You keep using that word, probably, as if it's a quantifiable number by which a firm can and will make their business model upon in such a manner which they can bank on gains/losses to actually turn a profit which they can model precisely (hint: they don't actually do this, I've worked in a restaurant). Seriously, making cute micro-econ models isn't science, it's phrenology. If you want to construct something with known quantities with known and repeatable events in a model then I'll listen. If you're going to give me Friedman's plucking model then I'm going to just put my headphones and ignore anything you have to say.
Supply and demand curves don't follow closely with most, if any, markets. Agriculture and some commodity markets follow the models but the rest don't. You literally couldn't model your restaurant's business finances on the basis of micro-economic models.
Even models regarding scales of economy don't fit any firm anywhere on the planet. Firms that produce electronics don't bother with such models and theoretically overshoot scales of economy all the time but make up for it by the fact they can sell their electronics at a price that offsets their costs (i.e. they set the price for the revenue they want, not what the market will bear).
The thing is that even Adam Smith and David Ricardo didn't believe free markets existed either, it's just that folks like Milton Friedman played up the idea that competition will always lead to better outcomes for firms and consumers. Markets are only good allocators when either the rules are set (and maintained) to ensure more fair outcomes or that the means of production are owned in common (cooperatives, mutual aid societies, etc). The former is what we've been using for a while but over time it seems those regulatory mechanisms get deconstructed by those who are regulated. So, I think it's time we choose to do the latter since it's obvious capitalism isn't a good model of market economics.
I'm not sure I understand the motive behind progressive web apps. Some apps I can see being web-only. But apps that require extensive storage, low latency, and much more traditional computing resources isn't going to work in the mold of a PWA. A calendar, a chat room, or some games I can see fitting the PWA mold automatically. But like I said, PWA to me isn't a universal replacement for good native app development. It fits many lightweight problems but anything else that better fits native should stay native. I really wish web developers would acknowledge this much and stop trying to say "why can't you make that a web app?"
I can't see myself buying another phone after buying an iPhone 6 in 2015. I just don't see a reason to replace it until the battery can't charge anymore. By then I don't have plans on getting an equivalent phone. Maybe something cheaper but I think purchasing phones every two years or the like is bad from an economical standpoint. I'd rather spend my money I'm better food than a fancier phone but I'm weird.
There's a key flaw in the idea of resurgent city states and that is the fact that to coordinate production you have to secure the infrastructure which is between the cities. Imagine all the complex relationships that goes into making an iPhone. Mines, oil wells, farms, factories, and so forth are all over the planet and not in just one place. Cities thrive because of those complex relationships being relatively secure. And without that security they falter.
>It has nothing to do with nerves being struck and everything to do with your 150 year out of date social analysis being so absurd that it's not even wrong.
Tell that to the US DSA which is seeing record membership increases. And tell that to Kamala Harris who's an astute politician that co-signed Sander's single-payer bill. If the winds of change aren't blowing leftward then explain the current trend.
Also, Trump's ascendancy is the result of the capitalists not the working class. Robert Mercer (one of Trump's key supporters) has as much in common with you and me than does a mouse with a moose. Essentially, Trump is the carefully created result of decades of right wing propaganda and concerted destruction of the welfare state. Want to see less of Trump? Then tax the living heck out of the super rich and/or ban their right to fund any kind of think tank or PAC forever (down to a constitution amendment if necessary).
The propensity to work is more of a social matter than an economic one. Also, most people today in the lower economic classes are over worked. I remember when I was working out of a temp agency with someone who had been working three jobs (two full time and one side job). I'm not sure the exact reason for this other than he had a child and his wife was also working part time herself. It's just scary to imagine that people think working is a virtue onto itself. I'd rather pay a marginally higher tax rate to make sure people don't work more than 40 hours a week and were able to get their basic needs (housing, food, healthcare). At least then there wouldn't be the chronic issues that poverty brings to drag down the economy as a whole.
It's weird how my comment really struck the nerve that it did since it's partly in jest. But I will say this much, historically the rich have always favored military solutions rather than economic (or social) ones in dealing with class warfare. If the rich of today want to take a page out of history, they should be more like Otto von Bismarck and pay off the poor and disenfranchised. Meaning that some kind of reformed and expansive welfare state is something that's needed more than Uberizing every facet of life (the most recent one that's really annoyed me is the monetization of game mods by Bethesda; it's a hobby, not a job.). Whether or not that includes basic income remains to be seen, but the fact is all the opposition to any kind of welfare under capitalism will doom capitalism to be overthrown more violently than it had been in the early 20th century by communists.
I think one of the future innovations that will seem baffling to some of us will be mostly social and legal. In particular, I suspect the concept of income as a human right will become a reality. I won't debate the exact nature of why this will happen other than if you look at the rate of which wealth production has taken and how much of it is concentrated today it's inevitable that it won't stay that course much longer.
I always feel that part of the reason why disasters hit us so hard is the fact that despite having some built in resilience in the current system we have it's not resilient on the small scale (i.e. the individual). If SHTF as an individual you're boned, but if you're a corporation or some other kind of organization you can weather it. It just seems to me that a whole new way of handling shocks to society needs to account for this fact more so than ever. The attempt by some to abolish the social safety net is just one of many things that our species is doing wrong. We need less efficiency and more redundancy. We need less profitability and more sustainability. Basically, we need to add resilience to the system down to the individual level where it's practical.
I agree that Whole Foods isn't a big deal merger but the fact that Amazon has a logistics system in place that could topple the other competitors is very scary. The silver lining to this is that it'll be mostly Walmart vs Amazon now rather than Walmart trying to destroy the regional chains (and Kroger to some extent on the national side of things). Hopefully this will add some competition on the Walmart front to force them to pull back where they're really not needed (or wanted).
I'm not sure we can get a bust when all the major reserve banks (especially the US Federal Reserve) keep propping up the economy. The real question is how much longer can investors take advantage of this? We've basically been in QE since 2009 (almost a decade?). The real test, as said in other comments here, will be when the US Federal Reserve pulls back. If the markets can take the burden then it'll survive but maybe at a lower rate of growth. If they can't bare any burden I think we'll see it immediately.
I'm not sure why Mozilla needs to track what sites I'm going to but if they add tracking into their browser then I'm just going to have to find another browser or at least put together a build of Firefox without the tracking. It's not so much that I have anything to hide but the fact that I'm not interested in being their product. If they can't remember that they're a nonprofit that's suppose to make a FOSS-based browser which doesn't spy on people and works well with web standards then they just need to shutdown. I know that's extreme but I'm just frustrated with the further corporatization of the Internet even on the margins like Firefox. Everything just has to be a product or a way to commodify the use thereof.
The key problem with any attempt to revitalize nationalist interests is that there's nothing that keeps people together as it once did in the past. There's little, if any, affinity between people as it once existed in the past here in the US. A Kansan has little concern for the matters that affect an Alabaman or a Texan having any worries for the plight of the New Yorker. Effectively, the US is just a collection of nations than a nation onto itself. I'm not sure what Bannon expects to happen if nationalism does finally take root because if people have more affinity for their home/resident state than they do for the United States then that just means the US ceases to be relevant in the lives of the average person and the whole fantasy of a unified nationalistic United States evaporates. Unless he's wants the abolition of the United States I can't imagine his plan ever working out.
The biggest problem, imo, isn't the random flagger but rather the concerted actions of groups to flag videos. This is obvious in terms of reddit or 4chan users swarming a channel they don't like. This kind of behavior needs to be mitigated in some way. I think a quick solution would be to force a cool down timer on flagging of 24-48 hours for all users to ensure they're not abusing the system. That should include random users who file DCMA takedowns that aren't partnered with Youtube in some way.
I think YouTube really needs to hire more humans to review flagging of videos rather than leave it to a loose set of algorithms and swarming behavior of viewers. They assume wrongly that anyone who flags a video is honest. They should always assume the opposite and err on the side of caution. And this should also apply to any Content ID flagging. It should be the obligation of accusers to present evidence before taking content down.
More chatter doesn't mean more people. This is something that needs to be stated if we're going to actually understand the social dynamics at play here. And the fact that more people use a certain word doesn't mean they're part of the alt-right. In fact, I've seen the word cuck used by leftists to mock alt-right provocateurs like Chris Cantwell as of late. So, I think the analysis needs to refine its approach.
I agree but only in part. The real problem isn't that Google is able to shutdown a site as a registrar it's the fact DNS as designed needs a hierarchy to make it scale. This is the real problem with DNS and trying to shame Google to not cover its bottom line on such matters isn't going to work when you have a government that may decide they're too big for their britches and decides to go after them.
Instead, I wish EFF and other organizations would fund the development of a replacement for DNS rather than trying to legislate its use. Computers aren't like other kinds of technology where the implementation has to follow the physical structure, especially when considering the idea of domain names which are human readable to bind to IP addresses (which aren't human readable enough). That way, you get around corporate and government interventions entirely.
I'm 6'4 and I flew once to see family back home. It was a nightmare. I don't think I ever was able to settle well enough into my seat since my knees were always getting bumped (no fault of the fellow passengers when they pack us in like sardines). I'll never fly again. They'd have to sedate me to get me to fly. It's just too cramped. I've been on greyhound buses that are roomier.
Let me ask you this then. If a homeless Nazi begged me for a dollar to get a McMuffin (not sure if those are on the dollar menu but take it as part of the hypothetical here) so they won't starve that day and I refuse to give them a dollar because they are an unrepentant Nazi, am I a bad person?
At what point do I as an individual have the right to not associate with a group or ideology that's seeks my destruction? Because that's really what's at the heart of the matter whether we're talking about Cloudflare or just me because I'm sure that Cloudflare has Jews, racial minorities, and LGBT folks on their staff. And I'm sure even some of those folks are even investors. So why should the investors and employees of Cloudflare protect Nazis who seek their destruction? For money? I can accept that it's a matter of profit, but if you're asking for a moral basis to aid those that want to kill you I can't see there being any argument in favor of protecting or aiding them.
I'm not sure this is a good idea since Cloudflare came out initially in favor of maintaining their account. Mind you, I don't like Nazis and frankly I don't care that they lost their account but it's bad for a business to change its mind so quickly. Honestly, I say let the fascists have their crappy site, just don't help them monetize it. Let's see if they can keep up with their "recruitment" when it's clear the only class of people they can garner support from are the kind that spout nonsense like Alex Jones or worse.
Unless the GOP is willing and ready to fund right wing militias to be their official paramilitaries this is not going to get much further. The fact Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio have explicitly called out the far right groups means this push for some kind of Civil War 2 is dead. Unless you get Tea Party heads to side with you on this it's going to be a one sided conflicted where the FBI and ATF do another house cleaning of the militias and other far right groups. Even the GOP remembers the OKC bombing, so they're not going to let that happen again because it would completely show them as a paper tiger.
They're targeting production which is wise but they never ask who's the one filling out the orders for the production queue (hint: Wall Street). If they want to do anything to stop the death toll of Fentanyl they should also demand a 90% tax on all sales of Fentanyl at the wholesale level. That way they hit the companies that are making and selling the drug. Mind you, that has about as much chance of happening as their suggestion but it hits the companies who are the culprits of the mass addiction epidemic.
I'll say that among leftists and even market anarchists this has been the problem discussed at length for at least the last five years since some of us (myself included) come from flyover country (Kansas for me). Some of us tried to talk sense to the Democratic party but it seems they're too busy hamming it up for the Silicon Valley VCs who want to use identity politics as part of their marketing campaigns to sell another phone or app. They don't seem too interested in solving the disease of capitalism since they're still flush with cash from their SV donors.
I always suggest people to learn Common Lisp or OCaml since they're easier to get into (OCaml is the easiest imo) if you want to get your head around the basic ideas of functional programming.
The First Amendment isn't a subsidy for speech. It just says you can say the most offensive thing you can cook up but no one owes you their ears, papers, or servers to furnish an audience.
Can you actually prove that I'm wrong or are you going to admit you're a liar? Because there's a big problem with your non-argument so far since you assume that the discussion isn't about victim blaming when the grandparent comment was victim blaming. So yeah, you need to really get your argument out and not latch onto the inconsequential things in my argument you don't like (like the tone or whatever). Either stand up and deliver an argument or go away.
Edit: Also down voting me won't make your argument correct.