Innovation

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Karyoplasma

"Innovation" is just the buzzword for the practice of figuring out how to extract more money from the paupers while delivering less. They have to invent new ways of scamming you, so the profit goes up.

circuitfarmer

I've been thinking of the "capitalism breeds innovation" thing a lot lately.

It may still be true, but the latest innovations are always in money making. There is no incentive to innovate in a way that serves a common good, but there is massive incentive to "innovate" in a way that drives profits up.

Subscriptions to everything and the erosion of ownership? Innovative.

Insurance companies taking your money and then denying your claims? Innovative.

Uncapped campaign finance and buying politicians? Innovative (well, it's been done before, but not to this scale in a very long time).

Pennomi

A different way to think of this is that capitalism is simply society optimizing for the wrong value.

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The way I see it, innovation is a product like anything else in the context of capitalism.

Sam Altman wanted openAI to be non profit in its innovation but this was incompatible with capitalism that identifies it as a product with value.

So basically capitalism tries to find monetary value in anything so it can be sold because the ultimate goal is money.

Innovation is a byproduct of capitalism searching for new things to sell.

(Disclaimer : I understand Sam Altman probably never genuinely wanted to innovate for free, this is just a posture)

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New government regulation causes companies to adapt or die, so I guess the post is right, competition against the government breeds innovation.

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It's not so much capitalism that breeds innovation, but competition. If there's no competition, where's the incentive for companies to innovate or improve in any way?

Take the private water companies in the UK as an example. You can't choose a different provider, and the service they provide has been getting steadily worse over the years, to the point where they don't improve infrastructure and we end up with Victorian pipelines pumping sewage into our rivers and seas. But nobody can change provider unless you move to a different part of the country, so there's no incentive for the companies to improve anything.

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the latest innovations are always in money making

Look at the history of leaded paint and gasoline in America, and you'll discover its far from the latest.

There is no incentive to innovate in a way that serves a common good, but there is massive incentive to “innovate” in a way that drives profits up.

The incentives tend to be towards ballooning consumption/spending/debt, which is rarely good for any given individual who isn't on the receiving end of revenue.

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If there’s no competition, where’s the incentive for companies to innovate or improve in any way?

What if instead of competing we were cooperating towards a shared goal?

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how could you say that when capitalism literally fucked innovation into existence?

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Pure Capitalism = bad

Pure Socialism = bad

Healthy mix of capitalism and socialism = groovy

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dotworld moment

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Innovation is a byproduct of capitalism searching for new things to sell.

That's the BEST case scenario. Much more often, the "innovation" consists of taking something that already exists and making it worse by all other metrics in order to make it more profitable.

veroxii

If we were to cooperate then everyone should co-own it. Which means it should be a public utility owned by us ie the government.

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So the amount of competition is the exact same as when it was run by the government like crucial infrastructure is supposed to, but the quality is the same or worse?

Sounds about capitalistic..

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New government regulation causes companies to adapt or die

I curse the day some scumbag ruined everything by adding the third option "regulatory capture" 🤬‍

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Oh don’t forget that many innovations don’t come to the surface until companies have gotten their money out of the old ones. We miss out on a lot of technology for years because of that. And then there’s tooling changes leading to companies saying “what the fuck are you gunna do about it?” as they all keep making the same old crap.

Sony had to invent the litium-ion battery for their cameras because all the battery companies were fine with making the old lead-acid stuff.

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The one problem with that is a thing called human nature.

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That is how capitalism breeds innovation.

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Could you define Capitalism and Socialism for the class?