Banthum

5 ms·

1.
by Banthum 9y ago
We don't know how Yahoo would've done under someone else. It could've been much worse. It's perfectly possible Mayer did unique work that paid her compensation and much more in savings. Without the counterfactual, we can
2.
by Banthum 9y ago
"It is a SCAM and will steal your seed!" I'm getting General Ripper vibes over here...
3.
by Banthum 9y ago
Work doesn't define humanity, but the fruits of work are what enable humans to exist. Also, work is the only means by which we do things that can benefit others. It's all very good to be concerned with your own experience, but if
4.
by Banthum 9y ago
>incel, red-pill, and proud boy ideas that you must refrain from "spilling your seed"—that your reproductive emissions contain some of your essential energy What you're describing is called NoFap; this community is based o
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by Banthum 9y ago
Is it a "structural" issue? Or is it just the fact that, statistically, poor people are really unlikely to pay back loans, so loaning to them profitably means charging really high interest? Or is that a "structural" issu
6.
by Banthum 9y ago
>the desire to preserve the inferior status of blacks has motivated policies against all members of the low-wage sector. So your belief is, the dominant economic-political movement in America regards "preserving the inferior status
7.
by Banthum 9y ago
Another mode of travel doesn't seem to be accounted for: Travel for pleasure. Not to score social points. Not for meaning. Just to relax and feel good for a week. Weather can be a big factor. In the middle of five months of winter, dai
8.
by Banthum 9y ago
Grandparent didn't imply it was a triumph of foresight, but rather a failure of foresight. I think that's what he's saying - a general point that people's understanding of climate (and thus predictions about it) are poor
9.
by Banthum 9y ago
In about a billion years the sun will exhaust enough nuclear fuel to cool and expand, boiling the oceans, blowing off our atmosphere, and turning Earth back into a sterile rock. It's predicted by astronomers and physicists who study st
10.
by Banthum 9y ago
Or maybe - and call me crazy here - men and women are different, and want different things, and therefore, as we reduce discrimination, nearly every job and hobby will end up with a huge gender imbalance as individuals sort themselves into
11.
by Banthum 9y ago
America has a high ratio. To call it 'worst' is a value judgment and not an objective statement, any more than saying the abortion or divorce rate is better or worse.
12.
by Banthum 9y ago
I'm curious, what's the definition of hard vacuum? Obviously there will be a few nitrogen molecules bouncing around in there so it seems there must be some arbitrary cutoff.
13.
by Banthum 9y ago
Isn't that just the same Friedman approach with a longer time horizon? Imagine a farmer who farms to exhaust the soil. He earns money but in 30 years, the farmland is rendered useless. He becomes poor in the end. Another farmer farms s
14.
by Banthum 9y ago
You need more if you're cold enough! Go out in frigid weather with a T-shirt on. You'll soon shiver - your body is recruiting muscles to generate heat. But also, your "brown fat" cells will start pumping out heat as well
15.
by Banthum 9y ago
Yeah, there are a lot of confounding differences between Americans and Norwegians here. History, terrain/density, climate, culture, and even genetics all likely play a role. Not just policy. I would be curious to learn how the numbers
16.
by Banthum 9y ago
>Small ideological sects with large families historically don't seem to take over the world. It only seems that way because pre-1960, the world was entirely dominated by sects (e.g. religions) with large families. All the old religi
17.
by Banthum 9y ago
True, it is a de-facto outcome that constitutes a punishment. Still totally understandable from an employer's point of view. e.g. How much of a discount would you need to hire a nanny previously convicted or domestic abuse? But, it s
18.
by Banthum 9y ago
After the Spanish flu, multiple near-missed accidental nuclear launches as well as political crises during the Cold War, September 11, SARS scare, Ebola scare, weather events like Katrina or the Ottawa ice storm, as well as your bog-standar
19.
by Banthum 9y ago
In Tokyo they test the public emergency speaker system every day. At 5pm they play a 30-second traditional Japanese lullaby. If you ask people, they say it means it's time for children to go home - though as far as I can tell it has no
20.
by Banthum 9y ago
It's not a punishment, though. Employers' motivation is not to exact retribution. It's just people not wanting to associate with others who are more likely in the future to commit dangerous or destructive acts, because they
21.
by Banthum 9y ago
Those three dots are doing a lot of work.
22.
by Banthum 9y ago
There are a ton of citizens who would benefit from college but can't afford to go. I struggle to see the utility in discriminating against your own poverty-stricken countrymen in this. What's the real motivation?
23.
by Banthum 9y ago
Given how absurdly twisted and misrepresented the Damore memo itself has been in the media (calling it anti-diversity when it was pro-diversity, posting it but silently removing links to sources, stating that it says women are bad at engine
24.
by Banthum 9y ago
>consider what in our genetics makes us different than cave painters 30,000 years ago A tremendous amount has changed in that time. Height, immune system changes, lactose tolerance, blue eyes, different hair colors, digestive system chan
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by Banthum 9y ago
>That in general the well being of Native peoples in the US, of African Americans is devalued. It is witnessed in the exclusion in drug trials, in the diseases that pharma considers worthwhile to address... Speaking about medical researc
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by Banthum 9y ago
I feel fairly comfortable saying that in a group of Ethiopians in 1991, probably more than 4% are pregnant. For comparison, I've read that 10% of Syrian women in the refugee camps were pregnant at any given time. Doing the math (with w
27.
by Banthum 9y ago
The main thing that turned me against the modern left is the insistence on categorizing everyone into identity groups, and then treating their individuality as less important than the groups they represent. For example, every argument that
28.
by Banthum 9y ago
>Most poor people in the US are women and their children. What a strange statement. This would be true if, for example, poor people were 33% men, 33% women, and 33% children. It would also be true that "most poor people in the US ar
29.
by Banthum 9y ago
Our economies of wealth are not built "on the back" of the people in the soup kitchens. Those few people who are going to soup kitchens are typically so crippled by their own internal issues (e.g. mental illness, impulsive crimina
30.
by Banthum 9y ago
Not every human endeavor has to make a profit. However, most do have to make a profit, otherwise total wealth decreases until we all starve to death. If an activity doesn't make a profit, generally people unconnected with it should

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