chris_t

6 ms·

1.
by chris_t 16d ago
This is more of a sound bite than a substantive argument. If someone is worried about AI killing _all_ humans, shouldn't they absolutely focus on that?
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by chris_t 2y ago
But... accountants do work for AI companies, right? That doesn't seem like a good example.
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by chris_t 2y ago
I agree with all of this. The example of the patent on steam engines is fascinating, thank you! It's certainly true government granted monopolies are far from the ideal incentive structure, with many downsides. (And lobbying for EG pat
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by chris_t 2y ago
Rent-seeking has a technical definition; earning money from things you invented does not meet it. While Salk is obviously an inspiring example, a wise society should happily incentivize the development of useful technology.
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by chris_t 2y ago
I'm not sure that argument is rigorous enough to be called a proof. We have no guarantee that the S&P 500 will grow faster than world wealth. It's plausible it will, but one could reasonably purchase something like gold or BTC
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by chris_t 7y ago
Sadly it is often not so simple. Complex regulations can advantage large incumbent firms by making it harder for newer entrants to their markets.
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by chris_t 9y ago
>Wealth correlates with health correlates with better reaction times & general fitness I agree with your general point, but you can't just join up 2 correlations like that, that isn't always going to work when there are oth
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by chris_t 9y ago
Oh, that makes sense. I'd hoped the trend was towards a higher level of reliability but perhaps it's just a change of direction in the manipulation.
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by chris_t 9y ago
The unreliability of those figures will be no surprise to anyone who follows China's economy or politics closely, and I hope this bodes for better quality statistics in the future. There's a small industry of people who try to mea
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by chris_t 9y ago
If the underlying motivation for understanding or judging is to figure out what public policy to adopt, then the choice of what to do is simply what works best. If some people are irredeemable and locking them away forever ends up creating
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by chris_t 9y ago
A big reason for the bias towards new things is that greenfield development is easier and more fun, especially in organisations that aren't capable of producing good software. Learning a new framework every couple of years makes sense
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by chris_t 9y ago
I agree that I'm being a little silly, it's what my last line hinted at! I do think outrage is better directed at our legislators than at corporations though, but I don't hold out hope for substantive change either way.
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by chris_t 9y ago
This is the key point that is so often missed. Getting angry at Apple et al for following their incentives rationally is silly. I'd love to see journalists doing a better job of explaining the failures of the tax system rather than ped
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by chris_t 9y ago
Interesting, thank you. Aquifer depletion seems like a modest problem on a 1k year scale, there's plenty of water around generally. But I hadn't heard of topsoil depletion before; I wonder how difficult it will be to produce it ar
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by chris_t 9y ago
What is it about current agricultural practices that makes them unsustainable? I know there is a reliance on fossil fuels, but that seems like it could be overcome in the long term (1000 years) without needing to move to a decentralized sys
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by chris_t 9y ago
I'd be interested in seeing proof that protectionism actually does benefit workers; I suspect the effect is mixed. Cheap goods from overseas often can help improve poorer people's standards of living, and it's not hard to see
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by chris_t 9y ago
Government doesn't have unlimited power to alter reality, there are countless examples of legislation being ineffective or having unintended consequences. The canonical example is prohibition of various drugs, but more recently the &qu
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by chris_t 10y ago
Perhaps I'm nitpicking, but I don't think it's fair to characterise loaning money successfully as "parasitic". Credit is a useful thing to provide, many endeavours valuable to people would not exist without it. More
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by chris_t 10y ago
> food stamps that stop people from wasting their money on alcohol, cigarettes, lottery tickets, and casinos Are you certain they are effective at that? It isn't hard to imagine that a secondary market for food stamps could exist wh