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0 pointscalibraxis10y ago0 comments

Don’t know if this applies to your post, but I got a lot more out of Alan Kay talks when I stopped trying to look for profundity, and assumed he's mostly talking about how we're being morons.

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wodenokoto10y ago

I think that too is wrong way of looking at it.

What he basically says is, you need an organizational framework that works 10 years at a time in order to get a result in 7 years. The people working in this framework, needs 5 years windows and you need to hire absolute geniuses and have the trust that they'll do the right thing.

If you do that, you will get long term, world changing inventions relatively cheap.

I don't think anyone is being a moron for utilizing a staff of less than stellar geniuses to get work done in a time frame less than 7-10 years.

calibraxisOP10y ago

I believe there's a lot of evidence we're collectively morons. Consider how close we are to a transformed world. Hunger, wage slavery, environmental destruction, etc could be a thing of the past if enough of us decided right now to be serious... countering absurd ways of thinking.

Are people really afraid of death? Then we should invite people to organize to solve that. Support each other regardless of gender or other insignificant differences, to accomplish such goals; any menial work can be shared equally. What huge percentage of humanity would go for that?

But currently we organize ourselves in moronic ways. Alan Kay's vision seems actually quite narrow and corporate-friendly; many go further in seeking to liberate imagination. http://thebaffler.com/blog/david-graeber-defiantly-having-fu...

TheOtherHobbes10y ago

The moronism comes from a corporate culture that prioritises short-term gain over the invention of ultra-profitable long-term game-changers.

How many of the advances in computing have been inspired by MBAs demanding quarterly growth?

We have no formal tools for valuing our collective future.

Incubators and accelerators come closest, but the emphasis is still on believable prospects for profitability - hence investing in the team, instead of good ideas - and not on open research.

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mpweiher10y ago

I'd say the profundity is in how we're being morons...and how we could stop if we wanted to do so. Alas, those insights aren't easy to apply.

nly10y ago

I think the problem is he uses so much similie and metaphor that you have to work to follow him, and come to expect some kind of philosophical insight as a reward. He goes a long way around the merrygoround to get to the point, and in the end never really suggests anything practical we can do today.

kragen10y ago

http://vpri.org/html/writings.php has some suggestions of practical things we can do today.

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