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Are you going to change the world? (Really?)

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Re: Are you going to change the world? (Really?)

#91

Post by pg »

david927 wrote: post #90
curi wrote: post #13

Is making an AJAXified tool or toy that will likely be used by less than 1% of the people in the richest country in the world the absolute best use of your time and talents right now? Honestly? This is a good question. Here are some thoughts about the answer in a general sense: Why do people make ajax websites like that? To get money, mostly. (It's also fun because programming is fun.) How do you get rich making a we…

> Why do people make ajax websites like that? Because it's a get-rich-quick scheme. > This is capitalism at its finest. Twitter? Facebook? I absolutely agree. > There is an idea that the richest country doesn't need more help, doesn't need further luxury. Are you talking about Norway? Or Luxembourg? Or Switzerland? They're all richer than the US. In fact, with the current drop in the dollar, and if Current Account is…

It comes across as not just mean but mistaken.

You didn't even respond to his statement. He said America has the most productive people. You replied that average productivity is higher in Europe. That is a different measure. European countries don't have so many super poor people as the US, which makes their average numbers look better, but they also don't have Google (or Microsoft or Apple or Intel or Cisco...).

Re: Are you going to change the world? (Really?)

#92

Post by david927 »

pg wrote: post #91
david927 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do people make ajax websites like that? Because it's a get-rich-quick scheme. > This is capitalism at its finest. Twitter? Facebook? I absolutely agree. > There is an idea that the richest country doesn't need more help, doesn't need further luxury. Are you talking about Norway? Or Luxembourg? Or Switzerland? They're all richer than the US. In fact, with the current drop in the dollar, and if Current Account is…

It comes across as not just mean but mistaken. You didn't even respond to his statement. He said America has the most productive people. You replied that average productivity is higher in Europe. That is a different measure. European countries don't have so many super poor people as the US, which makes their average numbers look better, but they also don't have Google (or Microsoft or Apple or Intel or Cisco...).

That's a fair response. (And I apologize if I came across mean.) But I can mathematically prove you wrong. (I'm sure you'll prefer that, right? :-) If you look at average incomes and median incomes, the former are higher than the latter. Therefore it's the super rich throwing off the average -- not the super poor.

America has a venture culture that no one else in the world has, and I have to say as an entrepreneur myself that I deeply appreciate America for imparting that on me. But its handful of successes are rouge on a doll. If you're not looking at averages, you're essentially fooling yourself. How many people here are working on the next MySpace, desperate to get lucky and rich, and ignoring the odds and the fact that they're not adding value to anyone, anywhere? Like lottery ticket buyers, they're all fooling themselves that they will join that rich elite, when they never will (despite that, yes, sometimes someone wins).

Re: Are you going to change the world? (Really?)

#93

Post by ivankirigin »

david927 wrote: post #92
pg wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It comes across as not just mean but mistaken. You didn't even respond to his statement. He said America has the most productive people. You replied that average productivity is higher in Europe. That is a different measure. European countries don't have so many super poor people as the US, which makes their average numbers look better, but they also don't have Google (or Microsoft or Apple or Intel or Cisco...).

That's a fair response. (And I apologize if I came across mean.) But I can mathematically prove you wrong. (I'm sure you'll prefer that, right? :-) If you look at average incomes and median incomes, the former are higher than the latter. Therefore it's the super rich throwing off the average -- not the super poor. America has a venture culture that no one else in the world has, and I have to say as an entrepreneur my…

PG mentioned productivity and you mentioned income, so you aren't addressing the example criticism.

Also, I've heard that France has higher productivity per hour worked, though the average worker spends fewer hours working.

My guess is that people cheat the limits on working to get more done and push up the hourly productivity numbers.

Re: Are you going to change the world? (Really?)

#94

Post by david927 »

ivankirigin wrote: post #93
david927 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fair response. (And I apologize if I came across mean.) But I can mathematically prove you wrong. (I'm sure you'll prefer that, right? :-) If you look at average incomes and median incomes, the former are higher than the latter. Therefore it's the super rich throwing off the average -- not the super poor. America has a venture culture that no one else in the world has, and I have to say as an entrepreneur my…

PG mentioned productivity and you mentioned income, so you aren't addressing the example criticism. Also, I've heard that France has higher productivity per hour worked, though the average worker spends fewer hours working. My guess is that people cheat the limits on working to get more done and push up the hourly productivity numbers.

... which is OK if the example criticism has no valid measurement parameters. There's a reason Forbes doesn't list the 100 most productive people.

Re: Are you going to change the world? (Really?)

#95

Post by ivankirigin »

david927 wrote: post #94
ivankirigin wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PG mentioned productivity and you mentioned income, so you aren't addressing the example criticism. Also, I've heard that France has higher productivity per hour worked, though the average worker spends fewer hours working. My guess is that people cheat the limits on working to get more done and push up the hourly productivity numbers.

... which is OK if the example criticism has no valid measurement parameters. There's a reason Forbes doesn't list the 100 most productive people.

The most productive people aren't the top 100 people. They are the top ~10,000 at the top ~1000 companies and startups.

A magazine should make a list of the top 500 companies...

Re: Are you going to change the world? (Really?)

#96

Post by [deleted] »

david927 wrote: post #92
pg wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It comes across as not just mean but mistaken. You didn't even respond to his statement. He said America has the most productive people. You replied that average productivity is higher in Europe. That is a different measure. European countries don't have so many super poor people as the US, which makes their average numbers look better, but they also don't have Google (or Microsoft or Apple or Intel or Cisco...).

That's a fair response. (And I apologize if I came across mean.) But I can mathematically prove you wrong. (I'm sure you'll prefer that, right? :-) If you look at average incomes and median incomes, the former are higher than the latter. Therefore it's the super rich throwing off the average -- not the super poor. America has a venture culture that no one else in the world has, and I have to say as an entrepreneur my…

[deleted]

Re: Are you going to change the world? (Really?)

#97

Post by pg »

david927 wrote: post #92
pg wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It comes across as not just mean but mistaken. You didn't even respond to his statement. He said America has the most productive people. You replied that average productivity is higher in Europe. That is a different measure. European countries don't have so many super poor people as the US, which makes their average numbers look better, but they also don't have Google (or Microsoft or Apple or Intel or Cisco...).

That's a fair response. (And I apologize if I came across mean.) But I can mathematically prove you wrong. (I'm sure you'll prefer that, right? :-) If you look at average incomes and median incomes, the former are higher than the latter. Therefore it's the super rich throwing off the average -- not the super poor. America has a venture culture that no one else in the world has, and I have to say as an entrepreneur my…

What statement of mine did you just mathematically prove wrong?

If the super-rich are throwing off the average, then unless they're getting the money by stealing it, that supports curi's and my claim that the most productive people are in the US.

Re: Are you going to change the world? (Really?)

#98

Post by david927 »

pg wrote: post #97
david927 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fair response. (And I apologize if I came across mean.) But I can mathematically prove you wrong. (I'm sure you'll prefer that, right? :-) If you look at average incomes and median incomes, the former are higher than the latter. Therefore it's the super rich throwing off the average -- not the super poor. America has a venture culture that no one else in the world has, and I have to say as an entrepreneur my…

What statement of mine did you just mathematically prove wrong? If the super-rich are throwing off the average, then unless they're getting the money by stealing it, that supports curi's and my claim that the most productive people are in the US.

This one:

> European countries don't have so many super poor people as the US, which makes their average numbers look better

Your statement that the most productive people are in the US, is another way to say that wealth in unevenly distributed in the US. In this case, the most "productive" people would actually be in Saudi Arabia.

Re: Are you going to change the world? (Really?)

#99

Post by anon1 »

Some quick late night thoughts.

Attend to deep impact. Most of your impact will be on the "leaves" of your impact tree. Not in the people you directly affect, but in those they then affect, etc. Magnitudes, branching factors, scale. Force multipliers.

Be fruitful. Like when planning a research career, choose appropriate problems. Good sized, well timed, well formed and motivated. You don't strictly need to be first, but you only get credit for things done earlier or better than if you had not participated. And only for that marginal improvement. Just being there doesn't count.

Leverage. If your not leveraging your strengths, you are waisting your time. The entirety of your strengths. Relative to other people. The world is full of important things which are not getting done because the warm bodies with the odd required mix of capabilities are busy doing other things, or sometimes haven't noticed. Different people have very different sets of low hanging fruit. Attend to yours.

It's a project. Requirements, analysis, outside review, planning, testing, management, postmortems. Engineering, science, academia, all have things to do which increase the likelihood of a successful outcome. You can skip all the ones you don't like. Not. Some of your low hanging fruit will require visits to places you really don't want to go, but are good for you.

Opportunities exist. And often go unnoticed. It seems 10 million primary school children in the developing world either will or won't have laptops in 2008, depending on whether order 100 python good programmer months choose to spend time on it in the next half year.

Re: Are you going to change the world? (Really?)

#100

Post by DennisP »

DennisP wrote: post #79

Nuclear fusion. Two possible avenues, google "polywell fusion" and look at focusfusion.org. Polywell is getting the most press and has the best pedigree - its inventor is Robert Bussard, one of the inventors of the Tokamak. He believes he's proved that a new design of his will work...his experiments were funded for 12 years by the Navy. Now he's trying to raise about $5 million for a couple more test reactors. After…

Followup: the focus fusion guy just gave a presentation to Google, here's the video:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1518007279479871760...

He needs $2 million for the proof-of-concept.

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