22 years of job creation wiped out in a day • Hacker News Board

Re: 22 years of job creation wiped out in a day

#51

Post by yters » Wed, Jan 28, 2009, 6:45 PM UTC

netcan wrote: post #42

omouse wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. It's freedom defending itself. The freedom to take away your own freedom...sounds kind of silly don't you think?

I've thought about these kinds of things often lately. Freedom defending itself, democracy defending itself & such. What should be done about anti-democratic parties in a democratic society? Those kinds of things. I am coming to the conclusion that you hit a breaking point if this becomes to big an issue. Sure it's ok to handle it one way or another if the above party is at Same goes in this case. When it's a once a…

My view is that as long as relinquishing one's own freedom does not impact the freedom of others, then it should slide. This assumes the person relinquishing is doing so voluntarily and with full knowledge of the alternatives.

Otherwise, it isn't really freedom in the libertarian sense, since people should be free to do what they want as long as it doesn't harm others. Plus, what makes a person feel free can vary from person to person, so if "freedom" is being mandated as in France, then it can actually become totalitarian in the name of "freedom."

Re: 22 years of job creation wiped out in a day

#52

Post by ahoyhere » Wed, Jan 28, 2009, 9:11 PM UTC

byrneseyeview wrote: post #50

ahoyhere wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the beauties of startups, as labeled by pg, is that they can be begun with almost no capital but time -- because they don't require almost anything in the way of external equipment & services. They can be very self-contained, rather than interdependent; no supply chain needed, etc. So I suspect that your suspicion is wrong.

You're thinking about the demand side (to be able to do X, you must do the following job-creating activities), but I'm talking about the supply side (once you've done X, it enables people to do the following job-creating activities). So a company like Wufoo or Weebly can make it cheaper for other companies to grow, adding more jobs. In fact, I'm certain Wufoo has helped create jobs, in the sense that I've filled out…

That may be true because Viaweb was the first, and for a long time, only thing that fit that description.

Wufoo, on the other hand, is just one of about 20-30 choices for online forms. Including, of course, paying a lackey on elance $15 to do it. (Now elance, they haven't created jobs, but they did do a lot to move labor around.)

Re: 22 years of job creation wiped out in a day

#53

Post by netcan » Wed, Jan 28, 2009, 10:49 PM UTC

yters wrote: post #51

netcan wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've thought about these kinds of things often lately. Freedom defending itself, democracy defending itself & such. What should be done about anti-democratic parties in a democratic society? Those kinds of things. I am coming to the conclusion that you hit a breaking point if this becomes to big an issue. Sure it's ok to handle it one way or another if the above party is at Same goes in this case. When it's a once a…

My view is that as long as relinquishing one's own freedom does not impact the freedom of others, then it should slide. This assumes the person relinquishing is doing so voluntarily and with full knowledge of the alternatives. Otherwise, it isn't really freedom in the libertarian sense, since people should be free to do what they want as long as it doesn't harm others. Plus, what makes a person feel free can vary fro…

Say you have a democratically elected anti-democratic party. Or even a large minority party. It's usually not so straightforward because democracies & demi-democracies normally disallow these. But they do exist. Currently theocratic movements lead the trend.

If you allow these to run, you get a theocracy. If you disallow it, you no longer have a democracy. As long as they're small you can suppress them in the name of defending democracy. But defending democracy against the demos really ends democracy if it is in any way substantial.

Re: 22 years of job creation wiped out in a day

#54

Post by michaelneale » Thu, Jan 29, 2009, 11:53 PM UTC

fredwilson wrote: post #31

michaelneale wrote: post #28

On the flip side, that is one guy that created 40 000 jobs in his career so far? that is really quite amazing. If that was me I would sleep very soundly with a smile on my face. He should just get up, and do it again.

i did not creat 40,000 jobs. i was at venture firms that financed roughly 200 companies over the past 22 years that created that many jobs. it's a big difference and i want to make sure people understand that

but there are a fair chunk of jobs that were created due to your involvement. I would feel pretty good and walk pretty tall if I was you.