Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup - Class 11 Notes Essay • Hacker News Board

Re: Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup - Class 11 Notes Essay

#11

Post by kiba » Sat, May 12, 2012, 4:38 AM UTC

pjscott wrote: post #7

kiba wrote: post #5

Here's my "secret" I believe to be true. Rule of law makes countries rich. Rule of law foster cooperation and trust in societies. People can trust authorities and each other. Democracies don't foster trust. Instead, they ferment disrespect and corruption. Politicians make law to gain vote. They don't care about long term consequences. They want pork for their district, not efficient funding. That lead to distrust, fe…

> Rule of law makes countries rich. Rule of law foster cooperation and trust in societies. People can trust authorities and each other. I don't think that part of your thesis is too controversial. The big idea of common law, for example, is that courts try to make their decisions reasonably consistent with previous decisions, not because they think that this will necessarily lead to the best decisions each time, but…

I don't think that part of your thesis is too controversial. The big idea of common law, for example, is that courts try to make their decisions reasonably consistent with previous decisions, not because they think that this will necessarily lead to the best decisions each time, but because this makes the law predictable. Predictable laws are an important part of a good business environment.

My big problem with the legislative branch is that they love to make law and they do so recklessly. This bypass any attempt at making laws consistent and predictable or any attempt to figure out whether those laws are any good.

Re: Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup - Class 11 Notes Essay

#12

Post by ebabchick » Sat, May 12, 2012, 5:28 AM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #8

aik wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you give a quick summary of how technology inevitably leads to loss of freedom? I understand that this is often the case, but is it always necessarily the case? Ie. Is it a universal law that "Technology leads to loss of freedom"?

It's been about ten years since I last read it, but as I remember the basic argument is: - Technology can always be used for both good and evil. - As technology gets more powerful, the potential for causing harm will be greater. - Each new technology will require new laws in order to minimize the potential harms of that technology. - Each of those laws is going to have unintended consequences that will result in the…

Those first four bullets may be true statements, but the second bullet point is a half-truth. It should read "As technology gets more powerful, the potential for causing harm will be greater AND the amount of freedom will increase by some arbitrary amount." It's then reasonable to say that new laws are made to put new technologies in check. It's a lot harder to reach the same conclusion if that's the case.

Re: Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup - Class 11 Notes Essay

#13

Post by abhaga » Sat, May 12, 2012, 11:43 AM UTC

kiba wrote: post #5

Here's my "secret" I believe to be true. Rule of law makes countries rich. Rule of law foster cooperation and trust in societies. People can trust authorities and each other. Democracies don't foster trust. Instead, they ferment disrespect and corruption. Politicians make law to gain vote. They don't care about long term consequences. They want pork for their district, not efficient funding. That lead to distrust, fe…

You will be hard pressed to find an Indian who believes that we have progressed because of our government or system. The question is how far can we go with the burden of a corrupt system and what happens once we hit that limit.

Re: Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup - Class 11 Notes Essay

#14

Post by downvoteme » Sun, May 13, 2012, 6:38 AM UTC

@kiba, pjscott is correct. But what makes countries rich is not laws. It's natural resources. Either having them, or having control over them, even if they are in another country. Give it some thought. Apply the idea to some sample countries. You might revise your thesis.

Form of government might be a red herring. Corruption and injustice might be tied to people and culture, not simply to form of government. Think about it.

Re: Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup - Class 11 Notes Essay

#15

Post by srconstantin » Sun, May 13, 2012, 1:41 PM UTC

Secret I believe to be true:

A good deal of experimental research is a cartel on resources and data. The "open access" movement in biology is not what programmers would think of as open; you can get access to many "open" data sets only by application, and you pretty much need to be an academic biologist to be granted an application. Science would be much stronger if there was a norm of truly sharing data. But restricting access is in the interest of each individual researcher who wants to maintain his/her relative prestige advantage.