4 ms·

After WW2/Korea (I forget the exact time frame) IBM was making money just fine and refused to take a risk on then modern transistor computing machines. The US

After WW2/Korea (I forget the exact time frame) IBM was making money just fine and refused to take a risk on then modern transistor computing machines. The US Government spent the money and effectively donated trillions in profits to the rich elites of today. I find it hilarious how ignorant we are of the last 50-70 years of details of our history. Basically the lifetime of Bezos, Gates... their parents changed the rules to benefit their mini dictators Here’s a hint: no different than what’s happened with covid handouts, government pays out big dollars to their buddies, we all get to then fight over a seat at the hand chosen ones table Free market isn’t anything more than a simple propaganda line Anyone that can believe human biology has evolved away from the behavior of a generation ago is a childish fool Keep sequestering social power into the hands of a minority of barons and lords, everyone. That’s the goal, no different than a church; keep you focused on their lofty ambitions and need for capital at the expense of your own. Our biology is just as susceptible to blind faith as our ancestors.

barry-cotter 6y ago
> The US Government spent the money and effectively donated trillions in profits to the rich elites of today. Those rich elites being everybody who uses a computer. Basic scientific research is the paradigmatic case of where the government should be spending money. The rich don’t get better iPhones, they barely get better computers considering how fast the state of the art advances. There may be fields where something resembling your argument has some truth to it but basic research in computing and computing hardware isn’t it.
- soc14lism00 6y ago
  The biological shortcomings inherent to the species are inherent in scientists and engineers. Your argument to the contrary is reductionist to the point of absurdity. Emotionally minimizing their set of privileges to “their iPhones are the same!” Insanity. Great we all get the same iPhone. I’d rather have their healthcare. But let them push us into multimedia gadgetry production, not hospital building, by shaping the information we see through the gadgets! Economics of keeping people healthy is costlier to them than keeping us sedate and distracted from our literal health through the high of new disposable stuff. Capacity for blind faith is a feature of our biology. If you’re going to peddle science in engineering systems, you can’t wave away the science of biology and say “well in social contexts core physics are arbitrarily different.” Engineers are carpenters with circuits (disclaimer: hardware engineer with 20yrs in the industry). They haven’t re-invented physics that can’t be re-invented. They’re librarians of knowledge, not creators of unique physical truth in fundamental ways. And to address the social system aspects, the historical record is clear and easily Googled. You’ve done nothing to challenge the arguments I’ve studied over decades. Social media hot takes hardly wave away decades of measured science and public government files. More blind faith serving as personal validation.
  - austinheap 6y ago
    Is there an alternative system you’re a fan of?
    - soc14lism00 6y ago
      Username says it all Ultimately, not acquiescing to social narratives alone is all I’m advocating for. Narratives like society should avoid limits on the amount social capital we award people (money isn’t a thing outside human societies, having a lot of it isn’t scientific evidence of exceptionalism) on giant promises like forever life, nuclear cars, living on Mars, and whatever Google believes it’ll find sorting all the noise instead of measuring purposesfully. If you want a free market of ideas and information, enabling a capital monopoly in exchange for a throwaway phone seems a bit nuts rather than putting that into local services to support a majority discussing and researching these ideas away from outdated notions some minority, due to story mode thinking, should profit. Why aren’t the technological inventions good enough for everyone? Why the historical vault of gold to go with if the phone alone should be good enough for us? A phone that took millions of minds not just the minds of the extra rich. To design build and even make a market for. There’s exactly no accepted evidence in physics that economic success has anything to do with biological superiority and a whole lot of math suggesting it’s to do with time, place, shape of information available. In fact decades and millions spent on trying to math out who brings value to an org has resulted in math so Byzantine its impenetrable.
      - dang 6y ago
        Special purpose accounts and, especially, using HN primarily for ideological battle, are not allowed here. That leads to repetitive, tedious discussions, and usually flamewars. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- pydry 6y ago
  >There may be fields where something resembling your argument has some truth to it The argument that the tech companies back ridiculously high profits off the back of groundbreaking research? What part of that is untrue? The US tech sector did come out of military research. The fact that the rest of the world gets to share in the wealth doesn't change the fact that it's disproportionately made a few very wealthy.

barry-cotter 6y ago

> The US Government spent the money and effectively donated trillions in profits to the rich elites of today. Those rich elites being everybody who uses a computer. Basic scientific research is the paradigmatic case of where the government should be spending money. The rich don’t get better iPhones, they barely get better computers considering how fast the state of the art advances. There may be fields where something resembling your argument has some truth to it but basic research in computing and computing hardware isn’t it.

soc14lism00 6y ago
The biological shortcomings inherent to the species are inherent in scientists and engineers. Your argument to the contrary is reductionist to the point of absurdity. Emotionally minimizing their set of privileges to “their iPhones are the same!” Insanity. Great we all get the same iPhone. I’d rather have their healthcare. But let them push us into multimedia gadgetry production, not hospital building, by shaping the information we see through the gadgets! Economics of keeping people healthy is costlier to them than keeping us sedate and distracted from our literal health through the high of new disposable stuff. Capacity for blind faith is a feature of our biology. If you’re going to peddle science in engineering systems, you can’t wave away the science of biology and say “well in social contexts core physics are arbitrarily different.” Engineers are carpenters with circuits (disclaimer: hardware engineer with 20yrs in the industry). They haven’t re-invented physics that can’t be re-invented. They’re librarians of knowledge, not creators of unique physical truth in fundamental ways. And to address the social system aspects, the historical record is clear and easily Googled. You’ve done nothing to challenge the arguments I’ve studied over decades. Social media hot takes hardly wave away decades of measured science and public government files. More blind faith serving as personal validation.
- austinheap 6y ago
  Is there an alternative system you’re a fan of?
  - soc14lism00 6y ago
    Username says it all Ultimately, not acquiescing to social narratives alone is all I’m advocating for. Narratives like society should avoid limits on the amount social capital we award people (money isn’t a thing outside human societies, having a lot of it isn’t scientific evidence of exceptionalism) on giant promises like forever life, nuclear cars, living on Mars, and whatever Google believes it’ll find sorting all the noise instead of measuring purposesfully. If you want a free market of ideas and information, enabling a capital monopoly in exchange for a throwaway phone seems a bit nuts rather than putting that into local services to support a majority discussing and researching these ideas away from outdated notions some minority, due to story mode thinking, should profit. Why aren’t the technological inventions good enough for everyone? Why the historical vault of gold to go with if the phone alone should be good enough for us? A phone that took millions of minds not just the minds of the extra rich. To design build and even make a market for. There’s exactly no accepted evidence in physics that economic success has anything to do with biological superiority and a whole lot of math suggesting it’s to do with time, place, shape of information available. In fact decades and millions spent on trying to math out who brings value to an org has resulted in math so Byzantine its impenetrable.
    - dang 6y ago
      Special purpose accounts and, especially, using HN primarily for ideological battle, are not allowed here. That leads to repetitive, tedious discussions, and usually flamewars. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
pydry 6y ago
>There may be fields where something resembling your argument has some truth to it The argument that the tech companies back ridiculously high profits off the back of groundbreaking research? What part of that is untrue? The US tech sector did come out of military research. The fact that the rest of the world gets to share in the wealth doesn't change the fact that it's disproportionately made a few very wealthy.