Bsharp

Great article, had no idea about that side of him. I'm sure he's no expert hacker, but it doesn't matter - hopefully his message gets out to the millions of kids who think a passion for coding, computers, and tech in general is worth teasing someone over, or inspires those who are being teased to stop caring about others and do the damn thing.

Except growth doesn't just happen at the will of a company. Companies grow because people buy their products and use their services, which means they wouldn't grow unless people wanted them to. So how is growth a bad thing when it's what people want?

You're picking apart my example of a luxury, not the argument. People aren't forced to spend money on iPhones. If they spend money of iPhones that they need for food they otherwise couldn't afford, then that's their problem, not the world's. Substitute 'iPhones' for any other luxury item. Plus, the agriculture industry is highly regulated, while the cell phone industry is relatively free, which I think has a strong impact on this price discrepancy.

My point is that capitalism allows a significant majority of people to have the basic necessities of life taken care of in exchange for some other contribution to the world.

I don't deny that people aren't spending their money wisely, but no one forces people into debt. It isn't hard to practice financial responsibility.

Also, wait: you can ensure better living quarters than a tent, presumably with a stove, and be able to purchase food while working 20-30 hours a week? Or are you not guaranteed to be able to have shelter, food, and water working 40 hours a week? Your two statements seem contradictory, unless I'm missing something.

I'm actually somewhat envious of your lifestyle. I'm just bothered by the elitist attitude I often hear from people who live it (not you in particular! many others though). While you may be a perfectly fine hunter, happy to live off the land, etc., many people aren't and would prefer the comfort of a desk job and steady paycheck. It's all preference, I don't think one way is superior to the other, morally or otherwise.

Obviously...what's your point? Of course they're concerned with the growth of their own company. They don't care if other markets are shrinking though. That's why I specified macro level.

> Some of the happiest people I've ever met in my life have nothing by North American standards.

Some of the happiest people I've met in my life have everything by North American standards. Material things are tools for happiness, not happiness itself.

We all go to work for 40 hours a week so that we don't have to live in a tent, cook on a travel stove, and hunt/grow our own food, which suggests a very day-by-day, unstable lifestyle. If that's what makes you happy that's great, but I don't think it's fair to call it "consumerism" when really it's just reaping the benefits of technological advancements. Many people would rather work 40 hour workweeks for (essentially) guaranteed food, water, shelter, and leftover purchasing power, which I think is perfectly reasonable.

The important take-away from your statement, though, is that these people are still getting food. The fact that developed nations have the basic survival necessities taken care of to the point that everyone has time and money to spend on things as seemingly frivolous as smartphones (and the fact that something as insane as a smartphone is even affordable) is a testament to capitalism, not a point against it.

No one who understands what capitalism and free markets are about would suggest that they focus on the idea that one should sacrifice everything for more growth. The idea of growth as it's being talked about in the article - in the macro sense - is of no concern to capitalists because it's individualistic.

Imagine you're in high school and you want to get A's: do you want A's because you want to school to look good and improve, or to boost your transcript and have more opportunity? If you are fine with C's or F's then that's fine too - it's whatever each person wants to do (obvious caveat about natural ability, access, etc. whatever it's an imperfect analogy).

Similarly, no capitalist is greatly concerned about economics at the macro level, because they're simply focused on their own success, however they define it. This macro-level growth obsession is an invention of the government's attempt to control the economy by influencing certain metrics. This is where crony-capitalism comes in, since they are obviously incented to influence how the government manipulates the economy, but that is not a fault of capitalism but rather government intervention into markets and the subsequent incentives it creates. People often mistake that for capitalism when it's not.

The only good thing about the mess that is Obama's presidency is that people might finally learn that it generally doesn't matter who you elect, most presidents and politicians will act similarly. Politicians tell the country what they think >50% of them want to hear, then do whatever they want in office. While the things Obama and his administration (and Bush's!) have been doing are awful, I've enjoyed watching the public outcry. Hopefully it lasts.

Money from quantitative easing goes to the wealthy and connected first. The rest of the country doesn't see it until its value has been inflated away, which is why you'll see the wealthy benefit from the recovery and the poor stay exactly where they are.

I think they are simply trying to get an under-represented group interested in coding, with people they will likely be more comfortable around. This isn't an elite group of hackers excluding other sexes and races, it's meant to be a springboard into coding for a demographic which generally doesn't.

Oh awesome, I'll have to check some of these out! Apparently I haven't looked hard enough.

This is great, thanks for sharing! Hopefully it's able to stick - I live in Miami and there is little-to-no tech culture around.

> they try to find others to blame instead of just fixing the damn issue.

This is for two reasons:

1) Fixing something makes it appear, politically, like it's your fault, or at least savvy opposing politicians can spin it that way.

2) The incentive to fix the issue <= incentive to shift the blame. If one party points their fingers, the other must point back, lest the public think the first party is right. Shifting blame is easy, one can do it without working too hard, and it can fuel public debate which forgets about the original issue.

Many politicians care less about fixing problems and more about getting/staying elected.

> If anyone saw this briefing, it was mostly a lot of really technologically illiterate people asking pointed questions about a gigantic set of systems that can't easily be answered to technologically illiterate people.

This is, unfortunately, what every discussion among politicians regarding any sort of technology is.

Infant mortality plays a huge role. It has dropped significantly in the past century.[1]

"It is true that life expectancy in the Middle Ages and earlier was low; however, one should not infer that people usually died around the age of 30. In fact, the low life expectancy is an average very strongly influenced by high infant mortality, and the life expectancy of people who lived to adulthood was much higher. A 21-year-old man in medieval England, for example, could by one estimate expect to live to the age of 64" [2]

[1] http://www.hrsa.gov/healthit/images/mchb_infantmortality_pub... [PDF]

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions

It may be hellishly annoying to follow (and trust me, I've had to clean up many Frankenstein-esque spreadsheets), but it's imo easier than any sort of messy code. Which do you think is harder for Average Joe Exec - following poorly documented and messy code, or following a poorly documented and messy spreadsheet?

PS I'm also very excited for that tool. Will make my life so much easier.

Absolutely agree with you. Database-to-spreadsheet is the best way to analyze data then summarize the results in a business setting. Unfortunately, the people seeing the results occasionally want to see how you got to your numbers, and since they frequently have non-technical backgrounds the database step is often where they can no longer follow.

I worked at a company where our data was in SQL Server but we basically had to import the entire data set into Excel because none of the higher-ups knew SQL and wouldn't be able to peer review. Those spreadsheets were slooooooow.

You definitely don't want to be using Excel for heavy data analysis or statistical analysis, and unfortunately some companies refuse to acknowledge that. Performance is very often sacrificed for familiarity and ease-of-use in business.

Just because something can summarize data doesn't mean it's the best tool to use when trying to explain something. Executives and VC's with non-technical backgrounds might be intimidated by someone using relatively complex tools for what, to them, could be a basic spreadsheet on a platform they know how to use themselves. Excel's value comes mostly from the fact that everyone knows how to use it at some level, and the formulas are relatively easy to follow, so your audience knows they could probably reproduce and verify your work.