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Rolling the ladder up behind us

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Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#171

Post by collingreen »

djoldman wrote: post #90

There are a lot of issues brought up in this post, but I want to discuss one in particular: technological progress and its economic and societal ramifications. We can say that technological progress occurs when a new method is employed to deliver a product or service with some "more desirable" blend of qualities: it's created/delivered faster, cheaper, with a more desirable mix of resource inputs, and/or results in a…

Homo economicus to the rescue! Every consumer has perfect knowledge, spending power, and access to effectively unlimited choice which is why when they want lower quality things it's a calculated, careful decision weighing all the options and the long term impacts on both themselves and the future of the industry.

Monopolies and pricing power clearly destroy this utopia but even without those I try to remember Pratchett's "boots theory" whenever I start to blame the consumer for "accepting" abuse from the capital in power of what gets made, when, and for whom.

Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#172

Post by AngryData »

lubujackson wrote: post #136

This post is really all over the place and, I think, misses the main thing here: pretty much every advancement in automation across history has sacrificed some fidelity and craftsmanship. That's the cost of automation. Yet we have continually added more and more automation to our lives because the net value is dramatically higher for the bulk of our civilization. Yes, we lose (or pidgeon-hole) artisans and craftsmen.…

I mean one of the main complaints of the luddites was decreasing cloth quality despite the looms originally being able to produce higher quality cloth comparable to their own traditional weaving techniques. Powered looms and the dozens of other loom improvements from the previous 100+ years didn't inherently produce poor quality cloth, they were adjusted to produce lower quality cloths after they were already in operationin factories in order to increase profit margins. Powered looms were originally just modified hand looms, not some radically different design from the ground up. The flying shuttle predates powered looms and the luddites.

Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#173

Post by camgunz »

Thomas Ptacek dismissed SWE AI concerns as hypocrisy, and I actually think he understated the argument. This is exactly what we get for:

- using BSD/MIT licenses instead of GPL licenses

- accepting absolutely no liability for security holes or data loss

- accepting absolutely no responsibility for poorly performing software that contributes to climate change

- shipping 17,000 web frameworks, founding one more blockchain startup, founding one more wrapper service around an MIT open source project

We're gonna turn around and be like "but what about the security issues" now? We made this bed.

Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#174

Post by djoldman »

collingreen wrote: post #171
djoldman wrote: post #90

There are a lot of issues brought up in this post, but I want to discuss one in particular: technological progress and its economic and societal ramifications. We can say that technological progress occurs when a new method is employed to deliver a product or service with some "more desirable" blend of qualities: it's created/delivered faster, cheaper, with a more desirable mix of resource inputs, and/or results in a…

Homo economicus to the rescue! Every consumer has perfect knowledge, spending power, and access to effectively unlimited choice which is why when they want lower quality things it's a calculated, careful decision weighing all the options and the long term impacts on both themselves and the future of the industry. Monopolies and pricing power clearly destroy this utopia but even without those I try to remember Pratche…

Hello fellow economics major :)

Yep, capitalism fails in a few ways in the long run. Monopolies, imperfect competition, etc., which is why regulation is required to optimize the system.

Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#175

Post by whall6 »

like_any_other wrote: post #153
whall6 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The owning class is different today than it was in Ned’s time. Who owns MSFT? You, probably, through your 401k. Nobody is stopping you from creating a coalition of similarly minded shareholders and effecting change. Unless you stuff your cash under your mattress, you are the owning class.

> Who owns MSFT? You, probably, through your 401k. All or nothing fallacy. People have VASTLY different degrees of ownership, and this is reflected in their degree of control. > Nobody is stopping you from creating a coalition of similarly minded shareholders Such coalitions already exist. They have names like BlackRock, Vanguard, and Fidelity Investments [1]. Good luck competing with them. Especially if you abdicate…

This isn’t a false dichotomy because I’m not even representing two separate choices.

I get that you alone have probably an insignificant amount of control, but forming a coalition would allow you to make change.

I’m aware that there are asset managers. Whose assets do you think they’re managing? Yours!

Do you own VOO? Awesome, that’s why Vanguard owns 10% of almost every large cap company.

Take control of those shares and go make change.

Look up John Chevedden. He owns a minimal amount of shares in companies where he causes huge changes. They call him the “corporate gadfly” [1]

Don’t be lured into thinking that you have to invest your money into a predesigned portfolio because it maximizes returns. If you care about control then maximize control. You already have the power!

[1] https://www.sec.gov/comments/s7-23-19/s72319-6733874-207512....

Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#176

Post by justinrubek »

brooke2k wrote: post #69
WalterBright wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what if 62% wanted two seaters? Back in the 70s, the Department of Energy was tasked with allocating gas to the gas stations. A gas station had to apply for an allocation, and the DoE doled out the gas. The DoE doled out gas based on the previous year's usage patterns. Sounds smart, right? What happened is that gas consumption varies year to year due to a number of factors, like weather patterns, population chang…

I feel this is a slightly disingenuous argument - mismanagement and poor planning can happen in both the public and private sectors. The US healthcare system is just one fantastic example of the private sector absolutely failing to deliver even a bare minimum standard of service. Gas lines are one thing - waiting fifteen hours in the emergency room to be seen, only to be charged thousands of dollars for some tylenol…

This person is praising Reagan in terms of economics - I wouldn't even call it slightly disingenuous; it is entirely disingenuous. Walter commonly has absurd takes on this site; I wouldn't fight too hard in conversation.

Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#177

Post by pdimitar »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #20
kevmo314 wrote: post #6

> Actually, what are we going to do when everyone that cares about the craft of software ages out, burns out, or escapes the industry because of the ownership class setting unrealistic expectations on people? Nothing, I guess? There's an implicit assumption that software written by humans is a necessity. If the future finds that software written by computers is more profitable then that's just what it is. The univers…

Well, as someone who considers themselves to be a "software craftsman," I have come to the conclusion that the work I do will never be valued, and will always be considered "too expensive." Since I work for free, that's not an issue for me, but that's economically unfeasible for most folks. The issue with an industry awash with cheap dross, is that it becomes prohibitively expensive to produce high Quality stuff. Any…

> It does mean that only "niche" craftsmen, like myself, will produce anything of decent Quality, but will be unable to do so at scale, because we can't get a team together, large enough to do big things.

Why can't you get a team together?

I dream of working on big and meaningful things ever since a teenager (and I'm 45 currently) but yeah, I can't afford doing it for free. I keep being a drone.

But if somebody were to stretch out a helping hand and pay me to do the big and meaningful things I'll likely accept two days later.

Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#178

Post by pdimitar »

djoldman wrote: post #174
collingreen wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homo economicus to the rescue! Every consumer has perfect knowledge, spending power, and access to effectively unlimited choice which is why when they want lower quality things it's a calculated, careful decision weighing all the options and the long term impacts on both themselves and the future of the industry. Monopolies and pricing power clearly destroy this utopia but even without those I try to remember Pratche…

Hello fellow economics major :) Yep, capitalism fails in a few ways in the long run. Monopolies, imperfect competition, etc., which is why regulation is required to optimize the system.

Regulation against ruling class will never happen. They hire the regulators, more or less, with a few nice and hopeful exceptions, but they're vanishingly rare.

I believe the science knows how to fix capitalism, and has known for decades. But nobody from the rules wants that.

Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#179

Post by pdimitar »

camgunz wrote: post #173

Thomas Ptacek dismissed SWE AI concerns as hypocrisy, and I actually think he understated the argument. This is exactly what we get for: - using BSD/MIT licenses instead of GPL licenses - accepting absolutely no liability for security holes or data loss - accepting absolutely no responsibility for poorly performing software that contributes to climate change - shipping 17,000 web frameworks, founding one more blockch…

Who is "we"?

A lot of "us" don't have the time to do programming as a hobby -- even if we started off that way.

Many of "us" don't accept blanket grouping with privileged others who had thousands of opportunities to improve the general IT area but were too cool to do it and invented yet another LISP interpreter instead.

And then they come to HN and use "we" as a big convenient scapegoat, obviously to escape responsibility.

Most of "us" are trying to have some semblance of a life, man.

Whoever could collect $200k+ a year and be comfortable should have been helping the IT area. Not me who still doesn't have his own house in his 40s.

Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#180

Post by camgunz »

pdimitar wrote: post #179
camgunz wrote: post #173

Thomas Ptacek dismissed SWE AI concerns as hypocrisy, and I actually think he understated the argument. This is exactly what we get for: - using BSD/MIT licenses instead of GPL licenses - accepting absolutely no liability for security holes or data loss - accepting absolutely no responsibility for poorly performing software that contributes to climate change - shipping 17,000 web frameworks, founding one more blockch…

Who is "we"? A lot of "us" don't have the time to do programming as a hobby -- even if we started off that way. Many of "us" don't accept blanket grouping with privileged others who had thousands of opportunities to improve the general IT area but were too cool to do it and invented yet another LISP interpreter instead. And then they come to HN and use "we" as a big convenient scapegoat, obviously to escape responsib…

Hey same team. Earnestly asking: what should we do? I have some ideas but honestly they're so radical they feel like wild overreactions.
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