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Note that Civ and other strategy games in the same ilk got it wrong.
Science/Research is not something you "bank". Science is something you invest in, and continue to invest in. Stop the investment and "Science" regresses.
For those who haven't played the Civilization games, the idea is that you run a civilization and compete with other civilizations. They typically are city-oriented (a key step in expanding power of the civilization is building more cities), and they invariably bank science. That is, if I'm researching writing and decide for some reason to switch over to research other technologies for a while, I can pick up where I left off on writing - even if it is a thousand years later!
This is part of a larger problem, namely that civilization is seen as a strictly progressive affair - anything you do aside from losing wars moves the civilization forward. Sure, if you start next to Alexander the Great or nuclear Gandhi (or worst of all a human player!), you have plenty of opportunity to experience civilization setbacks as the aggressive neighbor makes war on you. But you can slack off on science, infrastructure maintenance, etc and pick it up later.
In the real world, there's plenty of failure modes other than losing wars. Conversely, a number of real world civilizations have lost a bunch of wars yet still were able to keep relevant.
Over the past couple of weeks, I've been watching a podcast series called "Fall of Civilizations". Production values do leave something to be desired (such as showing a trash fire in an unnamed Middle East neighborhood when discussing someone burning something in a war or rebellion or reusing stock images in multiple episodes), but it's an interesting angle on history. The author starts with a discussion of the significant ruins that the civilization left behind, often from the point of view of historical figures who discovered it first, what the civilization actually did that made it notable, and finally, what led to the fall and its aftermath - including from the point of view of the people caught up in the fall. Last I checked he's up to 16 episodes.
What's interesting is how few of these disasters have a single, clearly identifiable cause (sometimes they just don't know why at all). Usually it's multiple factors with considerable uncertainty as to the relative significance of the factors. Again, this isn't something captured in historical games like Civilization. For example, what combination of factors caused the collapse of the Assyrian empire (Episode 13)? Did it fall due to the fact nobody liked them and finally unified enough, climate change transition from the best rainfall in the region to something of a megadrought, vast overextension of the empire (key parts of the army couldn't return in time to the core Assyrian region to save it), or an effect nobody has considered yet (maybe some sort of heavy metal poisoning explains their wacky leaders)?
A key problem for many of these civilizations was that they either stopped banking something (the collapse of the trade networks and disappearance of multiple languages of the late Bronze Age cultures of the eastern Mediterranean which at least partially was due to not diversifying critical resource needs like bronze and food and very low literacy) or they had some hidden deficit in their civilization that grew over time (such as the decline of Sumeria due to widespread salinization of irrigated farmland which when the region was hit with a drier climate turned the area from a great net food producer to mass starvation).
That leads to my observation - that just because a society or civilization has something now, not just nuclear engineering know-how and experience, doesn't mean it can keep it. Too often strengths of civilizations are taken for granted and just assumed that they will continue no matter how much we or the environment impair them. Well, there are a bunch of dead civilizations that indicate otherwise. You or nature can break something to the point that your civilization no longer exists in a recognizable form.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19, @07:50PM (8 children)
I get it, you idolize Bernie Marcus and accept everything he says as gospel truth.
Bernie Marcus is 93 years old. He retired in 2002. He has said most of his wealth is in Home Depot stock. When Home Depot shareholders get paid through dividends, and when stock prices go up because of stock buybacks, that increases Bernie Marcus' wealth.
Bernie Marcus isn't working to increase Home Depot's wealth. He's been retired for 21 years. His wealth increases when Home Depot employees work hard so Home Depot's profits increase.
The quote that you keep repeating actually makes Bernie Marcus look really bad. He has an incredible amount of contempt for the people whose work is growing his wealth. That quote expresses an incredible lack of gratitude. Home Depot employees are working hard to make Bernie Marcus wealthy while he impugns their character.
This isn't about socialism. It's about employees working harder, adding more value to the company, increasing profits, and then asking why they don't share in the success when the company's profits grow. People aren't wanting something for free. They want to be justly compensated for their hard work. If the company asks more of their employees, they should pay those employees more. It's basic fairness. Unfortunately, Bernie Marcus doesn't seem to understand that basic fairness. The problem isn't that shareholders like Bernie Marcus become wealthier when the company does well. The problem is that the employees don't also become wealthier when their hard work makes the company more profitable, and that people like Bernie Marcus then call them lazy when they ask why they don't get to share in the success they created.
At a minimum, Bernie Marcus could show some gratitude for the people whose hard work makes him wealthy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19, @09:37PM (7 children)
Bernie! The evil bastard! How dare he live to 93! How dare he expect employees to rise through the ranks in order to be worth more money!
The way you "big-tech" guys can lay off staff by the thousands without a blink of morals, it's obvious you have no idea about efficient and ethical operation within a competitive and productive environment. You guys really haven't moved beyond embrace-extend-extinguish, and sucking on the teats of all those locked-in customers.
Moral outrage! You in superfluous moribund-middle-management are next. Be sure to fill your pockets from the "free" croissant/latte cart, on your way out the door.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19, @09:48PM (2 children)
Bernie Marcus didn't say that employees should earn their pay by working hard and working their way up the ladder. No, he broadly characterized employees as woke and lazy. There's a big difference.
If you want to accurately represent what I said and what Bernie Marcus said, we can continue this discussion. However, if you're going to post low quality comments like what I'm replying to right now, there's no point in me saying anything more to you.
Do you want to have an intelligent conversation, or do you want to keep trolling? It's your choice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19, @10:19PM (1 child)
> There's a big difference.
Yeah, he assumed that people would show initiative... a concept antithetical to the lazy, fat and stupid. Turn-over is a way of life in business... it's the way in life, too. It's a jungle out here.
So it goes like it goes... And the river flows
And time... It rolls right on
And maybe what's good gets a little bit better
And maybe what's bad gets gone
- Jennifer Warnes
As big tech says: don't let the door hit you on the way out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 20, @07:23AM
Home Despot is going to go away. Sam's Club will be broken. Lowes, and Costco will beat them into the fucking capitalistic ground. Watch. Should be informative. Only way out for khallow is the Rand Paul solution: get a full time government gig from which to denounce socialism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 22, @09:54AM (3 children)
Wasn't there a movie about a weekend khallow spent at Bernie's beach house?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 22, @08:15PM
Nah, you're thinking of the Schwartz's Island [imdb.com] episode of Get Smart. Bernie played Siegfried.
Starker! This is KAOS! We don't putt-putt-putt-putt
- Siegfried
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 23, @03:37PM (1 child)
Bernie Marcus or Bernie Madoff?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 23, @06:56PM
Neither [google.com].