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Mordhaus (Member Profile)

The Moon is a Door to Forever

Payback says...

Without technology, humanity is ultimately pedestrian.

To be different is to go against 100,000s of years of evolution. It's only been a few generations since the fastest humans could go was dependent on how healthy your horse was.

oblio70 said:

This is the tribe I was born into (70’s child), and I am puzzled how pedestrian the majority of the world still remains 50 years later.

Was Moon Landing faked? Questions with Neil deGrasse Tyson

Capitalism Didn’t Make the iPhone, You iMbecile

newtboy says...

1) unless that trade is privately controlled, then it is.
2) you said MADE. They make them. ;-)
3) Capitalism isn't technological industry, or civil rights...it's trade and ownership. If an individual can own a business (edit :and profit from freely selling it's products) that's capitalism. Farms count.
Capitalism: an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.
4) well, that's one thing we agree on then, but it's hardly a selling point for capitalism to most people.
5) If public funds are used for any public purposes, that's socialism imo. I certainly think basic research where the results are free to the public counts.

vil said:

1) no, trading is not capitalism.
2) kids in China did not - that is borderline silly. Creating and marketing the iphone created a DEMAND, the MARKET had been in place already (the US constitution, the fed, the dollar, cellular infrastructure, people free to buy things of their own will, the internet et cetera et cetera et cetera ad nauseam - takes a lot of preconceptions to be able to sell such a product)
3) basically yes.
4) I am sure we agree on a lot of things, this is one.
5) I understand government=socialism. The government of the US of A funds a lot of things that would be hard to justify as socialism. Maybe an argument can be made that basic research is a social investment IDK.

Basic research does not equal fast progress though. You can be as clever as Archimedes or Leonardo but steam trains require capitalism to make sense. Iphones required masses of rich crazy americans to take off - a market and demand. Without a market and demand (or a war) progress is slow as f***.

Mordhaus (Member Profile)

Capitalism Didn’t Make the iPhone, You iMbecile

newtboy says...

1) I question your sources, because some of the earliest writings ever found were business ledgers dealing with selling grains as I understand it. Capitalism has been a thing since before writing was a thing.

2) um...I think those kids in China would dispute that....THEY made the Iphones, which created a smart phone market by being useful and fun (for most people).

3) do you believe capitalism and the industrial revolution started at the same time, or that capitalism has something to do with surfs, civil rights, or secularism? Capitalism applied to people is indentured servitude, what we lazily call slavery. Unfettered capitalism created a situation where civil rights needed to be delineated and codified, it didn't create them any more than wildfires created firemen imo.

Some people do educate themselves before acting or making purchases, but it's not the norm.

Capitalism says your poor neighbors should die, because capitalism says there is no value to human life...I did a term paper on that. Value is derived from a supply/demand equation, and there's such a glut of humanity that human life has a negative value.

The government paid for around 75% of the technology development. "...it paid for some of the technology...." is incredibly misleading, if technically correct (the best kind of correct). Without a healthy dose of socialism, progress slows to a crawl and only the privileged few can afford it.

1 word....flip-phones. ;-) (I don't even have one of those)

vil said:

1) Definitely - but without a market improvements fall flat and dont stick. Ancient people had a lot of good ideas but overall progress was really slow and retrograded often until.. well until capitalism became a thing. Abolishing serfdom, general civil rights, separation of church from state and the fall of absolutism made the Iphone possible.

2) No, that is my point. People "discover" things all the time, some of these things are deemed useful by the general public and capitalism provides the tools to finance production and distribution (the profit part is optional - it is entirely legal to sell your invention for any price or indeed give it away for free).

So to get to the original point capitalism did not discover or design the Iphone but it certainly MADE the Iphone.

3) Not impossible but incredibly slow. Generations lived out their entire lives without perceptible changes in their environments prior to the onslaught of capitalism and the industrial revolution. The advent of science from the renaissance onwards was OK, but only once factories and transport infrastructure became a thing did living conditions start to change for everyone.

A big problem with free markets is that they are never really "free". A theoretical free market implies too many things that dont ever happen in real life, like everyone having all relevant information and being able to make a good decision. People just dont do that IRL.

Also not everything can be solved by free markets because you cant just let your neighbors die poor because the market says they deserve it. However the Iphone is really not something the state should subsidize. I understand that it paid for some of the technology that went into designing it. But true socialism would have to make sure everyone could afford one, and would design a cheap bad phone to fit the need.

Capitalism Didn’t Make the iPhone, You iMbecile

vil says...

1) Definitely - but without a market improvements fall flat and dont stick. Ancient people had a lot of good ideas but overall progress was really slow and retrograded often until.. well until capitalism became a thing. Abolishing serfdom, general civil rights, separation of church from state and the fall of absolutism made the Iphone possible.

2) No, that is my point. People "discover" things all the time, some of these things are deemed useful by the general public and capitalism provides the tools to finance production and distribution (the profit part is optional - it is entirely legal to sell your invention for any price or indeed give it away for free).

So to get to the original point capitalism did not discover or design the Iphone but it certainly MADE the Iphone.

3) Not impossible but incredibly slow. Generations lived out their entire lives without perceptible changes in their environments prior to the onslaught of capitalism and the industrial revolution. The advent of science from the renaissance onwards was OK, but only once factories and transport infrastructure became a thing did living conditions start to change for everyone.

A big problem with free markets is that they are never really "free". A theoretical free market implies too many things that dont ever happen in real life, like everyone having all relevant information and being able to make a good decision. People just dont do that IRL.

Also not everything can be solved by free markets because you cant just let your neighbors die poor because the market says they deserve it. However the Iphone is really not something the state should subsidize. I understand that it paid for some of the technology that went into designing it. But true socialism would have to make sure everyone could afford one, and would design a cheap bad phone to fit the need.

newtboy said:

1) There are many incentives not based on profit too, as you mentioned. I don't think it's an either/or equation.

2) Didn't iPhones basically create the smartphone market?

3) The implication is that without capitalism, science and progress are impossible.

Mordhaus (Member Profile)

Capitalism Didn’t Make the iPhone, You iMbecile

newtboy says...

But.....Bcglorf said: Capitalism (or many unrelated civic freedoms) made science and progress possible. The implication is that without capitalism, science and progress are impossible.
Edit: my mistake, vil said that, not bcglorf.

Also, the video is about contradicting that exact contention.

No they aren't, because America isn't just "an economy based on capitalism", which you yourself pointed out. They all come from innovations in systems and inventions created through American socialism.

Again, pre '68, before America went the socialist route to advance computer sciences, not after. Yes, after we used a combination of socialism and capitalism, we were more successful. That's my point.

China is working on 6g, and nearly ready with 5g. America isn't. That cannot be simply because China stole our advancements since they're ahead of us. They also, as you've admitted, developed better (cheaper/faster) manufacturing methods both because of technological advancements and few or no regulations (which have caused them horrendous issues). Funny enough, removing the regulations for more profit at the expense of the workers/environment is capitalistic, not socialist.

Their 5G is better because it's 1)almost ready to deploy and 2) cheaper. Ours isn't ready for prime time yet, and has used billions in public funds to get where it is. The FCC also proposed a $20 billion fund to expand broadband (5g)....that's not capitalism.

Ahhh, switching topics, eh? I thought the topic is capitalism vs socialism as it relates to invention, not fascism. I'm not going to bite.

Ok, personal enrichment is one of many incentives that drive invention, but invention happens without that incentive daily.

Once again, necessity is the mother of invention, not capitalism or profit.

You miss the point if you claim he contradicts that conclusion, because the systems invented that the examples require were ALL publicly funded. Without the socialist inventions, there would be no capitalistic innovations. No internet=no world wide web. No WiFi means no WiFi. No displays=no mobile computers/phones. No access to phone lines=no data transfers, so no internet, www, etc.

If his numbers are correct, 72% of research spending is public funding, not private. Nuff said.

bcglorf said:

your contention that ONLY personal profit drives invention or innovation.

I'm afraid I've never argued that, I can lead by agreeing whole heartedly that such a contention is false.

I merely pointed out that in a video about how 'capitalism didn't create the iphone', the authors own examples of innovations that lead to the iphone are all 100% from within an economy based on capitalism. My very first post stated clearly that it's not a purely capitalist system, but that it is noteworthy that not a one of the examples chosen by the author making his point came from a socialist country.

Can you offer a comparative American/Russian timeline of computer innovations
Well, I could actually. If you want to deny the fact that Russia basically halted their computer R&D multiple times in the 70s, 80s and 90s in place of just stealing American advances because they were so far behind I can cite examples for you...

And for some unknown to you reason China is beating the ever loving pants off America lately.
1. Factually, no they are not. The fastest network gear, CPU and GPU tech are all base on American research and innovation. America is still hands down leading the field in all categories but manufacturing cost, but that isn't for reasons of technological advancement but instead a 'different approach' to environmental and labour regulations.
2. Within the 5G space you alluded to earlier, there is an additional answer. Their 5G isn't 'better' but rather 'cheaper' for reasons stated in 1. The existence of their 'own' 5G tech though isnt' because Huawei's own R&D was caught up so fast through their own innovation. Instead if you look into the history of network companies, Canadian giant Nortel was giving Cisco a solid run for it's money for a time, until they utterly collapsed because of massive corporate espionage stealing almost all of their tech and under cutting them on price. China's just using the same playbook as Russia to catch up.

Russia beat America into space

Well, if you want to go down that road the conclusion is that fascism is the key to technological advancement, as America and Russia were largely just pitting the scientists they each captured from the Nazis against one another.

Once again though, my point has never been that only capitalism can result in innovation. Instead, I made the vastly more modest proposal that personal profit from inventions is beneficial to innovation. I further observed that the video author's own examples support that observation, and in that contradict his own conclusion.

Capitalism Didn’t Make the iPhone, You iMbecile

bcglorf says...

your contention that ONLY personal profit drives invention or innovation.

I'm afraid I've never argued that, I can lead by agreeing whole heartedly that such a contention is false.

I merely pointed out that in a video about how 'capitalism didn't create the iphone', the authors own examples of innovations that lead to the iphone are all 100% from within an economy based on capitalism. My very first post stated clearly that it's not a purely capitalist system, but that it is noteworthy that not a one of the examples chosen by the author making his point came from a socialist country.

Can you offer a comparative American/Russian timeline of computer innovations
Well, I could actually. If you want to deny the fact that Russia basically halted their computer R&D multiple times in the 70s, 80s and 90s in place of just stealing American advances because they were so far behind I can cite examples for you...

And for some unknown to you reason China is beating the ever loving pants off America lately.
1. Factually, no they are not. The fastest network gear, CPU and GPU tech are all base on American research and innovation. America is still hands down leading the field in all categories but manufacturing cost, but that isn't for reasons of technological advancement but instead a 'different approach' to environmental and labour regulations.
2. Within the 5G space you alluded to earlier, there is an additional answer. Their 5G isn't 'better' but rather 'cheaper' for reasons stated in 1. The existence of their 'own' 5G tech though isnt' because Huawei's own R&D was caught up so fast through their own innovation. Instead if you look into the history of network companies, Canadian giant Nortel was giving Cisco a solid run for it's money for a time, until they utterly collapsed because of massive corporate espionage stealing almost all of their tech and under cutting them on price. China's just using the same playbook as Russia to catch up.

Russia beat America into space

Well, if you want to go down that road the conclusion is that fascism is the key to technological advancement, as America and Russia were largely just pitting the scientists they each captured from the Nazis against one another.

Once again though, my point has never been that only capitalism can result in innovation. Instead, I made the vastly more modest proposal that personal profit from inventions is beneficial to innovation. I further observed that the video author's own examples support that observation, and in that contradict his own conclusion.

newtboy said:

Really? Can you offer a comparative American/Russian timeline of computer innovations, or are you just assuming? Be sure to focus on pre '68 era, before American socialism was applied in large part (public funding/monopoly busting).

And for some unknown to you reason China is beating the ever loving pants off America lately....so what's your point? Certainly not that Capitalism always beats socialism, I hope you aren't that deluded. Both have strengths and weaknesses, both ebb and flow. Neither are the sole determining factor for inventiveness, neither has a monopoly on invention.

Russia beat America into space even with their near poverty level economy at the time, and despite the fact that their scientists definitely didn't personally profit from their myriad of inventions required to make it happen.
I'm not arguing which is better, that's like arguing over which color is better....better in what way? I'm arguing against your contention that ONLY personal profit drives invention or innovation. That's clearly a mistaken assumption.

Texas Man's Invention Creates Drinking Water from Air

newtboy says...

Sounds good, but .08kWh per liter is 80kWh per M³. Desalination is as low as 2-3kWh per M³. That makes this technology very inefficient by comparison. Useful where absolutely no other source is available.
It bears noting that no where can I find the cost of his machine, only estimates of operation energy costs. Others that make 250 liters per day (with enough humidity) cost around $8500 on eBay. That makes me think his larger unit is likely 10 times that cost or more.
Also, he didn't invent this technology, Arye Kohavi is credited with that, but he may have made it more efficient. Essentially it's an industrial dehumidifier and nothing more.

1,000km Cable to the Stars - The Skyhook

newtboy says...

Edit: Thanks Eric for the link that addressed my questions/concerns.

Imo, rail guns and gravity couches are far more feasible and that technology does exist today. I hope we develop something before the Kessler syndrome (when space junk in orbit is so prevalent it's impossible to avoid and constantly increasing, like in "Gravity") makes orbiting or leaving earth impossible. That day is approaching quickly.

Mordhaus (Member Profile)

Demonstrating Quantum Supremacy

Payback says...

I want technology that will allow 1G of acceleration constantly for about 3 days. That's all you need to get to Mars.

Spring Break in an electric dunebuggy on Olympic Mons.

Damn straight.

newtboy said:

Next, can they tackle Entangled Quantum Particle computing and communication. If we go to Mars, it would be great to have instantaneous communication instead of a varying delay each way.

Top 10 Most Demanding Programming Languages In 2020



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