4 ms·

Law of diminishing returns. We're talking about a simple platform of people relaying updates of 140 characters with a comment section and a feed algorithm to a

by spurgu 5y ago

Law of diminishing returns. We're talking about a simple platform of people relaying updates of 140 characters with a comment section and a feed algorithm to aggregate the content to everyone with a focus on prolonging everyone's engagement time while also following guidelines on what's "politically correct". There's only so much you can do, unless you venture out into manipulating public discourse, or striving to become a nation-state (or at least its propaganda machinery) or taking over the world (with all the imaginable internet services provided by you - email, storage, encyclopedias, news etc). At some point you should stop and think about your core business. And at some point you should realize that the law of diminishing returns applies. And at some point you should realize that it's fine to provide a stable service to a stable amount of users with a stable amount of features. Not that much R&D required. Or, rather, this is how our society would have to work in order to stay healthy. Living on a planet with finite resources while using them up like they're not is a sure-fire way to doom. We already know enough about farming for example to make it sustainable. We just don't know how to do it in a way where we don't cut down production considerably and starving a lot of people in the process. Not a nice topic to bring up i your election speech. But it's nice to ride the train since things seemingly move forward thanks to rising inflation (which is due to the problem in the first place) and the price of your product can go up. Oh, I might've misunderstood you as well. /remindme 20 years

nradov 5y ago
Regenerative agriculture practices can allow us to make farming sustainable without cutting down production. In fact, we can actually increase production — or at least avoid loss of production due to soil depletion. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0030727021998063 https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0030727021998063
- MrMan 5y ago
  you should make a separate HN post about this
  - nradov 5y ago
    There have already been multiple posts about regenerative agriculture, like this one. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27809279 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27809279
brigandish 5y ago
Economic growth is not only driven by the use of new resources but by the increasingly efficient use of existing resources. The real problem is stated in Jevon's paradox[1], that demand is increasing faster than supply, regardless of efficiency, which points the the real real problem, which is that the population is increasing too quickly (though it may slow down and become stable). Provide females around the world access to education, birth control, and opportunity in the job market and this problem will fix itself. To do that, however, would mean allowing the kind of discourse that Twitter is inclined suppress and many of its more vocal users would call "racist" i.e. being able to criticise cultures that don't give females these opportunities. And we're back to Twitter and free speech. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
6510 5y ago
> it's fine to provide a stable service to a stable amount of users with a stable amount of features like RSS?

by spurgu 5y ago

nradov 5y ago

Regenerative agriculture practices can allow us to make farming sustainable without cutting down production. In fact, we can actually increase production — or at least avoid loss of production due to soil depletion. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0030727021998063 https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0030727021998063

MrMan 5y ago
you should make a separate HN post about this
- nradov 5y ago
  There have already been multiple posts about regenerative agriculture, like this one. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27809279 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27809279

brigandish 5y ago

Economic growth is not only driven by the use of new resources but by the increasingly efficient use of existing resources. The real problem is stated in Jevon's paradox[1], that demand is increasing faster than supply, regardless of efficiency, which points the the real real problem, which is that the population is increasing too quickly (though it may slow down and become stable). Provide females around the world access to education, birth control, and opportunity in the job market and this problem will fix itself. To do that, however, would mean allowing the kind of discourse that Twitter is inclined suppress and many of its more vocal users would call "racist" i.e. being able to criticise cultures that don't give females these opportunities. And we're back to Twitter and free speech. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

6510 5y ago

> it's fine to provide a stable service to a stable amount of users with a stable amount of features like RSS?