[walleeee]

I don't think building a business is zero-sum in principle. Your point about a farmer creating value is well taken. Our present measures of economic value are notoriously short-sighted though (i.e., willing to ignore hard-to-quantify externalities); did the green revolution create value? It vastly improved yield, but if we don't make serious changes in the next 50 years, it will destroy the viability of agriculture. Value creation is rarely unambiguous.

I would also argue that many VC-backed startups are more about finding unexploited niches or catabolizing existing sectors of the economy than creating new material wealth.

[Hongwei]

I agree with you that current market incentives do not capture externalities like environmental harm. (eg. soil erosion, in the case of a farmer who doesn't rest his fields)

I hope to convince you to hate the game, not the players. So that we can focus our efforts at the root cause. And to take a measured approach: it's not all bad. I'd rather have our current quality of life (in Canada) than to live in a pre-industrial world in the longhouses of the Aboriginal Peoples who used to live where I do. It seems romantic, but I'm sure I'd be a terrible hunter. I choose to believe that human progress will continue to solve the problems we face, in time. Because historically we always have. Let's root for more Elon Musks instead of hating on the average capitalist.

[walleeee]

Where have I implied I hate the players? I certainly don't, nor do I think everything is terrible. I'm sorry it came off as such.

> I choose to believe that human progress will continue to solve the problems we face, in time. Because historically we always have.

This is where we disagree, I think. I don't see good evidence for this. I hope I'm wrong and you're right.

[Hongwei]

I hope so too :) And fair enough, thanks for the the kind discussion, I didn't mean to put words in your mouth.

[walleeee]

Likewise! No problem, friend