Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation • Hacker News Board

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

#481

Post by srtjstjsj » Sun, Sep 13, 2020, 5:16 PM UTC

0xfaded wrote: post #362

pmachinery wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason Europe can't have a powerful federal government is that most people in Europe quite rightly don't want one.

This is obviously a massive topic, but from my vantage as a foreigner living in Europe is that Europe already has (and pays for) all features of a federal government with two exceptions. * Responsibility to implement treaties remains with the individual members. * No ability to tax or set fiscal policy. The advantage of a single set of laws is obvious. For starters I wouldn't be spending my Sunday reading a 500 page…

And who should pick the central government? Vote by population so that Germany is in charge?

Minorities don't care well under powerful central government. Unless that government is a minority dictator tha terrorizes the majority.

Would you enjoy being europe's version of an Uighur in China?

> And then you have mafias, bankers, tax havens, uneven social nets, and a raft of other social problems that can only effectively be dealt with by a central government

US has all these problems even worse than Europe except maybe the mafia next the mafia took over the government directly.

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

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Post by srtjstjsj » Sun, Sep 13, 2020, 5:21 PM UTC

mattalex wrote: post #349

Aerroon wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more of a case of "most electronics and everything that runs on it is not made in Europe". I'm a European posting on an American company's forum using a browser made in the US running on an operating system made by an American company running on a phone designed and built in China with components made in a variety of countries that aren't in Europe. The same goes for using a desktop PC. Even most of the…

I think that comparing only the technology sector gives a wrong perspective on the amount of research being done: According to the National Science Foundation of the USA https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20206/publication-output-by-re... The EU actually produces more research papers than China or the US. (of course that isn't a perfect metric, but it's still an indicator) I think that many people conflate "innovation" wi…

Also EU has Airbus, and the US imports its civil engineering (tunnels, trains, and huge machinery) from Europe

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

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Post by srtjstjsj » Sun, Sep 13, 2020, 5:21 PM UTC

SSLy wrote: post #474

realityking wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that you picked two examples where the innovation wasn’t commercialized and the innovator did not become rich. I suspect there‘s some cultural aspect to that.

Uhm, Linus makes seven figures.

And his nearest peers made 10 figures.

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

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Post by srtjstjsj » Sun, Sep 13, 2020, 5:23 PM UTC

lixtra wrote: post #283

warrenq wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30 years ago and 40 years ago, respectively

30 years ago you would have said that Microsoft dominates and www is a niche thing. And Turing was already 50 years ago. It’s likely that something significant is going on in Europe that we don’t know about yet.

It's easy to point to hundred-billion dollar projects in the US from the last 20 years.

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

#485

Post by srtjstjsj » Sun, Sep 13, 2020, 5:24 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #365

realityking wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that you picked two examples where the innovation wasn’t commercialized and the innovator did not become rich. I suspect there‘s some cultural aspect to that.

IMO this is a big difference: I'd actually feel quit bad about becoming rich off th back oef a technology or innovation that I could have made more open and widely available.

Would you say Windows is not widely available?

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

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Post by danielovichdk » Sun, Sep 13, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

d0gbread wrote: post #422

crazygringo wrote: post #408

> And that's one of the key reasons why China has been able to catch up... he thinks the US is still ahead of China in tech innovation, for now. But that the gap is narrowing fast. Which is awesome . Because framing it as "ahead" or a "gap" is completely backwards. Innovation isn't a competition or zero-sum game. Innovation coming out of China benefits the world , just like innovation coming out of the US does. What…

Is it awesome? The Chinese government has such power over the people and businesses innovating that there could be significant implications for Chinese citizens, neighboring countries, and the world. Where innovation happens first and how closely it's held affects so much. Your comment strikes me as dangerously optimistic.

Funny really to say this when the USA is backed by corporations, which flows directly into its core government.

China is a huge country with a non-democratic ideology. And it works immensly well - just look at all the US corporations which has invested heavily in chineese labor.

Oh, and btw. China own what... 20% of US?

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

#487

Post by aborsy » Sun, Sep 13, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

emsy wrote: post #195

Tangential, since this article is about the US and China. But if the US has dropped the ball, then Europe (or the EU specifically) didn't even bother to go to the game. The only thing we're innovative at is coming up with regulations. And I say this as someone who thinks the US tech sector should be under much heavier regulatory scrutiny.

The political economy of the Europe makes it fundamentally ill-suited to technological innovation.

Its best years are already behind it.

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

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Post by transperceneige » Sun, Sep 13, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

mytherin wrote: post #343

jeswin wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not monopolistic abuse; what you described is just investment in a new sector with profits from an existing one. Companies, investors and funds do it all the time. Abuse would be when a company leverages a monopoly to enter or influence another market, such as bundling Internet Explorer with Windows.

Perhaps monopoly abuse is not the right term, but Microsoft did buy their way into the gaming industry by selling millions of consoles at a loss. There is no way for any company that is not already a multi-billion dollar company to compete with that. The same happens in many other areas where large tech companies use their inertia and tons of existing capital to make it impossible for anyone but other tech giants to…

Predatory pricing is what you are refering to.

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

#489

Post by danielovichdk » Sun, Sep 13, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

throwawayinfo wrote: post #299

tnolet wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d say the EU and euro zone is one of the biggest and boldest innovations in the postwar Western world.

But it's still terribly fragile and Brexit risks the whole thing collapsing. Not necessarily an innovation if it won't stand up to time.

Fragile compare to what? Not having UK ik EU?

I cannot look into the future, but as far as I know, i would rather be in the same club as all the wealthy guys than stand outside and not have anything to deal with.

The UK might still have the idea and arrogance of being a big kingdom, but they're really not. We'll see, i don't think it will end neither good or bad for the EU in that regard, but if the days comes that UK is derailed in any way, the EU will not help - i think.

And that's dangerous of course, but its solely a problem the UK put on themselves. Good luck

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

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Post by tracer4201 » Sun, Sep 13, 2020, 5:54 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #441

aikinai wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever you're position happens to be, you can't pretend like we're all in this innovating together for the betterment of humankind. China and the US have very different ideologies and are opposing forces in global geopolitics. There are a lot of people, both inside the US and outside, that would prefer to see the US continue to be the most innovative country, so Schmidt's perspective is relevant and informative, no…

But what do ideologies/forces have to do with it? The article uses published scientific papers as an example. That's open . That's research results the US is getting for free, from China . Which is awesome! The only way I can interpret your comment as making sense is if we were talking solely about military innovation -- innovation in China's navies, in its air force, in its missiles, or even its ability to hack and…

At face value, everything you stated makes sense. I’m not an expert in this topic, and so I’ll share my naive view.

If we were talking about a Western democracy such as the Germany becoming more competitive with the US in terms of more or valuable research, I’d have no qualms.

What concerns me about China catching up with the US is my lack of trust in China - they aren’t a democracy. They control information, and my fear is that my children or children’s children may end up in a world where China has an economic advantage to the extent that it becomes oppressive against Americans. I can already see that China’s growing economic advantage means that American companies operating in China will bend over backwards for the Chinese government or even engage in censorship (in alignment with Chinese law). This concerns me a lot. Globalization already wiped out segments of America’s labor market. A recent book I was reading (Good Econonics for Hard Times) says that those people whose jobs shipped away (primarily China) actually dropped completely out of the labor force. It’s not that most people just retrain or move to a different part of the country.

Anyway, I am making a connection here between research and economic growth. I think scientific progress will provide China with a economic benefit. I don’t know what economists have to say about this, and so I could be wrong.

Some of the things I’m stating are hypotheticals and you could accuse me of fear mongering. America itself doesn’t have a clean track record (I don’t think many people remember or even knew the destruction we’ve caused in the Middle East since after 9/11).