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Five Men Convicted of Operating Massive, Illegal Streaming Service That Allegedly Had More Content Than Netflix, Hulu, Vudu and Prime Video Combined (variety.com)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/technology

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[–] aidan 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The service they provide (from a perspective external to obligatory capitalism) is less about making them, but providing a framework by which people engaged in artistic expression and development get paid and permitted to survive.

If it is art that other people value then that framework already existed(and there are many others who created similar tools for it) so I don't see it as particularly valuable.

Contrast the space program, which is why memory foam (the material) is in the public domain, as is a fuckton of electronics and computer technologies.

There is a compelling argument that tens of billions of dollars being used productively to research anything would have at least some useful results. Memory foam, cordless drills, etc could have been developed much more cheaply than the Apollo program, GPS is extremely valuable, but Apollo wasn't a necessary precursor to geostationary orbit.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

If it is art that other people value then that framework already existed

From Wikipedia on Vincent Van Gogh: Van Gogh's work began to attract critical artistic attention in the last year of his life. After his death, Van Gogh's art and life story captured public imagination as an emblem of misunderstood genius

The art we get from pre-made frameworks emerged because people figured out they like art, and then someone capitalized on that. Or in cases of monarchs and governments, they created a fund to allow artists to do their thing instead of waiting tables.

There is a compelling argument that tens of billions of dollars being used productively to research anything would have at least some useful results.

For every $1 spent on the moonshots, we got $14. Feel free to look for other investments, but big science really has proven itself.

[–] aidan 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

From Wikipedia on Vincent Van Gogh: Van Gogh’s work began to attract critical artistic attention in the last year of his life. After his death, Van Gogh’s art and life story captured public imagination as an emblem of misunderstood genius

I don't really understand how this follows from what I said.

For every $1 spent on the moonshots, we got $14. Feel free to look for other investments, but big science really has proven itself.

Do you have a source for that? (And what that claim actually means), afterall, plenty of "essential" inventions in the modern day(including the base of modern rocketry) came from weapons development- does that make war a good investment? (Of course its not 1-to-1 because war is destructive, but my point is putting a lot of effort and smart people into almost anything will lead to a lot of innovation)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

I don’t really understand how [The bit on Van Gogh -- that he was only posthumously appreciated in the art sector] follows from what I said.

My following paragraph is about that. Art often happens before the framework made to create it. In fact, when we have set up studio, they're already doing knock-offs, trying to repeat prior successes.

For every $1 spent on the moonshots, we got $14

Do you have a source for that?

This came up during a TED talk on the benefits of investing in big science. On an unrelated research effort, I found the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 which Eisenhower signed during his freak out over Sputnik, and the big grant to Fairchild Superconductor which kicked off the electronics boom in Silicon Valley (~San Jose, California), so the $14 value is certainly plausible.