• ynazuma@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    No, but many have worked 700,000 times smarter.

    Sorry, but developing an idea that changes the way the world works is exactly that.

    #1 reason why MRI’s, PC’s, biotech, nanotech, AI was all developed in the West is because you can make profits. Almost no groundbreaking innovations have come out of USSR (Russia) or China. Those guys are good at copying and also have billionaires, lots of them

    The problem is not that there is a path to be a billionaire, the problem is that they are not getting taxed. Governments need to make billionaires pay their fair share. Period

    • Cowbee [he/him]
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      6 months ago

      Nobody can work 700,000 times smarter. Even among skilled workers, this is far beyond the difference among individuals.

      Additionally, you’re making the ludicrous claim that billionaires are the ones inventing new tech, not the Engineers who designed them or the factory workers who build them.

      On top of that, you’re outright incorrect about the USSR and China with respect to innovation. This point is silly, innovation has happened for all of human existance, and yet you believe that what drives innovation is Capitalists paying engineers rather than Workers paying engineers. Ludicrous.

      • ynazuma@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Fair enough

        Give me some examples of Chinese and USSR innovations that changed the world

        Just to be clear, Jeff Bezos started Amazon, coded, packaged, managed inventory from his garage

        Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were both engineers and coded and/or designed their initial products themselves, while in college

        Look up Sergei Brin, Zuckerberg, and Musk. Same story. Started their companies, coding themselves while in college

        You cannot have it both ways. You can’t receive billions or trillions of dollars in technological and social benefits without giving billions back.

        As an aside, Russian and Chinese billionaires were chosen because of their proximity to Putin in one case and to the CCP in the other. Show me the ground breaking innovations their companies have produced. They only copy what was invented before

        Facts

        Now you give relevant examples

        • Cowbee [he/him]
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          6 months ago

          Multistage Rockets fundamentally revolutionized Aerospace. The USSR also developed the first mobile phone in 1957.

          In China, there is ongoing innovation in industrial practices and efficient green energy.

          Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs all did some individual level of labor before mass exploitation of engineers and factory workers to make their dragon hoards.

          Explain why you subscribe to “Great Man” theory.

          • ynazuma@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Yes, the US government through NASA, Los Alamos, US Corps of Engineers, and many others has developed military technology with some civilian applications as well. Probably 100 fold what USSR and China have developed

            Thats the point. Governments suck at developing things that are not things like multistage rockets. By the way, the space rockets, like to launch a communications satellite, are a US invention.

            https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H._Goddard

            You gave no examples

            I don’t subscribe to the “great man” theory. But, it is clear that men with big ideas have impacted the world. Should they benefit from their impact. Yes!

            Should Musk be as wealthy as he is and pay the low taxes he pays? No!

            Tax the wealthy progressively, but keep the incentives for technological advancement

            We have no better system. Facts

            • Cowbee [he/him]
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              6 months ago

              “Probably 100 fold?” You’re deeply unserious, this type of irrational vibes-based analysis is peak Liberalism. Use some numbers, please.

              Explain exactly why being paid by the government results in less innovation than being paid by a Capitalist. The engineers doing the innovation get paid either way.

              The USSR beat the US into space. It was factually successful in innovating and did so at a more rapid pace. Multi-stage rockets were a major breakthrough. If you’re going to claim that this was built off of American rocket design, you can go back further and see that American rockets were built off Chinese design. Almost all innovation is breakthrough iteration.

              You do subscribe to Great Man Theory. You pretend that Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, and other Billionaires contributed billions, rather than exploiting and stealing billions, and believe this justified because they did some minimal amount of initial labor. The overwhelming mountain of labor and innovation was done by the workers they employed and exploited!

              You have nothing but vibes, you never made any concrete points. Typical Liberal Idealism mixed with Great Man Theory for good measure.

            • xanu@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              “the space rockets…are a US invention”

              what? genuinely, what are you claiming here? any interpretation I can come up with is just patently wrong. the USSR quite famously launched the first orbiting satellite with Sputnik. The German V-2 rocket was the first man made object to break the Karman line and be “in space”. Are you talking about multistage rockets with a communication satellite payload? because as the comment you’re replying to said, multistage rockets are a Soviet idea. are you just talking about Goddard’s liquid fuel systems? because sure, that’s an American invention, but it’s almost like modern rocketry can’t be attributed to one single person, country, or certainly not a single economic philosophy. saying space rockets are a solely US invention is so hilariously America-centric that it almost reads as satire.

              The USSR and China also pushed the envelope of modern medicine just as much as the US. The first artificial heart came from a Soviet doctor. several vaccines have been developed in other countries.

              I don’t subscribe to the “great man” theory. But, it is clear that men with big ideas have impacted the world. Should they benefit from their impact. Yes!

              lmao sure, you don’t subscribe to the great man theory, you just subscribe to the theory that throughout history, the most major leaps and bounds are solely because of a few great men with big ideas and those great men should be rewarded with unfathomable wealth and power.

              I find it funny you mention Steve Jobs and Elon Musk as “great men” who, without their ideas and inventions, the world would never have come up with smartphones or electric cars and reusable rockets. y’know two of the most famous examples of some rich, vaguely charismatic person taking the ideas of their employees and trying to convince the world they did it themselves.

              Where’s Wozniak’s reward? did he have no incentive to create the iPod? the profit incentive does not breed innovation, it breeds exploitation of innovation. the innovation will always be there as long as there are humans, problems, and materials to try new ideas.

              We have no better system

              We’ve tried this one thing while deliberately kneecapping and destroying any other thing, and we’re all out of ideas! this is truly the best system we can ever do and shouldn’t try to improve it in any way!

    • MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml
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      6 months ago

      Lol, you really think they come up with the ideas in biotech and nanotech?? Public grants fund the ideas of underpaid workers in public universities, the workers develop the technology, and then the principle investigator (PI, the boss who often had little actual contribution to the idea and work, but helped write the grant that originally funded the idea, takes that idea and with the university parents it.

      Then the PI makes a spin-off, private company using that idea that they didn’t come up with and didn’t develop and that was funded by the public and they hire business and legal types to make bank on this idea. The actual people who did all the innovative work are lucky just to be recognized for the work they put into the technology after it hits the market.

      And it’s not just happening in biotech, it happens in other fields too! All of the technologies you mentioned were made by the public sector, not the private sector. The private steals those ideas (via legal loopholes) and patents, then profits off of them.

      So sure, they’re 700,000 times smarter if smarter equals exploitative fuck-heads.

      As to socialist countries not innovating, have you even looked at China lately? That’s ignoring even the basic innovation of developing societies that go beyond capitalism. What this amounts to is an old racist trope and a general lack of education about how technology transfers with China operate. Companies having China produce their products sign-off rights for China to make and use their technology as part of the compensation for production, they don’t steal technology, they are given/buy this technology via their labor.

      Have you even looked at these processes or do you just repeat the drivel you are told by these cheats? For over ten years I’ve experienced this shit first-hand in biotech. You are wrong.