FredPret

46 ms·

841.
by FredPret 2y ago
Are you morally perfect? No? Do you still have legal rights and ownership of things despite that? It's like that for companies. It doesn't matter if Disney sucks in many ways, if they own something, they own it. If you think this
842.
by FredPret 2y ago
The maverick spirit is definitely more right that wrong, especially in the long run.
843.
by FredPret 2y ago
I have to be a communist to have "hacker spirit"? Hardly. 1. All information wants to be free. Information on the order of complexity of a movie cannot want anything. 2. The second something is digitized it becomes "free&quot
844.
by FredPret 2y ago
Yes it is. If the content is a movie created in the last 100 years, it was almost certainly created to slot into that revenue model. The artists have a right to sell their property on their terms. And if they decide to do so by selling thei
845.
by FredPret 2y ago
I'm 1000% in favor of free ideas and free speech. Copying scientific ideas (with attribution!) is completely OK and good. Having heterodox ideas is vital for society. Forcing people to think certain thoughts (or trying to) is the worst
846.
by FredPret 2y ago
Does their size make the moral situation any different? Many of these are public companies that anyone can buy shares in. Tons of people have part of their life savings in US stocks - these people all own a slice of the rights to various wo
847.
by FredPret 2y ago
Genuinely curious about this opinion from outside my bubble - not trying to start a flame war. If you say the US is losing influence, then who is taking their place in your view? Is China / the EU actually gaining influence?
848.
by FredPret 2y ago
This isn't a clear-cut case of humanism vs something else. Humanist values include right to property ownership, and the right to get the benefits of your work. Artists deserve that, and can sell their rights to big studios if they want
849.
by FredPret 2y ago
I don’t believe in efficient markets. I’m saying that there’s a lot of people sending their money to the SP500 on autopilot. The value-add of investors are a) provide capital b) re-allocate capital from less efficient to more efficient co’s
850.
by FredPret 2y ago
If VTSAX was a free lunch, someone would’ve / is currently eating that too
851.
by FredPret 2y ago
I’m not clear on this. Perhaps I’m wrong about the arrow in step 5 and they really don’t have arrows in the first place, killing the animal with a knife. Or perhaps they can’t get close enough with their arrows on day 1. Some of these antel
852.
by FredPret 2y ago
I know of one hunter-gatherer tribe that does this. 1. They start by learning how to track animals so well that they can identify an individual from among a herd's tracks. (in other words, crazy, crazy good) 2. Long before the hunt, th
853.
by FredPret 2y ago
It's always been hard and expensive to build anything right. The only surviving old buildings were the good ones.
854.
by FredPret 2y ago
"Groundwater" is a little ambiguous - H2O in the mantle is also "ground water", no?
855.
by FredPret 2y ago
The best way to deal with greedy members of any particular profession is ironically to flood the market with more people in that profession
856.
by FredPret 2y ago
Fair points, another difficulty up here in Canada and probably in the States as well is that there are shortages of people who can build houses. But that's no excuse for giving up on the problem. I will also add though that even though
857.
by FredPret 2y ago
It'd be cool if we launched several space telescopes on Voyager-like trajectories. In 50-100 years they'd get a much better angular fix on stars that are too distant for Earth-orbit-sized angular measurements. https://e
858.
by FredPret 2y ago
Smart and mild people on both sides of the aisle are critical, but you also need a handful of principles-first ideologues on both sides to keep the Overton window from speeding off to one side. The problem is when the middle gets radicalize
859.
by FredPret 2y ago
Landlords may have much more capital than the average person, but they don't have an infinite reserve. Investment opportunities compete with one another for investor dollars. If the yield on housing goes down, then investors will shift
860.
by FredPret 2y ago
Did you compare average jobs across time and place? Ie, does your statement apply to everyone in the country? Some places have much lower cost of living but similar earning power. Similarly, did you compare to the past? Average people used
861.
by FredPret 2y ago
This is the best way to bust the landlord monopoly (if there is one). Build more houses than we need. Suddenly those landlords have to compete for good tenants. And monopolistic cooperation will suddenly become impossible: when vacancies
862.
by FredPret 2y ago
Patreon built their organization partly on how easy it is to get donations from Apple users through the app ecosystem. As an Apple user, I personally spend a lot more on apps every month than in my pre-Apple days because it feels secure, ea
863.
by FredPret 2y ago
You act as if all the iPhone Patreon donations would've rolled in regardless of the app / app store, but also that Apple is somehow going to kill it. It's logically inconsistent. 1. If Apple plays a key part in getting those
864.
by FredPret 2y ago
Well, yeah, but you can also see how the key piece of information a company discloses is the pre-tax price. To show each customer the right post-tax price, you'd have to know where they live and where they will buy your product. It wou
865.
by FredPret 2y ago
The reason sales prices are quoted without tax in North America is because there's a million different permutations governing what the sales tax is going to be in different situations (who's buying what, from whom, where, when), a
866.
by FredPret 2y ago
The beauty of capitalism is that you can choose. You don't even have to have a smartphone at all and if you decide to have one, you don't HAVE to have an Apple device. There are countless other brands to pick. If you truly hate th
867.
by FredPret 2y ago
It's not a Google-specific attitude - it's the value proposition of all middlemen everywhere. Facilitation of transactions and assuming the risk. It's worth it to many. I gladly pay Apple the extra 30% or whatever because it
868.
by FredPret 2y ago
The same happens in the US->rest of world direction when you read about "approximately 16km" or "approximately 2.54cm".
869.
by FredPret 2y ago
Amazon’s products are sourced from there anyway. Next time you buy something on Amazon, search it on AliExpress. You’ll likely find the same thing for 0.1x the price, but with a long lead time and minimum order quantity.
870.
by FredPret 2y ago
AliExpress has all the same cheap crap as Amazon, except cheaper. It's a great pity Audible is under the Amazon umbrella because I'm hooked on that.

More ›