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My point is that a lot of people have this Atlas Shrugged view of the world, where the noble entrepreneur is lashed to earth by envious, regulation loving, Demo

My point is that a lot of people have this Atlas Shrugged view of the world, where the noble entrepreneur is lashed to earth by envious, regulation loving, Democratic bureaucrats. But if take that view, then we'll get rid of regulations that are really useful and save lives. You're already seeing this with the rollback of environmental regs. The regulations that stifle innovation are written by "captains of industry" themselves, because manipulation of government via corruption is way easier and far more predictable than R&D/innovation. So my point is you're missing the point. The symptom is regulation but many regulations are very important. We need anticorruption legislation, we need to break up monopolies, and we need a wealth tax so people can't just strike gold (or cheat people who strike gold), invest in existing ossified industries, rake in cap gains/rent while contributing absolutely nothing, and corrupt our political system with their wealth (and demand that the companies they've invested in also do so in the name of shareholder profits) in order to protect it.

darawk 7y ago
> My point is that a lot of people have this Atlas Shrugged view of the world, where the noble entrepreneur is lashed to earth by envious, regulation loving, Democratic bureaucrats. But if take that view, then we'll get rid of regulations that are really useful and save lives. You're already seeing this with the rollback of environmental regs. The regulations that stifle innovation are written by "captains of industry" themselves, because manipulation of government via corruption is way easier and far more predictable than R&D/innovation. The problem is bad regulation. We need to keep good regulations, and eliminate bad ones. At the end of the day, the problem is still regulation, as I said. > So my point is you're missing the point. The symptom is regulation but many regulations are very important. We need anticorruption legislation, we need to break up monopolies, and we need a wealth tax so people can't just strike gold (or cheat people who strike gold), invest in existing ossified industries, rake in cap gains/rent while contributing absolutely nothing, and corrupt our political system with their wealth (and demand that the companies they've invested in also do so in the name of shareholder profits) in order to protect it. Your policy prescriptions here are entirely orthogonal to the problem of moving society forward technologically. You may want a wealth tax because you don't like inequality, but it isn't going to do any good for the technological development of the world. To do that, you need to streamline the regulatory state.
- camgunz 7y ago
  > The problem is regulation No, the problem is corruption resulting in, among other pretty bad things, ladder pulling regulation. > You may want a wealth tax because you don't like inequality, but it isn't going to do any good for the technological development of the world. Study after study has shown that income and wealth inequality stifles innovation (again among some other pretty bad things). This makes sense if you think about it: the next Archimedes can't innovate because she's preoccupied with how to pay for her sister's insulin. In fact all my policy prescriptions are focused on innovation, because that's the topic of this thread. Antitrust laws are specifically set up to encourage innovation. I know you really want to focus on regulation as the big bad, but it's just a symptom of a much larger bad: corruption.
  - darawk 7y ago
    > Study after study has shown that income and wealth inequality stifles innovation (again among some other pretty bad things). You mean studies like this one? https://academic.oup.com/restud/article/86/1/1/5026613 https://academic.oup.com/restud/article/86/1/1/5026613 > This makes sense if you think about it: the next Archimedes can't innovate because she's preoccupied with how to pay for her sister's insulin. Your example is poverty, not inequality. This is a trick people play all the time. They say 'inequality', and then they describe poverty. Poverty certainly reduces innovation. Poverty causes all sorts of issues that reduce intellectual and social achievement. However, inequality and poverty are not the same thing. Inequality is an inevitable consequence of innovation, in a capitalist society. But inequality does not have to mean poverty for the bottom decile. What we want is a society where those who are able to, work extremely hard to make the world better, and in return are rewarded with a luxurious high-status lifestyle. But those who are not so gifted, or those who choose not to work so hard, are still provided for adequately. IMO the focus on inequality per se is a red herring. It doesn't matter if Jeff Bezos has 100 trillion dollars, as long as his warehouse workers have a decent life. I think you might respond by saying something about how large concentrations of wealth inevitably influence politics, and inevitably corrupt everything they touch. I can't speak to the latter, but to the former, I found this enlightening: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/18/too-much-dark-money-in-almonds/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/18/too-much-dark-money-in... > In fact all my policy prescriptions are focused on innovation, because that's the topic of this thread. Antitrust laws are specifically set up to encourage innovation. > I know you really want to focus on regulation as the big bad, but it's just a symptom of a much larger bad: corruption. 'Corruption' is sufficiently non-specific to be meaningless. Saying the problem is 'corruption' prescribes nothing at all. Corruption literally just means "bad things happening to stuff", so of course, it is always to blame when things aren't going well. The question at hand is: how do you fix it? Saying "fix corruption" certainly isn't the answer. My guess is you'll respond by saying "fix inequality", but you'll forget to add exactly how that would go on to fix "corruption".
pmarca 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice
- camgunz 7y ago
  Yeah that's an interesting area of study. I do buy the criticisms though, and personally I think that propaganda plays a bigger role. The vast majority of Americans have no idea what their government is doing, and they rely either on inadequate or hyper-partisan, biased media to keep them informed. But those sources aren't there to inform them, they're there to polarize them so they get to the polls. It's pretty classic authoritarianism: blame some outside group, froth up the public to support you so you can implement your corrupt agenda. I realize this sounds... super cynical and tin foil hat but, maybe that speaks to the seriousness of our situation. If there's tech out there that can fix it, I'm all ears.

darawk 7y ago

> My point is that a lot of people have this Atlas Shrugged view of the world, where the noble entrepreneur is lashed to earth by envious, regulation loving, Democratic bureaucrats. But if take that view, then we'll get rid of regulations that are really useful and save lives. You're already seeing this with the rollback of environmental regs. The regulations that stifle innovation are written by "captains of industry" themselves, because manipulation of government via corruption is way easier and far more predictable than R&D/innovation. The problem is bad regulation. We need to keep good regulations, and eliminate bad ones. At the end of the day, the problem is still regulation, as I said. > So my point is you're missing the point. The symptom is regulation but many regulations are very important. We need anticorruption legislation, we need to break up monopolies, and we need a wealth tax so people can't just strike gold (or cheat people who strike gold), invest in existing ossified industries, rake in cap gains/rent while contributing absolutely nothing, and corrupt our political system with their wealth (and demand that the companies they've invested in also do so in the name of shareholder profits) in order to protect it. Your policy prescriptions here are entirely orthogonal to the problem of moving society forward technologically. You may want a wealth tax because you don't like inequality, but it isn't going to do any good for the technological development of the world. To do that, you need to streamline the regulatory state.

camgunz 7y ago
> The problem is regulation No, the problem is corruption resulting in, among other pretty bad things, ladder pulling regulation. > You may want a wealth tax because you don't like inequality, but it isn't going to do any good for the technological development of the world. Study after study has shown that income and wealth inequality stifles innovation (again among some other pretty bad things). This makes sense if you think about it: the next Archimedes can't innovate because she's preoccupied with how to pay for her sister's insulin. In fact all my policy prescriptions are focused on innovation, because that's the topic of this thread. Antitrust laws are specifically set up to encourage innovation. I know you really want to focus on regulation as the big bad, but it's just a symptom of a much larger bad: corruption.
- darawk 7y ago
  > Study after study has shown that income and wealth inequality stifles innovation (again among some other pretty bad things). You mean studies like this one? https://academic.oup.com/restud/article/86/1/1/5026613 https://academic.oup.com/restud/article/86/1/1/5026613 > This makes sense if you think about it: the next Archimedes can't innovate because she's preoccupied with how to pay for her sister's insulin. Your example is poverty, not inequality. This is a trick people play all the time. They say 'inequality', and then they describe poverty. Poverty certainly reduces innovation. Poverty causes all sorts of issues that reduce intellectual and social achievement. However, inequality and poverty are not the same thing. Inequality is an inevitable consequence of innovation, in a capitalist society. But inequality does not have to mean poverty for the bottom decile. What we want is a society where those who are able to, work extremely hard to make the world better, and in return are rewarded with a luxurious high-status lifestyle. But those who are not so gifted, or those who choose not to work so hard, are still provided for adequately. IMO the focus on inequality per se is a red herring. It doesn't matter if Jeff Bezos has 100 trillion dollars, as long as his warehouse workers have a decent life. I think you might respond by saying something about how large concentrations of wealth inevitably influence politics, and inevitably corrupt everything they touch. I can't speak to the latter, but to the former, I found this enlightening: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/18/too-much-dark-money-in-almonds/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/18/too-much-dark-money-in... > In fact all my policy prescriptions are focused on innovation, because that's the topic of this thread. Antitrust laws are specifically set up to encourage innovation. > I know you really want to focus on regulation as the big bad, but it's just a symptom of a much larger bad: corruption. 'Corruption' is sufficiently non-specific to be meaningless. Saying the problem is 'corruption' prescribes nothing at all. Corruption literally just means "bad things happening to stuff", so of course, it is always to blame when things aren't going well. The question at hand is: how do you fix it? Saying "fix corruption" certainly isn't the answer. My guess is you'll respond by saying "fix inequality", but you'll forget to add exactly how that would go on to fix "corruption".

pmarca 7y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice

camgunz 7y ago
Yeah that's an interesting area of study. I do buy the criticisms though, and personally I think that propaganda plays a bigger role. The vast majority of Americans have no idea what their government is doing, and they rely either on inadequate or hyper-partisan, biased media to keep them informed. But those sources aren't there to inform them, they're there to polarize them so they get to the polls. It's pretty classic authoritarianism: blame some outside group, froth up the public to support you so you can implement your corrupt agenda. I realize this sounds... super cynical and tin foil hat but, maybe that speaks to the seriousness of our situation. If there's tech out there that can fix it, I'm all ears.