5 ms·

Interesting perspective. I wonder how much "cronyism" costs. It is a problem, but how big? Sort of the issue is that their is a systemic change taking place gl

Interesting perspective. I wonder how much "cronyism" costs. It is a problem, but how big? Sort of the issue is that their is a systemic change taking place globally and it moves at a compounding rate. Most governments on a micro scale, are inefficient snd comprised of largely unaccountable people. They make (benevolent/naive view) decisions but are ill equipped with the skills to make the proper ones or (cynical) intentionally extract bwnefit. On a macro stage, we are still dumping money into infrastructure in competition with eachother. If we had all the best engineers working on space for example and collaborating, this would be good, or working to solve things collaboratively. Luckily as PG notes there is a massive defragmentation. I would argue this is great. Agency is redestributed to people in this way and the effects of this will be evident in ~5 years when the laggard affects of technology overtake many legacy industries. Cable is being challenged. The monetary system is being challenged. This election cycle will highlight apathy. It will be realized soon enough that the government will have much less power and is thus, less neccessary. Etc. Also, I just saw The Big Short. The L3 money supply (which is super complicated and I don't pretend to fully grasp) is basically mbs in ~2005.

cpursley 11y ago
Yeah! I'm pretty positive. We're at a pinnacle point where for a lot of big problems, technology / private industry is going to be more effective than the solutions any nation state will be able to provide. Interesting times ahead; governments will need to adapt and focus on what they're good at rather than react defensively.
thatcat 11y ago
>Cable is being challenged. cable tv is being replaced by internet service through the same provider, with the fiber optic deployments being limited by legislation lobbied for by the original cable tv providers. >The monetary system is being challenged. Total BTC is about 4 billion usd, much smaller than most nations currency circulation.
- mhluongo 11y ago
  Nitpick- BTC's market cap is ~$6.4B right now.
- vonklaus 11y ago
  i would have to disagree. SpaceX and OneWeb are making strides to do LEO satellite internet[0] and the successful recapture of the F9 rocket means that launch costs are going down. Couple that with the commoditization of cellphone hardware and there will be many distributed systems in space by 2020. Google has bid on spectrum bandwith, don't have time to cite but Chris Sacca mentions it in basically every interview, just to keep Telecom players in check. They are an ISP now and have other holdings in the space. Facebook is trying to bring internet to india. People are building their own networks. NYC announced it would put wifi in where phonebooths once stood. > BTC marketcap is 4B It has a cap of ~6.5[1] according to coinmarket. Obviously not a lot however the upside potential is large and there are many uses for the technology. Ethereum and Stellar are pretty awesome and Patrick Collison helming stripe might be keen to expand their BTC. So if stripe increases the infrastructure and people become more receptive it will become larger. I am not saying that it will replace u.s currency next year but obviously paper money isn't the currency of the future and clearly there needs to be oversite on how money is created. So something like BTC will obv win long term. [0]http://www.wired.com/2015/06/elon-musk-space-x-satellite-internet/ http://www.wired.com/2015/06/elon-musk-space-x-satellite-int... http://coinmarketcap.com http://coinmarketcap.com
wutbrodo 11y ago
> Luckily as PG notes there is a massive defragmentation His essay is about a _re_-fragmentation, which is the opposite of a defragmentation. If this was just a typo, ignore me, but I wasn't sure if you had misunderstood the metaphor he was using.
- vonklaus 11y ago
  I meant fragmentation is good, I misspoke. I agreed with a lot of PGs evidence but drew the opposite conclusion. Fragmentation in that people are less tied to companies, countries, organizations, and religion. I hope this means that as these descriptors fade, people will relate on individual levels and cooperate. Essentially, this is how society improves and the "income inequality" will be offset by the better measuring stick quality of life. i think that fragmentation in pgs sense, from companies and old patterns, is good. Smart people are getting wealthy and, while am edge case, Elon Musk has had an impact on earth that it could accelerate the pace of technology by decades. So it doesn't matter if income goes down, people can fix the world for a lot less than they used to be able to and things tend to approach their marginal cost. Tl, dr am bullish on the individual, technology and less structured institutions.
  - wutbrodo 11y ago
    I feel pretty much the same way, and I read pg as saying basically the same thing (though with a note of caution that I share about the need to perhaps manage the transition).

cpursley 11y ago

Yeah! I'm pretty positive. We're at a pinnacle point where for a lot of big problems, technology / private industry is going to be more effective than the solutions any nation state will be able to provide. Interesting times ahead; governments will need to adapt and focus on what they're good at rather than react defensively.

thatcat 11y ago

>Cable is being challenged. cable tv is being replaced by internet service through the same provider, with the fiber optic deployments being limited by legislation lobbied for by the original cable tv providers. >The monetary system is being challenged. Total BTC is about 4 billion usd, much smaller than most nations currency circulation.

mhluongo 11y ago
Nitpick- BTC's market cap is ~$6.4B right now.
vonklaus 11y ago
i would have to disagree. SpaceX and OneWeb are making strides to do LEO satellite internet[0] and the successful recapture of the F9 rocket means that launch costs are going down. Couple that with the commoditization of cellphone hardware and there will be many distributed systems in space by 2020. Google has bid on spectrum bandwith, don't have time to cite but Chris Sacca mentions it in basically every interview, just to keep Telecom players in check. They are an ISP now and have other holdings in the space. Facebook is trying to bring internet to india. People are building their own networks. NYC announced it would put wifi in where phonebooths once stood. > BTC marketcap is 4B It has a cap of ~6.5[1] according to coinmarket. Obviously not a lot however the upside potential is large and there are many uses for the technology. Ethereum and Stellar are pretty awesome and Patrick Collison helming stripe might be keen to expand their BTC. So if stripe increases the infrastructure and people become more receptive it will become larger. I am not saying that it will replace u.s currency next year but obviously paper money isn't the currency of the future and clearly there needs to be oversite on how money is created. So something like BTC will obv win long term. [0]http://www.wired.com/2015/06/elon-musk-space-x-satellite-internet/ http://www.wired.com/2015/06/elon-musk-space-x-satellite-int... http://coinmarketcap.com http://coinmarketcap.com

wutbrodo 11y ago

> Luckily as PG notes there is a massive defragmentation His essay is about a _re_-fragmentation, which is the opposite of a defragmentation. If this was just a typo, ignore me, but I wasn't sure if you had misunderstood the metaphor he was using.

vonklaus 11y ago
I meant fragmentation is good, I misspoke. I agreed with a lot of PGs evidence but drew the opposite conclusion. Fragmentation in that people are less tied to companies, countries, organizations, and religion. I hope this means that as these descriptors fade, people will relate on individual levels and cooperate. Essentially, this is how society improves and the "income inequality" will be offset by the better measuring stick quality of life. i think that fragmentation in pgs sense, from companies and old patterns, is good. Smart people are getting wealthy and, while am edge case, Elon Musk has had an impact on earth that it could accelerate the pace of technology by decades. So it doesn't matter if income goes down, people can fix the world for a lot less than they used to be able to and things tend to approach their marginal cost. Tl, dr am bullish on the individual, technology and less structured institutions.
- wutbrodo 11y ago
  I feel pretty much the same way, and I read pg as saying basically the same thing (though with a note of caution that I share about the need to perhaps manage the transition).