jacobion

6 ms·

1.
by jacobion 6y ago
> if the placebo effect is something that you can scientifically demonstrate, how would you arrange a control group? Easy, just don't give the control group any medicine. Give the other group a placebo. If outcomes are better for th
2.
by jacobion 6y ago
Wasn't the someone who dismissed Dropbox when they first launched Steve Jobs ?
3.
by jacobion 6y ago
Arguably one reason those two businesses were successful in areas with entrenched players and business practices was because they handle the money. If AirBnB was asking either travelers or hosts to pay $X to be on a recommendation site, pro
4.
by jacobion 6y ago
The Law of Large Numbers is an actual math theorem. The Law of Averages is a non-technical name for various informal reasoning strategies, some fallacious (like the gamblers fallacy), but mostly just types of estimation that are justified b
5.
by jacobion 6y ago
Yes, this is a problem that a heavily regulated free market actually solved pretty well. I go to my local grocery store and look at the painkillers they have. There are generic aspirin and Tylenol available for a price almost anyone can aff
6.
by jacobion 6y ago
Also, people feel differently about different treatments, for particular reasons. If your mom always took one brand of Tylenol when she had a cold, taking it might reassure you more than the theoretically optimal painkiller. Customers wer
7.
by jacobion 6y ago
Then for you, a meta-analysis would be even more useless, as your own experience is much more valuable.
8.
by jacobion 6y ago
Isn't there a social benefit in letting the 10% (or whatever) of people that believe in them get a safe and effective placebo, for many conditions where that's all that's needed?
9.
by jacobion 6y ago
Yes, for headaches no one wants to read a meta-analysis, they just want to buy something quickly and feel slightly better. On the other hand, for depression medication, they don't want their doctor to look at an online tool and choose
10.
by jacobion 6y ago
But doesn't a large majority of 'social services' spending go to retirement incomes? Obviously that is important, but discretionary spending on, for example, taking care of children, is much smaller.
11.
by jacobion 6y ago
So maybe the problem is a broken political system which serves the interests of only one group of people, rather than high or low interest rates?
12.
by jacobion 6y ago
Why do low interest rates cause high rents? High house prices sure, but why does it affect rents? You prefer to live in Copenhagen than the part of Europe you come from, for the higher salaries among other reasons. Probably lots of other pe
13.
by jacobion 6y ago
'artificially low' What do you think the natural rate of interest should be? Why?
14.
by jacobion 6y ago
I think there might be two things going on here: one is a rise in various forms of social inequality, between generations, between people living in tier one cities and smaller cities or towns, between workers in certain industries and the r
15.
by jacobion 6y ago
I brought up the past model to show that apprenticeships in the past worked for a specific reason. Various models of apprenticeship/training/education fail today, because we have rejected what made them work in the past. We don&#x
16.
by jacobion 6y ago
Do you think that apprenticeships in the UK have been successful in motivating training for shortage jobs with highly technical skills? I don't think they have. I've seen reports which claim they are mostly used as a subsidy to tr
17.
by jacobion 6y ago
Most people will not use the ethical projects that you mention, at least until perception of crypto changes, because they will associate crypto/defi either with full-on exit/Ponzi scams, or with experiences investing in Bitcoin an
18.
by jacobion 6y ago
Yes, and despite this there is commonly resentment by academics of the time they spend mentoring graduate students who then leave for higher paid posts outside academia.
19.
by jacobion 6y ago
It might be easier to compare them, I'm not persuaded it is any easier to evaluate them.
20.
by jacobion 6y ago
> a project's economic viability doesn't depend on the relative merits of other projects. I'm not sure this is true - certainly the opposite of this statement is the central thesis of most investment activity.
21.
by jacobion 6y ago
The way apprenticeships traditionally worked is that the apprentice was bound to the master for a certain number of years, and his parents also often had to pay to have him taken on. The tension between needing trained labour, but not wanti
22.
by jacobion 6y ago
Arguably it's actually in their interest to filter out less determined people, by providing an environment which is confusing or demoralising.
23.
by jacobion 6y ago
How does the internet 'alleviate issues of information asymmetry'?? I thought it was well understood that this has not generally happened, except in open markets for very transparent and easily comparable products. Holiday accommo
24.
by jacobion 6y ago
But it doesn't make economic sense to work rather than steal, unless there are enforced rules and sanctions against stealing. Most people who choose to work do so either because of the sanctions, or because of various reasons which a
25.
by jacobion 6y ago
The thing about efficient markets is that lucrative activities which don't produce much value—borderline scams—can block activity which would be highly wealth creating. For example, there could be a huge untapped retail market for fina
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by jacobion 6y ago
Karl Marx WAS a great economist. Is this something one is no longer allowed to say without being smeared as an extremist?
27.
by jacobion 6y ago
It's incentivized like this: [At a party] A: What do you do? B: I work for $BIGTECH. A: You suck dude. I bought one of their products and it never worked once.
28.
by jacobion 6y ago
I somewhat agree with you, but I also think this is different from complaining about the representation of women or black people. Historically most superheroes have been white men. If all contemporary superhero shows had 50% women heroes an
29.
by jacobion 6y ago
Binge-watching on streaming services is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, people can jump into a show after missing the first season and hearing good things about it. On the other hand, something I might have started watching every wee
30.
by jacobion 6y ago
> If The Simpsons was British, none of the best episodes would have been made. But neither would any of the 300 worst episodes.

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