bmmayer1

27 ms·

241.
by bmmayer1 7y ago
This paragraph speaks to perhaps the most common mistake I see business leaders make, especially at startups: "Because subordinates learn best by doing, leaders should be willing to take prudent risks and accept the possibility that le
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by bmmayer1 7y ago
Ask HN: Has anyone actually read the whole thing? What did you think?
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by bmmayer1 7y ago
So this is why uni keeps getting cheaper
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by bmmayer1 7y ago
That's absurd. There have been fewer wars and conflicts and violence in the age of the internet than at any other time. It's possible the internet makes information of such tragedies more readily accessible which is why the world
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by bmmayer1 7y ago
"Technology," Adams once said, "is a word that describes something that doesn’t work yet." This could not be more true. When was the last time you referred to a teapot or a bicycle as "technology"? Even Google
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Sanders unveils plan to tax companies with high-earning CEOs(politico.com)
2 points by bmmayer1 7y ago|2 comments
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by bmmayer1 7y ago
Ah, I was including anocracies in the number because they are technically democracies and still an improvement over autocracies. Should have rephrased as "70% live in at least a partial democracy"
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by bmmayer1 7y ago
Ah yes, the state of the world: - Lowest global poverty rate of all time (<3%) - Lowest global childhood mortality rate of all time (<4%) - Lowest incidence of child labor ever (<17%) - Most wealth per capita ever - Highest literac
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by bmmayer1 7y ago
It seems to me that you're undervaluing the value and importance of social and emotional connection with other people when it comes to getting work done effectively in an organization. Companies are like any other groups of people, and
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by bmmayer1 7y ago
What's the tradeoff? How many people aren't driving because flying is cheaper? What is the economic efficiency gained by air travel and how does that translate into emissions? A cost number without a benefit number is completely u
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by bmmayer1 7y ago
I would also highly recommend the sequel, the Descent of Man. That's where Darwin actually discusses the evolution of humans, a topic he gingerly avoided in TOOS
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by bmmayer1 7y ago
Economics: - The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith - Das Kapital, Karl Marx - That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen, Frederic Bastiat Philosophy / Politics: - The Republic, Plato - Second Treatise on Government, John Locke - The L
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by bmmayer1 7y ago
There is a crime version along the lines of, a criminal needs to be lucky 100% of the time, the police only need to be lucky once.
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by bmmayer1 7y ago
I think the point of the piece is that LA has far too much parking available already and that the city shouldn't force developers to build more parking. Obviously no one would stop anyone from building parking if they wanted but LA doe
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by bmmayer1 7y ago
That said, none of the companies you mention are monopolies -- they all set prices lower than competitors, not higher, and none of them have little to no competition. In fact every single company in your list included major competitors th
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by bmmayer1 7y ago
How about 'don't rely on bureaucrats who create faulty fire detection, alert and communication procedures'?[0] [0] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/07/16/world/europe/...
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by bmmayer1 7y ago
This has to be flagged for the quality of the news source. There are multiple typos in the article itself (the last word is "recieveing"). The homepage headline as of writing this comment is grammatically challenged: "The ‘Bl
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by bmmayer1 7y ago
I may be reading in between the lines but I believe OP's point is that HN leans more liberal which in today's political climate means more receptive of negative economic news (thus necessitating more intervention / change of
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by bmmayer1 7y ago
Helen Keller is really one of the most remarkable people to ever exist. Read her biography on Wikipedia if you have the chance[0]; born with a disability that would make it impossible for most people to survive, let alone thrive, Keller bec
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by bmmayer1 7y ago
This is one of the best business stories I've ever read. It embodies the core principle of the American dream: that you can really make it if you are dedicated, work hard, and strike out on the right idea. It also highlights the import
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by bmmayer1 7y ago
Which knowledgeable circles? This seems demonstrably untrue: "Thus the oligarchs were born which quickly led to the kleptocratic Russia we know of today" Oligarchs have been a mainstay of Russian society since at least the time of
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by bmmayer1 7y ago
If you read the interview, Bill Gates rightly predicted the rise of sophisticated networks of trust, content raters and algorithms that would tell you what is worth reading and what isn't. It's no one's fault that no one lis
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by bmmayer1 7y ago
You're welcome to visit NYC, round of drinks on me :) For what it's worth, I've traveled to many, many countries, and I've never encountered in real life what I expected based on the internet or stories or anything els
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by bmmayer1 7y ago
> I'm just going by what Americans themselves are telling me about their country Ah, this makes sense then :) Definitely visit the US...I can tell you that the Americans who travel tend to lean heavily "liberal" in their p
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by bmmayer1 7y ago
If that's true, then there's a problem with this statement: > In my opinion, a police that's feared rather than trusted, is a sign of a police state or totalitarian regime. If that's not what the country wants to be,
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by bmmayer1 7y ago
I think there's this assumption that countries are like sentient beings who can 'decide' things. The reality of how a society functions, from cultural norms to laws to violence, is a unique combination of the whims and desire
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by bmmayer1 7y ago
> the US is the only place that worships the profit motive whilst aspiring to fascism This is such a red herring and quite impossible to argue with.
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by bmmayer1 7y ago
In many more countries outside the US, they are not.
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by bmmayer1 7y ago
If by "anyone outside of the US" you mean "anyone living in Western Europe" then yes...I think you underestimate the deep conservatism of many, many high-population countries from Russia to Brazil to the Philippines to N
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by bmmayer1 7y ago
That's fair -- there does seem to be a term conflation here. Socialism in the modern usage in the USA, amongst young people at least, tends to refer to 'democratic' socialism which is more like highly regulated capitalism on

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