91–100 of 129 posts
Comes close to an important point, and then misses it completely. The problem is not that Saudi money would get them influence at new U.S. tech companies. The problem is that Saudi money is getting pushed into "tech" companies that have unsustainable business models, and this is sucking all the oxygen (e.g. available developers) from other projects that could accomplish more. Imagine two startup ideas. One, could be…
A lot of FUD, but no evidence that Saudi investors are using their influence to make tech companies do bad things. If you follow the money, you'll likely find a questionable source. Americans benefit from US military raining drone strikes in other countries. By being an American citizen, are you tacitly approving drone strikes? No. By paying taxes that fund drone strikes, are you tacitly approving drone strikes? No.…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand anti-elitism, given the alternative.
Please state what you think the alternative is, since you used the singular. To me, there is a range of alternatives, so it is hard to understand your objection because I don't understand what you are imagining. One alternative is a French Revolution, part 2. Another alternative is a system of wealth, income, and inheritance taxes that helps prevent concentration of power in a few families. Another is more aggressive…
There are alternatives to another French Revolution, which no one wants. (Well, no one other than the tyrants waiting in the wings who want to be the global elite.)
Why are people too scared to challenge the global élites? Because they don't acknowledge those alternatives. In my experience, it boils down to being fearful of being ruled by the people who want to be the global élites. Which would be even worse. And, hey, if I'm being honest, they're probably right about that. Thing is, that fear is blinding them to the other completely reasonable alternatives that people are putting forth.
We just need to make more noise about these other, really very low risk options. Options like taxes. Options like strengthening unions. Even out of the box options like thinking about coop type business structures. Etc.
There's more than one way to skin a cat, but we're in the happy position of not even having to skin the cat to get what we want. We just have to get people past that fear of, "Woah! look at those looneys who want to replace the élites! Better the Devil we know!".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
“This idea that you can buy your way to a monopoly, get large market share like Amazon and Google,then figure out how to profit from your position in the market” This idea doesn’t seem to go away. In the 90s it was the same. Whoever would sell dog food on the internet first would own the market and keep it forever. Reality turned out differently.
The scale is what changes. In the 90s it was a single website for a single product line. That model got disrupted by the "platforms" which dominate. It's unclear what is going to disrupt platforms.
A lot of FUD, but no evidence that Saudi investors are using their influence to make tech companies do bad things. If you follow the money, you'll likely find a questionable source. Americans benefit from US military raining drone strikes in other countries. By being an American citizen, are you tacitly approving drone strikes? No. By paying taxes that fund drone strikes, are you tacitly approving drone strikes? No.…
To me, the answer to those questions is not as clear cut as you are portraying. My gut reaction to those questions is to answer that, yes, those attributes in a vacuum imply tacit approval.
That is not to say of course anything about guilt or moral judgement. It is relatively easy to dissuade someone from assuming that approval by speaking against drone strikes.
For an American taxpayer, absent any opposition (private or public) the tacit approval is a default assumption. Not a strong one though.
One thing to point out: Oil is still _huge_ when it comes to investment and sheer amount of financing available. Anything involving large-scale finance will have oil money involved in it in some way. Frankly, even at the height of the tech boom, the tech industry has never had significant capital available compared to the oil industry. I've worked in both... Folks in tech think 100 million in capital is a lot. In oil…
It's still possible to start a new company with just a laptop and free time in fringe markets like cryptocurrency, VR/AR, or many SaaS markets, but many of the exciting areas in tech today - AI, robotics, self-driving cars, gaming - require very large capital investments.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> My money is on early 20th century style oligarchic capitalism I've been enjoying the historical context in this book. I'm not surprised to be liking the book, but i'm pleased to be getting a better understanding of what the early 20th century space was like. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36448501-the-bitcoin-sta...
I wholeheartedly disagree with any decentralized approach to national economics. Not because it wouldn’t work, but because it would. Money is power only because power likes it that way. But power is power, and a decentralized monetary supply does not serve the powerful. They will attack it with every weapon they have (which is basically all of them ) to ensure it doesn’t happen until they control it. In the early 20t…
With large buy in from lesser concentrations of wealth it could be a "peso" at best - something used by lesser wealths to trade to their localized advantage but lacking the power of big movers.
Comes close to an important point, and then misses it completely. The problem is not that Saudi money would get them influence at new U.S. tech companies. The problem is that Saudi money is getting pushed into "tech" companies that have unsustainable business models, and this is sucking all the oxygen (e.g. available developers) from other projects that could accomplish more. Imagine two startup ideas. One, could be…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> My money is on early 20th century style oligarchic capitalism I've been enjoying the historical context in this book. I'm not surprised to be liking the book, but i'm pleased to be getting a better understanding of what the early 20th century space was like. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36448501-the-bitcoin-sta...
I wholeheartedly disagree with any decentralized approach to national economics. Not because it wouldn’t work, but because it would. Money is power only because power likes it that way. But power is power, and a decentralized monetary supply does not serve the powerful. They will attack it with every weapon they have (which is basically all of them ) to ensure it doesn’t happen until they control it. In the early 20t…
Because they can own all the GPUs/ASICs/whatever you'll use as proof of work / proof of stake for your cryptocurrency ?
One thing to point out: Oil is still _huge_ when it comes to investment and sheer amount of financing available. Anything involving large-scale finance will have oil money involved in it in some way. Frankly, even at the height of the tech boom, the tech industry has never had significant capital available compared to the oil industry. I've worked in both... Folks in tech think 100 million in capital is a lot. In oil…
The problem here isn't oil but simply the power of the global elite. I went into this article thinking "So what? The world runs on oil, and oil has a lot of money. Welcome to learning about the economy." But yeah, it is concerning that private interests that don't share our same niceties about democracy and human rights have power over us.
In many respects, the American oil industry is the antithesis of "the global elite." It creates a product everyone uses, and provides well-paying jobs for people without college degrees. XOM's CEO, Darren Woods, isn't a billionaire Stanford grad. He's a Kansan that got his engineering degree at Texas A&M and worked his way up the ladder at the company. Exxon can't outsource production overseas, or transfer IP to Ireland, etc.