Fargren

The word "just" here implies quitting is a simple solution. For most people quitting is anything but simple. Leaving a job can be costly and risky, if not outright dangerous. Rather than suggesting people quit their jobs if their jobs are awful, we can attempt to build a society where providing awful jobs is not permissible, specially when the cost of being less awful is not a huge for the employer.

"Are there better numbers?" is not a question that justifies trusting bad numbers. If the best numbers you have are known to be unreliable, using them just because you don't have better ones is not justified.

Let's say the real amount per year for the last 10 years is [100, 110, 120, 130, 140], and you have numbers that show [90, 89, 88, 87, 86]. Those numbers are much better than [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. It would still be absolutely wrong to use them to figure out the trend.

If you know your source of data is bad, you must throw it out, even if it's the best one you have. If our data is bad, we just don't know.

Let's explore this scenario, I think it is interesting. You are a small time creator and make a new kids cartoon series with an original concept. Regardless of Disney, how did you monetize it? Did you get commissioned to make it? Then you are already paid and Disney getting profit doesn't affect you. Did you make merchandise? Then I guess Disney's and Hasbro competes with you, but also they advertise for you, so maybe it's a wash? Do you stream it for free and get money from ads? I guess that model is kind of screwed.

I'm probably misreading your argument, because it seems inconsistent to me. You are saying that piracy is immoral because it causes harm; and that it causes harm because in some cases the downloaded would have purchased the downloaded media if not for piracy.

I'm very confident that in the majority of cases, people who download stuff would not have bought it at any price that the publisher would accept, if piracy wasn't an option. Which means that by the definition of harm I think you are using, the majority of cases would not be immoral. It seems to me the immoral cases would be the exception.

I guess it makes more sense if you also say that consuming something without paying for it is immoral even if you would never have paid to consume it. I find it hard to agree with that though, as I don't see who's harmed.

Whenever I've been offered stock, it has either been stock options for a private company, or RSUs for a FAANG.

In the first case, I value them at 0. The stock can't be sold unless there's an IPO or the company is sold, and me working harder is vanishingly unlikely to be the difference between there being or not being an IPO.

In the second case, the impact of my actions on the stock price is nil. I'l be happy to take the RSUs and sell them ASAP, becasue they are actually worth money, but I don't see their value linked to my performance.

I don't agree with the GP's position of zero responsibility, but stock is not a better incentive than cash in my experience. That's just internal marketing in my opinion.

The happy medium for me would be working less than 20 hours per week. It's not about the work but about how much time it consumes. And part time software engineering jobs don't seem to exist... I would happily live on half my income for half my hours. But if retiring early is more realistic than that (and it seems to be), I'll take it.

I don't know how to write this without sounding snarky, which is not my intention but: maybe if you are intending to build a Patreon competitor, you should look into how this model works.

It's probably not a big source of their profit, and certainly a competitor can live without it. But as both a consumer and creator it's the only model I'm interested in. It really aligns everyone's incentives.

I think you misread my comment. What I meant is that I'm not only assuming Meta does not exist, but also assuming that no other company that fills the same niche exists. If there's another company which is essentially the same, just with another name and minor differences, it doesn't change much.

It's hard to see into alternative worlds. I can tell you what my belief is, but I can't really prove it: if Meta did not exist (and no other similar company filled the same niche), the world would be better by most measurements. People would, on average, be happier.

People in general are better off living in a better world.

And most Meta Employees would have found other jobs. I mean, sure, in this alternate world some specific people would be worse off. I would wager they would be the minority by far.

Let me know if you get a timeline-scope and we can verify.

But at that point anyone can copy it, since copyright has expired. Would publishers really want to publish books anyone can copy and share freely?

(if the answer is that yes they would, it implies that it's profitable to publish without copyright, and then why do we even have copyright?)

I'm sure they could release those things, but how could they hold a monopoly when everyone is allowed to do their own translations, sequels, and movie adaptations? Maybe there would be some big successful publishers with that business model, but that seems like a good thing if they produce good content.

I really don't see that as very problematic.

For me, the value of the books is the value they provide to their readers, not the money they provide to the author. We want author to be able to get money because it will incentivize them to write. I don't think it's realistic to think any writer will not write because his work may become famous only after he has published some books and therefore won't be as profitable as some other copyright scenario. That is just not how people think.

I know that some people see copyright as some kind of justice system to ensure creators get their due. I think that view in general leads to copyright maximalism, and is not a good place to start from when discussing the value of copyright

Thanks for doing this. Maybe I was wrong. I edited my post to reflect this.

I don't think content creators can choose not to have ads in their videos. Creators can turn off monetization, but YouTube can still play ads, they just won't pay the creator.

https://www.makeuseof.com/youtube-ads-without-paying-creator...

I do agree with your general point. Creators can choose to show less ads, and we should prefer channels that choose to monetize less.

EDIT: I'm no longer sure whether YouTube is displaying ads when you do this. The wording I found in their help pages is ambiguous. I think they reserve the right to display video ads if monetization is off, but they are not displaying ads (currently).

OK, I can see the point of buying the food as a way to support a cinema you like. Specially now that cinemas are mostly struggling.

I feel somehow icky paying upwards or five or ten times the cost for something I don't really need. But that's just an internalized habit from growing up in a frugal household. I wish there was a more "honest" way for theaters to work.

Watch a movie without food or drinks is what I did most of my life. Same with almost everyone I know, I don't feel like this is a weird choice to make.

Where I live now it's illegal for cinemas to stop you from bringing food in, so I occasionally might bring my own snack, but that might be like one out ten times. Mostly just watch the movie and eat before or after. (Spain if you want to know)

I know there are lots of people who do it, but I can't wrap my head about why any normal person pays for drinks and food at the cinema. It might not be the biggest ripoff I can think of, but it's probably the most blatant one. The markups are huge, for items everyone knows the cost of.

Yes, what you describe is a sunk cost fallacy. I get it, people do fall for them, we're wired that way. But a public company with stockholders shouldn't make decisions like this. It's either better for the company to make the people come back, or it isn't. "The CEO has buyer's remorse" is not an argument for such a highly impacting decision.

You might be onto something with the cities asking for this, but I have not seen any data or anecdotes pointing to that.

I've heard this a million times, but isn't that a sunk cost fallacy? They don't get their money back when people come back, and they can either stop renting or sell. They aren't charging employee's rent for using the offices.

It's not about drawing the line, it's about quantifying the impact.

I think this is what people don't get about the study. The study is not saying no one should drink. It's not saying that the risks of drinking outweigh the benefit. It's saying that for any amount of alcohol, ingesting it, on aggregate, decreases life expectancy. Nothing more. It's a measurement of the increase of risk, which can then be combined and contrasted with other measurements and help make informed decisions.

You draw the line however you want. You now have more information to make that decision.

You are replying to someone who is saying "I don't think it's good that things are this way" with "things are this way". I hate these kinds of comments. The other guy knows how it's not up to him to make this decision. That doesn't mean he shouldn't voice his opinion.

Those seem like reasonable predictions.

I have a question that this is probably not the best forum for:

I don't run, but know plenty of people who do. Everyone is running what I would call marathon-style, by which I mean their goals are measured in how far they can reliably run/ how fast they can do a relatively long distance, 5K being the lower bound.

To me, running shorter distances very fast seems just cooler and more exciting, say 500 meters. 100 meters seems a bit much as it's over very fast.

Why isn't this kind of running nearly as popular? And how would one get into that, rather than long distance running?

In Spain (and I think in all of the EU) every item in every menu in every [law-complaint] restaurant has a list of allergens. This is clearly not unrealistic to do, as demonstrable by the fact that many places do it.

There's a list of 14 allergens that must be indicated if present.

https://www.lexland.es/en/restaurant-menus-should-indicate-t...

There was once a time when I would have written a comment like this one, but now I'm down-voting it. There are two ways to read this message, and both of them are not something I would encourage, of different reasons, and being ambiguous between them is not in it's favor either.

A. You are trying to highlight that the poster is technically incorrect, so that they learn a new fact. That is mostly fine, but it doesn't add a lot to the conversation, and distracts from the point that they are trying to make.

or

B. You are making a point that some people succeed despite handicaps, essentially that there are often exceptions and hard work can make up for lack of talent. This is true, but it's a mindset that I think should not be encouraged in the OP. They are clearly having problems with how hard they work, which had lead to them being institutionalized. Telling them that they could have succeeded if they tried harder is not what we should do here.

All I'm saying is I don't see how the pre-existance of mandatory ID under a democratic government would be a significant boon for an eventual dictatorship. I understand that based on principle one might prefer not to have them, but to me they are really innocuous and extremely practical.

Unlike facial recognition cameras, which there's at least some political will to ban (https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-edges-closer-to-a-ban...).

Both of the examples I used had mandatory state IDs during their dictatorships. The IDs were not significantly instrumental to the government's power. I don't think the addition of RFID really would change that in the event of a new dictatorship.

But even if mandatory RFID IDs were a critical tool of authoritarian governments, what would prevent the dictator from issuing mandatory IDs after taking power?

There are many places with mandated ID. Can you mention one in which any of the others on the list have "eventually followed"? You are presenting speculation as unavoidable fact.

This is a strawman, and plainly untrue. Many countries have mandatory id. I have personally lived in Argentina and Spain, both of them have it, for close to a century (89 years in Spain, 54 years in Argentina, but it replaced a pre-exisitng system). The Spanish DNI has RFID.

In neither place, nor any country with mandatory ID as far as I know, you get "no access to anything". The worst thing that can happen is that if the police choose to stop you, not carrying your ID can lead to you being taken to a police station temporarily. Which is not great, but not anywhere near close to what you are suggesting is inevitable. And police can detain you arbitrarily in places without state-mandated IDs, this is just a cute excuse that they can add to their repertoire.

Copyright addresses a real issue but at the same time creates new issues. It's not obvious to me that a world without copyright is better than one with it. Just because something solves a problem doesn't always mean that it's worth doing, if the costs are too high.