Crazy New Ideas • Hacker News Board

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#101

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Thu, May 06, 2021, 1:21 PM UTC

gustavo-fring wrote: post #49

jacquesm wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are all excellent examples of the main reason why innovation can not be done in established businesses: the fear of cannibalizing the cash cow will stifle any real innovation.

Was the Playstation not revolutionary?

I don't think so, at least not in any technical aspect. Pretty much everything about the tech was a logical extension of industry trends. It began life as a CD-ROM add-on for the SNES similar to Sega's SegaCD for the Genesis/MegaDrive. Outside the technology, the low license cost and relative ease of developing for it built a sizeable and varied library of games, which I think was a major contributor to its success, but neither of those things strike me as particularly revolutionary.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#102

Post by nickelcitymario » Thu, May 06, 2021, 1:21 PM UTC

gustavo-fring wrote: post #61

codingdave wrote: post #55

> Someone proposes an idea that sounds crazy, most people dismiss it, then it gradually takes over the world. This is survivorship bias. He is not wrong in that yes, we should consider ideas from domain experts carefully and not be overly dismissive. But it is absolutely survivorship bias to believe that every crazy idea from a domain expert worked out.

Graham should know better, he talked about arc as the messiah for five years before getting beat to market by Clojure. Now they barely do proper language releases.

He doesn't say that crazy ideas by domain experts always work out. He makes two claims:

1) That if the crazy idea is from a domain expert, it deserves to be taken seriously. It doesn't deserve to be taken as gospel, but it shouldn't be dismissed outright.

2) He's betting (but not stating as fact) that if you did blindly support the crazy ideas of domain experts, you'd be right more often than you're wrong.

This is not the same thing as saying domain experts are always right. Simply that all things being equal, you're better off betting on their expertise over your own ignorance. But even better than that is to look into the matter until you have sufficient expertise to properly evaluate their idea.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#103

Post by visarga » Thu, May 06, 2021, 1:21 PM UTC

This video is relevant. They talk about "openendedness", serendipity, the tyranny of objectives, the evolution of ideas (and biology), inventing new problems not just solving problems.

There are important implications in AI. Kenneth Stanley - Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned on Machine Learning Street Talk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhYGXYeMq_E&t=3016s

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#104

Post by flunhat » Thu, May 06, 2021, 1:23 PM UTC

fallingknife wrote: post #66

antipauline wrote: post #48

Why are you all upvoting this shit? Just because Paul Graham wrote it, doesn't mean it's worth reading. Usually the opposite, in fact. You people need to lay off the PG cultism. Stop worshipping every word he writes just because you idolize his riches, or want to be him, or whatever.

You actually add credibility to his writing because you make it obvious that you don't actually have a counter argument.

How can you effectively counter an essay with so many empty generalizations and broad assertions? It would be like debating jello.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#105

Post by samstave » Thu, May 06, 2021, 1:23 PM UTC

weasel_words wrote: post #64

vishnugupta wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was this product[1] to browse internet offline by downloading something called “Web Packs”. This was back in 2005 just when I was graduating when I spoke to the founding team. They were naturally quite confident about the product taking off. Something seemed off to me I couldn’t point out what so I didn’t take the job offer. After all these years I realized the source my discomfort. They were actually betting a…

"They are betting that PC/Laptop/Mobile hardware will stagnate from this point on." Me playing the devils advocate... Perhaps not //forever//, but perhaps for the next few years (enough for them to make some good money). Why? Chip shortage, GPU shortage. Anecdotally, I just bought a computer for $7500, that, two years ago would have cost about $2500 (granted, it is the new tech, but even so, new tech of this tier two…

What if the future is that you don't necessarily just buy a machine in the future.

What if, when you purchase your machine, it includes a host of features including a could suite of things like; VPN, Cloud Browser, An actual amount of decent cloud storage, portable applications, hosted in your cloud bucket, but accessible from any device (If I have Illustrator, I can just run it from any machine - not just my own. I can allow guest access to my paid licenses - like Say i want my brother to be able to draw stuff on my Illustrator license while I am not using it.

Etc.

Imagine if instead of that $7,500 "computer" you bought a $7,500 'stack' and the access terminal you happen to be using most is the physical laptop that youre used to.

I tried to build something similar to this more than a decade ago (2007 or so - but wrote about it in 2004).

My biggest issue is better information/knowledge management.

I have TBs of files and data strewn all over. We should be focusing on "my information" and let me manage and secure that - and access it from any device easily, and securely.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#106

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Thu, May 06, 2021, 1:24 PM UTC

vishnugupta wrote: post #27

bestinterest wrote: post #4

Very interesting. This sounds like a response to the Mighty [0] launch which Paul Graham has been defending on twitter recently after an outcry from some of the 'hardcore' developers such as Jonathan Blow [1] and Casey [2]. [0] https://www.mightyapp.com/ [1] https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/1387101172230672389 [2] https://twitter.com/cmuratori/status/1387645578067124224

There was this product[1] to browse internet offline by downloading something called “Web Packs”. This was back in 2005 just when I was graduating when I spoke to the founding team. They were naturally quite confident about the product taking off. Something seemed off to me I couldn’t point out what so I didn’t take the job offer. After all these years I realized the source my discomfort. They were actually betting a…

Couldn't they instead be betting that despite improvements in hardware speed the web will bloat faster than the hardware improves? Betting on that doesn't sound that crazy to me.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#107

Post by stephc_int13 » Thu, May 06, 2021, 1:24 PM UTC

stephc_int13 wrote: post #89

In case someone missed the story, Paul Graham is indirectly talking about the feedback received by Mighty App. And in this particular case, I don't think this is a valid defense. First, he clearly has too much skin in the game to be credibly neutral about it. Second, he avoids addressing the main critique about this "new tech". People are not claiming that it is a bad idea because it is infeasible or not valuable, bu…

This idea of a dumb client is not new, it has been around basically forever, but we're seeing it again in multiple different incarnations because it could be huge.

And I mean that in a bad way.

Privacy and users rights are already pretty bad, but we still own our computers.

I can see how it would start in the corporate world.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#108

Post by max_ » Thu, May 06, 2021, 1:24 PM UTC

vaylian wrote: post #54

bob33212 wrote: post #50

This is a great essay. I follow similar logic when assessing bitcoin. 1. Listen to as many viewpoints as possible 2. Remove the people who are not domain experts 3. Remove the people who are blinded by their own financial interests or ego. 4. Remove the people who are influenced by social pressures ( good and bad ) 5. Assign probabilities to the remaining viewpoints evenly. 6. Repeat steps 1-5 and chart the progressi…

For those 10%: Do you see BitCoin as an actual currency that you can buy stuff with, or purely an investment?

People buy BTC so they can sell it for USD.

Most BTC sits idle in exchanges like coinbase.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#109

Post by ZephyrBlu » Thu, May 06, 2021, 1:25 PM UTC

gman83 wrote: post #80

I guess because I think that Hyperloop is a really dumb idea I must be extremely envious. This smells like a way to justify ignoring difficult criticism. The critics are envious, they're trying to look sophisticated, they're not real domain experts, etc.

This kind of attitude seem to be very common among 'ambitious' founders, especially the YC crowd.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#110

Post by UncleMeat » Thu, May 06, 2021, 1:26 PM UTC

I really wish PG would actually talk to some historians. History of Science is an extremely deep field with tons of professionals who have spent their lives studying this material. His overview is shallow. The only history book he cites is from fifty years ago!

It is so frustrating. There is this huge wealth of content available and a large group of people who'd want nothing more to be able to share what they know about the history of science and instead we get think pieces based in hunches, feelings, and generalities. The historians are right there! They want to talk to you!