I count Goodnight Moon as one of the books I've read. Sure, it's shorter than the Silmarillion, but I've also read it 20 times to my kids. If you read a bedtime story per night to your kids, and have a well-stocked public library nearby, you can easily read 150 new books per year for a while.
Japan had a quality issue. Remember that? They fixed it. China can too. And if they don't, do you really expect the hordes at Walmart to complain? And it's not just Walmart; it's also all those people who look at the major price difference, see the smaller quality difference, and say, "Meh... good enough." Harbor Freight sells "junk" tools that no contractor would proudly carry, but they're more than sufficient for your average homeowner.
The average human has gotten more and more skilled and capable throughout history.... Humans aren't static; we also improve with time.
We certainly change with time. Convince me that literacy is important, and memory isn't. Remember, 2500 years ago the Odyssey was a story told around a campfire, and today people can't recite a single line of it if their Kindle runs out of battery. I'd propose that we are better adapted to our time than a feudal lord is, and that our odds of survival are lower than the average peasant if dropped into his time.
It does not require "blind faith" to believe that the tomorrow will be more-or-less like today.
Have you visited Colorado? The weather changes every 15 minutes, nevermind this "tomorrow" business.
The world is different, the economy is different
Basic economic principles apply just as much today as they did in the past.
But the economy is different. In America, there are both men and women in nearly every profession. 100 years ago, far more women were homemakers. People rarely moved out of state for college and then across the country for work. And as for (our understanding of) economic principles, they've certainly changed in the past 100 years. Keynes, Friedman, stagflation, supply-side economics. Shall we continue?
corporations are larger and more powerful
No they aren't. A century ago, the largest corporation, Standard Oil, was 2% of the economy. Today, the largest corporation, Apple, is a tiny fraction of that. Concentration of power in corporations has greatly diminished.
The makeup of the economy has shifted significantly. Work that used to be done within the family is now outsourced. For example, most people buy most of their food, rather than growing it. 100 years ago, childcare was not the giant industry that it is today. 100 years ago, the majority of Americans lived in rural areas; now they live mostly in cities. Because of these and many other changes, I don't think Standard Oil vs Apple is a relevant rebuttal.
we have globalization.
As a percentage of the economy, international trade was higher in the spring of 1914 than it is today. Two world wars and a great depression changed all that, but today's globalization is not new.
How could you not think this time will be different?
I don't see any reason to believe that "this time is different", and I also don't see any evidence. What is happening today is just an extrapolation of trends that started centuries ago.
If today is simply an extrapolation of trends, then the future should be easy for you to predict, and you should be an incredibly wealthy individual.
GMOs have not been shown to cause harm and have higher yields which increase supply.
And with what do they increase the supply? If the soil in which the crop grows has the same level of trace minerals, an increased supply means a decreased mineral content for your GMO product. In some cases, industry documentation has perceived this as an advantage: you'll have to eat more to get your nutrients! You can increase the supply of soup forever if you just add water... but it's not the same. I want to know how my food was grown to make my own determinations about nutrient content, and if I have to pay a little extra for that, I'm willing to choose that.
They already retool labels regularly, touting "new and improved! Now with XK-29 for added freshness!" So if they do it for their own marketing purposes, they can do it to inform consumers.
No, I don't know if a specific GMO modification is beneficial to the human species and the global environment or not. Yes, some people are absolute party-line types about GMOs (for or against) just as they are about political parties. That's not a reason to avoid giving the rest of us some information.
Well said. Next they'll say I'm stealing the newspaper that I read, simply because I skip the sections marked "Paid Advertisement" and don't read the Classified Ads thoroughly each day.
While we do a lot of our lifelong learning outside of formal structures, I think it would be dangerous to rely on this until it can demonstrate that people did not merely watch, but actually now know and understand the material. That may be difficult to measure in an unstructured environment, but without it, the system will be ripe for abuse and ultimately fall into disrepute. Especially because you can't even confirm that someone watched a video, but only that it played for its full duration on a specific machine.
Unedited transcripts are always jarring to read. With just a little time invested, the conversation can look much more intelligent.
"Now, at what point, is it you know, will it be too cheap to meter, in five or eight years from now?" is just awkward in written prose.
No, the reason that property can be such a good investment for individuals is the opportunity for leverage. I put down only a few thousand dollars (5%) on my house when I bought it, yet its increase in value is very large (several hundred thousand dollars). Of course, with leverage comes risk. Many people lost out dramatically in the recession when house prices dropped. My house value never droppped below its original purchase price.
And that risk has burned some folks significantly. I know folks who bought property with a 5/1 ARM, planning on moving before 5 years, or refinancing if they stayed. Four years into it, they hit the recession, couldn't sell their place, were underwater and unable to refinance, and saw their interest rate rise at the same time. They took a risk -- they're better now, but it was tough for a while.
Peter - could you supply examples? Why won't the lenders lend to people "who can really afford to buy a house"? What percentage of renters fall into this category? I'd bet it's small. There are great rates for folks with stable W-2 income; there are decent rates for folks with more-fluctuating income (salesmen, business owners). Interest rates in the past five years are lower than they've ever been.
You sound bitter.
Renters rent property because they prefer it to buying property. If they want to buy, there are many banks happy to lend money to people to buy property.
Meanwhile, the person renting the thing out did trade something for the payment he got: he was deprived of use of the house or car for a month. Try going without your house or car for a month. Some people can; most people can't, not without some money to compensate.
And let's not forget that the landlord who reclaims his property at the end also had to pay property taxes and perform maintenance on the building. If you think that the landlord's money is unearned, and he should let someone live there for free, I would like to rent from you.
If you put a million bucks in the bank, I bet you'll get less than $20k/year. If you invest it well, you're more likely to get $40k - $100k, depending on your luck and/or skill.
Interesting. I had read that they adjusted to a 25 hour day, not 30. My source: Richard M. Coleman's book, Wide Awake at 3:00 A.M., page 8, "The results of these sleep-wake cycles shows that most subjects averaged a 25-hour day - that is, left on their own, free from time cues, humans have an internal day length of 25 hours." The problem isn't the Martian day, which is much closer to our natural biorhythms; it is trying to work a Martian time schedule while living on Earth with its time cues.
HOA boards are proof that "for evil men to accomplish their purpose it is only necessary that good men should do nothing." The problem is that most good people would prefer to skimp on their community political engagement and let others deal with the bother of it all... they don't realize the danger of the vacuum that they leave.
Where I live, townhouses mean you don't have anybody living below or above you, and you have some ownership rights to a patio-sized patch of fenced-in dirt.* Condos mean that dwellings are stacked on top of each other, and the association owns all the dirt.
* You still have to follow HOA rules about what you do with the dirt.
There is actually quite a lot of competition in the air travel space. About a dozen major national air carriers and over 100 regional and specialty air carriers that do passenger service. I assure you, the cost of airfares are set at what the market will allow. Chances are good that your local cable company or phone company has a monopoly on internet or video services where you are...There is almost certainly not a monopoly on air travel.
Somewhat true. There are limited gates at each airport, so any airline wanting to expand its business at a busy location will have to buy a gate from an airline that holds it today, and if the other one won't sell, too bad. Mergers as well reduce competition: American, Southwest, Delta, and United now serve >85% of the US market. Milwaukee claims to be served by 8 airlines, but it's really 3 plus a few miscellaneous flights.
However, what's wrong with bringing fewer bags, if you want to, or else paying the going price for the bags you really need?
What I'd like to see is a fee to use the overhead compartment. First checked bag is free; first bag overhead costs you $25. The problem with the process today is that it noticeably slows passenger loading and unloading, because everyone tries to cram all their stuff into overstuffed roller bags, making us feel like a cattle car and enduring multiple announcements of "place your small items at your feet, folks; we offer free gate check;..." It's why I love that Southwest still includes bags checked for free.
You make some excellent points about why phones unbundled better than airlines, and the latest cellphone rate wars are a great example of the competition that remains in that arena. Based on this, though, I think cable is more like airlines than cell phones, as cable has a physical presence. I pretty much have two cable providers locally, and it won't make sense price-wise to get some from one and some from the other. Dish/DirectTV offer some hope, and Amazon/Netflix/Hulu offer even more hope, since they can stream nationwide as long as I buy Internet access from someone who won't throttle them. But I wouldn't bet on the pricey channels like ESPN or HBO switching to those folks since they have a good deal with the cable providers today.
...that's nice and all but those old Vaudville houses don't exist anymore. You can be nostalgiac all you want but today you have to deal with the houses that exist. Most of them are crap. Even the bigger ones aren't that impressive compared to a good home theater setup.
I would like to see the home theater setup that can compete with the mighty Wurlitzer organ at the Stanford Theatre. (http://www.stanfordtheatre.org/)
Exactly. And the reason for that is that they want to capture the largest possible audience. Some folks are cheap -- no snacks, thanks -- but the theatres still get their 10% from those folks filling seats. And others want "the experience" whatever it costs, or are taking someone on a date and know that acting cheap will cut off chances of future dates, so they suck it up and pay for whatever. A final group of folks are either aspirational or foolhardy or unable to refuse their children's demands, walking in meaning to be decently frugal but are then lured into buying "just a little something" at the concessions stand.
If they cut concession prices without adjusting ticket prices, they just lose money. Mr. "Experience" is spending less, Mr. Just-a-Little might buy a tad more, and Mr. Cheap probably isn't moved. And if they raise ticket prices to counteract the drop in concession prices, Mr. Just-a-Little might not show and Mr. Cheap definitely skips it, which leaves Mr. "Experience" wondering why he's spending all this to be in an empty or tiny theatre.
Tip for Silicon Valley Mr. Cheaps: the Stanford Theatre shows old-time movies, and you can take a date there, get concessions, and still have change from a $20 bill.
Slashdot Mirror
I count Goodnight Moon as one of the books I've read. Sure, it's shorter than the Silmarillion, but I've also read it 20 times to my kids. If you read a bedtime story per night to your kids, and have a well-stocked public library nearby, you can easily read 150 new books per year for a while.
Good! You got the joke.
Japan had a quality issue. Remember that? They fixed it. China can too. And if they don't, do you really expect the hordes at Walmart to complain? And it's not just Walmart; it's also all those people who look at the major price difference, see the smaller quality difference, and say, "Meh... good enough." Harbor Freight sells "junk" tools that no contractor would proudly carry, but they're more than sufficient for your average homeowner.
The average human has gotten more and more skilled and capable throughout history. ... Humans aren't static; we also improve with time.
We certainly change with time. Convince me that literacy is important, and memory isn't. Remember, 2500 years ago the Odyssey was a story told around a campfire, and today people can't recite a single line of it if their Kindle runs out of battery. I'd propose that we are better adapted to our time than a feudal lord is, and that our odds of survival are lower than the average peasant if dropped into his time.
"I intend to live forever. So far, so good."
It does not require "blind faith" to believe that the tomorrow will be more-or-less like today.
Have you visited Colorado? The weather changes every 15 minutes, nevermind this "tomorrow" business.
The world is different, the economy is different
Basic economic principles apply just as much today as they did in the past.
But the economy is different. In America, there are both men and women in nearly every profession. 100 years ago, far more women were homemakers. People rarely moved out of state for college and then across the country for work. And as for (our understanding of) economic principles, they've certainly changed in the past 100 years. Keynes, Friedman, stagflation, supply-side economics. Shall we continue?
corporations are larger and more powerful
No they aren't. A century ago, the largest corporation, Standard Oil, was 2% of the economy. Today, the largest corporation, Apple, is a tiny fraction of that. Concentration of power in corporations has greatly diminished.
The makeup of the economy has shifted significantly. Work that used to be done within the family is now outsourced. For example, most people buy most of their food, rather than growing it. 100 years ago, childcare was not the giant industry that it is today. 100 years ago, the majority of Americans lived in rural areas; now they live mostly in cities. Because of these and many other changes, I don't think Standard Oil vs Apple is a relevant rebuttal.
we have globalization.
As a percentage of the economy, international trade was higher in the spring of 1914 than it is today. Two world wars and a great depression changed all that, but today's globalization is not new.
Citation please? https://ourworldindata.org/int... pegs 1914 international trade around 30% of world GDP and over 50% today.
How could you not think this time will be different?
I don't see any reason to believe that "this time is different", and I also don't see any evidence. What is happening today is just an extrapolation of trends that started centuries ago.
If today is simply an extrapolation of trends, then the future should be easy for you to predict, and you should be an incredibly wealthy individual.
GMOs have not been shown to cause harm and have higher yields which increase supply.
And with what do they increase the supply? If the soil in which the crop grows has the same level of trace minerals, an increased supply means a decreased mineral content for your GMO product. In some cases, industry documentation has perceived this as an advantage: you'll have to eat more to get your nutrients! You can increase the supply of soup forever if you just add water ... but it's not the same. I want to know how my food was grown to make my own determinations about nutrient content, and if I have to pay a little extra for that, I'm willing to choose that.
They already retool labels regularly, touting "new and improved! Now with XK-29 for added freshness!" So if they do it for their own marketing purposes, they can do it to inform consumers.
No, I don't know if a specific GMO modification is beneficial to the human species and the global environment or not. Yes, some people are absolute party-line types about GMOs (for or against) just as they are about political parties. That's not a reason to avoid giving the rest of us some information.
Well said. Next they'll say I'm stealing the newspaper that I read, simply because I skip the sections marked "Paid Advertisement" and don't read the Classified Ads thoroughly each day.
While we do a lot of our lifelong learning outside of formal structures, I think it would be dangerous to rely on this until it can demonstrate that people did not merely watch, but actually now know and understand the material. That may be difficult to measure in an unstructured environment, but without it, the system will be ripe for abuse and ultimately fall into disrepute. Especially because you can't even confirm that someone watched a video, but only that it played for its full duration on a specific machine.
Unedited transcripts are always jarring to read. With just a little time invested, the conversation can look much more intelligent. "Now, at what point, is it you know, will it be too cheap to meter, in five or eight years from now?" is just awkward in written prose.
No, the reason that property can be such a good investment for individuals is the opportunity for leverage. I put down only a few thousand dollars (5%) on my house when I bought it, yet its increase in value is very large (several hundred thousand dollars). Of course, with leverage comes risk. Many people lost out dramatically in the recession when house prices dropped. My house value never droppped below its original purchase price.
And that risk has burned some folks significantly. I know folks who bought property with a 5/1 ARM, planning on moving before 5 years, or refinancing if they stayed. Four years into it, they hit the recession, couldn't sell their place, were underwater and unable to refinance, and saw their interest rate rise at the same time. They took a risk -- they're better now, but it was tough for a while.
Peter - could you supply examples? Why won't the lenders lend to people "who can really afford to buy a house"? What percentage of renters fall into this category? I'd bet it's small. There are great rates for folks with stable W-2 income; there are decent rates for folks with more-fluctuating income (salesmen, business owners). Interest rates in the past five years are lower than they've ever been.
You sound bitter. Renters rent property because they prefer it to buying property. If they want to buy, there are many banks happy to lend money to people to buy property. Meanwhile, the person renting the thing out did trade something for the payment he got: he was deprived of use of the house or car for a month. Try going without your house or car for a month. Some people can; most people can't, not without some money to compensate. And let's not forget that the landlord who reclaims his property at the end also had to pay property taxes and perform maintenance on the building. If you think that the landlord's money is unearned, and he should let someone live there for free, I would like to rent from you.
Expect computations to keep doubling this your key that takes a year to crack will take a few hours in the course of a few days in the next decade.
Not to worry; I'll change my key several times before then.
Came here to say this. A big first mover will shift the market in no time.
If you put a million bucks in the bank, I bet you'll get less than $20k/year. If you invest it well, you're more likely to get $40k - $100k, depending on your luck and/or skill.
Interesting. I had read that they adjusted to a 25 hour day, not 30. My source: Richard M. Coleman's book, Wide Awake at 3:00 A.M., page 8, "The results of these sleep-wake cycles shows that most subjects averaged a 25-hour day - that is, left on their own, free from time cues, humans have an internal day length of 25 hours." The problem isn't the Martian day, which is much closer to our natural biorhythms; it is trying to work a Martian time schedule while living on Earth with its time cues.
HOA boards are proof that "for evil men to accomplish their purpose it is only necessary that good men should do nothing." The problem is that most good people would prefer to skimp on their community political engagement and let others deal with the bother of it all... they don't realize the danger of the vacuum that they leave.
Where I live, townhouses mean you don't have anybody living below or above you, and you have some ownership rights to a patio-sized patch of fenced-in dirt.* Condos mean that dwellings are stacked on top of each other, and the association owns all the dirt.
* You still have to follow HOA rules about what you do with the dirt.
There is actually quite a lot of competition in the air travel space. About a dozen major national air carriers and over 100 regional and specialty air carriers that do passenger service. I assure you, the cost of airfares are set at what the market will allow. Chances are good that your local cable company or phone company has a monopoly on internet or video services where you are...There is almost certainly not a monopoly on air travel.
Somewhat true. There are limited gates at each airport, so any airline wanting to expand its business at a busy location will have to buy a gate from an airline that holds it today, and if the other one won't sell, too bad. Mergers as well reduce competition: American, Southwest, Delta, and United now serve >85% of the US market. Milwaukee claims to be served by 8 airlines, but it's really 3 plus a few miscellaneous flights.
However, what's wrong with bringing fewer bags, if you want to, or else paying the going price for the bags you really need?
What I'd like to see is a fee to use the overhead compartment. First checked bag is free; first bag overhead costs you $25. The problem with the process today is that it noticeably slows passenger loading and unloading, because everyone tries to cram all their stuff into overstuffed roller bags, making us feel like a cattle car and enduring multiple announcements of "place your small items at your feet, folks; we offer free gate check; ..." It's why I love that Southwest still includes bags checked for free.
You make some excellent points about why phones unbundled better than airlines, and the latest cellphone rate wars are a great example of the competition that remains in that arena. Based on this, though, I think cable is more like airlines than cell phones, as cable has a physical presence. I pretty much have two cable providers locally, and it won't make sense price-wise to get some from one and some from the other. Dish/DirectTV offer some hope, and Amazon/Netflix/Hulu offer even more hope, since they can stream nationwide as long as I buy Internet access from someone who won't throttle them. But I wouldn't bet on the pricey channels like ESPN or HBO switching to those folks since they have a good deal with the cable providers today.
...that's nice and all but those old Vaudville houses don't exist anymore. You can be nostalgiac all you want but today you have to deal with the houses that exist. Most of them are crap. Even the bigger ones aren't that impressive compared to a good home theater setup.
I would like to see the home theater setup that can compete with the mighty Wurlitzer organ at the Stanford Theatre. (http://www.stanfordtheatre.org/)
Exactly. And the reason for that is that they want to capture the largest possible audience. Some folks are cheap -- no snacks, thanks -- but the theatres still get their 10% from those folks filling seats. And others want "the experience" whatever it costs, or are taking someone on a date and know that acting cheap will cut off chances of future dates, so they suck it up and pay for whatever. A final group of folks are either aspirational or foolhardy or unable to refuse their children's demands, walking in meaning to be decently frugal but are then lured into buying "just a little something" at the concessions stand.
If they cut concession prices without adjusting ticket prices, they just lose money. Mr. "Experience" is spending less, Mr. Just-a-Little might buy a tad more, and Mr. Cheap probably isn't moved. And if they raise ticket prices to counteract the drop in concession prices, Mr. Just-a-Little might not show and Mr. Cheap definitely skips it, which leaves Mr. "Experience" wondering why he's spending all this to be in an empty or tiny theatre.
Tip for Silicon Valley Mr. Cheaps: the Stanford Theatre shows old-time movies, and you can take a date there, get concessions, and still have change from a $20 bill.