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> socially regressive robber barons At least we got some good universities (and a somewhat functional transcontinental rail system) out of the 19th century ite

> socially regressive robber barons At least we got some good universities (and a somewhat functional transcontinental rail system) out of the 19th century iteration. > In 1975 the student body of Stanford University voted to use "Robber Barons" as the nickname for their sports teams. However, school administrators disallowed it, saying it was disrespectful to the school's founder, Leland Stanford [1] It's a shame that the school's administrators (perhaps fearing the wrath of alumni and donors) were so humorless – "Stealin' Landford" would have been a highly entertaining mascot, and one oddly appropriate for the gridiron. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist)

kps 2y ago
And 2509 libraries.
- musicale 2y ago
  Indeed – Carnegie Libraries may be one of the best results. I would like to see our modern robber barons and philanthropists (and society in general) put some effort into creating a usable digital library system; we actually have things like Google Books, which scanned many university collections, but it will likely remain unusable as an actual digital library unless some sort of copyright reform can be enacted.
  - 1oooqooq 2y ago
    these thing will come, after it's too late. robber Barons also destroyed nature and communities. only in their old age they tried to be remembered by universities and libraries. only question is if musk and Zuckerberg will build their 2080 ouvres still in the USA or elsewhere. remember most Barrons made their fortunes living in the North East and ended up on the West. the world is more global today. the Musk University might as well end up in Shenzhen.
    - nradov 2y ago
      The current crop of tech billionaires seems fond of New Zealand and have been building bunkers there to escape from nuclear war or global warming or a peasant revolt or whatever. Maybe they'll build a university there as well? https://www.vice.com/en/article/billionaires-are-building-luxury-bunkers-to-escape-doomsday/ https://www.vice.com/en/article/billionaires-are-building-lu...
  - bryanrasmussen 2y ago
    >Indeed – Carnegie Libraries may be one of the best results. how much of this "the 19th century Robber barons at least did one thing right" idea is all down to Andrew Carnegie, I sometimes wonder.
    - relistan 2y ago
      The scale of the Carnegie library program is pretty incredible. My dad’s library as a kid was a Carnegie library in central Iowa. The libraries near where I live in Dublin, Ireland are Carnegie libraries.
      - jsrcout 2y ago
        Same thing in my small WV hometown. Gorgeous building, too.
CPLX 2y ago
> At least we got some good universities out of the 19th century iteration. You mean the ones that turned around and produced the current market fundamentalist and elite-run culture we have today? What a coincidence.
- musicale 2y ago
  And the modern generation of tech industrialists? Probably not a coincidence either. Though technically universities are more than just their endowments, business schools, engineering schools, sports teams, etc. They often have pretty good libraries, for example. Many universities also provide a variety of educational and course materials for free over the internet. Some train physicians and operate hospitals. And many universities have at least some minimal diversity of opinion on politics and policies. The idea that elite universities produce elite university graduates is probably not controversial, and many of them were founded with the idea of producing "leaders", which they have arguably done.
  - dgfitz 2y ago
    > The idea that elite universities produce elite university graduates is probably not controversial… Isn’t it?
    - chrisweekly 2y ago
      No, it's a statement of fact, akin to "universities produce graduates".
      - bryanrasmussen 2y ago
        well this {elite universities} produce {elite university} graduates is of course tautological but this elite universities produce university graduates who are elite (meaning better than others) is debatable. Most people who say "elite universities produce elite university graduates" mean the second and then don't provide any especially great arguments for the opinion.
      - 2y ago
sien 2y ago
[flagged]
- zug_zug 2y ago
  The internet was a government project. It's laughable to even imagine that if these billionaires didn't exist then nobody else would have invented video chat...
  - sien 2y ago
    It's not the invention it's the delivery. Consumer goods are delivered by businesses. Delivering new, high tech ones is hard.
    - tomrod 2y ago
      Discovery (basic research) is usually costlier than applied research (bundling, development, delivery) in labor costs.
    - probablybetter 2y ago
      no, creating the actual technical standards and the internet is/was hard. monetizing it and walling off sections of it is STEALING FROM THE PUBLIC that which we already PAID for and selling it back to us! Zoom!? WebRTC! Proprietary XYZ? Standards!
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  the tech billionaires didn't give us any of that (though you might have a case with the iPhone and SpaceX); they're just the ones who monetized it It's like Carnegie setting up 2500 libraries but charging access to them and becoming an even greater billionaire in the process
  - sien 2y ago
trainyperson 2y ago
The “Robber Barons” name is used now for the sketch comedy group on campus: https://youtube.com/@stanfordrobberbarons https://youtube.com/@stanfordrobberbarons
mgraczyk 2y ago
And polio is largely cured from this generation, and vaccines now exist that prevent diseases that once killed infants, and we have cheap and fast internet everywhere, ... This generation of "robber barons" has very clearly done more good for society than any other group of people of the same size, and I can't imagine how anybody who works in tech can not know of the specific good things they have done or be so confused about the bad to believe they are outweighed.
- jmcgough 2y ago
  > This generation of "robber barons" has very clearly done more good for society than any other group of people of the same size I'd take Jonas Salk, Norman Borlaug, and Marie Curie over Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Benzos.
  - mgraczyk 2y ago
    Well i meant "group" as in an actual group of people who are all doing roughly the same thing at the same time, like the previous generation of robber barons. But even in this case, I could make a pretty strong case that Salk was less important for the eradication of Polio than Gates, and that Curie will likely be less important in the long run than Zuckerberg on healthcare and biosciences, and a weaker but reasonable case that Borlaug will be less impactful on human survivability with increasing population than Musk.
    - probablybetter 2y ago
      no. just NO. look at maps of polio proliferation before/after Jonas Salk, the frikkin guy who DISCOVERED/CREATED the polio vaccine, and then look at maps related to Gates work, which, while admirable, bears no comparison from the night-vs-day world of pre-polio-vaccine vs post-vaccine. Wards of people in iron-lung machines staring at mirrors on the ceiling. It was before your time, but this is no excuse for spouting total nonsense.
      - mgraczyk 2y ago

kps 2y ago

And 2509 libraries.

musicale 2y ago
Indeed – Carnegie Libraries may be one of the best results. I would like to see our modern robber barons and philanthropists (and society in general) put some effort into creating a usable digital library system; we actually have things like Google Books, which scanned many university collections, but it will likely remain unusable as an actual digital library unless some sort of copyright reform can be enacted.
- 1oooqooq 2y ago
  these thing will come, after it's too late. robber Barons also destroyed nature and communities. only in their old age they tried to be remembered by universities and libraries. only question is if musk and Zuckerberg will build their 2080 ouvres still in the USA or elsewhere. remember most Barrons made their fortunes living in the North East and ended up on the West. the world is more global today. the Musk University might as well end up in Shenzhen.
  - nradov 2y ago
    The current crop of tech billionaires seems fond of New Zealand and have been building bunkers there to escape from nuclear war or global warming or a peasant revolt or whatever. Maybe they'll build a university there as well? https://www.vice.com/en/article/billionaires-are-building-luxury-bunkers-to-escape-doomsday/ https://www.vice.com/en/article/billionaires-are-building-lu...
- bryanrasmussen 2y ago
  >Indeed – Carnegie Libraries may be one of the best results. how much of this "the 19th century Robber barons at least did one thing right" idea is all down to Andrew Carnegie, I sometimes wonder.
  - relistan 2y ago
    The scale of the Carnegie library program is pretty incredible. My dad’s library as a kid was a Carnegie library in central Iowa. The libraries near where I live in Dublin, Ireland are Carnegie libraries.
    - jsrcout 2y ago
      Same thing in my small WV hometown. Gorgeous building, too.

CPLX 2y ago

> At least we got some good universities out of the 19th century iteration. You mean the ones that turned around and produced the current market fundamentalist and elite-run culture we have today? What a coincidence.

musicale 2y ago
And the modern generation of tech industrialists? Probably not a coincidence either. Though technically universities are more than just their endowments, business schools, engineering schools, sports teams, etc. They often have pretty good libraries, for example. Many universities also provide a variety of educational and course materials for free over the internet. Some train physicians and operate hospitals. And many universities have at least some minimal diversity of opinion on politics and policies. The idea that elite universities produce elite university graduates is probably not controversial, and many of them were founded with the idea of producing "leaders", which they have arguably done.
- dgfitz 2y ago
  > The idea that elite universities produce elite university graduates is probably not controversial… Isn’t it?
  - chrisweekly 2y ago
    No, it's a statement of fact, akin to "universities produce graduates".
    - bryanrasmussen 2y ago
      well this {elite universities} produce {elite university} graduates is of course tautological but this elite universities produce university graduates who are elite (meaning better than others) is debatable. Most people who say "elite universities produce elite university graduates" mean the second and then don't provide any especially great arguments for the opinion.
    - 2y ago

sien 2y ago

[flagged]

zug_zug 2y ago
The internet was a government project. It's laughable to even imagine that if these billionaires didn't exist then nobody else would have invented video chat...
- sien 2y ago
  It's not the invention it's the delivery. Consumer goods are delivered by businesses. Delivering new, high tech ones is hard.
  - tomrod 2y ago
    Discovery (basic research) is usually costlier than applied research (bundling, development, delivery) in labor costs.
  - probablybetter 2y ago
    no, creating the actual technical standards and the internet is/was hard. monetizing it and walling off sections of it is STEALING FROM THE PUBLIC that which we already PAID for and selling it back to us! Zoom!? WebRTC! Proprietary XYZ? Standards!
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
insane_dreamer 2y ago
the tech billionaires didn't give us any of that (though you might have a case with the iPhone and SpaceX); they're just the ones who monetized it It's like Carnegie setting up 2500 libraries but charging access to them and becoming an even greater billionaire in the process
- sien 2y ago

trainyperson 2y ago

The “Robber Barons” name is used now for the sketch comedy group on campus: https://youtube.com/@stanfordrobberbarons https://youtube.com/@stanfordrobberbarons

mgraczyk 2y ago

And polio is largely cured from this generation, and vaccines now exist that prevent diseases that once killed infants, and we have cheap and fast internet everywhere, ... This generation of "robber barons" has very clearly done more good for society than any other group of people of the same size, and I can't imagine how anybody who works in tech can not know of the specific good things they have done or be so confused about the bad to believe they are outweighed.

jmcgough 2y ago
> This generation of "robber barons" has very clearly done more good for society than any other group of people of the same size I'd take Jonas Salk, Norman Borlaug, and Marie Curie over Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Benzos.
- mgraczyk 2y ago
  Well i meant "group" as in an actual group of people who are all doing roughly the same thing at the same time, like the previous generation of robber barons. But even in this case, I could make a pretty strong case that Salk was less important for the eradication of Polio than Gates, and that Curie will likely be less important in the long run than Zuckerberg on healthcare and biosciences, and a weaker but reasonable case that Borlaug will be less impactful on human survivability with increasing population than Musk.
  - probablybetter 2y ago
    no. just NO. look at maps of polio proliferation before/after Jonas Salk, the frikkin guy who DISCOVERED/CREATED the polio vaccine, and then look at maps related to Gates work, which, while admirable, bears no comparison from the night-vs-day world of pre-polio-vaccine vs post-vaccine. Wards of people in iron-lung machines staring at mirrors on the ceiling. It was before your time, but this is no excuse for spouting total nonsense.
    - mgraczyk 2y ago