High density almost always leads to more efficient use of resources and economies of scale. The negatives stem from the externalities due to overuse of commons (garbage, pollution, etc.). It's not that water runs out, as it can always be transported in. It's that the runoff becomes increasingly harder to manage.
We have a virtually infinite amount of water. The oceans are full of it. When the time comes (if the time comes), we will build desalination plants at scale.
So no, water will not run out, it will simply cost more to use.
The USD's status as a reserve currency is directly linked to it's trade deficit with the rest of the world. Because all other entities (individuals, corporations, organizations) want to keep their wealth in USD, there's a strong incentive to sell (goods, services, infrastructure) to the US and obtain USD in return. Conversely, there's a strong disincentive to buy from the US because goods have to be paid for with USD, which means parting with the very currency one is trying to accrue.
One of the most effective ways to ease the trade deficit is to reduce USD's status as a reserve currency.
When it comes to voluntary consumption or use, I always vote for freedom over restriction or censorship. Let people eat all the fried chicken they want if that is what they want to do with their hard-earned dollars.
We have deterrents in place for all of those actions. Freedom means freedom to perform an action, not freedom from it's consequences. What you advocate for is slavery. You may yet get it but it may not look like what you think it should.
People don't live alone they live in a society, even if you're above these temptations others aren't. This is why drugs are a problem, don't want tweakers in my train/bus/...
The human experience is defined by comparison. That's how our five senses work. While we can work for betterment of society as a whole, there will always be points of comparison between segments. Some segments will be better off than others. To deny that, to try to conform everyone to the same strata, that's contrary to our very nature.
Every so often we get a wave of socialism/communism hitting HN as a new generation is exposed to these ideas. It is a seductive idea, to be fair, has convinced many an intellectual over the years. It's very persuasive, especially on paper, yet it keeps failing in real life for one simple reason. It doesn't account for the human psyche, which is this:
People don't want to be equal. They want to be better. People are envious of success, they wish it upon themselves, not upon others. For, would you consider it success if everyone achieved what you did?
Except there's been way too much investment to trick the human brain into that consumption, so it is not a fair fight - that's true both for food and for tech. There are countless documentaries, books and articles on this. You're bringing a knife to a gunfight
You are free to sue Meta. If you can demonstrate harm, you will win. They may pay you off handsomely to avoid seeing the case go to trial. It's because we are free that the option exists. Is that not better than letting government decide which companies you can and cannot sue?
This assumes a perfect justice system, and that’s not the case.
Regardless, the judicial branch is a perfect example of the limits of freedom in practice, and the legislative does, in fact, decide who one can and cannot sue.
You'd have to have a real lock on it to get anybody but a shady lawyer to take it on. It's very unlikely that you'd be able to do that under almost any circumstance. Yes, the potential payout would be large, but the expenses the law firm would have to pay in the meantime, and carry for the many years it would take for the lawsuit to come to a conclusion, would also be very large.
It would be a huge gamble and reputable law firms would have to feel extremely confident that they wouldn't end up on the losing side. That's a big ask regardless of how good you case is. These tech companies have enormous warchests, can drag these things out essentially forever, and the odds they'll find a technicality that would blunt the lawsuit are very high.
> Stanford University played a major role in wrecking societies worldwide through "nonviolent" white-collar crime.
This seems like an unfair burden to place on Stanford or any other institution of higher learning. We can attribute as much blame to Stanford for Messrs Brin and Page as we can to Wharton for President Trump's actions.
And what about positive actions? Forward secrecy would not be possible without Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Both Diffie and Hellman hail from Stanford. Not to mention Ralph Merkle (of Merkle trees), Alan Kay, Paul Klipsch (of the speaker) and Barbara Liskov among others. Should the school get the credit for their achievements?
> Even then this seems much more promising to me compared to other areas. Writing theorem statements is much much easier than coming up with proofs so it's not a big deal if a human has to do that.
Not at all. Theorem crafting is hard. What's easy is standing up and proving a mathematical strawman which may or may not have any relation to the original problem.
> General goods are tariff'ed at 35% while China is tariff'ed at 47.5%.
Incorrect. General tariffs are only on goods not already covered by CUSMA, which, other than the specific items already called out (aluminum, steel, etc.), is a very small set.
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