As someone with no knowledge of the topic, why was electrical reform needed? Wouldn't one assume that either party motivated to do it while in power would be doing it with the goal of positively affecting the outcome for their party in the future? It would seem weird for a candidate to reform how voting works knowing it could negatively affect their side, right?
On the other hand demand for premium seats would be down, lowering their price and making a nicer ride more accessible. Overall this would net to lower prices for the same distribution of amenities on a given plane ride. Supply and demand theory would seem to suggest that equal supply with lower demand leads to lower prices overall. Supply could of course adjust as more people move to supersonic, but that means more people are now getting a better product than before. And if supply of regular jets remains (they're pretty expensive to just have sit there and not try to use for income), lower-end fares and seat availability invite people at the lower end of the resource spectrum to now buy more plane tickets.
If it's only for the rich then the prices will be high. Meaning the capitalist mechanism of resource distribution will be even higher (more paid by the rich received as income by the non-rich). It will also take demand from existing airlines making fares lighter for everyone else. It also employs people. It also drives technology forward. And ultimately it does let people travel in less time, and why wouldn't we want that? To some extent emissions are not as bad as you'd think since they are being emitted over less time in the course of a shorter journey. Success in this category will also drive competition in every metric and work to bring cleaner, shorter flights to everyone over time.
There is a lot to love about the idea of supersonic flight.
Language is for both. Every concept is tied to a label that is a word. We identify pieces of reality by their common attributes while omitting their specific measurements, and attach these identifications to a label which is a word. It is a unique ability that we have as humans, which no other animal shares. It is essential for rational thought. Communication may have been an evolutionary forcing function on our ability to conceive generally (rather than simply perceive), but communication is still downstream from having concepts to communicate.
The "big crunch" wikipedia says that it's an idea about the end of the universe, where expansion will reverse and everything will collapse back in on itself.
That is not what I'm asking. I'm asking if expansion and contraction could fluctuate in perpetuity, like stress waves through a block of jello.
Stupid question: how do we know that the universe is strictly exponentially expanding, and not both expanding and contracting in perpetuity like a sin wave? And could such an idea have anything to do with the Hubble tension?
Completely agree with you. However, I think over time I've come to realize that those hacks that seem obscure, weird, and impossible are not perceived that way by the people who discover them. It's just their area of expertise, their natural playground. And so maybe those exploits are as easy to understand by others in that field, as this blog post is to you.
The point of crypto isn't to force decentralization, it's to permit it. If you'd like to keep your crypto on a service like Coinbase, you have that freedom. Alternatively, if you'd like to self-host your crypto, you also have that freedom. The option is the whole point.
Either way most people still need somewhere to buy it if they don't have any, which is what Coinbase is primarily for.
Part of the danger is that the CIA does not represent the people. The leadership is unelected, and they basically have influence over policy within government, and increasingly the ability to shape the speech of citizens through private corporations. Who decides what the "bad stuff" is?
There was a time on Twitter when sharing actual links to US documents on Covid would result in a ban for misinformation, or scientific opinions of actual doctors would result in suspension, if it was not in line with media talking points. The whitehouse itself would on occasion tell Twitter what it didn't like. Do you mean like that?
I feel like things are painful now partly because we live in the time of the first generation of humans to be born with this type of telecommunication, apps all day everyday, nobody knowing how to act. I feel like, maybe just let it play out? You could force it one way or another but like so many things intuitively it feels like people prefer to be happy and generations will rotate through ways of processing info until an equilibrium is reached. And natural equilibrium feels like it would be more stable than trying to control how people behave.
4 was rounding from 3.7, so I think that seems like a bit of a petty correction.
Humans will not go extinct (I hope), but HN is full of some of the smartest people and these are their trends, and I hope that of the people who do reproduce, the techno nerds are among them. The future will need them.
I worry that the Great Filter is not about technology at all, but that in every planet with a species that has evolved into a higher intelligence, that at the cusp of being able to seed their galaxy, they willingly do not pursue it, because the level of analytical thinking required to achieve it also leads them to disinterest and abstinence.
In regards to your last sentence, that is true. But I would ask, who would be around to appreciate that fact?
I think this is probably true. Historically children would provide for their elders, but that role is fulfilled now more by technology, so in practical terms, they are less needed. It's an emergent trend of humans+technology that acts as a natural limit to our growth, so that as a species we don't just eat all the carrots and die like the rabbits would.
I do fear that Idiocracy might be a little accurate though. The people reproducing currently are the ones who do not consider their future or economics, while the smart ones who do, have less children.