It’s Time to Build • Hacker News Board

Re: It’s Time to Build

#441

Post by jbkiv » Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 3:16 AM UTC

lookdangerous wrote: post #374

jbkiv wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I respectfully disagree about what it takes to be approved as a health insurance COMPANY (as opposed to a broker). In fact I am quite happy that regulators require you to show that 1) you know what you are doing 2) you have a massive balance sheet to protect your customers if they need it. The point 2 is super important in the context of VC-backed companies. There is simply no way to build a massive insurance company…

I wonder what you think about the necessity of the health insurance industry? Seeing as how apparently it began as a sort of subscription service to keep hospitals afloat when beds were empty... It is a lot to wrap my mind around, but I have the general feeling that insurance drives the prices of health care way up and we would be better if we could all pay out of pocket for most things, but be covered by a true 'ris…

Insurance companies are kind of a costco, they buy stuff in bulk , sell it retail, and manage to get a 5% margin.

My humble opinion: the health care system in the US is totally screwed up and nobody wants to recognize that (except those paying maybe, and I am not even sure of that because they are conned into thinking "that we have the greatest healthcare system in the world").

Everybody is trying to pull the blanket their way. It is obscenely too expensive with little results (worse results than Europe and 4x the price). This is pathetic and a total failure.

Go medicare at scale, and for everybody? But the government does not know how to control the costs on medicare either.

Then religious beliefs get in the way: if 75-85% of the cost of insurance is wasted in the last year of your life, you understand why they keep you artificially alive so everybody can milk the system: never ending MRI's, super expensive drugs, etc...Hospitals, doctors, medical devices providers, everybody feeds on the system, and blame the lame insurance companies/costco of the healthcare world.

This is sad because so many people do not have the means to pay for that, few have access to the type of healthcare engineers have access though work.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#442

Post by state_less » Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 3:17 AM UTC

geofft wrote: post #356

KirinDave wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please see sfwem.org. It is not my project but I've pushed it heavily and recruited for it.

I think the URL is https://www.sfwem.net/ . (Also, cool stuff!)

Thanks for the corrected link. Glad to see projects like this!

Re: It’s Time to Build

#443

Post by pdonis » Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 3:19 AM UTC

tathougies wrote: post #389

My take... we need to greatly increase access to capital by dropping the accredited investor requirements. It is ridiculous that people in less economically advantaged areas are forced to grovel to those deemed rich for capital rather than ask their neighbors and friends for investments. Instead of allowing these people to make investments, the government throws them a bone by allowing them to 'crowdfund', which is a…

> It is ridiculous that people in less economically advantaged areas are forced to grovel to those deemed rich for capital rather than ask their neighbors and friends for investments.

AFAIK the accredited investor requirements only apply to sales of securities to investors who don't have a prior relationship with you. They do not apply if, for example, you want to start a startup and you get ten relatives, friends, and neighbors who already know you to invest in it and give them each a proportionate number of shares of stock.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#444

Post by siruncledrew » Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 3:19 AM UTC

The distillation of Marc’s thesis points echoes “We should have businesses coming out the wazoo!”, at least in my mind.

I think plenty of his points about pushing investment into broad market innovation are very true.

Simultaneously, this post made me think about how we got here. Many of the problems being experienced that are exasperated by the coronavirus are also being contributed to by private industry. I guess the notion of what the government should/should not provide or manufacture is up to personal belief... however, since “small-government” was pushed starting in the 1980s(?), there’s been a big change in the way many public services (and public service dependencies) are operated.

I like the idea of supporting home-grown innovation through startups and market disruption - however, seeing it from the other side, those are also the forces that brought upon harsh realities like experiencing PPE shortages because the manufacturing is outsourced to cheap labor overseas or millions of people relying on shit-tier digital services built by an amalgam of government contractors a decade ago and billed at a ridiculous rate.

I think there’s an opportunity to take the overall message and shift it inwards towards actually pushing government-enabled innovation and development projects. That at least seems more “by the people, for the people” than proliferating a system of voracious hunger to corner off a big pile of sweet government money.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#445

Post by jbkiv » Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 3:20 AM UTC

pascalxus wrote: post #368

treis wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I find this essay to be extremely frustrating, and a good example of the attitude I've personally witnessed Andreessen have in the few interactions I've had with him directly. It's like it was written to be the perfect example of SV myopia for the rest of the world. Some examples: >Even private universities like Harvard are lavished with public funding; why can’t 100,000 or 1 million students a year attend Harvard?…

>>You see it in transportation. Where are the supersonic aircraft? Where are the millions of delivery drones? Where are the high speed trains, the soaring monorails, the hyperloops, and yes, the flying cars? >Because none of this stuff is economically or physically practical. He seems to want us to live in a science fiction fantasy world. I'm pretty sure most of that stuff is highly illegal. Make things illegal, and…

Thks, could not agree more. More Uber = more pollution and unbearable traffic. Slap a 50% tax on Uber and use that money for free public transportation. In a recession maybe we'll see more people getting on an electric bus/subway. And our lungs will be feel better.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#446

Post by KirinDave » Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 3:21 AM UTC

lookdangerous wrote: post #386

fcarraldo wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Markets would love to build more housing. But they're prevented from doing so by the regulatory state. I'm not certain this is a problem outside of the Bay area.

My understanding is the cost of construction has risen dramatically in recent decades, in proportion to an explosion of construction regulation.

Are there specific building codes you disagree with?

Re: It’s Time to Build

#447

Post by Barrin92 » Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 3:21 AM UTC

qplex wrote: post #285

Barrin92 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The inclusive vs extractive institutions mentality makes sense but I think in the exact reverse way then you suggest. It's precisely because of the Wests (and like Marc says it really is the West) failure to respond to this crisis. It's the excess of inclusivity that leads to short term, ballot box decision making in response to crises, and it is the short term, market logic that leads to loss of autonomy and neglect…

All the recent outbreaks of viruses like this have originated from East Asia. I really wouldnt give much praise to the great governing elite that failed to prevent this in the first place, despite scientists telling them about it a long time ago.

Not only is that factually incorrect as the other user pointed out, but you may be surprised that more than half of the worlds population lives in this circle (https://i.imgur.com/CK6aONG.jpg), so the fact that a lot of diseases originate there isn't as surprising as you might think.

Not to mention that diseases can break out everywhere, making the response to a pandemic significantly more important than trying to shift blame for what is essentially a game of chance.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#448

Post by manigandham » Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 3:21 AM UTC

ssivark wrote: post #189

nopriorarrests wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still do not understand the logic. Let me put it straight. 1. US Government has unlimited funding, heck, it came up with 2 trillions _during last month alone_ with some financial alchemy which I don't fully understand. But clearly it's not starving. 2. US Government has kinda poor record producing tangible results during last 30 years, in terms of advancing science, housing, whatever. I mean, can CDC quickly figure…

> Private capital, during the same time frame, gave us google search and maps, smartphones, movies on demand and god knows how much other stuff That's an extremely lazy and superficial analysis. Where did the foundational ingredients for each of those things come from? Computers, networks, video compression, touchscreens, materials, ... heck, even pagerank, and a large fraction of the breakthroughs in ML/AI (till ver…

Public funds for research is a tiny fraction of the funds that the government spends. There are trillions wasted elsewhere that shows that overall it is terrible with spending money productively.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#449

Post by Vomzor » Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 3:22 AM UTC

djcapelis wrote: post #404

Vomzor wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first official case was in March. The actual first case was at the beginning of January. The shelter in place order means the city failed to anticipate and acted when it was too late. Like the rest of the Western world.

> The actual first case was at the beginning of January. Receipts please. You are claiming that the timeline of SF matched other countries where deaths started much earlier and went much higher. Are you really making the claim that our hospitals were overlooking a couple hundred people drowning in their own lungs and unable to breath during the month of February? Because that would basically have to have been true if…

It’s only logical. There are typically 90 weekly roundtrip flights operating between SFO and China or Hong Kong. But somehow no one was infected for two months? Lol.

What I’m saying is that if the West acted like Taiwan there would be no lockdowns. They acted, they were prepared. Western world was caught with its pants down, including San Francisco.

https://sfist.com/2020/04/10/some-scientists-suggest-undetec...

Re: It’s Time to Build

#450

Post by chriswphoto » Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 3:22 AM UTC

buss wrote: post #405

tekdude wrote: post #388

Regulatory capture is indeed a major underlying cause of a lot of the issues, but who will actually do the political work to fight against it? Someone spent money to capture the regulations in the first place, through lobbying and campaign donations. Who will spend the money to lobby and donate for the cause of undoing that? The "builders"? No, their focus and limited capital is spent on whatever it is they are worki…

In San Francisco, at least, YIMBY is the organization that is organized around ending regulatory capture in housing, and The Neoliberal Project (in SF YIMBY Neoliberal) is organized around broader dismantling of regulatory capture. We mobilize people in support of reform-focused politicians and have even started running our own (Sonja Trauss in 2018 and myself in 2020). Happy to talk more about it -- steven.buss@gmai…

Thank you for the work you do! Zoning is the new redlining. This generation has to fight for the right to affordable housing and economic opportunity.