
Dear Marc Andreessen - steveklabnik
https://al3x.net/2014/06/17/dear-marc-andreessen.html
======
alaskamiller
Tragic that we all inevitably grow up to replace the old outdated system we
grew up rebelling, nee disrupting, against.

Hunter S. Thompson said something profound and unique to his position. He
remarked his biggest fear, and the man knows a thing or two about fear, was
waking up to realization that the same people he went to high school with
ended up running the show.

Here we are.

I'm at the same age now as when Marc grew out Netscape. His path shaped how I
walked my path. Yet he's going to some place that I no longer understand.
Maybe he sees it better, maybe he sees it differently, but jeez louise, what
is going on?

The new boss isn't better than the old boss. And just you wait until my
friends become bosses.

~~~
mattgreenrocks
In the end, how much of tech was just about a few guys aggrandizing
themselves, not actually benefiting others? From my viewpoint, an enormous
amount.

Disruptive, my ass. These guys are chasing the same stupid status symbols that
everyone else is. They are not the ubermensch that society holds them up to
be, just people who finally Made It (tm).

Motives are _exactly_ why the outcome will be just as rotten as before.

~~~
alaskamiller
It's why Ayn Rand is so popular.

------
bokonist
I'm with Alex generally, but disagree with this sentence: "We could make the
choice to pay for universal health care, higher education, and a basic income
tomorrow"

In the last sixty years, a tremendous amount of money has been poured into
education. Much money has been allocated to increase college enrollment. But,
IMO, for the vast majority of people, college education is a luxury social
club. Spending more money on college is just a wealth transfer from tax payers
to upper middle class teachers and administrators. I do not agree with Peter
Thiel when he says that kids should start businesses instead of going to
college. But I think there is lots of room for designing some sort of adult-
life on-boarding process that was far more cost efficient than having the
government write a check to subsidize teenagers getting black out drunk every
weekend. I'm not sure what this system would be, but there are lots of options
- could be some sort of apprenticeship, or a co-op mixed with classes, or a
light-weight, low cost online education combined with assigned mentors.

The real issue is that any form of labor that is a commodity, and that does
not have union or legal protection, has been screwed over by the trifecta of
globalization, immigration, and automation. But, I disagree with both the
neoliberals and progressives in that I do not think it is possible to educate
the great masses and enable them to find non-commodity career paths. There are
only so many content marketers, enterprise salesmen, management consultants,
and product managers that the world needs. Those jobs are going to go to the
genetically and socially privileged. Therefore, the only solution for the
normal person, who will be at a commodity job in customer service or doing
sales at a Verizon store, is collective bargaining.

One form of collective bargaining can take is democratic politics. My policy
preference would be a law that creating a universal wage subsidy of $7.75 an
hour, thus guarantees every worker a total wage of at least $15 an hour. I
would couple that with a "job of last resort" program that would replace long
term unemployment and disability insurance - everyone who wants to work can
get a job, no matter how blighted their city, no matter what kind of
disability they have. Even if they are a quadriplegic they can be assigned to
monitor security cameras or something else.

~~~
gbog
Ok, but those who just do not want to be assigned a productive task, what
would you do with them?

~~~
bokonist
Then they go hungry. When they are ready to work and to eat, their local
employment office will be ready with a job and a paycheck. But in the
meantime, they need to stay off my lawn. I am a believer in anti-vagrancy
laws, so I think with the "jobs for everyone" comes enforcement against
sleeping on street benches and panhandling.

~~~
sanswork
Your plan depends on everyone being able to work. There are a lot of illnesses
and disabilities(physical and mental) that make that assertion not true. Would
you have these people starve?

~~~
bokonist
No, I said very clearly in my original comment that _everyone_ gets a job,
even schizophrenics and quadriplegics. There is _something_ that everyone can
do. If you are physically disabled you can monitor security cameras or
transcribe city council recordings or something. If you are mentally disabled
you can still probably pick up trash in city parks. There is some make work
job available for almost anybody. The only exception would be the extreme
mentally ill, who would need to be treated and provided supportive housing as
they are now. But if you are mentally able, but just unwilling, then you go
hungry. Or maybe you get a soup kitchen and a bed in a shelter. But in someway
it will be unpleasant and hard, so as to disincentivize sloth.

~~~
sanswork
Do you have any experience with people with mental illnesses or disabilities?
"Everyone can work, we can find a job for everyone" just seems like something
that could only be claimed from a position of ignorance. Further shown by your
suggestion of having them pick up trash. People with a lot of mental illnesses
aren't incapable of working due to a lack of skills.

~~~
bokonist
It really depends on the mental illness. Most mentally ill people could do
_something_ , most of the time. What exactly they could do would depend on the
particular illness. Many are not currently hireable because even one episode a
week is enough to get them fired. Some are not currently hirable because they
have been out of the workforce for so long, that they have lost a bunch of
habits. I think that could be remedied.

But, as I said, if they are really incapable of any possible employment, then
they should get treatment and supportive housing.

------
rdl
I don't think pmarca is saying people are against robots per se, but against
the efficiency-driven unemployment they see. I'm firmly on the side of pmarca
and technology here -- I'd love to see virtually all crappy jobs today
disappear, and we could find new and better things for those people to do
(through the market, ideally, but I'd be open to Basic Income or other forms
of wealth distribution if needed).

I cannot imagine retarding technology just to preserve existing jobs being a
winning strategy which makes the world better. If we did that in the 1700s,
there would only be a few thousand people left over after primary agriculture
to do anything else. That would suck.

People holding unionized or otherwise protected jobs are rent-seekers (albeit
on a smaller scale than large companies in regulated industries). Rent seekers
do not make the world a better place.

~~~
coldtea
> _I cannot imagine retarding technology just to preserve existing jobs being
> a winning strategy which makes the world better._

The problem is accelerating technology doesn't make the world automatically
better either.

It can also make it patently worse. E.g, someone presses the red button, and
here's a nuclear war. Or some idiot gets access to viruses, and here's a bio
attack that wipes out half the population. It's technology that will have
enabled both. Actually, the number of people that have died in World War I and
II (from the mustard gas to Belsen and from Dresden to Hiroshima) is already
tens of millions -- all due to improved technological efficiency.

Compared to that kind of harm to the whole of humanity, some people getting an
"artificial heart", a guy walking on the moon, and being able to exchange IMs
with WhatsApp on one's mobile is not that much of an balance at all. Just
something to keep in mind, lest someone thinks technology is all just
"embetterment".

> _People holding unionized or otherwise protected jobs are rent-seekers
> (albeit on a smaller scale than large companies in regulated industries).
> Rent seekers do not make the world a better place._

Quite the opposite. Protected jobs stop the madness of everything going
forward for the sake of going forward, and ask for real improvements to the
lives and treatment of real people. It's only a problem when the protection is
to a small subclass of people, instead of extending to all workers. We have
the 8-hour work day (well, had), we've had booming middle classes, and we've
had safety laws and child labor laws because of those "unions" and protests.
America was better in the fifties, middle class wise, when unions were strong,
compared to what it's now.

~~~
wutbrodo
> Compared to that kind of harm to the whole of humanity, some people getting
> an "artificial heart", a guy walking on the moon, and being able to exchange
> IMs with WhatsApp on one's mobile is not that much of an balance at all.
> Just something to keep in mind, lest someone thinks technology is all just
> "embetterment".

Woah, what? Are you really saying that the negative uses of technology in the
World Wars have outweighed the positive uses of technology (even if we limit
ourselves to a timeframe that contains an unusual amount of war deaths)? It's
beyond ridiculous to reduce the benefits of technology to "some guy" getting
an artificial heart, the moonwalk (which depending on your perspective is
either a prestige achievement or a step towards space exploration whose
benefits we haven't seen yet), and a messaging app. I really, really hope
you're being disingenuous instead of just ignorant because I'm practically
rendered speechless at the thought of having to explain how electrification
alone has saved countless lives.

OTOH, I guess I shouldn't be that surprised, since it seems to be a very
common phenomenon for people to ignore steady long-term effects in favor of
flashier one-offs, even if the latter has a tiny, tiny, tiny cumulative effect
in comparison.

As just a couple of examples (I tried to focus on things that would be the
most affected by technological/scientific/economic progress):

\- The five-year mortality rate of breast cancer today is roughly the same as
the mortality rate of GIVING BIRTH in 1900 (also known as something damn near
half the population does, several times in their life).

\- The Spanish flu infected 500 million and killed 100 million people in 1918.
Today you can go to Safeway and get a flu shot for 10 bucks.

\- In the early 20th century, the life expectancy at birth was 31 years of
age. In 2010 it was 67 years.

\- Per CDC data, 60 years ago, 38000 people died of polio each year in America
alone. These days, 300 people die of polio per year in the ENTIRE WORLD.

\- From 1920 to 1980, 395/10000 people died from famine each year. In 200,
that number was THREE out of every 10000.

Of course I agree with the larger point that's tangential to the one you're
making: blind progress without ethical safeguards is definitely foolish.
That's not really what this discussion is about at all though (there are
people already talking about the need for ethical standards around AI
development and I'm the first to agree with that).

> America was better in the fifties, middle class wise, when unions were
> strong, compared to what it's now.

This is so incredibly ignorant of history that it's unbelievable. You're aware
there was a World War right before the 50's, right? And damn near the entire
world was either coming out of centuries of suppressed economies under
colonialism or trying to recover from being, you know, blown up? Might that
have _anything_ to do with the success of American labor (it's not a
coincidence that the opening of developing-world markets in the 70s and 80s
coincided with the loss of America's unskilled-labor competitiveness)? Not to
mention the fact that "middle-class wise" is an incredibly idiotic metric to
use as a proxy for "better". Refer back to the list I had above for examples
of _real_ ways that lives can improve (or seriously, just Google it: you can
literally find HUNDREDS of ways life was worse back then, even if you limit
yourself to the 50s and to America). The places that we _have_ gotten much
worse (i.e. economic prospects for lower and lower-middle classes) is amply
addressed by the grandparent comment's allusion to a proper welfare state and
basic income. To put it another way, retarding progress so people can have
pretend-productive jobs could not be stupider; through inefficiency, you're
destroying wealth that can be redistributed to people who actually need it
instead of to people who happen to hold arbitrary obsolete jobs. What you're
fundamentally saying is that we should implement welfare in the most
inefficient way possible and then give it not to the poor, or the sick, or the
needy; but to people in arbitrary industries (like dockworkers or taxi
drivers) at arbitrary income levels.

~~~
coldtea
> _Woah, what? Are you really saying that the negative uses of technology in
> the World Wars have outweighed the positive uses of technology (even if we
> limit ourselves to a timeframe that contains an unusual amount of war
> deaths)?_

I gave the World Wars as an example. Perhaps you missed the part where I also
mentioned possible outcomes like a full on nuclear war (enabled by technology
etc). And of course, there's also climate change and such. Or even simple
rampant deaths due to overuse of antibiotics.

Compared to such ability (and possibility) to wipe all humanity, the "decline
in the mortality rate of giving birth" is not that much impressive.

Not to mention it has little to do with any advanced technology, and more with
simple precautions, like running water, cleaner birth environments, etc. You
can get over 80% of the decrease in the infant mortality rate just by those,
and in fact many activists in third world countries do exactly that -- not
much modern equipment required.

> _This is so incredibly ignorant of history that it 's unbelievable. You're
> aware there was a World War right before the 50's, right? And damn near the
> entire world was either coming out of centuries of suppressed economies
> under colonialism or trying to recover from being, you know, blown up? Might
> that have _anything_ to do with the success of American labor?_

For one, there was also a World War right before the 20s, with the large
colonial powers striving to recover from it. Still what happened to US economy
in the 20s/30s was not exactly beneficial.

Second, the success of the American labor is not tied to the success of the
American laborers. You can have one without the other. And for a century or
more, since early 19th century, you did have -- tons of Americans working in
medieval conditions (including harsh child labor, even in coal mines, and of
course actual slavery), while the American industry was increasingly booming.

> _What you 're fundamentally saying is that we should implement welfare in
> the most inefficient way possible and then give it not to the poor, or the
> sick, or the needy; but to people in arbitrary industries (like dockworkers
> or taxi drivers) at arbitrary income levels._

What I'm fundamentally saying is that the "market knows better" is borderline
religious fatalism. People shape and create their society, and people decide
what it will be. Most people, if they are empowered to, or few people, if they
can control legislation, education, markets etc.

Nobody gives money to the "poor, or the sick, or the needy" that are taken
from "dockworkers or taxi drivers". What happens is that the "dockworkers or
taxi drivers" are instead thrown into the ranks of the "poor or the needy".

And not only because their work gets obsolete or trivial by technology -- but
because people controlling the market can force them to squeeze their margins.

Let me put it this way: it wasn't because growing cotton was cheap "in itself"
or trivial that the cotton industry people thrived and prices were low. It was
because they could push human beings to do it for substinence level
compensation. Throu raw force first (slavery) and through "law" and taking
advantate of their situation later then (Jim Crow etc).

~~~
wutbrodo
> I gave the World Wars as an example. Perhaps you missed the part where I
> also mentioned possible outcomes like a full on nuclear war (enabled by
> technology etc). And of course, there's also climate change and such. Or
> even simple rampant deaths due to overuse of antibiotics.

Oh.my.god. Can you really be so clueless as to use antibiotics overuse as an
example of the BAD side of technology? I think I actually might die of
laughter. It blows my mind that you don't realize that the worst-case scenario
of antibiotics overuse is that every antibiotic will become useless...i.e.
taking us back to the situation before antibiotics were developed. Your
example of "a nightmare scenario of science and technology" is "going back to
before this technological advance existed". If I wasn't convinced before, I'm
100% certain that you're truly way, way, way out of your depth when trying to
comprehend this topic.

> Not to mention it has little to do with any advanced technology, and more
> with simple precautions, like running water, cleaner birth environments,
> etc. You can get over 80% of the decrease in the infant mortality rate just
> by those, and in fact many activists in third world countries do exactly
> that -- not much modern equipment required.

Oh you're totally right, and the scientific advances and (relatively) huge
amount of resources required to bring these things to the entire world had
nothing to do with science, technological advances, or economic growth.
I...how do you think these things happen exactly? Do you think that God pops
down every twenty years and drops off another set of stone tablets with a list
of scientific discoveries and inventions? I've officially crossed over from
finding this hilarious to finding it terrifying that there are people who
think the way you do.

> What I'm fundamentally saying is that the "market knows better" is
> borderline religious fatalism.

Do tell how "We should have a complete and robust safety net" is anywhere
close to religious fanaticism around "the market knows better"? AFAICT, what
I'm talking about is leveraging the market's strength (making local decisions
about cost, price, and efficiency) AND avoiding its weaknesses/leveraging
govt's strengths (dealing with externalities, providing safety nets, etc). How
the fuck is that more fanatic than your proposal of ignoring the market's
ability to do anything and making _everyone_ poorer in the process?

> Nobody gives money to the "poor, or the sick, or the needy" that are taken
> from "dockworkers or taxi drivers". What happens is that the "dockworkers or
> taxi drivers" are instead thrown into the ranks of the "poor or the needy".

Oh holy fuck what are you even saying. If unemployed dockworkers and taxi
drivers become poor and needy, then _by definition they're covered by the
robust safety net for the needy jesus christ_. The whole idea behind a safety
net is that there ARE no needy people because they're taken care of. If
someone in a replaced industry happens to be independently wealthy, or married
to someone who makes a decent amount of money, or hell just rich from their
protected job, you'd have to have the brain capacity of a toddler to think
that it makes sense for welfare transfers to go to them (and make no mistake,
protecting obsolete jobs is a transfer of wealth AND a net destructor of
wealth). If you think this is impossible, just take a look at what percentage
of farm subsidies goes to the very wealthy owners of huge agribusinesses.
Giving money to random job classes independently of need in the hopes that it
will roughly line up with the needy is _fucking stupid_ compared to actually
just giving money to the needy. I can't imagine what sort of bizarro-world one
would have to live in where that sounds like it makes any sense.

> Let me put it this way: it wasn't because growing cotton was cheap "in
> itself" or trivial that the cotton industry people thrived and prices were
> low. It was because they could push human beings to do it for substinence
> level compensation. Throu raw force first (slavery) and through "law" and
> taking advantate of their situation later then (Jim Crow etc).

Right.....which is an excellent argument for outlawing slavery and Jim Crow. I
definitely agree that there are jobs out there right now that only exist
because they people are driven to work them by the whole "needing food and
shelter" thing. How in God's name is that not completely addressed by "a
robust safety net"? Shit it's the DEFINITION of "a robust safety net".

TL;DR: I've yet to hear a single credible argument between "1) Maximize the
amount of wealth society has, by not intentionally gimping productivity
(education funding etc is also part of this, as is welfare et al but this
connection is murkier to explain). 2) Use this wealth (by taxing wherever can
take it: the rich have historically low top tax rates atm so that's naturally
a good place to start) to redistribute to those who actually need it. By
definition, this means a robust safety net and ideally a basic income. This is
made much easier by the excess amount of wealth generated by step 1.

~~~
coldtea
> _Oh.my.god. Can you really be so clueless as to use antibiotics overuse as
> an example of the BAD side of technology? I think I actually might die of
> laughter. It blows my mind that you don 't realize that the worst-case
> scenario of antibiotics overuse is that every antibiotic will become
> useless...i.e. taking us back to the situation before antibiotics were
> developed. Your example of "a nightmare scenario of science and technology"
> is "going back to before this technological advance existed". If I wasn't
> convinced before, I'm 100% certain that you're truly way, way, way out of
> your depth when trying to comprehend this topic._

You keep writing insults and empty boasts. Is this for the good of the
discussion, or so that you feel better for yourself? You could have answered
the same thing as above without all the BS ad hominens -- which don't matter
anyway, because your core logic is faulty. (Also, "oh.my.god"? Seriously? Are
you like 12 years old?).

For one, the "worst case scenario" from overuse of antibiotics is not just
"that every antibiotic will become useless".

You missed the whole part of the overuse having first created more-resistant
strains -- and a humanity with less resistance from being over-dependent on
antibiotics for all these decades.

So, no it's not just "back to square one". It's "back to square one with our
shoelaces tied together and a tiger hunting us".

> _Oh holy fuck what are you even saying. If unemployed dockworkers and taxi
> drivers become poor and needy, then _by definition they 're covered by the
> robust safety net for the needy jesus christ_._

Only in some fantasy world where the "robust safety net" exists. In the real
world, when they become poor and needy, e.g by taxi companies or competition
squeezing their margins, they just become poor and needy, end of story.

>* How in God's name is that not completely addressed by "a robust safety
net"? Shit it's the DEFINITION of "a robust safety net".*

I don't disagree with the "robust safety net".

I simply aknowledge that it doesn't exist.

Which means that in real life throwing whole professions to live with
diminished wages and be taken advantage of because of their need is not
automatically taken care of by any (non-existant) "safety net".

You cannot say some real and existing abuse is OK because those people can be
taken care of because of an imaginary and not-yet-existing safety net.

------
paulbaumgart
The most meaningful disagreement is summed up in this sentence:

"Emerging technologies can also create demand for things that are inherently
expensive – cutting-edge medical procedures and treatments, for example –
driving up costs in entire economic sectors."

It boils down to: should we subsidize cutting-edge medicine for everyone, or
treat it as a luxury because people who can't afford it are no worse off than
they were before its invention (in absolute terms)?

The pragmatic answer is probably somewhere in the middle.

~~~
steveklabnik
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_the_excluded_middle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_the_excluded_middle)

~~~
SatoshiPacioli
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation)

~~~
paulbaumgart
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyeroll](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyeroll)

~~~
icpmacdo
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta)

------
jdminhbg
> Taxi drivers protesting Uber aren’t saying that they want apps out of their
> cabs.

Of course they aren't _saying_ that, it would be political suicide to say it.
But given the stubborn resistance to even using the credit card readers forced
on them by utility commissions, do people really think that cabbies are aching
to have apps between them and their customers that would thwart their ability
to skip inconvenient fares or grab an easier ride on their way to a call?
Uber's end-run around regulation is only possible because cabbies use
regulation to make consumers' lives worse.

It's kind of crazy to me the degree to which the left is becoming a movement
built around kneejerk status quo bias, based on nothing but a distaste for the
idea that someone might be making money off of making consumers' lives better.

~~~
paul
I feel like both the left and the right are trying to take us back to some
idealized version of the 1950's. I want a political movement based on creating
a new and better future, not hanging on to shreds of the past.

We now have the technology and resources necessary to provide everyone with
adequate food, housing, healthcare, and education. That's what I want, not
more "job creation" or preservation of obsolete jobs. The future could
actually be BETTER than the 1950's :)

~~~
taurath
What motivates people in a society where all their needs are met? Competition
for resources has long been and will continue to be large aspect of humanity
as a species, but I imagine we could reach for a truly golden age once a large
group of people have the luxury of thinking about things like we're talking
about now. It'd be amazing what we could build if more people had time to
experiment - possibly bewildering and dangerous!

~~~
wutbrodo
I wouldn't say food, housing, health, and education comprise "all needs"...and
I'm pretty sure the behavior of billions of people supports that. How many
people earn enough to simply have food, shelter, and healthcare and then go
"well I guess I have enough, I don't want a single other thing". Even the
usual claim that "people will just spend it on weed, beer, and videogames"
shows the clear desire for things beyond the necessities. _That_ is what would
motivate people.

------
corford
Very nice to see pmarca's neoliberal idiocy taken apart so thoroughly. Peter
Thiel could do with similar treatment imho.

~~~
patrickaljord
So things we disagree with now can just be labelled as idiocy?

And no matter how much you and other statists hate neoliberalism and how it's
taken over the world, thing is the world has never been so rich, so peaceful
and people have never lived so long and so healthy in the whole history of
humanity. So, if neoliberalism is having a bad effect on the world, I wonder
what it would do if it had a good effect.

I would also add that the countries that are doing better in this world are
all pro free-market such as Switzerland and Hong Kong. In fact, as someone who
has lived in Peru for 5 years, I can tell you (and numbers will show), in the
90's, Peru and Venezuela had similar economies. Then in the 90's and up to
today, Peru has liberalized its economy and privatize a lot of industries,
Venezuela has gone the opposite way. Today, Peru is prospering more than ever
while Venezuelans unfortunately have to wait in line for hours to buy toilet
paper, flour and meat. I think reality is on my and Andreessen's side.

Statists are obsessed with inequality gaps and how some people are so much
richer than others. I and people like Andreesen are obsessed with fewer people
dying of hunger, violence and disease. Once we get rid of that, maybe we can
work on reducing that gap you're so obsessed about, but right now, let's help
people not die of hunger at least and make make enough of a living to support
themselves, and nothing is as efficient as free market economies for this who
have lifted billions of people from extreme poverty from China to Peru.

~~~
corford
Neoliberalism (of the Milton Friedman kind) hasn't taken over the world. It
gained traction in the mid 70's, peaked in the 00's and is now, thankfully,
slipping back from its extreme heights.

Also, pmarca's particular interpretation of neoliberalism is what I was
referring to as idiotic, not the broader concept as a whole (which I think is
also very flawed but can at least respect).

Let's not confuse well regulated free-market capitalism and a dollop of social
state support (which I think together represent the best model the world has
so far come up with and is the one followed, more or less, by the best
economies) with pmarca's extreme interpretation of how an economy should be
run.

Edit: Oh, and finally, "people like Andreesen are obsessed with fewer people
dying of hunger, violence and disease." It would be nice if his investments
better reflected that apparent 'obsession':
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreessen_Horowitz#Investments](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreessen_Horowitz#Investments)

To my eye he seems to care solely about making money for himself and whoever
A16Z's LPs are. Nothing wrong with that (he runs a VC firm after all) but
let's not pretend he's a saintly figure obsessing over the plight of the
world's poor.

~~~
RichardFord
_Neoliberalism (of the Milton Friedman kind) hasn 't taken over the world. It
gained traction in the mid 70's, peaked in the 00's and is now, thankfully,
slipping back from its extreme heights._

Slipping back to what - the horrors of statism that we saw in the 20th
century?

~~~
corford
>Slipping back to what - the horrors of statism that we saw in the 20th
century?

No, why should it? Just because we've learnt neoliberalism is flawed doesn't
mean we should unlearn that statism was also disastrous (in different ways).

I think (hope?) it's slipping back to somewhere in-between i.e. better
regulated free markets, a sensible approach to privatisation and the
acknowledgement that capitalism vs socialism is not a zero sum game. Both
ideologies have good bits and bad bits, the path we're walking down now is one
of figuring out the optimal ratio between the two. The fabled "third way".

~~~
RichardFord
_No, why should it? Just because we 've learnt neoliberalism is flawed doesn't
mean we should unlearn that statism was also disastrous (in different ways)._

Thanks for keeping on making my point :) There is no "we". There is you and
some people that are in ideological agreement with you, but there is no we.
Why do you have such a hard time understanding this?

~~~
corford
Fair criticism. To be honest, I just (arrogantly) assumed we'd reached a point
and accumulated enough evidence to remove any argument that the 20th century's
experiments with communism and socialism and the recent 25 year infatuation
with neoliberalism were anything other than overall failures. Judging by the
down votes I'm getting, I'm clearly wrong and the idealogical battles rage on
(mine included).

~~~
patrickaljord
In what way has neoliberalism been a failure? Most prosperous countries are
the ones that practice it the most (Switzerland, Hong Kong) and EU countries
who have gotten better lately have been the ones taking neoliberals measures
by cutting state spending (UK) and in South America the best economies have
freed their ecomonies the most. There is nothing that can beat a free market
economy, sure you can regulated to some extend if you want and it is all
around the world, but a healthy free market economy with as few regulations as
possible is still the best way to go as reality has shown, call that
neoliberalism or mixed economy with as few regulations as possible or whatever
you want, but it's not a failure and it's not going away.

~~~
corford
It's the "few regulations as possible" part of neoliberalism that has, for me
at least, been the unquestionable failure.

The following could all have been avoided or had the scope of their damage
drastically reduced had better regulation been in place:

LTCM and the Asia crisis in the 90s, the flood of bad IPOs in the dotcom era,
the subprime and CDO disaster that sparked 2008, the asset bubbles over the
last three decades (e.g. the UK housing market after mortgage LTV regulations
were relaxed), the extreme widening of the gap between rich and poor.

A more nuanced and sensible approach to regulation than neoliberalism promotes
doesn't (in my opinion) mean we'll suddenly see a reversal of all the good
bits a very lightly regulated, market orientated economy has brought us and
the return to inefficient, planned economies. It just means removing the
shocks, excesses and some (by no means all) of the inequalities an
uncompromising belief in 'free market economics over everything else' appears
to invite.

~~~
burntsushi
I just don't understand how 2008 was _obviously_ because of deregulation. Not
only is that a _contestable_ claim, but you're simplifying the entire crash to
a convenient cause that clearly confirms your biases.

Just take a walk over to Wikipedia[1], and you can clearly see that ascribing
the crash in 2008 to _only_ deregulation is complete and utter nonsense:

 _The Housing and Community Development Act of 1992 established an affordable
housing loan purchase mandate for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and that mandate
was to be regulated by HUD. Initially, the 1992 legislation required that 30
percent or more of Fannie’s and Freddie’s loan purchases be related to
affordable housing. However, HUD was given the power to set future
requirements. In 1995 HUD mandated that 40 percent of Fannie and Freddie’s
loan purchases would have to support affordable housing. In 1996, HUD directed
Freddie and Fannie to provide at least 42% of their mortgage financing to
borrowers with income below the median in their area. This target was
increased to 50% in 2000 and 52% in 2005. Under the Bush Administration HUD
continued to pressure Fannie and Freddie to increase affordable housing
purchases – to as high as 56 percent by the year 2008.[22] To satisfy these
mandates, Fannie and Freddie eventually announced low-income and minority loan
commitments totaling $5 trillion.[23] Critics argue that, to meet these
commitments, Fannie and Freddie promoted a loosening of lending standards -
industry-wide.[24]_

And if you can't ascribe 2008 to deregulation, then your point starts to
become watered down: maybe deregulation isn't the "unquestionable failure" you
claim it to be.

You can read on to see about other things that government had their hands in,
such as the CRA and lower interest rates. (Among other things, such as the
institutions of Fannie and Freddie themselves!)

[1] -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_United_States_hou...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_United_States_housing_bubble#Mandated_loans)

~~~
corford
My understanding was that Freddie (and later Margaret Thatcher's imitation
with selling council houses in the UK) were policy decisions made on advice
from the then nascent neoliberal movement.

~~~
burntsushi
I honestly don't know. But I do know it's not deregulation when you add more
government intervention in markets.

------
SatoshiPacioli
"Taxi drivers protesting Uber aren’t saying that they want apps out of their
cabs. They want leverage to negotiate wages and working conditions so they
aren’t barely scraping by. The pushback is on exploitative business models,
not technology."

I have been on the receiving end of exploitative business models. The answer
is Exit, not Voice. Here's why: enough people exit -> wages go up and/or
working conditions improve. Period. Yes, it's that simple. The problem is that
we are creatures of habit, driving around is a relatively easy job, and the
self-awareness necessary to change is scarce.

But wait, survival of the fittest and I don't give a shit. I really don't.
These taxi/uber drivers will be replaced by driverless cars. We need a
government program to retrain these people and employ them, just like we had
for farmers and factory workers. Or not. Seeing people try to fend for
themselves is more interesting than seeing them do make-work in a federal
building - who knows, they might actually adapt, thrive, and makes something
of themselves.

~~~
cariss
To the quote above: wages are determined by productivity, not negotiation
leverage. The moral implications of "barely scraping by" don't factor in.

~~~
SatoshiPacioli
Ehrm, no, obviously not. A marketing intern can be more productive than an
engineering intern and make 1/2 as much. It's determined by supply and demand,
nothing else.

------
tomasien
Just a clarification: Cab drivers are protesting Uber because Uber takes away
their business and there's nothing they can do about it. It's not because they
feel pressured to become Uber drivers and take less money - Uber drivers make
a shit ton of money. It's the cab OWNERS who are really fucked.

~~~
acdha
> It's not because they feel pressured to become Uber drivers and take less
> money - Uber drivers make a shit ton of money

What evidence do we have that this is true or, if so, will remain so past the
period when they're recruiting to enter a new market? It seems a lot more
likely that Uber is going to keep gradually lowering the rates paid to drivers
to maintain their profit margins amidst competition.

~~~
tomasien
I've spoken to every Uber driver that I've ever had, every one in SF was on
pace to make 6 figures this year and thrilled with it. Average seems to be
80-100k depending on how much you drive. Cab drivers have to work their asses
off on someone else's terms to even approach that.

------
freshhawk
Apparently this is an unpopular opinion here but fucking mental standing slow
clap in my head when I finished that.

That's a nice piece of cogent writing.

------
jgalt212
Finally a Marc Andreessen take down by a respected member fo the hacker
community. In short, Marc and Ben just need to STFU.

------
Detrus
An affordable safety net could be possible with cheap renewable energy and
magic hydroponic farms that make food even cheaper. Anyone could have a small
farm in their room! Then you just need housing. Maybe we'll make some fancy
new materials in the next tech bubble, so that you can put up luxurious,
energy efficient, 10 story housing with the ease of a trailer park.

These technologies were promised a while ago, we just need to make them work
well. Any day now. Then tech progress can continue unchallenged by the needs
of human sustenance.

On the other hand, the Amish approach has its own merits.

------
nationcrafting
<blockquote>Well, we’re three decades into an era of systemic deregulation and
financialization. The result? Global recession, lingering structural
unemployment, and an accumulation of capital at the top of the economic
pyramid.</blockquote>

To blame systemic deregulation for the recession is to be profoundly unaware
of the system in question. One cannot speak of a free market when the very
thing at the core of that market - i.e. money, the one thing that everyone
buys when they're selling something, and that everyone sells when they're
buying something - is in the hands of a monopoly, and a politically motivated
one at that: its raison d'etre is not even the quality of the product it
provides.

If money were edible, you would see much more clearly just what a centrally
managed, soviet style style system this really is, because there'd be queues
of starving citizens just as we saw back in the era of soviet resource
management.

If anything, it could be argued that without the level of free market we've
enjoyed, things would be much, much worse. After all, the one sector where
there's been close to zero regulation, the internet, has been the sector
that's enjoyed massive growth over the last few decades. Compared to the days
when telephony was state managed and nothing worked, we've been progressing in
seven league boots, thanks to the free market.

PS: how does one quote on HN?

------
fpgeek
> Did I miss one of Asimov's Laws that says androids are always programmed to
> be more socially-minded than neoliberals?

If you missed Asimov's Zeroth Law [0], then yes, you did.

That being said, since, AFAIK, we don't know how to program robots with
Asimov's Laws anyway, I'm not sure how relevant that is.

[0] "A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to
harm." (with the expected modifications to the First, Second and Third Laws).

------
guiambros
Worth watching the talk by Carl Bass, Autodesk CEO, during last SXSW. The
interesting part starts at 20:30s, when he talks about the impact of
technology on our economy and society.

He's not against technology or robots. Quite the opposite; he's a maker, geek
and technology enthusiast. But he still raises good points of what will happen
with jobs and wealth distribution, due to technology growth.

We're on a one-way street, and yes, this is completely different than what
what happened 50, 100 years ago. We'll have significant changes in our society
as we all learn how to live in a world with less jobs, explosion of
technology, increasing wealth concentration, and fast gentrification of main
cities.

Kudos to Al3x for bringing light to these important topics.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npYV5bzy7ug](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npYV5bzy7ug)

------
tormeh
We live in the techno-utopia today. Food and shelter are not problems anymore.
If it were otherwise, we would all be farmer-lumberjacks. It used to be like
this, but it's solved now. We have enough for everybody - it's just about
spreading the goods a little bit more evenly.

~~~
mempko
Really? Have you seen the solved problems of food and shelter in places like
Detroit?

~~~
tormeh
My comment consisted of five to six sentences, depending on how you count
them. It's not hard to read all of them before replying.

------
sinwave
Some points in Andreesen's post were eerily reminiscent of Keynes' musings
about the fifteen hour work week. See link [http://georgemaciunas.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/06/Economi...](http://georgemaciunas.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/06/Economic-Possibilities-of-Our-Grandchildren.pdf)

------
tempodox
This post (+ the comments, of course) should be on position 1. I think there
are few topics more worthy of discussion than that.

------
patrickaljord
> Well, we’re three decades into an era of systemic deregulation and
> financialization. The result?

Not really, finance and banking are still the most regulated sectors on earth.
Hardly deregularized.

~~~
phillmv
A field can remain highly regulated while having certain aspects deregulated.

This is what we saw before the financial crisis. For instance, the repeal of
the Glass-Steagall act is credited with enabling the broad systemic risk that
created Too Big To Fail - by allowing commercial banks to invest in securities
and proprietary trading.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Legislat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Legislation)

This was further compounded in Europe by loosening up leverage ratio
requirements - but I don't have a link handy for that one.

You're also not commenting on the second word in there - financialization. The
2008 crisis wasn't possible in the 90s, because the residential mortgage
market in the US hadn't been fully securitized prior to the aughts.

Anyhow, to pretend like there has been _no deregulation_ is to be disingenuous
at best.

~~~
seehafer
> Anyhow, to pretend like there has been no deregulation is to be disingenuous
> at best.

True, but then to blame a financial crisis on free markets when no such thing
even remotely existed is also disingenuous at best.

------
comboy
Seems that both authors don't really see strong AI as a possibility (at least
within say next 50 years). I wonder what HN readers take on that is, but to me
it seems quite likely. Not necessary designing one from the scratch, but
"uploading" human brain (once we have good enough resolution and technology).
It changes quite a bit about everything.

~~~
J_
Like you said, strong AI would change everything. The richest will be the
first to utilize them. Things get scary from that point on.

Unless we massively redistribute wealth, then inequality will arrive at
unimaginable levels. It's hard to think of a world where the top 1% owns many
multiples of what the bottom 99% owns.

I'm guessing at some point that we'll decide as a species that strong AIs
cannot be owned by individuals. I'm guessing that it won't be a smooth
transition. Instead, we'll become quasi-communists and fairly evenly
distribute gains made by the strong AIs.

Also by "uploading", I'm guessing you mean simulate the human brain? Actually
uploading a human consciousness would come a while after the advent of strong
AI.

~~~
comboy
Yes I mean simulating human brain (of course with all advantages of digital
form, including increased speed and multiple copies).

I don't think that wealth would matter at all after strong AI.

------
nomedeplume
tl;dr: Rich assholes abuse language to protect their power by rah-rahing the
weak into spirituality-based causes. Business as usual.

------
cariss
Technological innovation is driven by consumer demand to a much greater extent
than the "decisions and whims" of billionaire VCs. If only it were that
simple, r>g might actually be true.

This is crap.

