Hacker News Reader

Because it's not good and we can do better. Natural disasters are also natural.

sknudson The long, winding road for driverless cars

Made me think of this: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1UpYFlfWGJo/S_qjHNT0DGI/AAAAAAAADu...

sknudson Chelsea Manning released from prison

Although there are some places where they're more accepted than gay people or than they are the western world

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsexuality_in_Iran

sknudson Wealth isn’t created at the top, it is merely devoured there

Or even the recipients: "If my children are competent, they don’t need my money. If they’re not, leaving them a lot of money is only doing them harm."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/chinese-philanthro...

sknudson If Sociologists Had as Much Influence as Economists

Can you link to the part that says the improvements are insignificant? [2] says the opposite. Last week tonight [0] referenced this paper [1], pointing out significant changes when measuring siblings in segregated vs integrated schools.

Fixed isn't the right word, but segregation still exists in many ways and integration isn't the entire plan but rather a significant step towards a solution.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8yiYCHMAlM&feature=youtu.be...

[1] https://www.stlouisfed.org/~/media/Files/PDFs/Community%20De...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_segregation_in_the_Unit...

sknudson China has built the world’s largest bullet-train network

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbEfzuCLoAQ

sknudson The first humans arrived in North America a lot earlier than believed

They might be thinking "Back to the Future" rather than unix?

sknudson How the Internet will disrupt higher education’s most valuable asset: Prestige

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.” - Randy Pausch

sknudson Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist

I enjoyed this post from a few weeks ago: http://idlewords.com/talks/web_design_first_100_years.htm

Maybe this isn't relevant to your point, but I think there might be parallels between Moore's law, which the author argues will end, and OP's argument against exponential energy growth.

sknudson The Haskell user experience

It'd be nice to be able to search by type declaration