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151.
by beat 7y ago
Why do we need to work? edit: I am 100% serious about this. It is already economically viable, if society chooses to do it , to simply guarantee food, decent housing, and health care to everyone, whether they work or not. At that point, wh
152.
by beat 7y ago
So why do they stay at these awful jobs? Health insurance. Fear of losing, or even changing what they have (sometimes accompanied with some very real and not just anxiety out-of-pocket costs running into the thousands of dollars). Decouplin
153.
by beat 7y ago
Someone should tell the author of this article about Alfred Nobel.
154.
by beat 7y ago
I'm planning to buy a new car in two years, and I'm really excited about the possibilities of electric cars then. What I really want is a mid-sized hatchback, with interior form similar to my current Subaru Forester (and a zillion
155.
by beat 7y ago
Civil unrest that gets expressed via stable democratic institutions is just fine. My concern is wars and violent revolutions, which (hopefully) are on their way out. I dream of a day when wage labor is looked back on as almost as oppressive
156.
by beat 7y ago
Yeah. We don't have enough data for a solid proof. On the other hand, WWI and its sequel were really sobering for Europe.
157.
by beat 7y ago
That goes somewhat against Steve Pinker's observation that humanity is becoming increasingly more civilized and less destructive to other humans. Of course, the long-term data isn't there, but the logic is compelling. We may have
158.
by beat 7y ago
Yes, I'm talking about global warming and other environmental damage, not nuclear war. But we're a long, long ways off from nuclear war being able to sterilize the planet. I don't think nuclear war could even end civilization
159.
by beat 7y ago
We are a long way from being able to sterilize the Earth. Heck, I don't think we could even wipe out humanity - or even civilization - much less all the myriad forms of life out there that thrive in conditions that would kill humans in
160.
by beat 7y ago
Out of curiosity, I looked it up, and it seems like there's less than a billion years left for life as we know it on Earth before the Sun sterilizes the planet. That doesn't mean some of our descendants won't figure out ways
161.
by beat 7y ago
If your goal is to give outsider candidates who can't get as many votes as mainstream candidates the win, then no, IRV isn't going to work. But if your goal is to break the Duverger's Law spoilering problem a bit, to give thi
162.
by beat 7y ago
I agree, but that makes it a much different sort of argument.
163.
by beat 7y ago
Agreed. So I'd be looking stuff like compiler theory at one end, and distributed systems at the other.
164.
by beat 7y ago
Yes, but. That same argument gets used for, say, raising cattle, where the water used is quickly cycled out as organics (mostly urine). It doesn't produce the kind of toxic waste that something like a large fabric dyeing operation does
165.
by beat 7y ago
Generally, it's a good article, but it lands on a sore point for me with many environmentalist articles - treating "water use" as if water disappears when used. Generally, water doesn't cease to exist - it just gets temp
166.
by beat 7y ago
"Fundamental" is a matter of perspective. To use an analogy, if you were looking for the most fundamental books about the English language, would you be reading about grammar, or would you be reading Shakespeare?
167.
by beat 7y ago
It was a different era then. Things are a lot tighter now. Loudcloud was a terrific concept in its day. It could have become what AWS has become. But it was growing because money was just getting poured into dotcom startups. When the money
168.
by beat 7y ago
Loudcloud was at the peak of the dot-com boom, late '90s to early '00s. Working remotely wasn't really an option then.
169.
by beat 7y ago
Yes, he should have addressed something with head of sales. He should have recognized the coming downturn and stopped expanding his staff. He should have done other things. His gut was telling him this. But he didn't. He delegated the
170.
by beat 7y ago
Yes, this is why the Go language was a complete failure too. And C before that.
171.
by beat 7y ago
Engineering-wise, no. It's just a question of conversion efficiency and cost. Use electricity to heat up a thermal store (molten salt), pull power from the thermal store via generator. But how much does it cost, relative to any number
172.
by beat 7y ago
I don't know if it's even about the risk of interaction. I think there's just some mental equivalent of junk food going on. Junk food works by abusing our sensitivity to sweet, salty, and fatty, turning normal hunger into glu
173.
by beat 7y ago
You're assuming that the cost of human capital actually matters in big corporations. As someone who has worked for several Fortune 100s and a couple of government agencies, I assure you, that is not the case. Employee time is treated
174.
by beat 7y ago
40% of office workers.
175.
by beat 7y ago
Reminds me of the old science fiction trope... "We asked if we can, we never asked if we should". The technology will happen, because sensors and AI and IoT are just... stuff. Stuff that's useful in non-threatening ways. So t
176.
by beat 7y ago
That rabbit hole leads to asking why NATO members are considered more moral and enlightened than other nations. Turkey was invited to be a NATO member (and accepted) due to Cold War fear of the USSR, and historic conflicts with Russia. So N
177.
by beat 7y ago
Really looking forward to this set of phone conversations getting declassified.
178.
by beat 7y ago
In this case, it's not conservative me not wanting to upgrade (this computer is actually only a month old). It's vendors saying they can't guarantee that their software will work. Several of them.
179.
by beat 7y ago
Within the framework applied, trust has everything to do with it. What makes a relationship abusive isn't the distrust, but rather the distrust combined with the inability to escape (which is often about love). We love our smartphones,
180.
by beat 7y ago
Likewise, using a single personal political view injected in an article to dismiss the entire article is what, exactly?

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