5 ms·
This is simple. The startup community needs a lobby, a real one. We need a lobby to push for: liberalized IP policy, including 28-year copyrights, an end to s
by MBlume 15y ago
This is simple. The startup community needs a lobby, a real one.
We need a lobby to push for:
liberalized IP policy, including 28-year copyrights, an end to software patents, penalties for introducing frivolous copyright suits, an end to anti-circumvention, etc.
Looser immigration policies. If your IQ's above 130, you get in. If you have a graduate degree, you get in. If you've started a successful company before, you get in.
And mitigation of various kinds of red tape and local regulation like this.
A lobby like this would help to create a more vibrant, more productive startup community, and so ideally, the firms that benefit from same, especially the VC firms, would cooperate to fund it.
We can talk all we want about getting the money out of politics, but until that's done, I think we need to play ball. This is how things get done. This is how we get what we all want.
- Vivtek 15y agoIQ's above 130 That's been tried and it's not the best part of our history. I know you mean well with this point and I agree with your larger argument, but there's a sad backstory about the rather fundamentally flawed IQ system and the eugenics movement. (As in, "let's sterilize the stupid and non-English-speaking people.")
- MBlume 15y ago...how are these things related?
- Vivtek 15y agoWhich things? IQ and eugenics? Or low IQ scores and not having English as a first language (as IQ was measured in the 30's)? Or IQ and immigration quotas that favored Northern Europe over Southern Europe?
- MBlume 15y agoI meant eugenics and using IQ as one way of streamlining the immigration process.
- Vivtek 15y agoAh. They're related historically. 1930's. Note that I did specifically mention that I was only talking about this one way of streamlining the immigration process and that I agree with you on the whole. But I think perception of your point will be marred by mention of IQ as a criterion. Look it up.
- paulhauggis 15y ago"Looser immigration policies. If your IQ's above 130, you get in. If you have a graduate degree, you get in." Many serial killers have high IQs and there are many average-IQ people without graduate degrees that still deserve a chance at a better life. Some of the smartest people have done some of the worst things in human history. Frankly, I'm sick of this elitist point-of-view.
- MBlume 15y ago> Many serial killers have high IQs and there are many average-IQ people without graduate degrees that still deserve a chance at a better life. Some of the smartest people have done some of the worst things in human history. Irrelevant. I'm looking for simple, cheap, easy wins, without a lot of administration. If you're smart, letting you into the country is probably an easy win. I'm not saying scrap the existing immigration system, just have these extra holes in it.
- paulhauggis 15y ago"If you're smart, letting you into the country is probably an easy win." Many smart people waste away in academia and don't contribute very much to the economy. I know a lot of smart people that are doing absolutely nothing with their life. It's not a very good determining factor for an "easy win".