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Patrick Collison's Questions

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Re: Patrick Collison's Questions

#251

Post by koonsolo »

bondarchuk wrote: post #243
koonsolo wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sometimes wonder about this too. When you walk through European cities and look at the decoration of those old houses, they were all handcrafted. I think it would be too expensive now to build those same houses with handcrafted details. Same with all those old chairs, where some woodworker sculpted everything by hand. You can't imagine that right now anymore. Is it because we throw away stuff after 5 years? Or beca…

I have not looked up the numbers, but would guess wealth inequality is a big part of it. Those houses were built for people who were richer, and they had people working for them who were poorer, than is common nowadays in the west.

That could indeed explain a lot. The bigger the inequality, the more people you can hire

Re: Patrick Collison's Questions

#252

Post by jl2718 »

Quick answers just for fun: 1. Technological abundance vs regulated scarcity 2. Complexity outpacing human understanding. Plus regulation/approvals. 3. Because the FOMC controls it. 4. Reduce legal barriers to entry. 5. Reduce central control. 6. Risk minimization. 7. Trust by common identity. 8. Maybe. Pace tracking classes. 9. Money is cheap enough now for investors to fund most science for profit. 10. No programming. AI queries (e.g. “Her”) 11. Audiobooks 12. Arxiv / citation ranking 13. No. Too easy to ignore ads on text. 14. Nobody’s paying for IDEs anymore. 15. See #7. 16. See #15. 17. See #7. 18. Political vs scientific incentives. 19. contra to #7. 20. See #7. 21. It’s more lucrative to fail than to succeed. 22. I’ve heard it was due to mass burning by humans. Fire/regrowth fixes more carbon than it releases.

Re: Patrick Collison's Questions

#253

Post by ISL »

analog31 wrote: post #123
ISL wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed -- one can only hire like crazy in a growth phase. The frequently promulgated expectation that every new PhD can become an R1 professor is incorrect, unwise, and unhealthy. If that expectation alone were altered in the undergraduate consciousness, a lot of sadness could be averted. The contrast here is that the US (in particular -- the EU seems to be more thoughtful) doesn't seem to be maintaining its robust r…

I got my physics PhD in 1993. By this time, this expectation was already held in disregard. Most students were aware of what we called the "birth control problem." My dad got his PhD in the 1950s, and told me that it was common knowledge back then too. But while students vaguely knew that most of us would not end up on this path, we got little or no guidance on what else we could do. A common aspiration was to teach…

My experience is that the understanding of the problem is apparent to post-graduates and older, as well as a number of people outside of academia. Among my undergraduate class and my entering first-year graduate class, understanding of that reality -- that many of them (which, probabilistically meant you) would not become professors -- was limited at best.

Re: Patrick Collison's Questions

#254

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

noirbot wrote: post #238
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for a Japanese corporation for decades; regularly traveling to Tokyo. Japanese culture is really unique; even for East Asia. They aren’t a “warm and fuzzy” bunch, but every Japanese person is aware that they are a member of Society, with the ensuing obligations and personal boundaries. Every person in Japan takes their vocation seriously . Quality is absolutely stunning, and is deeply personal to each worker…

Something I think may be related, but I don't have strong evidence for, is that I think some of the high Quality shown in Japanese work is also evidence of a tendency towards not trying to do everything. Things I've noticed in a lot of Japanese products, both software and hardware: 1. Barebones UI/UX that I would guess isn't very accessible for blind/non-traditional users. 2. Poor user manuals and often even worse tr…

That point might be valid, but it could be simpler than that. It just might be too expensive to design and document for the world.

Documentation is often very complete; but at an extremely technical level, and not always translated. Japan is a nation of engineers. I think that they expect users to have a certain level of proficiency, and that is reflected in their UX and documentation.

I find that Japanese equipment can be very polished and aesthetically designed, but can be quite intimidating. They produce pretty space shuttle cockpits.

Translation is a fearsomely expensive and fraught process. I have done a lot of localization work. Chinese companies have a similar affect, where their customer documentation is often quite sparse. It's quite possible to get detailed documentation, but it will be in Chinese, from the company. I found that out while I was working in ONVIF (surveillance stuff). The docs that came with the cameras were terrible, but the engineers would be quite helpful, if I could track them down and ask questions.

Re: Patrick Collison's Questions

#255

Post by lioeters »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #235
lioeters wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> According to a study by Tokyo University, 87% of the city's buildings have been constructed according to modern anti-seismic standards.

Compare that to earthquake preparedness in Portland and Seattle. Being underprepared for the next Cascadia earthquake is a policy choice.

> ..Coastal areas in the region have prepared tsunami evacuation plans in anticipation of a possible future Cascadia earthquake.

> However, the major nearby cities, notably Seattle, Portland, Vancouver, Victoria, and Tacoma, which are located on inland waterways rather than on the coast, would be sheltered from the full brunt of a tsunami.

> These cities do have many vulnerable structures, especially bridges and unreinforced brick buildings; consequently, most of the damage to the cities would probably be from the earthquake itself.

> One expert asserts that buildings in Seattle are vastly inadequate even to withstand an event of the size of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, let alone any more powerful one.

> Kenneth Murphy, who directs FEMA's Region X, the division responsible for Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska, put it quite dramatically: "Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast."

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1700_Cascadia_earthquake#Futur...

Re: Patrick Collison's Questions

#256

Post by danans »

Robin_Message wrote: post #189
danans wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's certainly been more "regulation" in the sense of schools trying to enforce what books are used for what class for their own enrichment. That has little bearing on the prices of textbooks. Also a school can't function without textbook standardization. That's hardly the same thing as regulation.

UK schools don't seem to have textbook standardisation in the way the US does, but the schools seem to function fine.

Are you saying that in any given UK primary school (I mean the actual physical school, not the school district, municipality, county, etc) they don't use the same textbook/curriculum across multiple classrooms in the same grade/standard?

Does each teacher or student/family chooses the textbook to use, without any standardization even at the same school?

That seems pretty impractical.

Re: Patrick Collison's Questions

#257

Post by dredmorbius »

onion2k wrote: post #212
dredmorbius wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Golden Gate Bridge was built during the Great Depression. Poverty may have been prevalent.

The Golden Gate bridge was one of many public works that arose from the government trying to spend its way out of the depression through the creation of jobs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration

Oh, I'm not disputing that at all. Just that the bridge's enduring quality (much as with other Deoression-era / WPA works) is at odds with your observation on poverty. Though that does seem to have some validity otherwise.

Maybe focus more on inequality and uneven reward? The Depression seems to have often been, as with the WWII recovery, something of a leveller.

Re: Patrick Collison's Questions

#258

Post by aeternum »

dalbasal wrote: post #200
bohemian99 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly- people don't/can't really comparison shop when it comes to medical procedures. They don't know how good their doctors are at it, this is all unpublished information. Similarly college textbooks- if your professors assigns work from their book, then you need that book. You can't competitively shop on that. As the response points out, all of these groups and then backed by accreditation systems to limit new en…

Starting from Patrick's question, and working through the list... It suggests that some of our market-thinking has been off mark. Free-market economic policies have tended to define things in terms of market "freeness." How much intervention, etc. This is commonly how we think politically, because it relates directly to policies. The way these affect reality is through the market structures themselves. We can regulat…

I think you're right that some industries are more conducive to competition in general. However shouldn't we be more careful then in terms of creating barriers to competition?

If we treated restaurants like hospitals/healthcare we would give your employer a tax break in return for determining the set of restaurants you may dine at. Any new recipe or cooking method used by a restaurant would need to first be approved by the FDA. Restaurant chains would not be allowed to operate across state lines. Restaurant would have to accept below-market pricing for some proportion of customers (medicaid). Each restaurant would need to hire a law service to ensure they comply with HIPPA, and staff a department to allow import/export of your dining history.

Re: Patrick Collison's Questions

#259

Post by ta1234567890 »

nojvek wrote: post #233
ta1234567890 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What are the non-cultural factors which contribute to this phenomenon It's simply impossible to detach Japan from their culture. The main thing that stands out to me is their selflessness. One anectdata: Tokyo feels pretty much the opposite of NYC. In NYC it feels like people are obstacles to avoid on the way to where you are going. Nobody waits for anybody. At first it seems rude, then you realize "it's not person…

Are you sure this wasn’t because you seemed western/white privilege? When I was backpacking it was shocking to see how other countries will perceive white people as superior and go above and beyond to help them while someone who is Asian gets treated like just another average Joe. It’s opposite for black folks. It’s like decades of movies and media have built this implicit bias in our brains.

The friend this happened to is not white/western.

However, I did find it very strange and even a bit sad, that almost all posters at Uniqlo featured white/western models, inside their flagship store in Tokyo.

Re: Patrick Collison's Questions

#260

Post by wenc »

noirbot wrote: post #238
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for a Japanese corporation for decades; regularly traveling to Tokyo. Japanese culture is really unique; even for East Asia. They aren’t a “warm and fuzzy” bunch, but every Japanese person is aware that they are a member of Society, with the ensuing obligations and personal boundaries. Every person in Japan takes their vocation seriously . Quality is absolutely stunning, and is deeply personal to each worker…

Something I think may be related, but I don't have strong evidence for, is that I think some of the high Quality shown in Japanese work is also evidence of a tendency towards not trying to do everything. Things I've noticed in a lot of Japanese products, both software and hardware: 1. Barebones UI/UX that I would guess isn't very accessible for blind/non-traditional users. 2. Poor user manuals and often even worse tr…

I have another hypothesis. Japan is a nation of craftsmen. As such, Japan excels at enterprises involving the manipulation of physical objects, like producing cars, cameras, knives, industrial equipment, computer hardware, etc. If you've ever been to Japan, you'd notice that it is a nation where physical objects/systems are very much prized.

On the flip side, Japan doesn't seem to do as well with abstract objects. I'm specifically thinking of software here.

You see, the modern practice of software development is heavily tied to American/European culture, where technology norms, though ostensibly universal, find a natural home in the English language. Consider concepts like generics, devops, dependency injection, static vs dynamic typing: all of these were conceived in English-centric environments. Sure there's nothing linguistically specific about them, but they reflect discourses that happen primarily in English-speaking spaces.

If software development were more mathematical (and maybe more like electronics... somehow less tied to English), I suspect the Japanese would do much better than they are doing right now. (Ruby's Matz is a notable exception, and I suspect his fluent English had something to do with it)

But the fact is, the practice of software development is as much sociology as it is engineering. Large swaths of it are inextricably linked to the culture, norms, and languages of Americans/Europeans. Without a good command of English, one finds oneself merely consuming content but unable to influence the discourse.

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