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Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

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Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#171

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

wallace_f wrote: post #20
eaenki wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the US is the major superpower in good part because of Cisco, Bell Labs, Fairchild, Intel, Apple, Lockheed, Google etc.

Are we speaking military expenditure, basic research, or entrepreneurialism? I'm also uncomfortable of this suggested idea about American exceptionalism. We have been bested by foreign competition despite our superior economic resources and liberty. I mean, we had to completely begin shifting gears away from public, politicized development in the launch market when our best option became hitching rides with one of ou…

The US has been bested by foreign competition which has flooded innovation markets with cheap money.

The US could have done the same, but chose to use cheap money to skim profits from its economy instead of investing in real invention and innovation.

And US "liberty" is a self-serving myth.

Try hawking a truly revolutionary invention around potential funding sources and see how far you get if you don't have the "right" social background.

Conversely, try hawking a terrible non-working idea around and see how far you get if come from that background.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#172

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

kortilla wrote: post #123
wallace_f wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we speaking military expenditure, basic research, or entrepreneurialism? I'm also uncomfortable of this suggested idea about American exceptionalism. We have been bested by foreign competition despite our superior economic resources and liberty. I mean, we had to completely begin shifting gears away from public, politicized development in the launch market when our best option became hitching rides with one of ou…

It’s odd that you use a government-funded program as an example of US liberty and poor economic resources failing. Isn’t SpaceX a shining counter example in the fact that it is successful without involuntary taxation as its entire operating budget?

SpaceX is built on the original state-funded R&D that allowed NASA to create a space program in the first place.

Likewise for the entire computer industry, which would never have existed without government funding for Whirlwind, TX-0, SAGE, and other critical seed projects.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#173

Post by eaenki »

kortilla wrote: post #118
eaenki wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name one company that raised its first million with an IPO in the last few decades. Let alone one that did so while producing something like Google

Last few decades? You do know that includes the dot com boom that was filled with tech companies doing early IPOs with basically nothing to show? Also, the only reason early IPOs aren’t popular anymore is because capital is so easy to get from VCs, despite what you’re suggesting. The difference is that you want money without a business plan or a plan to grow, which is not how private, nor public, money should be squa…

Again, name one company that has been world changing and raised the seed round in an IPO. None.

And no, this is simply an idea that would offer funds to the vast majority, who don’t have access to VCs.

99.9% of VC funded companies are not world changing ideas (even if they worked at scale as intended). And 99% of that came thru an intro. So yeah.

Heck, this is the thesis of YC, except they also fund petty companies, because they’re optimizing for returns, not far fetching ideas.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#174

Post by jlokier »

briandear wrote: post #151
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You won't disenfranchise anyone, because the investment will more than pay for itself. That's the point. It's just another form of seed funding for ambitious start-ups. And $30bn/yr is absolutely trivial compared to the opportunity costs of an economy geared more to financialisation and regressive wealth extraction than to productive engineering and invention.

If you take an extra $20k from me per year in the form of taxes, how does some kid’s invention actually pay me back? Am I a shareholder in this project? Will I get a return on that $20k? Will the government give me my $20k back plus a profit? This silly proposal is nothing more than socialized venture capital. We have real venture capital who invest in “far fetched” ideas already — and they have willing participants…

> Will I get a return on that $20k?

Yes you will (according the basic theory of the idea).

Unfortunately, even though you will get a return, when you get it you will believe that you haven't had the return because it will take the form of $100k of life improvements that you will believe you "would have had anyway" without the investment.

You might even get $100k of cash, in the form of your salary increasing by much more than that, and costs of quality of life things increasing by less (enough to make the difference >$20k). But when it happens you will almost certainly attribute it to other causes.

And so, today, you will argue against the investment, it won't happen, and you will end up poorer than you would have been.

While believing you are richer, because $20k cash in the hand today feels more real than $100k quality of life cost differential improvements in future whose attribution is difficult or impossible to verify.

That's the theory anyway.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#176

Post by eaenki »

easytiger wrote: post #34
eaenki wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is just a very basic idea I put out, still, corruption is rampant everywhere anyway. I suspect it would be a net positive to have a ton of Brilliant students getting money for their projects even if half of the money are corrupted away.

I suspect it another millenial fantasy much like basic income et al I suspect giving people with no life experience, exposure to failure or real life dynamics will end badly. The single digit number of success stories in limited domains aren't representative of any real meaning

Very concerning reply. While you’re at it, don’t ever step outside or use a knife. You might injure yourself

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#177

Post by ta0987 »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #132
eaenki wrote: post #9

Imo Education is overvalued, Capital is under appreciated, And, Because Capital is trapped into networks, that Capital is squandered among an infinite array of companies employing the talent and producing products that don’t make you, or the planet, better, healthier, smarter or happier. (Apple’s SJ era, Google until 2014~ and Tesla fit the useful smarter happier paradigma, and not many other) My solution is: take a…

I don't think just giving the money to whoever has a prototype is a good idea. Some culturally relevant projects aren't the sort of thing you can make a prototype of, but I like where you're going. I'd amend it like so: Once I've been a citizen long enough (i.e. paid enough taxes) I get to invoke my free year, which is a year where the government pays me enough to cover my bills and maybe a bit extra for projects and…

That's a cool system. What country, if you don't mind sharing?

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#178

Post by eaenki »

dahart wrote: post #134
eaenki wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find most universities to be borderline scams. The ones I deem not a scam, don't draw any benefit from that. I explained in another reply what I mean by far fetched products, which can be valued mathematically

> I find most universities to be borderline scams. The ones I deem not a scam, don't draw any benefit from that. I don’t know what you mean. Have you attended most universities? The paper & article you are commenting on demonstrate that education level determines innovation, statistically speaking. That can be for a wide variety of reasons, but it would be good to understand what they are any why before tossing the w…

No, because we’re not optimizing for ROI like VCs. You’d lose a ton of money funding 500 space Xs because they’ll all fail most likely, without even returning a percentage point

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#179

Post by eaenki »

briandear wrote: post #166
eaenki wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t free money for personal use, this is money that you legally have to spend developing that far fetched idea.

And how is that enforced? Are we going to arrest people that choose to spend the money developing some far fetched idea at a cantina in Cabo?

You enforce the law on your citizens just like with any other citizen for any other financial crime. Usually one shows up at your door, then you go to court, etc.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#180

Post by vageli »

eaenki wrote: post #135
kortilla wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t need $1m to see if an idea is feasible. Budget isn’t the issue for those programs, it’s getting enough applicants with ideas that are even reasonable in the first place.

Oh yes, you do, in the current envoirement. You compete for the same attention from retail consumers and enterprises. The price to reach said consumer gets ever higher + the usual monetary inflation. That's why every company is raising $1MM+ in seed nowdays while decent ones are raising $3MM+. Also, most of the times far fetched things require a lot of time and money by it's own virtue because they're hardware and re…

> Oh yes, you do, in the current envoirement. You compete for the same attention from retail consumers and enterprises. The price to reach said consumer gets ever higher + the usual monetary inflation. That's why every company is raising $1MM+ in seed nowdays while decent ones are raising $3MM+.

Why do you have to reach consumers at the ideation stage if

> We're not talking about seeing if there's demand for a piece of software.

?

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