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We have the potential to solve the biggest problems of today

christophmccann.com

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Re: We have the potential to solve the biggest problems of today

#141

Post by steveklabnik »

atmosx wrote: post #72
pdabbadabba wrote: post #51

There's a lot that I dislike about this article, but I'll start with this: it is probably self-refuting. Someone could just have easily written: "I find it difficult to see individuals who could focus their time and effort solving [problems like energy, food, water, health, education], instead put their efforts into something like a takedown of the moral priorities of the people behind Yo on a their personal blog." A…

> [...] "energy, food, water, health, education" [...] I guess 'food' stands for 'poverty', in this list. Seriously though, does anyone believe that these problems can be solved by an 'app'?

When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist." - Hélder Pessoa Câmara

Re: We have the potential to solve the biggest problems of today

#142

Post by peterwwillis »

> I am simply pointing out that another instant messaging app, however novel or 'hipster', isn't going to solve what really needs solved.

And here i've been wasting my life on novel hipster apps, thinking it would solve the big problems, when in fact I was just wasting my life working on fun things. Thank Bob i've been set straight.

Re: We have the potential to solve the biggest problems of today

#143

Post by [deleted] »

adamgravitis wrote: post #56
skywhopper wrote: post #16

Unfortunately, this line of criticism works equally well about all games, art, haute cuisine, movies, national parks, and about 96% of our economy. More importantly, it also works against articles that gripe about effort wasted on apps the author doesn't care for.

With the exception of games, the items you mention aren't distracting much engineering talent from solving the big stuff. With $1.2m, Yo can directly compete for talent that might otherwise go to graduate school or make progress in a more serious venture.

[deleted]

Re: We have the potential to solve the biggest problems of today

#144

Post by whybroke »

digz wrote: post #79
pdabbadabba wrote: post #51

There's a lot that I dislike about this article, but I'll start with this: it is probably self-refuting. Someone could just have easily written: "I find it difficult to see individuals who could focus their time and effort solving [problems like energy, food, water, health, education], instead put their efforts into something like a takedown of the moral priorities of the people behind Yo on a their personal blog." A…

>> And, by the way, who appointed Christoph McCann arbiter of what it good and valuable in this world? This is such an important point, and why free markets work best. If people derive value out of Yo, then terrific. If they don't, it goes away. Don't need a moral crusader to decide what is worthy.

You confuse Pareto efficient with beneficial. Indeed, markets could just as easily result in a planet wide Easter Island while still being pareto efficient at every step.

Re: We have the potential to solve the biggest problems of today

#145

Post by btbuildem »

That some people built Yo is not the problem. They most likely lack the talent to solve the hard problems facing us - given what they've built so far, anyways. These problems get solved by a different class of people altogether.

The real problem is that someone with money and influence deemed their project worthy of support. The motivation is not to make the world a better place, but to get rich.

Re: We have the potential to solve the biggest problems of today

#146

Post by phillmv »

digz wrote: post #124
phillmv wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is such an important point, and why free markets work best. Well, there's a subtlety there. It's not that "free markets work best". It's that the efficient market hypothesis claims that a market with perfect information dissemination consisting of uniformly rational agents will deliver Pareto-optimal resource allocations. There's a lot to disagree with in that sentence; market agents collude, people are demonst…

Having studied with the originators of the efficient market hypothesis (Fama), I regret to inform you that what you describe is not a feature of EMH but is rather frequently attributed to it in an attempt to discredit it. There is nothing that rationally follows EMH that leads to Pareto-optimal outcomes in society. EMH means that well informed markets make sound decisions on the pricing of assets. This means that bas…

I was critiquing "free markets are best" and not singularly EMH. I will grant that I've used terms imprecisely.

Re: We have the potential to solve the biggest problems of today

#147

Post by _delirium »

digz wrote: post #86
digz wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> And, by the way, who appointed Christoph McCann arbiter of what it good and valuable in this world? This is such an important point, and why free markets work best. If people derive value out of Yo, then terrific. If they don't, it goes away. Don't need a moral crusader to decide what is worthy.

Also, I'd venture a guess that if you sum up the total cost that has gone into Facebook's Poke feature (development, maintenance, deciding whether or not to turn it off), it would dramatically eclipse the 1.2M that everyone is so up in arms about. No one is losing their marbles over that stuff. Look, I agree it's a ridiculous app.. but if people use it and derive value from it, good! Utility created!

> people use it and derive value from it

I think you could just stop at "people use it". What kind of value they derive from it (if any) is another inquiry, and can't be discerned from merely observing the fact that they use it. At least, not without some really strong assumptions to the effect that people always correctly make positive-utility choices. It's possible people use it, but derive negative utility from it, and mistakenly use it nonetheless.

There are some very popular things (tobacco, say) that in most reasonable analyses produce negative utility over the long run! The problem is that people are not very good at utility-maximization, especially when the analysis involves more than one factor, some uncertainty, different time scales, etc. People are generally not good at almost any vaguely arithmetically complex operation (e.g. correctly using conditional-probability information in their decision-making, even when known).

That's one reason neoclassical economics prefers to talk about simply "price", rather than the classical discussion of both "price" and "value". Modern economics is the empirical study of pricing and economic behavior, and is agnostic about value.

Re: We have the potential to solve the biggest problems of today

#148

Post by digz »

cwyers wrote: post #132
digz wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> And, by the way, who appointed Christoph McCann arbiter of what it good and valuable in this world? This is such an important point, and why free markets work best. If people derive value out of Yo, then terrific. If they don't, it goes away. Don't need a moral crusader to decide what is worthy.

Well, except there's all kinds of economic theories about how this isn't true: the tragedy of the commons, negative externalities. There's also a lot of evidence that rational actor theory isn't as true as pure economics would suggest. And of course market inefficiencies will distort price signals. And truly free markets have a hard time remaining such in face of large incentives for rational actors to instead engage…

Saying that free markets are best is not the same as saying free markets are perfect.

Re: We have the potential to solve the biggest problems of today

#149

Post by gress »

digz wrote: post #137
jal278 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks." [0] The reason why this article resonates with many readers is that it expresses frustration with the triviality of how our economy allocates resources to start-ups. The promise of tech is huge, but following the money often leads to optimizing ads, machine learning algorithms competing with each other in HFT, or other appl…

Why is helping people find products and services that will enrich their lives an inherently bad thing?

Advertising is a service designed to help corporations exploit psychology to induce people to buy their products.

What you are describing is more like a concierge. Hint: The person who pays is the person who's interests are being served.

Re: We have the potential to solve the biggest problems of today

#150

Post by digz »

gress wrote: post #149
digz wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is helping people find products and services that will enrich their lives an inherently bad thing?

Advertising is a service designed to help corporations exploit psychology to induce people to buy their products. What you are describing is more like a concierge. Hint: The person who pays is the person who's interests are being served.

Reaching consumers is hard, even if you have the superior product. Facilitating such a transaction should make one proud.

The 'psychological exploits' are a marginal component, but again, why is it inherently bad for someone to feel good about using product x over product y, even if they're exactly the same?

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