B56c

Author is saying that some decisions aren't as obvious as "my code should be reliable under high load". Some decisions are tradeoffs that require you to have domain/technical expertise to answer.

Author here, good catch! This was an error from a previous draft that I forgot to update. I'll update the post to reflect the correct figures.

The challenge isn't just to generate revenue, but to generate a TON of revenue that justifies the massive investments these companies are making. It's not obvious to me that any of these products are going to be as successful as the market needs them to be.

Demand for AI chips is predicated on those chips producing value for their customers. But are there any AI products that are generating significant revenue yet? If those fail to materialize there will be a gigantic crash.

They are entitled to do so, but a neighborhood in perpetual decline is a neighborhood that will eventually die. It's kind of the opposite of people planting trees who's shade they'll never sit in. It's people preserving trees who's shade ONLY THEY will get to sit in. I don't think people are so heartless as to want their community to die after they're gone, they just don't see the long-term impacts of their desire for stability in the moment.

I'm talking about stuff like paved roads to your door, free paved parking lots, and connections to the city's sewer system and electrical grid. We expect the city to pay for maintaining these things, but the taxable economic activity in suburban/rural areas isn't enough to cover these liabilities in the long-term.

The problem is that people overwhelming vote for neighborhood stasis, which makes it completely unable to handle long-term changes in growth patterns. People always want to preserve their nice neighborhood, but they never see that a neighborhood that can't change is a neighborhood in permanent decline.

See cagenut's comment above. Cities are economically robust because they have the economic activity to justify the infrastructure investments. You can have much more rural, spread out areas, but they can't afford to support many of the amenities that modern people would consider necessities, especially tech workers.

It's true that the current large developers will never meet the need for affordable housing, but that's where small local developers can fill in assuming zoning and regulation allows them to. All of the small projects that are profitable but too tiny to justify the time of large developers can be picked up by small, local developers who have a vested interest in incrementally improving a place.

I would be very surprised if SSRI prescriptions could account for the international effect or the drastic sex-difference in suicide rate increases.

I think Haidt would certainly say this is the most impactful cause, but specifically his research has shown a causal relationship for this factor, not that it is the only factor. It's quite likely there are other factors that have some impact, but so far no one has made a compelling case for any other major factor.

To get anthropological about it, humans are very strongly wired to seek approval from our immediate social groups, as your social standing was one of the most absolutely critical factors in your survival and reproduction. Especially because social exile for most of human history meant simply death.

It's not so much about people thinking that social media makes them happy. It's social media hijacking what our ancient brains think is important. This is why so many people can emphatically tell you that social media doesn't make them happy, yet they continue to consume it.

I like how you had to replace part of Haidt's statement with meaningless variables X and Y because it actually does a great job showing the absurdity of Odgers' suggested causes in the context all the data. Once again:

"I just can’t see a causal path by which America’s school shootings, lockdown drills, poverty, or racism caused girls in Australia to suddenly start self-harming or dying by suicide at the same time as so many American girls."

Do you really think Haidt is lazily missing a causal link here? Or is he maybe a thoughtful researcher who genuinely can't square this circle?