11–20 of 63 posts
This reminds me of a really helpful salesperson at the Apple store that was really excited/proud to tell me that you can now walk in and purchase an item without ever talking to a salesperson...
Theres just so little value in the stuff being produced. Its absurd. Where are the people who are designing actual tangible items? Why is so much of this stuff only fluff and entertainment?
Theres just so little value in the stuff being produced. Its absurd. Where are the people who are designing actual tangible items? Why is so much of this stuff only fluff and entertainment?
Theres just so little value in the stuff being produced. Its absurd. Where are the people who are designing actual tangible items? Why is so much of this stuff only fluff and entertainment?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but fluff and entertainment has a much lower barrier to entry than tackling real, tangible problems. Writing software is "free" in that I can sit and code for a few months in my free time, and put out a halfway decent game or piece of "fluff" software as you call it. Inventing the next battery technology, on the other hand, requires several PhD's and millions in funding.
> Most people aren’t self aware enough to realize what is happening that is making their jobs disappear: a strong trend in software automation to make business processes more efficient. This reminds me of a really helpful salesperson at the Apple store that was really excited/proud to tell me that you can now walk in and purchase an item without ever talking to a salesperson...
Theres just so little value in the stuff being produced. Its absurd. Where are the people who are designing actual tangible items? Why is so much of this stuff only fluff and entertainment?
1. "Storing food for the winter". R&D to prepare us for challenges we'll face in the future. Ex: alternative energy research. This sort of thing is extremely difficult to fund in a capitalist society. We need more of it.
2. Waste. Accounting and lawyering and sales and such.
3. Entertainment. Everything from movies to luxury goods.
If given a choice between 2 and 3, I'd pick 3 any day. I'd like for there to be more of 1, but I guess that makes me a socialist :).
I don't see any functional difference between a Farmville cow and a ceramic cow that sits on a mantlepiece. They have exactly the same practical use, but one cost way more energy to produce than the other. My argument for how Farmville will save us from global warming is a post for another time.
tl;dr: Value is what the market says it is, not what you say it is.
See also: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2011/12/12/let_them_eat_...
> News sites with a better grasp of how the Internet works, like HuffPo or Mashable, are worth hundreds of millions. I've been wondering - when all the old media inevitably die off, where are these aggregators going to find their content?
HARDWARE + SOFTWARE.
think nest, tesla (yes, it's a huge software play), and the like.
"You want to be in the tech game, because in time it will be the only game in town."
Well, no...because tech won't be big enough to employ more than a relatively small percentage of the population. And it won't matter that companies want to pay tech workers to help automate people out of jobs. Because once everyone is unemployed, no amount of tech will keep a company in business if nobody is making enough to buy its products.
Without a doubt, things are going to change. Just like they always have. Some industries will gain, and some will lost. Some people will find their skills in high demand, and some will find their skills obsolete. We won't, however, end up in world where you either work in tech or you're unemployed.
> Most people aren’t self aware enough to realize what is happening that is making their jobs disappear: a strong trend in software automation to make business processes more efficient. This reminds me of a really helpful salesperson at the Apple store that was really excited/proud to tell me that you can now walk in and purchase an item without ever talking to a salesperson...
I'm guessing he was excited because he knew very well that the majority of people at an Apple store have no idea what they really want to buy and need the salesperson's expertise. Probably the same reason that BestBuy hasn't been killed by Amazon yet.