80 years ago a worker couldn’t support a retiree. The entire point of social security was that initial contributors back then were gonna get more out of it than they put it. But it was OK because the contributors would always grow faster.
So it doesn’t matter if productivity is up. If it went from 1 worker supporting 1/10th of a retiree to 4/5ths, the math is still broken, significantly.
The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.”
He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing.
“I’ll pay you tomorrow,” he told the door.
Again he tried the knob. Again it remained locked tight.
“What I pay you,” he informed it, “is in the nature of a gratuity; I don’t have to pay you.”
“I think otherwise,” the door said. “Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt.”
In his desk drawer he found the contract; since signing it he had found it necessary to refer to the document many times. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip.
“You discover I’m right,” the door said. It sounded smug.
From the drawer beside the sink Joe Chip got a stainless steel knife; with it he began systematically to unscrew the bolt assembly of his apt’s money-gulping door.
“I’ll sue you,” the door said as the first screw fell out.
Joe Chip said, “I’ve never been sued by a door. But I guess I can live through it.”
> Once you actually use the toaster the hierarchy inverts. The toaster runs your entire household while it is powered on.
More than once I have gone to my toaster in the morning and found cold bread there that someone toasted the day before and forgot about. Because obviously you push the toast down and go do something else. You don’t need to be staring at it continuously, nor are other people impacted by your toast unless they are waiting to make their own. Toasting bread doesn’t have to affect an entire household.
Doesn’t pass the smell test. “Billions” is >2 billion. There weren’t that many people online when iPhone came out with its famous flash ban. https://ourworldindata.org/internet
Funny enough, my local bus line does that. Admittedly it is unique among my local bus system (due to the rural nature of my local area relative to the rest of the system; and the relative length between bus stops). However the same bus system (King County Metro) also operates the access van, so if you are mobility impaired you do have the option to hail a ride which gets you door to door.
Waymo and specific people there responsible for that programming/bugs could probably be charged with criminal negligence by an enthusiastic prosecutor, yet haven't been. Why? Probably common sense. Like recognizing that there weren't criminal intent. And such situations is a price of progress. The same with protests. They weren't conspiring to block ambulances. And such situations is a price of freedom of protests and speech. Though if somebody dies that way, i think they would have a civil case against the protesters. The same way like affected people can have a civil case against Waymo in the situations mentioned above.
Neither of those are acceptable. Why would you think Waymo not following the law is somehow a justification for it to continue to put people’s lives at risk to enable protesters to do the same?
Oh man what a perfect example to be had here. So historically exactly what you're said is 100% what happened. By the time Ford really mastered manufacturing, he managed to get the price of the Model T down to $260 around 1925, about $4,600 in current terms for a premium car!
Needless to say everybody was buying one and he was rocking it. Then came along General Motors and they were desperate to find any way to compete. They couldn't compete on price or quality, so their CEO is credited with inventing planned obsolescence, and turning cars into a fashion. They'd release a new style each year alongside plentiful marketing implying that the old styles were outdated, and it was wildly successful.
So yeah, needless to say people have always genuinely wanted their own cars. But it's also true that companies have managed through advertising to create artificial demand for vehicles that don't objectively make sense. To some degree reality is catching up at least though. Aston Martin is on the verge of bankruptcy and BYD is the largest electric car company in the world, by a wide margin.
Comfort, utility, fun, status. Every person has their own mixed requirement of those that then gets applied to their budget. Expensive for me is probably cheap for our CEO and cheap for me is probably expensive for our interns :)
It will be interesting to see how well it adapts and avoids regressions through future releases. The usual downfall of this vibecoded stuff is long term sustainability.
From the outside it seems like the long term stock exchange was a flop. Why do you think it failed to gain traction? Is it that HFT just isn’t relevant to enough key decision makers?
Not sure I agree with your assessment. From my perspective, it’s actually doing well: appropriately funded, its proposal for companies to optionally move quarterly earnings to semi-annual is supported by the SEC, and it trades the same stocks as the other two major exchanges. But it takes time to build something new and innovative.
So it doesn’t matter if productivity is up. If it went from 1 worker supporting 1/10th of a retiree to 4/5ths, the math is still broken, significantly.
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