How to succeed or fail on a frontier

http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2006/10/how-to-succeed-or-fail-on-frontier.html?repost

by nkurz • 17 years ago

38 16 17 years ago

unenumerated.blogspot.com

smhinsey2• 17 years ago

This is remarkably interesting. I wish it'd been better titled so that I didn't keep skipping it.

jcapote• 17 years ago

You weren't kidding. Fascinating

nkurz• 17 years ago

Interesting. It was originally submitted by 'bokonist' accurately titled as "How tiny Portugual beat the Chinese Empire in the race to control the seas", but this got very few votes: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=482484

I resubmitted it with this title, which is the original title of the article, hoping that it would be called to the attention of a few more readers. Empirically, this title seems to have worked better.

What title would you suggest?

smhinsey2• 17 years ago

I'm not sure that I have any better suggestions, although the title of that original post was definitely clearer. It's too bad I didn't see that one.

tomsaffell• 17 years ago

If you enjoy this article, then I highly recommend Nathaniel's Nutmeg:

http://www.amazon.com/Nathaniels-Nutmeg-Incredible-Adventure...

biohacker42• 17 years ago

Good summary of Portuguese vs Chinese sea exploration.

Bad extrapolation into modern space exploration. Also, there's an artificial distinction between publicly funded space tech. and publicly funded military space tech.

Military spec tech. is funded from our taxes just like the shuttle is. And while it may serve as a deterrent, there also may be much cheaper ways to get the same peaceful results. Like for example changing foreign policy to be less interventionist.

I think it's important to remember that Columbus was funded by the Queen of Spain, so it wasn't all private efforts.

It's also important to remember the modern day trade restrictions on space tech and flight restrictions imposed due to military needs.

And that's what's common between us and ancient China, it's not the public funding, it's the public restrictions.

bokonist• 17 years ago

I think it's important to remember that Columbus was funded by the Queen of Spain, so it wasn't all private efforts.

The kingdoms and the city states of 15th century Europe were like competing family owned businesses (large property owning and managing businesses). The two keys for building a scalable success are competition and the profit motive. By definition, profitable means you get out more resources than you get in. Thus anything that is scalable must be profitable. The Chinese ran the missions for reasons of glory, so they did not concentrate on profit. As a result, the missions did not scale and were cut back when new rulers came to power. The same goes for NASA. But the monarchs of Europe were trying to make a profit so their exploration strategy was far different and far more cost effective.

boryas• 17 years ago

Also, there's no one to trade with or conquer on mars

ieatpaste• 17 years ago

Well, Mars exploration can be a potential commercial enterprise in real estate, travel, and natural resources (unsure on this one). Regardless, I think the point of the article was to point out there needs to be 1) focus on a tangible benefit/gain, and 2) be able to scale from small to big, similar to most startups.

randallsquared2• 17 years ago

There is unlikely to be anything worth bringing back from Mars, physically. I think Mars' biggest export to Earth, if it ever has any, will be entertainment or other information.

But I think humans-off-Earth will never be a large percentage of all people, even after/if people-off-Earth are an overwhelming majority. Meat isn't suited for space.

davidw• 17 years ago

An interesting side effect of all this Portuguese expansion was the accompanying decline of the Republic of Venice, which was the former big power in terms of trade.

The town where my wife is from south of Padova is actually fairly new in Italian terms (16/17th century). Why? Because it was originally mosquito-infested swamp land. It got cleared out when the Venetians turned 'inwards' to try and make better use of the land they had when their trade fortunes started to decline. Or so goes the story, at least...

defen• 17 years ago

I thought the Most Serene Republic declined because they got squeezed between the Ottoman Empire and Habsburg Dominions, both of whom were able to mobilize significantly larger armies and navies. The Habsburgs could do so because of New World silver, and the Ottomans could because they had the world's best bureaucracy, and trade with the East.

msie• 17 years ago

We proved that our socialists, if funded by taxing capitalists, could beat their socialists funded by socialists.

What a ridiculous statement!

randallsquared2• 17 years ago

If by "ridiculous" you mean "insightful". :) Seriously, the race to the moon was useless for accomplishing any of the things that we space nuts (though I wasn't born yet; no one has been to the moon in my lifetime) dreamed. It was a huge diversion from actual economic growth into pyramid building.

If done for a profit, going to the moon would be economic growth, but as it was, it was essentially a program to build a legacy for Kennedy and Johnson, at which it was immensely successful! After all, people associate those two with the space program more than with the Vietnam War, now, as far as I can tell.

stcredzero2• 17 years ago

Summary: Want to succeed on a frontier? Do it frugally, so it pays for itself! Best way to do it frugally? -- involve the free market as much as you can!

How to succeed or fail on a frontier

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