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Esther Dyson vs Bill Campbell: 2002 − 2012

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11–20 of 79 posts

Re: Esther Dyson vs Bill Campbell: 2002 − 2012

#11
post #5

People tend to assume that in today's era, progress is inevitable. The is a dramatic illustration to the contrary. Progress depends on a stable, pro-business system of government. Which, in turn, depends on a certain kind of underlying culture. (This is why I find Occupy Wall Street threatening.)

(This is why I find Occupy Wall Street threatening.)

I do not think OWS, to the extent it has a coherent set or ideas or ideologies, is anti-business per se; I think it is opposed to the zero-sum thinking that characterizes much of Wall Street and political life right now. See, e.g.: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_reckoning/2011/11/21/it_s_the... :

In fact, blame for the failure of the congressional super committee belongs with every American who failed to vote in the 2010 midterm election. Nothing encapsulates the dysfunction of American democracy better than the fact that we abdicate responsibility for governing our country (and running our economy) to a radical minority every four years out of laziness and, to a smaller extent, deliberate efforts by both parties to depress turnout they know will favor their rivals.

Or, from HN, http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/11/18/clayton-... (Clayton Christensen: "How Pursuit of Profits Kills Innovation and the U.S. Economy.")

Notice how people are not saying "Occupy tech firms in Silicon Valley," and I think they aren't because it's pretty clear that Apple, Google, etc. are generating real value that improves lives; it's not at all clear finance and many parts of government are doing so at the moment and it may be that they're actually destroying value while taking advantage of an insider's feedback loop that prevents market forces from actually acting on them in any serious way. If anything, I suspect OWS, to the extent it has a coherent ideology, would be pro-business, as long as that business isn't doing things to hurt people, institutions, or government.

Re: Esther Dyson vs Bill Campbell: 2002 − 2012

#12
post #9

In the interest of being completely fair to Dyson, I'm not sure anyone could have fully predicted just how bad of a regime Putin's would be. That said it seems like a long shot just the same.

Political change must go hand in hand with cultural change. It is easy to blame a democratically elected leader, yet quite difficult to identify the underlying problems of those who elected that leader to power. Russia is decades ahead of other countries, but they have a long path ahead of them. A good start would be teaching English in elementary school.

I'd be very surprised if they don't teach English in elementary. In Eastern Europe they start teaching English from kindergarten.

Re: Esther Dyson vs Bill Campbell: 2002 − 2012

#14
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OWS is a protest movement, the core of which is against corporations buying laws. The corporations do this because they want to protect their inefficient business models by enshrining their way of doing things into law. For example, content owners wish to censor the internet so they can keep selling consumers crap, while banks wish to tax everybody when they make a loss on their trades. OWS is not anti-business, it i…

You would never know that based on the signs being waved and the t-shirts being worn.

Yeah, I thought it was about "End Capitalism Now!" and "Bail out students", or something like that.

Re: Esther Dyson vs Bill Campbell: 2002 − 2012

#15
post #5

People tend to assume that in today's era, progress is inevitable. The is a dramatic illustration to the contrary. Progress depends on a stable, pro-business system of government. Which, in turn, depends on a certain kind of underlying culture. (This is why I find Occupy Wall Street threatening.)

(This is why I find Occupy Wall Street threatening.) I do not think OWS, to the extent it has a coherent set or ideas or ideologies, is anti-business per se; I think it is opposed to the zero-sum thinking that characterizes much of Wall Street and political life right now. See, e.g.: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_reckoning/2011/11/21/it_s_the... : In fact, blame for the failure of the congressional super committee b…

OWS is not against capitalism, it is against corporatism. It wants the same laws enforced weather you are rich, poor, an individual or a corporation.

Re: Esther Dyson vs Bill Campbell: 2002 − 2012

#16

How have I never heard of longbets.org before? This site is fascinating.

As you may already have discovered, it’s part of the Long Now, which is making the 10,000 Year Clock[0] (about which a friend of mine wrote a play[1], and which helped inspire Neal Stephenson’s sci-fi novel “Anathem”). It involves a bunch of the smartest futurists around, including Stewart Brand (famous for the “Whole Earth Catalog”), Danny Hillis (the Connection Machine), and Brian Eno (producing Talking Heads and U2).

0. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_of_the_Long_Now

1. http://www.seattlepi.com/ae/article/You-don-t-have-to-be-a-s...

Re: Esther Dyson vs Bill Campbell: 2002 − 2012

#19
I found this one on bit coins: http://longbets.org/611/

Nobody has taken the other side of it. I'm skeptical (but intrigued) by bit coins, but I wouldn't take the other side of this bet, simply because bit coins have just started out and aren't yet a "fully mature form of money". That is to say, its a lot easier for a penny stock, or any other cheap commodity, to double (or outperform by 2 orders of magnitude) a global currency or form of money that has millions of owners, and relatively stable value.

Re: Esther Dyson vs Bill Campbell: 2002 − 2012

#20
post #5

People tend to assume that in today's era, progress is inevitable. The is a dramatic illustration to the contrary. Progress depends on a stable, pro-business system of government. Which, in turn, depends on a certain kind of underlying culture. (This is why I find Occupy Wall Street threatening.)

No, you just have to avoid bad luck.
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