7 ms·
What I find so interesting about Vice Ventures is how she has drawn a hard line on the weapons industry.
by soapboxrocket 7y ago
What I find so interesting about Vice Ventures is how she has drawn a hard line on the weapons industry.
- flyingfences 7y agoIt's all politics. This organization is clearly run by a team on the "left wing" - they'll happily support what the "right wing" labels as "degenerate" but toe the line on what they consider "uncivilized". I'm disappointed but not at all surprised.
- StuffedParrot 7y agoWhat a shallow view of politics. Ladies and gentlemen, the Dunning-Kruger effect.
- AmericanChopper 7y agoTheir mission statement is investing in industries "facing funding and/or regulatory challenges because of social disapproval", but the unstated (or perhaps implied) political angle is they are focusing on industries that society doesn't approve of, but they do. Otherwise weapons, fossil fuels and surveillance tech would be on their list too. The obvious response to that is that those industries face disapproval because of a perceived harm to society, but all of the industries they list face disapproval for the exact same reason.
- jay_kyburz 7y agoI think your comment is interesting because it demonstrates how inadequate the left wing - right wing view of the world is. A lot of "left wing" energy is spent trying to kill the gambling and nicotine industry.
- flyingfences 7y agoI guess I mean the "popular left/right" more than the "establishment left/right" especially when it comes to startups and unconventional investing.
- namewasmypw 7y agoNot really. The left tends to oppose government restrictions, as opposed to the center and center-left (liberals).
- virmundi 7y agoWhat? The left wing is the one pushing hate speech as a crime. They are also trying to strip rights away like the ownership of guns because they don’t like guns. They are pushing for stealing even more wealth because apparently everything is a right now. Free houses. Free food. Free tampons. Free pets. There is no end to what’s free the left is literally Communism. Communism is literally authoritarian. While the manifesto doesn’t come out and says, “hey, we’re authoritarian” it has to be in order to direct the economy by picking winners and losers. The right tries to strip rights too, don’t get me wrong, but the left goes to authoritarian just as much as the right.
- namewasmypw 7y agoAnarchists are not asking for any of those things. Liberals aren't leftists.
- mendelmaleh 7y agoTodays leftists seem more communist than anarchist.
- krageon 7y agoDo you have any more baseless generalisations to share with the world?
- klyrs 7y agoI suspect that weapons producers don't have a shortage of investment opportunities. Their customers include militaries and police departments. And if it's "just politics," the finance industry skews right and the NRA is one of the most powerful lobbies in the US. If ivestors are distancing themselves from the gun industry, I'd assume that it's good ol' fiscal conservatism: mass shootings are on the rise and they don't want to touch that liability with a 10' pole.
- flyingfences 7y agoBig, established arms companies have decent financial prospects. Firearms/accessories businesses in the startup space (or just small, local businesses) are frequently cold-shouldered out of opportunities.
- beat 7y agoWhat we think of as startup-style capital, the kind that goes into software, is a hard sell for firearms manufacturers, because it's very difficult to get an edge, compared to software. Manufacturing is expensive, with a lot of up-front costs, and can't easily be scaled without a lot more up-front costs. Meanwhile, established deep-pockets competitors can just duplicate a successful product. This is really about boutique/niche product manufacturing. There's usually not a reasonable path to becoming a billion-dollar company, at any degree of risk. That's what "startup capital" wants... to get in on the ground floor of a billion dollar company. They want that 100x return. You're not going to get a 100x return manufacturing a better rifle scope or a boutique handgun. This is what banks are for. Start business on scraped capital, show real customers and real profit, then go to a traditional bank with a traditional business plan for scaling capital.
- AmericanChopper 7y agoIndustries dominated by a small number of very large players are typically what you'd call 'ripe for disruption'. Banking has never had a shortage of funding either, but banking and financial startups have only recently started to influence the industry. I didn't hear about anybody turning down Stripe because "finance sector is overfunded".
- jay_kyburz 7y agoYeah, its not that they have no moral compass, its just that it points in a different direction to many people. I don't have a problem with sex tech or esports but want nothing to do with addiction. I wonder if they would also fund email spammers if there was money in it.
- mtnGoat 7y agoYet sex/porn and esports are both addicting. How does that math add up? Games maybe not so much by nature, but the publishers are trying everything they can to increase your time in game.
- duskwuff 7y ago"Esports" typically refers to professional competitive gaming, not to video games in general -- the focus is on viewership, not participation. There are some related side industries which might fit that description (like esports betting sites), but the industry itself isn't particularly "addictive", at least no more than traditional sports. The classification of sex and pornography as "addictive" has been controversial, and all I'll say about that is that there is no scientific consensus that they should be considered as such.
- mtnGoat 7y agook, i can get on board with the esports part. Porn, you can call it anecdotal, but over a decade in that industry taught me, its certainly addictive for some, and is are some very manipulative marketing going on by the smarter companies. But i do see the opposing argument, people get addicted to all kinds of strange things and nothing about porn per se is addicting. it's that ending they are addicted to, not the content.
- rurp 7y agoI used the work in the gaming[0] industry and did my best to read up on addiction, both in general terms and related to gambling. One of the main takeaways I found was that the addiction rates are surprisingly similar across different vices. It doesn't matter if the vice is gambling, porn, alcohol, shopping, or whatever -- some low single digit percent of the population is likely to get dangerously addicted, a somewhat larger group will spend way too much money but not otherwise disrupt their life, and the vast majority of people will treat it like just another type of recreation. I really wish our society could take all of the energy that goes into criminalizing and stigmatizing vice industries and instead use it to offer help to people who are dangerously addicted. Just think of how much free therapy, rehab, and drug research could be funded by the tens of billions of dollars that the drug war has cost. [0] Gaming is the industry term for gambling
- curiousgal 7y agoIf it's sex or drugs or any sort of addiction, the user is victim. With weapons, other people are the victim.
- ghostpepper 7y agoHow does buying a vibrator make someone a victim?
- sdinsn 7y agoUnless you use a weapon for self defense.
- homonculus1 7y agoSelf-defense doesn't exist according to HN. The SFPD should be good enough for anybody, which means all private guns are just murder waiting to happen.
- colejohnson66 7y agoI think you’ll find that the political diversity here is quite wide. There’s people here against guns and people here who believe people have a right to own them.
- nokcha 7y ago>If it's sex or drugs or any sort of addiction, the user is victim. With weapons, other people are the victim. At least in the US, a majority of deaths by firearm are suicides. And as for potentially addictive drugs (e.g., alcohol), the user can cause great harm to other people, as in drunk driving.