The insect grows up to 7 cm in length whereas the bird can stay less than 6 cm at adulthood. No information about the insect weight though (for a proper comparison).
But... if the price goes up, isn't this going to attract people to that domain of skills? For skills to vanish, there has to be more factors at play, like restrictions to dissemination of knowledge, no?
"But selling an expensive ticket to them decreases the supply of cheap tickets they can sell to me... Right?"
Yes. But, the tickets are theirs to sell (or give, or withhold). The reason they are selling the cheap tickets to you is because you most likely won't chose to be their customer unless they offer the said tickets at that price, and they happen to desire having you as a customer in some circumstance. After filling as much seats they could with high margin offers, between getting no more money by running with the rest of the seats empty and getting some more money by running with all the remaining seats filled by some lower profit margin offer (i.e. cheap tickets), they chose the later.
On the other hand, prices can be risen enough that only people escorted now would still be in them. That prospect makes the current situation a pretty good one.
Is paying money to go into Disney that goes out of its way to avoid taxes really «going back into the economy?»."
Yes, absolutely! Even without considering the tax contributions, the mentioned money are already circulating (one step further). Disney is acting as a service provider to the public and also a channel for the money towards their employees, suppliers, 3rd party service providers, and whatnot.
The issue here is how our position is perceived, right? If it's about feeling better, we may assume that the operator could have risen the ticket price for all, or did what we see instead - chose to take more only from the willing. Doesn't this effectively mean that they partly subsidy the tickets for the rest?
"The popular narratives and assumptions about childbearing and family life that undergird anti-reproductive norms are mostly false. The ordinary risks of childbirth are quite navigable and the actual costs of children—instead of those of parental conspicuous consumption to keep up with current standards of respectability—are quite low. It is far easier to combine children with other pursuits in one’s energetic twenties than in the late thirties or beyond.
But most people do not make these decisions based on theory or argument. They do so because their friends and relatives and role models are also happily raising children around them."
That's the core issue here - people being memetic animals instead of thinking for themselves and taking decisions in matters that are (or should be) of utmost personal importance. Ideology won't solve this problem, it may just kick it a bit further down the road, and that's it.
For pretty much their entire history as species, humans did not had to take reproduction related decisions. It just happened, and in both conception and child rearing, the instincts were there to help continue the bloodline. For (what is supposed to otherwise be) a rational being, it was hardly a rational decision. Only now, when the conditions changed enough to sever the effects of this instinctual "olimbical chord", a true exam of rational capacity begins. A lot will fail and much of the current genepool will vanish, but in all fairness, sooner or later it will have to. The article looks ahead, to a far future, where humankind is supposed to face higher degrees of challenge, thus the demands for rational behavior will most likely be higher too. Now may be the best occasion for such a feat. Maybe addressing the factors that hinder reproduction and child rearing (for those that happen to consciously choose it) will render positive effects, but actively encouraging people to have children when they wouldn't otherwise? How could this make sense (from a species level prospective)?
Well, to be fair, Europe is still big on tourism, and these bold projects it dares to endeavor, if nothing else, will contribute to increasing its touristic significance (by setting it even more apart from the rest world and thus making it more exotic of a destination). We won't travel much, given our ideals of curbing the emissions, but that doesn't mean others will share this self-limitation and won't visit us, right?
As others mentioned here, the contemporaneous audience may be unaware of that era's lack of many conventions which are more or less assumed nowadays, including for conflicts/wars, so mentioning (unbiasedly) the brutality of a given interaction may paint a clearer picture, which is (or should be) the point of these articles. And as the time goes on and we distance ourselves from memorable conflicts, that may be increasingly more necessary if less and less of the audience would assume it by default.
Regarding the difference in the level of war brutality that the involved parties experienced in history, one notable example comes to mind - mongols. I have yet to encounter someone willing to argue that the suffering that medieval mongols inflicted in their campaign was comparable to that of their opponents.
Imagine laws that sanction mandatory "improvements" on the future subjects. To me, in that context, this "it's grossly unethical to stand in the way if that progress" is where the true (as in hardcore) politics begins. (Compare to that, the current politics, which deals in easy amendable decisions, feels like child play.) Then there is this dynamic we can all see in software development, with haste of feature addition and not much regard for other lesser aspects (in the marketable sense), that may cross into gene development. There are many more interesting angles that will pop up if you give it a thought...
With how things change in EU (i.e. combustion engine ban after 2035), driving for seven hours does not look to be an option for long. At some point the airliners may have to take more drastic emission curbing measures too, so in the long run, despite its inconveniences, the electrified rail may become the only real travel option for masses out there.
"There is not a need for flags, territory or other outdated concepts."
Any conflict has reasons behind it, as it is just another enterprise that consumes resources for expected rewards. Given the practical needs to manage the said consumed resources, even in guerilla style warfare the conflicts have to have limits (i.e. be contained to a territory). The territory, which these conflicts are waged on, can be and is sooner or later linked to (at least suspected) interested parties. The flags are basically just means to identify a given interested party once it grows past the Dunbar’s number. I do not say that there aren't concepts out there that have little to no practical use (say, an anthem, or a motto), I'm just saying that your list outdated concepts were not good examples.
That is not "living", that is just getting lucky on surviving/subsisting. There are so many things that even a medium school grader would know to improve on first occasion, like (even with that cellophane) on windows setting the sheet(s) up at least in more than one layer for improved insulation, so that the loss of heat may not be that severe, or like separating the entrance to the main living space by some sort of hall that would prevent unintentional airing, or like assuring close by supplies for the winter season, so that those multiple trips per day for anything become as short and of as little importance as possible, and many others. This was just painful to watch.
I'm just confused about why he didn't followed his train of thought further (i.e. first principles thinking) on that. As I see it, people don't change their mind mainly for two reasons. One is that no compelling new information reaches them, and the other is that as people age, they have to be more conservative on their own diminishing energy, which affects them in multiple ways (avoiding the challenge of their current beliefs, which can be tiresome and not that necessary compared to someone younger that has to find out more about the world in order to grow and gain competence; or increasingly limiting the circle of people that is one's idea exchange medium, which can devolve into something where politeness becomes more important than other things; etc.), then there is just the custom of leaving the elderly be as their change is not worth the cost. (On the last one it's not only the elderly, as many aspects that people give up on attempts to "fix" each other starting from much earlier ages.) Now, if only that aging and age related energy decay could be solved, there would be an entirely new game, looking for a new homeostasis! ...or maybe one has to be young enough to be curious enough about something like this?
There's a lot of range of what constitutes "independently wealthy, i.e. can live off interest of their own savings" when one gets there. Say, you may live a single life of relative leisure for the rest of your days, but if you plan to start a family and have kids (with all it implies) - nope, you'll still have to get back to work! Or want to live large and not have to worry that much about material side of life (i.e. when money is just for keeping score)? Well, you'd better find out ways to make most of your current financial independence to get there, which in itself is work (although just investment related kind, but still).
Although I see a lot of sibling comments, their message is about managing the money obtained from previous burst of (one's specialty related) activity, so I'd add something different. There are also cases when one may have another source of income (passive or whatever alternative active type may be at hand, there always is) or means of supporting oneself (say, having the needs covered by enrollment in a volunteer program). It's not great, but bearable. In that state a return to employment could mean in fact just getting back to one's previous quality of life and regaining access to resource levels that allows one to plan/dream long term. The trick is to plan ahead for such situations and not get over-leveraged.
Weren't your purchases impacted the quality of life you had at the moment? I don't know your particular context, but living in the moment vs. preparing for future is an old and common theme to many (i.e. almost all) of us, and buyer's remorse is a real but unfair frame of thought to judge ourselves. Also, investment requires discipline and foresight (intelligence) that come a bit later, as we grow. I for one, am glad for acquiring the benefits of that growth when I did, although it didn't hurt to have had it earlier.
Not OP, but having some similar experience I'd say being more grueling, it forced the writer to accumulate experience faster. I'd add that besides the management of the aforementioned snippets that could be copied in at same point, part of the snippet-level editing, that nowadays goes on the computer, before it was just done mentally.
It's true that there is no similar city advertisement anywhere in Europe, at least nothing on a level close to New York. Funnily, that doesn't prevent however some of the employers to sometimes try presenting their locations (say, Amsterdam or Zürich) in the list of benefits.
"Depending on the country you’re from, you’ll likely say that your capital is some kind of hub for industry _xyz_"
To narrow it down a bit, count only the places having a significant population. It's harder to make that claim for capitals like Ljubljana or Reykjavík.
"History has shown us time and time again that the best governance system is a bunch of elder statesmen who are terrified of being judged harshly by their peers long after they are gone."
Those elders have a hard time steering the ship in the storm of technological change. Faced with that, at best, they will most likely try avoid implementing anything radical (due to their bias for what's familiar to them) and will instead attempt to integrate the new with minimal change to existing system (which makes sense as a strategy, if that happens to work). At worst, they will ignore or actively resist change, betting on the likelihood that it's about some overhype at play and things needs to settle a bit before being taken seriously. As sound as this may be as a governing strategy (in general, not only for handling things in academia), it comes however with the inherent risk of inflicting debilitating effect to governed realm's progress. To avoid this, the governance has to include visionaries, and a governing body including only (although assumed visionary, yet just) elders, with a blindspot in judging much of what's new and unfamiliar, will not do.
Well, technically speaking, war requires opposing sides. If there is no opposition (say, like the bloodless annexations before the start of the WW2, or the relatively recent annexation of Crimea), there is no war, isn't it? Of course, the consequence for the ceding party or parties may be worse than the alternative, but still - no war, i.e. peace preserved!
"just stop buying people until you need them. They're the expensive bit."
If only they could be bought that easy right when you'd need them. At least in a corporation, the HR will tell you "50 engineers? That's going to take X monts, judging from the hiring rate we had so far."
"when your company is doing poorly financially or is having issues it's the government that is going to pay your worker's salaries"
If true, it rather looks to me like a recipe for zombie enterprises than for healthy ones. Don't you want that, if it is to fail, to fail fast?
"New companies get a very friendly, near 0 taxation for few years, and the more people you employ (especially if young) the more slack on taxes you get. Do companies in countries with lower taxes get that?"
Romania is on lower end of all kind of taxes in the E.U., then especially new/small companies (whose turnover is lower than 1 million Euros) there is this tax option of 3% (from income) or even 1% if there is at least one employee.
Education, healthcare, and even government grants (thanks to investment & development policies in overall E.U.) were worth mentioning only in relation to U.S., as Italy does not particularly excel at any of them.
In case you weren't joking, no, that's not "better" at all. Even when it's about your own life at stake, and therefore an argument for overriding your decisions may have a better standing, you are still allowed to refuse treatment even if it comes from professional people that even took the (Hippocratic) oath to make your well-being a priority. Now let's get back to the personal computing and what's happening here with these forced updates, which is more akin to breaking and entering, when are not being authorized by the owner. How the hell did it come to this?
One is class¹ inheritance, the other one is (most likely about) wealth inheritance. They do, however, both respect the notion of inheritance, I don't see why anyone's sensibilities would be affected. But then comes "local universe", which although refers to the local part of THE universe, it drops the definitive article, only because coining a new (albeit controversial) term in astronomy is more rewarding for someone looking to leave a mark on the domain than to respect logic to a more sensible result.
¹ Let's leave for now what "class" means for programmers vs. other kinds of people.
A better call would have been "nearby part of the universe", with "the" being the most important word that should not have been left out. It may not have been as terse/catchy as "nearby universe", but it would not have strayed into controversy (the kind of which we see here).
"there weren't a lot of opportunities for anyone to get American plants back to Europe prior to Columbus"
Thinking about this myself a while ago, I wondered - even if someone went there and back, and even brought something along, how could we tell? That Norse saga had a mythical status at most, and even with that it isn't necessarily clear for a casual listener that it may be about reaching another previously unknown continent. Other groups along the history may have also pulled it off, but then their contemporaries, in order to consemnate the event, had to take their word for it? Even with some seeds as evidence, the world was less connected untill very recently and there were plenty of isolated places, yet relatively close, for strange seeds to be found. After thousand of years, it's hard to tell if an annual plant was brought at some point in time by intercontinental explorers, or migrated by some other non-human related way, or has been local since before continents went appart. Then it was hard to discern the magnitude of a discovery. Even the Norsemen, like the later Spaniard colonists, couldn't tell how big their found body of land was, if the Vinland they reached was an island they haven't yet circumnavigated yet or happened to be a continent spanning south down to well into southern hemisphere. No, for a discovery like this to stick, with clear compiled inventories of imported plants, it had to be done by a government-like entity, that could afford the high risks of loss that an exploration program on the limits of available technology pose, and with enough logistics and cultural development to pursue a wide range of interests (as opposed to small groups, for which keeping track of traffiked plants may be of lesser concern).