
Entrpreneurship Means I Give Up - colinprince
https://morecrows.wordpress.com/2016/01/15/entrpreneurship-means-i-give-up/
======
ScottBurson
> 95% fluff

> poorly researched

> Energy determinism

> What was your major?

> Meta: How is such a low quality post getting so many upvotes?

I think a lot of people are missing the point of this post. Let me explain how
I read it and why I've upvoted it.

I think the essence of the piece is this: _So, what’s a smart person to do to
avoid pauperism? Well that’s obvious, isn’t it? Create your own job! Start a
new business in a day! Making… well… this is the part where it gets tricky. If
it were apparent what businesses need started already, they’d be started
already. The first “job” today’s kids have to answer is, what the hell am I
going to do that anyone is willing to pay me for? And each kid, increasingly,
is expected to answer this alone as an individual._

On the one hand, I think this is true, and well said. The economy is changing
in such a way that we are being increasingly forced to find our own way, as
she says, individually. Anyone who wants to be successful needs to identify
and develop their own unique talent.

Where I disagree with her is whether this change is salutory in the long run.
I believe that it will be: that it will unlock human potential in a way the
world has never seen.

But I understand that this process is discouraging and scary for many, and
that there will be losers as well as winners. I think it's good to be reminded
of that, and I think this post expresses well what many people are probably
feeling.

~~~
wfoweoi
> So, what’s a smart person to do to avoid pauperism?

Entrepreneurship should not be a generally advisable path for young people.
It's high risk and requires some uncommon traits (resilience, resourcefulness,
and hard work more than being "smart"). If you're leading average college
students into entrepreneurship you're causing a lot of unnecessary misery.

Individuals have a lot of control over their economic value through their
choice of what they study. There are still large portions of the student body
which choose majors where empirically the graduates end up working in low
paying service jobs. If you're choosing what to study, it should be a function
of both what appeals to you and what is economically valuable. The average
student seems to only consider the former, which leads to lots of people who
think they are increasing their economic value in college, but are not (at
least not by much).

(Some universities put out great empirical data on the economic value of
majors, e.g.
[https://career.berkeley.edu/Survey/2015Majors](https://career.berkeley.edu/Survey/2015Majors))

------
PaulHoule
Energy determinism is one of the worst theories of civilization.

I remember that book "Hubbert's peak" that came out around 2000, to his credit
he did say that the bullet could be dodged if somebody figured out how to
deliver energy into shale in such a way to get the trapped oil and gas out and
you know somebody did.

Some other guys had a site called "dieoff.com" that predicted that electric
grids would go down circa 2013.

The one thing that is predictable about energy pricing is that it is volatile
in the short term and remarkably stable in the long term.

We have enough energy in the nuclear waste that is already above ground to run
our civlization for a few centuries, we may not have the will to use it yet,
but that will will materialize if things get dire enough. Fukushima set things
back a few decades, but it is not a story about nuclear power being dangerous
as much as it is the operators being too cheap to spend $1M fortifying the
diesel generator installation a bit.

~~~
smt88
Decreasing use of fossil fuels isn't a problem of having no alternative.

As the article alludes, it is a political problem. Many powerful governments
are controlled to some degree by fossil-fuel tycoons (including the US), and
these vastly wealthy people won't allow their governments to switch.

~~~
PaulHoule
By that argument, chemical companies would not have allowed the switch from
CFCs to HFCs and then the switch from HFCs to fluoroketones.

Actually the chemical industry made huge amounts of $$$ from each transition.
For instance, you can't get a generic asthma inhaler now because all of the
CFC-free formulations are patented and by the time those go off patent they
will have finally determined it is safe to puff fluoroketones and they will
ban HFCs and there will be another decades of paying extra for asthma
inhalers.

~~~
smt88
My argument wasn't absolute. Many, many incumbents have blocked important
social change. Exxon is a classic energy example (covering up climate change
once they knew it was happening). Another is the maker of TurboTax blocking
reforms to the US tax filing system because it would have killed their
product.

Sometimes big industries suffer due to policy decisions. Sometimes they take
advantage of change and make money. Sometimes they use their money to fight
the change instead.

Oil companies happen to fall into the last category with no sign things will
change.

~~~
ams6110
If Exxon is covering up climate change, they are doing a pretty damn poor job
of it considering the hysteria in most media about it.

The tax system was insane long before Turbo Tax came on the scene. Sure they
may have a vested interest in the status quo but they didn't create the
insanity and they are not the primary cause it's not being reduced.

~~~
smt88
They did cover it up and had a lot of success:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil_climate_change_co...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil_climate_change_controversy)

------
patmcguire
Commenters giving this post way too hard a time. Look at some of the other
posts on this blog (the Unnecessariat piece from a few days ago
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11765581](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11765581)
is them)

This is not a Medium post about why Startup.ly failed and what they learned.
This a person who is fundamentally different from the typical HN poster.
They're very much conscious of a bifurcation of the economy in which there are
"winners" and "losers." We would generally be called the winners and the
author one of the losers. (I'm not insulting them, I think they would agree
with that assessment). They're not in a situation where most people are doing
great, but there are a few exceptions. Most things and people they know are
deeply broken.

The current system that lead to that bifurcation is the one we'd be betting
our hopes for getting off fossil fuels on. It hasn't been all cupcakes are
roses, so maybe don't bet everything on it.

~~~
wfoweoi
Is there any quantitative study of this winners/losers bifurcation? In my own
anecdotal experience I see a bifurcation, but it's more of a "big winners" vs.
"everyone else" split. Most of us are "everyone else," but if you're on the
internet every day looking at the "big winners" you feel like a loser.

------
rdlecler1
By definition, innovation is looking for the next solution to today's
problems. We've arbed everything away, exhausted most of the gains from
globalization. Now maleate are sophisticated, many more people are qualified
and educated than there are jobs, and housing scarcity in the areas where
there are jobs is putting downward pressure on potential lifestyle gains for
those lucky enough to get a good education. Entrepreneurship doesn't mean I
give up, it means that it's our only hope. The alternative will be another
round of dictators. I'll side with innovation over populism any day.

------
maxander
I greatly appreciate this blog for breaking up the monotonous techno-optimism
native to HN, but I don't know that the author has thought through this
particular position very well. He's right that, strictly speaking, our odds of
preventing climate catastrophe would be better if we would at least _consider_
the idea of substantial reductions to our energy budget; _but_ , the reason
that we don't generally think that way is that meaningful reductions to our
energy use would entail _tremendous suffering._

Speaking personally, my gentrified urbanite lifestyle wouldn't likely be too
changed- I don't own a car to buy fuel for and the electric bill for my tiny
apartment isn't irksome, the price of groceries would go up but even a 2- or
3-times increase wouldn't meaningfully impact my budget. My job is
sufficiently abstracted from physical industry that its not going to be
rendered uneconomical by any sudden change in global circumstances. But my
lifestyle is very strange in this regard (and I'm probably missing some ways
in which I _would_ be meaningfully effected.)

If you're living out in the boondocks (requiring a car to get anywhere) far
inland (so all your food and etc is shipped in likely via truck) and working a
blue-collar job (in an industry or context that can be outsourced, rendered
unnecessary, or simply done without, in case of economic downturn,) a 2x rise
in the price of oil could _absolutely destroy your life._ The vast majority of
humans on this planet don't have the sort of economic buffer that they could
tighten their belts to cope with the economic retraction entailed by
decreasing energy availability. The governmental and economic elite have
"given up" that approach because no one wants to be responsible for that sort
of catastrophe.

It is valid, I guess, to be of the opinion that "since the world might
_literally end_ otherwise, needs must", but I don't get the impression that
the author is of this mentality. In either case, they would likely agree that
in the face of this extreme option, ways to cheat around it ought to be
explored.

------
gherkin0
> Even the modern replacement careers- nursing schools, medical schools,
> which, contrary to the American legend, are calibrated to turn out very few
> brilliant practitioners in favor of a large, reliable number of perfectly
> adequate practitioners and a vanishingly small number of screwups- are
> becoming more lottery-like. Specifically, the ratio of medical school
> “slots” to the number of residencies waiting for those students once they
> graduate is going way up… but I digress.

Wut? I'm pretty sure the AMA would never let Med school seats exceed the
number of residency positions.

------
nxzero
Core issue I see is that there are different types of innovation, some are in
the right direction, some are in the wrong direction, and most are just
something new.

First step to an innovative culture is to not trying to make everyone the
same, which is likely one of the most basic ingredients of real change. Next
is to help people be innovative in a way that's what is need; mainly see
thinking like this at successful advance R&D labs.

------
EGreg
Ok so is this talking about fossil fuels being extracted from the ground and
pumped into the air?

ALL of the accessible fossil fuels will be released eventually. Whether you
have carbon credits or anything else. It's just a question of how fast. So we
may as well assume that it's all going to be released. And the next question
is: _what should we do about it_?

The answer is planting more trees and plankton to capture the carbon from yhe
atmosphere but not burn it!!

~~~
gherkin0
Honestly, while that's a good suggestion, I think it's only part of the
answer:

1) Trees used to be a lot more abundant _before_ fossil fuels were a big a
thing, but now people are using the land the trees would need for other things
(e.g. farming, cities) that are unlikely to be displaced.

2) At some point organic carbon sinks will hit equilibrium as the organisms
that compose them start to die and decompose.

~~~
EGreg
Well the assumption is that we will develop alternative energy sources byt
STILL eventually release all the fossil carbon.

And then it won't matter if te carbon sinks hit equilibrium. I am actually
surprised how for most of the planet's history there was an equilibrium, when
the gases distribute so globally. How does the system adjust without
collapses? I think there was once a great oxygenation event, which killed off
most anaerobic life on the planet. But since then there's been equilibrium...

------
return0
There seem to be parallels with academia here. In fact, what she is describing
is the academic grant-giving method: Fund a million independent ideas, profit
from a few. I suppose that method trickled down from academics to policy, and
now it's become the current world economic plan.

The problem is that this model is not guaranteed optimal. In academia,
centralized big projects have sometimes reaped great rewards.

------
B1FF_PSUVM
(stolen from the comments:)

Economists Advise Nation’s Poor To Invent The Next Facebook

[http://www.theonion.com/article/economists-advise-nations-
po...](http://www.theonion.com/article/economists-advise-nations-poor-to-
invent-the-next--33573)

------
wfoweoi
"...I’m making… USD0.65 more than minimum wage."

What was your major?

A common misconception among young people in America seems to be that all
majors are equally economically valuable. What you study matters more than
whether you have a college degree.

~~~
caseysoftware
Outside of certain fields - law, medicine, engineering - getting a degree is
becoming a pure market signal.

Get a degree from [top tier school] and it probably can be any degree because
the school itself is a filter that gets "the best" however they define it. Get
a degree from [2nd tier or worse school] and it better be something that
demonstrates academic or intellectual rigor.

But outside of a degree, another market signal is relevant experience.
Considering the teenage and young adult unemployment rate, that is harder and
harder to get.. which means they start their professional/productive years
that much later, which means responsible adulthood comes later, which means
family, house, etc, etc comes that much later.

Eventually (already?) it can put an entire area, city, region, or generation
on a lower trajectory for their lives, negatively affecting everyone.

 _That_ is what concerns me.

------
galistoca
This article is made up of 95% fluff and 4% content, and 1% the word
"Keynesian".

And even that 4% content has no logic, just trying to deceive readers using
lots of confusing/dubious expressions.

"Since then I’ve gotten a college degree, come within striking distance of
finishing grad school, and acquired a number of practical and social skills I
simply didn’t have as a teenager."

> So basically if you trim it down it means "I became and adult and went to
> college". (I had to re-read to realize "come within striking distance of
> finishing grad school" means nothing. "Acquired a number of ..." also means
> nothing because that's the definition of growing up. I acquired number of
> practical and social skills too. And so did everyone else.)

As for the content itself, this person needs to learn a lot more than some
esoteric economics theory books and some blog posts about startups, before
criticizing how startups work. It's all based on shallow understanding of how
things work.

~~~
cjcenizal
You're not offering a counterpoint. Try adding something constructive to the
conversation.

~~~
galistoca
I normally do when I comment on HN. But honestly there's nothing to "counter"
because like I said there's no substance to the article. I could criticize all
the little details but that also doesn't feel right. It would be like a
professor trying to grade a student's report and having no idea where to start
because it's just a long rambling about nothing and has nothing to do with the
suggested topic. In these cases they will just say "Rewrite".

~~~
SyneRyder
It needs more than a rewrite. The author has misspelled Entrpreneurship (sic)
in the title itself. I usually try to look past typos, but that one (and the
others sprinkled throughout) make it difficult for me to take it seriously.

------
return0
It's "They bring you up to do like you daddy ..."

------
aub3bhat
This is very poorly researched and written article.

We don't need "Zero point energy", we need a more efficient form of energy
compared to Fossil Fuels which have been the driver of the economy. It's quite
likely that leaps in Solar, Battery and Nuclear will allow us to "upgrade"
civilization.

Energy is also only one part of the society/economy, the other part is
cognitive/computation. The emergence of networked world along with AI and
Sensing, will provide civilization with another leap in terms of efficiency.

The idea that "if there was something to be discovered (or businesses that
would need to be started), it would have been already discovered" is
completely wrong. Rather technological inventions allow us to build more
efficient system that would not have been previously feasible.

This article reminds me of the socialists who despise Green Revolution,
claiming it was a "Technological Solution" to problem of hunger (and
inequality) in India, etc. and would rather have preferred mass revolutions
and social change with "equitable" distribution. All the while enjoying
privileges that come with living in a developed country.

~~~
B1FF_PSUVM
> we need a more efficient form of energy compared to Fossil Fuels

Category error, fossil fuels are already 100% efficient.

Any fuel is.

~~~
aub3bhat
[http://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/what-is-the-most-efficient-
sour...](http://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/what-is-the-most-efficient-source-of-
electricity-1754/)

This is what I referred to.

------
golergka
The stupidest point of this article is the phrase "these businesses would have
already been built". No, that's the point of the whole startup thing.

You can invest the same amount of money into 100 startups, or 10,000 mom&dad
shops. Which choice is better depends, among other things, on big can such a
startup get. And in todays connected world, it's possible to scale to levels
unthinkable just a few decades prior — and bring more value to humanity as a
whole while you're at it. 100 years ago, mom&dad option would've been the most
beneficial to society and the most rational from economic perspective — now
its the startup one.

------
wfoweoi
Meta: How is such a low quality post getting so many upvotes?

~~~
cronjobber
Meta-meta: How comes the one comment that immediately springs to mind gets
downvoted into the light grey shades (as of this time)?

~~~
wfoweoi
I can answer that - initially I had a couple more sentences in my comment
which in retrospect came across as condescending and gross. People stopped
downvoting after I deleted them. (I had said something along the lines of "My
guess is the article is connecting with people's emotions. Please upvote more
thoughtfully.")

------
neom
Had me till this:

"If it were apparent what businesses need started already, they’d be started
already. "

(while recognizing my white male privilege)

