ImSkeptical

But don't you really have a secret unfulfilled desire to sit in a dimly lit, extremely noisy, crowded bar, sipping overpriced alcohol while yelling platitudes at people you kind of know?

>The question is what we want to incentivize.

I disagree with this. This idea is based on the implicit assumption that the purpose of taxation is to change behavior.

As I alluded to earlier, I think the purpose of property tax is to help fund the local government. We need waste disposal, food inspectors, schools, police, fire department, etc. These things are, in part, funded by property taxes.

If people value my house at a greater rate, that doesn't change the amount of education local kids need, I don't get better police protection, and the amount of government services don't necessarily increase. Why am I paying more in property taxes then?

>You seem unrealistically worried about government coming in and removing people from houses they own at gunpoint

My main concern is the idea that we would use property taxes as a tool for taking people's property.

This seems antithetical to the concept of ownership. If it's my house, why do I have to give it up just because someone with more money wants it? Why should my taxes go up, just because people value my property at an increased rate? Property taxes are supposed to fund the services provided by the local government, not evict poor people for the benefit of the rich.

You suggest that buying a house that people want is like winning a lottery ticket. That ignores the possibility that you bought your house as an investment, because you recognized the potential of a neighborhood, or that you were responsible (in part) for building the value of the neighborhood. Setting those possibilities aside, being rich is a matter of luck too. Your parents were well off, you happened to study the right thing at college, get involved with a startup at the right time, or were even born with the genetics and upbringing to generate a high iq. That's all luck too. Why should the rich person's luck be rewarded by forcing the poor to give up their home and move somewhere worse?

Did you have a birthday between the second and sixth sentence of this comment?

I think it depends what you're doing with it. For example, if I use my document with official letterhead to send my neighbor a fine that he should pay by mail in cash (that I can then intercept from his mailbox) - that's probably criminal. On the other hand, if I were to use my forged letterhead to write "Don't just trust anything written on a document like this, it's easy to forge!" I hope that wouldn't be.

The original incident in the article seems more like the latter to me. If I were on the jury, I certainly wouldn't convict.

My point is that, in a bribery society, the police would be collecting the tax anyway. The difference is that they would keep most or all of it for themselves personally. Thus, all of the anger would be there over losing money, plus anger at the injustice of having to bribe corrupt cops, plus diminished services.

I also think cutting services can be dangerous. For example, a service to feed the elderly, inspect water safety, maintain roads, deploy police to prevent or reduce crime, after school programs for disadvantaged teens who might otherwise get into or cause dangerous situations, etc.

But surely the locals were upset that they were losing money, not that the money they lost went to city hall. In other words, I doubt they'd be relieved that their money was going to corrupt policeman rather than the city government.

If all the available money for fines was being extorted from drivers by corrupt cops, the city would have to get money another way, or cut services. This would likely upset the people of Ferguson even more.

Another way of looking at it is, what wealthy, safe, clean, productive societies regularly engage in bribery?

I'm not sure what I understand what you mean. Could you explain how the illegality or rarity of bribery in the US led to the Ferguson scandal, or the death of Michael Brown?

You're right that there are more laws than any one person knows. There are also complex interactions between laws and interpretations of laws such that even diligent legal scholars acting in good faith would struggle to do complex actions without arguably violating some law. I definitely believe the law should be simplified and clarified to improve comprehension.

However, there is a world of difference between unwittingly violating subsection III A.15 of some act you've never heard of, and intentionally bribing a government official. In the latter case you are intentionally suborning the function of government for your own benefit, and corrupting the whole system thereby.

Bribery is inefficient. Systems that operate according to law are safer, cleaner, and more productive. The only argument in favor of bribery is that in the short term, the specific criminals involved, get what they want. That's not a great argument when compared to the harmony and productivity of a society.

Bribery is illegal for a reason. If you can't do business without committing a crime, then you shouldn't do business. If India's culture has rampant bribery, then firms from less bribery-inclined areas should not do business there. Either other countries will come around to India's policy of bribing people, or India, desirous of commerce with the outside world, will come around to the "Bribery is bad" school of thought. In either case, whole societies will be enriched and improved.

I don't see why this is a good argument. If you can't do business without breaking the law, don't do business. Participating in bribery because everyone else does it is immoral, perpetuates bad behavior, and risks infecting your company with people who act illegally.

Comic for comic Perry Bible Fellowship is my favorite.

I also tried to find the comic to link to it, but I couldn't do it. I have a strong memory that it was that comic though, and no better guesses.

I have a Vive, and have surprised myself with how little I play it.

The game Fantastic Contraption was illuminating for me. I had played many tens of hours of the original. In VR I was amazed at how it looked and felt. Solving the first couple challenges was a lot of fun - just watching the machines run was great.

I started to realize a flaw though. A machine I could build in seconds by stretching my fingers a few inches across a keyboard and mouse took ten or twenty times as long in VR, and involved squatting, walking, grabbing, holding, etc.

There's a Perry Bible Fellowship comic of a child in a VR suit, clutching his simulated wounds while saying "Cool!" That comic is similar to my experience. Do we really want to experience things like this? (Tedium or pain)

I would think there's a much stronger case for fraud against people who put misleading advertisements on their websites. Visiting a link automatically demonstrates an intent to protest advertisers, not defraud them.

To paraphrase a wise person, I can install what I want on my browser, and if you don't like it, feel free to shut your website down and do something else.

Let's assume the children in question are old enough to give meaningful consent - otherwise, I agree there is a problem. I don't think the decision to have your blood drawn is as impactful as consenting to sex - sex has psychological and physiological implications that are not considerations with getting blood drawn.

This isn't really exploitation, they understand what they give up, blood and time, and what they get - money. This seems more like a trade. Do you think that any trade between two parties where one has considerably more wealth than the other is exploitation?

There's a difference between getting an idea, and developing a (potentially) novel algorithm to solve a non-trivial problem.

Yes. What's wrong with paying people for their blood? It sounds gross, but if it works, and all parties are informed and consent, what's wrong with it?

Perhaps a reporter, contemplating his next promotion, would reconsider writing headlines or articles that were critical of the owner. In this way, even unintentional censorship could still happen.

I'm not sure people ARE ignorant of that. When I was in school people would make jokes about what they'd do after college "I'm an English major, so probably wait tables. Ha ha ha!" And I always wanted to say "That's literally true."

My perception is that people, especially at that age, feel pressure to follow a track, and going to college is expected, and some majors are easy, and so they follow the path of least resistance.

Each side of the political spectrum has a spectrum of biased news. For example, Huffington Post and The Young Turks are liberal news sources which are very partisan. The Economist is a fiscally conservative magazine which is less partisan, Uncommon Knowledge is an interview show with a conservative viewpoint, but also an educated and intellectual viewpoint.

If you're a liberal minded person, your exposure to conservative sources of news is likely excerpts of their most grievous offenses. Hence, the liberal bias suggests that conservatives get all their news from Tucker Carlson making funny faces at people, or Alex Jones identifying gay amphibians. The result is the belief that liberals are reasonable intellectuals and conservatives stupid fools.

>because liberals tend to prefer news that has no bias

Hmmm, I think your liberal bias may be showing.

I think it says something about human nature that she was equally resentful of missing the ski trip and the cookie.

The story is so far outside of my ken I have trouble believing it. And yet, like you say, this is a completely different world from mine - maybe people really do act like this.

I think that's the point. If you look at /r/the_Donald as an example, they believe that all their ideological opponents are paid actors.

This is insidious belief that lets you dismiss different view points as the evil machinations of your favorite villain (Soros and Democrats on one side and Russia on the other).

I think it's much more likely that some people hold different views and express them online. Believing an evil power is hiring people to pretend to disagree with you is probably evidence of unhealthy delusion.

I don't think bridge burning is a privilege only extended to men. Nor do I think that if you had Pao's role, and angrily left reddit, that the community would have given you a pass. Why would they?

Maybe, what I should be asking, is where you are getting these ideas from. What makes you believe that men can burn bridges and women can't?

>The implications are massive and disturbing. 13yos will be able to buy heroin

I'm far more concerned about people buying and selling thirteen year olds.

When I say that they need more people, I mean that they need customer service that can handle the new market, legal people for the new laws, finance people for the taxes, etc. I'm aware they can largely reuse the code that underlies their service.

People do switch their ride solution. For example, I used to use taxis when I needed to hire a ride. I switched to uber because it was easier and cheaper. If something was as easy and cheaper, I'd use that instead (For example, I use lyft whenever it has a better price and I have the time to check).

Building a competitor for a single city seems plausible. I don't think there is a technology related hurdle. All you need is the capital to build the brand and to be competitive on price.

If Uber just focuses on ride-sharing, without innovation, it's unclear to me how they could survive.

They seem to scale in reverse. That is, an Uber that runs in the US and the UK will cost more to operate than an Uber that runs in just the US. An Uber that runs in one state will cost less than an Uber that runs in a whole country, and so on. The more diverse an area you serve, the more legislation and markets you have to deal with, more hours you'll have high customer support load, and the less well you will be able to analyze and react to trends in individual markets.

What stops me, then, in an era where Uber isn't fueled by investor money every trip, from being a competitor with Uber? Raise a few million dollars, get a simple app together with a few friends, and then convince drivers to try (take a lot of short Uber rides and pitch good drivers) and riders to ride. I'd have less staff, less overhead, and therefore less costs. The savings could be passed on equally to the drivers and riders. I could give discounts on nights when there was a big game, I could advertise in local areas, I could poach good drivers from Uber, etc.

It seems to me there is no way for Uber to be competitive if they aren't using investor to subsidize the price of rides. There is nothing, that I am aware of, that is impossible or expensive to replicate in their tech.

I believe it's not that there is a single right way to think about a problem, but there probably are wrong ways to think about the problem.

For example, going through all the issues with the question and implicit underlying assumptions, talking about what you'd need to give a good answer, or the characteristics a good answer may have might not be exactly what the interviewer expected or was looking for - but such an answer could demonstrate your competence in the field and be a good answer.

On the other hand, trying to make up an answer, or brazen your way through with jargon while hoping the interviewer didn't notice would likely be a bad answer.

It's not that these companies are looking for a single kind of thought. On the contrary, I believe they value different kinds of thought. Instead, they believe they can sort kinds of thought into desirable and not.

Well, if it succeeded, you wouldn't see it.

I've listened to my fair share of Shkreli videos too. One of the best ones that give his side of the story is his speech at Harvard [1] (it's long, and a bit hard to hear, and you may have to skip over people yelling and such, but ultimately he is trying to present his case for a full hour which he doesn't always do).

That said, your description of him doing "no harm" is not correct based on what I know about him. He has fairly strong arguments for what he did for Daraprim. Namely, the drug is priced similarly to similar kinds of drugs, they need the money for research and development of future treatments, if people cannot afford Daraprim the cost will be subsidized or the drug will be given to them, and ultimately access to the drug has increased after his acquisition of it. However, these arguments are built upon the healthcare system of the United States, and when Shkreli's activity exceeds the confines of the US these arguments start to break down.

KaloBios Pharmaceuticals (Shkreli's company) also acquired worldwide distribution rights for a drug called benznidazole [2] which treats Chagas [3] which most frequently afflicts people living in South and Central America.

While the healthcare system in the US protects the poor from predatory practices like Shkreli's, poor people in Central and South America may not benefit from similar protections. I called in to Shkreli's livestream and asked him if he would make the same commitment he made for Daraprim, that anyone who couldn't afford the drug would be given it for free or for a dollar, and he at first denied that his company even had worldwide distribution rights. When I linked him to the court document [2] that clarifies he did in fact get worldwide distribution rights, he claimed that he hoped what every CEO hoped, which is that everyone would buy his product. I continued to press him on what would happen if poor people in countries that didn't have legal protections needed the drug, would they be able to get access to it, and he called me dense and stupid without ever answering my question.

Shkreli strikes me as an interesting and intelligent person. He is definitely more complicated than the media makes him out to be. And yet, there is also an element of amoral heartlessness to him. I think his business practice does cause harm. In the US, it causes harm by straining the healthcare system with higher costs, and outside the US it poses the potential to reduce access to critical drugs.

I do think media coverage of Shkreli is typically disingenuous - they focus on Shkreli because he is, to many, an unlikeable jerk doing a bad thing. Instead, they should focus on larger companies who are doing similar bad things on a much greater scale, and causing much greater harm. Ideally, this negative coverage would drive the public to understand the problem and seek legal reform to improve healthcare costs and outcomes.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuRyItQAqno

[2] - PDF - https://arstechnica.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/kalobios....

[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagas_disease

Also, I once made a bet with Shkreli about how Google search terms worked. He said if I could prove it with an excel file documenting 100 test cases of my explanation he would tweet out a message I wanted him to send. I produced the excel sheet, showed it to him, walked him through it, then he refused to tweet it.