Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Actual left/right wing discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (8653)	11/25/2010 4:25:05 AM
From: dybdahl	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10087

"When I say that the value of that information is larger than the total costs of WW2, it means, of course, that another war of larger scale has been avoided. - A delayed WII would still be WWII." It is not about delaying the war, it is about the outcome. The value of the information that the allied won, might not have been present if USA had not joined, but the second world war would have been very real in Europe. There might have been even more casualties in Russia, and the next war would have been WW3. In WW1, Germany got a peace treaty without having enemies invade and destroy their country. Some generals opposed strongly to this, because, to the ordinary Germans, WW1 would not be seen as a total disaster that should never be repeated. WW2 did not repeat that mistake, Germany was run over by tanks from east and west, and all Germans got the message well. It was realized, that preserving physical value in Germany and not produce information would be much more destructive than producing the right information and destroying physical value. In other words, WW1 did not produce the right kind of information, which meant that a second world war was made possible. WW2 did produce the right kind of information, and this information is worth so much, it is overwhelming. When Lena from Germany won the Eurovision Song Contest in year 2010, the Germans realized, for the first time, that the other countries in Europe now like them. The headlines in the newspaper was not "We won" or "Lena won in Oslo". It was "They like us!". The information that was produced by WW2 is deeply rooted in Germany today, 55 years later, and has brought so much good to the world, you wouldn't know. I grew up in West Germany, having experienced the hate towards Germans myself because people thought that I was German, too, and seeing Lena win the Eurovision Song Contest in Oslo, was the end of World War 2 to me. R.I.P. WW2, 1939-2010. It was as strong as the breaking of the Berlin wall. "However, the world is really bad at doing economic calculations on information " Example: Most newspapers were unable to sell subscriptions to consumers when they moved online, because consumers did not want to pay for information they could get for free elsewhere. The consumer usually doesn't do the math about the value of information. Similarly, if the consumer has a choice between a $1 newspaper and a $1.2 newspaper, the consumer may buy the $1 newspaper because of the price, without doing a cost/benefit. What is worse, companies have similar problems, even governments do. We're just not good at it, it is very difficult. "so that's why we still buy physical products in cases where it is totally nonsense. - Why do you think its nonsense?" A good example would be ergonomic equipment for using a mouse with a PC - in most cases, the money would be spent much better at buying the right advice on how to use the mouse, how to sit etc. - for almost no money, you would usually get advice that will solve the problem for you perfectly for the rest of your life. However, by buying a gel-filled arm support or similar stuff, you do something that probably doesn't solve the problem, it may actually worsen it, but since it is much easier to sell physical products than information, that's what most people do.