It's not a legitimate criticism? I mean, if you take a healthy person and bang them with a load of insulin they're not going to become hypoglycemic, especially with the absence of a load of actual glucose for the insulin?
If you have a well-understood cause-effect and you claim the cause is there don't you have to explain the lack of a reaction for similar causes?
I may be misinterpreting this, but maybe AirBnB is actually structuring their model in a way designed to encourage casual rentals (ie, spare bedroom or whatever) and discourage more commercial rental operators (people that buy living space explicitly for short term commercial rental).
I can see where people who are trying to use AirBnB as a business service would be something they may not want -- people who are profit/investment/business focused about it would be more demanding and less malleable to AirBnB, whereas casual renters may look at it as just some extra cash they can get for a room that's otherwise empty.
You could rephrase that less flatteringly, that they want to just steamroll the naive, or you could look at it that they're really trying to stay true to the "sharing economy" concept and not create a full-on hotel system with rooms supplied by professional property investors. They want to be the short-term rental Craigslist, not the short-term Amazon.
3. I very much doubt that being publically dragged through the dirt for wasting $9m of customers' money will look good on their CVs, let alone help them get better jobs.
Depends on how they spin the story and how well their alternative facts get accepted.
I'd wager that failure is very common in entrepreneurial circles and some kinds and amounts of failure may be seen as merely good experience or even some kind of requirement.
So unless this was a particularly notorious example of fraud, once the details are forgotten this is one more didn't-quite-take-off entrepreneurial story to tell.
Isn't there a diminishing return on this? Some point where AirBnB inventory is saturated and the so-called investors are owning properties that mostly remain vacant, and eventually the market inventory for permanent housing faces a surge in available properties as speculators look to get out from under their under-performing rental properties? It sounds to me like it will turn out like every other real estate speculation bubble.
If this didn't happen, and somehow AirBnB's model managed to permanently shrink the traditional hotel model maybe you'd end up with a kind of reverse effect where hotel chains began to shrink their holdings and hotels got converted into apartments to address the demand for permanent housing.
This doesn't seem entirely complex -- it seems like it would be easy to merge two hotel rooms into a single apartment. Leave one bathroom as-is and knock down the wall in the other and convert it to a kitchen (since there's already plumbing). It might even open up novel mixed-use concepts with the public spaces many hotels have.
I know I've stayed in a couple of hotels that had previously been apartment buildings in NYC and were converted to hotels to meet hotel room demand. That conversion seems more complex due to life safety improvements and the complexity of converting apartments into more uniform hotel rooms.
I stayed at a "Home2Suite" hotel last summer that looked like it was purpose built to convert into an apartment complex -- as a hotel room, it really was basically a one bedroom apartment.
I think the even simple similarity between descriptions of religious experience and chemically or stress-induced altered states (injury, starvation, heat/cold, meditation, etc) is enough to call them into question, and that's even if you're willing to even go halfway on the notion of some kind of metaphysical existence.
I'm an atheist, so I think upfront that religious experiences are nothing more than neuropsychological experiences. You'd have to provide positive proof of the basis of metaphysical existence first before I'd consider religious experiences any more than that.
There's also a lot of good anecdotal evidence that religious groups have sought to suppress drugs (even non-psychedelics) because their effects are often indistinguishable from religious experiences and threaten the religious organization's monopoly control of religious experience.
Previously we had such intensely profound discussions and realizations on LSD but come morning we never remembered them.
So after borrowing a small dictation recorder (this was the 1980s), we set out to our usual spots of inspiration and had the expected insights, this time recorded for posterity.
The actual tape recording? A marginally intelligible 60 minutes of semi-coherent laughter, babbling, "Yes! That's it!" and so on. No insights or discoveries, which wasn't what I remembered.
My sense was that LSD just stimulated whatever part of the brain produces the psychological sense of profound experience and transcendental realization, it doesn't provide some increase in intellectual or philosophical intelligence at the time. You don't find out anything, it just feels that way.
Which isn't to invalidate the experience -- in fact, I'd wager there's some medium-term enduring psychological benefit to just *having* the experience of transcendental truth and understanding, probably greatly so if you lacked those experiences, were facing a situation of great psychological dissonance, and had someone present to guide you during the experience (which, from what I read, was kind of standard for LSD use in the 1960s during its psychiatric/academic phase). I've read that it was considered really beneficial for people with terminal illness in achieving an inner peace about their situation, for example.
I'm less convinced that just recreational use to get high achieves much of that, but it still can be a good time. I don't know that I'd be interested anymore, though. LSD is too demanding -- I don't really have 24 hours I can just write off like that anymore.
What's funny is that in this apocryphal past the GP describes it sure seems like there were a lot of affairs. It seems that when I'm reading something about history and I run into so-and-so having an affair, taking a lover, etc.
And prostitution was pretty widely established and widespread, which I assume was something of a tacitly accepted alternative to more socially disruptive extramarital sex -- no ruined reputations or social reputations, especially if a pregnancy occurred.
Whatever the public and religiously minded sexual norms were in days of yore, it sure seems like there was still a lot of sex going on, however furtive it was.
Someone who is an expert in the chemistry of a battery may not know anything about the issues involved in actually manufacturing said battery.
Part of me wonders if maybe we should have more cross-functional research teams, including people with manufacturing at scale experience. If the research in question is really just basic chemistry research and a battery just happens to come out of it, then maybe a manufacturing guy isn't appropriate.
But if the goal is to actually design a new battery, maybe the manufacturing guy would be useful, helping to avoid potential designs that would have issues in terms of scaling up.
I'm sure I have the terms and roles mangled, but when doing science for the purpose of inventing something like a new battery do scientists actually consider whether their research path yields an invention that can actually be scaled up to mass production?
This guy seemed to be "Well, we figured out how it works, but I'm done now, somebody else has to figure out how to make more than the 2 prototypes I spent 4 years making in the lab."
It reminds me of the kick-the-can-down-the-road in the technology business:
Hardware guy: There is a hardware bug, but they can fix it in firmware.
Firmware guy: They can fix it in the application.
Application guy: We'll make sure that this gets into the manual.
Documentation guy: I'll pass this along to the help desk, they can create a KB entry.
Help Desk: I'll post something on Stack Exchange...
I think it's kind of funny that they would choose a Greco-Roman cultural figure for their project name. Were there no gods of Chinese mythology available?
Interestingly enough, ketogenic diets which have been shown to be effective for weight loss, all recommend increasing salt intake, often recommending a serving of broth to increase sodium consumption.
Based on what I've read about it all, hunger is most closely associated with leptin. If these people were fed a salty, low-fat diet it's possible that salt induced more eating by increasing the palatability of food and the lack of fat in the diet increased hunger by suppressing leptin levels and they turned to higher-sodium foods both for their taste advantage and for the role of sodium of metabolizing stored fat.
I'll tack on that popcorn salt, a very fine version of table salt designed to coat popcorn effectively, is great if you want to add salt to something you're just about to eat. It's so fine that you can effectively cover the surface of what you're eating to gain an additional salt flavor without a lot of added actual salt.
Really, regulation shouldn't be structured as pre-emptive. We should regulate in response to need, not create regulations for problems that only exist theoretically. This sounded like an attempt to craft regulations specifically to invalidate ABNB's business model.
I guess I'm wondering what Air B&B rentals are doing that's so bad that it requires such extensive regulation. As far as I know, people are basically renting rooms out that are already in residences. If those renters are too loud, isn't that why we already have noise ordinances? AirB&B isn't purpose-building large structures as hotels, so there's a whole raft of regulation that just wouldn't seem to apply. I'm generally sure that any apartment building that's got an occupancy certificate already is considered generally safe for habitation, etc.
If the hotel industry really wanted to compete, they could come up with new hotel designs or business structures. They're just pissed that they've got an elaborate business model that's high overhead and they want every hotel guest to pay for that overhead. When you build a hotel that holds 100 people but only rent out 30 rooms on average, your model needs to cover the overhead on 70 rooms that sit empty.
AFAICT, AB&B beats hotels not on regulation but on lack of overhead.
I wonder how closely economists have looked at the "send it home" phenomenon. What portion of immigrant income is repatriated?
Economists generally favor immigration, believing it results in greater economic domestic economic activity. But if some large portion of immigrant wages is sent abroad, it would seem to undermine some of the increased economic activity aspect.
In previous eras, it was much more difficult to repatriate wages, and I wonder if econometrics associated with immigration still has a bias on income predominantly remaining in the US.
I agree with that assessment for arbitrary work weeks of 50+ hours, but I also don't think that 40 hours is somehow the magical number for everyone.
The point of net negative returns -- not just diminished returns -- isn't the same for every individual and it's probably some number beyond 50 hours, even, as it kind of assumes 40 hours of breathless, nose-to-the-grindstone work, which in most generic office environments isn't even remotely the case.
I'd also guess that if marginally longer work weeks were really so universally net negative, employers wouldn't so universally embrace them.
Nor does a net loss calculus take into account that some hours worked are more valuable than others. If I have to work 5 hours on a Tuesday night to achieve some milestone in a project, those 5 hours of work may be more valuable than the 3-4 lost hours of productivity I might have come Friday when I cross the 40 hour threshold.
The problem is even reduced productivity past 40 hours is basically free to the employer because they've already met their costs at that point, so your marginal output past 40 hours is now free to them.
As you state, there's the risk of losses beyond some number, but up to that number even the reduced output is worthwhile to them.
It's wrong on every level. When your big idea is to maintain your cartel status by regulating the competition at every government level it's obvious that your competition is onto something and you are morally and intellectually bankrupt.
This is a snapshot of so many things that are wrong with America:
1) Excessive government regulation -- that it's even possible to regulate a business into oblivion shows that we have too much regulation. Regulation in and of itself isn't bad, but it should be kind of a reaction to innovation to smooth it out, not so extreme that it snuffs it out.
2) Excessive government influence -- obviously the hotel cartel is only capable of accomplishing this because of excessive corporate influence over government. Money buys legislation.
3) Rent-seeking cartels -- that an entire "competitive" industry is lining up to defeat a business competitor via regulation instead of promoting why they are better than the upstart shows how intellectually bankrupt American business is. This is your big idea?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
I also don't think this woman should be criticized. When I see the stupid things people who have grown up with technology do (as opposed to growing up dirt poor in Africa), she's no worse off than they are.
With the greatest possible respect (since I'm sure you are good at something and I've just got you at a bad time) the cult of personality you describe revolves around someone who has been dead for a long time.
No. In dynastic cults of personality, the current living leader is always elevated to the same status as their predecessors and new attention focuses on them and their glory. The current Kim is the current focus of the cult of personality -- it's his image front and center, flanked by his ancestors. Failure to promote the living leader as the center of the mythology results in the myth of the dead leaders overshadowing the current leader, leading to unpleasant comparisons and belief that the current leader isn't adequate. It takes continuous promotion of the living leader to maintain his power and centrality to the myth.
I've got no idea why you think a tight circle is enough to run a country - that "great man" fairytale has got you.
Centralized decision making and authority, with extremely limited authority granted to subordinates. There's an elaborate police state apparatus designed to keep subordinate administrators loyal and in line, but it's all extremely dependent on a narrow group of people at the top who have anything like the autonomy represented by "running a country".
The "great man" problem is a lesser issue relative to DPRK because of its status as a tightly controlled, dynastic authoritarian state. In its case, there really is a "great" or at least central figure. The "great man" is a larger problem in more open societies or explaining historical events (eg, WW II). It's actually a defining feature of a nation like DPRK by definition as an authoritarian dynasty, unless you want to argue that Kim Jong-un is merely a prop and figurehead for an elaborate and diverse apparatus of state not actually controlled by Kim.
It's the technology news/pr machine. I think we've had "breakthroughs" like this for ages, but what we didn't have for most of the time was a relentless, hype-oriented technology "press" that made us aware of them, and also spun them up into the next big thing. They were what they were, quiet little advancements that might or might not ever see the light of the day.
Easy student loans drive this. Administrators feel free to increase spending because they feel free to increase costs because lenders feel free to lend because there is low risk to student loans due to the lack of a default mechanism.
Politically, I think they appease Democratic state legislatures by increasing aid and scholarships to protected class students, knowing that these costs can be shifted to students who pay with loans, as the loan amounts can go up easily. The added spending by Universities is spun as "education spending" which is generally approved of.
Republicans, who are generally against increased spending, appear to be asleep at the switch, but probably they're too busy fighting ideological battels to care or are getting different signals from their political constituencies in the construction industry who benefit from University capital spending. Plus I'm sure there is heavy lobbying by the financial services industry who benefit from student lending, reminding legislators that this is "free" spending that doesn't come from tax revenue, so it doesn't count.
His death alone *probably* won't change anything, but the dynasty's ability to self-perpetuate has a lot to do with the cult of personality involved, and without the personality at the center it might implode.
I find it hard to fathom that outside of a very tight circle of insiders, the DPRK leadership is really interested in falling on their swords to preserve what amounts to "the system" there. I just don't think that there's enough authority diffused into the system for succession to work, especially to members outside the circle. Would you be willing to die to continue the system in DPRK that has you living in fear if you have anything like authority or living like slave if you don't if there's the remotest chance the system could collapse?
Say what you will about the Chinese and the Soviets as dictatorships, but both of those nations have/had a party apparatus with enough influence to plan and manage succession outside of family dynasties. Even though Xi Jinping can basically flout the rules for his benefit, he still has to work hard politically to ram it through the central committee.
AFAICT, DPRK really doesn't have anything like that in their party apparatus. I think the situation is more akin to Ceausescu in Romania. Segments of the Securitate fought to regain control, but otherwise Romania collapsed quickly, with the military failing to act in support of the leadership. I suspect China has back channels into the military leadership with instructions they will be supported if they stand down in the even of a catastrophic death/leadership vacuum.
I think you're pretty much dead on. I'd only differ in that I think student loan debt should be dischargeable, but inversely proportional to the time since the education was obtained. All assets depreciate in value and an education isn't really all that different, and inverse proportion depreciation prevents short-term discharge after graduation without the punishment that would be inflicted on someone whose finances otherwise allow them to declare bankruptcy. I think part of the escalating college cost/loan cycle needs some negative feedback loop -- lending should have risk, without it they lend irresponsibly and all it ends up being is inflationary.
But you're absolutely right about the "everyone doesn't need a degree" stuff. Most people go to college because they don't know better and are only in it for the signaling value that a degree supposedly has to employers.
College loans are basically a subsidy to corporations who would otherwise have to provide training and education to their employees and even if it provides some vocational value, it's a horribly inefficient -- the overlap between what's learned in school and what has vocational value to employers is really small.
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It's not a legitimate criticism? I mean, if you take a healthy person and bang them with a load of insulin they're not going to become hypoglycemic, especially with the absence of a load of actual glucose for the insulin?
If you have a well-understood cause-effect and you claim the cause is there don't you have to explain the lack of a reaction for similar causes?
I may be misinterpreting this, but maybe AirBnB is actually structuring their model in a way designed to encourage casual rentals (ie, spare bedroom or whatever) and discourage more commercial rental operators (people that buy living space explicitly for short term commercial rental).
I can see where people who are trying to use AirBnB as a business service would be something they may not want -- people who are profit/investment/business focused about it would be more demanding and less malleable to AirBnB, whereas casual renters may look at it as just some extra cash they can get for a room that's otherwise empty.
You could rephrase that less flatteringly, that they want to just steamroll the naive, or you could look at it that they're really trying to stay true to the "sharing economy" concept and not create a full-on hotel system with rooms supplied by professional property investors. They want to be the short-term rental Craigslist, not the short-term Amazon.
3. I very much doubt that being publically dragged through the dirt for wasting $9m of customers' money will look good on their CVs, let alone help them get better jobs.
Depends on how they spin the story and how well their alternative facts get accepted.
I'd wager that failure is very common in entrepreneurial circles and some kinds and amounts of failure may be seen as merely good experience or even some kind of requirement.
So unless this was a particularly notorious example of fraud, once the details are forgotten this is one more didn't-quite-take-off entrepreneurial story to tell.
Isn't there a diminishing return on this? Some point where AirBnB inventory is saturated and the so-called investors are owning properties that mostly remain vacant, and eventually the market inventory for permanent housing faces a surge in available properties as speculators look to get out from under their under-performing rental properties? It sounds to me like it will turn out like every other real estate speculation bubble.
If this didn't happen, and somehow AirBnB's model managed to permanently shrink the traditional hotel model maybe you'd end up with a kind of reverse effect where hotel chains began to shrink their holdings and hotels got converted into apartments to address the demand for permanent housing.
This doesn't seem entirely complex -- it seems like it would be easy to merge two hotel rooms into a single apartment. Leave one bathroom as-is and knock down the wall in the other and convert it to a kitchen (since there's already plumbing). It might even open up novel mixed-use concepts with the public spaces many hotels have.
I know I've stayed in a couple of hotels that had previously been apartment buildings in NYC and were converted to hotels to meet hotel room demand. That conversion seems more complex due to life safety improvements and the complexity of converting apartments into more uniform hotel rooms.
I stayed at a "Home2Suite" hotel last summer that looked like it was purpose built to convert into an apartment complex -- as a hotel room, it really was basically a one bedroom apartment.
I think the even simple similarity between descriptions of religious experience and chemically or stress-induced altered states (injury, starvation, heat/cold, meditation, etc) is enough to call them into question, and that's even if you're willing to even go halfway on the notion of some kind of metaphysical existence.
I'm an atheist, so I think upfront that religious experiences are nothing more than neuropsychological experiences. You'd have to provide positive proof of the basis of metaphysical existence first before I'd consider religious experiences any more than that.
There's also a lot of good anecdotal evidence that religious groups have sought to suppress drugs (even non-psychedelics) because their effects are often indistinguishable from religious experiences and threaten the religious organization's monopoly control of religious experience.
I recorded a session once.
Previously we had such intensely profound discussions and realizations on LSD but come morning we never remembered them.
So after borrowing a small dictation recorder (this was the 1980s), we set out to our usual spots of inspiration and had the expected insights, this time recorded for posterity.
The actual tape recording? A marginally intelligible 60 minutes of semi-coherent laughter, babbling, "Yes! That's it!" and so on. No insights or discoveries, which wasn't what I remembered.
My sense was that LSD just stimulated whatever part of the brain produces the psychological sense of profound experience and transcendental realization, it doesn't provide some increase in intellectual or philosophical intelligence at the time. You don't find out anything, it just feels that way.
Which isn't to invalidate the experience -- in fact, I'd wager there's some medium-term enduring psychological benefit to just *having* the experience of transcendental truth and understanding, probably greatly so if you lacked those experiences, were facing a situation of great psychological dissonance, and had someone present to guide you during the experience (which, from what I read, was kind of standard for LSD use in the 1960s during its psychiatric/academic phase). I've read that it was considered really beneficial for people with terminal illness in achieving an inner peace about their situation, for example.
I'm less convinced that just recreational use to get high achieves much of that, but it still can be a good time. I don't know that I'd be interested anymore, though. LSD is too demanding -- I don't really have 24 hours I can just write off like that anymore.
What's funny is that in this apocryphal past the GP describes it sure seems like there were a lot of affairs. It seems that when I'm reading something about history and I run into so-and-so having an affair, taking a lover, etc.
And prostitution was pretty widely established and widespread, which I assume was something of a tacitly accepted alternative to more socially disruptive extramarital sex -- no ruined reputations or social reputations, especially if a pregnancy occurred.
Whatever the public and religiously minded sexual norms were in days of yore, it sure seems like there was still a lot of sex going on, however furtive it was.
Someone who is an expert in the chemistry of a battery may not know anything about the issues involved in actually manufacturing said battery.
Part of me wonders if maybe we should have more cross-functional research teams, including people with manufacturing at scale experience. If the research in question is really just basic chemistry research and a battery just happens to come out of it, then maybe a manufacturing guy isn't appropriate.
But if the goal is to actually design a new battery, maybe the manufacturing guy would be useful, helping to avoid potential designs that would have issues in terms of scaling up.
I'm sure I have the terms and roles mangled, but when doing science for the purpose of inventing something like a new battery do scientists actually consider whether their research path yields an invention that can actually be scaled up to mass production?
This guy seemed to be "Well, we figured out how it works, but I'm done now, somebody else has to figure out how to make more than the 2 prototypes I spent 4 years making in the lab."
It reminds me of the kick-the-can-down-the-road in the technology business:
Hardware guy: There is a hardware bug, but they can fix it in firmware.
Firmware guy: They can fix it in the application.
Application guy: We'll make sure that this gets into the manual.
Documentation guy: I'll pass this along to the help desk, they can create a KB entry.
Help Desk: I'll post something on Stack Exchange...
I think it's kind of funny that they would choose a Greco-Roman cultural figure for their project name. Were there no gods of Chinese mythology available?
Interestingly enough, ketogenic diets which have been shown to be effective for weight loss, all recommend increasing salt intake, often recommending a serving of broth to increase sodium consumption.
Based on what I've read about it all, hunger is most closely associated with leptin. If these people were fed a salty, low-fat diet it's possible that salt induced more eating by increasing the palatability of food and the lack of fat in the diet increased hunger by suppressing leptin levels and they turned to higher-sodium foods both for their taste advantage and for the role of sodium of metabolizing stored fat.
I'll tack on that popcorn salt, a very fine version of table salt designed to coat popcorn effectively, is great if you want to add salt to something you're just about to eat. It's so fine that you can effectively cover the surface of what you're eating to gain an additional salt flavor without a lot of added actual salt.
I think you're mostly right, these days a "UI refresh" is more about creating a false sense of change than any serious functional improvement.
Hopefully they've just overstated this and it's more about fonts or something.
Really, regulation shouldn't be structured as pre-emptive. We should regulate in response to need, not create regulations for problems that only exist theoretically. This sounded like an attempt to craft regulations specifically to invalidate ABNB's business model.
I guess I'm wondering what Air B&B rentals are doing that's so bad that it requires such extensive regulation. As far as I know, people are basically renting rooms out that are already in residences. If those renters are too loud, isn't that why we already have noise ordinances? AirB&B isn't purpose-building large structures as hotels, so there's a whole raft of regulation that just wouldn't seem to apply. I'm generally sure that any apartment building that's got an occupancy certificate already is considered generally safe for habitation, etc.
If the hotel industry really wanted to compete, they could come up with new hotel designs or business structures. They're just pissed that they've got an elaborate business model that's high overhead and they want every hotel guest to pay for that overhead. When you build a hotel that holds 100 people but only rent out 30 rooms on average, your model needs to cover the overhead on 70 rooms that sit empty.
AFAICT, AB&B beats hotels not on regulation but on lack of overhead.
Aren't people on disability, well, disabled, which is why they get benefits? Because they can't work?
And in theory, shouldn't unemployed be people spending their time obtaining more optimal jobs vs. makework?
I wonder how closely economists have looked at the "send it home" phenomenon. What portion of immigrant income is repatriated?
Economists generally favor immigration, believing it results in greater economic domestic economic activity. But if some large portion of immigrant wages is sent abroad, it would seem to undermine some of the increased economic activity aspect.
In previous eras, it was much more difficult to repatriate wages, and I wonder if econometrics associated with immigration still has a bias on income predominantly remaining in the US.
I agree with that assessment for arbitrary work weeks of 50+ hours, but I also don't think that 40 hours is somehow the magical number for everyone.
The point of net negative returns -- not just diminished returns -- isn't the same for every individual and it's probably some number beyond 50 hours, even, as it kind of assumes 40 hours of breathless, nose-to-the-grindstone work, which in most generic office environments isn't even remotely the case.
I'd also guess that if marginally longer work weeks were really so universally net negative, employers wouldn't so universally embrace them.
Nor does a net loss calculus take into account that some hours worked are more valuable than others. If I have to work 5 hours on a Tuesday night to achieve some milestone in a project, those 5 hours of work may be more valuable than the 3-4 lost hours of productivity I might have come Friday when I cross the 40 hour threshold.
The problem is even reduced productivity past 40 hours is basically free to the employer because they've already met their costs at that point, so your marginal output past 40 hours is now free to them.
As you state, there's the risk of losses beyond some number, but up to that number even the reduced output is worthwhile to them.
It's wrong on every level. When your big idea is to maintain your cartel status by regulating the competition at every government level it's obvious that your competition is onto something and you are morally and intellectually bankrupt.
This is a snapshot of so many things that are wrong with America:
1) Excessive government regulation -- that it's even possible to regulate a business into oblivion shows that we have too much regulation. Regulation in and of itself isn't bad, but it should be kind of a reaction to innovation to smooth it out, not so extreme that it snuffs it out.
2) Excessive government influence -- obviously the hotel cartel is only capable of accomplishing this because of excessive corporate influence over government. Money buys legislation.
3) Rent-seeking cartels -- that an entire "competitive" industry is lining up to defeat a business competitor via regulation instead of promoting why they are better than the upstart shows how intellectually bankrupt American business is. This is your big idea?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
I also don't think this woman should be criticized. When I see the stupid things people who have grown up with technology do (as opposed to growing up dirt poor in Africa), she's no worse off than they are.
With the greatest possible respect (since I'm sure you are good at something and I've just got you at a bad time) the cult of personality you describe revolves around someone who has been dead for a long time.
No. In dynastic cults of personality, the current living leader is always elevated to the same status as their predecessors and new attention focuses on them and their glory. The current Kim is the current focus of the cult of personality -- it's his image front and center, flanked by his ancestors. Failure to promote the living leader as the center of the mythology results in the myth of the dead leaders overshadowing the current leader, leading to unpleasant comparisons and belief that the current leader isn't adequate. It takes continuous promotion of the living leader to maintain his power and centrality to the myth.
I've got no idea why you think a tight circle is enough to run a country - that "great man" fairytale has got you.
Centralized decision making and authority, with extremely limited authority granted to subordinates. There's an elaborate police state apparatus designed to keep subordinate administrators loyal and in line, but it's all extremely dependent on a narrow group of people at the top who have anything like the autonomy represented by "running a country".
The "great man" problem is a lesser issue relative to DPRK because of its status as a tightly controlled, dynastic authoritarian state. In its case, there really is a "great" or at least central figure. The "great man" is a larger problem in more open societies or explaining historical events (eg, WW II). It's actually a defining feature of a nation like DPRK by definition as an authoritarian dynasty, unless you want to argue that Kim Jong-un is merely a prop and figurehead for an elaborate and diverse apparatus of state not actually controlled by Kim.
And you know this how exactly?
And you know I'm wrong how?
It's the technology news/pr machine. I think we've had "breakthroughs" like this for ages, but what we didn't have for most of the time was a relentless, hype-oriented technology "press" that made us aware of them, and also spun them up into the next big thing. They were what they were, quiet little advancements that might or might not ever see the light of the day.
Easy student loans drive this. Administrators feel free to increase spending because they feel free to increase costs because lenders feel free to lend because there is low risk to student loans due to the lack of a default mechanism.
Politically, I think they appease Democratic state legislatures by increasing aid and scholarships to protected class students, knowing that these costs can be shifted to students who pay with loans, as the loan amounts can go up easily. The added spending by Universities is spun as "education spending" which is generally approved of.
Republicans, who are generally against increased spending, appear to be asleep at the switch, but probably they're too busy fighting ideological battels to care or are getting different signals from their political constituencies in the construction industry who benefit from University capital spending. Plus I'm sure there is heavy lobbying by the financial services industry who benefit from student lending, reminding legislators that this is "free" spending that doesn't come from tax revenue, so it doesn't count.
His death alone *probably* won't change anything, but the dynasty's ability to self-perpetuate has a lot to do with the cult of personality involved, and without the personality at the center it might implode.
I find it hard to fathom that outside of a very tight circle of insiders, the DPRK leadership is really interested in falling on their swords to preserve what amounts to "the system" there. I just don't think that there's enough authority diffused into the system for succession to work, especially to members outside the circle. Would you be willing to die to continue the system in DPRK that has you living in fear if you have anything like authority or living like slave if you don't if there's the remotest chance the system could collapse?
Say what you will about the Chinese and the Soviets as dictatorships, but both of those nations have/had a party apparatus with enough influence to plan and manage succession outside of family dynasties. Even though Xi Jinping can basically flout the rules for his benefit, he still has to work hard politically to ram it through the central committee.
AFAICT, DPRK really doesn't have anything like that in their party apparatus. I think the situation is more akin to Ceausescu in Romania. Segments of the Securitate fought to regain control, but otherwise Romania collapsed quickly, with the military failing to act in support of the leadership. I suspect China has back channels into the military leadership with instructions they will be supported if they stand down in the even of a catastrophic death/leadership vacuum.
I think you're pretty much dead on. I'd only differ in that I think student loan debt should be dischargeable, but inversely proportional to the time since the education was obtained. All assets depreciate in value and an education isn't really all that different, and inverse proportion depreciation prevents short-term discharge after graduation without the punishment that would be inflicted on someone whose finances otherwise allow them to declare bankruptcy. I think part of the escalating college cost/loan cycle needs some negative feedback loop -- lending should have risk, without it they lend irresponsibly and all it ends up being is inflationary.
But you're absolutely right about the "everyone doesn't need a degree" stuff. Most people go to college because they don't know better and are only in it for the signaling value that a degree supposedly has to employers.
College loans are basically a subsidy to corporations who would otherwise have to provide training and education to their employees and even if it provides some vocational value, it's a horribly inefficient -- the overlap between what's learned in school and what has vocational value to employers is really small.