Patrick Collison's Questions • Hacker News Board

Re: Patrick Collison's Questions

#261

Post by simonebrunozzi » Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 8:48 PM UTC

In relation to the Golden Gate Bridge construction, it was mostly financed by the son of Italian immigrants turner banker, Giannini; his bank also lent to people devastated by the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco. The "Bank of Italy" changed its name to "Bank of America" [0].

From the article linked at the bottom of my comment [0]:

> A. P. Giannini, President of Bank of America, was legendary for his dedication to the development of the San Francisco region. A native of San Jose with a blue-collar background, Giannini believed that banks should lend more freely to working-class people, whom he believed to be fiscally responsible. Following the 1906 earthquake that destroyed much of San Francisco, most banks closed up shop, but Giannini set up a makeshift desk and issued credit "on a handshake and a signature" to families and small businesses in immediate, desperate need. His investments built a foundation for San Francisco's economic recovery.

Also, it's ironic that A.P. Giannini was what we would call today a "college dropout", which is particularly "cool" and "popular" in the San Francisco Bay Area. From [1]:

> Giannini attended Heald College but realized he could do better in business than at school. In 1885, he dropped out and took a full-time position as a produce broker for L. Scatena & Co.

[0]: https://about.bankofamerica.com/en-us/our-story/building-the...

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amadeo_Giannini

Re: Patrick Collison's Questions

#262

Post by noirbot » Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 9:49 PM UTC

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #254

noirbot wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yea, I don't mean it to say there's no reason for it. That underlying issue tracks with what I'd expect.

This comes back to another point that's been made elsewhere in this thread - it's always going to be easier to design and build things for a community that's smaller and more homogeneous. A lot of the countries we think of as being good at building things are also fairly small.

There's probably a term for it, but it's almost the inverse of Economies of Scale. It's easier to make good country-wide standards when most of your country wants the same thing.

Re: Patrick Collison's Questions

#263

Post by TT3351 » Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 10:06 PM UTC

ovi256 wrote: post #218

paxys wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember Salman Khan (of Khan Academy) talking about this a few years ago. He believed that the current accepted method of teaching - students attending lectures and sitting in classrooms getting knowledge from teachers, then later doing homework alone trying to apply it - needs to be inverted. Lectures, presentations, textbooks can all be online and automated. Teaching resources, limited as they are, are much bett…

Yes, this is called "inverted classroom" and it's practiced by some private schools in the US. And yes, schools are for both daycare and learning - or acclimating, indoctrinating the young into our society.

"socialization" is a word that grates the ears less harshly

Re: Patrick Collison's Questions

#264

Post by ChrisMarshallNY » Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 10:56 PM UTC

noirbot wrote: post #262

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yea, I don't mean it to say there's no reason for it. That underlying issue tracks with what I'd expect. This comes back to another point that's been made elsewhere in this thread - it's always going to be easier to design and build things for a community that's smaller and more homogeneous. A lot of the countries we think of as being good at building things are also fairly small. There's probably a term for it, but…

Well, my experience is that some (not all) Japanese companies are quite good at making high-quality stuff at enormous scale.

The company I worked for is renowned for making really nice cameras, and have been doing it for 100 years. People all over the world have wrapped their entire careers around the products of this company (I don't call them out by name, because I don't really want my social media rants to end up on their radar).

As noted above, however, I found that their production magic didn't really work so well for software. As I was one of their software managers, this was challenging.

Re: Patrick Collison's Questions

#265

Post by dredmorbius » Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 11:42 PM UTC

bhupy wrote: post #221

dredmorbius wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Housing, childcare, textbooks, and food and beverages seem strongly market based, and private college tuition has risen far more than public, challenging your characterisation. I note textbook prices took a dive about the time book-sharing services became prevalent.

In the markets where housing prices have increased the most, housing is the least market based.

How do you reach that concclusion/ How can a region be tested based on housing-market freeness?

Who or what interests advance restrictions?

Re: Patrick Collison's Questions

#266

Post by analog31 » Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 11:55 PM UTC

ISL wrote: post #253

analog31 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's fair. It may be something that students have been told but don't really internalize. Everybody at the tournament wants to believe that they stand a chance. I know this is true of students in the humanities too. Everybody is actively putting off facing the reality.

One thing I do remember is that as undergrads, we were advised to maintain a pretense of wanting to pursue an academic career, even if we had other plans. If you told them that you intended to finish with a masters and go into industry, you would probably not get accepted, would not get funding, and would be treated as a second class citizen. So students were pretty much told to inflate their expectations. That was a long time ago, and I don't know how it is now.

I didn't become a good enough research scientist to compete for a trophy gig in academia. What I saw is that my own university was hiring up, i.e., only considering applicants from higher ranked schools. That meant my chances were somewhere close to zero. I got to know the post-docs and understood their grind. But also, I became more interested in gadgets and making things work, than in directing fundamental research.

Re: Patrick Collison's Questions

#267

Post by valuearb » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 12:16 AM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #202

valuearb wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medical care and education have seen a massive torrent of government funding and regulation over the last 60 years, while the things that get cheaper live mostly in free markets.

Housing, childcare, textbooks, and food and beverages seem strongly market based, and private college tuition has risen far more than public, challenging your characterisation. I note textbook prices took a dive about the time book-sharing services became prevalent.

Private college tuition is as heavily affected by the flood of federal college funding as public colleges. Textbooks are just another way for colleges to ride on the federal gravy train.

Housing prices have no where near the same price growth, and last time they did it was also due to heavy federal subsidies.

Lastly, Childcare, Food and Beverages? You are grasping at straws there.

Re: Patrick Collison's Questions

#268

Post by bhupy » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 12:25 AM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #265

bhupy wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the markets where housing prices have increased the most, housing is the least market based.

How do you reach that concclusion/ How can a region be tested based on housing-market freeness? Who or what interests advance restrictions?

It's fairly well established by now that the most significant drivers of housing unaffordability is the preponderance of zoning regulations that restrict the supply of new housing construction.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w8835

https://research.upjohn.org/up_workingpapers/307/

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/08/la...

https://www.nber.org/papers/w20536

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sHh6BJ8dPoN9VQj-PXTPK5ATa8m...

Re: Patrick Collison's Questions

#269

Post by sershe » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 2:58 AM UTC

paxys wrote: post #97

The infrastructure one really stands out to me, and I'm always astounded by it. Adding yet another example - The Golden Gate Bridge was built in 4 years for $1.6 billion (inflation adjusted), under budget and ahead of schedule. 11 workers died during construction, a safety record matching or surpassing most modern projects. In contrast, a project to install suicide nets around the bridge has been under development fo…

Could it be incentives? Make the project bidding fixed-cost; as a contractor if you add delays without the change in requirements, you eat the costs.

Re: Patrick Collison's Questions

#270

Post by vikiomega9 » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 2:59 AM UTC

tempsy wrote: post #100

akirakurusu wrote: post #18

"Why are so many things so much nicer in Switzerland and Japan?" Figuring out why this is without fully attributing it to culture has been of great fascination to me. It really is mindblowing just how _good_ things are in Japan, perhaps they're just highly optimized for tourism? The cleanliness, the service, the great care people place in doing things and in their work is just amazing. Anyone here have more insights…

homogenous societies are inherently more efficient? the reality is the beauty of America is that we are a heterogeneous one, but there are of course some downsides to that.

I think it's a little disingenuous to call America a heterogenous society. While the share of population for different ancestries[1] makes it look heterogenous, a large part of the equation is cultural homogeneity. American culture is derived from its anglo history and I'd argue economic and political pressures have forced "model minorities" to forgo their heritage.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_Unit...