5 ms·

Are you Ron Swanson? ;-) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Swanson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Swanson)

robomartin 14y ago
I don't watch the show so I don't really get your comment. I knew my post would not be popular. That's OK. I am not a cargo-cult thinker. It's interesting that in a thread about innovation only one person so far --me-- brings-up the elephant in the room: Government, choking innovation in so many ways it is beyond criminal. I think most on HN would agree that the Patent Office has, in the last, say, 30 years, done more damage than good. Why does it take thirty years to fix it? Why does anything in government take FIFTY years to change? Notice I said "change" not "fix". They rarely fix anything. What's the impact on innovation of not having a balanced budget? An I mean, not balanced by a TRILLION dollars, not a few million? No impact at all? How is that possible? What is the impact to innovation of having tens of millions of Americans enslaved by entitlement programs? There exist people who have been living under these programs their entire lives, even families who've been under them for generations. Here's a huge mass of people who's very drive to live and succeed has been killed off by not having to fight for survival. Innovation does not happen when you are not hungry. Period. We have to break this chain of slavery and get these people to re-join society. Those who truly need help ought to receive it through sensible programs. That's a small percentage of those currently under these programs. We also need to limit government and keep them away from industry. I mean, stuff like the NLRB and their fight against Boeing. I'll tell you, if I were running Boeing I would have said "Fuck you all, we are moving the entire operation to Canada until you figure out that unions are the enemy of innovation and growth.". What's the impact to innovation of the double-taxation that happens with revenue generated by businesses: Tax the employees once and then, if anything remains, tax the company. Criminal. You are taxing the same pile of money that came in through the same door! C'mon folks, picture it this way: You start a landscaping business. You have a job this weekend. You finish the job with four other workers. The tax man shows-up. You paid each worker and yourself $100. The tax man takes $20 from everyone. You spent $100 on supplies. That means $400 remains. This is $400 to save for a rainy day, advertise to get more work, hire more people, grow the business, etc. The tax man doesn't leave. He wants another $80 bite out of the same money. So, the same money got taxed twice. And now you have less money to tend to your business. To make things even worst. The $180 the tax man collected is going to be wasted by government in a million different ways. Anyhow, innovation does not come from those who sign-on to cargo-culture and simply parrot what their circle is also parroting. I know I am not voicing popular culture at all. That's OK, I am not a clone. I innovate.
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  "Why does anything in government take FIFTY years to change?" It was designed that way because change comes in two forms, good change and bad change. No one at the time of the creation of the US form of government could come up with a way that would enable good change to happen faster than bad change, and they recognized that bad change could could be fatal, they had to create a system where change was slow enough that bad changes could be reversed as it slowly became obvious how bad they were. They also made the assumption that the people being governed would proactively participate in the institutions of government in order to effect change. What we've seen as that things can get bad enough to motivate participation, and in doing so force more change. The 'tea party' movement is a good example of that sort of force in action. There were more new 'tea party' congressional representatives in 2010 than any new movement had produced in a while proving once again that a block of people, motivated by the same sorts of issues can effect change by participating in their government.
  - robomartin 14y ago
    I understand. I also understand that what you are talking about took place nearly two hundred and fifty years ago. Believe it or not, even 250 years ago men could hardly plan or predict just five years into the future. So, please, let's stop granting them superhuman powers and intellect. Things move faster today. We can't wait another fifty years to fix the patent system, have reasonable gun control and stop fucking with the rest of the world with senseless wars. Does it really have to take fifty years for these things to be resolved?
    - ChuckMcM 14y ago
      I understand the emotion, and I share it. The longest it would take to make any significant government change where there is broad citizen support is 8 years, that is four congressional election cycles, two presidential, and one senate cycle. It might take 10 if the senate cycle lands poorly. Let's use the Tea Partiers who are currently driving us off into some fiscal unknowns. A large enough constituent of people was of the opinion that the Federal Government had gotten too big and was fiscally out of control. Their efforts managed to elect a parliamentary significant number of them to congress where they have been generally voting as a bloc against additional taxes without significant spending cuts. Whether you and I agree with them, that agenda is moving forward. It went from whine to change in less than 10 years. (I count the start of that movement around 2005/6, how about you?) So that patent system is broken, its been broken for a long time, but until patent-a-geddon here, it never rose to the attention of anyone outside of tech circles (and like it or not we're both a relatively small and (historically) a relatively ineffective political force). And yet patent-a-geddon has put it on the radar of politicians, and big time donors like Google and Bill & Melinda Gates have been bending the ears of said politicians and for the first time in my memory we're seeing actual changes to the way the patent system works (America INVENTS act) and more critical scrutiny on both the PTO and on the federal court in Washington that hears the appeals. That is all good news and indicative that change is happening. 2014 is going to be another election year. A number of people will put their names in the hat to be your congressional representative. If you don't like what your incumbent is doing with regard to patents, talk to the contenders and see if there is any one of them that will both support your desired changes to the patent system and their personal goals aren't too distasteful. If you live somewhere like the Bay Area there are a bunch of congressional districts in the area, you can talk to lots of folks. Try to get your entire state's congressional delegation lined up around fixing patents in the next two years. To do that you will need to research some ways in which the patent system should be changed (if you want to advocate the abolishment of software patents then it helps to look at other places that have done that, they have a history you can reference). Talk to some outspoken supporters and critics of the Patent system, find out how they rationalize their position, can you argue successfully against that rationalization? Find their arguments and their evidence and see where it leads you. None of this takes money, but it does take time and effort. Its a crap load of work, much of it fairly clerical and boring. Get other people involved (from your congressional district is the most impactful but from all over is okay too). You are going to ask a representative to stand up and say "we need to make these changes ..." and they need facts to back that up, they need counterpoints to the arguments that will be thrown in their face, they need to know who is going to come after them, and they need to know what is at stake. Your congressional representative is your tool for manipulating the Government to your will, that is their job. Recognize too that you are but one pusher in a sea of pushers, pushing from the home district gets +1 to impact because you're a voter but there are other pushers out there. Find them and blunt their story. And that takes time of course. Less if you have money and you can hire clerical staff, more if you run down everything yourself. Or don't. Your choice. FWIW the voter registrar will have the names and addresses of the folks who are putting their name in the hat for Congress usually in November of this year but no later than March[1] of next year. Get the names and go talk to them. They will be happy to talk to you if they are trying to get elected. [1] http://fec.gov http://fec.gov - "When are the Federal Election Activity periods for my state? Within 120 days before an election, voter registration, voter identification, get-out-the-vote and generic campaign activities conducted by state, district or local party committees are considered federal election activity (FEA) and must be financed using federal funds, Levin funds or a combination of the two. As states establish their election schedules (including special elections), the Commission calculates the applicable FEA periods."

I don't watch the show so I don't really get your comment. I knew my post would not be popular. That's OK. I am not a cargo-cult thinker. It's interesting that in a thread about innovation only one person so far --me-- brings-up the elephant in the room: Government, choking innovation in so many ways it is beyond criminal. I think most on HN would agree that the Patent Office has, in the last, say, 30 years, done more damage than good. Why does it take thirty years to fix it? Why does anything in government take FIFTY years to change? Notice I said "change" not "fix". They rarely fix anything. What's the impact on innovation of not having a balanced budget? An I mean, not balanced by a TRILLION dollars, not a few million? No impact at all? How is that possible? What is the impact to innovation of having tens of millions of Americans enslaved by entitlement programs? There exist people who have been living under these programs their entire lives, even families who've been under them for generations. Here's a huge mass of people who's very drive to live and succeed has been killed off by not having to fight for survival. Innovation does not happen when you are not hungry. Period. We have to break this chain of slavery and get these people to re-join society. Those who truly need help ought to receive it through sensible programs. That's a small percentage of those currently under these programs. We also need to limit government and keep them away from industry. I mean, stuff like the NLRB and their fight against Boeing. I'll tell you, if I were running Boeing I would have said "Fuck you all, we are moving the entire operation to Canada until you figure out that unions are the enemy of innovation and growth.". What's the impact to innovation of the double-taxation that happens with revenue generated by businesses: Tax the employees once and then, if anything remains, tax the company. Criminal. You are taxing the same pile of money that came in through the same door! C'mon folks, picture it this way: You start a landscaping business. You have a job this weekend. You finish the job with four other workers. The tax man shows-up. You paid each worker and yourself $100. The tax man takes $20 from everyone. You spent $100 on supplies. That means $400 remains. This is $400 to save for a rainy day, advertise to get more work, hire more people, grow the business, etc. The tax man doesn't leave. He wants another $80 bite out of the same money. So, the same money got taxed twice. And now you have less money to tend to your business. To make things even worst. The $180 the tax man collected is going to be wasted by government in a million different ways. Anyhow, innovation does not come from those who sign-on to cargo-culture and simply parrot what their circle is also parroting. I know I am not voicing popular culture at all. That's OK, I am not a clone. I innovate.

ChuckMcM 14y ago
"Why does anything in government take FIFTY years to change?" It was designed that way because change comes in two forms, good change and bad change. No one at the time of the creation of the US form of government could come up with a way that would enable good change to happen faster than bad change, and they recognized that bad change could could be fatal, they had to create a system where change was slow enough that bad changes could be reversed as it slowly became obvious how bad they were. They also made the assumption that the people being governed would proactively participate in the institutions of government in order to effect change. What we've seen as that things can get bad enough to motivate participation, and in doing so force more change. The 'tea party' movement is a good example of that sort of force in action. There were more new 'tea party' congressional representatives in 2010 than any new movement had produced in a while proving once again that a block of people, motivated by the same sorts of issues can effect change by participating in their government.
- robomartin 14y ago
  I understand. I also understand that what you are talking about took place nearly two hundred and fifty years ago. Believe it or not, even 250 years ago men could hardly plan or predict just five years into the future. So, please, let's stop granting them superhuman powers and intellect. Things move faster today. We can't wait another fifty years to fix the patent system, have reasonable gun control and stop fucking with the rest of the world with senseless wars. Does it really have to take fifty years for these things to be resolved?
  - ChuckMcM 14y ago
    I understand the emotion, and I share it. The longest it would take to make any significant government change where there is broad citizen support is 8 years, that is four congressional election cycles, two presidential, and one senate cycle. It might take 10 if the senate cycle lands poorly. Let's use the Tea Partiers who are currently driving us off into some fiscal unknowns. A large enough constituent of people was of the opinion that the Federal Government had gotten too big and was fiscally out of control. Their efforts managed to elect a parliamentary significant number of them to congress where they have been generally voting as a bloc against additional taxes without significant spending cuts. Whether you and I agree with them, that agenda is moving forward. It went from whine to change in less than 10 years. (I count the start of that movement around 2005/6, how about you?) So that patent system is broken, its been broken for a long time, but until patent-a-geddon here, it never rose to the attention of anyone outside of tech circles (and like it or not we're both a relatively small and (historically) a relatively ineffective political force). And yet patent-a-geddon has put it on the radar of politicians, and big time donors like Google and Bill & Melinda Gates have been bending the ears of said politicians and for the first time in my memory we're seeing actual changes to the way the patent system works (America INVENTS act) and more critical scrutiny on both the PTO and on the federal court in Washington that hears the appeals. That is all good news and indicative that change is happening. 2014 is going to be another election year. A number of people will put their names in the hat to be your congressional representative. If you don't like what your incumbent is doing with regard to patents, talk to the contenders and see if there is any one of them that will both support your desired changes to the patent system and their personal goals aren't too distasteful. If you live somewhere like the Bay Area there are a bunch of congressional districts in the area, you can talk to lots of folks. Try to get your entire state's congressional delegation lined up around fixing patents in the next two years. To do that you will need to research some ways in which the patent system should be changed (if you want to advocate the abolishment of software patents then it helps to look at other places that have done that, they have a history you can reference). Talk to some outspoken supporters and critics of the Patent system, find out how they rationalize their position, can you argue successfully against that rationalization? Find their arguments and their evidence and see where it leads you. None of this takes money, but it does take time and effort. Its a crap load of work, much of it fairly clerical and boring. Get other people involved (from your congressional district is the most impactful but from all over is okay too). You are going to ask a representative to stand up and say "we need to make these changes ..." and they need facts to back that up, they need counterpoints to the arguments that will be thrown in their face, they need to know who is going to come after them, and they need to know what is at stake. Your congressional representative is your tool for manipulating the Government to your will, that is their job. Recognize too that you are but one pusher in a sea of pushers, pushing from the home district gets +1 to impact because you're a voter but there are other pushers out there. Find them and blunt their story. And that takes time of course. Less if you have money and you can hire clerical staff, more if you run down everything yourself. Or don't. Your choice. FWIW the voter registrar will have the names and addresses of the folks who are putting their name in the hat for Congress usually in November of this year but no later than March[1] of next year. Get the names and go talk to them. They will be happy to talk to you if they are trying to get elected. [1] http://fec.gov http://fec.gov - "When are the Federal Election Activity periods for my state? Within 120 days before an election, voter registration, voter identification, get-out-the-vote and generic campaign activities conducted by state, district or local party committees are considered federal election activity (FEA) and must be financed using federal funds, Levin funds or a combination of the two. As states establish their election schedules (including special elections), the Commission calculates the applicable FEA periods."