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> If you prefer to stay on an abstract plane My post wasn't abstract. I'm just not interested in going example-for-example when my point was never "this litera

> If you prefer to stay on an abstract plane My post wasn't abstract. I'm just not interested in going example-for-example when my point was never "this literally always works and nothing else ever does", which is the point you seem to wish I'd advanced. > So I presented three counter-examples. To what end? The thing you scoffed at and dismissed remains not obviously a bad idea.

AlbertCory 4y ago
You're right: it's worse than abstract. You said it has an excellent track record, but now you refuse to provide any facts. It's not "going example-for-example" -- it's called honest debate.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  Trading anecdotes isn't going to produce a statistical analysis of approaches to innovation in an HN thread. Meanwhile, this is mainstream macro/IPE shit: government-driven technological innovation has a pretty damn solid track record, and I pointed to several specific and oft-cited cases to demonstrate this, out of a large field. This does not mean it always works out well, but the benchmark for "damn solid" in this space is very very far from "perfect", in much the same way that an excellent batter in professional baseball still fails to get on base more than half the time—your line of attack here is just as baffling as someone countering "Joe's a solid clean-up hitter" with "yeah but look at this list of times he struck out!" It's omitting the context of what constitutes good in the space—meanwhile, he's near the top of the league in RBI. Continuing to trade anecdotes about times Joe hit a home run or times he hit an easy pop-fly to center field is just pointless noise, entirely beside the point. That's why I keep pushing back that what you're trying to do here isn't even relevant to the point I was making, which point is quite far from being controversial, incidentally. I don't think both of us posting Amazon links to books covering the successes and failures of government-lead tech initiatives when I am not denying that plenty of failures exist in that space in the first place, is productive. If that's the way you want this to go, just pretend I've posted a series of links to mainstream macro, IPE, and tech and econ history textbooks in response to each of your (probably mostly valid!) "counter-points", because that's what I'd do, but it doesn't seem like a valuable exercise when I'm not even denying that examples of failures of these kinds of initiatives exist.
  - AlbertCory 4y ago
    Cover it in a blizzard of words: that's a good tactic. Let's go over them: > your line of attack here is just as baffling as someone countering "Joe's a solid clean-up hitter" with "yeah but look at this list of times he struck out!" Yes, but "Joe" has OPS numbers (which are more meaningful than the outdated RBI number, incidentally). What are your big Planning home runs? Your "specific and oft-cited cases" are vague and not specific, on the level of "hey, Japan and Germany!" While mine are actually specific disasters. "which point is quite far from being controversial," -- I think you mean in Ivy League faculties and scholarly journals, not in actual business publications.
    - yamtaddle 4y ago
      It's simply not the case that it's appropriate to sarcastically dismiss the notion of government-directed technological innovation as necessarily a bad idea. That's all. I did assume some familiarity with e.g. the Japanese Economic Miracle & MITI such that they didn't need to be mentioned by name, nor the successes and contributions of NASA and DARPA specified, nor links to reporting on German renewable initiatives decades ago provided... but I think that points to a gap in familiarity with the topic that is precisely the source of disagreement here, and addressing that would be the best way to reach a point of being able to have any kind of useful exchange.
      - AlbertCory 4y ago
        So it's the sarcasm you object to? I guess that's all you've got. "the Japanese Economic Miracle & MITI" -- yes, in fact I'm quite familiar with those. After the country was destroyed and a new society was being built, it was hardly possible not to hit a home run. Opportunity was everywhere you looked. How's it done since 1990? You haven't addressed that. As for DARPA & NASA: you're half right. DARPA did help guide the Internet towards TCP and away from OSI. Note that the "industrial planners" in the US and in Europe were on the wrong side of that one, all the way. The French had Minitel, which was actually a pretty good idea, and then frittered it away. As for NASA: the shuttle was a master class in how to waste money, so I don't think you want to point at that. And both NASA and DARPA were consistently opposed by nearly everyone on the left end of the ideological spectrum, It's only after you see how they turned out that you can manage to hold them up as shining examples. At the time I'm sure you'd have been opposed. So drop the snobbery. I know the history better than you do.

AlbertCory 4y ago

You're right: it's worse than abstract. You said it has an excellent track record, but now you refuse to provide any facts. It's not "going example-for-example" -- it's called honest debate.

yamtaddle 4y ago
Trading anecdotes isn't going to produce a statistical analysis of approaches to innovation in an HN thread. Meanwhile, this is mainstream macro/IPE shit: government-driven technological innovation has a pretty damn solid track record, and I pointed to several specific and oft-cited cases to demonstrate this, out of a large field. This does not mean it always works out well, but the benchmark for "damn solid" in this space is very very far from "perfect", in much the same way that an excellent batter in professional baseball still fails to get on base more than half the time—your line of attack here is just as baffling as someone countering "Joe's a solid clean-up hitter" with "yeah but look at this list of times he struck out!" It's omitting the context of what constitutes good in the space—meanwhile, he's near the top of the league in RBI. Continuing to trade anecdotes about times Joe hit a home run or times he hit an easy pop-fly to center field is just pointless noise, entirely beside the point. That's why I keep pushing back that what you're trying to do here isn't even relevant to the point I was making, which point is quite far from being controversial, incidentally. I don't think both of us posting Amazon links to books covering the successes and failures of government-lead tech initiatives when I am not denying that plenty of failures exist in that space in the first place, is productive. If that's the way you want this to go, just pretend I've posted a series of links to mainstream macro, IPE, and tech and econ history textbooks in response to each of your (probably mostly valid!) "counter-points", because that's what I'd do, but it doesn't seem like a valuable exercise when I'm not even denying that examples of failures of these kinds of initiatives exist.
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  Cover it in a blizzard of words: that's a good tactic. Let's go over them: > your line of attack here is just as baffling as someone countering "Joe's a solid clean-up hitter" with "yeah but look at this list of times he struck out!" Yes, but "Joe" has OPS numbers (which are more meaningful than the outdated RBI number, incidentally). What are your big Planning home runs? Your "specific and oft-cited cases" are vague and not specific, on the level of "hey, Japan and Germany!" While mine are actually specific disasters. "which point is quite far from being controversial," -- I think you mean in Ivy League faculties and scholarly journals, not in actual business publications.
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    It's simply not the case that it's appropriate to sarcastically dismiss the notion of government-directed technological innovation as necessarily a bad idea. That's all. I did assume some familiarity with e.g. the Japanese Economic Miracle & MITI such that they didn't need to be mentioned by name, nor the successes and contributions of NASA and DARPA specified, nor links to reporting on German renewable initiatives decades ago provided... but I think that points to a gap in familiarity with the topic that is precisely the source of disagreement here, and addressing that would be the best way to reach a point of being able to have any kind of useful exchange.
    - AlbertCory 4y ago
      So it's the sarcasm you object to? I guess that's all you've got. "the Japanese Economic Miracle & MITI" -- yes, in fact I'm quite familiar with those. After the country was destroyed and a new society was being built, it was hardly possible not to hit a home run. Opportunity was everywhere you looked. How's it done since 1990? You haven't addressed that. As for DARPA & NASA: you're half right. DARPA did help guide the Internet towards TCP and away from OSI. Note that the "industrial planners" in the US and in Europe were on the wrong side of that one, all the way. The French had Minitel, which was actually a pretty good idea, and then frittered it away. As for NASA: the shuttle was a master class in how to waste money, so I don't think you want to point at that. And both NASA and DARPA were consistently opposed by nearly everyone on the left end of the ideological spectrum, It's only after you see how they turned out that you can manage to hold them up as shining examples. At the time I'm sure you'd have been opposed. So drop the snobbery. I know the history better than you do.