Disqus - Latest Comments for David_O

Re: Changing Everything: Basic Income is Not Enough

David O. — Sun, 16 Apr 2017 12:03:53 -0000

Is your intent to disagree?
A collective management system is still hierarchical, in direct democratic models it is the majority over the few. And even those instances everyone's voice do not carry equal weight.
Collective management or majority rule problem is the classic "tyranny of the majority". The group has "top down dominance" over the individual. Group first, individual second. The only true non-hierarchical system is where no one and no group has authority over any one, or any group.

Ethereum DAO Project was a "transparent system of collective management". When a hacker found a loophole, he actually did not break any rules, he exploited an oversight. There were many who argued that actions should not have been take against the hacker, because although he was able to take tokens, the hacker didn't break the rule, the code as written. Those with prominent voice(leadership) proposed a fork, and enough members of the group agreed to it. So here we have

1.) Codified systems with explicit rules hard coded
2.) Transparent system of collective management

Yet when there was a critical problem, leadership despite being unable to act unilaterally, still had a prominent voice(not by design). Leadership used that voice to persuade the majority of the group to use its authority dominate that of the few. Again, the classic "tyranny of the majority".
Where "direct democracy can threaten individual freedom."
See: http://www.economist.com/no...

Majority rule is still a hierarchical system. A system where the group has power over the individual. Don't miss this point:

The only true non-hierarchical system is where no one and no group has authority over any one, or any group. Even if we all start as equals, groups will eventually form to dominate and therefore create a hierarchy.

Re: Changing Everything: Basic Income is Not Enough

David O. — Sun, 16 Apr 2017 08:41:13 -0000

There are number of things that are inevitable, some are just more obvious than others. Cut off sustenance from an animal and it will eventually die, it is inevitable. In regards to the "collectively codify systems...and explicitly name what we want to avoid".
We have those, and people break them or find loopholes, even when explicitly coded into the systems, people find loopholes, see the history of the Ethereum DAO Project. A "collectively codified system" was attacked, an exploit was found by bad players therefore those with authority had to act rectify things. Of course their powers are distributed throughout a group of miners, but there is still leadership, hierarchy.

Re: Changing Everything: Basic Income is Not Enough

David O. — Sat, 15 Apr 2017 20:45:39 -0000

I think I may understand your dislike for hierarchies.
Hierarchies are inevitable, even in with direct democratic models. Hierarchies are inevitable because even in primitive environment people will give authority to those with the ability to protect or organize.

Re: Changing Everything: Basic Income is Not Enough

David O. — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 23:38:12 -0000

True. Now consider this: Information freedom has a better chance with cooperative structures than with the status quo. Free content & online services are a very good marketing strategy for the up-and-coming. To illustrate, Youtube and new review sites completely change the market for reviews, before you had to pay for a subscription to a magazine for reviews. Now everyone with access to a product is given free reviews online, traditional companies now provide free content online to compete.

In regards to decentralization, It can happen with the right leadership, much of the internet is inherently decentralized. The problem is many technologist live in a in tech bumble and don't really think about how the average person cannot effectively navigate the decentralized world, more importantly people don't see the value in switching.

To illustrate, before social media, if you wanted a page on the web you had to get a domain and web hosting. The services selling domains are not selling web hosting so you will have get that somewhere else. Next you have to get your email from another provider. Once you paid for all the needed services you'll then have to connect everything together in a very technical manner. And don't forget RSS. No thank you, most people are just going to get a social media page, and Facebook services are free. I'm seeing more people opting not to have a website for their business instead the just use social media.

Even if we wanted to sell or offer free services from different companies there are ways a discovery/search engine could present various other services to people in a convenient manner. Moreover we would have to provide incentives that appeal to the average for people to switch to decentralized services

Re: Changing Everything: Basic Income is Not Enough

David O. — Mon, 10 Apr 2017 21:21:48 -0000

So what age are we calling the current age? The Robotic Age? The Autonomous Age?

The time period where automation, robots, is replacing humans in the workforce has been around for some time now. What many of us foresee on the horizon is a tipping point where jobs are going to be lost much faster and in which people are not prepared for new tech-based work. This is in part a failure of the education system in general, so it would be a mistake to rely on this same system to quickly correct itself. We need alternatives (https://www.learnersguild.o..., which is something I am working on (http://www.dele.city).

You are absolutely correct that basic income is not enough. Innovation is also providing a once-in-a-century opportunity to change work. The opportunity is this: Companies are going to have to raise money to buy new technology, technology such as robots and automation software. So the questions is, will banks and investors continue to give money to the handful entrepreneurs who are not doing anything really innovative in the market and will kill jobs? When Postmates, Uber, or Lyft need to raise more money to replace their workers, are they going to get it? Or will banks and investors use this opportunity to do something different? The solution is a delivery company owned by a league of delivery people, a transportation network company owned by a league of drivers. I use the term *league* because professional sports leagues are an interesting model to follow. The league of owners hires a league office to handle the business and ensure that players and owners are held to a standard. So if a league of delivery people are given access to loans along with some venture capital, they can start their own league/business and when the robots replace them—and the robots are coming (https://techcrunch.com/2017... will still receive income as owners, but their robots will be doing the delivery. The same scenario could play out in the taxi industry.

Re: I am Voting for Hillary

David O. — Mon, 19 Sep 2016 10:35:37 -0000

Elitist sure, she plays both sides, Hillary Clinton's current populism is based on her tapping into the frustrations of those who feel a woman should be the next president.

The mixed track record is the root of the problem, again she plays both sides to our detriment. That's the gist of the article: https://www.theguardian.com...

And of course, Trump's denials are outrageous and panders to his base. Both tactics do not lead to needed solutions.

When I was kid, I thought the Superman story of his home planet being destroyed because the politicians did not act on climate changed was far fetched, because why would intelligent beings not act in their collective best interest? Watching the latest reboot of the movie and seeing what's happening to our planet makes it all too real. In the Man of Steel movie the politicians were always open to rational discourse but that did not move them to decisive action, and eventually their planet, Krypton blew up.

Politicians will always be politicians, and they will always say what they think people want to hear. They will switch side when it is convenient. Recently Donald Trump said that Obama was born in America, of course he only said that after he won the Republican nomination.

Re: I am Voting for Hillary

David O. — Mon, 19 Sep 2016 09:25:14 -0000

To be fair, many will not vote because they believe that both Hillary and Trump are populist candidates* and will not provide the needed solutions. They are from the same social circles and employ similar tactics when dealing with the public. The main difference is they are soliciting different groups so their message is different, there is a lot of pandering regardless. It is a very dangerous gamble to trust either one. A quick google search on Hillary Clinton regarding climate change leads to this very important warning:

"Books have been filled with the failures of Clinton-style philanthrocapitalism. When it comes to climate change, we have all the evidence we need to know that this model is a disaster on a planetary scale. This is the logic that gave the world fraud-infested carbon markets and dodgy carbon offsets instead of tough regulation of polluters – because, we were told, emission reductions needed to be “win-win” and “market-friendly."
- Naomi Klein

read more:
"We’re out of time on climate change. And Hillary Clinton helped get us here"
https://www.theguardian.com...

*The Dangerous Rise of Populism
http://continuations.com/po...

Re: Do Believe the Hype (Benefits Coming Later)

David O. — Wed, 01 Jun 2016 15:48:56 -0000

“All the current talk about a lack of productivity gains is missing the massive investments that are taking place now which will unlock huge future gains.”

This is not an understatement, just considering the Ethereum and services built on top of it. Ethereum tech could provide an incredible amount of productivity gains. For instance transparency and automated contracts will compel people to more accountable, accountability will compel people to more efficient with resources, specifically more efficient with time and money.

Re: When Teams Get Hot

David O. — Mon, 23 May 2016 17:00:37 -0000

This! The public acknowledgement occurred in the game 3 playoff loss to Spurs, from that point forward Russell Westbrook has been focused on being a great point guard.

"Just got to do a better job, man, lock in. I take responsibility when the ball is in my hands to make plays for my teammates and I didn't do that tonight." -Russell Westbrook (see: http://espn.go.com/blog/okc...

When Westbrook pass first, assisting his teammates, the Thunders are incredibly difficult to defend. It also helps his game because he started getting more open looks at the basket.

Applying it to teams outside of sports: In some teams there may be a very talented performer who does not play well with others, in the tech world this maybe a talented senior programmer. If the programmer changes, this change would allowed the tech team to get figuratively "hot". With the talented programmer becoming a valuable mentor to the junior programmers, everyone is writing better code, they are shipping faster and there are less bugs to fix. However if the talent does not change, sooner or later, you will have to move on.

Re: Climate Change and Flooding on the East Coast

David O. — Thu, 14 Apr 2016 22:20:49 -0000

Here's the thing, you're brilliant & you probably have genius level intellect, the general populace do not. So it may be best to frame the message with the populace in mind. To illustrate: Trump can peddle the illegal mexicans taking jobs, when computer AI will take far more, if not most. He is peddling building a wall, because it is visual, but if there is possibility something gets built it would probably be a wire fence. A wire fence does not sound so secure, people can cut wire. They can put holes in walls too, but again to the populace walls sounds so secure.

Re: Climate Change and Flooding on the East Coast

David O. — Thu, 14 Apr 2016 12:21:31 -0000

My hypothesis is this: when climate change became the focal point of the message, it gave people room to argue, as we can clearly see in the comments of this article. The message has to go back to controlling pollution. Focus on the images of Asian cities covered in lethal air pollution, curbing pollution is not debatable in the west anymore. Americans do not want their towns & cities looking the city in this article:
http://www.theguardian.com/...

Re: Startups and Persistence: Soundcloud Launches Premium

David O. — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 16:45:45 -0000

You're being humble those kids got talent.

Re: Insurance Fundamentals (Cont’d): Numerical Example and Reinsurance

David O. — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 10:53:29 -0000

This is why health insurance is very problematic. It is the example of 100% correlation. Everyone needs to see a doctor at some point in the year, in contrast not everyone needs to get into a car accident, people actively try to avoid car accidents. There is a way to innovate & solve this problem.

Re: Full stack startups

David O. — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 23:21:10 -0000

A sentence from item #3 states: "We take responsibility for the technology, the advertising, and the content " Content, he included content in the stack they will be responsible for in item #3.
Yet they have a history of being irresponsible with content. Imagine if it was software ip they had infringed. A developer they hired used backend he pulled from another company instead of building from scratch.

Most Silicon Valley consumer startups manipulate content producers. Yet startups intuitively understand that content is typically the most important layer of their stack.

To illustrate what would you say is the most important item in the console stack ?

A.) The OS
B.) The Console
C.) The Controller
D.) the Games

It's obvious you need to get everything right but in the consoles wars the games are the true difference makers the tech stack almost feels like a commodity.

Silicon Valley consumer tech has been exploiting content creators. They see this strategy as a strength. It is not, not anymore. Their strategy has devalue consumer web tech, consumers expect their web tech to be free or close to free. Therefore making the content layer of the stack even more valuable. This is a severe point of weakness in the stack ripe for disruption, given the oppurtunity I will.

Re: Full stack startups

David O. — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 22:04:18 -0000

Putting Buzzfeed and Netflix in the same sentence regarding "Full Stack startups" is odd. Netflix produces and aggregate content legitimately. Buzzfeed looks for ways to bypass compensating content creators. This is not good. The future of work for many will depend on creative content because humans do that so much better than computers and robots. It took a lawsuit for Buzzfeed to change their copyright infringing practices, now they wisely use creative commons work.

Re: Looking for a Part-time Research Assistant (Paid Position)

David O. — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 11:21:35 -0000

7% is not a very high unemployment rate. Yes, 7% is not ideal but no matter how we spin it, 7% is never considered very high. Compare it to Greece which unemployment rate is around 27%. And yes, many unemployed people are not documented but to counter there are many undocumented workers making money. We can only work with the numbers we have. And that speaks to the educational and technological divided in this country. The poverty percent can be lowered if companies were founded to provide people with a living wage. So we build competitors to McDonald & Walmart who's mission is not to make it's shareholders billions of
dollars, but to provide people a living wage. That's the type of
philanthropy that makes sense not handouts but there is nothing to
suggest that would ever happen on a significant scale. The are other factors involved in the poverty percentage, we're still recovering from the financial crisis caused by bad real estate speculation & wall street. We could argue the economics of technology is playing a major role in that recovery. Just like technology & innovation paid a major role in other countries economic growth. I would like to see research on whether poor tax policies & spending, real estate and restrictions are preventing the U.S. from taking full advantage of the economic benefits of technology & innovation. These are things most technologist don't control. Before we point the finger at technology we have to think about other factors. Think about all the money wasted on patent trolls & frivolous patent litigation. Think about how the government is spending tax money collected from tech workers. Then think about the money not being collected from U.S. based tech companies because they can legally hold it overseas. Think about the regulations preventing legitimate tech companies like Uber from growing & hiring more drivers. There are so many things to think about & research it's just that for many it is easy and convenient to blame it on innovation killing jobs.

Re: Looking for a Part-time Research Assistant (Paid Position)

David O. — Thu, 12 Dec 2013 12:00:06 -0000

Autos, electronics & transportation are technology !
It's not just Finland, there are others. The correlation is consistent. Try to find one, just one highly innovative & technological advance country with a very high unemployment rate. I would like to know. On the other hand there are plenty of countries with limited technology & limited innovation with high unemployment rates.

Re: Looking for a Part-time Research Assistant (Paid Position)

David O. — Thu, 12 Dec 2013 11:18:37 -0000

Yes, but are you investing in entrepreneurs who can use technology to create jobs ? Entrepreneurs who can use economic demand & tech to create jobs for people are not technologist ? We are only scratching the surface.

Re: Looking for a Part-time Research Assistant (Paid Position)

David O. — Thu, 12 Dec 2013 10:44:05 -0000

It is important the research is not an exercise in self-serving bias. My limited research shows technology creates more employment opportunities than it kills.

Compare Finland and South Korea unemployment rate to countries with less technological or very limited technological advancement. In most economies there is a strong correlation between high unemployment and limited technology economics. Here in the states we can observe this correlation. While most of California saw an increase in unemployment there is an exception; the Bay Area. San Francisco and nearby counties saw a decrease in unemployment.

Perhaps I can help with the research.

quick reference:
http://sanfrancisco.cbsloca...

http://www.businessinsider....

-David Eun reveals how technology is the driving force behind South Korea's economy.

Re: It's not new it's retro.

David O. — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:22:12 -0000

What's it's like to run a test ? Well let us find out.

Re: Blender Closing The Doors

David O. — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 22:06:42 -0000

This does not surprise me at all. This may sound bias coming from a photographer but I think if Blender wanted to stay with print they should have invested in photographers that can provide the wow factor. Producing images and posters of today's pop artist, rock stars and mcs that the readers would want to buy the magazine for. Once again content is king, and what they were producing is great for the internet market, but won't sell enough magazines to keep it profitable. I saw this coming. Just consider the cost of printing vs hosting a website. $600 month vs $25,000+ per issue. If a company wants to stay in print, they have to foucs on it's strength. Which is why news papers seem to be hurting more, news is so much faster online. News papers should have change their m.o., method of operation to compete. They should focus on providing less noise and more depth, more research, bigger pictures, bigger ads. This may mean not having the print edition everyday of the week perhaps weekend only or once or a month. I can't remember that last time I bought a newspaper to read, maybe a year or two ago? I bought a couple books in january and a fashion magazine and photography magazine in february. I still subscribe to a couple of biker mags(i'm reducing that), and a musician magazine. For the price of a daily paper everyday you can get high speed internet and get the news when it happens, I don't see the point in competing with that speed when you can't. I don't think print will die since most people like studying and reading long stories from the printed page, myself included. When things are bad economically you have to compete or fail.

Re: Apple and AT&T make a play for the suckers to clear iPhone 3G inventory

David O. — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:57:59 -0000

Or maybe sales are lagging in a down economy so the move may be to prop up sales.

Re: On Vacation

David O. — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 00:23:50 -0000

Let see:
1.) I'm curious to know more about how ad industry folks evaluate new talent. ?

2.) Their reservations about working with new talent. ?
(and how that can be resolved.)

Re: New Illustrator

David O. — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 01:20:38 -0000

Interesting, and unique, I like jessica's work.

Re: Creative Opinion

David O. — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 19:47:03 -0000

also since I have less cash to donate to charity, I'm working with the taproot foundation and donating my creative services. (as a photographer and web developer)