> I think the fact remains there's too much non-linearity in the means of production to get where Elon is trying to go without pushing his people to the limit.
What is the basis for that? It is an easy rationalization for an issue with serious consequences.
For far too many problems the work doesn't subdivide cleanly. A single person "pulling" for 16 hours a day at a given problem achieves 2x more than two people pulling at it for 8 hours each.
Or to put it another way, when Jeff Dean pulls an all nighter and commits code at 6am before collapsing under his desk for a few moments rest, for the rest of the day, all of Google is twice as productive.
For some disciplines, yes, but it seems unlikely that factory floor work is one of those.
(Also, back when I was still pulling all-nighters, I could do 3-5 days worth of work in a night, but I'd be largely useless for the rest of the week, so it was a wash at best. Good for catching up before a deadline, but not really a strong strategy overall.)
People on HN, maybe not you, love Musk. He accomplishes a lot in tech but must he get credit for everything, even the things others do? Boeing has a long track record of major technological innovation and development. They also build the X-37, which seems much more similar to the XS=1 than SpaceX's systems.
> ...when those resources disappear from the economy then many people will lose out.
My initial reaction is "...and?"
Not because I'm trying to be obstinate or lacking empathy, but because I'm trying to hard visualize a situation (re: China) where those who lose out legitimately can do anything about it.
They can't realistically move, or revolt. They can starve[0], but that's happened in the past and the State really didn't suffer for it.
Some can. Those are the ones who matter. No man rules alone--political leaders are only powerful insomuch as they can incentives or coërce others to act for them. A ruling class whose living standards is falling is a ruling class more willing to entertain other leaders.
"Certain types of unemployment are likely to be perceived as more politically costly than others - e.g. because returning to family farms acts as a kind of safety valve, even though a significant fall in living standards, unemployment among migrant workers is likely to be less costly, or because university graduates are presumably more communicative and have higher expectations, their unemployment might be more costly" [1].
The vast masses of Chinese citizens are not those people.
History isn't in agreement, and time after time, the peasants will starve before the bourgeoisie suffer to a point that they feel enough pain to revolt.
It's economically cheaper for the State to continue to pay for the ruling classes' requisite "hookers and blow" than it is to pay for social programs.
> The vast masses of Chinese citizens are not those people.
I can't recall a single civilization where the majority of people were "those people". The point is there are enough who demand enough that mortgaging the non-influential majority to pay for "those peoples'" bread (or as you put it, "hookers and blow") will be a short-term patch at best. (Reverse wealth transfers are not uncommon in a regime's dying days. Case in point: Venezuela.)
This may be a banal point, but do you think the increasing concentration of wealth within the American upper class, with a simultaneous impoverishment of the middle class, is such a reverse wealth transfer?
A salient difference between existential and incidental reverse wealth transfers appears to be (a) the existential pain the rulers, as a whole, defer by enacting them and (b) their intent. Consider the 2008 bailouts [1]. The masses helped, in part, pay the salaries of well-compensated professionals [2]. But could Washington, D.C. have let the banks fail? Probably. Were politicians primarily concerned with the bank executives rebelling? Or were the masses interests' in mind? I think it's safe to say the latter was the intent behind the bailouts, even if a good amount of the former happened along the way
Another example is the scientific and military grant-making processes. Such grants may fund labs and companies with wealthy owners and managers. But that isn't the intent behind the grants. Furthermore, politicians--as a group--don't existentially fear the defense contractors or contract-lab operators.
Now consider Venezuela. Babies are starving [3]. Yet bondholders get paid. Why is the government more afraid of its bondholders than citizens? If it's because the government fears the bondholders' reactions, e.g. military insurrection, more than popular revolt then it's a desperate maneuver.
I don't disagree with you, and I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. I just don't believe that those in power consider farther than the short term (say, three to ten years).
The bill eventually comes due, but what cost does the population pay in the interim?
I hope that all subjugated and disenfranchised people rise up to remind their governments that they are the reason that those governments ultimately exist, but the cost of that "disobedience" is a heavy burden if they don't succeed.
Agreed, to an extent (though not every 'expert' is equally reliable). Two ways I look at it:
1) Generally, the nature of a bubble is that nobody knows when it will pop. People knew about the U.S. asset bubble in the mid-2000s for years, but even those not caught up in the bubble mass psychology couldn't accurately predict when it would collapse. The same was true of the dot-com bubble around 2000. You can be right that there is a bubble, but be far wrong about when it ends.
2) There was a stock broker looking for new business. He cold called 512 people (he must have been a quant); half he told to sell X stock, half he told to buy. The next week he called the 256 for whom he'd made the right prediction and did the same again: Half he told to sell, half to buy ... several weeks later he was down to 16 people. He called all of them and said, 'look, I was right 5 times in a row ...'.
I believe this was actually the plot of an episode of the kids educational show "MathNet"* in the early 90's. I've often wondered if people just do this over email now, but automated. And why write to just 512 people about who's going to win tonight's football game, when you can have your script write to 1,048,576? Or does this happen?
* Actually a show within the actual show "Square One TV"
> There was a stock broker looking for new business. He cold called 512 people (he must have been a quant); half he told to sell X stock, half he told to buy. The next week he called the 256 for whom he'd made the right prediction and did the same again: Half he told to sell, half to buy ... several weeks later he was down to 16 people. He called all of them and said, 'look, I was right 5 times in a row ...'.
Except, what you just described is a scam and not something a registered broker can do.
Ha, that's a great observation; I hadn't thought of it. On one hand, I'm very uncomfortable with any implied comparison to the most well known practitioner of parables. On the other, many others have used the form. Maybe I'll write all my HN posts in parable form - 'those who have ears to hear' will understand; the others I won't have to deal with. I could use it for business emails too.
Coming up with that many parables might be challenging.
It's a really effective technique for getting a point across to most people if they'll give you the time to listen and you're a good storyteller. It's a bit less effective in highly nerdy spaces but still worth doing.
To be clear, I wasn't uncomfortable with the implied comparison because I have something against Jesus or the Gospels. I was uncomfortable because I don't want anyone to think for a moment that I am comparing myself to him. (I'm not.)
Generally I agree, but the West's double-standard does at least benefit some countries, such as Tunisia.
Also, even support for Syria is based to a great degree on the Western nations' own interests and not those of the Syrian people. Most of the West's involvement is to destroy ISIL and to contain Iran and Russia.
There was no credible possibility that the Saudi Arabian government, for example, would be overthrown; there was nobody for the Western nations to support. If there was a credible possibility, of course the Western nations might have decided supporting the Saudi rulers was more important, as they have many times in the past, and portrayed the rebels as terrorists.
Finally, it all begs the question: Revolutions are very risky; often the outcome is worse than the starting point, with many dead, a generation in ruin, and no improvement in government. When are they worthwhile? How can they be made more likely to obtain worthwhile outcomes?
> how do we (humanity) convey a full, factual picture to one another so that we may use those facts in conjunction with our values to agree or disagree with one another?
I think this is an essential question, and one that people often dismiss as having no solution. IMHO it's an excellent, highly valuable problem for someone to solve. In my very humble thinking, I've come up with or collected these ideas:
1) You are entitled to your own opinion but not to your own facts. Facts are can be common ground on which all good faith people can stand, and in which they all share an interest - whatever your opinion, you want it to be true and consistent with the facts. Of course, that's trickier in practice than in theory; see the note on propaganda.
2) Some fields have methods for separating fact from fiction, such as science and law. Some parts of those methods can be applied here, though of course people in Internet forums don't have the resources (especially time) to utilize those methods completely.
3) We must decide to trust some people and sources to a greater degree than others. As someone said, there is no art, no judgment, in trusting nobody. I trust the NY Times more than (some random conspiracy site), for example.
4) Propagandists try to disrupt all of the above; keep an eye out for their tactics. A/the fundamental tactic of professional propaganda (and seemingly adopted by amateurs, maybe unwittingly) is not to persuade but to create uncertainty: Portray all fact as equivalent opinions and discredit any trust in anything, from science to government to news media. Consider climate change, where false uncertainty has brought U.S. federal government action to a standstill; that is exactly the means and outcome of propaganda (as I understand it). Another tactic is to drown signal with noise using a barrage of baseless allegations.
5) As a way to both filter out propagandists and greatly improve the content of forums, focus on input that are based on sound factual foundations and which contributes value - which significantly adds to the reader's knowledge. The propagandists generally reduce knowledge or create uncertainty; they raise endless questions without basis. (Other people do this too; they aren't all intentional propagandists, but it has a similar effect.)
You can find plenty of articles in serious sources which contain serious research on Russian astroturfing operations. Based on those, any forum is a target and HN is more influential than most.
I am afraid that burden of proof is still on you. The habit of throwing in an accusation and suggesting that your opponents go and look for proof, became too widespread.
Not really, if you choose to silently disbelieve that is fine. Expecting anyone else to spend their time and energy on "proving" some thing to someone else, should only happen if there is a pay off.
pm24601 to shitgoose: why should i google why i suck?
shitgoose to pm24601: if you choose to silently disbelieve that is fine. Expecting anyone else to spend their time and energy on "proving" some thing to someone else, should only happen if there is a pay off.
I think Occam's razor is applicable with our discussion. Are the people who are disagreeing with you a paid shill from the government trying to advance a particular agenda, or is it just a person who disagrees with you?
The simplest explanation that fits the facts is that it's a mix of both, as both are solidly established to exist.
Occam's razor doesn't really apply to determining an individual account, as there's no model difference in a particular account being either, given many accounts and each being some.
You should respond based on considering it a superposition of both (and more exotic states, like a non-shill blindly repeating shill points), based on the distribution of likelihood given their speech patterns, background prevalence, etc.
That's really the simplest model which lets you incorporate all the information you know in crafting a response -- not a false dichotomy of making assumptions you know will sometimes be erroneous. (...Which is not what Occam's Razor is about.)
There are anonymized credit card services, including pre-paid and other solutions. The following is based on notes at least a year old, and I haven't tried them:
I didn't downvote, but some of those only help so much. Your name is still in the track data, and for credit you generally have to input a zip code. For online purchases, you're entering an address as well.
Yes, but even if a panopticon could theoretically piece your entire history back together, using multiple companies to keep the silos separate is one way to reduce the ease with which this can be done.
That's why it's such a big deal when companies sell your info. Merging silos dramatically increases the amount that can be inferred from each piece of information.
What is the basis for that? It is an easy rationalization for an issue with serious consequences.