kochikame

No, the existence of the JR pass exactly proves their point.

It only works on JR lines, so in Tokyo you still need to buy tickets for all the private train lines and metro lines (city run and private run). Try getting around Tokyo on the daily using only JR lines; it won't be too much fun for you.

JR pass is only really useful for long-haul, intercity type journeys, primarily by shinkansen

Love the precision of medical language

Well, I mean, in the sense that basically all historical ages are invented by people long after that time and would not have been recognized as such by the people who lived through it, then, no.

The early moderns didn't know they were in early modernity. The fall of the Roman Empire was constructed as a narrative long after the facts became clear. We don't know what age we are living in right now that will someday be named by future historians (probably as the "last bit before the climate went tits up" or words to that effect)

Nice thought experiment but utterly unworkable and politically unacceptable in the real world

No, it's a good analogy.

For example, it might make sense to restrict the availability of very high-calorie, low-nutrition foods like fast food, or tax them to raise their price and/or subsidize healthy food. It would make sense to educate people about nutrition and exercise and healthy eating.

This kind of thinking could easily hold for the gun control conversation. Let people buy guns if they want, but not the really unnecessarily dangerous ones, and only one at a time. An 18 year old walks into your gun shop and wants to buy two powerful rifles. Why? What do you want them for? Why do you need two? These are valid questions.

I'm pretty sure it's just a joke

This is all over LinkedIn these days as well.

Every other post is a close up of someone bawling their eyes out with the post something like "This was when I hit rock bottom", or maybe it's "Ten years ago I was a self-harming junkie who tried to kill myself multiple times, but now I'm the founder of a successful recruiting agency...", or "Here is a picture of my dead child who was taken from last year by cancer" etc.

It's like, if you don't have trauma, or more correctly a visible badge of trauma, you can't be taken seriously.

Personally, I find it a bit showy and basically a form of "virtue signalling" (for want of a better word), but each to their own I guess. I would keep that stuff to myself.

Great analogy

No, most of Bezos’ or Musk’s wealth is tied to the value of their companies. To this extent, they don’t “own” a thing that someone else is deprived of.

Example: what value to assign to the productivity benefits that Amazon and AWS have created for individuals, companies etc and society in general? I think we can all agree that it is an enormous amount in dollar terms.

Istanbul is one of those amazing cities where the sheer density and richness of the history to be found there is almost hard to take in. Era stacked on era stacked on era, civilizations borrowing from each other's buildings, two thousand year old columns used as bus stops etc etc

I guess maybe Rome comes close but even then it doesn't have the sheer variety of Istanbul

Starting off by calling yourself "highly intellectual" (with the strong implication that you are superior to your countrymen) is not a great position from which to win people over

Life, uh, finds a way

So "inadequate", not "adequate", right?

I think a lot of people on this thread are missing that this is a humor piece

Elon Musk was born privileged and is probably wrong about a whole bunch of things.

I don't think it's an appropriate or useful point of comaprison.

I have this reaction every time some mentally ill person murders some people or sets fire to a building or something.

In general, people react with "The laws need to change! We need to ramp up surveillance/social care/police capability etc etc" or even the "What shall we do? Something needs to be done!" type response.

But I think that usually the answer is "Do nothing". It was just one edge-case disturbed individual. This is not a common event, and will not be a common event. We cannot generalize any learnings from this tragic event. We just keep on keeping on, and know that one time in a thousand a bad thing will happen but for the other 999 times everything is fine and will be worse with more rules and restrictions.

That's morally indefensible. Millions of people worldwide will die from omicron as you reach herd immunity. No one can deliberately choose to do that.

In Japan, ventilation has always been seen as one of the main ways to keep cases low. Restaurants and bars keep their doors and windows open, busses and trains have windows open, campaigns encourage everyone to open any windows in offices and homes for ten minutes every hour... even in winter.

Seems like the science supports thi snow but for many years foreigners in Japan have traditionally and famously complained about "how stupid it is to have the windows open in winter"... the table shave turned.

So, you could probably call this a “dark crystal”

I guess it’s not too dissimilar to the nuclear fear felt by kids who grew up in the 70s

Only difference is, that was solvable

I mean, it’s an interesting theory and all, but nothing more.

What do you mean by "learn" travelling? Isn't it just... travelling?

Sounds like you’re playing with sloppy players

This is the point that people who say "but what about tourism?" completely and spectacularly miss.

Versailles is one of the most visited places in the world. Having no royal people in there makes zero difference to that.

We could have the tourism without the actual royals, 100% no problem there

I hate the word “alignment” with a passion.

It never means “let’s do things in a coordinated and mutually beneficial way”. It always means “you will do the thing that I want you to do, or the way I want you to do it”.

Weasel word, if ever there was one.

Seems pretty obvious to me. It’s one of the last remaining places where you don’t have a screen in your face. No wonder we suddenly have ideas there.

You're lucky

For many people on HN, it's going to be the opposite. A smaller than desirable city apartment and an office which the company has spent money on to make it comfortable, well-lit, good facilities etc.

Agree. If it were true "work from anywhere" and the preparation was all in place and the employee was going in with the right tools and set up and the mindset of being a true remote worker, we might not see the same drop in productivity.

This is a great comment

I think it's increasingly clear that blanket policies and one-size-fits-all WFH plans are just not going to work. People may gripe, but it seems like WFH is not going to be for everybody, in every position, at every stage in their careers. Hell, it might not even be feasible depending on the project you're working on this year.