Comment by willholloway | Hacker News Reader

Comment by willholloway | Hacker News Reader

> the cost of founding a biotech startup is dropping precipitously. If current trends continue, biotech companies will soon be founded in garages, funded off their founders’ credit cards.

> A smart software developer can build and launch a web or mobile app and get paying customers for under $2,000.

Trivial marginal cost to start a company is a disruptive triumph for sure, financially supporting the founders basic human needs is now the primary obstacle. And of course he that hath wife and children have given hostages to great fortune.

Having no full time employment responsibilities on your horizon is the greatest boost in cognitive and creative power I have ever experienced. I made a mad dash to get a hardware product built and funded before my small savings stash was depleted, but missed the mark.

I had to go back and get a job so that the mission could continue. Going back to solving other peoples problems feels like a lobotomy.

The distraction of full time employment is immense and soul crushing. I was living in a house of science and beautiful innovation, and I hit a brick wall. But of course to paraphrase Russel Brand, god and a lack of liquidity is my enemy, just obstacles to clamber over and damage to route around.

Luckily my product is something people want and get excited about and now that I've proven it works seed funding is now on the way, but goddamn what a bummer running out of runway is.

When the world wakes up and humans get over their miserly aversion to sharing, and realize a guaranteed basic minimum income is in their own enlightened self-interest we will really cross the threshold and reach the innovation singularity.

Stuff like this is what makes one ponder citizen wage as something other than a flight of fancy.

I think culturally, and perhaps it's generational as a Millennial but I doubt that[1], I think culturally we have to ask ourselves why people work? I don't have enough information to state this factually, hopefully if someone does they'll chime in but maybe the reasons we wake up and go to work are changing.

If we are moving towards a society where we look more for meaning than for money we can very easily come to the conclusion that basic income wouldn't break the economy, but bolster it. Instead of doing menial labor to pay bills we'd try harder to find our way as artists, engineers and other specialized trades that offer fulfillment. Certainly some people will use their basic income to avoid work, but what is the percentage of that? I don't know many people who embrace boredom. Most people want to do something of value, and many people need to do something of value.

We are either approaching a reality we as humans have always wanted or shifting our societies desires depending on historical information(that I don't have).

Inching closer and closer to post-scarcity will be very interesting indeed.

[1]I don't think Millennial's are all that special even if we think we are.

Because working ensures that you're doing something that is useful to someone else.

"Most people want to do something of value."

A universal basic income is kind of this wierd bourgeois selfish projection wrapped in this veneer of being altruistic: To be 'freed to do whatever one prefers' is really saying "I want to do what I want, regardless of whether or not it's socially beneficial".

The wierd thing about free markets is that although one can be selfish and money-grubbing, even the most mendacious and stingy person must do something in the service of another to accrue capital.

> The wierd thing about free markets is that although one can be selfish and money-grubbing, even the most mendacious and stingy person must do something in the service of another to accrue capital.

And the failure mode of that is people ending up doing things in service on someone else that do a net damage to society, while other people do something in service of someone else to undo the work of the first group. Not to mention people stuck in positive feedback loops that waste increasing amount of resources on cancelling each other out. See marketing for a good example.

Just because something is useful to someone, doesn't mean it should be done.

My argument is that people will desire valuable labor because well, we already do. We prefer being valuable to boredom.

> And of course he that hath wife and children have given hostages to great fortune.

Applies a little less than usual to biochem PhD students ;)

I love that line! But I think a PhD student has it bad, if not worse -- the entrepreneur can watch her venture go under, and then rejoin the labor force with valuable experience and better compensation. The PhD student is locked into finishing her degree at the least, possibly aiming for a postdoc. That's a different kind of hostage to great fortune: your current wealth.

> Going back to solving other peoples problems feels like a lobotomy.

I've never heard it put quite so eloquently before! You really hit the nail on the head there. Hope you don't mind if I "borrow" that phrase...

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