Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble

thestockmarketwatch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 76 posts

Re: If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble

#61

Post by nico »

jswinghammer wrote: post #3

I think if you just discount all modern innovations then it's easy to say nothing has changed of note. My TV looks better than ever. Should I just discount that as progress because it's still a picture displayed in my living room? If you suggest the iPhone 5 which allows me to get anywhere without planning with turn by turn directions, communicate with family on the road, make dinner reservations, and answer a work r…

You mention something very interesting, it seems like even though science and technology advance at a really fast pace, there more developed a society/community is, the harder it is to implement and adopt new technologies, or the other way around, it is really easy for undeveloped countries to pick up new technologies, because there's no previous technology/standard to compete with.

Re: If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble

#62

Post by jswinghammer »

hooande wrote: post #14
jswinghammer wrote: post #3

I think if you just discount all modern innovations then it's easy to say nothing has changed of note. My TV looks better than ever. Should I just discount that as progress because it's still a picture displayed in my living room? If you suggest the iPhone 5 which allows me to get anywhere without planning with turn by turn directions, communicate with family on the road, make dinner reservations, and answer a work r…

The reasons your iPhone 5 lets you get directions, communicate and make dinner reservations are the global information infrastructure and the tcp/ip protocol, both products of a national innovation policy. I know that most people under 30 directly credit Steve Jobs for everything that they do on their phones. But it took a massive national investment to set up the basics of the internet, which provided the iphone wit…

You are looking at what you see and don't consider what you don't see. You are seeing how government intervention did these things but you are not considering that without this intervention society would have made other uses of the resources. I realize it's impossible but any analysis has to take into account unseen possibilities when considering government intervention. Ignoring the unseen effects of your actions leaves your analysis incomplete.

I'm not under 30.

Re: If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble

#63

Post by wpietri »

Osmium wrote: post #40
jswinghammer wrote: post #3

I think if you just discount all modern innovations then it's easy to say nothing has changed of note. My TV looks better than ever. Should I just discount that as progress because it's still a picture displayed in my living room? If you suggest the iPhone 5 which allows me to get anywhere without planning with turn by turn directions, communicate with family on the road, make dinner reservations, and answer a work r…

> Regulation (another word for taxes) and taxes are much higher than in prior periods. It should surprise no one that these have negative effects on growth. Are you sure about this? If you're talking about manufacturing regulations, I'd be more wary about buying electronics or toys manufactured in China... Regulations that are good for the consumer can ultimately be good for the companies that make the goods too, bec…

> Regulations that are good for the consumer can ultimately be good for the companies that make the goods too, because they create a stable and responsible marketplace.

That's an excellent point, and one people don't consider enough. Almost nobody in the US picks up an item off the grocery store shelves and says, "Hey, is this safe?" That isn't inevitable, as China's scandals show: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_safety_incidents_in_the_Pe...

That kind of trust in the marketplace is incredibly valuable to innovators. If only some food is safe, then people will only buy new products from known, high-value brands.

A good opposite example is Facebook. At my last company we had some great ideas for useful Facebook apps. But in our user tests people had a strong learned aversion to the Facebook auth dialog; they knew that if they said ok, they might look dumb in front of all their friends.

As entrepreneurs, we wanted more regulation. We would have happily paid $25k to Facebook to be part of a trusted apps program where they vetted us and then gave us a seal of approval.

Re: If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble

#64

Post by prostoalex »

elemenohpee wrote: post #27
jswinghammer wrote: post #3

I think if you just discount all modern innovations then it's easy to say nothing has changed of note. My TV looks better than ever. Should I just discount that as progress because it's still a picture displayed in my living room? If you suggest the iPhone 5 which allows me to get anywhere without planning with turn by turn directions, communicate with family on the road, make dinner reservations, and answer a work r…

What taxes are you talking about that are much higher than in prior periods? I've heard from a lot of investors that high taxes don't really impact their decisions. A good investment is a good investment. High taxes on middle class people however can have a stifling effect, because they don't have the extra cash to keep circulating in the economy.

> A good investment is a good investment.

Only if you have the money to invest, as opposed to keeping it to cover your tax bill.

Re: If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble

#65

Post by 3d3mon »

Rather than saying what is descriptively and historically accurate, I believe Thiel and Kasparov are merely issuing a challenge, if stated in a somewhat hyperbolic way, to today's innovators/entrepreneurs. If read in this light, they are cheerleaders not historians.

Re: If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble

#66

Post by russell »

The thesis that innovation has stopped because the major foundations of today's technology were laid in the 70's is utter nonsense. Most breakthrough innovations take 15 to 20 years to go from the initial discovery to widespread adoption. Examples penicillin, ARPANET, GPS, television, unix, and on an on. So it is no surprise that the Internet and GPS took off in the 1990's. If you want to know what is going to drive the 2020's and the 2030's look at what's in the labs now. Of course 99% of it wont amount to much, but the core innovations are there somewhere.

The author has a point about the problems inherent in unregulated financial manipulation and monopolies in general. But unless there are huge restrictions on small business development and a suppression of the universities, innovation will continue.

Re: If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble

#67

Post by meric »

The underlying science of computers and science might have been discovered in the 1970's, but back then, use the internet and computers were in no way in mainstream society.

How do they know that innovations 30 years from now won't be based on the science we discover today, in "nanotechnology, neuroscience, and energy, among other cutting-edge fields"?

Re: If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble

#69

Post by zxcdw »

jerf wrote: post #30
hooande wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reasons your iPhone 5 lets you get directions, communicate and make dinner reservations are the global information infrastructure and the tcp/ip protocol, both products of a national innovation policy. I know that most people under 30 directly credit Steve Jobs for everything that they do on their phones. But it took a massive national investment to set up the basics of the internet, which provided the iphone wit…

"The reason your iPhone 5 lets you get directions, communicate and make dinner reservations is the global information infrastructure and the tcp/ip protocol, both products of a national innovation policy." And on you go in that vein, but that's massively reductionistic. For one thing, if that is so true, then why did the iPhone 5 not exist 30 years ago, which is still many years after those advances? The Internet and…

The argument about computers and computer technology being almost stagnant for the past 40 years is the science behind it.

Look at programming languages. They still borrow from C very heavily. What major advancements have there been during the past 10-20 years? Look at operating systems. The Unix way of thinking and the fundamental concepts still live on, because they work. What advancements have there been to the fundamental ideas and aspects of operating systems? How about compilers? How about computer architecture? CISC to RISC? We still use von Neumann architecture from 50's, surely by now we would have came up with something superior? No. Your iPhone 5 relies on the concepts realized by scientists 50-60 years ago.

The thing is, that most advancements in the field come from technological advancemnts which actually come from our ability to produce better-performing silicon chips. iPhone owes so much to semiconductor industry and other advancements in physical technology which takes advantage of the fundamental CS concepts developed mainly in the 60's and 70's. Computer science itself has been still for ages, and will remain so, unless some new science comes up and revolutionarizes the field. Until then we owe to Gödel, Turing, von Neumann, Dikstra, Knuth, Ritchie and so on. Not to Jobs. Or Gates. Or Torvalds. These people are irrelevant from science point of view.

We need new sciences to fuel technologies which can be put to use. Praise semiconductor industry, chemistry, physics, nanotechnology and so on. But don't ever relate iPhone or whatever else web 2.0-Apple-Social-cult to the science behind computing.

In short, we build upon what was discovered 30-40 years ago, and no new fundamental discoveries are made.

Re: If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble

#70

Post by jerf »

ebiester wrote: post #43
jerf wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The reason your iPhone 5 lets you get directions, communicate and make dinner reservations is the global information infrastructure and the tcp/ip protocol, both products of a national innovation policy." And on you go in that vein, but that's massively reductionistic. For one thing, if that is so true, then why did the iPhone 5 not exist 30 years ago, which is still many years after those advances? The Internet and…

Commercial use of GPS wasn't allowed until 1996, and there has been some refinement of use in the last decade. Without GPS, there are no turn by turn directions, and there is no GPS without the space program. There is no GPS without the government funding of military technology, and allowing commercial use. There is no iPhone without Silicon Valley. There is no Silicon Valley without the massive amount of defense wor…

There's a lot of government involvement. There's a stonking amazing overwhelmingly lot of private involvement. There's no Silicon Valley without, you know, Silicon Valley. Not the place, the people, the companies, the innovation. Government has better PR, the people have the vast, vast bulk of the actual time and wealth poured in to these innovations.
Post reply on HN