FredPret

31 ms·

691.
by FredPret 2y ago
Before I moved from my very cheap birth country to the entirely-not-cheap area known as Toronto, I thought along these lines and was concerned that my standard of living would be the same or lower. However, surprisingly, I found it to go up
692.
by FredPret 2y ago
As an immigrant from the 3rd world -> Canada, I found a surprising number of things fit this bill. Some things have a global market and everyone is paying ~ the same price everywhere. - Meat, to an extent - Any oil-derived product - Elec
693.
by FredPret 2y ago
Look at my reply to your sibling commenter wormlord’s reply
694.
by FredPret 2y ago
How can you not see that it's draconian? You may think it's no biggy since the limit will be so high. 1. First of all, when party A contracts with party B, party C (that's you) does not have a moral right to dictate an upper
695.
by FredPret 2y ago
Why yes, there are countries with limits on kitchen knives. And if your focus is on providing that first car, then the system currently doing that en masse for billions of previously-poor people is called “capitalism” and your moral imperat
696.
by FredPret 2y ago
Who cares what “most people would support”? It’s right, or it isn’t.
697.
by FredPret 2y ago
Probably a big part of the problem is this: - good engineers and managers earn well, especially in the US - they want to own premium products - where Google and Apple compete, Apple has gone for the premium end and Google has gone for the m
698.
by FredPret 2y ago
Believing that you can do a better job of allocating your Nobel prize money than a central authority is free-market thinking. If he’s a socialist, he should donate all his property to the government, including the entire prize money.
699.
by FredPret 2y ago
CPI is very tough to determine. For example, how do you calculate the CPI on computers? They’re a million times better now, but are also cheaper. My Macbook is not the same product as my 486 from decades ago. This affects everything. Take m
700.
by FredPret 2y ago
Unsure of your point - I meant he doesn’t believe in provate property, so the prize money shouldn’t be a factor. If he truly believes what he says he believes.
701.
by FredPret 2y ago
They also had / have very deep spy networks of socialist sympathizers stealing secrets, including huge ones like plans for The Bomb. A significant amount of Soviet military “research” was done in the West.
702.
by FredPret 2y ago
Are you saying the Soviets took the “kumbaya” approach to communism and if only the US chilled out, there would’ve been no conflict? Surely you cannot believe that?
703.
by FredPret 2y ago
Is it stagnant, or near-optimal? We’ve seen eye-watering improvements in chipmaking for decades now. Could be that it is close to perfect at this point and we need new science to make further improvements.
704.
by FredPret 2y ago
I completely agree that in a free market, the longshoremen are entitled to throwing whatever tantrum they like. Is that actually in their best interest? Opinions differ. By the way, here are some examples of what I mean: Real disposable inc
705.
by FredPret 2y ago
> Half of our economy is built around making as many people replaceable as possible so that their wages can be driven into the ground Amusingly, this is both true and has the exact opposite effect of what you imply here. The data does no
706.
by FredPret 2y ago
Isn’t he a socialist?
707.
by FredPret 2y ago
59 million tons is a cube 390m on a side, or a square pile 10m high and 2500m on a side. It’s a lot, but let’s not hyperventilate.
708.
by FredPret 2y ago
I'd love to see this stat but I don't have access - mind posting the gist of it?
709.
by FredPret 2y ago
Another possibility: dishwashers are more rare in Europe - the soap residue some of them leaves on irritates some stomachs.
710.
by FredPret 2y ago
I don’t know, I think the most interesting things are happening slowly and with high complexity in places like here on Earth. With a slower speed of light, I think you’ll get qualitatively different events, not just fewer events.
711.
by FredPret 2y ago
Well, you could just slow down the execution rate of the whole simulation. But if you limit the speed at which events propagate, my feeling is the rate of events occurring will be lower overall, since one event triggers another and each eve
712.
by FredPret 2y ago
If I had to write a “game of life” simulation that simultaneously calculated the effects of all events at each point in a 3D matrix over time, I would: - make the matrix as rough as possible while still enabling interesting events (ie, try
713.
by FredPret 2y ago
The poor world simply does not have enough wealth / resources / GDP to “supply” the rich world, especially the US, with its ridiculous levels of wealth so that argument falls flat right out the gate. US meddling is, as you say, a
714.
by FredPret 2y ago
The US is kicking butt because it has 330 million people, most with a very high human development index (HDI), all together in one country with an extremely effective and pro-business culture. All the rest flows out of this.
715.
by FredPret 2y ago
I miss the soundscape of old computers: - the POST beep - the sound a floppy drive makes after inserting - the infernal scream of a dot matrix printer - even I don't miss dial-up sounds though.
716.
by FredPret 2y ago
That novel really expands the scope of the whole alternate universe dramatically. He's an amazing writer. EDIT: nice username! Is this where you got it?
717.
by FredPret 2y ago
Oh yeah. All of the 25 000 000 000 000 dollars the US generates a year is vacuumed right out of the palm trees of the third world.
718.
by FredPret 2y ago
Very true. Then you get to Cryptonomicon - which is set in the same universe. I think it's the best audiobook I've ever listened to.
719.
by FredPret 2y ago
Thanks - I'll check it out. Shockingly, this is free on Audible!
720.
by FredPret 2y ago
Should've invented crypto!

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