throwhauser

If the Bay Area struggles to deal with an influx of tech workers, why would it struggle any less to deal with an influx of artists? There would be fewer dollars chasing the housing, but that doesn't make more housing available.

The Bay Area has chosen stasis. That doesn't bode well for its revival as a cultural center.

It's reminiscent of people adding "no copyright intended" (sic) when posting other people's music online. It seems like intuitions about copyright have been shifting, even if the law hasn't.

Sure but then couldn't whoever receives the USB or DVD post the source code someplace more convenient? I'm not sure what that "workaround" would accomplish.

Don't stop there. I see no fewer than five (5) sections in my Verizon privacy settings that were set to share information I never would have agreed to if I knew they existed.

- Custom Proprietary Network Information

- Business & Marketing Insights

- Identity Verification Settings

- Custom Experience

- Custom Experience Plus

> Yup, tradeoffs forced to select towards survival.

Viruses don't have a plan, or intent. It's not impossible for a virus to screw itself over and kill off all its hosts, or one species of hosts.

https://www.wired.com/2008/11/yes-disease-can/

> The only way around that is to gather more evidence...

That begs the question as to whether an evidence-based approach is the right approach in all circumstances.

Another way around it is to not fully rely on an evidence-based approach, and take precautions before the evidence comes in. In some circumstances (e.g. rapid spread of an poorly understood disease) waiting for an evidence-based decision before taking precautions might be too slow.

"Why China is still trying to achieve zero Covid":

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-59257496

"Why has Australia switched tack on Covid zero?":

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-58406526

"‘Zero Covid’ strategies are being abandoned as the highly infectious delta variant dominates":

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/05/zero-covid-strategies-abando...

("New Zealand has become the latest country to abandon a zero Covid strategy"... "This zero Covid strategy, also employed by the likes of China and Taiwan...")

GP: > This situation seems a lot like two years ago with the CDC saying "there are no confirmed cases in the US"

P: > I would be very careful not to fall into paranoia. It's easy and destructive.

Two years ago, paranoia might have helped. (Although considering how many places are now starting to abandon the zero-COVID goal, it might not have worked forever).

> [T]hey thought they already had good enough models to avoid taking large losses.

That's a fair point; the essay doesn't do much to distinguish whether they didn't know they needed to take losses, or couldn't take the pain of the losses.

Nevertheless, it's a pretty good analysis of what a company needs to do, in order to build a model relevant to their own actual business. They need to both know about the pain involved, and be prepared to take it. (And even then it might not work!) Third-party data (and suffering) might not be a good substitute.

I think the tone is appropriate, because the issue is a bit more subtle than that. Zillow was afraid to plan for the large losses necessary to gather the only data that counts, i.e. the data that is the outcome of their own processes.

Planning to lose money takes nerve. Zillow tried to avoid avoid the pain, and ended up abandoning what might be a profitable enterprise (for someone else) in the future.

The answer is to build houses and print money to buy them with.

If houses were a (much) smaller bet for the buyer, there would be more flexibility to build houses where demand exists and a faster, lower-drama exit for people who don't like the changing nature of their in-demand neighborhood.

The inertia created when people have their life savings tied up in their house perpetuates the problem of affordability, by making the areas that have the most mismatched supply vs demand the least likely to deal with the problem.