This whole discussion seems to conflate some things that might be better kept separate. "Investment", itself, is a term of trickery. Loony and loony-croney, in this thread, are both terms of production, whereas investment is a term of profit-making or rent-seeking. When we talk about "investment in infrastructure" like h1b visas or funding the construction of roads or fiber, that's properly an issue of investment because we (as a society) intend to reap (social) profits from it.
But when Sally *grants* her local dork, Jan, $20k to build a prototype, Sally is not making an investment in Jan. Sally is part of Jan's production team. They're *making* something. If Sally is so confused as to mistake her production funds for rent-seeking, then that's her problem, not ours. We hedge all this by inventing jargonal terms like "series A" or whatever. But I think it would help with these large-scale discussions (e.g. how many things we now have were previously fringe), it's not these categories of lunacy vs. sane investment strategies that *explain* it. The categories that explain it are "maker" vs. "profiteer". -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
