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It’s Time to Build

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Re: It’s Time to Build

#771

Post by Thriptic »

pbourke wrote: post #620
mkolodny wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly how two of the biggest startups of the past 15 years - Airbnb and Uber - were built. Airbnb and Uber built products that were in a legal gray area. Lawmakers are still catching up to them.

Key to their strategy was having deep enough pockets to fight many simultaneous legal and PR battles.

Key to their strategy was actually providing the public with something most people actually wanted, regardless of legality. Very few lawmakers want to aggressively go against public sentiment just because the law says they should.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#772

Post by Lionga »

johnzim wrote: post #186
car wrote: post #24

It’s great to see this passion and sentiment. I wholeheartedly agree. In my opinion, the deficiencies that the pandemic is unmasking in the american system need a political solution and change. Looking for heroic activism isn’t going to fix the systemic issues. The left starts out with a stronger bias toward the public sector in many of these areas. To which I say, prove the superior model! Look to the European democ…

Yep, Germany's Healthcare system is a good model - Mandated Govt insurance with optional Private Insurance. Uptake is about 75% on the private side, 25% stick with the Govt model. You could drag Obamacare there with the right political will but breaking Company based healthcare apart is a tough political cookie.

It's 80 - 90% govt. And 10 - 20 % private

Re: It’s Time to Build

#773

Post by silexia »

jakub_g wrote: post #714
oxymoron wrote: post #70

I'm in the process of reading _Why Nation Fails_. The central thesis is that the rich and poor countries are separated by inclusive vs extractive institutions. The extractive institutions are characterised by elites that attempt to defend their own wealth and status by maintaining the status quo and resisting the creative destruction that may threaten that position. It seems to resonate a bit here, when Marc speaks o…

> I heard a few years back that a US health insurance startup had to provide on the order of 6000 pages of documentation to be approved. No wonder that there hadn't been another provider for twenty years or so. It seems like some things are hard to build mostly because some people want it that way. Very often regulation starts lean, then inevitably some assholes take advantage of it to their profit, so the regulation…

I think the single biggest roadblock to building new things is regulation. How do we eliminate most regulations, and simplify the rest to fight off regulatory capture?

What if we had a github for laws and required that anybody who worked on a law use their real name and if they were paid by a company they had to list how much?

Re: It’s Time to Build

#774

Post by WanderPanda »

huntertwo wrote: post #766
roenxi wrote: post #758

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but that would mean ending the middle eastern wars Do you want the terrorists to win? >:| It is a remarkable bellweather of US politics that despite being a relatively peaceful polity the voting public have been unable to drag the country out of a permanent state of expensive and wasteful war. I think both Trump and Obama campaigned as pro-peace candidates so it is a presumably a popular position with voters. US fo…

> US foreign policy is almost inexplicable when it comes to war. The death, destruction and raising a generation Middle Easterners with excellent motivation to hate America seems like a foolish long term strategy. It also doesn't look profitable. Not for the U.S., not for its citizens, but for a certain set of people the constant war is very profitable. And I think you'll find that those that profit from war have con…

You mean >>the swamp<<? :D

Re: It’s Time to Build

#775

Post by nathandaly »

nathandaly wrote: post #154
cactus2093 wrote: post #78

Ok, assume I'm bought into this idea - where would I even begin? What are some companies working on these kind of fundamental building things problems? I know of the Boring Company, though haven't really heard anything from them since the flamethrowers a few years back. Sidewalk labs was doing some cool things in Toronto, but I think they've been running into big regulatory issues too and it one point it sounded like…

From my perspective a lot of the problem is indeed about _motivation_ and _imagination_, like Marc says. One place where I'm finally starting to see this kind of desire to build making its way into the public sphere (and not just resonating in tech circles) is with all the growing energy around a Green New Deal ( https://www.sunrisemovement.org/green-new-deal ). This is the first time in at least a decade that I can…

(Here's an analysis of the Green New Deal published in Energy Research & Social Science): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221462962...

Re: It’s Time to Build

#776

Post by WanderPanda »

quietthrow wrote: post #313

Since you are reading why nations fail I would like to recommend a pairing. How democracies die by Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky. The central thesis here is parties are the gatekeepers of democracies and when they put party before nation they erode the democracy that eventually fails. More often it’s a slow degrade than a sudden spectacular collapse. The erosion paves way for leaders that are more “spectacular”…

Well the old fairytale about the „greater good“ again? Road to hell is paved with good intentions (as history has proven)

Re: It’s Time to Build

#777

Post by nswest23 »

dunkelheit wrote: post #707
oxymoron wrote: post #70

I'm in the process of reading _Why Nation Fails_. The central thesis is that the rich and poor countries are separated by inclusive vs extractive institutions. The extractive institutions are characterised by elites that attempt to defend their own wealth and status by maintaining the status quo and resisting the creative destruction that may threaten that position. It seems to resonate a bit here, when Marc speaks o…

I don't get why everybody is raving about "Why Nations Fail". Their definitions of inclusive/extractive institutions seem hopelessly muddled. It is almost as if they've collected all the stuff they liked in prosperous countries and called it "inclusive" and then did the same with all the stuff they disliked in impoverished dictatorships and called it "extractive". If you try to distill a succinct definition of these…

thank you, _Why Nations Fail_ is partisan hackery.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#778

Post by simonspurr »

thu2111 wrote: post #744
KirinDave wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems to resonate a bit here, when Marc speaks of things like regulatory capture. I heard a few years back that a US health insurance startup had to provide on the order of 6000 pages of documentation to be approved. No wonder that there hadn't been another provider for twenty years or so. It seems like some things are hard to build mostly because some people want it that way. Sure, but is this actually a high o…

We're actually not running out of ventilators anywhere. Existing installed base is sufficient and moreover, it turned out the federal government had a large stockpile anyway, which rather invalidates the central thesis of the article re: lack of preparedness. The claim about ventilators was one of the first dodgy claims I noticed but really the entire first part of the article is a pack of lies. Andreessen says: "We…

Please could you link some of the papers you mention on the scale of the coronavirus problem? I'm not doubting they exist, I'd just be interested to have a read.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#779

Post by hluska »

pmarca wrote: post #365
tlb wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting an answer from a court (is X legal?) takes a long time: at least a few years and several hundred thousand dollars. Far too long to wait before building a business around X. Asking people to build the business first and then find out if it's legal isn't how a society of laws is supposed to work. Fast courts would be a huge benefit to society.

Yes! Law = code. Law should be turned into code, and made available to everyone. A great current attempt is https://donotpay.com/

I’m a big fan of anything that will bring effective legal access to everyone. Technology will definitely play a role, but so will legal deregulation. Lots of jurisdictions are experimenting with opening up certain areas of legal practice to people who aren’t lawyers. And they’re rebuilding systems (alongside technology) to make them easier to access without attorneys.

The troubling part is that at some point, we need to tackle electoral reform. Even if we tackle the legal system and provide effective legal access to everyone, we’ll still be a long ways from tackling mass disillusionment. Hell, in lots of cases, disillusionment and/or disenfranchisement are logical results of history!

Anyways, good comment!

Re: It’s Time to Build

#780

Post by vinay_ys »

pmarca wrote: post #365
tlb wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting an answer from a court (is X legal?) takes a long time: at least a few years and several hundred thousand dollars. Far too long to wait before building a business around X. Asking people to build the business first and then find out if it's legal isn't how a society of laws is supposed to work. Fast courts would be a huge benefit to society.

Yes! Law = code. Law should be turned into code, and made available to everyone. A great current attempt is https://donotpay.com/

It seems donotpay can get you into a legal engagement easily, but the other party can tie you up in more legal battles that donotpay doesn't yet handle and then you are screwed if you can't hire and pay expensive lawyers.
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