4 ms·

> In the 90s-00s (millennial time) it was even more accessible. You also had the internet to learn from and a vastly larger market for all things tech. I think

> In the 90s-00s (millennial time) it was even more accessible. You also had the internet to learn from and a vastly larger market for all things tech. I think you're overstating the degree of access that large parts of the population had for furthering interest in this area. I was a teenager in the mid-90s. This is when I read about Linux for the first time somewhere online. I remember going to bookstores and trying to find books on learning Linux, but none existed where I lived (Midwest). I managed to install MKLinux on my PPC Mac at the time, but had no idea where to go from there. Online resources were locked behind a dial-up connection and there were no computer clubs or technology meet-ups in my area. Web searches were still a joke at the time. It wasn’t until years later that I became familiar with Unix and Unix-like systems. The change finally came as a result of widespread broadband adoption and the rise of Google. Around this time, Mac OS X had also arrived and I could finally begin learning the command line without having to dual-boot my computer. I think you’re overstating the level of access that large parts of the population had for truly going further in the 90s. I’m highly envious of young people today and the access that they now have to resources that essentially didn’t exist when I was that age. That’s probably true for every generation, however.

malvosenior 9y ago
All I said is that the tech was more available in the 90s than the 80s. Your story is pretty in-line with what I was thinking honestly. My point is: fighting technological progress because it’s not happening fast enough seems weird. Should we not encourage it to happen even faster?
- aalleavitch 9y ago
  We should be looking at where it's exacerbating inequality and come up with intelligent, data-driven solutions. Many people act as if the concept of any type of government regulation or non-market-driven solution is incapable of having a positive impact, but I have seen no compelling evidence to prove that. You can hand-pick any number of past bad regulations with negative outcomes, but for every one you show me I can show you a regulation we're deeply reliant on. Regulations are a tool, they can be designed well or poorly, and we can examine them analytically. Even if you truly believed that government intervention of any kind necessarily must introduce inefficiencies, I'd hope you'd agree that economic efficiency is not always the exclusive good that we should be aiming for. Ideally we want a balance of economic efficiency and the overall health, equality, and well-being of the populace. The argument that when the economy improves everyone does better is blatantly false, and we have data to indicate that. Moreover, economic inequality itself can destroy markets. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/8/16112368/piketty-saez-zucman-income-growth-inequality-stagnation-chart https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/8/16112368/pi...
  - malvosenior 9y ago
    And I've seen no compelling evidence that regulation adds anything to technological progress. In fact I've personally experienced quite the opposite. Have you ever worked on a global tech property? The EU and Germany in particular have some pretty onerous regulations regarding content that can be published (even on user generated content services). You will waste real man hours complying with these regulations. You'll also forgo legitimate innovation in favor of this mollycoddling busy work. I don't want to ask permission from the state to build something and I surely don't want them involved with my endeavor once I get going. You can experience these effects first hand if you try to build something innovative and it takes off.
    - aalleavitch 9y ago
      My dad's company is an international medical device manufacturer and I am keenly aware of the regulatory hoops (some of which I will even admit are legitimately unfair and should be reformed!) that he has to jump through and the sheer amount of money it costs his company to make sure they're complying with regulations. It, without a doubt, is an economic burden on them. I still don't want someone dying because a faulty medical device was used on them. I think that the trade-off between ease of new innovation and public safety is a decision we have to all make collectively, and I think that the necessarily massive gulf between consumer and producer information necessitates that government be involved. Market solutions are bad for situations where there is wide information asymmetry.
    - pesmhey 9y ago
      You could also experience these effects if you were trying to build weapons. Or a monopoly. Or lots of things. The reason you haven't seen compelling evidence that regulation adds anything to technological progress is because it doesn't, almost by definition. Regulation serves to protect citizens - entrenched special interests too. That protection means funding space races and intense times of technological progress, or dampening an out-of-control feedback loop of wealth/power accumulation, or a bunch of things in between.
- pesmhey 9y ago
  Imagine you're on a skateboard holding on to a bungee cord connected to the back of your buddy's truck - or some similar analogy. Imagine that truck starts going too fast, and you start lagging behind. Imagine your cord just snaps and your buddy just keeps going. You're basically advocating that we step on the gas to make everyone go faster. Eventually, that link just snaps.
  - malvosenior 9y ago
    It's more like I bought a nice new truck and I'm taking it to the store when I pass a bunch of people who I don't know but ask me for a ride. I politely decline as I'm busy but instead they attach their bungee cords to my truck as I drive by. Then they complain incessantly that I'm driving too fast and that I'm going to break their cords. Yeah, I'm advocating that people find their own ride and don't slow mine down.
    - pesmhey 9y ago
      A lot of the tech that has enabled the rise of the 'virtual class' is built on a marriage of public and private funds. The railroads that enabled westward expansion, the dams that powered it, so many things that enabled our situation today, built in part (though not fully, of course) on the contributions of a myriad of people - people that may not necessarily know each other. People normally have benefitted from the type of tech built by public and private funds, but now, there's a big fear that the current tech being built has no upside for anyone but a very small number of people. With a little more social and political grace, these fears might be assuaged, but instead, there's this zeitgeist that 'we could build such a better world if only pesky people didn't get in the way'. It's a Cultural Revolution!
      - malvosenior 9y ago
        The basic infrastructure you mention were enabled by cheap labor more than anything else. We still use that for manufacturing (among other things) via globalism. > there's a big fear that the current tech being built has no upside for anyone but a very small number of people Some people have that fear, a most people don't. The quintessential example of an "evil" California company is Uber. That service has been absolutely trans-formative not just for myself and other tech workers, but also for the drivers. I take Uber all the time and despite the media FUD, nearly 100% of drivers say the service was life changing as they can now make money on demand, when it works for them. I think there's a small pocket of very well connected people who are "afraid" of unchecked technological progress because they don't understand it and/or they're heavily invested in decaying power structures (old media, social scientists, politicians...). They make a lot of noise as a smoke screen to put the technologists under them in the social/financial hierarchy. Most technologists and most regular people aren't afraid of anything and quite enjoy the fruits of our progress (cf Facebook usage).

malvosenior 9y ago

All I said is that the tech was more available in the 90s than the 80s. Your story is pretty in-line with what I was thinking honestly. My point is: fighting technological progress because it’s not happening fast enough seems weird. Should we not encourage it to happen even faster?

aalleavitch 9y ago
We should be looking at where it's exacerbating inequality and come up with intelligent, data-driven solutions. Many people act as if the concept of any type of government regulation or non-market-driven solution is incapable of having a positive impact, but I have seen no compelling evidence to prove that. You can hand-pick any number of past bad regulations with negative outcomes, but for every one you show me I can show you a regulation we're deeply reliant on. Regulations are a tool, they can be designed well or poorly, and we can examine them analytically. Even if you truly believed that government intervention of any kind necessarily must introduce inefficiencies, I'd hope you'd agree that economic efficiency is not always the exclusive good that we should be aiming for. Ideally we want a balance of economic efficiency and the overall health, equality, and well-being of the populace. The argument that when the economy improves everyone does better is blatantly false, and we have data to indicate that. Moreover, economic inequality itself can destroy markets. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/8/16112368/piketty-saez-zucman-income-growth-inequality-stagnation-chart https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/8/16112368/pi...
- malvosenior 9y ago
  And I've seen no compelling evidence that regulation adds anything to technological progress. In fact I've personally experienced quite the opposite. Have you ever worked on a global tech property? The EU and Germany in particular have some pretty onerous regulations regarding content that can be published (even on user generated content services). You will waste real man hours complying with these regulations. You'll also forgo legitimate innovation in favor of this mollycoddling busy work. I don't want to ask permission from the state to build something and I surely don't want them involved with my endeavor once I get going. You can experience these effects first hand if you try to build something innovative and it takes off.
  - aalleavitch 9y ago
    My dad's company is an international medical device manufacturer and I am keenly aware of the regulatory hoops (some of which I will even admit are legitimately unfair and should be reformed!) that he has to jump through and the sheer amount of money it costs his company to make sure they're complying with regulations. It, without a doubt, is an economic burden on them. I still don't want someone dying because a faulty medical device was used on them. I think that the trade-off between ease of new innovation and public safety is a decision we have to all make collectively, and I think that the necessarily massive gulf between consumer and producer information necessitates that government be involved. Market solutions are bad for situations where there is wide information asymmetry.
  - pesmhey 9y ago
    You could also experience these effects if you were trying to build weapons. Or a monopoly. Or lots of things. The reason you haven't seen compelling evidence that regulation adds anything to technological progress is because it doesn't, almost by definition. Regulation serves to protect citizens - entrenched special interests too. That protection means funding space races and intense times of technological progress, or dampening an out-of-control feedback loop of wealth/power accumulation, or a bunch of things in between.
pesmhey 9y ago
Imagine you're on a skateboard holding on to a bungee cord connected to the back of your buddy's truck - or some similar analogy. Imagine that truck starts going too fast, and you start lagging behind. Imagine your cord just snaps and your buddy just keeps going. You're basically advocating that we step on the gas to make everyone go faster. Eventually, that link just snaps.
- malvosenior 9y ago
  It's more like I bought a nice new truck and I'm taking it to the store when I pass a bunch of people who I don't know but ask me for a ride. I politely decline as I'm busy but instead they attach their bungee cords to my truck as I drive by. Then they complain incessantly that I'm driving too fast and that I'm going to break their cords. Yeah, I'm advocating that people find their own ride and don't slow mine down.
  - pesmhey 9y ago
    A lot of the tech that has enabled the rise of the 'virtual class' is built on a marriage of public and private funds. The railroads that enabled westward expansion, the dams that powered it, so many things that enabled our situation today, built in part (though not fully, of course) on the contributions of a myriad of people - people that may not necessarily know each other. People normally have benefitted from the type of tech built by public and private funds, but now, there's a big fear that the current tech being built has no upside for anyone but a very small number of people. With a little more social and political grace, these fears might be assuaged, but instead, there's this zeitgeist that 'we could build such a better world if only pesky people didn't get in the way'. It's a Cultural Revolution!
    - malvosenior 9y ago
      The basic infrastructure you mention were enabled by cheap labor more than anything else. We still use that for manufacturing (among other things) via globalism. > there's a big fear that the current tech being built has no upside for anyone but a very small number of people Some people have that fear, a most people don't. The quintessential example of an "evil" California company is Uber. That service has been absolutely trans-formative not just for myself and other tech workers, but also for the drivers. I take Uber all the time and despite the media FUD, nearly 100% of drivers say the service was life changing as they can now make money on demand, when it works for them. I think there's a small pocket of very well connected people who are "afraid" of unchecked technological progress because they don't understand it and/or they're heavily invested in decaying power structures (old media, social scientists, politicians...). They make a lot of noise as a smoke screen to put the technologists under them in the social/financial hierarchy. Most technologists and most regular people aren't afraid of anything and quite enjoy the fruits of our progress (cf Facebook usage).