HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

Secret history of silicon valley: https://youtu.be/hFSPHfZQpIQ

Frederick Terman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Terman

There's an excellent video on him around, I'll see if I can't turn that up. Here: "The Secret History of Silicon Valley", tech talk at Google: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hFSPHfZQpIQ

Briefly:

UC Berkely and Stanford, each of which had (and have) excellent engineering deparments. Other colleges, universities, junior colleges, and public schools were from the 1950s through 1970s excellent. Most have been faltering since the 1980s.

Moffet Airfield. Already established by WWI and home to airship activity.

World War II. An immense industrial capacity built up, many defense industries, and a nascent technology cluster.

Amazing weather. There's little else in the US, or anywhere in the world, which can compete.

(For all the specific local boosters out there: I didn't say no places, I said "little else".)

Cheap housing. Up through the 1970s, California had ample room to grow, and things didn't start getting particularly nuts until the 1980s and 1990s. Since 1995, it's simply been insane.

Freeways. For a time it was possible to get around. That's no longer particularly the case. BART helps. Caltrain doesn't hurt too much. Both are entirely inadequate.

The ability to work from anywhere is only about 10 years old. The need for tech industry is closer to 50-60 years old, and local efficiencies, economies of scale, job-mobility, etc., all happen and matter.

Great talk about Silicon Valley history: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFSPHfZQpIQ

I watched this talk a long time ago, but I just noticed the name is Steve Blank, the "customer development" guy, and I have one of his books. That's pretty cool.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Blank

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're not condoning their actions, but in case you need a more clear example of where this paradigm breaks down:

IBM & Nazi Germany, Nazi Germany in general, etc. Ironically, sillicon valley came into existence building military SIGINT/ELINT systems for the cold war.[0]

[0] www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFSPHfZQpIQ

⬐ shirro

I think there is a developing consensus that the emerging US police state (and that of its allies) aren't appropriate for constitutional democracies. Comparing them to Nazi experiments or nuclear weapons is still a bit premature. The potential is there for it to turn really ugly which is why the time for political action is now. But national security is important and worthwhile within constitutional limits and under democratic oversight and I suspect a scaled back NSA would be no more evil or less interesting than Bletchley Park or the development of Radar.

⬐ aroman

Totally agree with everything you've said. I wasn't trying to equate helping the NSA build spy tools with building equipment for the Nazis -- just how doing so can be a slippery slope because it scales to such awful things as well.

I guess I felt the need to comment because it sounded like you were saying, "Hey, I get why they're doing it. Sounds like it'd be fun!", and I feel like having that attitude (even if I trust someone like you to know to stop before things get truly out of control) is dangerous.

Steve Blank gave a very interesting Google tech talk about it, back in 1997:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFSPHfZQpIQ

I really don't understand the over fixation on Silicon Valley.

There's a lot of history behind it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFSPHfZQpIQ

It's fairly traditional for American individuals/corporations that benefit from government assistance to fight against the same when it applies to others e.g. "deregulation" is usually just re-regulation that favors the incumbents.

In this case he's also rewriting the history of Silicon Valley to not be an offshoot of the tax funded military:

The Secret History of Silicon Valley http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFSPHfZQpIQ

Steve Blank on the Secret History of Silicon Valley: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFSPHfZQpIQ

History of electronic warfare -- very surprising, recently declassified stuff. Plus the history of Silicon Valley itself, from a pro-valley perspective.

"Military service holds a vaulted position in Israeli’s entrepreneurial culture. Many start up founders attribute their success to those post-adolescent years spent following orders and memorizing technical manuals in specialized army units."

Unfortunately this only seems to work in Israel. From a Scandinavian perspective, and personal experience in the Finnish Defence Forces, our conscription and entrepreneurship seem to have nothing to do with each other. Our service does provide connections, but they don't readily turn into businesses. Perhaps because there is nothing like the current threats around Israel. Thus there is less procurement etc.

Finland's and Israel's aerospace/weapons industries have surprisingly much common history. We had the leg up after WW2 until about 80's. Tampella (mostly known for grenade launchers) and other Finnish manufacturers provided quite many designs (for example Israel's Galil rifle was based on a design licensed from Finland) and consulted in the development of Israel's armament industry. Nowadays the tables have turned - Finland buys a lot of defense materiel from Israel.

Scandinavian countries already have quite selective conscription. International op requirements and cutbacks seem to be leading to rapid professionalization (very apparent in Sweden). Soon Finland could be the only N. European country with mandatory conscription, since it's the only non-Nato country which borders Russia.

Military & entrepreneurship: Very interesting pair. Remember Steve Blank's Secret History of Silicon Valley? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFSPHfZQpIQ

I just watched his entire presentation, which was better than his blog posts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFSPHfZQpIQ&feature=relat...

absolutely brilliant and a must see. Steve's blog is great, but he also has a good presentation style thick with interesting content.

⬐ vl

I've seen this presentation irl (not at Google).

The most fascinating part for me is the progress of radar equipment in just few war years. It's unfortunate that necessity is the hardest driver of innovation, one can only dream what would be achieved if this level of innovation would be sustainable.

⬐ grellas

Long but fascinating presentation made by Steve Blank at Google Tech Talks in December, 2007. I was a history major as an undergraduate and wanted to be a professor of history. This presentation reminds me why - history can be presented in methodical and detailed fashion but it need not be boring if the person presenting it has a lively sense of the human drama associated with any given era, as Mr. Blank very evidently does.

His particular topic here: the military history of Silicon Valley, by which he opens up a hugely important era in the Valley's history that we scarcely consider today, to wit, the technology developed in and around WWII.

Well worth listening to, even in snippet for those who lack the time to sit through the whole 56 minutes.

There would be records of the radar track in the computers of the Aegis cruisers in the task force. There may well be evidence of the launch captured by satellites.

ELINT is very powerful, and the US intelligence agencies have been at this game since before WWII. Their sneakiness boggles the mind! They were using signals bounced off of the moon to spy on Soviet equipment, and disguised the whole thing as radio astronomy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFSPHfZQpIQ

If you are going to go up against the US defense establishment, you'd better be damned sure you know what you're doing.

If I were the US, facing such an asymmetric threat, I'd keep most of my carrier groups around for the short term as a boondoggle, then come up with my own novel threat against my opponent's shipping.

(Sub launched cruise missiles, or mines? The advanced 21st century version, of course.)

⬐ hugh_

(Sub launched cruise missiles, or mines?)

Nukes.

If I were the US, I'd simply make it an official matter of policy that any attack from a nuclear power would result in an immediate nuclear response, the logic being that once two nuclear powers are at war it's probably going to turn nuclear eventually, so you might as well make the first strike.

⬐ nfnaaron

If I were the US, I'd simply make it a matter of official policy to make as many official, unofficial, formal, informal, commercial and personal ties to every country in the world as possible, to the maximum extent that any ideology on either side allows.

Yes, certainly we need to maintain defensive and offensive military capabilities, but I think we should be doing much, much more to reduce the need for those capabilities.

⬐ dflock

This is, more or less, the original founding intent of the European Union. Given that the last 60 years has been free of major land wars in Europe - the longest period of peace on the continent since the fall of the Roman Empire in ~470AD, it seems to be working fairly well. (ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Europaea).

⬐ maelstrom

I think the EU is great, but I wonder how much of that peace can be attributed to both the United States and USSR both having large armies camped through Europe for most of that time.

⬐ nfnaaron

I had the same thought. The answer is there is no one thing that does/did it. I'm sure it doesn't hurt that Germany and France are closer to partners than combatants.

⬐ dflock

Yeah, external factors like those mentioned obviously play a part, as do internal factors, as taught to us by playing Civilisation - fat happy democracies don't like making war very much, or for very long; it's expensive and you have to get off the couch...

⬐ run4yourlives

Well, I guess the whole world can thank their deity of choice that you're nowhere near being in charge of anything.

⬐ barrkel

The others may mock you, but you are in fact correct as to why it is impossible for two nuclear-armed foes to fight directly.

There will never be a hot war between US and China for so long as nuclear weapons have no effective defense. Nuclear weapons are probably the single biggest enabler of peace on the planet.

⬐ run4yourlives

>There will never be a hot war between US and China for so long as nuclear weapons have no effective defense.

I beg to differ. First, see India v. Pakistan as a direct counter to your "impossible" statement.

Second, as the example shows, the line you draw regarding using nukes does not extend all the way down to the rifleman. It's entirely possible to start a conventional and/or localized war with the understanding that you intend to win and therefore do not have the need to use your nukes.

You're making the major mistake though of assuming your enemy is a rational actor, a la the cold war. Russia is a rational actor. So is China. Even India.

In Pakistan however, only a minority are rational actors. Should a change in government occur that is pro-Taliban, you now have a nation of irrational actors with nuclear weapons.

MAD falls apart at this point. The fear of death means little to the Muslim extremist, and a man that isn't scared does highly irrational things, like nuke a civilian target.

All it takes is one, and then all bets are off.

⬐ etherael

So, how to fix the religious, then?

⬐ synnik

Please tell me you are joking.

Some of us spent our entire youth afraid of nuclear annihilation 24/7. We've been out of that for some time now, but I don't think anyone wants to send the world back to that point.

⬐ barrkel

Fear of nuclear annihilation is why there hasn't been a war. Nuclear weapons = peace. Not a happy peace, but infinitely better than either no nukes or a single side having nukes.

⬐ eru

You know that there were more hot wars during the cold war than we have now?

"Secret History of Silicon Valley" Google Tech Talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFSPHfZQpIQ

Ironically, according to Steve, the people who developed the above are responsible for Silicon Valley.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFSPHfZQpIQ

⬐ wwwjscom2

This is a pretty famous talk, it was also given when I attended CIKM '08. He is a really interesting speaker.

Plus his book is a great read for all startups: Four Steps to the Epiphany. If you don't own it, you should check it out:

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=four+steps+to+the+e...

Harry Truman once observed "the only surprises are the history you don't know." This is an eye opening perspective on some history "hidden in plain sight" of the origins of Silicon Valley.

Video of a version of this talk given at Google is available here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFSPHfZQpIQ

The most interesting aspect of the talk for me was a vision of "systems fighting systems" in an accelerated co-evolution.