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I don't think "put your money where your mouth is" is a good argument. A16z can be subject to prisoner's dilemma of our collective cultural decline and simultan

I don't think "put your money where your mouth is" is a good argument. A16z can be subject to prisoner's dilemma of our collective cultural decline and simultaneously have genuine desire to get out of this predicament we're all in. He says it right there in the blog post-- the problem is desire. For example, someone is reliably making tons of money in China stamping cities into the ground and building thousands of miles of high speed rail. Why can't we? Doing these things is hard in a sense that we seem unable to get collective wherewithal to do it. It's not hard in a sense that a cure for cancer is. They can't invest in things nobody will let them build. Who in their right mind would invest in high speed rail from SF to LA knowing ex ante they'll deal with twenty years of regulatory quagmire for the project to eventually be killed by a thousand bureaucrats? (And I think the bureaucrats are the symptom, not the cause. If we wanted things built the bureaucrats would be out on the street in three months. The cause is cultural decline.)

dmode 6y ago
The high speed rail is nothing to do with bureaucrats (not sure what the term means anymore), but is delayed due the really difficult task of land acquisition, while maintaining property rights, and address thousands of lawsuits about communities objecting to various routes. It is easy to comment on the abstract, but I bet even Marc Andreseen won't be happy if a high speed rail runs in his backyard in Atherton
- coffeemug 6y ago
  We used to be able to accomplish things like raising of Chicago[1] over 150 years ago but we can't move a few tiny communities in the middle of I-5 to build an infrastructure project of enormous economic value in 2020? I think that's case in point. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago
  - dmode 6y ago
    You can view that as a negative. But you can also interpret this as a positive development, where people at grassroots are empowered to protect their own communities, and cannot be simply swept over.
    - mattigames 6y ago
      Any research that such thing is a net positive for society at large?
    - coffeemug 6y ago
      The way to solve this problem is by (largely) adopting the premise of the Coase Theorem, but we've created an environment where that's impossible. So now a community of a few thousand can hold millions of people and hundreds of billions of wealth hostage.
  - ebcode 6y ago
    >> The lack of drainage caused unpleasant living conditions, and standing water harbored pathogens that caused numerous epidemics including typhoid fever and dysentery, which blighted Chicago six years in a row, culminating in the 1854 outbreak of cholera that killed six percent of the city’s population. I think that's the key point right there. Action was taken only after six percent of the city was wiped out. I'm sure we could (and will) be able to do any number of things when faced with an existential crisis of that magnitude. My hope for the present crisis is that it gives us enough pause to reflect on what we are capable of when our lives are on the line, and extend this into tackling our other social ills -- healthcare, or lack thereof, homelessness, poverty, education.
  - jeffchien 6y ago
    You mean CA99, not I5 (unless you're thinking about the segment inside LA county).
- morelisp 6y ago
  Half of Andreessen's personal wealth is based on SV commercial real estate (cf John Arrillaga). Anything that helps people get around CA easier is against his direct interests, even if it doesn't run literally through his backyard.
TeMPOraL 6y ago
> I don't think "put your money where your mouth is" is a good argument. A16z can be subject to prisoner's dilemma of our collective cultural decline and simultaneously have genuine desire to get out of this predicament we're all in. I think it's ultimately the only argument. The best way out of a prisoner's dilemma-like situation is for the central authority above the participants to resolve it unilaterally for them[0]. The next best thing is for one of the players to try and force the new equilibrium, hoping they'll be able to survive the disadvantaged position for longer than it takes the situation to reach that equilibrium[1]. Does A16z have enough money and clout to unilaterally push the market until a better equilibrium, one of "building", establishes itself? I don't know. That would be "putting your money where your mouth is", but maybe they know they can't pull it off. I guess the next best alternative is to take it slow and do a soft push. Write pieces like these, in hopes their message will resonate with other market players. Or maybe it already does? Maybe this article is a mating call[3], a test for whether other funds think the same and will follow suit if A16z decides to put their money where their mouth is, so that everyone can stop funding bullshit software startups and start pouring money into securing a future? -- [0] - In a prisoner's dilemma involving actual prisoners, you could have a mob boss declaim that they'll kill any prisoner that defects. [1] - A possible example would be Tesla, which initially faced ridicule for pushing the electric cars; fast forward couple of years, and it managed to force the market to accept the viability of electric transportation, and now all major automakers want the piece of that cake. Which, from Musk's point of view, is Mission. Fucking. Accomplished. [2]. [2] - https://xkcd.com/810/ https://xkcd.com/810/ [3] - See this excellent comment that introduced me to the idea: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22798808 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22798808. In that case, a mating call is a "publicly executed conspiracy to fix prices", but I think it can be generalized as "a method to for coordinating in cases where doing so overtly could be illegal". Which may not always be a bad thing.

dmode 6y ago

The high speed rail is nothing to do with bureaucrats (not sure what the term means anymore), but is delayed due the really difficult task of land acquisition, while maintaining property rights, and address thousands of lawsuits about communities objecting to various routes. It is easy to comment on the abstract, but I bet even Marc Andreseen won't be happy if a high speed rail runs in his backyard in Atherton

coffeemug 6y ago
We used to be able to accomplish things like raising of Chicago[1] over 150 years ago but we can't move a few tiny communities in the middle of I-5 to build an infrastructure project of enormous economic value in 2020? I think that's case in point. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago
- dmode 6y ago
  You can view that as a negative. But you can also interpret this as a positive development, where people at grassroots are empowered to protect their own communities, and cannot be simply swept over.
  - mattigames 6y ago
    Any research that such thing is a net positive for society at large?
  - coffeemug 6y ago
    The way to solve this problem is by (largely) adopting the premise of the Coase Theorem, but we've created an environment where that's impossible. So now a community of a few thousand can hold millions of people and hundreds of billions of wealth hostage.
- ebcode 6y ago
  >> The lack of drainage caused unpleasant living conditions, and standing water harbored pathogens that caused numerous epidemics including typhoid fever and dysentery, which blighted Chicago six years in a row, culminating in the 1854 outbreak of cholera that killed six percent of the city’s population. I think that's the key point right there. Action was taken only after six percent of the city was wiped out. I'm sure we could (and will) be able to do any number of things when faced with an existential crisis of that magnitude. My hope for the present crisis is that it gives us enough pause to reflect on what we are capable of when our lives are on the line, and extend this into tackling our other social ills -- healthcare, or lack thereof, homelessness, poverty, education.
- jeffchien 6y ago
  You mean CA99, not I5 (unless you're thinking about the segment inside LA county).
morelisp 6y ago
Half of Andreessen's personal wealth is based on SV commercial real estate (cf John Arrillaga). Anything that helps people get around CA easier is against his direct interests, even if it doesn't run literally through his backyard.

TeMPOraL 6y ago

> I don't think "put your money where your mouth is" is a good argument. A16z can be subject to prisoner's dilemma of our collective cultural decline and simultaneously have genuine desire to get out of this predicament we're all in. I think it's ultimately the only argument. The best way out of a prisoner's dilemma-like situation is for the central authority above the participants to resolve it unilaterally for them[0]. The next best thing is for one of the players to try and force the new equilibrium, hoping they'll be able to survive the disadvantaged position for longer than it takes the situation to reach that equilibrium[1]. Does A16z have enough money and clout to unilaterally push the market until a better equilibrium, one of "building", establishes itself? I don't know. That would be "putting your money where your mouth is", but maybe they know they can't pull it off. I guess the next best alternative is to take it slow and do a soft push. Write pieces like these, in hopes their message will resonate with other market players. Or maybe it already does? Maybe this article is a mating call[3], a test for whether other funds think the same and will follow suit if A16z decides to put their money where their mouth is, so that everyone can stop funding bullshit software startups and start pouring money into securing a future? -- [0] - In a prisoner's dilemma involving actual prisoners, you could have a mob boss declaim that they'll kill any prisoner that defects. [1] - A possible example would be Tesla, which initially faced ridicule for pushing the electric cars; fast forward couple of years, and it managed to force the market to accept the viability of electric transportation, and now all major automakers want the piece of that cake. Which, from Musk's point of view, is Mission. Fucking. Accomplished. [2]. [2] - https://xkcd.com/810/ https://xkcd.com/810/ [3] - See this excellent comment that introduced me to the idea: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22798808 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22798808. In that case, a mating call is a "publicly executed conspiracy to fix prices", but I think it can be generalized as "a method to for coordinating in cases where doing so overtly could be illegal". Which may not always be a bad thing.