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

It’s Time to Build

a16z.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 1001 posts

Re: It’s Time to Build

#111

Post by bluedino »

aazaa wrote: post #99

> ... The things we build in huge quantities, like computers and TVs, drop rapidly in price. The things we don’t, like housing, schools, and hospitals, skyrocket in price. What’s the American dream? The opportunity to have a home of your own, and a family you can provide for. We need to break the rapidly escalating price curves for housing, education, and healthcare, to make sure that every American can realize the d…

We don't build TV's and computers. Other countries do.

We do build hospitals/housing/schools. Maybe if we imported slave labor like say, Dubai, it'd be cheaper to build things.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#113

Post by pmarca »

zachrose wrote: post #44

> I’m with Nicholas Stern when he says that capitalism is how we take care of people we don’t know — all of these fields are highly lucrative already and should be prime stomping grounds for capitalist investment, good both for the investor and the customers who are served. I'm not familiar with Nicholas Stern, and will look him up, but does anyone here want to elaborate as if you were talking to a five-year-old?

Nicholas is a British economist:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Stern,_Baron_Stern_of...

A somewhat stronger formulation of the same idea is from David Friedman: "People do things for other people for three reasons: love, money, or force."

Re: It’s Time to Build

#114

Post by lukevdp »

jdhn wrote: post #3

While I'm pro nuclear power, at what point do we say that nuclear isn't the way to go? The cost of solar panels and batteries are declining every year, and you don't have to deal with the terrible stigma that nuclear power has. Sure, new reactors are "zero emission", but will people actually want them to be built?

When there is a cheaper and cleaner alternative to base load power generation

Re: It’s Time to Build

#115

Post by buboard »

> The problem is desire. We need to want these things.

... and you can't really force that. americans seem unmotivated to want the same things. cynicism drives people to politicization and polarization of everything, including chemical compounds. On the one side, half the people believe that through politics they can force the other half to do their work for them. The other side realizes that and becomes increasingly cynical, hiding their money away from them. there is no sense of common purpose despite the proclamations. maybe the issue is trust

this essay is nice and arousing and all, and hard to disagree with it, but somehow i think people will forget about it

Re: It’s Time to Build

#116

Post by covidacct »

nopriorarrests wrote: post #76
covidacct wrote: post #46

> I expect this essay to be the target of criticism. Here’s a modest proposal to my critics. Instead of attacking my ideas of what to build, conceive your own! What do you think we should build? There’s an excellent chance I’ll agree with you. What we need to build is the capacity to make investments in building backstops against low-prob, high-risk, collective risks. For almost all of those risks, the problem isn't…

Honest, no snark question -- what exactly US government did in last 30 years that should warrant providing more money to it? Is there any guarantee that another trillion dollars will be used more efficiently than blowing up another Middle East country?

Here's one teeny tiny example. They made a smart investment, to the tune of billions of dollars, in computer science. And not just for the past 30 years, but continuously for the past 100 years.

That investment included a modest (6-7 figure, depending on how your count) investment in a project on digital libraries years before private capital caught on. The private investors were rewarded handsomely for their investment in that digital library, but we, the taxpayers, were not.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#117

Post by georgespencer »

m0zg wrote: post #14

> New York City has put out a desperate call for rain ponchos to be used as medical gowns. Yeah, NY also put out a "desperate call" for "40000 ventilators" in spite of needing only 6000. So that's really not a good indicator of anything. Not to disagree with the core premise of the article, of course. We must be able to manufacture all critical equipment and supplies on US soil, with significant surge capacity. > In…

You might be right, but your tone is quite unpleasant and I think you give people an easy out to ignore you.

> not a good indicator of anything

One was a projection of eventual scarcity (vents), the other is a response to current scarcity (ponchos).

If you believe that we should ignore this on "boy who cried wolf" grounds, we can go ahead and dismiss the rest of your comment, since you also got something badly wrong and are therefore "not a good indicator". (But of course you and we and the world don't REALLY dismiss people in the way you're suggesting!)

Cuomo, like all the folks in leadership roles at the moment, is looking at data and analyses from a variety of sources. The specific claim he made was that the apex could require 30,000-40,000 vents. It seems likely that some version of the bullwhip effect is in play here, but either way given that the US national stockpile is reportedly c.8000 ventilators, any reports which peg the need at 4x the maximum national availability ought to be treated with seriousness. Suspect you would do the same!

> False. Our family...

You are drawing a generalisation from one datapoint. CNET and others are reporting that cheques are weeks away from going out, and that direct deposits have started happening. The original post is sweeping, but I don't think many would disagree that to be 3 weeks into a lockdown before stimulus arrives is slow. It might be fast compared to the normal speed of government, but it's slow to those in need.

Folks like you have some really great insights both into the optics and realities of government, but like Trump, they are often ignored and maligned because of aggressive rhetoric.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#118

Post by nopriorarrests »

ajross wrote: post #105
nopriorarrests wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest, no snark question -- what exactly US government did in last 30 years that should warrant providing more money to it? Is there any guarantee that another trillion dollars will be used more efficiently than blowing up another Middle East country?

Aren't the last 30 years sort of the problem though? How about we check the 30 years before that: medicare, social security, the tail end of the new deal, the rapid cleanup of acid emissions which were wrecking forests all up and down the east coast... Seems like, starting in the 80's, you would have looked at this and said hey, this government knows what it's doing, we should let it do more stuff . Instead we basica…

You might be right, I honestly don't know. But if this is the case, maybe first you need to reform the government (in what exact way? and how the reform should be done, politically?) and after first task is accomplished you can feed it with some trillions of dollars?

Otherwise, "tax the living hell out of capital" will just cause some more big BOOM sounds somewhere in middle east, and deplete private capital from making more investments at the same time.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#119

Post by car »

zachrose wrote: post #50
car wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly not all of them, but the German healthcare system has dealt extremely well. There is plenty of testing capacity, and plenty of ICU beds. Thanks to century old unified health insurance laws. Edit: Otto von Bismarck actually instituted the health insurance system of Germany, certainly not a socialist!

It's also hard to say just yet about how poorly the American system is failing.

I don’t mean to critize american healthcare, it’s one of the best in the world. Unfortunately not accessible for the part of society that is uninsured and undocumented.

Marc and his family have donated so much for emergency medicine, the last resort for the uninsured, which is awesome.

What makes me sad is to see how people can end up in an existential crisis, both for their health and financially, because the system is failing them.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#120

Post by kick »

whb07 wrote: post #97
MattGaiser wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have an issue with the ideas. I agree with many of them. I just find it a bit absurd that one of the top 1000 people capable of putting them into action is telling other people to go do it while he spends his time investing in them. Capital is obviously helpful and crucial for building companies, but he is obviously satisfied waiting for solutions to walk in the door rather than chasing them himself.

You realize he’s one of the main players in your enjoyment of the internet as we see it today right? Then you somehow proceed to say “well why is Michael Jordan talking about how X player isn’t performing!? He should be out there playing right now”... uh what? So a player moves to becoming a coach or some support character after decades in the game and that’s your great comment?

You realize he’s one of the main players in your enjoyment of the internet as we see it today right?

This is a drastic over-generalization, and a very controversial one at that. He played a big role in popularizing the Web, which many people believe to be the worst of available options at the time of creation. He also arguably started the trend of "Make the WWW browser do as much as possible."

I personally don't share most of these views, but let's not go overboard here.

Post reply on HN