berntb

Sigh, I cleared up a bad grammar and made it worse. :-(

Change: My point was partly the horrors of a failed societal experiment of the left wingers. But also not that the most other utopian attempts also failed -- but not generally with tens of millions murdered.

To: ... The other part was that most other utopian attempts also failed badly (but not generally with tens of millions murdered).

I can't hear Krugman argue what you claim in that video? Are you bluffing or did I misunderstand?

Can you transcribe exactly what support your extreme claims (without taking it out of context from where Krugman said he supports globalization and why he do that.)

Did Krugman EVER talk about any other way of countries to start getting rich and going towards becoming nice societies (democratic, high education, taking care of people, etc)?

If he can show that, I'd guess he'll get another Nobel... at least. :-)

(Krugman discussed income inequality inside societies a bit, not relevant here. And a bit about US politics.)

>> but saying that there have been failures in the past is not an argument against trying to fix those failures by systematically identifying them.

>>You can't simply dismiss every other model that society may be fitted to by pointing out that atrocities were committed in the past.

That was not the point, really.

My point was partly the horrors of a failed societal experiment of the left wingers. But also not that the most other utopian attempts also failed -- but not generally with tens of millions murdered.

For instance, a Nazi would have a point if he/she argued "The mass murders was just one mistake, trust us next time about corporatism; look at the left extremists -- that is systematic failure all the way from Kuba/Nicaragua to the tens of millions in Sovjet/China to Campuchea. They are also systematically pro antisemites as much as we are, today."

So -- most experiments will fail; societies are really, really complex and hard to predict. See my last paragraph in previous comment -- the alternative left I've seen doesn't exactly inspire confidence in any new experiment when hand waving about the obvious problems and arguably having less credibility than the Nazis...

Any arguments for societal experiments need to acknowledge this. It is hard to better what we have now, reading most any history of alternative societies.

(Yes yes, Godwin. But I argue here that Godwin is unfair; the extreme lefties have worse statistics than the Nazis.)

>> And you're even assuming democracy is something inherently good.

Any society will by definition consist of interest groups pulling in different directions. They need to have a say. If you don't even acknowledge that, see my last paragraph in my previous comment... (which you didn't touch.)

(Or in the classical way of putting it: "Sure, democracy sucks -- but I have never seen a suggestion of anything close in niceness that wasn't just hand waving e.g. a juntas obvious interest in keeping the rest of the population as personal property...")

I would ask for examples of alternative economies being built up and creating nice and democratic countries, but we both know that if you had any supporting data you would have started with it. :-)

Please note that experiments with alternative societal models often have failure modes like dictatorships and/or a large part of the population dying in horrible ways and/or... It is not something to experiment with lightly.

It is a pity that you proponents of alternative models are so full of hot air, good research and analysis would be needed; there ought to be better ways. Most of you guys sound like you are paid to discredit everything but the status quo.

This article by Krugman changed my world view: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/19...

It is almost 20 years old and notes that industrialization and modernization is a process. It doesn't really work for a country to get rich without climbing it [edit: except free money, like with oil], including simple jobs in the beginning -- and now China is doing it.

In my book, it is good for humanity with a billion less horribly poor people. It doesn't feel bad to be on the other side of that, because of ideology?

Uh, what article are you reading? Or do you think bombing a generator is to "blow up the dam"?

The quote is: "the dam had been built to survive an aerial bombardment. (In fact, during the Gulf War, American jets bombed its generator, but the dam remained intact.)"

(A dam with bad air defense ought to be an easy target, considering all the emphasis the Americans puts into getting through lots of cement -- and that dams were bombed already during WWII.)

Edit: The shocking part was how the US found out about how much the sanctions had damaged the country -- and then poured billions into fixing it. The US politicians might waste even more than my native ones.

I'll order Koss Porta Pro from the manufacturer next time.

If the physical quality isn't utter crap, like I've gotten from Amazon UK the last couple of times, I'll stop buying physical things from Amazon.

Since 1980 this globalization happened, which literally added billions of low paid people to the work force. Many of them educated.

So of course there will be a global pressure on salaries. It is just market economics. (You can't coordinate a "New Deal" in countries all over the world at the same time.)

My point about that is -- it isn't all bad. Literally billions of people have left the utmost poverty. It just sucks for the ones of the old "middle privileged" level, like us.

If it was just that, I would cautiously be positive, but I agree -- this new level of automation implies "Big changes", which are scary. Most revolutions seems to end up with a large part of the population dead or in slavery.

Informative about the Eastern heavy cavalry, thanks!

But it was 500+ years between the fall of the Roman empire and heavy cavalry owning the battle field in Western Europe?

Of course. But my point was that most of the modern web seems to be mobile friendly or even "mobile first". (And hence not depend on effects being able to use effects like that).

>> Much of the web still assumes that you're using a mouse.

Not everything is mobile friendly yet, but do you really meet many mobile unfriendly web sites?

Most problems I have on phone/tablet are company internal products, where they literally designed the UI before the iPhone existed.

I haven't tried those 2-apps-on-the-screen things with iPad Pro. Maybe it works well enough so I could work. Maybe.

<Cough> HN used to downvote stupid jokes like mine in the previous comment, not upvote them.

I humbly submit that I deserved downvotes. It is better to disincentive us hopeless clowns on HN, even when we manage to be funny.

Edit: That was quick. :-)

I got just one extra spleen (small, one percent of the population or so have that. Edit: at least that was what the doctor told me; TFA said 20%).

I call myself "splenically superior" and argue that it obviously explains my mean personality. :-)

You need to add to the calculation that if a few states changes, there will be a momentum for more to change.

(That said, for drugs I only use Dark Souls, coffee and a few beers now and then. Maybe a glass of wine sometimes, mostly because I am swayed by the health propganda.)

Firebombings cause a lot of ash with little boom.

And TFA talked about a nuclear winter from burning cities when using a hundred Hiroshima bombs, not the US/Russian arsenal. We ought to have learned about those effects, just from WW II.

I keep all notes in Org Mode, stored in a simple and shallow hierarchy in my Dropbox. (~/Dropbox/orgs/w for job notes. Etc.)

Since I have Emacs open anyway, the notes are just a few chars away.

(The best feature with Org Mode is that after I learned it, the note taking doesn't take much attention; it is transparent for cognitive load in a way that only a Pilot G-TEC-C4 + paper ever was for me. I only think about what I want to add, not how to do it. Ymmv.)

My main problem is to access those notes from phone/ipad/etc. I started https://github.com/berntb/attorg but got lost in the GUI/UX.

So if it was burning cities -- how much worse were Hiroshima/Nagasaki than the firebombing of Tokyo, Dresden and so on?

The years of WW II ought to play in the same division?

Edit: Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwaiti_oil_fires#Oil_fire_smo...

Please explain to me -- how could 50 measly “Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons” (in TFA) have an effect multiple factors of ten worse than Krakatoa, with ca 200 MT...?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa#1883_eruption

Edit: Also, all the fire bombed cities in WW II should at least be in the neighborhood of a large fraction of 100 small nuclear devices. Then we have this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwaiti_oil_fires#Oil_fire_smo...

My model for notes is converging on Org Mode.

But... With a review process every day and every week, GTD-style. I see this need from my notes over the last couple of years from the job. Not usable for documentation (as I had planned) or helpful for other people.

I read about a guy at MIT(?) that could be mobile with a relevant setup years ago. It should be simpler now than it was for Mann et al. Just use an eyeglasses screen (Google, where are you?) and a chording keyboard strapped to your hand.

I am not an economist but Krugman is, a left leaning one at that which spent a large time arguing against Bush/Trump. And he is arguing a similar position:

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/19...

(This is getting close to politics, a really tiresome subject which happily is banned right now on HN.)

>> given the number of developers society will need in the future

It really is 1999 all over again. :-( :-)

Right now it is the same as in the Millennium bubble -- programming is a simple way to get a well paid job.

But sure, some of the people jumping on the train then and now are lifers.

I had to think about this, which is a bit weird in itself.

My attitude is that I hope to choose at least one thing -- the stack or the problem area. If I can do that, I should be quite happy.

To not want to leave a geographic location is of course valid choice -- probably often a healthier one than mine, but in this phase of my life, I prioritize doing things I enjoy quite highly. (I would do Windows anyway, if the money was right or I could do it from e.g. Japan. :-) )

Use another scripting language if you are too allergic to code structure through white space (see -- narcissism of small differences, they are more similar than some people want to admit :-) ).

The indentation works, more or less, but imho layout should be in a coding standard document not in the language specification. The problems I've had with Python's significant whitespace are maimed lambda functionality and for one liners (limits to if/else/loops/etc without braces).

(And I believe that import braces comment is a bit of a joke, it gives an error message "not a chance" iirc. :-) )

I guess the real reason for a scripting language programmer to go Java is that you want to use the JVM?

Otherwise, wouldn't it be simpler to just profile to find the slow places in your existing code -- then rewrite those in C? You can use the scripting language for most code, where it shines -- speed of development. And still get a good speed of execution.

If you need even more speed (you wouldn't really get less memory usage!), then sure... Java is one way to go for a Python/Ruby/Perl/PHP guy. But... when is it the best choice?

Funny but really out of date. :-)

I used to do some sysadmin stuff a long time ago, but am losing my UNIX/Linux skills -- because the Ubuntu (and follow ups) desktop just works with very little trouble, since lots of years. It seems I only use apt-get these days.

Maybe I am just careful when I buy hardware, I don't know.

That said, right now I am irritated and will soon have to download and read sources, because of problems getting an ipsec configuration to work on Mint 18. (It worked copying it from Ubuntu to Mint 17.3).

But I really can't remember the previous time I broke out the source.

Edit: It seems most people have the same experience as me. (I should also add to my claims of only needing apt-get, that it often work better if I get printer drivers from the manufacturer and not from the distro.)

Exactly.

That said, Facebook could be better with very small updates to catch paid propaganda.

I am Swedish, a country with a small population close to Russia. On public people's open FB accounts you will often find a lot of comments with very unusual opinions in Sweden, writing exactly the same thing as Putin's media.

The way to identify these accounts is to see if they can write anything negative about Putin. I typically write: "Do you condemn Putin for starting wars for territory in Europe again, like Hitler and Stalin in the 30s?". If they can't, it is overwhelmingly likely that is someone working in St Petersburg -- even most Swedish old style communists get upset by that.

Sorry for the rant, this is irritating.

Edit: On second consideration, it was quite a while since I saw these accounts? Maybe FB started doing exactly that.

Fun idea. I find that rather unlikely. Some points.

Are there any evidence for a period without meat in the diet, to start with? Considering that teeth are hardy, this will probably be testable in our lifetime.

I've rather seen claims that the brains were larger before civilization, following the hypothesis that it is hard to live as a hunter gatherer. (And then it was with lots of meat in the diet.)

We do know that calories have been a limiting factor for most life, generally also including humans. iirc, 20% of the energy need goes to the brain. The brain size would vary a lot, if it really didn't make a big difference.

Consider that the evolved tendencies for getting diabetes are there because it made it easier to handle periods of hunger. So sure, that might be much later, but...

And also, eating those starches needed cooking for humans, afaik? Which needs some brain power (there was not time to evolve instincts). We lost a lot in the jaws and teeth to get the brains. (Couldn't have both.)

Then, there was news just a week or two ago about a new result -- humans put "building capital" into our brains rather than our muscles, which is why most monkeys while large as children can tear a human's arm off and beat our head in with it... Brains are expensive.

I might add that there have to be a hard evolutionary pressure to build complex organs, like the extra stuff in the human brain. It is hardly just more neurons added to earlier monkeys (evolution is hill climbing, so you will find simpler/different analogues in other primates, but it isn't just adding some volume and e.g. <miracle> language circuits :-) ).

And so on. This list could probably be longer. :-)

A simple reality check:

Considering the large energy needs of the brain, there is an evolutionary pressure to make it smaller... so something pushed it the other way.

Well, todays work music is selected.

When I heard Portal before, I was more into a bit faster.