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Capital is far too short-sighted to look beyond this year or this quarter. Many of the important groundbreaking ideas or projects take years, even decades to fo

Capital is far too short-sighted to look beyond this year or this quarter. Many of the important groundbreaking ideas or projects take years, even decades to formulate. As I've said elsewhere, capital will just take the easiest road it is allowed to take, which currently is stifling innovation, buying competitors, maintaining monopolies, relying on economies of scale to shut out competitors when they can't be acquired, and using lobbyists to ensure regulations that affect the status quo never pass. In the past the big tech corporations maintained huge corporate labs and actually did groundbreaking research with 15+ year projects. Now everything is short term. We can't even compel capital to see the long term value of preventing climate change, when Exon was aware this was going to happen as far back as the 1970s in excruciating detail. No, capital will innovate only if there are sufficient regulations in place, incentives, and guardrails, that there is no other choice than for them other than to innovate (which they will do begrudgingly). Capital is by no means a vehicle for innovation. When was the last time you saw innovation from Google in the search space, their bread and butter?

beepbooptheory 5y ago
This is a really great way to frame it, because it really does seem to be about time/speed. I don't think we can even collectively comprehend great innovations that need many resources and time anymore, who has even the time to work on it? People need to have jobs after all.
simplestats 5y ago
I cant think of the last time I saw the word "corporations" used in a post that wasn't part of an attack on them as inferior/evil/villanous etc. Speaking of NLP, your post would be very easy to classify sentiment of using a simple keyword approach. Anyway, I've worked both in academia and industry. Industry is simply more practical and better at technology. In tech areas, academia desperately needs industry to provide the feedback they provide. Especially in AI areas. You are thinking of CEO's or salespeople or something, but the people that matter here are the engineers. And I'd place their assessment over that of grad students any day. If the engineers can't make it work, then yes there's a problem here. Doesn't always mean it can't work, but for most ideas it probably does. By the way industry research labs certainly still exist. But long-term self-funded research has to compete with govt funding of research. Why throw your investor money at a high-risk idea when Stanford, MIT, and 100 other R1's are throwing taxpayer money at it? Otherwise industry labs end up just competing for govt gants ultimately. Meanwhile nowadays we see academia chasing short-term problems that industry leads in (and trying to patent them too).
- sam0x17 5y ago
  And what changed? We stopped regulating corporations, and they started becoming bad for society. You have to lead corporations to the good, with guardrails, incentives, and regulations, like a petulant child. Without this safety-net in place, you get things like the opioid epidemic.
- pdimitar 5y ago
  > the people that matter here are the engineers Where did you get this from? Not like they call the shots. Weird statement. > In tech areas, academia desperately needs industry to provide the feedback they provide That's true, I agree. But the tech industry is also very often ruled by the worst of humanity so it's a balance.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  Hot take: Corporations are also amazing. James Webb mirrors? Made by a private big corp (Ball Aerospace). So are all instruments of James Webb. NASA contracts out their work to many big fat corporations. Semiconductors to hearing aids, Corporations make the world tick. They’re absolutely incredible. When people get together, they can build stuff like rockets and vaccines. Capitalism makes all of this happen. So the attack on capitalism is so deeply deluded, it’s strange to see it in a tech crowd who know better. Hell, your salary probably comes from “Corporations”. When you’re in the hospital, note all the corporations doing evil things to save your life.
  - mxkopy 5y ago
    You are conflating the organization of human activity with the most dominant form of organization today. Capitalism made all of these things happen today. 50,000 years ago, were equivalent behaviors organized in a similar way? I don't think so. And to think that the space of human behavior is significantly different than it was 50,000 years ago is misguided, in my opinion.
    - systemvoltage 5y ago
      Yeah, for some reason most anti-capitalists cite the bad parts of Capitalism and broad brush the entire concept. If humans can get together and collectively improve the world while feeding their families from the profits, there is no wrong doing. No one hands over profits, it’s earned and it’s a reward from the society through the mechanism of free markets. It’s probably the only thing I’d prefer to do instead of working in Academia or some other incentive structure.

beepbooptheory 5y ago

This is a really great way to frame it, because it really does seem to be about time/speed. I don't think we can even collectively comprehend great innovations that need many resources and time anymore, who has even the time to work on it? People need to have jobs after all.

simplestats 5y ago

I cant think of the last time I saw the word "corporations" used in a post that wasn't part of an attack on them as inferior/evil/villanous etc. Speaking of NLP, your post would be very easy to classify sentiment of using a simple keyword approach. Anyway, I've worked both in academia and industry. Industry is simply more practical and better at technology. In tech areas, academia desperately needs industry to provide the feedback they provide. Especially in AI areas. You are thinking of CEO's or salespeople or something, but the people that matter here are the engineers. And I'd place their assessment over that of grad students any day. If the engineers can't make it work, then yes there's a problem here. Doesn't always mean it can't work, but for most ideas it probably does. By the way industry research labs certainly still exist. But long-term self-funded research has to compete with govt funding of research. Why throw your investor money at a high-risk idea when Stanford, MIT, and 100 other R1's are throwing taxpayer money at it? Otherwise industry labs end up just competing for govt gants ultimately. Meanwhile nowadays we see academia chasing short-term problems that industry leads in (and trying to patent them too).

sam0x17 5y ago
And what changed? We stopped regulating corporations, and they started becoming bad for society. You have to lead corporations to the good, with guardrails, incentives, and regulations, like a petulant child. Without this safety-net in place, you get things like the opioid epidemic.
pdimitar 5y ago
> the people that matter here are the engineers Where did you get this from? Not like they call the shots. Weird statement. > In tech areas, academia desperately needs industry to provide the feedback they provide That's true, I agree. But the tech industry is also very often ruled by the worst of humanity so it's a balance.
systemvoltage 5y ago
Hot take: Corporations are also amazing. James Webb mirrors? Made by a private big corp (Ball Aerospace). So are all instruments of James Webb. NASA contracts out their work to many big fat corporations. Semiconductors to hearing aids, Corporations make the world tick. They’re absolutely incredible. When people get together, they can build stuff like rockets and vaccines. Capitalism makes all of this happen. So the attack on capitalism is so deeply deluded, it’s strange to see it in a tech crowd who know better. Hell, your salary probably comes from “Corporations”. When you’re in the hospital, note all the corporations doing evil things to save your life.
- mxkopy 5y ago
  You are conflating the organization of human activity with the most dominant form of organization today. Capitalism made all of these things happen today. 50,000 years ago, were equivalent behaviors organized in a similar way? I don't think so. And to think that the space of human behavior is significantly different than it was 50,000 years ago is misguided, in my opinion.
  - systemvoltage 5y ago
    Yeah, for some reason most anti-capitalists cite the bad parts of Capitalism and broad brush the entire concept. If humans can get together and collectively improve the world while feeding their families from the profits, there is no wrong doing. No one hands over profits, it’s earned and it’s a reward from the society through the mechanism of free markets. It’s probably the only thing I’d prefer to do instead of working in Academia or some other incentive structure.