Netizen: internet

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Friday, November 08, 2019

Bill Gates, Elizabeth Warren, And Andrew Yang

Bill Gates is in news saying something like, I have already paid $10 billion in taxes, "more than anyone else," and you can have 10 billion more if you want, but if you want all of the 100 billion, I got a problem with that.

Now the media being what it is (they want a fight!) all sorts of brand name media outlets (this is not yellow, tabloid journalism, this is mainstream media, the kind that informs heads of state early in the morning) are saying Bill Gates prefers Donald Trump over Elizabeth Warren. After all, he is just another rich guy.

First off, Warren has never proposed taking all of Bill Gates' money. Her 2% wealth tax means Bill Gates would pay two billion, which is less than the 10 billion he has already offered to pay.

Second, someone who might be super smart in one niche might or might not be equally informed in another niche, or in the same niche in another era. We think Tesla was so smart, Elon Musk has named his most famous company after him, and Musk is today, and Tesla was indeed smart. But Tesla never bought into whatever Einstein was proposing. Tesla was a pre-relativity kind of guy.

Bill Gates is a PC-era guy. No tech entrepreneur who starts in 2020 can not buy into the idea of a Universal Basic Income (which I have never defined as American Basic Income). UBI is to the fourth industrial revolution what electricity was to the second and what the internet has been to the third. It is basic. It is infrastructure.

In all fairness, I did not hear Bill Gates say anything about UBI. I'd be very surprised if he was opposed to it. But if he is saying, you have already taken 10 billion from me, take 10 billion more, but don't take away the entire 100 billion, because I have a foundation to run.

Only the mainstream media can interpret that as an attack on Elizabeth Warren, or the idea of UBI. I can't.

I actually subscribe to Bill Gates' newsletter. So he has a tendency to show up in my inbox. He is a smart interesting guy doing good work, although it is my firm conviction 100 Gates Foundations will not be able to solve the problems of the world, what we need is a world government.

Bill Gates, Elizabeth Warren, And Andrew Yang https://t.co/emjXtgTwCV @BillGates @ewarren @SenWarren @AndrewYang @AOC @reshmasaujani @iam_preethi @deepikapadukone @priyankagandhi @priyankachopra @IlhanMN @RashidaTlaib @RepPressley @sunrisemvmt @VarshPrakash #UBI
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) November 8, 2019

Hillary Clinton called the wealth taxes proposed by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren "unworkable" and said they would be "incredibly disruptive" if enforced. pic.twitter.com/BOJPZJokSX
— Justice Democrats (@justicedems) November 8, 2019

This whole “let’s all dunk on Bill Gates” thing is infuriating. Yep, dude is mega rich. But he’s also one if the greatest philanthropists the world has ever seen.

Dollar for dollar I’d wager his philanthropic investments are dramatically more efficient in their return vs. gov. https://t.co/efyBJWkkzO
— Matt Galligan (@mg) November 8, 2019

Thursday, July 18, 2019

The Blockchain: The Unavoidable Governance Issues

Africa Is The Next China, And The Blockchain Is How
Blockchain PDFs
A Powerful Interview Of Ray Youssef, Paxful Founder CEO
The Blockchain Rumble
The Blockchain In The News
Paxful: Buy Bitcoins Instantly
Facebook's Blockchain Push: Libra

30-30-30-10: A More Thoughtful And Egalitarian Formula For Equity Distribution In Tech Startups For The Age Of Abundance
The Blockchain: Fundamental Like The Internet
The Blockchain Rumble
The Character Called The Tech Entrepreneur

In the Blockchain realm, it is the wild west right now. Most people mistake the Bitcoin for the Blockchain. And the public sentiment around the Blockchain seems to go up and down with the dollar value of the Bitcoin on any particular day. The Bitcoin is one application that sits on top of the Blockchain. It is the most famous cryptocurrency, but it is only one of several. And the Blockchain is not just about cryptocurrencies.

The promise is that on the Blockchain you will be able to send around money as easily as you can send text and photos over the Internet. That changes things. Ask the newspapers that were around in 1992. The financial institutions of today are like the newspapers of 1992. When the likes of Bernie Sanders rant and rave, they do so about these banks. They are said to have much power. Many people claim these banks are the tail that wags the Washington DC dog. But IBM was also powerful when Apple showed up. The Blockchain is inevitable. As inevitable as the Internet itself.

It can be argued, people will vote with their money. If they don't trust you, they will not move their money. It is in the nature of innovation that it asks for much freedom. Politicians made the wise decision of not taxing e-commerce for a really long time.

But that Internet would not have been possible if common standards had not been agreed upon. Governance issues are bound to crop up also with the Blockchain.

There are voices in DC saying if Bitcoin companies want to act like banks, they should register like banks. Fair enough. Except that the speed limits that worked for horse carriages were never going to work for motor cars.

You are not only going to move money over the Blockchain. You are also going to offer financial services. This is not just about Internet and Blockchain protocol. This is about ground rules about fundamental financial services.

Since ID is even more fundamental than finance, soon sovereignty issues will crop up. What will it mean for a company incorporated in the United States to have a large database of the identity of most citizens in a country like Rwanda or Kenya when their own governments don't have it? These questions can not be avoided.

I propose the creation of a B100, or Blockchain 100, a coming together of the top 100 Blockchain companies by market cap that meet annually along the lines of the G20, and hash out the governance issues to do with the Blockchain. These same companies will compete with each other in the marketplace. But on governance issues, they have to cooperate.

Think about it. When money can move instantly and for free from anywhere to anywhere else in the world, what does it even mean to have money? What does it mean to be a central bank? The Blockchain necessarily asks for a new governance structure for the world. This is way bigger than Bretton Woods and World War II.

Inequality And Climate Change Are Existential: A Blueprint For Survival
Towards A World Government
AOC 2028

The Blockchain: The Unavoidable Governance Issues https://t.co/sPGlYgrkgw @raypaxful @paxful @skyzer4ever
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) July 18, 2019

Tuesday, November 07, 2017

Asteroid Belt And Earth On The Way To Mars

Spending a year in weightless space is a nightmare for the human body. But the push for Mars might have benefits closer to home. And robotic travel will harvest the asteroid belt. A few hundred years ago spices were scarce and literally gold. The asteroid belt could turn gold into a commodity.

Elon Musk’s New Plan: Travel from New Delhi to Tokyo in 30 Minutes https://t.co/KG8GeNq1vE
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) November 7, 2017

Delhi to Tokyo in 30 minutes, says Elon Musk. That translates to anywhere to anywhere on earth in 30 minutes. That is more alluring for human tourism (and commerce) than zooming vertically to the boundaries of from where all you see is pitch black before you come back.

Blue Origin's Breakthrough Means SpaceX Finally Has a Competitor https://t.co/tNLtYbkBd7 via @Futurism
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) November 7, 2017

But if you move information well enough, fast enough, in large enough quantities, securely enough, and from every point to every other point on earth, human beings perhaps can get by on less travel in the first place. The vision of 4,000 satellites carrying the bulk of internet traffic is sound. And it beats going to Mars. Such a spacenet would be indispensable for the Internet Of Things with its hundreds of billions of sensors, its top use being to keep the earthly ecosystem at its optimum best. Human safety and security would be a whole new paradigm.

SpaceX to kick off 4,425-strong satellite constellation launch in 2019 https://t.co/2PSHUqRViu
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) November 7, 2017

SpaceX aims to bring super-fast satellite internet to Earth in 2019 https://t.co/SGLDBLidzE via @MailOnline
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) November 7, 2017

Elon Musk Wants to Begin Launching SpaceX's 4,000 Internet Satellites in 2019 https://t.co/LyxpW9IOoF via @FortuneMagazine
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) November 7, 2017

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Productivity And Political Innovation Going Hand In Hand

English: The Communist States (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A lot of Silicon Valley types, when they talk about massive increases in productivity they see before their eyes coming in the near future, forget to realize that there will have to be accompanying political, social and policy innovation. There has to be. Imagine every part of your body grew, but not your thumb. Your thumb got stuck at age one. That won't be pretty.

If we could grow 100 times as much food, maybe it will make sense to give everyone food stamps. Everyone who wants them can have them. Why not? We can already give everyone free internet access. Nanotechnology should do the same to housing. It should become super cheap to build houses. You could be buying houses like you buy computers today. It is not a 30 year plan. It is one simple transaction.

Maybe we will end up communist. Like China, a communist country, has ended up being uber capitalist, or "socialism with Chinese characteristics." To each according to his/her need, at least for the basics of life, like internet access, food and shelter. Even a minimum basic income. If your accessing the internet is making people money, maybe you should get a cut. You should definitely get a cut for your personal contribution to Big Data. We as people are more indispensable to the Internet than computers and routers. The Internet is dead without us.

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Not Mars

I don't feel any imminent danger that unless Homo Sapiens also colonize Mars, it is too great a risk. As of now, I don't believe in Singularity either. But I do see a lot of great things happening along the way. Like, truly, amazing, world changing great things. Man on the moon mission also gave people appliances.

But I see great promise in Elon Musk sending 4,000 satellites into low orbit to beam Internet to every corner on earth. And I see great promise in the Asteroid Belt. That is where he has to go to become a trillionaire.

Indians could use a little more gold.

Mars? I am way more excited about the earth's surface.

Monday, July 13, 2015

Outsourcing: I Hate The Term

If everybody (no pun intended) goes online to work, what difference does it make as to where their body is!

Saturday, May 23, 2015

The Laundry List From The Future

A $1,000 Brain
A Trillion Sensor Economy ("the Internet Of Things will create $19 trillion of newly created value")
Perfect Knowledge
8 Billion Hyper Connected People ("We will grow from three to eight billion connected humans, adding five billion new consumers into the global economy. They represent tens of trillions of new dollars flowing into the global economy.")
Disruption of Health Care ("$3.8 trillion healthcare industry with new business models that dematerialize, demonetize and democratize today's bureaucratic and inefficient system.....Robotic surgeons can carry out an autonomous surgical procedure perfectly (every time) for pennies on the dollar. Each of us will be able to regrow a heart, liver, lung or kidney when we need it, instead of waiting for the donor to die.")
Augmented and Virtual Reality ("a new generation of displays and user interfaces....a massive disruption in a number of industries ranging from consumer retail, to real estate, education, travel, entertainment, and the fundamental ways we operate as humans.")
Early Days Of JARVIS ("next-generation AI systems. In a decade, it will be normal for you to give your AI access to listen to all of your conversations, read your emails and scan your biometric data because the upside and convenience will be so immense.")
Blockchain

Monday, January 19, 2015

Google Wave, Google Glass, Bitcoin, And Dot Com, Not Kim DotCom

This is an icon for social networking website. This is part of Open Icon Library's webpage icon package. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I remember being very excited about Google Wave, and it petered out. Google Glass I was not excited about. I mean, I wanted it, but on other people's noses. I just want a smartphone with three times more battery juice. Make that five. Bitcoin seems to be having a hard time. But I will not compare it to Google Wave, certainly not to Google Glass.

It is like the Internet went out of fashion in the late 1990s. But it came roaring back a few years later. I think the current slump in the Bitcoin concept is like that. And I hope the slump is not that deep, and it does not last as long. I hope people steer out of the slump fast. Because the basic concept is nothing short of revolutionary. It is sound.

Price Slump Tests Bitcoin’s Self-Correcting Economics

A Bitcoin is currently worth just over $200, down about one-third from where it began January. It peaked at more than $1,000 late in 2013. ..... Andresen says he wouldn’t be concerned even if half of miners suddenly gave up. “The result would just be one month where the average transaction took 20 minutes to confirm instead of 10 minutes,” he says. “For Bitcoin users that would be a minor nuisance not a major disaster.” ...... “The system is self-tuning and self-optimizing

Sunday, December 21, 2014

Marissa Mayer: Going Down?

Marissa Mayer (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I just came across this article in the New York Times. Just a few days back I read another article like it. What do I have to say?

The media builds you up, then the media breaks you down. That is their bread and butter. But the questions I am asking are:

(1) Is/was Yahoo ever salvageable? Did it ever have a chance to become a Google/Facebook/Amazon/Apple again? Or had it descended permanently to an AOL status?

(2) Is two years enough time? Maybe it is. I don't know.

(3) Marissa never was Steve Jobs. She has no track record of having invented an entire industry in her early 20s. So this never was like a second coming of Steve Jobs. But I did think then and do think now she was Yahoo's best hope. Blaming Marissa now would be like blaming Barack Obama in 2010 for the sorry shape of the US economy. Although, let me make it clear, I do not think Marissa Mayer is Barack Obama.

(4) And all along I am looking at Jerry Yang's master stroke of having invested a billion dollars in Jack Ma. That move was as brilliant as the founding of Yahoo itself. Are more such moves possible? I would like to believe so.

What Happened When Marissa Mayer Tried to Be Steve Jobs