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> We don't have it because building these things requires long term investments and folks like Marc and his investors are not interested in long term investment
by amasad 6y ago
> We don't have it because building these things requires long term investments and folks like Marc and his investors are not interested in long term investments.
I don't know where you get this from but as far as VC goes a16z are especially willing to take long-term bets. Case in point, when we pitched them, we explicitly said it's going to take us a decade to achieve our goals and they were okay with that.
- KirinDave 6y agoWeird, they told me "it would take too long for that to work."
- amasad 6y agoBut you're right in that 99% of VCs and investors in general think short term. Very high time preference.
- nerfhammer 6y agomaybe that was a polite way of telling you they didn't think it was a good idea in the first place...
- worik 6y agoThere is a problem. Ten years is not long term. In the long term we are all dead. So we have to want to do these things for people who are not born yet and who will never pay us or pay us back or be able to even thank us. We have to do these things because these things are the right thing to do. That will decrease our wealth. Now please explain how capitalism can do that?
- amasad 6y agoHaving children will give you that incentive. People with no children will have higher time preference -- they prefer today's consumption over investment in the future. That's why I find a lot of the antinatalism of modern western culture to be concerning.
- galimaufry 6y agoAre parents' incentives really that strong? We need all sorts of laws to prevent parents from exploiting or maltreating their children. It seems that parental instincts are not very reliable.
- lookdangerous 6y agoThe negative extremes are, well, extreme. I am not a parent myself, yet, but I think you'd be surprised how great the incentive truly is. If we had a tidy causal analysis of what drives people the world over, I suspect parental instincts would make up a visible chunk of motivations.
- blain_the_train 6y agoTo protect there kids from short term problems they understand yes. But issue like climate change are both hard to understand and long term. Having kids doesn't make you wiser.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago> Having kids doesn't make you wiser. But it makes you more receptive to arguments about anything that could endanger their safety and future. My wife has started to be much more environmentally conscious (vs. economically conscious) over the past year, and I think it all started due to one off-hand remark: I said that I hope our (then about-to-be-born) daughter will be able to experience snow. She brought up that particular phrase to me many times now; it seems it really stuck in her imagination.
- adamsea 6y agoYes and no? Plenty of parents in the U.S. with children don't seem to care about the environment.
- KirinDave 6y agoThe idea that having children is an anti-environmental stands is part of a platform called "eco-fascism." I am not sure you want to involve yourself with those folks and this toxic ideology. It is not inevitable that every life liberated some huge sum of tons of carbon.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- pmarca 6y agoThe average time horizon for anyone with young kids is 80+ years.