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Comment by sillysaurus3 | Hacker News Reader

Technology cannot be suppressed. It's an axiom of history. One way to phrase it is "change or die," but a more optimistic way would be "change is life."

An important question for the future is how to make it profitable for studios to create media. If the revenue dries up, then so will the studios. I've heard Zuck likes Game of Thrones. In the future, there very well might not be anyone willing to invest money into creating Game of Thrones. Not at that level, anyway. The visual and epic experience that you're used to circa 2015 might not be sustainable circa 2035. Would Zuck fund Game of Thrones directly if needed? What are some ways that such an investment could make sense? Would crowdfunding make sense? The largest crowdfunding campaign still pales in comparison to the budgets required to deliver something like 7 seasons of Game of Thrones. Crowdfunding might not be the answer. There may not be any answer.

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I am not advocating for a suppression of technology.

I am advocating for belevolent empathy towards those technology affects. I am advocating for action that helps people change with the tide, not prevent it.

We cannot enact change that affects billions of lives and then say “fend for yourself, figure out the new rules”.

Not only can we, but we did.

It's very natural to feel horrified with the events as they unfold, but there's really nothing that will stop it. Hacker culture is hardwired to prevent ostracization of the kinds of people who build Popcorn Time. In fact, they're considered noble.

What we should focus on is how to find new revenues to fund media creation. It's not a good idea to try to change the culture.

A static culture is dead. If you mean you don't think it's a good idea to try to force change, never mind.

You wrote a very thoughtful piece but I think you will have a hard slog here on HN where Kim Dotcom is considered a hero.

On the contrary, your self-deprecating swipe is easily countered by searching 'dotcom' at the bottom of the page.

The popular consensus seems to be either a) great marketer or b) self-serving scumbag, definitely short of 'hero.'

While most of the comments here are about the music and movie industry, to me the key point in your post was about the coming loss of employment from further automation, and whether we can soften that blow.

As other are saying, it's impossible to stop the march of technology. So to my mind the problem to solve is how & where we can create replacement jobs, or how do we tune our regulation of the economy to stimulate job creation?

Edit: spelling.

We need to understand the implications more holistically. We need people thinking hard about how a future economy would function with large amounts of automation. People need to be happy. Unemployment doesn't generate happiness!

> What are some ways that such an investment could make sense?

My intuition is that patronage systems lead to undue influence. If Coke will fund your video series, they'll want something in return, usually advertisements. That then leads a subtle (or not) influence on the content.

I think the best way to avoid that ultimately is crowd funding on a more massive scale, i.e. 10s-100s of millions of dollar, but that comes with a whole bag of issues.

> patronage systems lead to undue influence

I'm not an art history guy, but my understanding is that Italy is littered with art with "cameos" of the wealthy patrons who commissioned it.

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