chroma

43 ms·

451.
by chroma 8y ago
1. The moon is thousands of kilometers around. It would take enormous resources to make an ad big enough to be visible from earth. 2. You don’t have to go to the moon to advertise to everyone. Just launch a banner into low earth orbit. It w
452.
by chroma 8y ago
> Isn't the ballot initiative process the "public vetting or scrutiny" this guy is talking about? Seems like he's unhappy his group didn't get a chance to water down or kill the measure behind the scenes. This is
453.
by chroma 8y ago
You can't deny the holocaust in Germany. Edit: I'm using thought crime in the sense that Robin Hanson is using in the blog post. He was talking about how certain ideas are legal but subject to extralegal punishments via mob rule.
454.
by chroma 8y ago
Other countries have fair legal systems and thoughtcrime. Germany bans certain ideas and symbols. Theocratic-leaning countries do the same for heresy. The structure of the legal systems in the west haven't changed for hundreds of years
455.
by chroma 8y ago
> Human life span has risen steadily in the last hundred years or so. The world average life expectancy at birth in 1900 was 31. In 1950, it was 48. In 2014, it was 71.5. That's an increase of 40 years achieved in 114 years of medic
456.
by chroma 8y ago
The most common rebuttal to this is that a low birth rate is better than a high death rate. Even if everyone was immortal (not just unaging, as that would only reduce death rates by ≈90%), couples could still have one child each. That would
457.
by chroma 9y ago
If the thing you care about is clear sidewalks, scooters are such a tiny problem that they're barely worth mentioning. I've had to step over parked scooters a handful of times. Every time, they were in an alley that no wheelchair
458.
by chroma 9y ago
The status quo bias extends to more than just cars. I work in SF and some of my coworkers have complained about having to step over poorly-parked scooters. A couple of times, I've had to do the same. When it comes to things I've h
459.
by chroma 9y ago
The whole point of a blockchain is that it's append-only. Each block has a hash of the previous block. If you wanted to modify a Bitcoin block from a year ago, you'd have to do the same computation as a year worth of all miners.
460.
by chroma 9y ago
> How does prop 13 cause a housing crisis? Because it heavily discourages people from selling their houses, reducing turnover and with it the potential for redevelopment. Without prop 13, houses would be re-assessed every few years. The
461.
by chroma 9y ago
Sure, but that's a totally different argument. The one I was responding to was: > Please, quote feminist propaganda with the same level of invective that has been circulated at Google and maybe we have something to talk about. I sho
462.
by chroma 9y ago
Here are some Googlers' responses on their internal G+: https://imgur.com/a/S48QN Some go beyond propaganda and get close to calling for violence. Quotes include: "…you deserve what's coming to you.&quot
463.
by chroma 9y ago
I also thought the pair programming example was odd, as I've never noticed different propensities for pairing based on gender. As far as I can tell, it is equally disliked. :)
464.
by chroma 9y ago
I notice a lot of misrepresentation of views on both sides, almost to the point of strawmanning. I think a charitable interpretation of the author's best points can be summarized as follows: - Racism & sexism still exist, even at G
465.
by chroma 9y ago
> Law enforcement was designed to protect people (or their property) from the actions of other people, not themselves. Two points: 1. I can think of many counterexamples to this: Self-harm, suicide attempts, people doing dumb stuff like
466.
by chroma 9y ago
Remember that this is a state policy, so it's pretty easy to keep the wealth out of state and avoid the taxes. California already has the highest capital gains taxes in the US and 2nd-highest in the world, so such tax avoidance is extr
467.
by chroma 9y ago
Such fines would not collect nearly as much revenue as a tax. Consider the case of fining people for possession of marijuana versus legalizing and taxing it. States that tax collect several orders of magnitude more revenue, which they use t
468.
by chroma 9y ago
Nobody is doing that. I'm talking about bad arguments, not bad policies. Also, read my comments. If anything, my proposed idea would reduce the number of de-facto private beaches and increase wealth transfer to the less fortunate.
469.
by chroma 9y ago
I remember people saying this to me in 2009. They were arguing against my position that same-sex marriage should be legal.
470.
by chroma 9y ago
This is a strawman. Nobody is arguing in favor of 100% private beaches. Apparently I hold the most extreme view in this thread, and I'm proposing privatizing 2% of the coastline and taxing the hell out of it. The other 98% would remain
471.
by chroma 9y ago
Nobody here is proposing privatizing the entire coast. Apparently I hold the most extreme views in this thread and my example was 2% of the coastline. Do you think things would be worse if 98% of the coastline was public and millions more i
472.
by chroma 9y ago
What? At no point did I defend Khosla's actions or the interests of the wealthy. Right now, the law banning private ownership of beaches is all but unenforced. One can currently buy a private beach for the cost of a fence and a gate. I
473.
by chroma 9y ago
Nobody in this thread is arguing that all beaches should be private. I'm arguing in favor of privatizing a tiny fraction of coastline, taxing the hell out of it to pay for other social programs, and keeping the rest public.
474.
by chroma 9y ago
I don't think that's your true reason for supporting a ban on private beaches. Until the courts struck it down, California's constitution also banned same-sex marriage. I don't think that 5 years ago, you would have argu
475.
by chroma 9y ago
It's important to notice that any argument in favor of public access to beaches can be applied to any kind of desirable land. One could make an isomorphic argument about mountaintops: "The concept of a private mountaintop is backw
476.
by chroma 9y ago
The NBC article gets its data from a CATO institute report.[1] In it, they touch upon the problem with extrapolating from previous data: they note that 9/11 accounted for 98% of all foreign terrorist fatalities in the past 40 years. Te
477.
by chroma 9y ago
I disagree with your belief that feigned surprise is common, but I don't want to get wrapped around that axle so I'll take another route. If what you call "feigned surprise" is a reflexive, unconscious behavior, then: 1.
478.
by chroma 9y ago
I think it's wrong to feign any reaction when others expect sincerity, but I also think this post causes more harm than good. Let me explain. First: Feigned surprise is rare. I've never done it. I doubt the author has ever done
479.
by chroma 10y ago
Most of us live in our own little bubbles of like-minded people, so I trust Pew polls far more than anecdotes. I also trust polls more than my own experience. If someone cites Pew saying 30% of Americans are young-earth creationists[1], I&#
480.
by chroma 10y ago
It's unclear if that's still true or not. The most recent good data is a Gallup poll from 2006.[1] When asked if the constitution should be amended (the only way such a ban could exist), support was at 54%. Also, support was highe

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