring Company, though haven't really heard anything from them since the flamethrowers a few years back. Sidewalk labs was doing some cool things in Toronto, but I think they've been running into big regulatory issues too and it one point it sounded like…
One place where I'm finally starting to see this kind of desire to build making its way into the public sphere (and not just resonating in tech circles) is with all the growing energy around a Green New Deal (https://www.sunrisemovement.org/green-new-deal).
This is the first time in at least a decade that I can remember politicians talking with the same attitude Marc was. The climate crisis is an incredible opportunity to BUILD! And to build like we haven't built in generations!
I love your desire to find companies working in this space. I am interested to see what responses you get on that front. But I also think a serious way we can help is by shifting the public consciousness towards _belief in our ability to build_, by advocating for things like the GND. So this is how I'm spending my outside-work time right now: volunteering and organizing to spread the vision of a society that BUILDS, and fighting for political candidates that share that vision. :)
> I expect this essay to be the target of criticism. Here’s a modest proposal to my critics. Instead of attacking my ideas of what to build, conceive your own! What do you think we should build? There’s an excellent chance I’ll agree with you. What we need to build is the capacity to make investments in building backstops against low-prob, high-risk, collective risks. For almost all of those risks, the problem isn't…
These are emergency preparedness problems so funding them means setting aside a pile of money and resources until the emergency actually happens. That pile of money makes an attractive target for capital, who can afford to fund campaigns to privatize those services and then get the emergency stockpile as a reward. That sort of maneuver has to go through a vote, but most voters get their understanding of the world through capital-owned media, so that's not much of an obstacle.
Edit: More and more, I think we need worker-owned news.
I'm in the process of reading _Why Nation Fails_. The central thesis is that the rich and poor countries are separated by inclusive vs extractive institutions. The extractive institutions are characterised by elites that attempt to defend their own wealth and status by maintaining the status quo and resisting the creative destruction that may threaten that position. It seems to resonate a bit here, when Marc speaks o…
Getting an answer from a court (is X legal?) takes a long time: at least a few years and several hundred thousand dollars. Far too long to wait before building a business around X. Asking people to build the business first and then find out if it's legal isn't how a society of laws is supposed to work. Fast courts would be a huge benefit to society.
> ... The things we build in huge quantities, like computers and TVs, drop rapidly in price. The things we don’t, like housing, schools, and hospitals, skyrocket in price. What’s the American dream? The opportunity to have a home of your own, and a family you can provide for. We need to break the rapidly escalating price curves for housing, education, and healthcare, to make sure that every American can realize the d…
I would like my representatives to have a say in what is a reckless investors or not.
And I'm not really interested in schooling or health becoming more profitable as a vessel for investment in free market.
I would rather have decent, cheap public education for my kids and something else than whatever we're having for health. That the goal.
Unfortunalty, I don't think it's a great fit for a friction-less market. We're not selling financial instrument, we're trying to give young citizen everywhere a decent education, and have access to health.
Ok, assume I'm bought into this idea - where would I even begin? What are some companies working on these kind of fundamental building things problems? I know of the Boring Company, though haven't really heard anything from them since the flamethrowers a few years back. Sidewalk labs was doing some cool things in Toronto, but I think they've been running into big regulatory issues too and it one point it sounded like…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honest, no snark question -- what exactly US government did in last 30 years that should warrant providing more money to it? Is there any guarantee that another trillion dollars will be used more efficiently than blowing up another Middle East country?
Here's one teeny tiny example. They made a smart investment, to the tune of billions of dollars, in computer science. And not just for the past 30 years, but continuously for the past 100 years. That investment included a modest (6-7 figure, depending on how your count) investment in a project on digital libraries years before private capital caught on. The private investors were rewarded handsomely for their investm…
It’s not like “communication“ is an industry that is starving for investment or talent.
The government sucks at spending money. Giving to the banks is the least stupid thing to do. The banks at least have some way to propagate it down to large funds and eventually to smaller funds that have some sense in what is a worthwhile investment or not.