lukifer

60 ms·

571.
by lukifer 7y ago
On the one hand, limitless growth is an unsustainable anti-pattern (when it manifests in the biological realm, we call it cancer). On the other hand, it's hard to see how civilization could continue to function without the prospect of
572.
by lukifer 7y ago
This is one reason I'm pro-UBI; while it might be reasonable to tightly couple subsistence to full-time labor while below a certain threshold of GDP, if our societal project is to maximize human dignity and autonomy (and why the hell n
573.
by lukifer 7y ago
While I'm sympathetic to your view (status feels very "high school", and in some ways profoundly boring), I'd like to make a case for The Good Parts of status (as well it's bottom-up cousin, "prestige" [0]
574.
by lukifer 7y ago
+1 for election day as a national holiday; I'd even go so far as to make voting mandatory (with support for blank protest ballots, health/circumstance exemptions, etc). That said, while the RFID system you describe seems achievabl
575.
by lukifer 7y ago
"Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place. So if you're as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it?" http://www.linusakesson.net/program
576.
by lukifer 7y ago
While I'm in total agreement, and think that this is likely a bad idea, doesn't the same problem exist with mail-in voting? An abusive party can hover over your shoulder while filling it out, and then walk you to the mailbox.
577.
by lukifer 7y ago
The problem of "access" is an insidious one, even for independent journalism that isn't beholden to corporate advertisers. Ask too many hard-hitting questions, and you don't get invited back for the next interview.
578.
by lukifer 7y ago
In fairness, I read their comment as indicting the left-leaning media for sweeping Bernie under the rug, not the right. If anything, Fox kinda likes Bernie, whether it's a grudging respect for his honesty, or that his socialist brand i
579.
by lukifer 7y ago
I don't disagree; but propaganda is in the eye of the beholder. Eric Weinstein's podcast [0][1] has recently been discussing similar phenomena in left-leaning media and academia, under the label "Distributed Idea-Suppression
580.
by lukifer 7y ago
You are correct; the public won’t accept the technology until it’s at least as safe statistically as air travel (and even then, there’ll be pushback in response to specific inevitable tragedies). However, I think the profit incentives of th
581.
by lukifer 7y ago
I think self-parking (as in “go find a space, possibly auto-paying”, not auto-parallel-parking) could also be a game-changer, not only for convenience and cost, but even zoning and city planning.
582.
by lukifer 7y ago
I think the real feature is that you're in full control: the Transparency option is basically the opposite of noise-cancelling, giving you full operational awareness in a noisy environment without taking the headphones out. It's e
583.
by lukifer 7y ago
I'm reminded of Kubrick's quote about the atom bomb[0]: "People react primarily to direct experience and not to abstractions; it is very rare to find anyone who can become emotionally involved with an abstraction. The longer
584.
by lukifer 7y ago
It does works on LCDs. Funny enough, it didn't look like a shark at first to me; turns out my eyes overshot, and aligned two layers in, creating a quite different shape. Here's the trick I recommend to train the eye muscles: pract
585.
by lukifer 7y ago
> no strings attached, no premium licenses or features, and no hidden agendas Subtle. :) Anyone know the motivation for this fork / dig against Emby, other than the premium licensing?
586.
by lukifer 7y ago
I think it's something of an open secret how much public policy (military and otherwise) is manipulated by wealthy donors and corporate lobbyists. What perhaps goes underexamined, is the extent to which Congress members (even those who
587.
by lukifer 7y ago
> You pay American soldiers and contractor salaries. You buy weapons and technology from American companies. While there are wealthy individuals who profit from the military-industrial complex, it's hard to shake the impression that
588.
by lukifer 7y ago
I think many of the poorest would happily choose a flat $1000/month over the benefit systems we have in place now. But even for those who opted out in favor of existing aid programs, I think the societal benefits of additional liquidit
589.
by lukifer 7y ago
I agree that universal health care should be solved independently from UBI (Yang supports opt-in Medicare For All). Housing is a more complicated story; there's certainly a theory that landlords will simply raise rents in proportion to
590.
by lukifer 7y ago
Case has brilliant insights into systems: "Peace is not the mere absence of war; health is not the mere absence of disease; success is not the mere absence of disaster." http://longnow.org/seminars/02017/
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by lukifer 7y ago
> UBI would also probably help. As the only candidate currently running on a UBI platform, Andrew Yang has argued that one of its benefits would be a reduction in economic anxiety, with ancillary benefits to health in the form of stress
592.
by lukifer 7y ago
I read it as more of a PBS tote-bag / Patreon kind of thing. MLMs tend to promise fantastic riches, which LongNow certainly does not. (Not a member, but I've been following their talks for roughly 15 years now.)
593.
by lukifer 7y ago
Long Now was founded by Stewart Brand, the environmentalist behind the Whole Earth Catalog: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Earth_Catalog While they do have some active projects, like the 10K-Year Clock, it's
594.
by lukifer 7y ago
One of my favorite touches from LongNow.org is that all the dates on their website render in 5 digits: > The Long Now Foundation was established in 01996 to foster long-term thinking and responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000
595.
by lukifer 7y ago
Fair. But every experiment must begin with a hypothesis. ;)
596.
by lukifer 7y ago
If we were inventing a new system out of whole cloth, I think there's a strong case for refactored bicameralism: one House of Congress for elected representatives, and another House for citizens chosen at random ("The People'
597.
by lukifer 7y ago
My thinking is that there should be a high bar to spend public funds or leverage the state's monopoly on violence (and believe me, I'm not reflexively anti-statist: I'm all for infrastructure and social safety nets, etc). P
598.
by lukifer 7y ago
> If the US is a bad political experiment, which one is good? I'll throw my hat in the ring and suggest sortition (think jury duty, but for 2 years at a time, as the representative of your district/state): https://en
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by lukifer 7y ago
Fiction: Unsong by Scott Alexander. The funnest and funniest sci-fi yarn since Douglas Adams, amidst tantalizing explorations of theodicy and existential absurdicy. It's even free: http://unsongbook.com https:/&#x2F
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by lukifer 7y ago
Simler also co-wrote a book with economist Robin Hanson that delves further into the phenomenon of hidden motives and the social benefit of beliefs: https://elephantinthebrain.com

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