Viewing profile — knieveltech

I'm sorry but I don't think the 80s are really something that can be explained to someone that didn't live through them, which I assume you didn't, otherwise you wouldn't be asking…

Not sure what's expected here. I mean, this is hardly the format for 20 page dissertations on lived history. I'm guessing these downvotes are coming from folks that are missing con…

These downvotes are unfortunate given this statement is objectively true.

O RLY. So you claim your average sixty year old with (in your example) 20 years of experience owning a personal computer, is somehow so technologically illiterate as to be unable t…

Rolling out "grandma" as a reason to not do N is a tired chestnut that is growing less relevant with every passing day. It's ageist. It also ignores the fact that all of the people…

Quick question: in this hypothetical where China presents an existential threat to the US, what happens to the Chinese economy when they invade the largest consumer of their domest…

If you want people to vote make it mandatory like Australia. Anything short of that seems incoherent.

Scandinavia and the entire Soviet Union spring to mind instantly. There's nothing particularly white or privileged about healthy skepticism of any system that hinges on labor arbit…

Sure, but the argument is specious for all of the same reasons that philanthropy has a track record of exacerbating the social problems it intended to solve.

That an education should be pursued primarily or solely as a means to achieve employment is even more dubious. Unless, of course, you're trying to claim that having a highly educat…

Letting "the market" decide what is and isn't valuable in terms of human knowledge seems dubious at best. We are talking about a system that prioritizes extraction of non-renewable…

There have been spontaneous demonstrations among the workers voicing their joy and gratitude at our happy new way of life. /s It seems pretty naive to assume that a handful of indi…

Agreed, that is a particularly offensive line of bullshit. Labor arbitrage is a thing, sure, but it takes a special flavor of insipid shithead to try to unfurl that kind of torture…

Poorly, if at all.

History isn't done yet. Your rosy prognosis appears to ignore current widespread ecosystem collapse and mass extinction, growing geopolitical instability, and the looming possibili…

An error only becomes a mistake when you refuse to correct it.

I am saying that using economic activity to gauge positive impact on society is utterly misguided. Consider: we are currently living in an age of robust economic growth and interna…

What is good for the economy (short term) and what is good for people (long term) are frequently not the same things.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with a coworker six or seven years ago. Dude comes to me to get me to help him spec out a web-based "tool sharing" service. I told him that …

Average income hasn't even kept pace with inflation since the 70's, go take a look at a graph of income inequality over time if you're curious where all those productivity gains we…

In theory. In practice, this has lead to collapse of rural economies, rampant poverty, and epidemic drug usage amongst rural populations. As to driving food costs down, that's triv…

ahem Income inequality suggests otherwise.

Then econ 201 clearly hasn't studied a graph of income inequality over time, and appears ready to ignore that the bulk of economic activity has shifted from manufacturing and other…

And what is Econ 201's solution to pervasive unemployment, or lack of spending power due to underemployment? Is that also classified as "societal value"?

In heavy enough weather it's possible to drop sail entirely and still make way on a bare mast, so nah, they might act less like a sail, but they don't stop entirely.