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Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

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Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#171

Post by _heimdall »

akiselev wrote: post #84
natmaka wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it an effect of a feeling caused by governments using experts in a way letting (too often and a too large part of) the public think that they, at worst, are all (gov & experts alike) pushing their own short-termed and only self-beneficial agendas or, at best, nearly always devise some "Grand Plan" which then appears to cost much more than budgeted, gives less than promised and has unwanted unexpected side-effec…

It's a self fulfilling prophecy that's been ongoing since the 80s. An entire political party's ideology is based on the idea that government doesn't work and when in power they set out to prove it by making government dysfunctional by defunding agencies and confusing their mandates. That same party politicized clean air regulations, climate change, and wearing masks . This has crippled expertise because if one side c…

Elected officials from both parties have failed us. Yes the Republicans have made it painfully obvious just how little they care about the goals of the American experiment these last 4 years, but the Democratic party isn't fundamentally any better.

The founders set the entire western world down the path of a bastardization of a republic and a representative democracy out of fear that voters are stupid. That choice has inherent risk that leaders will be corrupted and that those elected will move further away from what is in the public's best interests. The founders simply believed that this wouldn't arise, that the system could correct course and weed out the bad actors.

All the Republicans have done since 2016 is shown how that belief fails. We don't have a true democracy, and what semblance of one had been chipped away at for years. The Republican Party of old wasn't wrong in wanting small government, the best way to keep corruption out of a representative system is to keep power out of those representatives' hands. They simply joined the Democratic Party on the side of big government and massive budgetary spending with a different target audience (big business and banks rather than citizens).

The Democratic Party can't be ignored though. They have made a career of spending money they don't have and creating social programs that aren't sustainable and can't properly be defined on the scale of 300M+ citizens. Their solution for any problem is more control and more intricate rules, but that just leads to a less resilient system that is more dependant on the idea of leadership having every answer and solution.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#172

Post by radicalbyte »

missedthecue wrote: post #146
sorval wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats just utterly untrue and the reverse of whats actually true. "states that were coded as blue based upon results from the 2004 presidential election were significantly higher in education funding than were states coded as red. Students in blue states scored significantly higher on outcome measures of math and reading in grades four and eight than did students in red states." https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED5…

Is there any correlation at all between increased school funding and better educational outcomes? For instance, Utah spends $5k per student per year while Baltimore spends $25k per student per year. Utahan children have higher graduation rates, better GPAs, and better standardized test scores. It's the same across the US from NYC to LA. I'm growing more and more skeptical that throwing more and more money into the fu…

It could be four things:

  - Comparing two statistical flukes.
  - Socio-economic factor: Utah has better wealth distribution.
  - Socio-economic factor: Utah has affordable housing and Baltimore so the effective wealth gap is lower.
  - Baltimore has other issues.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#173

Post by reducesuffering »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #142
reducesuffering wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Further, GP notes > "they must take on a punishingly expensive college education or they’ll never amount to anything." Except that high school graduates have the option to do 2 years of community college (~5k) and 2 years at a state school (~13k). Generally possible to most while living at home for no additional rent. CS jobs are in high supply and 100k+ out of college. The college cost would be paid off in a year. T…

> 100k+ out of college Isn't this only true in a few select cities? I don't think the average programmer is getting paid that (the AU equivalent) much here in Australia outside of maybe some companies in Melbourne and Sydney and maybe Adelaide.

The article and thread was talking about the US, which has the highest software salaries worldwide and where I was referring to for the 100k+ compensation.

While I don't know too much about the Australian market, positions all across the US are 100k+ entry level. Not just in a few select cities, but probably in almost every state. Like Nebraska, Texas, and Tennessee with median house prices just 2x that entry level compensation.[0][1][2]

[0]https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=Software+Engineer+$100,000&l=O...

[1]https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=Software+Engineer+$100,000&l=T...

[2]https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=Software+Engineer+$100,000&l=T...

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#175

Post by pbourke »

RestlessMind wrote: post #148
fiblye wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in fact it's almost being denigrated and shamed. "Almost" really isn't necessary there anymore. There's a growing group that believes virtually all doctors, scientists, and professionals within certain fields are "in on it" and part of some big conspiracy to do some vague, undefined thing that'll take down America and corrupt their children. These used to just be a fringe group. Now it feels like about half the peo…

> There's a growing group that believes ... certain fields are "in on it" ... some big conspiracy to do some vague, undefined thing I mean, I won't fault anyone if they are jaded and distrust everything the "experts" have to say these days. Look at what we witnessed in the last 20 or so years: 1. Iraq war, where our intelligence agencies were sure about WMDs and the senate voted 97-0 to wage a war that ended up wasti…

> Iraq war, where our intelligence agencies were sure about WMDs and the senate voted 97-0 to wage a war that ended up wasting thousands of American lives, trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives along with destabilizing the entire region.

My impression is that the war was a solution in search of a problem. The administration leaned on the intelligence community until the right conclusion was produced.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#176

Post by nix23 »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #156
tomcam wrote: post #150

A reminder that Google's revenues come almost completely from ad technology that they bought (from Doubleclick, IIRC). Google has stuck its fingers into hundreds of pies since then, to its credit, and has found that innovation is difficult, unpredictable, and expensive.

Search, Maps, Ads and Android are Google's most successful product. Android was bought at well.

Search and Streetview is the only true Google-Product, everything else was copied or a buy from others.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#177

Post by makomk »

moneytide1 wrote: post #6

I saw a "Just Have A Think" YouTube channel video recently describing the 1MV HVDC line being built across China. It is part of Belt&Road infrastructure project and will allow them to distribute excess loads to different time zones without skin effect losses of an AC line. This is a part of their COVID stimulus injection. When American $1.2k per citizen landed in accounts, I remember checking local Walmarts in the we…

As far as I can tell, the reason other countries haven't built anything like this is that it doesn't make sense from a grid engineering perspective, and the main benefit of building such a high-voltage high-capacity line is the propaganda one of being able to claim it's world leading. The big problem is that the grid needs to have enough redundancy to stay up if a single generator or transmission line fails, so the big high-capacity single transmission lines that China builds can't actually be used at close to their nominal capacity. It probably wouldn't even work as a propaganda stunt in countries with a free press; if the Trump administration built something like this, I just know the NYT headlines would be about how it was a useless Trumpian folly and showed the perils of his disdain for experts.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#178

Post by nix23 »

robk wrote: post #166
throw_m239339 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Search, Maps, Ads and Android are Google's most successful product. Android was bought at well.

The serious android work was done well after acquisition

I would say the serious work was done before...you know the operating-system. Like with chrome..the serious work was made before...khtml.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#179

Post by Gibbon1 »

pbourke wrote: post #175
RestlessMind wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a growing group that believes ... certain fields are "in on it" ... some big conspiracy to do some vague, undefined thing I mean, I won't fault anyone if they are jaded and distrust everything the "experts" have to say these days. Look at what we witnessed in the last 20 or so years: 1. Iraq war, where our intelligence agencies were sure about WMDs and the senate voted 97-0 to wage a war that ended up wasti…

> Iraq war, where our intelligence agencies were sure about WMDs and the senate voted 97-0 to wage a war that ended up wasting thousands of American lives, trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives along with destabilizing the entire region. My impression is that the war was a solution in search of a problem. The administration leaned on the intelligence community until the right conclusion was pr…

Since Vietnam the war community has wanted one do over after another. To prove that war has a useful role in foreign policy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_Syndrome

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#180

Post by hliyan »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #162
hliyan wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: I grew up in a third world country where class room sizes were between 30-40. Facilities and teacher qualifications were spartan at best. Good textbooks cost an appreciable fraction of an average person's monthly income.

For this to be a counterpoint you'd need to demonstrate how this lead to good eductional outcomes, or at least provide an anecdote.

Until recently (I joined a startup), I was VP Engineering for a Fortune 100 corporation, leading the development of a system that ran an appreciable fraction of the company's revenue (over $50B) through it. Before that I developed trading systems software for two of the world's largest stock exchanges. Largely self-congratulatory and anecdotal, yes, but that seems to be what you wanted to validate the counterpoint.
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