Ask HN: Where are the capitalist and conservative technology presentations? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Where are the capitalist and conservative technology presentations?

11 pointsdevmonk9 comments

I recently commented on the anti-capitalist bias that RSA Animate seems to tend to have, like "Crisis of Capitalism": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJGAs2KwoWk and the "high-tech workers don't want raises" presentation at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGkrKfOCvho

But I've also thought that some of the TED talks I've seen tend to have more liberal speakers as well.

I know that political bias is inevitable, and that there are just a lot of liberal and anti-capitalists speaking up recently, but where are the best and brightest presentations of capitalists and conservatives located?

View on HN

the best advice I can give you is to treat your political life like your sex life, and largely keep it outside of your professional life. I know extremely good people on both sides of the political isle, and I think it's important to go out of your way to be able to work with people who have differing views politically, religiously, and sexually.

I mean, you don't need to hide who you are, but especially on divisive issues, don't rub it in someone else's face. Be conscious of who you insult; It's pretty easy to insult people on the other side of a political debate, or to demean people with different religions or sexual proclivities. You never know when the guy next to you is one of "those people" and really, you are trying to work. It shouldn't matter if the guy next to you is one of "those people."

Ignoring my own advice here, I think the noise about "high-tech workers don't want raises" and "money doesn't matter" is just MBA propaganda. Nothing to do with "right" or "Left" Usually when companies say that what they really mean is "we'll donate to some BS charity run by our golf buddies rather than giving the workers raises; they are too dumb to know the difference." the truth of the matter is that money isn't everything; yeah, we all knew that. But you know? all other things being equal, almost all of us will choose more money over less.

I think part of the issue is the conflation of capitalism and conservatism. Many conservatives pay lip service to capitalism with free-market rhetoric, but both their actions and many of their values are in direct conflict with it. Capitalism is fundamentally a dynamic system -- people start companies to change the world, not conserve the status quo.

I agree that capitalism has taken a beating in much of the country (though in my experience it's still alive and well in the valley).

Your question is conflicted; capitalism is a type of liberalism, while conservatism leads to anti-capitalism.

If you're looking for new capitalist ideas, take a look at seasteading, bitcoin, digital gold currencies, and the like.

The internet by its very nature is liberal. If you're really looking for new conservative ideas, take a look at DRM, national firewalls, paypal data mining, and most of "web 2.0".

(edit: bittorrent is market-based, but not capitalist. there's more market-based technologies than strictly capitalist ones)

I'm not a conservative, and I'm not taking anything personally here, but seriously...what the hell are you talking about?

>capitalism is a type of liberalism

Come now, sneaky word games don't add clarity. Capitalism might be part of classical liberalism, but that's not what people mean when they identify as "liberal" today.

>conservatism leads to anti-capitalism

Huh? How?

>If you're really looking for new conservative ideas, take a look at DRM...paypal data mining, and most of "web 2.0".

How are these political?

>national firewalls

The only two countries I can think of with national firewalls are both communist.

It appears that the only result in Google for gold settlement foundation is your post (and i suspect mine as well now). Could you tell me what that is?

Whoops, fixed that - "Global Settlement Foundation". By which I was trying to reference all the digital gold currencies (not that I think they're necessarily the way forward, but they're attempts)

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Responding to endtime:

Capitalism was a product of earlier ("classical") liberalism, but has not been fully absorbed into society. A modern capitalist should be against bank bailouts, currency monopolies, and high taxes. These views undermine established institutions and seek to distribute power, and are therefore liberal.

Technology isn't political (by doing instead of talking), but can still be liberal or conservative. DRM, paypal data mining, and national firewalls all seek to slow change and preserve established institutions, which is the fundamental tenet of conservatism.

The technology of web 2.0 is conservative in that it's the old thin-client model. Rather than your computer being your agent, it merely acts as a terminal into a monolithic system run by an institution that you're required to trust completely.

(case in point of having to edit this unrelated comment to post my already-written reply. I trust HN to kill stories to remove them from the front page, but I've no choice but to also allow it/them to prevent an already-established interaction between us.)

remember e-gold? that ended in tears for all involved. Hell, I've still got approx USD$200 in e-gold I can't get to.

Wall Street.

Tea-party rallies?

Seriously though, Cato, Mises institutes etc might be a good place to start if you don't like these commies infiltrating your precious bodily fluids.

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