4 ms·

You Stopped SOPA. Now Let’s Startup America

37 points by llambda 15y ago

trustfundbaby 15y ago
Very nice, I do have a quibble though, it would be nice to see them do more on the immigration front. Yeah they're going to remove EB3/EB2 country caps, but how about expediting the process so it doesn't take 5 years to get a green card while you're stuck in the same position, at the same company, who's taking you from behind in terms of salary during that time. In Canada, you can get your green card within 1 year of graduating college and working fulltime for a company, then 3 years after that, become a Canadian citizen. why not do something like that for engineers and scientists from accredited US universities? Or people who are working fulltime in those sorts of capacities?
- anamax 15y ago
  > why not do something like that for engineers and scientists from accredited US universities? Or people who are working fulltime in those sorts of capacities? The folks advocating for that have tied such proposals to open borders for low-skills folk.
jerf 15y ago
It's so cute all the people who think they can steer this bandwagon. SOPA was an acute threat and a flash mob formed, did its thing, and moved on. The flash mob doesn't have an independent existence from SOPA and there is no actual (virtual) mob of people milling around, wondering what they should do next. There's no bandwagon to steer here, folks. That's not how flash mobs work. You're still going to have to build a consensus the old fashioned way.
- HPBEggo 15y ago
  There's also the bit where attempting to get people to support a piece of positive legislation is infinitely harder than getting them to oppose negative legislation. If for no other reason, you have to agree with all the parts of a bill to truly support it, while you only have to strongly disagree with one part to be opposed to it.
- victork2 15y ago
  I like your message! Well as you say the whole Reddit/social network bandwagon think they are very strong and auto-congratulate themselves for that victory. But the truth is an internet mob is not a distance runner it's more of the sprint runner type. Next time there will be something the movement will very likely be weaker, and the next will even be weaker. Wikipedia won't black out again, Google won't put a sign every 3 weeks to oppose something. Anyway I prefer to fight in real rather than putting my website in black.
- jballanc 15y ago
  Before the Tea Act led to the Boston Tea Party, there were the Sugar Act, the Currency Act, Quarterings Act, Stamp Act, Declaratory Act, and Townshend Acts, all of which caused brief outrages and "flash mob" reactions. One of these days one of these "flash mobs" might just turn into something more...
  - jerf 15y ago
    Completely orthogonal to my point. I am not saying flash mobs are useless. I'm saying they can't be steered. The issue belongs to the mob, the mob doesn't belong to the issue.
    - jballanc 15y ago
      No, that was my point. Flash mobs can't be steered until it's the last flash mob that ends up being steered into a revolution. You can't fault anyone for trying to steer...only the last one will be successful.
nirvana 15y ago
Reading Steve Case's summary, most of this is good stuff-- very much like the crowd funding legalization. I think its absolutely absurd I can bet $50,000 or $100,000 on options in the stock market, but can't put $10,000 into a local startup. (I do well in the stock market, but I think the local startup is a better bet, given my experience working for startups for a couple decades, and other reasons.) I'm not sure about the $1B in spending, whether that will go somewhere or not. I'd prefer this bill didn't increase the federal budget deficit, even if it is probably one of the vanishingly few economically useful places for the government to put money, at the end of the day, that money had to come out of the economy (it doesn't really grow on trees) via inflation or taxation, and thus risks making things worse if it isn't spent wisely.
- 3pt14159 15y ago
  Maybe one of the reasons it's one of the vanishingly few economically useful places for the government to put money in is that it is one of the vanishingly few economic places that the government doesn't put money in.
alexqgb 15y ago
Why the shift in focus? ACTA is still alive and evil, and it's even more overtly anti-democratic than SOPA/PIPA. Also, it's being run through the Executive branch in near-total secrecy, making it that much harder to fight. Startup America is great, but given that the fundamental integrity of the internet is still very much at stake, it's hardly priority #1.
bradharper 15y ago
"You've rejecting sipping on one glass of poison, now let's all join in and chug another one!" Sigh...
bugmenot 15y ago
I don't mean to be the wake-up-sheeple'er of the group, but it's quite possible--probable, even--that this is just a bunch of hand-waiving and political posturing as we head into an election season. Instead of fixed-length convoluted tax "incentives," maybe we could just try not having the highest corporate income tax rates in the OECD, or one that isn't 56% higher than the wealthy-nation average, for example. Just sayin'.

37 points by llambda 15y ago

Very nice, I do have a quibble though, it would be nice to see them do more on the immigration front. Yeah they're going to remove EB3/EB2 country caps, but how about expediting the process so it doesn't take 5 years to get a green card while you're stuck in the same position, at the same company, who's taking you from behind in terms of salary during that time. In Canada, you can get your green card within 1 year of graduating college and working fulltime for a company, then 3 years after that, become a Canadian citizen. why not do something like that for engineers and scientists from accredited US universities? Or people who are working fulltime in those sorts of capacities?

anamax 15y ago
> why not do something like that for engineers and scientists from accredited US universities? Or people who are working fulltime in those sorts of capacities? The folks advocating for that have tied such proposals to open borders for low-skills folk.

jerf 15y ago

It's so cute all the people who think they can steer this bandwagon. SOPA was an acute threat and a flash mob formed, did its thing, and moved on. The flash mob doesn't have an independent existence from SOPA and there is no actual (virtual) mob of people milling around, wondering what they should do next. There's no bandwagon to steer here, folks. That's not how flash mobs work. You're still going to have to build a consensus the old fashioned way.

HPBEggo 15y ago
There's also the bit where attempting to get people to support a piece of positive legislation is infinitely harder than getting them to oppose negative legislation. If for no other reason, you have to agree with all the parts of a bill to truly support it, while you only have to strongly disagree with one part to be opposed to it.
victork2 15y ago
I like your message! Well as you say the whole Reddit/social network bandwagon think they are very strong and auto-congratulate themselves for that victory. But the truth is an internet mob is not a distance runner it's more of the sprint runner type. Next time there will be something the movement will very likely be weaker, and the next will even be weaker. Wikipedia won't black out again, Google won't put a sign every 3 weeks to oppose something. Anyway I prefer to fight in real rather than putting my website in black.
jballanc 15y ago
Before the Tea Act led to the Boston Tea Party, there were the Sugar Act, the Currency Act, Quarterings Act, Stamp Act, Declaratory Act, and Townshend Acts, all of which caused brief outrages and "flash mob" reactions. One of these days one of these "flash mobs" might just turn into something more...
- jerf 15y ago
  Completely orthogonal to my point. I am not saying flash mobs are useless. I'm saying they can't be steered. The issue belongs to the mob, the mob doesn't belong to the issue.
  - jballanc 15y ago
    No, that was my point. Flash mobs can't be steered until it's the last flash mob that ends up being steered into a revolution. You can't fault anyone for trying to steer...only the last one will be successful.

nirvana 15y ago

Reading Steve Case's summary, most of this is good stuff-- very much like the crowd funding legalization. I think its absolutely absurd I can bet $50,000 or $100,000 on options in the stock market, but can't put $10,000 into a local startup. (I do well in the stock market, but I think the local startup is a better bet, given my experience working for startups for a couple decades, and other reasons.) I'm not sure about the $1B in spending, whether that will go somewhere or not. I'd prefer this bill didn't increase the federal budget deficit, even if it is probably one of the vanishingly few economically useful places for the government to put money, at the end of the day, that money had to come out of the economy (it doesn't really grow on trees) via inflation or taxation, and thus risks making things worse if it isn't spent wisely.

3pt14159 15y ago
Maybe one of the reasons it's one of the vanishingly few economically useful places for the government to put money in is that it is one of the vanishingly few economic places that the government doesn't put money in.

alexqgb 15y ago

Why the shift in focus? ACTA is still alive and evil, and it's even more overtly anti-democratic than SOPA/PIPA. Also, it's being run through the Executive branch in near-total secrecy, making it that much harder to fight. Startup America is great, but given that the fundamental integrity of the internet is still very much at stake, it's hardly priority #1.

bradharper 15y ago

"You've rejecting sipping on one glass of poison, now let's all join in and chug another one!" Sigh...

bugmenot 15y ago

I don't mean to be the wake-up-sheeple'er of the group, but it's quite possible--probable, even--that this is just a bunch of hand-waiving and political posturing as we head into an election season. Instead of fixed-length convoluted tax "incentives," maybe we could just try not having the highest corporate income tax rates in the OECD, or one that isn't 56% higher than the wealthy-nation average, for example. Just sayin'.