matt4077

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91.
What Is the Most Overrated Invention?(theatlantic.com)
2 points by matt4077 7y ago|0 comments
92.
by matt4077 7y ago
It could be a medium-sized waste of resources. The central thesis is somewhere between "controversial" and "improbable". To wit: current markets being too focussed on the short term does not align too well with Uber, a c
93.
by matt4077 7y ago
It means somebody is feeling so insecure about their masculinity they can read about a new stock exchange doing about a hundred things differently than the status quo, and hone in on what strikes me as the single most benign initiative to c
94.
by matt4077 7y ago
If only there were some sort of large, liquid, well-regulated market offering opportunities to bet on the prospects of publicly traded companies.
95.
by matt4077 7y ago
When autonomous cars arrive, Uber is toast. The only actually useful moat they have is experience in managing drivers. When that goes away, car manufacturers, or even private car owners, will just flood the streets just like scooters or bik
96.
by matt4077 7y ago
That's some exemplary public service by Uber, actually. They may actually deserve their status as a non-profit.
97.
by matt4077 7y ago
Yeah, it's a pretty stupid argument that has somehow become one of those contrarian memes people like to use to appear smart. I guess it's inspired by Amazon's history of reinvesting, but missing the point that Amazon's
98.
by matt4077 7y ago
Except it's not acquiring them so much as renting them, paying each month for the privilege to hold on to the marketshare necessary to also lose money in the next month.
99.
by matt4077 7y ago
Read the actual paper. They seem to have used two methods to make the alternative ("counterfactual") scenario more realistic than just "remove Uber cars": - They compare increase in congestion and Uber/Lyft activity
100.
by matt4077 7y ago
Alternative: Public Transport. Works well in large cities. Subways easily achieve double the average speed of cars in dense areas or rush hour. 30km/h vs 15km/h are typical figures.
101.
by matt4077 7y ago
This is called multimodal transport. I'm unsure how big the effect is for Uber/Lyft where booking the ride would seem slightly more involved than, say, using a bike. But it's an area of great interest especially for public
102.
by matt4077 7y ago
And, following this, these different effects probably have different values for society, i. e.: - Replacing public transit = unmitigated bad - Replacing walking, bike = even worse, bikes are unbeatable for health, space efficiency, energy u
103.
by matt4077 7y ago
The comment specifically mentioned non-consumption, i. e. "Not at all".
104.
by matt4077 7y ago
Let my big stick be the law. And in that regard, this matters. Actually, the law only ever matters where protection is “inadequate”, as per your definition. If we all lived in bunkers and had a personal protection detail, we wouldn’t need a
105.
by matt4077 7y ago
No, use it when appropriate. Here, it isn’t, because: - this settlement applies to Amazon only, not any competitor. That doesn’t fit the usual mechanism of using regulation to shackle competition - regulatory capture also refers to a social
106.
by matt4077 7y ago
Taxation isn’t theft, and trying to reframe it as such is intellectually dishonest. Theft is the unlawful taking of property, and taxation is almost tautologically lawful. You can argue for lower taxes, or even against all taxes, although
107.
by matt4077 7y ago
This supposed “insight” is on its way to become just another tired meme. If, somehow, Amazon profits from this settlement, why did they not just implement its terms before? Or for other categories? There is nothing stopping them from requir
108.
by matt4077 7y ago
I was born in the early 80s, went to school in the US and Germany, and really cannot connect my experience with yours. If anything, there was a universal attitude that math and science were harder, while the others were easy to pass with ju
109.
by matt4077 7y ago
Nuclear technology fanboys are the worst in this regard. They seem to be forever trapped in some 1950’s futurism, not noticing that renewables have improved while their favorite technology has stagnated. Actual scientists improved batteries
110.
by matt4077 7y ago
He literally built nuclear weapons, so he definitely got to read some criticism arguing for moral responsibility of those working on potentially dangerous technology. Besides that, I don’t quite understand why criticism of Facebook would le
111.
I tried to make Facebook's news feed random and fun(theatlantic.com)
32 points by matt4077 7y ago|8 comments
112.
by matt4077 7y ago
If it were forever possible to trace this idea back to me, or to whomever I got it from, that would sort of disprove my point :)
113.
by matt4077 7y ago
It’s almost tautologically true that the scientific method is the gold standard. The problem is rather that not everything is easily studied in such fashion. In fact, physics is almost unique in being easily reducible to smaller and smaller
114.
by matt4077 7y ago
I’ve been seeing more and more of a sort of “Two Cultures” Aggression among the tec crowd, and I’m somewhat baffled by it. I even share some of the misgivings (Hegel: ugh...). But all grievances about the shortcomings of individual sub-fiel
115.
Is Noise Pollution the Next Big Public-Health Crisis?(newyorker.com)
3 points by matt4077 7y ago|0 comments
116.
by matt4077 7y ago
The whole idea of free speech rights rests on the assumption that speech can cause action. There have been quite a few recent shooting sprees where the perpetrators either explicitly referenced online personae, or the investigation revealed
117.
by matt4077 7y ago
Speech either has power or it hasn’t. If it doesn’t, what are we all doing here? What is the First Amendment even supposed to protect? Meaningless entertainment? Yet if it has power, it must be possible for it to be both good and bad, or ot
118.
by matt4077 7y ago
That would amount to “forced speech”, which is an even bigger no-no than restricting free speech, both legally and morally. It’s the reason warrant canaries are a thing.
119.
AI Evolved Creepy Images to Please a Monkey Brain(theatlantic.com)
3 points by matt4077 7y ago|0 comments
120.
by matt4077 7y ago
I’m not sure if # of tweets, which isn’t even equivalent to account age, is the appropriate figure here. Followers would be far more meaningful. I don’t check # of tweets and therefore can’t judge your observation. But lookin at some top tw

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