3 ms·

Capital allocation under capitalism is also not efficient, it's pretty damn wasteful when you consider the resources used to find its "efficiency". Innovation

by piva00 2y ago

Capital allocation under capitalism is also not efficient, it's pretty damn wasteful when you consider the resources used to find its "efficiency". Innovation is also becoming a meaningless word to defend the system, the innovations have their foundations fostered with public money, through funding of scientific research which is then later captured by the industries to develop products. The innovation is productionalising another innovation, the foundation is built mostly on public funding. Very few companies actually do ground-breaking research that innovates, they're pretty risk-averse in this sense, the productionalisation of those discoveries has its own value, not questionign that, but it only gets traction afterwards when the brunt of the work of discovery was done. Efficiency of markets is a hypothesis of financial economics with much better written criticism than I can write here, Warren Buffet doesn't believe in it, for example. It's not a given whatsoever, nor proven empirically.

WalterBright 2y ago
It's way more efficient than any other system that has been tried. Free markets bury command economies.
- piva00 2y ago
  It doesn't mean it's the end all system, if it's wasteful it can be improved. At no point I advocated for a command economy, once more you reply to a strawman to one of my comments, Walter.
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    Public funding for whatever means the government is picking winners and losers. Whoever pays the piper calls the tunes. Public funding always comes with strings. The government funded Langley with $60,000 to build a working airplane. It fell into the Potomac "like a sack of wet cement". The Wrights spent $3,000 and build a working, flying airplane. The jet engine was invented and developed with private funds. The US government told Lockheed to stop working on jet engines and develop better piston engines instead. AI, the biggest tech revolution in a couple decades, seems to have been privately funded.
    - piva00 2y ago
      The internet you are using right now was created by public funds. Compilers, which you work with your whole life, came from research done by public funds. Most medical research has been done with public funds. Radios, modems, every single piece of networking we currently use was first researched by public funds. We can keep cherry-picking examples if you wish go down this road, it doesn't foster much of a deeper discussion though if you are going to keep your dogma. Public funding is necessary, private funding is necessary, what kind of system we can create that enables the best out of both worlds to evolve and be better? That's a discussion I'd like to see, this end of history bullshit is too boring, and tiring to discuss. Capitalism as it is has empirically shown it's not the best system humanity should rely on, it has its advantages, it has major flaws, admitting that is a pretty good first step into trying to look what's next, how do we go from here. It's destructive, it's inhumane, it's simplistic, it will become a relic just like any other system that came before. Being dogmatic about it doesn't take us anywhere, it just conserves a status quo which is not the best we can achieve. As usual, I think you are a bright person, Walter, you've done tons and achieved a lot more than most, but keeping this dogmatic narrow-view of the world certainly pains me, exactly because you are the kind of mind that should be able to see through the bullshit...
      - WalterBright 2y ago
        The internet is not even remotely the first network. See "The Victorian Internet" by Standage https://www.amazon.com/Victorian-Internet-Remarkable-Nineteenth-line/dp/162040592X/ https://www.amazon.com/Victorian-Internet-Remarkable-Ninetee... It was an incremental step, followed by other incremental steps. There have also been many, many internets along the way: AOL, Prodigy, BYTEnet, MCI, Gopher, RBBS, etc. Every organization that had more than one computer soon figured out how to connect them. Even I did that. BTW, Ethernet was invented by Xerox. I use it every day. Compilers appeared shortly after computers that were capable enough to run them appeared. This suggests an inevitability, not a discontinuous invention. Jet engines were a discontinuity, too. What I see is that if invention X is derived from inventions A,B,C,D,E,F, and D was funded by the government, the government gets all the credit. > Capitalism as it is has empirically shown it's not the best system humanity should rely on, How has that been shown? > it has its advantages, it has major flaws, admitting that is a pretty good first step into trying to look what's next, how do we go from here. It's destructive, it's inhumane, it's simplistic, it will become a relic just like any other system that came before. Show an example of any system working better. Free markets are a chaotic system of creative destruction. There have been endless attempts at "fixing" that. None have worked better.
- andrepd 2y ago
  "Free markets" and "planned economies" don't encompass the breadth of possibilities of organisation of politics and economics. Case in point: TFA... This post is precisely about a free market economy where the (imo unnatural) disconnect between working in an enterprise and owning the products of that enterprise doesn't exist. That's all. Not sure what "command economy" has to do with it.
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    > unnatural If you hire a landscaper to redo the landscaping of your property, is he thereby entitled to own a share of your property? How about the guy you hired to fix your water heater? Does he get a share, too? Is that natural?
    - defrost 2y ago
      This exemplifies a transition from "strawman argument" to "strawman dressed as a clown argument".
      - WalterBright 2y ago
        What's the salient difference between hiring a worker to help your business, and thereby being entitled to a share of your business, and hiring a worker to do some work on your house, and thereby being entitled to a share of it?
        bryan_w 2y ago
        You make a good point
        fuzzfactor 2y ago
        Very good point, you would have to make the decision yourself whether to offer shares for what type and length of service. And if so it could be considered a (very) generous decision more often than not.
missedthecue 2y ago
It's not perfectly efficient but I would say it's remarkably efficient.

by piva00 2y ago

WalterBright 2y ago

It's way more efficient than any other system that has been tried. Free markets bury command economies.

piva00 2y ago
It doesn't mean it's the end all system, if it's wasteful it can be improved. At no point I advocated for a command economy, once more you reply to a strawman to one of my comments, Walter.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  Public funding for whatever means the government is picking winners and losers. Whoever pays the piper calls the tunes. Public funding always comes with strings. The government funded Langley with $60,000 to build a working airplane. It fell into the Potomac "like a sack of wet cement". The Wrights spent $3,000 and build a working, flying airplane. The jet engine was invented and developed with private funds. The US government told Lockheed to stop working on jet engines and develop better piston engines instead. AI, the biggest tech revolution in a couple decades, seems to have been privately funded.
  - piva00 2y ago
    The internet you are using right now was created by public funds. Compilers, which you work with your whole life, came from research done by public funds. Most medical research has been done with public funds. Radios, modems, every single piece of networking we currently use was first researched by public funds. We can keep cherry-picking examples if you wish go down this road, it doesn't foster much of a deeper discussion though if you are going to keep your dogma. Public funding is necessary, private funding is necessary, what kind of system we can create that enables the best out of both worlds to evolve and be better? That's a discussion I'd like to see, this end of history bullshit is too boring, and tiring to discuss. Capitalism as it is has empirically shown it's not the best system humanity should rely on, it has its advantages, it has major flaws, admitting that is a pretty good first step into trying to look what's next, how do we go from here. It's destructive, it's inhumane, it's simplistic, it will become a relic just like any other system that came before. Being dogmatic about it doesn't take us anywhere, it just conserves a status quo which is not the best we can achieve. As usual, I think you are a bright person, Walter, you've done tons and achieved a lot more than most, but keeping this dogmatic narrow-view of the world certainly pains me, exactly because you are the kind of mind that should be able to see through the bullshit...
    - WalterBright 2y ago
      The internet is not even remotely the first network. See "The Victorian Internet" by Standage https://www.amazon.com/Victorian-Internet-Remarkable-Nineteenth-line/dp/162040592X/ https://www.amazon.com/Victorian-Internet-Remarkable-Ninetee... It was an incremental step, followed by other incremental steps. There have also been many, many internets along the way: AOL, Prodigy, BYTEnet, MCI, Gopher, RBBS, etc. Every organization that had more than one computer soon figured out how to connect them. Even I did that. BTW, Ethernet was invented by Xerox. I use it every day. Compilers appeared shortly after computers that were capable enough to run them appeared. This suggests an inevitability, not a discontinuous invention. Jet engines were a discontinuity, too. What I see is that if invention X is derived from inventions A,B,C,D,E,F, and D was funded by the government, the government gets all the credit. > Capitalism as it is has empirically shown it's not the best system humanity should rely on, How has that been shown? > it has its advantages, it has major flaws, admitting that is a pretty good first step into trying to look what's next, how do we go from here. It's destructive, it's inhumane, it's simplistic, it will become a relic just like any other system that came before. Show an example of any system working better. Free markets are a chaotic system of creative destruction. There have been endless attempts at "fixing" that. None have worked better.
andrepd 2y ago
"Free markets" and "planned economies" don't encompass the breadth of possibilities of organisation of politics and economics. Case in point: TFA... This post is precisely about a free market economy where the (imo unnatural) disconnect between working in an enterprise and owning the products of that enterprise doesn't exist. That's all. Not sure what "command economy" has to do with it.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  > unnatural If you hire a landscaper to redo the landscaping of your property, is he thereby entitled to own a share of your property? How about the guy you hired to fix your water heater? Does he get a share, too? Is that natural?
  - defrost 2y ago
    This exemplifies a transition from "strawman argument" to "strawman dressed as a clown argument".
    - WalterBright 2y ago
      What's the salient difference between hiring a worker to help your business, and thereby being entitled to a share of your business, and hiring a worker to do some work on your house, and thereby being entitled to a share of it?
      - bryan_w 2y ago
        You make a good point
        fuzzfactor 2y ago
        Very good point, you would have to make the decision yourself whether to offer shares for what type and length of service. And if so it could be considered a (very) generous decision more often than not.

missedthecue 2y ago

It's not perfectly efficient but I would say it's remarkably efficient.