I disagree with this. The search for "safe" is by no means an Amazon problem exclusively and in many ways they do it much less than most.
125 karma · joined September 11, 2019
I wonder if this acts as a somewhat hidden subsidy to life whereas for people in many Western countries it is normal to think "there is no way I am living in area X/Y/Z" due to security concerns for them or their families, in Japan you basically don't need to take that into consideration at all. Everywhere is pretty safe (relatively speaking).
This is all speculation and I don't live in Japan, don't speak Japanese, and have never even been to Japan. So it is all based on reading other's views/articles etc.
Even if I am completely wrong here, it is interesting to consider the economic costs of lack of personal security for men and especially women. All the extra costs paid, opportunities missed etc.
Nevermind the fact that from my eyes looking at America from overseas, it seems like companies are the only institutions/organisations that are functioning even remotely in a socially optimal way.
Your government is a disaster and couldn't meaningfully manage the pandemic at all, academia is a disaster and is bankrupting your future, military is a disaster and has heavily underinvested in next generation weapons programs so they could spend more time bombing the middle East, your unions are self-serving enterprises (aren't schools in your most populous state STILL closed due to teacher's unions?), your newspaper are incredibly corrupt across the spectrum.
The only things that seem to work correctly are your companies which are still world-leading and world class. Amazon is a gem in your society, but demonised as if it is the source of all problems.
Not saying I support this new law, I don't really have an opinion of it. But it does seem like losing Google won't utterly cripple the ability to use the internet which is comforting.
I can only assume they are being used as fronts to launder money or as a business investment to secure residency as there seems to be no possible way even a city of Melbourne's size could consume this much bubble tea. It's almost at the point where there are bubble tea sellers directly next to each other in the street. And I'm talking dozens, if not hundreds, of them.
The whole thing hinges on the definition of Strong/Hard/Weak/Good and how you define them.
For example who is stronger, a turn the other cheek reverend or an eye for an eye preacher?
Zero to One by Peter Thiel basically implies this with his "Competition is for suckers, monopoly is where it is at". Yet how many businesses and tech companies get founded doing the same think everyone else is doing (or at least half a dozen competitors)?
Truly novel ideas, truly thinking outside the box, truly seeing possibilities that aren't in existence is HARD. Extremely hard. I can understand why the idea that ideas without implementation is meaningless became so prominent, but that is mainly because most of the ideas people have have been had by 1000 other people so if you arne't implementing they aren't of any use.
Whereas ideas that are truly novel are still extremely valuable because it gives all the hard workers something worthwhile to shoot for (as opposed to yet another social media app).
As an example think of blockchain. Fairly basic from a techincal or implementation sense, it is the idea that was really novel. Even if Bitcoin hadn't been made, the idea itself is enormously valuable. There are 1000s of ideas out there like this waiting for a novel thinker to draw them out of the fog and make them clearly visible.
The British have many more precious things that that.
They also have a rule of law determined by the BRITISH (NOT Brussels), responsive and accountable government (even though of course trade offs must always be made), and still have enthusiastic citizens from around the world banging at the door wanting to get in. As well as a dynamic and capable population of natives willing to bear the costs and risks of really changing their society in the 21st century. And they are still a welcoming society, them feeling they are in control again will make them more welcoming, not less.
People counting out the UK yet are being very premature. There will certainly be economic pain from this and likely other costs, but there are potential big benefits too. Brexit is a story that will play out over the next 10-20-50-100 years, not just the next 5-10. Would not surprise me at all to find the UK a wealthy more developed nation than Germany by 2050.
Even when you look at the Boris Johnson Cabinet, the ideas and intent that is emanating from there is very promising. No more "we can't do this because Brussels" or "nothing can be done". Real thought into how to make the UK remain relevant in the 21st century on its own terms, real efforts into how to improve the country.
This isn't the End of History. This is the end of the insular old folks home the EU is at danger of becoming.
There are a lot of similarities at least on the surface, definitely an interesting one to think about.
What does shit me is the amount of 300+ page books that have at least 50-100 pages of unnecessary fluff. Giving 1 story or example to illustrate your point is one thing, but stacking 4-5 dull dull DULL stories is just a chore to get through.
Once again another example of how Freedom of Speech is a foundational value of immense importance and should only be violated if there are extremely good reasons for doing so (and the vast majority of the time there are not).
Thompson and Ritchie were technical pioneers but weren't philosophical pioneers. Their work was entirely about implementing technical solutions, it had nothing to do with the philosophical structure within which those solutions were made.
Jobs and Stallman were different. They had strong and assertive views about how technology "should" be, not just how things would get done.
Jobs was all about accessible, easy to use, and sexy being important to technology.
Stallman is all about resisting the influence on corporate and governmental interests on the development of software.
I mean look at this list of suggestions Stallman made to Microsoft. https://mspoweruser.com/richard-stallmans-10-suggestions-to-... This is entirely about the philosophy of how computer software development should occur, not really anything to do with the technical aspects of it.
Richard Stallman sounds like a bit of a paranoid nutter. Is it safe to assume that his paranoia and personal idiosyncrasies can be separated from his philosophical views of the world (many of which are fundamentally about empowering the individual technology user against corporate and governmental interests which many of us agree with)? The jury is out on that one imo. He has seeded his ideas successfully and now they permeate the culture so perhaps he as an individual is no longer necessary to the movement.
But what about the next Stallman? A man or woman with a vision of how the world should or could be that is informed by their personal flaws? Will they be determined as to problematic to be involved in the industry and we will lose out on a unique way of looking at the world that would leave as all better off? I don't know. None of us do. It's an open question.
The argument is that often renegade and maverick thinkers are deeply deeply flawed on an individual level and would do stuff like that. This doesn't really fit well into the "progress category" of civil rights, it's more about advances in technology.
TBH I don't know jack about Richard Stallman, but my understanding is he played a huge role in developing the idea of free software which has had enormous benefit to the world in general.
The question is does the benefit the ideas and works of Richard Stallman have brought warrant the personal costs he has imposed on many people around him? And in the future, are the potential personal costs another Richard Stallman would bring worth the advances they could bring in another area?
To put it even more bluntly, will it be possible to have the types of significant progress we desire in technology or what area, while excluding people who on a more personal level we find deeply problematic? Can the best parts of a Richard Stallman or Steve Jobs be separated from the worst parts? Can we in a sense "sanitise" progress so that only people we find socially acceptable are the ones who will do it? What if the people who will do most for humanity's collective properity are (a) assholes (b) unprofessional, and (c) never the shut the hell up about stuff they know nothing about?
I don't have an answer here, but it is going to be an issue worth thinking about going into the future.
$2000 a month (24k!! a year) on preschool to give their kid a leg up on going to a $35k a year grade school & high school?!?
$70 per DAY on food because you can't be arsed cooking?
They factor in 8K for vacations and another 6K per year for date nights?!?
And then it ends with this stunner:
> According to the U.S. Census Bureau, less than 5% of households earn $350,000 or more a year.
> While $350,000 might sound like a lot of money, it’ll go quickly when you’re raising a family in an expensive city. We all deserve to live a middle-class lifestyle. Unfortunately, we’ve first got to sacrifice more than ever to get there today.
Uhhh if only 5% will achieve that level of income you might need to ask yourself if it is really middle class....When people talk about "out of touch coastal elites" this is the type of shit they're talking about.