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It’s Time to Build

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Re: It’s Time to Build

#511

Post by MattGaiser »

Aeolun wrote: post #470
pdonis wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This overlooks the fact that Marc is in fact one of these folks who has a profoundly outsized role in deciding what he wants. He says what he wants, but then he expects someone else to build it. He's rich: if he wants these things, why doesn't he just pay to get them built? Sure, not all of them, but just pick one and pay to get it built. But, as you point out, he's not interested in long term investments--and that…

I doubt Marc has anywhere near enough capital to get these things done (by himself). 2 trillion is on a completely different order of magnitude. That said, maybe this post is a call for help and the billionaires will unite?

He could call Harvard and donate a bunch of developers for a year to build that system which could educate a million 18 year olds. Harvard will certainly take his call.

He couldn’t fund all the hyper efficient factories for the country, but he could build one.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#512

Post by eli_gottlieb »

KirinDave wrote: post #167

I find this essay to be extremely frustrating, and a good example of the attitude I've personally witnessed Andreessen have in the few interactions I've had with him directly. > Is the problem capitalism? I’m with Nicholas Stern when he says that capitalism is how we take care of people we don’t know — all of these fields are highly lucrative already and should be prime stomping grounds for capitalist investment, goo…

>We don't have it because building these things requires long term investments and folks like Marc and his investors are not interested in long term investments. America's corporate leadership has pursued elastic labor forces with minimal training (and therefore minimal flexibiity), outsourced manufacturing (and therefore long lead times on domestic production) and minimal redundancy in infrastructure because these rich folks think, plan and act on a quarterly calendar. We don't build new homes because homeowners like the value of their goods protected by intense scarcity. We don't compete with China because capital sees value in redundancy only with the framework of internal corporate prognostication, not as an actual net good when considered in a system

I would very much like the author of the essay to read "Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit":

>With results like these, what will the epitaph for neoliberalism look like? I think historians will conclude it was a form of capitalism that systematically prioritized political imperatives over economic ones. Given a choice between a course of action that would make capitalism seem the only possible economic system, and one that would transform capitalism into a viable, long-term economic system, neoliberalism chooses the former every time.

https://thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-declini...

Re: It’s Time to Build

#513

Post by akiselev »

pmarca wrote: post #476
svskeptic wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is great observation and speculation on what could happen and where would it come from. I've had multiple conversations with top-10 VC firm partners during our unsuccessful pitches where one of the sticking points is 'unfair-advantage'. 'How can you lock $user_group/$partners into this transaction/partnership?' Peter Thiel: "Monopolies are a good thing for society... The opposite of perfect competition is monopo…

Most of the companies we fund are trying to go disrupt someone else's "dominant market position".

So that they can take over the dominant market position, eventually using the exact same tactics to keep entrants out. Anything less would run afoul of shareholder primacy so unless VCs take an active role in promoting ethical behavior from their portfolio, those words are empty as this blog post. Anyone who wasn't born yesterday knows that human beings won't do something that is in direct opposition to their interests (the exceptions to this rule became nurses and doctors and social workers, not VCs) and without an honest to goodness change in laws, reasonable people know that VCs won't change their behavior. Since most portfolio companies are in competition with someone - a fact almost every investor in the industry is cognizant of - anything short of actually spending money on lobbying to change laws and promote their enforcement is an empty gesture.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#514

Post by jahaja »

jussij wrote: post #500
jahaja wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Regulatory capture is indeed a major underlying cause of a lot of the issues How is it even possible to isolate capitalism from regulatory capture? Capital accumulation inherently creates power and influence, so regulatory capture is surely just the perfectly logical second phase?

Now I can't speak for other government systems around the world, but here in Australia a big step forward would be as simple as having open and transparent government. Currently we have a Federal Government that loves slapping 'secret and confidential' stickers on as many of it's documents, just to keep them secret. Add to that they spends large amounts of time, money and effort fighting to keep these details secret…

Yup, I agree. I just can't really see how it's possible to incentivize this at all. To _not_ pursue regulatory capture seem to require an altruistic mindset, which I'm not naive enough to expect from businesses.

In Sweden we luckily still default to making almost every government document, including e.g. all police investigations that reaches the courts, public for all who requests them. It requires special circumstances to make them confidential and nothing that can be done in the loose manner you're describing.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#516

Post by drewbug »

dodobirdlord wrote: post #457
pmarca wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! Law = code. Law should be turned into code, and made available to everyone. A great current attempt is https://donotpay.com/

No, law is not code and it’s very important that it’s not code. Law is subject to interpretation, and that’s great. When bugs are discovered in law, they can be retroactively corrected.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpreted_language :)

Re: It’s Time to Build

#517

Post by eli_gottlieb »

KirinDave wrote: post #415
darawk wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Markets build in response to incentives. Most American production choices are determined by markets, including the choices of investors allocating capital. This leaves out the most important problem though: regulatory capture and bureaucratic gridlock. Markets would love to build more housing. But they're prevented from doing so by the regulatory state. Markets would love to build nuclear power plants, but they're…

> Markets would love to build more housing... But they're prevented from doing so by the regulatory state Interesting claim. Do you want to detail this more? Most of my experience is not with the State itself being an obstacle, but as a tool in the hands of landlords and capitalists to help enforce scarcity.

Yeah, there's really very little difference between "the State(TM)" at a city council level and the local property owners as a class, and a class that is overrepresented in electoral participation.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#518

Post by harichinnan »

Living in New Jersey, gives me a front row view of crumbling America. I grew up in India and have no illusions of American infrastructure being third world standards. I'm taking about houses people live. I've been trying to buy a house I like for past 4 years. I've been to open houses in many small towns here. Town after town, I see 60, 80 even 100 years old houses, that are beyond repair. They all sell at upwards of 400K. I talked to realtors about new houses. They said people are afraid to repair or rebuild houses. If you rebuild your house from ground up, the town would reassess their property taxes and often charge 1000 to 1500 dollars a month of a medium sized family home. My friends in India earning much less than me live in far better and newer houses these days.

I think it's the lack of political will in America to make our lives better. You let your politicians (especially at local level) confine you to essentially urban slums rather than let you build a dignified life with your hard earned money.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#519

Post by georgewsinger »

zelly wrote: post #487

This was one of the best posts I've ever read. Thinking about printing it out and framing it. It's more inspirational than anything I've read, and it articulates the elephant-in-the-room problem we all know but aren't talking about. No one is innovating anymore. Everyone copies each other. Even in the YC crowd, every other thing is a dumb CRUD app or AI snake oil project that has been rehashed since the 80s. Where's…

Your response is also printable/framable.

> Where's the thorium reactors? Why does it still take 3 days to wire money? Where's the brain-computer interface? I never imagined people would be so lazy in the future. The idea of passive investment in an index fund has analogized to every part of our culture. We have come to expect things to magically grow on their own without any effort.

Amen.

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