> Given that, why do I still think that the flood of money being thrown at this tech is dumb, and that most of it will be lost? Partly just because of that flood. When financial decision makers throw loads of money at things they don’t understand, lots of it is always lost.
This is a common take, it feels like a not-cynical-actually-smart counter to the hype train.
I think that take is missing something -- that this is how capitalism pays for fast learning.
You have a space entirely unexploited, you give million pioneering fortune seekers shovels and ignite exploration across the whole unexplored surface area. Most will quickly discover they're unsuited to exploring, or picking at dirt with there's nothing to find here, some will find fools gold and labor over it until they realize it won't buy land, and a couple will strike oil instead of gold and build an entirely new economy generating unfathomable wealth.
On the whole, no money was "lost", even without mentioning overcoming costs of delay since this got the exploration done the fastest.
I'm not saying this is more efficient than centrally planned 5 year programs (though in practice it probably is), but it does seem more effective at learning a new thing fast ...
... and getting from “exploration to exploitation” the fastest.
This is a common take, it feels like a not-cynical-actually-smart counter to the hype train.
I think that take is missing something -- that this is how capitalism pays for fast learning.
You have a space entirely unexploited, you give million pioneering fortune seekers shovels and ignite exploration across the whole unexplored surface area. Most will quickly discover they're unsuited to exploring, or picking at dirt with there's nothing to find here, some will find fools gold and labor over it until they realize it won't buy land, and a couple will strike oil instead of gold and build an entirely new economy generating unfathomable wealth.
On the whole, no money was "lost", even without mentioning overcoming costs of delay since this got the exploration done the fastest.
I'm not saying this is more efficient than centrally planned 5 year programs (though in practice it probably is), but it does seem more effective at learning a new thing fast ...
... and getting from “exploration to exploitation” the fastest.