nkoren

87 ms·

751.
by nkoren 11y ago
Well, in some ways it was more complicated; in other ways it was much simpler. Prior to Westphalia, the borders in Europe were predicated on religious affiliation. This made for a very complicated map. So Westphalia established the idea tha
752.
by nkoren 11y ago
An ex-mayor, and not a Lord Mayor. Really small search space here. :-)
753.
by nkoren 11y ago
I think you're conflating the concept of "countries" with the concept of "land". Cities do indeed need resources which are produced from the land, but the artefacts of countryhood (national identify, borders, etc.)
754.
by nkoren 11y ago
Not in the slightest: cities are almost entirely about position. The whole point of a city is to provide easy and rapid access to a maximum diversity of goods, services, buyers, suppliers, needs, and ideas. If you took the people and laws
755.
by nkoren 11y ago
Nope.
756.
by nkoren 11y ago
Yes. Countries were relevant back in the days when territory was the most prized thing and war was the best means of acquiring it. Countries evolved as a means of ensuring territorial integrity, via means both explicit (borders enforced by
757.
by nkoren 11y ago
My first real introduction to UK politics was listening to an only mildly tipsy ex-London mayor rant about how if he could, he'd gladly "pay the rest of the UK £10 billion to go fuck itself, and get us towed out into the mid-Atlan
758.
by nkoren 11y ago
> Mainly because police departments do not keep these kinds of statistics, so the data is horribly incomplete. And as anybody knows, you can massage the data to show anything you want when you don't have the complete picture: That i
759.
by nkoren 11y ago
If the US crime rate were 79 times higher than the British crime rate, then you'd be absolutely correct. However as far as homicides are concerned, it's only 3.8 times higher[1]. A 4-fold discrepancy would be completely understand
760.
by nkoren 11y ago
I'm an American expat living in the UK, so I am interested in judging things on comparative rather than absolute terms. In the UK, the police are on track to have killed 3 people in 2015[1]. In the US, the police are on track to have k
761.
by nkoren 11y ago
No, because there is a level of cognition which mammals and birds etc. obviously have, and which gnats and mites etc. equally obviously do not. Also because I am not an irritating pedant. Here's a more detailed breakdown for you: http
762.
by nkoren 11y ago
I don't think the two are comparable. Humans kill approximately half a million of eah other every year -- and about 2 billion other animals per week . We're unlikely to ever treat other animals as well as we treat each other, but
763.
by nkoren 11y ago
That kind of thinking produces a race to the bottom. "Let's not be good-hearted, because our children might be jerks and resent us for it." The solution to this is not to reach for the lowest common denominator, but to aim hi
764.
by nkoren 11y ago
London, UK - http://www.futurescaper.com/ - Meteor developer Futurescaper is a Meteor and D3-based web application used by large organisations to do crowdsourced foresight, strategy, and collective intelligence. Major clien
765.
by nkoren 11y ago
Turkey has bombed the YPG explicitly because they were advancing too successfully upon ISIS, pushing west of the Euphrates. This, in effect, has created a protected zone for ISIS to operate. This makes him unambiguously an ISIS supporter.
766.
by nkoren 11y ago
It's because Europe doesn't do suburbs and parking lots the same way that America does. Densified development around transit services will result in more people taking those services. Less and/or more costly parking in the ci
767.
by nkoren 11y ago
So if I intend to kill you horribly, but instead serve you a nice cup of chamomile tea and a comfy pair of slippers, is intention still all that matters? I'm not trying to be flip. I'm saying that by any viable moral theory, you a
768.
by nkoren 11y ago
Is that you, Nikolai? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Fyodorovich_Fyodorov ) ;-)
769.
by nkoren 11y ago
> Why do criminals need to be treated humanely though? Because to treat a human being like they are not a human being makes you evil. > Won't the deterrent effect of prison be reduced if we go too easy on them? Data says: no. Bey
770.
by nkoren 11y ago
Per ton, container shipping is roughly 20 times more efficient than old breakbulk shipping methods. So 95% of the labour has already been automated away.
771.
by nkoren 11y ago
Interesting paper; I'd be curious to see examples of how that performs. Are any online?
772.
by nkoren 11y ago
I try not to engage in classic HN-style middlebrow dismissal, but can I take a moment to complain about their "Watch the Film" promotional video? It tells me nothing more than "this is a device you can take photographs with&q
773.
by nkoren 11y ago
It's a pilot program, not a nationwide initiative. That said, the economics of it would be positive if applied nationwide. If you're interested in the pilot, it's documented very extensively in this book, which the Wikipedia
774.
by nkoren 11y ago
Basic income works in poor countries too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_in_India
775.
by nkoren 11y ago
I'm an American entrepreneur who has started two companies in London. My most recent startup was recently accepted into an accelerator in Berlin. Like-for-like, the real estate in Berlin is cheaper by a factor of roughly 6. The overall
776.
by nkoren 11y ago
I'm on Android and not blocking ads, but the "read more" button is still nonfunctional. How exasperating!
777.
by nkoren 11y ago
First, you can place the beaming stations on towers -- most birds stay within a few hundred feet of the ground (which is why skydivers don't have to worry about smacking into them). That'll rule out the majority of bird conflicts.
778.
by nkoren 11y ago
If you think about it (or run the numbers), you'll realise that our present system of jet engines actually dumps far more heat into the atmosphere than this would.
779.
by nkoren 11y ago
The real breakthrough in electric aviation will come when it is combined with beamed energy. Rather than storing power onboard the vehicle, you have ground-based stations which power the vehicles with tracking microwave tightbeams. That way
780.
by nkoren 11y ago
This does not seem like it should be controversial. Transhumanism is a direct outgrowth of Timothy Leary's 1970s "SMI^2LE" programme (Space Migration Increased Intelligence Life Extension), which in turn was directly influenc

More ›