21echoes

30 ms·

271.
by 21echoes 13y ago
> We can't really go back and figure out the exact history of how gold emerged as money actually, we can. it's called historical anthropology, and books upon books have been written on the topic. to summarize those books for yo
272.
by 21echoes 13y ago
yes, most gold-backed currencies were issued by governments and contained a significant fiduciary element (aka, one gold coin was worth more than its weight in gold).
273.
by 21echoes 13y ago
did you read the article? the article is about how he views bitcoin as a response to governmental failures in practicing responsible monetary policy.
274.
by 21echoes 13y ago
what he really means, despite the use of "sine qua non", is that the vast vast majority of people really don't like dealing with more than one currency, and if their government uses a given currency, most people will use it b
275.
by 21echoes 13y ago
> Gold is the most obvious example; if currency was inextricably tied to governments, there would not have been a mad rush to colonize the New World (and extract its gold reserves). wut. you do know what middle-ages, gov't issued
276.
by 21echoes 13y ago
> From the pessimistic point of view, why would anyone choose to work a crappy job at Walmart or McDonalds when the government would give them the same money without having to do anything. because, despite the myth of the lazy poor, most
277.
by 21echoes 13y ago
completely valid point (which i addressed in my comment), but also completely separate from your initial complaint of "why not make it usable?"?
278.
by 21echoes 13y ago
can you please explain the ways in which G+ is not usable? while it's got less users than FB, it's afaik generally perceived as far more user friendly, well designed, and feature-ful
279.
by 21echoes 13y ago
> Notice that if any other group is proportionately overrepresented in a population, it can still be "meritocratic". false. a meritocratic system will very closely match the demographics of the population at large, because no g
280.
by 21echoes 13y ago
I would in no way say that SV is even very meritocratic. Compare start-up demographics numbers to population-at-large numbers... The fact that commenters like you would read this article, hopefully think for half a second, and then still
281.
by 21echoes 13y ago
Math is a field famously overrun with white men. Probably not the best comparison to make if you really want to talk about what a "meritocracy" should look like. Unless, of course, you think white men naturally have more merit tha
282.
by 21echoes 13y ago
so let me get this straight... over the course of three years, 19 people (many of them not full time employees) have left a 70-person company founded by students? and this is news?
283.
by 21echoes 13y ago
Firefox has consistently been shown to use less RAM than all other browsers: http://media.bestofmicro.com/L/5/390857/original/memuse.png
284.
by 21echoes 13y ago
they wouldn't be a merchant sending their own MCC-- they'd be a card processor on the Visa / MC / etc networks.
285.
by 21echoes 13y ago
they'd likely be a card processor-- the one who receives the auth request from the swipe terminal and responds with whether or not the charge is approved. they then relay the original request to one of your cards.
286.
by 21echoes 13y ago
there's no indication that your normal grant would not be made in light of the additional 1% grant on the table if you stay thru IPO. The article even says that "the majority of Opsmatic’s employee stock — 15 percent of the compan
287.
by 21echoes 13y ago
"savory" i think is the english term normally used
288.
by 21echoes 13y ago
probably because it's a japanese word and the rest are english?
289.
by 21echoes 13y ago
> Equal rights to what? the pursuit of happiness // income // employment > Which, in the age of the Internet, is easy false
290.
by 21echoes 13y ago
what if i told you employment discrimination is not about "a level playing field for competition", but rather "equal rights for all"? this is not a market or economics issue, this is a human rights issue. and by "co
291.
by 21echoes 13y ago
why should we not use the law to prevent abuse of marginalized groups and correct for imbalances of power in the market place? what else is the law for?
292.
by 21echoes 13y ago
because oftentimes you need external pressure to force the issue. to some employers, they don't even care if it's potentially better for business, they're "not gonna hire a bunch of fags". additionally, the ability
293.
by 21echoes 13y ago
this is like saying books must be spoken aloud, never written down.
294.
by 21echoes 13y ago
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2013/10/23/are_japanes...
295.
by 21echoes 13y ago
you're correct-- we were in no sense "asked" to drop out. see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6588385 :)
296.
by 21echoes 13y ago
as one of the students at this company: 1) we all got our undergraduate degrees. we dropped out of our graduate programs. 2) we were never encouraged by a faculty member to drop out. we were encouraged by the strength of the company and pro
297.
by 21echoes 13y ago
i thought the same thing at first, having just read the title, but it seems it's really not about the "social network" part at all. this is more like arXiv.org in that it's a platform for academics to publish their own r
298.
by 21echoes 13y ago
rather than stating the risks/benefits of fiat vs metal-backed currencies as absolutes, how about you address them as they really are? what would you rather have controlling your inflation/deflation rates? the rate of mining of a
299.
by 21echoes 13y ago
you think gold has "intrinsic, physical value"? you think bitcoin has "intrinsic, physical value"?! why have almost all currencies used throughout history had a significant fiduciary element? why has the world constant
300.
by 21echoes 13y ago
the difference being that they kept discovering gold. bitcoin will effectively eventually run out.

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