
The Great Web-Reality Divide - acangiano
http://programmingzen.com/2011/05/16/the-great-web-reality-divide/
======
quanticle
One of the the mistakes that O'Reilly makes is that he's looking for
revolutionary leaps in established technologies. He's underestimating the
impact of gradual, incremental improvements over a long period of time. I
think that's the real promise of computer networks and web technology. Its not
going to make any one field 90% more efficient. But, it will help us squeeze
5% bits of efficiency from many different fields. Add up enough small gains,
and the big gains become unnecessary.

This discussion reminds me a bit of the energy debate. Government and
corporate leaders are looking for radical new solutions (e.g. biofuels, solar
thermal, hydrogen, etc.) and are ignoring incremental improvements in
efficiency that have the potential to bring about the same amounts of savings
without radical restructuring of energy infrastructure.

PS: That's the flaw in looking for the next _big_ thing. It blinds you to all
the _little_ things that can add up to have the same impact.

------
PaulHoule
One of the things that's so great about the web is that you can do things
without asking permission. Yes, to make angry birds you need to deal with the
BS at the app store, but it's nothing like the BS you'd need to deal with if
you were trying to cure a disease or to cross international boundaries to do
anything that makes a difference in the developing world.

I know a bunch of people who'd love to be working on a startup to develop a
nuclear energy system based on Thorium. The reality is that they'd need to
budget tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars on paperwork and lobbying
just to get the license to build a prototype, never mind to actually build
real hardware. That's just outside the range of what can be bootstrapped or
funded by angels or VC as we know it.

If us webby people are wearing the same track down it's because going off that
track is difficult, very difficult -- it might be worth it, but we're the kind
of people who'll build a product first and hire salespeople later, not the
other way around.

~~~
acangiano
Agreed. Capital costs and legislations are definitely two areas that impede
the ability to pursue more ambitious, industry shaking ideas.

~~~
PaulHoule
Some of the regulation makes sense.

Back in the 1950's there was a (small) breeder reactor being operated by a
private company in LA that melted down without the authorities getting
involved. We don't want that to happen again. Similarly, there are good
reasons to have regulation involved in the health care sector.

On the other hand, doing business in third world countries often depends on
paying people bribes. This is bad enough if you're operating in one country,
but if you want to reach a global audience forget about it. (Years ago I
worked for a voice chat startup targeted at Brazil that was incorporated in
the Cayman Islands and largely based in the U.S. because the phone company
could have put us out of business.)

------
ctdonath
"Strange how much human progress and accomplishment comes from contemplation
of the irrelevant." - Scott Kim

------
Klonoar
I see a point made in this article (and other comments in this thread) that
I'd like to semi-debunk: it's a widely held opinion that deviating from the
"web/entertainment" track is too difficult and full of BS you'd have to deal
with, but this argument is a complete and utter cop-out.

Innovation is a concept that sits above that; if people don't aim to get above
the difficulty/BS barrier, nobody ever will, and innovation will never happen
in those areas. Yes, maybe Silicon Valley isn't the area to do innovative work
in the nuclear sector, but there is absolutely no reason that we couldn't see
more startups based around furthering education, or helping to solve homeless
problems, or any number of _real world_ problems that we all see and deal with
on a daily basis.

The companies that actually try and change the world around us deserve massive
amounts of respect, and we should be glorifying them far more than we do (and
far more than the startups we generally see discussed). So many of them won't
make it but at least they tried to do something worthwhile to the world around
us instead of releasing yet another photo sharing app for a smartphone.

~~~
PaulHoule
In education or homelessness you're going headlong against problems of the
human condition that resist the use of technology.

I went to Dreamforce two years ago and saw Beniof and Newsom congratulating
themselves for introducing a new program that creates web sites for homeless
people. It was insane!

It might be different in California (where Beniof illegally ran a business out
of a house, driving housing prices up), but I live in a place where it's easy
for homeless people to get into the shelter and get welfare IF they're willing
to (i) deal with bureaucrats and (ii) stop drinking and using illegal drugs.
Unfortunately, a lot of people aren't willing to do that -- it's not a problem
of providing physical housing, it's that some people's social connections have
deteriorated to the point where they can't even manage to collect welfare,
never mind hold a job.

From a systemantic perspective, education has two purposes: (a) provide a way
that parents can pass class status on to their children that appears
legitimate and (b) provide good work for teachers. These are the actual
functions of the system.

Now, you can innovate all you want in the area of "increasing human potential"
but you'll find that people are pretty indifferent to this -- they're more
interested in partitioning out access to what already exists. You're not going
to get a dime out of the public school budget, and if you threaten (a) or (b)
you're going to be viciously attacked by parents, students, teachers and
school boards.

~~~
Klonoar
The homeless argument you put forth is one concocted by somebody who's clearly
never spent time in any of those shelters. Those shelters are more than
overrun with people abusing the system and floating from shelter to shelter in
an effort to keep some workless lifestyle. They're not a part of society worth
converting on; what IS worth looking into is providing better access
to/(and/or) easier solutions for the people who _cannot get into these
shelters_ because they're already overrun by addicts and chronic shelter
hoppers.

If there was more examination put forth on these issues than people just
glazing over an article or two we might see more innovation in this space; if
you ask me, that's something worthwhile.

Education as a topic doesn't necessarily need to be confined to the
conventional schooling system, a model which is already proven to be fairly
broken (and continually deteriorating).

Don't be so quick to think that the only venue for innovation on these topics
is at the human potential level; you're absolutely right that people are
indifferent to this - what I'm moreso surprised at is that you find that to be
a reason to ignore/write-off these fields and their lack of innovation. Just
because things have been done one way in the past doesn't mean it can't (or
shouldn't) get turned on its head every once in awhile.

