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Re:China VC has overtaken Silicon Valley, but do aggregates ... by AnthonyMouse on Thursday July 05, 2018 @01:20PM (#17465028)
> they can watch the US hamstring itself via libertarian policies

The size of the US federal budget has only gone in one direction regardless of which party was in power, and it hasn't been to get smaller. And they keep passing anti-startup garbage like FOSTA or the incredible bureaucracy that de facto prohibits small businesses from participating in the finance or medical industries. These are not libertarian policies.

The problem is they're spending trillions on unnecessary wars and buying the elderly vote with outrageously expensive program expansions, and then there is nothing left -- less than nothing, since it's all debt-financed -- to fund the actually-beneficial (and much less expensive) programs that you're asking for.

Re:China VC has overtaken Silicon Valley, but do aggregates ... by s73v3r_ on Thursday July 05, 2018 @02:27PM (#17465573)
"or the incredible bureaucracy that de facto prohibits small businesses from participating in the finance or medical industries. "

This is a good thing. These areas are not places where you want to "move fast and break things."

Re:China VC has overtaken Silicon Valley, but do aggregates ... by AnthonyMouse on Thursday July 05, 2018 @02:47PM (#17465744)
> This is a good thing. These areas are not places where you want to "move fast and break things."

Nobody wants anybody to "move fast and break things":

https://xkcd.com/1428/

That was the motto of one jerk who nobody likes, who incidentally runs a multi-billion dollar company and not a small business, whose company has since disavowed it, and is in general not how small businesses actually operate.

You don't want doctors to "move fast and break things" but you also don't want them to spend 95% of their time filling out paperwork so that medicine becomes so expensive that people go untreated because they can't afford it, or it bankrupts the government.

You don't want Nazi experiments but you do want a cure for cancer. There is a trade off here. If you choose wrong people die, no matter which wrong you choose. Which is why the correct solution has more to do with informed consent and less to do with massive regulatory burdens that exclude small entities, increase costs and deter participation.

Re:China VC has overtaken Silicon Valley, but do aggregates ... by spamizbad on Thursday July 05, 2018 @01:47PM (#17465238)
> These are not libertarian policies.

The Iraq war had significant buy-in from (some now mainstream) libertarian writers and thinkers. For example, Megan McArdle, under the name "Jane Galt", wrote feverishly in favor of the war on terror and mocked those who opposed it. The libertarian argument was that by toppling dictatorships and theocracies, these "liberated" middle-eastern democracies would all have liberalized economies.

I don't want to single out libertarians here though, I just want to point out interventionist policies have widespread support in the United States across the political spectrum (after all "even the liberal New Republic" supported it) and I don't see that trend reversing any time soon.

Re:China VC has overtaken Silicon Valley, but do aggregates ... by AnthonyMouse on Thursday July 05, 2018 @03:04PM (#17465871)
> The Iraq war had significant buy-in from (some now mainstream) libertarian writers and thinkers.

Identifying someone who claims to support an idea and then makes an argument inconsistent with that idea is a valid criticism of the person and their bad argument, not of the original idea.

> I don't want to single out libertarians here though, I just want to point out interventionist policies have widespread support in the United States across the political spectrum (after all "even the liberal New Republic" supported it)

Sure, right after 9/11 when everybody was angry. Angry makes for irrational. Maybe it's time to revisit a lot of that stuff and roll it back.

> and I don't see that trend reversing any time soon.

The public is made up of people. Things change when somebody changes them.

Re:China VC has overtaken Silicon Valley, but do aggregates ... by SmellTheGlove on Thursday July 05, 2018 @01:38PM (#17465176)
> The size of the US federal budget has only gone in one direction regardless of which party was in power, and it hasn't been to get smaller. And they keep passing anti-startup garbage like FOSTA or the incredible bureaucracy that de facto prohibits small businesses from participating in the finance or medical industries. These are not libertarian policies.

Yup, all correct. I say this with the slight bias of a dual national, but if you want a glimpse into the future that current US policy gets you, look at Italy. And then keep in mind that Italy still provides education and healthcare.

EDIT: Not sure why I'm getting downvoted. I didn't make this comment to be inflammatory, moreso to point out that our policy promotes wealth concentration and erodes middle class opportunities. I'm not suggesting that libertarian policies are a solution, nor that the US has adopted them. Just saying that the Italian regulatory environment favors incumbents and that my take is that we're headed in that direction as well via corporate capture. Italy's not a disaster - it's still the 9th largest economy in the world - but it certainly doesn't live up to its potential following its post-war boom.