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That's incredibly short-sited. I'm glad for you that your startup was able to make money, but do you really think that the long-term economic value created is h

That's incredibly short-sited. I'm glad for you that your startup was able to make money, but do you really think that the long-term economic value created is higher by making yet another piece of graphics software than from fundamental research? I would argue this entirely the other way; whenever the smartest people are sucked away from foundational work to make money "up the stack", it makes us all the poorer.

worik 6y ago
Pie in the sky when you die....
- Godel_unicode 6y ago
  https://www.comparably.com/companies/cern/salaries https://www.comparably.com/companies/cern/salaries
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  Says the man living in a world plagued by short termism, where companies forsake their future to improve their quarterly report, where we have condemned generations to suffer climate change just so that we could have 15% cheaper electricity and enjoy oversized cars. This going further down this path only lead to misery
  - perl4ever 6y ago
    Given that interest rates in developed countries are generally lower than in all of history, and mind-boggling amounts of surplus capital are being deployed by companies like Amazon, Softbank, Tesla, etc., it seems to me that the world is less "plagued by short termism" than any time in the last 13 billion years. I'm not debating your assessment in an absolute sense, or the direction that resources are deployed, I'm just saying relatively speaking, the world has been approaching an asymptote, so how far does it have to go to be enough? At what point does some disaster that we weren't expecting happen that proves we went too far in being future oriented? Like, I dunno, an actual plague? Edit: I meant this to express something more than just another "well actually" comment - I think COVID-19 really raises existential questions about whether people in the wealthy countries have gone too far in a future orientation, as if everything was certain and we and our civilization were all immortal. It may not make a bit of difference for some, but I observe it's changing a lot of people's outlooks. Something that has stuck in my mind is how plastic bags were banned in my area just before the pandemic hit, and whether or not there was an actual repeal, everyone has brought them back. Is this something to lament, to cheer, or just to observe and contemplate? If everything is bad, is anything?
    - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
      I am struggling to make any sence of your post. COVID demonstrates lack of being prepared and future orientated, we did not have PPE stockpiles and did not takw actions that would contain the virus to save the economy now. The more future oriented you are, the safer you are.
      - perl4ever 6y ago
        You're talking about predicting the future correctly and making the right tradeoffs. Being future oriented means trading off short term goals for long term ones; preparing for the future says nothing about whether we are prepared in hindsight. You can use "future oriented" to mean being prescient or omniscient, but I think that's a useless way to define the word, because it's not a thing that exists. The US invasion of Iraq was a drastic pivot of the US towards a more future oriented foreign policy, and I assume we would agree it was a huge mistake, right? WeWork was a tremendously future oriented company, that wanted to be everything to everyone, but it wasn't, and won't be, the next Amazon. It would be bad for society for similar projects to suck up all the resources in preference to short term needs. "it is difficult to make predictions, particularly about the future" - Mark Twain
        chriswarbo 6y ago
        > The US invasion of Iraq was a drastic pivot of the US towards a more future oriented foreign policy Which aspects of the invasion of Iraq were future oriented? Thinking it was "mission accomplished" in 2003? Having no exit strategy? Creating a power vaccum, which was eventually filled by Islamic State? Aquiring oil, in a world which is trying to divest from it, and which is being damaged by its use?
        perl4ever 6y ago
        >Which aspects of the invasion of Iraq were future oriented? The planning of it, which, you know, happened before "mission accomplished" and all the things that went wrong. It has been widely reported and asserted that the planning started considerably before 9/11, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_C...
oraphalous 6y ago
Cool your boots... The claim was that there is a trade off - which is a pretty common sense assertion... The comment you to which you are responding even asserted that basic research does have value - and does not assert that the trade offs go one way or another. The implication of the comment as I read it was that we should at least critically think about those trade offs rather than just writing a blank check to whatever basic science scientists are requesting to pursue. Your comment, in contrast, claims that the tradeoff always is worth it - that 'whenever' money is not diverted to basic research, then we are all poorer. You have no evidence for this claim. In fact - no one really understands much about how best to evaluate this tradeoff. A helpful contribution to the discourse would provide us with tools to think about how to evaluate it, rather than just the endless tribalistic drum beating for one side or the other.
- wiz21c 6y ago
  Funny, the comment from the start-uper, to me, sounds like a implicit explanation that basic/fundamental research is OK as long as it has less priority than economy (in the sense of money making money).
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > The claim was that there is a trade off - which is a pretty common sense assertion... It also happens to be wrong. If more projects that require nuclear physicists get funded, more people can become nuclear physicists. We're nowhere near the point that we're going to run out of potential nuclear physicists who could be trained if there was more demand for them. At some kind of abstract level there are a finite number of people in the world so anybody who does something can't be doing something else, but there are more than enough people for whom the "something else" is either unemployment or some net-annihilating occupation like divorce attorneys or advertising that we shouldn't have to worry about people spending their time doing something actually beneficial.
  - phkahler 6y ago
    >> The claim was that there is a trade off - which is a pretty common sense assertion... >> It also happens to be wrong. Wow. The startup guy gave an actual example of the tradeoff. Am I correct that you see that not as a tradeoff but as a loss?
TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
Or, that particular person could have been sucked up in to a huge bureaucracy and produced nearly nothing their entire career. Hard to say.

worik 6y ago

Pie in the sky when you die....

Godel_unicode 6y ago
https://www.comparably.com/companies/cern/salaries https://www.comparably.com/companies/cern/salaries
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
Says the man living in a world plagued by short termism, where companies forsake their future to improve their quarterly report, where we have condemned generations to suffer climate change just so that we could have 15% cheaper electricity and enjoy oversized cars. This going further down this path only lead to misery
- perl4ever 6y ago
  Given that interest rates in developed countries are generally lower than in all of history, and mind-boggling amounts of surplus capital are being deployed by companies like Amazon, Softbank, Tesla, etc., it seems to me that the world is less "plagued by short termism" than any time in the last 13 billion years. I'm not debating your assessment in an absolute sense, or the direction that resources are deployed, I'm just saying relatively speaking, the world has been approaching an asymptote, so how far does it have to go to be enough? At what point does some disaster that we weren't expecting happen that proves we went too far in being future oriented? Like, I dunno, an actual plague? Edit: I meant this to express something more than just another "well actually" comment - I think COVID-19 really raises existential questions about whether people in the wealthy countries have gone too far in a future orientation, as if everything was certain and we and our civilization were all immortal. It may not make a bit of difference for some, but I observe it's changing a lot of people's outlooks. Something that has stuck in my mind is how plastic bags were banned in my area just before the pandemic hit, and whether or not there was an actual repeal, everyone has brought them back. Is this something to lament, to cheer, or just to observe and contemplate? If everything is bad, is anything?
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    I am struggling to make any sence of your post. COVID demonstrates lack of being prepared and future orientated, we did not have PPE stockpiles and did not takw actions that would contain the virus to save the economy now. The more future oriented you are, the safer you are.
    - perl4ever 6y ago
      You're talking about predicting the future correctly and making the right tradeoffs. Being future oriented means trading off short term goals for long term ones; preparing for the future says nothing about whether we are prepared in hindsight. You can use "future oriented" to mean being prescient or omniscient, but I think that's a useless way to define the word, because it's not a thing that exists. The US invasion of Iraq was a drastic pivot of the US towards a more future oriented foreign policy, and I assume we would agree it was a huge mistake, right? WeWork was a tremendously future oriented company, that wanted to be everything to everyone, but it wasn't, and won't be, the next Amazon. It would be bad for society for similar projects to suck up all the resources in preference to short term needs. "it is difficult to make predictions, particularly about the future" - Mark Twain
      - chriswarbo 6y ago
        > The US invasion of Iraq was a drastic pivot of the US towards a more future oriented foreign policy Which aspects of the invasion of Iraq were future oriented? Thinking it was "mission accomplished" in 2003? Having no exit strategy? Creating a power vaccum, which was eventually filled by Islamic State? Aquiring oil, in a world which is trying to divest from it, and which is being damaged by its use?
        perl4ever 6y ago
        >Which aspects of the invasion of Iraq were future oriented? The planning of it, which, you know, happened before "mission accomplished" and all the things that went wrong. It has been widely reported and asserted that the planning started considerably before 9/11, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_C...

oraphalous 6y ago

Cool your boots... The claim was that there is a trade off - which is a pretty common sense assertion... The comment you to which you are responding even asserted that basic research does have value - and does not assert that the trade offs go one way or another. The implication of the comment as I read it was that we should at least critically think about those trade offs rather than just writing a blank check to whatever basic science scientists are requesting to pursue. Your comment, in contrast, claims that the tradeoff always is worth it - that 'whenever' money is not diverted to basic research, then we are all poorer. You have no evidence for this claim. In fact - no one really understands much about how best to evaluate this tradeoff. A helpful contribution to the discourse would provide us with tools to think about how to evaluate it, rather than just the endless tribalistic drum beating for one side or the other.

wiz21c 6y ago
Funny, the comment from the start-uper, to me, sounds like a implicit explanation that basic/fundamental research is OK as long as it has less priority than economy (in the sense of money making money).
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
> The claim was that there is a trade off - which is a pretty common sense assertion... It also happens to be wrong. If more projects that require nuclear physicists get funded, more people can become nuclear physicists. We're nowhere near the point that we're going to run out of potential nuclear physicists who could be trained if there was more demand for them. At some kind of abstract level there are a finite number of people in the world so anybody who does something can't be doing something else, but there are more than enough people for whom the "something else" is either unemployment or some net-annihilating occupation like divorce attorneys or advertising that we shouldn't have to worry about people spending their time doing something actually beneficial.
- phkahler 6y ago
  >> The claim was that there is a trade off - which is a pretty common sense assertion... >> It also happens to be wrong. Wow. The startup guy gave an actual example of the tradeoff. Am I correct that you see that not as a tradeoff but as a loss?

TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago

Or, that particular person could have been sucked up in to a huge bureaucracy and produced nearly nothing their entire career. Hard to say.