The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease • Hacker News Board

Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#111

Post by andyfleming » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 3:52 AM UTC

manachar wrote: post #4

It's really weird to me how commonplace the attitude of "It is what it is" and "Government can't do anything". The air and water quality in the US is vastly better since the passage of laws that created and empowered the EPA (Created by the Republican President Nixon). The endangered species act has had many similar successes. I live on Maui. The waters are now filled with Green Sea Turtles and Humpback whales that w…

What about the sea turtles with tumors in Hawaii? There is some concern that humans are to blame, right?

Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#112

Post by interpol_p » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 3:55 AM UTC

mninm wrote: post #35

"We cover planes that crash, not planes that take off." It always fascinates me how much my world view and the world view of those around me is based on the exceptional and not the mundane. The news outlets report the news assuming that the audience knows what's normal. When the news is used to become informed about the world many people come away with a skewed impression of reality. I am of the opinion that people w…

Can putting those numbers side-by-side in such a way mislead people on the social impact of those events?

Murder is rare, but it has a very high impact on society and the surrounding people. It creates an environment of stress and fear. Car accidents do the same to a much lesser extent. Smoking related diseases are somewhat more expected, they aren't so sudden. People have time to adjust, receive medical attention, and so on.

When you put the numbers together it feels like we should tackle the causes of the largest number of deaths first, then work our way to the fewest. But I don't think that is beneficial, or even a rational approach to improving our society.

You could use those numbers argue for ignoring mass shootings: i.e., there are so few related to other causes of death. But it fails to take into account just how many people they effect and how much it twists society (e.g., having schools perform lockdown drills with 5-year-olds who don't understand why they have to hide in a closet [1]).

I don't think we have a good measure to use to compare murders, to car accidents, to death by disease. As raw quantities they skew our perception and priorities. As pure numbers they fail to indicate to us the impact they could have on our society.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/rehearsing-for-death...

Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#113

Post by ArkyBeagle » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 3:59 AM UTC

manachar wrote: post #13

baddox wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you referencing in regards to poverty? I would have guessed that the recent reduction in poverty is largely attributable to wealthy nations reducing efforts to centrally plan the economies of poor nations.

While this article was more focused on poverty, the other major theme was that things and people are better now in many respects that people think it is. For me, the environmental successes of the last 30 years are a pretty amazing example of some of the awesome things humans can do when they put their minds to it. Additionally, the overly negative and pessimistic view of government and laws removes critical tools fo…

It's less than awesome, really - people got richer and demand rose for a cleaner environment.

Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#114

Post by crdoconnor » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 4:04 AM UTC

letitgo12345 wrote: post #58

beatpanda wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what sense is that view incorrect? The cost of access to the political process in America is astronomically high and keeps increasing, and acquiring the amount of money it now takes to be competitive in an election requires adopting a set of positions that are friendly to whatever industries have the most money to give. What part of that analysis is wrong? What counterexample can you offer?

While money buys political access, a large part of the responsibility does rest with the voters (who are mostly ordinary people, not big money) who keep voting for reps (or don't vote) who support regressive policies. Also big money doesn't control the govt -- there are lots of times where they don't get their way -- immigration reform being a prime example where nativist sentiment has stalled it for more than a deca…

>Also big money doesn't control the govt -- there are lots of times where they don't get their way -- immigration reform being a prime example where nativist sentiment has stalled it for more than a decade even though the business community is largely for it.

Immigration reform is more of a fight between the corporations that want more legal immigrants to depress high wages (e.g. Facebook/FWD.us) and the corporations that want to keep employing illegals at sub-minimum wages (e.g. fruit & vegetable pickers).

This actually puts them in direct opposition to one another on a range of legislative issues.

Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#115

Post by ggreer » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 4:10 AM UTC

narrator wrote: post #26

I think the average American is going to be shocked in the next couple of years when the rest of the world passes us by. The technological capability of developing nations has increased rapidly. Our rate of technological progress is slowing down. For example, Intel is having difficulty scaling down process technology past 14nm while the fabs in China are catching up at 28nm.

To your specific point about semiconductor fabrication: It's much harder to scale 28nm down to 14nm than to go from say... 65nm to 32nm. Quantum effects become much more prevalent. All sorts of new materials and technologies must be used. Even with Qualcomm's help[1], SMIC's 28nm process was delayed by a year. The first chips came off the line last month, putting them 5 years behind modern fab tech. Though companies like SMIC are playing catch-up, it will take a lot of R&D to get to where Intel is today. Speaking of R&D: Intel's R&D budget is five times SMIC's revenue.[2]

To your more general point about surpassing the US in "the next couple of years": I seriously doubt it. The US has many advantages that we take for granted. Developing countries have a huge problem with brain drain. Many of their most talented citizens immigrate to the US or EU. The US has relatively little corruption. It has a large, wealthy domestic market. It has the most prestigious universities. Lastly, the US has plenty of capital and a culture of entrepreneurship. We're so used to these things that we hardly even notice them. But for developing countries, these are massive issues.

1. http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1322988

2. Last quarter, Intel spent $3 billion on R&D. SMIC's revenue for the same quarter was $547 million: http://www.smics.com/eng/press/press_releases_details.php?id...

Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#116

Post by Asbostos » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 4:11 AM UTC

baddox wrote: post #34

bluthru wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When money buys political speech, I don't think you can call the other side "just as guilty".

Which side has the actual ability to forcefully implement their desired policies over a large population?

The side with the real power - the voters. You can blame businesses or activists or interest groups or governments or whatever but America still has a democracy and American people actually do choose the outcomes they get. You personally might not want them, but most of your fellow Americans either do want them or succumb to some personal greed to make them happen.

Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#117

Post by crdoconnor » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 4:14 AM UTC

>One survey found that two-thirds of Americans believed that the proportion of the world population living in extreme poverty has almost doubled over the last 20 years.

Curious that the author attempts to attribute this to media sensationalism rather than, say, an increase in American poverty.

Or perhaps not, since Kristof is a fierce critic of the anti-sweatshop movement.

Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#118

Post by Asbostos » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 4:16 AM UTC

interpol_p wrote: post #112

mninm wrote: post #35

"We cover planes that crash, not planes that take off." It always fascinates me how much my world view and the world view of those around me is based on the exceptional and not the mundane. The news outlets report the news assuming that the audience knows what's normal. When the news is used to become informed about the world many people come away with a skewed impression of reality. I am of the opinion that people w…

Can putting those numbers side-by-side in such a way mislead people on the social impact of those events? Murder is rare, but it has a very high impact on society and the surrounding people. It creates an environment of stress and fear. Car accidents do the same to a much lesser extent. Smoking related diseases are somewhat more expected, they aren't so sudden. People have time to adjust, receive medical attention, a…

The negative effects of mass shootings are largely because people don't understand the risks. So I think they'd go away if we realized they didn't matter.

You're right though that smoking shouldn't be top. Everbody dies of something but we can't save all old people from old age diseases forever.

Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#119

Post by Turing_Machine » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 4:17 AM UTC

13thLetter wrote: post #84

api wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bubbles always go higher than anyone expects, and those who attempt to call the top always look like fools for a time. Fossil fuel extraction is a bubble. That's just grade school math: finite supply, constant and increasing demand. But when will it pop and what happens then? That's a lot tougher to know, and so far all attempts to call a top have been wrong. But a crash will come. How bad will depend on just how far…

It won't "pop" because that's not how economics works. If the alarmists are correct and peak fossil fuels is just around the corner, then after the peak the cost of fossil fuels will gradually go up until alternatives -- alternatives that we know about and can make use of relatively quickly -- make more economic sense. At some point, certain sources of oil will become economically viable which aren't now. At a higher…

"At some point, certain sources of oil will become economically viable which aren't now."

Indeed. Higher prices are what lead directly to the fracking boom. Now some of those wells are being shut because prices have declined.

"Heck, it's an insane, absurd speculation, but maybe at some point energy will become so expensive we'll even come to our senses, stop listening to Greenpeace, and build nuclear plants to use that 10,000 years of uranium."

Your mouth to God's ear, my friend. There's actually enough for billions of years, if all sources and technologies are included. The late John McCarthy (probably better known here as the creator of Lisp) had a series of web pages about it.

http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/nuclear-faq.html

Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#120

Post by jkyle » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 4:23 AM UTC

drumdance wrote: post #105

13thLetter wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It won't "pop" because that's not how economics works. If the alarmists are correct and peak fossil fuels is just around the corner, then after the peak the cost of fossil fuels will gradually go up until alternatives -- alternatives that we know about and can make use of relatively quickly -- make more economic sense. At some point, certain sources of oil will become economically viable which aren't now. At a higher…

I keep pointing this out to a friend of mine. It's not like one day someone's going to say "oh, shit! we ran out! sorry, no more oil." It will just get more and more expensive.

> It's not like one day someone's going to say "oh, shit! we ran out! sorry, no more oil."

That's not necessarily true. Well extraction curves decline exponentially with the highest amount extracted early in the well's life.

Well discovery follows a very steep increase followed by a very steep decrease. The new fraking boom gave the extraction curve a new "bump" so it looks more like two gaussians overlapping each other. But the deposits were already discovered for the most part, so the discovery curve has remained consistent. And the drop off of the discovery curve is also exponential.

Ok, what all that boils down to is if the extraction curve doesn't keep resetting the drop off goes from global glut to largely unavailable in 20-30 years.

So when it runs out, for all practical purposes, you could easily be talking to a 25 year old who clearly remembers when everyone had a gas car, yet all the gas stations are closed.

Which would definitely feel like an "Oh shit!" to anyone experiencing it.

edit

To clarify a bit, that's 20-30 years from peak to pit. So if society doesn't seriously talk about the problem for 10-15 years (totally believable, we were heading downward before fraking), then argues over the solution for a couple of presidencies for ~10 years (again totally believable...), then you only have maybe 5 or 10 years to adjust societies power sources.

And it takes 7-10 years to build a nuclear power plant. Oh. Shit.