[extropy-chat] Futurist priorities was ex-tropical

[Brian Lee]

Avoid the "Microsoft tax" by not buying from shops that force windows down 
your throat. There are enough vendors who will sell a naked PC to 
accommodate the small portion of users who prefer this. Even dell offers red 
hat on some workstations (even though they "recommend Microsoft Windows XP 
Professional".

The PC market is an excellent example of a successful market. Linux shows 
what happens when MS starts flexing its monopoly to keep prices high and 
force uneeded software purchases.

Of cource markets are not always perfect. But they are usually best. I tend 
to favor self-regulating systems where it's in the individual nodes' selfish 
interests to be efficient.

I purposely left out metrics for "processing power", "best" etc as I don't 
think defining those is necessary for the spirit of this conversation.

BAL

>From: Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org>
>To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Futurist priorities was ex-tropical
>Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2004 16:18:40 +0100
>
>On Tue, Mar 02, 2004 at 09:34:35AM -0500, Brian Lee wrote:
>
> > Ahh, but isn't the "best" PC one that is only $500? The market gets you 
>the
>
>"Best" is useless without attaching a metric. By adding a Microsoft tax
>(something like $100) to hardware and removing my ability to purchase a
>system without an OS license I as a consumer can no longer vote with my 
>feet;
>that is, wallet. This is monopoly ramming things down our collective 
>throats
>to maximize revenue, nothing else.
>
>Markets don't have mechanisms to nuke monopolies, other than by the
>relatively weak mechanism of disruptive technologies introduced by small
>players (when the monopoly's become sluggish enough to not be able to
>identify and hostile-takeover these new players). There are some weak
>attempts by the state trying to regulate the monopolies, but I'm not
>very impressed with their firepower, so far. More $$$s buys more legal
>firepower, neither are people behind the scene nyms so they can be bribed 
>or
>threatened.
>
> > most processing power for the lowest dollar. It also makes the highest
>
>Computing is a holistic experience. "Most processing power" depends on a
>benchmark.
>
> > performing PCs as cheap as possible. A good example of a market is going 
>to
>
>I prefer total cost of ownership.
>
> > pricewatch.com or ibuyer.net. Low barriers to entry, full information.
>
>Allright, there is a "NO OS" as option on pricewatch. Interesting, you 
>won't
>get that in 99% of shops, and you'll get stonewalled when attemting to 
>return
>the shrinkwrap package for reimbursement.
>
> > A bunch of these cheap pcs are clustered together to beat out the huge
> > super computers at a fraction of the price. How would you propose 
>creating
>
>The architecture of the computer has to fit the problem. Commodity 
>components
>with custom signalling fabric have usually an edge by low price through 
>high
>volume and support from computational physics (maintaining illusion of 
>shared
>memory is expensive, and is just a glossy finish over message passing
>underneath -- send message "read/write location" to object "core").
>
> > the "best PC"? What is "best" anyway?
>
>Without defining that first, the question is meaningless.
>
>Ditto applies for blanket statements about markets: they're not "always 
>best"
>for everything. They optimize locally, very locally in fact. They favor
>emergence of monopolies, which does lower the optimization performance.
>There's a wild card of altruistic long-term-loss planners, but that's a
>human, not market-intrinsic property.
>
>The state is not your friend, neither is the corporation. If you're a 
>smart,
>rational consumer, and not mindless cattle sliding down the slaughterhouse
>chute, that is.
>
>-- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a>
>______________________________________________________________
>ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144            http://www.leitl.org
>8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
>http://moleculardevices.org         http://nanomachines.net
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