I don't think too many people prefer the concrete-and-wall environs of HK compared to the Victorian promenades of SF. However, we are all constrained by reality and scarcity. There is scarcity of space in SF. It must be alleviated by either increasing supply or suppressing/diverting demand. If supply is increased to a much larger extent, an HK scenario is possible which might decrease subsequent demand due to reduced aesthetic value. There are no perfect states here, and choices must be made. Restrictions can stay in place, however, no one should delude themselves into thinking that this isn't a cartelized capture of value by existing property owners in bed with the city council. It doesn't mean you can't support this option, but the reality must be kept in mind.
How about drastically liberalizing zoning regs? How about taking a sledgehammer to restrictions on increased density? How about letting very tall skyscrapers be built with minimal delays and log rolling?
Never forget the SUPPLY part in supply and demand. It's a complex problem of course, but none of this is even being considered.
Delicious! Social justice rhetoric comes back to bite the SV hipsters. I hope the non SJ warriors among the techies pay attention to this demonstration of how the left wing hate machine works. Savor your own denunciation as lackeys of Koch brothers (lol), evil capitalists, rich, white male priviledged running dogs, etc. Then maybe this will make them rethink their own judgments when such rhetoric is used against other industries or classes of people.
Worldwide global drug market is estimated to be around $350B/year. SR did around 1.2B over 2.5 years. So yeah a tiny amount, but a huge amount considering it just started couple years back and needed technical sophistication of bitcoin + tor + pgp to use.
I guess people who use the "they would just do something else" argument for cartels and prohibition mafias would be the ones to say that if the iPhone business goes bust within a year, Apple would just do something else anyway!
I mean are people so boneheaded to think that a massive source of revenue can simply be switched over without costs? The real world operates _on the margin_ (economic term).
More studies will definitely help. I have a 10X engineer in my larger group and there's no question that he is one. Since I've seen this 'mythical' creature, I would not agree with the piece. Of course memetic transmission of the idea without critical evaluation can be harmful. However, color me paranoid but I see the sentiment behind this as being egalitarian and not meritocratic.
Seems to me (I'm no expert in science history) that most of the huge breakthroughs came before the age of Official Science, i.e. Science(TM) being run through bureaucratic grant administrations in publicly-funded research universities (or 'private' ones with public money). Everything from the steam engine to Tesla's heroics happened while tinkering and playing. Granted, the game may have changed due to external circumstances, but we may yet want to look at whether the huge budgets of these departments are justified JUST BECAUSE SCIENCEEE. Do we want to support a bureaucratic process called 'Science' or actual production of interesting and/or useful results about the world?
There is no 'fixation.' PG noted stuff in his data that was screaming to be retold. That was one thing he found. A correlation between strong foreign accents and lack of success. Blame reality, not him.
Look, it's the online click-generating, culture-destroying media firms' business model to generate politically correct controversies especially on the words of famous or successful people. ValleyWag is the latest monster to grow out of the repulsive Gawker empire. They will do what they have to do. The joke is on everyone else who even cares what is published there.
Ah yes, "dog eat dog economic liberalism." And then people say Ayn Rand wrote caricatures. Infact, this phrase has been in decline, as it was used to buttress the industrial monopolization of the National Industrial Recovery Act in the New Deal as competition was considered harmful back in the 1930s.
Competence in pattern detection is pretty much an IQ test. When you go higher on the scale, the number of non-whites, non-asians, and non-jews drops precipitously.
I wouldn't bet my house on this prediction, but I would bet a few hundred $. For one, maybe the competence required is not that high.
But you are surely wrong about Special Forces. They are overwhelmingly white. See here: http://e-ring.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/05/10/budget_watc...
Problem is affirmative action rentacops that the TSA has become. Israeli security personnel are highly trained, intelligent folks. The ethnic profile of such a TSA would be > 90% white. Cry racism, and there goes your competent force.
The author is a doctor with decades of experience and is explicitly detailing the perils of standardization from the top-down. I think it's very relevant.
Evolutionary history probably plays a role here. Science has given evidence that our faculties of reason are probably meant to persuade and not to reason about the world in an abstract manner.
We probably evolved in hunter-gatherer tribes of 150-200 people where voice counted for a lot. You can influence by arguing within a group that small. And losing an argument could mean expulsion from the group leading to a low-chance of survival.
The problem is that this simply doesn't scale. Arguing political questions feels as real to us as it did to our hunter-gatherer ancestors whose lives literally depended on it. But this is just not the case in polities of a few hundred million. Hence it's likely beneficial to reduce political bickering for those not involved with politics.