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Comment by MrVandemar | Hacker News Reader

... we're entering an era where Permission-based institutions are failing to solve mounting challenges. Climate change, failing healthcare systems, broken education – these problems won't be solved by people seeking permission from the very institutions that failed to prevent them.

Progress requires people willing to demonstrate solutions without waiting for institutional approval. It needs innovators who understand that permission is often more damaging than the risks it's meant to prevent. It demands builders who can create systems that make Permission-based gatekeepers optional rather than essential.

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No.

Principles and trust require a principled and trustworthy society. We've trained that out of society by a constant cultural drumbeat of "follow your feelings," "authority is always wrong," "tradition is oppression." All of that nonsense is exactly what makes anarchistic takes like this disastrous.

We need people at the gate to keep the fools from doing as they please. We need people at the gate to keep the ones who believe the planet would be better off with out human beings on it from acting. Stupid "I can do what I want because I am better than you" thinking like this has produced the kind of nihilism that means that throwing off the rules doesn't lead to progress, it leads to destruction.

The problems this web site is describing are all of the same stripe: regulatory capture by lobbying groups. That's what needs to be fixed.

man the system has beaten the life out of your soul - wild wild stuff… spoken like a true obedient slave the society made you be… who will be the people at the gate? and how will they decide who the fools are? I am at the gate deciding you and your family are fools? vice versa?

> We need people at the gate to keep the fools from doing as they please.

Interesting that you take the agile problem-solving examples and the overall thesis of the book (not website) and extrapolate to a single catastrophic genocidal concept that apparently only these gatekeepers can prevent.

The truth is that the people at the gate are actually pretty keen on staying the people at the gate. They'll raise whatever bogeymen they can to keep that status quo, and call people fools and stupid and nihilistic.

To take an example of the permissionless culture, Napster really didn't hurt anyone, but did upset a lot of the entrenched asymmetric power structures in the music industry, and was clearly a crucial development leading to iTunes, Bandcamp, Spotify, and probably Tor as well.

> The problems this web site is describing are all of the same stripe: regulatory capture by lobbying groups. That's what needs to be fixed.

You've identified a problem.

Have you made any personal attempt, any material investment, in fixing that problem?

Would you stand in the way of others who would fix that problem, even if it was against the current rules or laws of a culture, society or group?

> To take an example of the permissionless culture, Napster really didn't hurt anyone, but did upset a lot of the entrenched asymmetric power structures in the music industry..

This is demonstrably false. Napster and it's ilk did hurt people. It did not focus it's upset only on the 'entrenched asymmetric power structures in the music industry,' it also affected small business and independent musicians, arguable more so, since they weren't as well funded to adapt to the disruption.

In terms of the 'crucial development leading to iTunes.. Spotify,' how have these not become the newly entrenched asymmetric power structures? Bandcamp is a notable exception, and I don't think Napster in anyway contributed to it's development, except for the fact that it might have been a way to distribute your own music. But that wasn't it's primary use.

>Napster and it's ilk did hurt people.

How? When Napster showed up, I started BUYING MUSIC on CDs at a prodigious rate, because I was discovering all these new artists I would have never heard on the radio. The same was reflected across the industry. It was a boom time for the music industry, and lifted all boats.

It's the reaction to Napster that killed things, once they started suing customers, and equated us to thieves on the high seas, I haven't bought a CD since, neither have many others.

I'm a bit surprised you couldn't imagine how it didn't lift all boats. Not at all. Consider a band on an independent label, not a subsidiary of one of the majors. Maybe they're earlier in their career, and haven't yet broken through.

For most bands in these cases, their primary revenue came from record sales, touring at this level was very expensive, and was usually promotional rather than a revenue stream. They weren't renting big buses, they didn't have roadies. They're touring to promote their new record.

For these bands, this period was devastating. Before there was a Bandcamp, before streaming services. Yes, it could be seen like radio where some people used Napster as a way to preview artists.. but not everyone did.

Major labels were able to live through the transition, they're like venture capitalists, as long as they have enough huge and profitable artists, they can offset losses. But that's not true for anybody but them.

I saw it. I was working in the music industry from 1999 to 2010, as a musician, working with independent record labels, and in recording studios. It did not lift all boats, I promise you.

I remember reading things like this at the time that told me I wasn't alone.[1]

The music industry shot itself in the foot. I'm sorry you got caught in it.

[1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/study-napster-boosts-cd-sales/

> it also affected small business and independent musicians, arguable more so, since they weren't as well funded to adapt to the disruption.

By "independent musicians" I assume you mean Lars Ulrich.

Nope. Lars Ulrich got a lot of hate for his stance against piracy, since Metallica were unlikely to suffer much from it. But, I think his perspective came from the time they spent as an independent band where they would not have survived without record sales.

> Have you made any personal attempt, any material investment, in fixing that problem?

Yes. I voted, and I'm teaching my child how to be a net positive for society.

> Yes. I voted, and I'm teaching my child how to be a net positive for society.

You voted for a politician, and you're teaching your child.

Neither of these people — the politician, the child — are you.

It sounds rather dangerously like you're saying you've done nothing except abnegate any responsibility for these problems yourself and expect others to shoulder the burden for you.

I find that statement entertaining.

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