> ...but rather is a confluence of the state of the market at various points in time...
> That is, we do not merely calculate in earnest to what extent tradeoffs are necessary or desirable, keeping in mind our goals and values, there is a culture around making such compromises that actively discourages people from even considering more radical, principled approaches.
If you can suspend your frustration for a moment, it seems that you and the author are both arguing for explicit consideration of the tradeoffs faced in the real world. Both sides of the field have a tendency to reduce this consideration to easily evaluated heuristics (eg "useless ivory tower wankery").
I think the authors earlier posts on generous reading apply here. There is plenty here to disagree with but noone gains much from taking sides and fighting to the death. Rather than getting wound up we could be having a much more valuable discussion of how market forces shape technology and how we might find ways to support and apply long shot research.
EDIT From the discussion you mention:
> What might otherwise be an interesting, nuanced discussion of the economics of technology adoption, network effects, switching costs, etc, is instead replaced with sloganeering like 'Worse is Better'.
> There may well be times where fighting for revolutionary change or finding some adoption story for completely new tech is a better path forward than incremental improvements. Questions like this can not be settled at the level of ideology or sloganeering...
> That is, we do not merely calculate in earnest to what extent tradeoffs are necessary or desirable, keeping in mind our goals and values, there is a culture around making such compromises that actively discourages people from even considering more radical, principled approaches.
If you can suspend your frustration for a moment, it seems that you and the author are both arguing for explicit consideration of the tradeoffs faced in the real world. Both sides of the field have a tendency to reduce this consideration to easily evaluated heuristics (eg "useless ivory tower wankery").
I think the authors earlier posts on generous reading apply here. There is plenty here to disagree with but noone gains much from taking sides and fighting to the death. Rather than getting wound up we could be having a much more valuable discussion of how market forces shape technology and how we might find ways to support and apply long shot research.
EDIT From the discussion you mention:
> What might otherwise be an interesting, nuanced discussion of the economics of technology adoption, network effects, switching costs, etc, is instead replaced with sloganeering like 'Worse is Better'.
> There may well be times where fighting for revolutionary change or finding some adoption story for completely new tech is a better path forward than incremental improvements. Questions like this can not be settled at the level of ideology or sloganeering...