Impressive, very nice, now let's see what would be the odds that the US models developed in SV are also highly positive about Californian and Democrats politics.
Raw unemployment numbers are pretty meaningless alone. Governmenments have ways of counting unemployment to get a desired number like for example only counting those registered as seeking work through the government agency. Like If you're doing some school or training, BAM, you're not counted as unemployed, if you've been unemployed for too long, then you're counted as "long term state welfare" and not as unemployed, if you refuse shitty hard labor jobs from the unemployment office, then you're cut off from unemployment and you're not counted as unemployed, and other such tricks.
Plus, even taking a low unemployment numbers at face value, the job quality has fallen a lot, with a lot of people still technically employed but not in great jobs, but in shitty jobs they do for survival, like fast food delivery.
The reality is that mass layoffs and SME bankruptcies are a current occurrence in many EU countries.
>All signs point to Trump and Jobs becoming thick-as-thieves. Sorry.
Yep, this. We're talking about a guy who basically abandoned his biological daughter, had his stuff manufactured by slave labor in factories with suicide nets to save costs and increase shareholder value, and GP imagines Steve Jobs as this leftist freedom fighter that would fight Trump instead of work together with him to increase profits even further. People's delul, historical revisionism of people who were just cutthroat unscrupulous businessmen at the end of the day, saddens me.
We can agree has was good at business, without trying to whitewash him as some humanitarian saint.
Don't worship people you never knew personally as some sort of heroes because you never know. For all we know he could have been a client on some else's island, like Steven Hawking.
There's always plenty of pushback everywhere, all the social media apps are full of critics and hate on anyone who does anything in the world mercilessly. I like coming here to see people admire other people who worked hard to create something that made society better, and not spend as much time criticizing every little wrong thing they did.
Are you declaring Steve Jobs a God? Did he create all the apps you're addicted to or a wonderful tool that lets you access almost all of humanities history, can connect you with loved ones across the world in real-time, play music, movies, it's a compass, a map, etc. You can use a hammer to create or kill, and you blame the blacksmith for the dead.
You use slave labor everyday, so you don't have much wiggle room to judge.
'Tech hero worship' is a gross misrepresentation of my comment and I'm not sure how you could draw that conclusion from a comment that used words like "asshole" and "vindictive" to describe Steve Jobs.
It's easy to be wrong about Jobs, because he was iconoclastic and idiosyncratic. And very very public.
And he did some personally, individually, shameful things. Especially in his 20s when he hadn't learned how to be an adult, much less a billionaire. And the latter protected him from needing to be the former for a while!
But if you believe for a second that Jobs would have tolerated Trump's wholesale ignorance and cruelty, you are making a huge mistake of understanding. That was never in Steve Jobs' personality -- in fact he was very outspoken about the excesses of power over people.
He was an anti-establishment Californian by birth, not a xenophobic RealAmerican™. These streams do not cross. If you do not understand the difference, you cannot possibly understand Steve Jobs.
This comment confuses me. You call Jobs idiosyncratic, but then try to backwards-justify his political stance with stereotypes about anti-establishment politics and Californian ideals. What makes you convinced that he'd resist neoreactionary politicking any better than Cook?
Jobs was fickle, I agree with you there. I just don't think that a fickle iconoclast would last more than two weeks fighting against Trump, especially if he was threatened with an FTC antitrust probe. The only difference with Cook is that he's not as coy, and recognized that there was no way for a monopoly like Apple to fight the fed and win. Trump can disembowel Apple's profit margins, and neither Cook nor Jobs nor Jesus of Nazarath could convince the shareholders that morality is worth more than $AAPL. 2016 Jobs would be retired by the board of directors before he even threatened to make a conscientious objection, reality distortion be damned.
I have no love for the sitting administration, but it is a fantasy to pretend that a FAANG business could resist federal coercion. Just because Apple enjoys a moral halo-effect does not mean they're better positioned than Microsoft or AWS to do the "right" thing. Apple's inability to prosecute NSO Group is a recurring example of how heavily the US can muzzle them.
Which claim? That Jobs was not a monster or pedophile? I'm on absolutely solid ground there.
Assuming you mean whether Jobs would intensely dislike Trump, then -- what can I say? You clearly don't know anything about the guy and that's fine. But if you doubt it, you're wrong.
We were far from personal confidantes, but I had several candid conversations with him over the decades. His personal politics were never in doubt, or far from the surface. He held a special revulsion for warmongering, dishonest, scapegoating, and authoritarian-leaning US candidates and administrations.
He was always at least a bit frustrated with US economic policy. He would abhor Trump for all of the above reasons and more.
I'd say that personality-wise, you probably don't know Jobs well enough to serve as a character witness. I'm not aware of any recorded interview where he explains how far he'd go to defend his business from unfair government treatment. He never saw a preview of the 2016 election or cast a ballot in the vote. He didn't live the interceding years leading up to the election, or form an opinion on the politics dominating the polls.
I think Jobs would have been blindsided by Trump just as much as we all were. On a personal level I can believe that he's offended just like Cook is. But neither Cook nor Jobs' conscience has really ever stopped them from making a profitable business decision that they can take credit for. Even if it means building a meaningless gold trophy or somesuch, to appease the ego in charge.
I agree that he'd have been blindsided like the rest of us. And I agree that he would have put Apple first. That was never a part of my point though.
Jobs had a very strong personality and very strong opinions. Also a good human moral compass, at least in his adulthood.
I admit that I am extrapolating from his thoughts on previous administrations, but I will confidently assert that there is no part of Jobs being that would approve of what's going on today. The man was not ThielMuskAndreesenEllisonEtc. (Someone might point out that he was friends with Larry, which is true, but he did not agree with Larry about some very important things. Jobs was capable of that kind of relationship.)
The degree of appeasement he would be performing on behalf of Apple is a fair subject to contemplate. Whether he'd be besties with Steven Miller and Jeffrey Epstein, is not a reasonable topic to speculate on. The answer is obvious to anyone who knew him at all.
Didn't he buy a bunch of houses in different states so he could be on more organ donor lists than any of us could? I am asking sincerely. Maybe it was a myth.
He would also drive cars without license plates. Despicable man.
He was able to do this by exploiting a loophole in California vehicle law at the time (under California Vehicle Code Section 4456). The rule allowed new vehicles up to six months from the date of sale or lease before permanent license plates were required to be displayed (temporary tags or paper registration might have been involved initially, but no plates needed for that grace period).
Jobs leased identical new Mercedes models every six months through an arrangement with a leasing company. Just before the six-month deadline hit, he would trade in the current car for a brand-new one of the same type. This kept his vehicle perpetually under the six-month threshold, so he never had to attach permanent plates.
The number of kids born in 2025 in Uzbekistan (population 38 million) is about the same as the number of kids born in 2025 in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia and Poland, *combined* (total population 131 million). The age of labour abundance IS OVER, we're witnessing its very last days in EE. Unemployment may remain due to terrible politics and economic mismanagement.
There's not going to be any point even having sweatshops or factories in this region soon. Why bother? If it's anything low or medium-skill and low or medium-capital intense, just open up shop in... Well, why not Uzbekistan? And if double-landlocked isn't your thing, there's dozens of other options.
>What I don't agree with, the underpayment of workers enabled by government "subsidies".
Wait a second, Isn't this just corporate welfare and goes against capitalism and supply/demand free market economics? Why should other people's taxes subsidize other people's businesses?
If your business is a net negative to the economy due to it only being able to survive on subsidies, then it has no right to exist.
We're not talking about subsidizing national security industries like semiconductor manufacturing, aerospace, renewables, pharma, we're talking about subsidizing someone's cafe/fast food business so they as a business owner can pocket the profits while paying their staff below market and having the taxpayer pick up the tab for the difference.
Or is this just a cloaked form of UBI to prevent mass unemployment?
are we? are we not also talking about enabling restaurants to exist in order to make our city livable?
i also don't see the issue with housing support. in vienna more than half of the population lives in subsidized housing. the current rate is that 2/3rds of any new built housing is subsidized.
and it apparently works out. instead of paying higher wages so that no one needs subsidies, everyone pays higher taxes to fund the subsidies. it's redistribution of income. yes, i guess you could consider it a cloaked form of UBI. i believe the key feature is that this model makes the whole economy around housing and income less volatile.
>are we not also talking about enabling restaurants to exist in order to make our city livable?
No! Why are privately owned restaurants part of a city's "livability", as if going out to eat food made by an underpaid slave wage class of migrant workers, is somehow a god given entitlement for the western person, and not something beholden to the same supply and demand market rules of any other business? Why should restaurants get special treatment so that their owners can buy another Porsche while they exploit cheap desperate foreign labor and the taxpayer subsidies? What about plumbers, hairdressers, landscapers, web-dev shops, yoga, why aren't those businesses part of a city's livability and entitled to subsidies?
And if you expect restaurants to be a public service for sake of livability, then they should also be state run and not for the profit of the restaurant owners.
> in vienna more than half of the population lives in subsidized housing.
What about the other half who pays for those getting the subsidies but don't get to live in subsidized housing? What's their opinion? I doubt they're happy they're paying market rate rent to a private landlord just so their neighbors can pay much less subsidized rent and beat them at wealth building.
It's always nice and easy when you're the one getting subsidies to justify how amazing subsidies are. I've never met a person complaining about receiving too many subsidies or asking themselves where the money from the subsidizes is coming from and if that's fair to others.
>it's redistribution of income.
Who would agree to this if they'd get to vote on it. I mean to have their income redistributed to others, not to have others income redistributed to them.
Forced income redistribution like in the case of Austria since you brought it up, just creates a vacuum where the most talented most hardworking people leave for greener pastures abroad to escape it, and you're left with a stagnant economy of average or below average people who don't see any point in hard work and will prefer to optimize for a life on getting the subsidies rather than funding them, so the government ends up with a bigger and bigger debt hole funding all this in exchange for votes.
See the Austrian guy who developed Openclaw then left because of the way Austria treats small business success and entrepreneurship.
Central planned income redistribution always leads to failure in the long run. This only worked in the post-WW2 Europe when there were a lot more people paying into the system than receiving, but not in today's world and economy.
Why are privately owned restaurants part of a city's "livability", as if going out to eat food made by an underpaid slave wage class of migrant workers, is somehow a god given entitlement for the western person
that's the point, it's not an entitlement, it's paid for by taxes. and it is what makes a city attractive. same goes for shopping streets (as opposed to shopping malls) etc.
they make the city desireable and livable. which in turn attracts business, which brings in tax money.
you have never been to vienna, i guess. it's the most livable city in the world it frequently comes out at the top of the most desirable city for expats.
support for entrepreneurship is indeed a problem, not just in austria, in all of europe, but those are two different issues. there is no reason why it could not be improved while continuing to subsidize housing. on the contrary. subsidized housing means that as an entrepreneur i don't have to pay premium salaries in order to hire people like eg. in san francisco.
steinberger got hired by OpenAI three months after he revealed his project. to argue he left because because of how austria treats entrepreneurs makes no sense. did he say that that is the reason? i'd like to know if that's really true.
Central planned income redistribution always leads to failure in the long run
vienna's housing policy is successful for a century now. and i expect it will continue to be successful.
>that's the point, it's not an entitlement, it's paid for by taxes.
You're whitewashing subsidies. And you refused to answer my question, why should restaurant owners have their businesses subsidized by taxpayer so they can get away with more profits? Why not other businesses too?
>they make the city desireable and livable. which in turn attracts business, which brings in tax money.
Which businesses move to a city because of restaurants and the "vibe"? Why does Amsterdam or Berlin have way more tech, startups and business than vienna if the city is more desirable?
Maybe businesses investments and restaurants are a completely different things.
>vienna's housing policy is successful for a century now. and i expect it will continue to be successful.
Only for those who benefit from it. But what about the rest on the rest?
Very similar to how religion and their associated belief systems are used to control others. I suppose one could consider capitalism a form of religion and "sacred values" that faces an almost autoimmune response when the belief system is challenged, as it also challenges the human's identity (in some cases).
Precisely. There are even strong arguments to support this take; they speak about a "free market" that simply never existed, an "invisible hand" that supposedly beneficial, the ridiculous belief that competition always improves outcomes, the equation of price with value, the (HN favourite) that profit proves virtue / merit, consumer choice = freedom, and so, so many other unfounded or partially true beliefs.
>But the industry and the jobs have shrunken a lot
And those people left jobless still have the right to vote. So you'll have to bribe them with welfare or invest in their upskilling, otherwise they'll turn to crime to survive and vote the most extremist parties to power that will undo all your environmentalism.
It also leaves you economically and militarily vulnerable to the countries you outsourced all your manufacturing too, as you can't fight back an invading army of mass produced consumer drones with just your remaining HR and software departments.
>I'd pick the clean air and water, and have people poisoned far away that I don't know and can ignore.
Until they mass migrate as refugees out of their polluted hlleholes you helped create, and move into your clean country straining your resources, making it your problem once again. Or, they tool up and economically or militarily crush you, turning your country into one of their colonies.
You(the West in thsi case) reap what you sow. There's no free lunch where you can have your cake and eat it too. In a highly globalized, highly mobile world, things tend to come back at you pretty quickly and the only ones safe from this are the ones who profited the most form this, the billionaires with private islands and doomsday bunkers.
Just to clarify: When it comes to myself, my post has been a provocative hypothetical scenario in which I would need to make that choice.
In the real world, decided to move to a part of the planet where this question doesn't even come up, due to society having different priorities and a different base definition of "quality of life".
>Just to clarify: When it comes to myself, my post has been a provocative hypothetical scenario in which I would need to make that choice.
I know, that's why I wasn't judging it as being your own perspective but the general business perspective of the west that lead to the current situation.
> due to society having different priorities and a different base definition of "quality of life".
>The EU and the US have an issue with CCP-subsidised tech giants
Except EU and US tech giants also get massive government subsidies making such accusations hypocritical. Silicon Valley has its roots in cold war defense funding.
What the US and EU don't like it that China has beaten them at their own game using their own rules, so now they need to move the goalposts on why we shouldn't buy Chinese RAM and protect western DRAM monopolies making amazing margins.
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