tpeo

41 ms·

361.
by tpeo 10y ago
Smith makes this exact same point in Book I of The Wealth of Nations. "[...] the advantage which is gained by saving the time commonly lost in passing from one sort of work to another, is much greater than we should at first view be ap
362.
by tpeo 10y ago
Oops, I guess you're right about that. I took the expression "nary a penny more" to mean "nary a penny more [than 1000 talers]", since I assumed that Vieweg still bought the manuscript. I see now that this isn'
363.
by tpeo 10y ago
It's right in the end: Goethe's lawyer revealed his reservation price of 1000 talers to Vieweg and he bid just that.
364.
by tpeo 10y ago
So Böttiger ratted Goethe out. It's unfortunate that Goethe figured out the Vickrey auction, but not the principal-agent problem.
365.
by tpeo 10y ago
I wasn't really pushing a point. I was trying to add some perspective on the issue. But if I were to push one, I'd say that the question of whether or not our experience is "real" should really be considered a pseudo-pro
366.
by tpeo 10y ago
There were reasons to believe in a God some two thousand years ago. Those might have been wrong reasons, but still the belief in gods reflected people's understanding of the world at the time (i.e. pretty much none at all). I personall
367.
by tpeo 10y ago
No. Descartes' apprehension of his own existence as a "thinking substance" doesn't say anything about the nature of the external world. The simulation argument is connected with Cartesian philosophy though. It is one of
368.
by tpeo 10y ago
SMAC also had 10/10 flavor text and setting overall. It's a game that has a lot of character.
369.
by tpeo 10y ago
Why is it insane? I don't know for what purpose they'd build something like that, but I reckon that's the kind of stuff about anything which is most easily lost. Stuff from millenia ago can easily look like "cow tools&qu
370.
by tpeo 10y ago
I'm young enough that I've never had to use any of these, except for FTP. But the contemporary needlessly bloated and avertising-centered web does make me nostalgic for things I didn't experience. It even makes browsing throu
371.
by tpeo 10y ago
There might be a limit to how much fun you can get from learning, and I'd say most of the fun comes from the novelty of it. Figuring stuff out is nice, but education might be a source of enjoyment after a certain point (which I think i
372.
by tpeo 10y ago
The expression "dark night of the soul" comes from Roman Catholicism. I don't think it refers to what you're talking about either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Night_of_the_Soul
373.
by tpeo 10y ago
Do large predators have a positive effect on human health? I'm not trying to be funny with this, I'm just pointing out that human benefit isn't strictly increasing on all environmental factors, and that some of the evolutiona
374.
by tpeo 10y ago
Well, each of those things created new unforeseen problems, such as cyber-crime (and, I believe, a decline of quality in journalism). On the other hand, none of them actually presented the possibility of direct physical harm, which might o
375.
by tpeo 10y ago
Aren't the majority of Earth's species also extinct? What's surprising in the idea that extraterrestrial civilizations follow the same pattern? That's just how things work out after billions of years.
376.
by tpeo 10y ago
The "dismal science" thing has nothing to do with scientific standards. It was an expression coined and used by Thomas Carlyle in satirical essay in favor of slavery to refer to political economy because economist's support f
377.
by tpeo 11y ago
This is a nice video, I wasn't aware of Zizek's opinion on the topic. It could also be that jokes coming from hostile parties sound more like threats.
378.
by tpeo 11y ago
I've got impression that the author has somehow conflated adaptation to pleasure and monotonicity. Adaptation doesn't imply that people will always want more stuff, monotonicity [0] does. What adaptation implies is that all gains
379.
by tpeo 11y ago
>there's still something that makes it clear that I am I: cogito ergo sum "There are still harmless self-observers who believe that there are 'immediate certainties'; for instance, 'I think,' or as the super
380.
by tpeo 11y ago
Extreme but contingent focus can actually be a symptom of ADHD. http://www.healthline.com/health/adhd/adhd-symptoms-hyperfoc...
381.
by tpeo 11y ago
The author seems to be referring to financial definitions of capital rather than an economic definition of capital. It would surprise me if the physical capital stock of any country weren't at least 5 times larger than it's GDP. A
382.
by tpeo 11y ago
I see how the "perceived worth" if GDP is designed to be a measure of real economic variables e.g. tons of steel. Growth that isn't growth which isn't attributable to increases in quantity produced is just inflation as m
383.
by tpeo 11y ago
Humanity and morality aside, maybe politicians are also respoding rationally when encouraging punitive millitary interventions. Looking "tough" does more for re-election than trying to brew long term solutions. It's an unfort
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by tpeo 11y ago
Way more people work in "the production, transport and prep of food", if the linkages between production processes are considered. Whereas in the 19th century a plow and a mule was perhaps all that was needed, and very little was
385.
by tpeo 11y ago
I was asking myself how people measured time before mechanical clocks, and I completely forgot about hourglasses. I wonder if the development of mechanics was hindered by the lack of standardized time-keeping. I've read that Galileo us
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by tpeo 11y ago
Well, there's no escaping it. Either a debate solved, forgotten, or rediscovered by another field and clothed in new jargon. It just goes on like this until it transcends it's cycles of scholarship. The particular expression &quot
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by tpeo 11y ago
There's no need to imagine. When Henry VIII ordered the supression of the monasteries, manuscripts from monastic libraries were sold as toilet paper and shining rags. Though this has less to do with unnapraised items being lost due to
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by tpeo 11y ago
From the history of pig farming in the Near East, it seems they enjoyed the current status of pidgeons, rats and insects in the psychological food hierarchy.
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by tpeo 11y ago
"Measure directly"? As in: go after every family and try to figure out their consumption basket? Producing census data is extremely expensive when compared with estimating consumption. Also, it's also a pain in the ass to par
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by tpeo 11y ago
>The focus of a lot of brutalist architecture was on functionality – that is, discarding the pomp and frivolity of some older architecture – and making them more focused around the actual functional needs of humans. I disagree with this,

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