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Comment by brakmic | Hacker News Reader

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Criticizing education, advances in theory and social science, are indeed irrational. Wishing that the world of 7B people could be the same as a 50-year-gone world of 2B is not the same as 'evidence-based criticism'.

Lots of folks say lots of things. Not defending rabid idealists of any stripe. But there is a better way to operate and work, than an old one based on a situation long gone. There sure better be, because things really sucked 50 years ago in lots of ways.

I can't remember ever written to go back in time. Again, typical neoliberal newspeak. Either you are irrational or reactionary.

And your glorified advances in theory and science were...mostly financed with public money.

Just look at your smartphone. Try to find something that wasn't financed by the state (in this case the USA, that is, their taxpayers). And I don't mean the design but the most important parts: LCD, Touchscreen, the operating system (Unix came from...where?...Bell Labs), and all the many sensors.

Another neoliberal illusion is the "visionary entrepreneur".

Of your several comments, this is the only one that appears to have any actual content to discuss, and it’s still wrapped in argumentative name-calling.

Could you start over with a new thread describing what you think is wrong with the article, how you disagree, but without the use of “neoliberal” and related labels?

Nope. Neoliberalism is what we should be talking about. Anything else is just avoiding the elephant in the room.

Ok, but still a coherent critique of it would be helpful.

This is not useful:

> If there's one thing that's certain, then it's that neoliberalism always strives to destroy history and prevent any change.

Sorry, was talking about my digression - the persecution complex. Which is real and very evident. And must have a reason (beyond everyone being irrational or reactionary).

Sure public money is tangentially involved in everything sciencey, because private industry has a terrible time financing science. But one reason the public finances science, is so industry can grow and thrive and remain competitive. Imagine the other approach: the government 'owns' every innovation and controls industry. Not a pretty situation.

Btw Bell Labs, not strictly funded by the public. And no phone runs on Unix today. Never mind 'linux' is spelled sort of the same, they are different animals.

Bell Labs was highly regulated, a state-owned monopoly. You can read more about it in "UNIX: A History and a Memoir" from Brian Kernighan.

And of course would Linus Thorvalds have created Linux without having known anything about Unix. LOL.

Regarding "innovation" in the industry: it's just another neoliberal fairy tale. An industry that doesn't risk their money in funding research (especially basic research) is neither an industry nor innovative.

We need another term for (yet another) neoliberal illusion.

> Bell Labs was highly regulated, a state-owned monopoly.

I basically agree with what you're saying about neoliberalism, but Bell Labs was never a state owned monopoly, nor was it ever run like one.

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