vannevar

72 ms·

871.
by vannevar 7y ago
Not true. The top vote getter might siphon off enough votes from their party's second place finisher that it drops them to fourth overall. Some of the voters will have "wasted" their vote on the party leader who would've
872.
by vannevar 7y ago
I like the idea of weighted representation, though I think you'd have to take at least the top two to avoid disenfranchising a significant fraction of the population under a winner-take-all approach, given our two-party politics. Takin
873.
by vannevar 7y ago
I don't think adding 100-odd representatives would do much to fix the problem, which is essentially that the individual vote has been devalued by an order of magnitude. With modern technology, it might not be so difficult to manage tho
874.
by vannevar 7y ago
I mean relative to the foreign competition. There's still a gap, but at least in terms of fit and finish it has narrowed. That's more initial quality than reliability, I guess.
875.
by vannevar 7y ago
Is this new? I'd be curious to know the last time it wasn't true, outside of Tesla. I'm guessing you'd have to go back to the 60s or early 70s. I actually think US cars have improved tremendously in the last decade, th
876.
by vannevar 7y ago
Of course they're not the same. The point of the experiment was to show that the differences don't need to be taken into account to replicate in a model the inequality we see in reality. The implication is that, while differences
877.
by vannevar 7y ago
Note that the statement is that the two people are identical other than their wealth, so that in this case the difference in probability is independent of how the original million was acquired. That's the point.
878.
by vannevar 7y ago
Does anyone else find it crazy that the base SSD in the Air and MBP is still only 128 GB? The Air I can maybe understand, but for the MBP, it's ridiculous.
879.
by vannevar 7y ago
That business model already exists, in the form of online dating sites: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/09/25/ftc_match_fake_user...
880.
by vannevar 7y ago
I'm not sure this is correct, at least not on average. I assure you it is true. It is not true only if there is a negative value to capital (ie, capital essentially destroys itself). That's what you seem to be saying with your
881.
by vannevar 7y ago
This is why people say "The first million was the hardest", because after you have used their skills to make a million others will trust your skills and thus give you more exposure and opportunities. It is precisely advantages l
882.
by vannevar 7y ago
We're using distribution here in two different senses. One is statistical distribution, like power law or gaussian distribution. The other is distribution in the sense of a distribution network. You can test your understanding of the d
883.
by vannevar 7y ago
That's better than a poor person, who does not have access to reasonably priced credit even in the unlikely event they have the collateral. And in reality, the rich often do have access to unsecured credit. They have that credit beca
884.
by vannevar 7y ago
As a percentage, sure, but in real terms the poorer person doesn't have 'much' to lose (to be regained) over someone extremely rich risking the same percentage. This is questionable. The assumption that a poor person can mo
885.
by vannevar 7y ago
It's not part of the model because, if you're studying how wealth gets distributed rather than how it is produced, it doesn't matter. I'm guessing that your disquiet at this notion comes from the possibility that everyon
886.
by vannevar 7y ago
I don't see how it's different from any of the food delivery services I can use to get Krispy Kremes brought to my house. Not sure KK has a legal leg to stand on here.
887.
by vannevar 7y ago
We don’t need technological restrictions. Laws and education are more than sufficient, as is presently being demonstrated every day in our society. Yes, these events are rare. The vast majority of people are not murderous sociopaths. That
888.
by vannevar 7y ago
But is this an argument that quadcopters be regulated less , or that motor vehicles be regulated more ? We've lived with the carnage motor vehicles wreak mostly out of blind habit: it's taken as normal. But that was true of many
889.
by vannevar 7y ago
I upvoted you, not because I agree, but because you raised a reasonable point that clearly generated some intelligent debate. I think the problem is that modern technology has resulted in cheaply available "tools" (to use your ter
890.
by vannevar 7y ago
It's true that we do know more, but that's reflected in the even more ambitious promises being made. SpaceX will almost certainly improve greatly on the Shuttle, but will also just as certainly fail to live up to the projections
891.
by vannevar 7y ago
Yes, we've heard this story before. From Nixon's announcement of the Space Shuttle program in 1972: "In the scientific arena, the past decade of experience has taught us that spacecraft are an irreplaceable tool for learning
892.
by vannevar 7y ago
Agreed, I think there was a point, when we could still benefit from the pre-existing social trust network, that it was a net positive. Now that the pre-internet trust network has deteriorated, and with no trust mechanism built into the inte
893.
by vannevar 7y ago
I tried to get through this article, but the popups and advertising widgets made the page unreadable. A more accessible article can be found here: https://liliputing.com/2019/10/system76-launches-two-linux-w...
894.
by vannevar 7y ago
There certainly may be industries where real dematerialization is taking place, and the author of the article would've been better off sticking with those. Instead the article makes sweeping, unsubstantiated claims across the entire ec
895.
by vannevar 7y ago
No, I read the whole thing. It talks about imports and exports of raw material, but excludes the import of those same materials in the form of goods manufactured elsewhere. For example, raw copper would be included, but copper coils in a re
896.
by vannevar 7y ago
Yes, leaving out the consumption of materials in the form of goods manufactured elsewhere is such a giant, glaring hole in the logic that it strains credibility to believe it's mere oversight. It looks like deliberate misinformation
897.
by vannevar 7y ago
True. It's interesting to note that the ratio of the median to the mean for Germany is similar to the US, where France and other high-medians have smaller ratios. Why is wealth more naturally distributed in France, but less so in Germa
898.
by vannevar 7y ago
You would be correct, the US lags far, far behind in median wealth, behind countries like Korea and Spain. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-23/australia-tops-median...
899.
by vannevar 7y ago
Yes, it's either disingenuous or incredibly naive to ignore the outsourcing of materials-intensive activities to other countries, the most obvious example being manufacturing. Would our rate of material use look so low if we included t
900.
by vannevar 7y ago
Let's not forget that this is a company that was built by violating the law in cities across the country. It's not surprising they wouldn't be squeamish about flaunting it now.

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