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Elite Underproduction

troynikov.io

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Re: Elite Underproduction

#291

Post by njarboe »

ntr-- wrote: post #287
kragen wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, like Einstein or Newton. Einstein's work on relativity (01905) was inspired by the Michelson-Morley experiment (01887), less than 20 years before, and its many improved replications. His work on the photoelectric effect was inspired by Hertz's experimental discovery of it (also 01887), followed by numerous further experiments which clarified the nature of the effect. Although Brownian motion had been observed, i…

I'm curious about your reasons for prefixing years with an additional 0 in all your posts.

This notation is encouraged by the Long Now foundation which promotes long term thinking in various ways.

Re: Elite Underproduction

#292

Post by wpietri »

ch4s3 wrote: post #273
wpietri wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Thanks for the reply. In which case, it sounds like they're perfectly ok with authority and hierarchy as long as they see it as "fairly" achieved via amassing wealth in ways that they deem moral, yes? I'd certainly agree that's a weakness, in that it really seems to undercut the "anarcho" portion.

I think they'd see it as fine as long as you don't come to it by force, either your own or the government's. Generally these folks seem to think that in a free market that it's easy to be toppled by upstarts and hard to become very large without the state helping you. Would that be the case? I have no clue. I mean, anarchy is about removing the central state first and foremost. The economics bit is where these folks…

Huh. That's not my impression of anarchism. Not the people I've met for sure. And given the long history of anarchism in labor activism, I have a hard time believing it was ever purely about "the central state".

Re: Elite Underproduction

#293

Post by nonplus »

There is something ironic about looking down on the stack ml practitioners use while trying to bootstrap your public speaking career using ghost/a javascript based service. If you are going to name drop tech stacks you don't think are worth using that cuts both ways.

Re: Elite Underproduction

#294

Post by eru »

avsteele wrote: post #30

I disagree with the article's premises and conclusions, my perspective is that of a physicist who also knows many lapsed physicists. The premise seems wrong in that he disagrees with the elite overproduction thesis, but the professions he lists are " lawyers, MBA holders,..." and later to finance. But these are the professions likely to be zero-sum. So to me the article really is "I agree with the elite overproductio…

> The premise seems wrong in that he disagrees with the elite overproduction thesis, but the professions he lists are " lawyers, MBA holders,..." and later to finance. But these are the professions likely to be zero-sum.

What makes you think so?

Re: Elite Underproduction

#295

Post by ch4s3 »

wpietri wrote: post #292
ch4s3 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they'd see it as fine as long as you don't come to it by force, either your own or the government's. Generally these folks seem to think that in a free market that it's easy to be toppled by upstarts and hard to become very large without the state helping you. Would that be the case? I have no clue. I mean, anarchy is about removing the central state first and foremost. The economics bit is where these folks…

Huh. That's not my impression of anarchism. Not the people I've met for sure. And given the long history of anarchism in labor activism, I have a hard time believing it was ever purely about "the central state".

I'm obviously simplifying a complicated topic quite a bit. I'm leaving out the whole distinction to be made around Anarcho-syndicalism which is the labor organizing focused strain of anarchy, however these folks are very much against the state. These folks are sometimes historically called left-libertarians and have a strong historical claim on the term libertarian itself. But again, they all don't like the state. There are also collectivist and communist anarchists, however the latter may even be possible.

Re: Elite Underproduction

#296

Post by cryptica »

jart wrote: post #281
cryptica wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone has the luxury to engage in open source for fun. For some people, open source is the only way for them to compete with big tech and their army of marketers. It's a way to reduce margins to 0 in order to have any chance to compete.

If you're in it for the buck then how are you different from them? There's a time and place to get rich and there's a time and place to have fun. Open source is where we go to have fun and help out. Not everything in this world needs an economic reason. If someone gives you software who is angry and feels like you're exploiting them, then would you want to use it?

Money is the most important thing in life. It's always people who have money who say it's not important. But then when you ask them to give you or loan you or invest in you a tiny amount of their money, suddenly they act as if it's the most precious thing in the universe and they do this while simultaneously lecturing you about how unimportant it is. Hypocrites.

Many corporate CEOs constantly shout at their staff... Open source people are the most patient people on the planet. I don't know any angry open source person so I don't understand this argument at all.

It took me 10 years of open source work before I was able to experience some financial success for the first time. I didn't start doing open source for money; I did it for attention, but these days, money and attention are the same thing. So now everything I do is 100% about money. It's easier to get money than attention nowadays... Look at companies like Snap and Uber; they don't earn any money (not profits) but they're valuable because of attention.

Re: Elite Underproduction

#297

Post by pydry »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #127
pydry wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of trying to quantify research (not really measuable in any meaningful sense) perhaps ask yourself how physics has improved your every day life and then ask yourself which improvements you think society should have given up in exchange for a greater supply of quants. Things like the microchip, wifi, rocketry, satellites, jet engines, etc. If the answer is "none of it" that tends to suggest underproduction.

This is some rather flawed logic. The productivity of physicists at the time the microchip was invented doesn’t suggest anything at all about the productivity of physicists today, and the utility of productive physics research doesn’t suggest anything at all about the existence of non-productive physics research.

Are you saying that there is a better measure than past performance?
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