So, I realize that the return on investment for VCs in something like this is probably pretty low--the AEC industry is terrible (though real estate is alright).
That said, can we at least be honest that having that much capital locked up in stupid consumer and enterprise gambles is actually a pretty obviously sub-optimal use of that money for the common good?
So, you, as venture-capital-extraordinaire, spend all your money on helping the poor. Maybe you do better in the short term. But what do you do once that money's gone? There's no long-term in that picture and charity for developing nations is not a short-term endeavour.
Meanwhile, trivial enterprise and consumer products may not be going to uplift a country any time soon, but they can be recursed upon, and the technologies involved in those industries - which have a wide range of potential applications, including some charitable potential - continue to advance.
It doesn't make any sense to build a system based on what you would like people to be rather than what they are. And for better or worse people's relatively direct purchasing of utilions for others tends to be both fairly rare and inefficient.
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I'd be interested to hear how you think CAM and computing technology would have evolved without funding for 'stupid consumer gambles,' and the need to compete with other manufacturers in that regard.
CAM machining advancements were mostly pushed forward by car companies and government spending, right? Almost all of the computing technology we use today began as a .gov or .mil project, or came from some private lab with funding from the .gov or .mil.
I think that that rather neatly undermines your point.
It wasn't the VCs spending lots of money. The big desktop revolution (outside of Apple) was initially driven by IBM, Commodore, Tandy, and Atari...all relatively established businesses partnering with younger firms for software or whatnot.
Sure, we had Sun Microsystems and Silicon Graphics, but at the end of the day it seems like they're all gone and blown away while the more lasting impacts remain attributed to academia (.edu and .gov again), defense (.mil), or consumer software not really driven by venture capital.
No, we can't be "honest" and accept your wild claim about the best use of capital.
The entire economy is based on the market determining the efficient allocation of capital. This is not an absolute truth, but an approximation based on hundreds of years of theoretical and empirical work. In the absence of significant market frictions that would drive capital away from the AEC industry (and low profits are not a market friction) there is no reason to think that the current allocation of capital is inefficient.
Hey, I didn't claim that it was morally repugnant, that the folks should be cast out in streets to live with the other homeless in SF and have their Teslas and iJiggers auctioned off to feed the poor.
I just would appreciate some acknowledgement that, "Yeah, we don't fund things like this that could help the average person because it doesn't give us money."
It's the same thing behind making money off of war, off of cancer, or off of scarcity in general--I don't ask that you admit that you're evil (if that exists in your belief system), but merely that you are profiting off of human misery and suffering.
If nobody is buying into this, the most likely reason is precisely that it doesn't make any money because it doesn't provide enough excess value vs. what we already have to support any profit.
A guy can get up on stage and promise to save the world pretty easily. Investors, however, have to live in the real world where they actually have to manifest the promised tech. If they don't think they can, well, odds are they are correct.
Incidentally, cancer researchers aren't profiting off of human misery... they're profiting off of reducing human misery. Is there a better thing to profit off of? The ones you have to watch out for are the ones who wish to extend your misery for their own gains, but that's not required for profit, and in fact is often against their own long-term interests anyhow.
The companies making money "off of cancer" (http://www.texmed.org/template.aspx?id=16518) have saved and improved the lives of quite a few people. Why do you have a problem with that?
Because those cures are quite expensive, and because they are prescribed by doctors who have no real feeling about what that cost does to a family.
Perhaps most importantly, because the war on cancer has sidetracked the development of utilitarian things like anti-biotics, of which we are about to run out (depending on what you read, we've already run out).
The folks that manufacture Lexus SUVs have saved and improved the lives of quite a few people, but one does wonder just how much good that has done everyone else who can't afford it.
Right, because that cost is a bigger imposition on the family than dying. As my dad has had cancer twice and beat cancer twice so far, I am very thankful for those expensive cancer treatments. Keep them coming please.
Mostly though he's had to delay his retirement significantly due to huge medical expenses he and my mom have been unlucky enough to have to deal with over the years. They have spent more money on healthcare than most people could even imagine. I think their insurance, not counting out of pocket costs, just premiums (now that they both have bad pre-existing conditions) in some years have been over 20k a year.
Yes, some of these treatments are really expensive. You have to also realize that these treatments are really expensive to develop. Why should I expect incredibly smart and highly specialized people to give away their time for free? It takes huge amounts of resources to solve a problem like cancer.
I promise you I understand the problems caused by the cost of healthcare as much as or more than most people. That being said, the option to be poor and alive is still much better than being dead. You can always come back from being poor.
Comments
So, I realize that the return on investment for VCs in something like this is probably pretty low--the AEC industry is terrible (though real estate is alright).
That said, can we at least be honest that having that much capital locked up in stupid consumer and enterprise gambles is actually a pretty obviously sub-optimal use of that money for the common good?
So, you, as venture-capital-extraordinaire, spend all your money on helping the poor. Maybe you do better in the short term. But what do you do once that money's gone? There's no long-term in that picture and charity for developing nations is not a short-term endeavour.
Meanwhile, trivial enterprise and consumer products may not be going to uplift a country any time soon, but they can be recursed upon, and the technologies involved in those industries - which have a wide range of potential applications, including some charitable potential - continue to advance.
It doesn't make any sense to build a system based on what you would like people to be rather than what they are. And for better or worse people's relatively direct purchasing of utilions for others tends to be both fairly rare and inefficient.
#
I'd be interested to hear how you think CAM and computing technology would have evolved without funding for 'stupid consumer gambles,' and the need to compete with other manufacturers in that regard.
CAM machining advancements were mostly pushed forward by car companies and government spending, right? Almost all of the computing technology we use today began as a .gov or .mil project, or came from some private lab with funding from the .gov or .mil.
I think that that rather neatly undermines your point.
It wasn't the VCs spending lots of money. The big desktop revolution (outside of Apple) was initially driven by IBM, Commodore, Tandy, and Atari...all relatively established businesses partnering with younger firms for software or whatnot.
Sure, we had Sun Microsystems and Silicon Graphics, but at the end of the day it seems like they're all gone and blown away while the more lasting impacts remain attributed to academia (.edu and .gov again), defense (.mil), or consumer software not really driven by venture capital.
No, we can't be "honest" and accept your wild claim about the best use of capital.
The entire economy is based on the market determining the efficient allocation of capital. This is not an absolute truth, but an approximation based on hundreds of years of theoretical and empirical work. In the absence of significant market frictions that would drive capital away from the AEC industry (and low profits are not a market friction) there is no reason to think that the current allocation of capital is inefficient.
"sub-optimal use of that money for the common good?" -- isn't that how communism started?
Hey, I didn't claim that it was morally repugnant, that the folks should be cast out in streets to live with the other homeless in SF and have their Teslas and iJiggers auctioned off to feed the poor.
I just would appreciate some acknowledgement that, "Yeah, we don't fund things like this that could help the average person because it doesn't give us money."
It's the same thing behind making money off of war, off of cancer, or off of scarcity in general--I don't ask that you admit that you're evil (if that exists in your belief system), but merely that you are profiting off of human misery and suffering.
If nobody is buying into this, the most likely reason is precisely that it doesn't make any money because it doesn't provide enough excess value vs. what we already have to support any profit.
A guy can get up on stage and promise to save the world pretty easily. Investors, however, have to live in the real world where they actually have to manifest the promised tech. If they don't think they can, well, odds are they are correct.
Incidentally, cancer researchers aren't profiting off of human misery... they're profiting off of reducing human misery. Is there a better thing to profit off of? The ones you have to watch out for are the ones who wish to extend your misery for their own gains, but that's not required for profit, and in fact is often against their own long-term interests anyhow.
The companies making money "off of cancer" (http://www.texmed.org/template.aspx?id=16518) have saved and improved the lives of quite a few people. Why do you have a problem with that?
Because those cures are quite expensive, and because they are prescribed by doctors who have no real feeling about what that cost does to a family.
Perhaps most importantly, because the war on cancer has sidetracked the development of utilitarian things like anti-biotics, of which we are about to run out (depending on what you read, we've already run out).
The folks that manufacture Lexus SUVs have saved and improved the lives of quite a few people, but one does wonder just how much good that has done everyone else who can't afford it.
Right, because that cost is a bigger imposition on the family than dying. As my dad has had cancer twice and beat cancer twice so far, I am very thankful for those expensive cancer treatments. Keep them coming please.
How does your dad afford it, if I may ask? People buying your apps?
Can't you see that these miracles may as well not exist for many families, or that by pursuing them at all costs they set themselves up for poverty?
I don't deny your experience, but I don't think you should assume it is automatically applicable to anyone else.
Mostly though he's had to delay his retirement significantly due to huge medical expenses he and my mom have been unlucky enough to have to deal with over the years. They have spent more money on healthcare than most people could even imagine. I think their insurance, not counting out of pocket costs, just premiums (now that they both have bad pre-existing conditions) in some years have been over 20k a year.
Yes, some of these treatments are really expensive. You have to also realize that these treatments are really expensive to develop. Why should I expect incredibly smart and highly specialized people to give away their time for free? It takes huge amounts of resources to solve a problem like cancer.
I promise you I understand the problems caused by the cost of healthcare as much as or more than most people. That being said, the option to be poor and alive is still much better than being dead. You can always come back from being poor.
So...facebook for dogs contributes to human misery and suffering?
why don't you, personally, fund the things you want to see funded?
Ah, but I do, by offering up my time and sometimes money.