I totally agree, but it is reflective of a shift in how cultural products are designed and selected that is in my view the more interesting story here.
When selection is personal, you have a smaller set of choices and will respond to how things feel. If you're walking down a street looking at 3 restaurants, a surprising element in one might speak to you in a way you can't even explain. On the other hand, if you're just browsing in maps, you'll be going by ratings that reward a more generic notion of quality. That type of selection is algorithmic rather than personal.
More parts of our lives have been algorithmized than even before, and we generally like this because selecting things is hard. But algorithmization can drive us toward local maxima, where the pleasantness of familiarity draws us away from selecting or creating something truly personal. Of course, it can also draw people into arcane and corrupt niches like conspiracy theories.
The algorithmizations of physical spaces and social connections are probably the newest and most distressing. These realms used to be almost entirely localized; the idea you'd pick your friends or spouse by algorithm used to be rare and is now dominant. But personal relationships are incredibly nuanced and the algorithms are inadequate to the diversity of human desires. Yet they're shaping our desires in a way that is preventing many people from finding their happiness.
It would make sense to expect some ramp up because immigration is a stronger electoral issue than it was previously, and because a second Trump administration will probably be more coordinated and effective in implementing its goals than the first one was. Given how laden with unintended consequences any change in immigration policy is, though, there are probably some limits on the rate of change that would be possible and politically prudent.
For example, without undocumented immigrants, milk would be a lot more expensive (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/15/magazine/milk-industry-un...). The current election is showing us quite starkly how significant grocery staple prices are in shaping public perception of a nation's economic health.
> For example, without undocumented immigrants, milk would be a lot more expensive (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/15/magazine/milk-industry-un...). The current election is showing us quite starkly how significant grocery staple prices are in shaping public perception of a nation's economic health.
This strikes me as a bit tone deaf. These people are paid slave wages to do this work. They have unsafe housing conditions. They pay cartel fees to get across the border. Their "employers" are breaking the law. The government looks the other way. Personally, I'd be willing to pay more for milk (or any grocery product) if Americans were doing the jobs and getting paid fair wages with good benefits.
Are you saying American voters are tone deaf for prioritizing food availability over ethical sourcing of food?
I mean sure, but I don't think that judgement has any consequence unless anyone grabs a soapbox and starts chastising people for wanting cheaper food. I haven't seen any of the candidates do that yet.
I think even with a soapbox it wouldn’t be terribly effective.
We all know where our laptops and smartphones come from and the questionable-at-best labor practices associated with them, and nearly all of us continue to use them.
(To be clear, I’m no better. If a smartphone was released that was controversy-free but cost twice as much, I doubt I would buy it.)
I think food prices would be the same. People would complain about (and vote around) the prices rising, even if the higher prices were the result of more ethical labor laws.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t fix bad labor practices, I’m just saying that people will invariably be hypocritical about it.
Smartphones/laptops/hardware is slightly different because its manufactured/assembled overseas. The dairy industry is domestically based and acting like its workers are based in the 3rd world. Threatening the population with higher prices if they can't continue to break the law is extortion and it needs to be treated as such. If you can't run a legit business with legal labor, you need to be shut down. Someone else will find a way to do it.
I don't really disagree, I'm against exploitative labor, and I agree that if you can't do things legally you probably shouldn't be in business, especially in an extremely rich country like the US. [1]
I'm arguing that most people are hypocrites on this, and the last two years have proven that they'll blame the current president if their food prices go up. I'm not claiming that this is accurate, I'm claiming that that's what people seem to think.
[1] Exploitive labor is wrong everywhere obviously, but it's much easier to justify a more "relative morality" in a place with much more limited resources.
Agreed, politics is a team sport and someone is going to get the blame on grocery costs or gas prices. Its really the medias fault because people don't have the interest/time/intellect to dig into these issues - its all on headlines/clickbait. Illegal labor practices in farming/dairy/meat processing have been going on forever but they only seem to be front and center every 4 years, or < 3 weeks out from a national election cycle.
This isn't about food availability or ethnical sourcing of food. Apparently the business model of the dairy industry has illegal labor baked into how they do things. They have the gall to threaten Americans with higher prices if their workforce is eliminated. Sounds like extortion to me. This is a problem of crony capitalism.
I'm particularly impressed by your choice of "up there with Euchre" as a metaphor to explain Crokinole. It's like you wanted to make it relatable for people in a larger geographic region, but only a little larger.
That's why I try as hard as I can to find either truly "dumb" devices with mechanical switches vs momentary buttons or devices that remember their last state after A/C power is restored. Hard to figure out the second option though without trying it unless a review happens to mention it specifically.
On what factual basis can you claim that adverse events are primarily driven by genetics?
On the face of it this seems ludicrous. A baby born to a mother living in a high-risk environment but then adopted by a low-risk family would likely do far better in their life than the inverse.
As someone who was on the adoption lists in California, we had to learn that statements like 'On the face of it this seems ludicrous. A baby born to a mother living in a high-risk environment but then adopted by a low-risk family would likely do far better in their life than the inverse.' were false. I don't know if it was right or wrong, but California in its mandated adoption (fostering) training courses thought that we should be disabused of the idea that taking in a child (even a newborn) would mean that the child wouldn't end up significantly like the genetic parent. There were several studies we had to read (don't have them) that supported this claim.
We didn't end up fostering, for unrelated reasons.
For us, because of our apartment we were looking at very young (less than a year old since we didn't have a separate bed room).
They showed us studies that even infant adoptees tended towards the educational achievement of their genetic parents, not their adopted ones, for example.
Again, I don't even know if it's right or wrong, but the agency we were working with thought we should know that.
See for example the classic association between childhood maltreatment and future antisocial behavior [1]. As intuitive as it may seem that a child that is maltreated may develop negative externalizing behavior because of that, it looks like the true route of transmission is genetics, not environmental.
Almost every sufficiently large employer does this. Instead of paying premiums to an insurance company which owns the risk (and also makes a profit from that) the large employer pays the actual costs of care, and a percentage to the insurance company for the administrative work (using their provider network, claims processing systems, etc.).
okay, but surely then they get reinsurance, no? also does it make sense for every huge company to have their own insurance department?
isn't this simply a service that big corps can buy from these huge insurers? so they end up as the payers, they can manage their own plan(s), but of course they actually don't even have one single actuary on payroll, right?
Yes they also typically buy reinsurance (insurance that covers individuals whose claims exceed some amount in a given year, like say $150,000). The company will have some people in HR who administer this program but they aren't duplicating a lot of what the insurance companies do -- that's why they pay for administrative services.
They rarely have actuaries on payroll but there are several boutique actuarial consultant who serve these companies (e.g. "given the geographical distribution of your employees and the higher use of services X, Y, Z, you would save $xxx if you choose insurer A over insurer B").
Insurers don't want to pay for unnecessary treatments, including equipment. Maybe your provider could have done a better job selecting the right mask or settings for the CPAP? Maybe they could have trained you in their office?
I'm not saying the surveillance and payment-held-hostage model is the best, but it does at least attempt to provide some useful incentives.
I think the Android approach is: the back button usually does what you want, unless what you want is consistency.
Thoughtfully designed apps tend to set up clear expectations and deliver on them. Thoughtless or malicious apps can be confusing or intentionally mislead.
Yes, it's often hard to identify this as an outsider. But people inside the company know, and if you've worked in places that handle conflict in healthy ways and in some that handle it not-so-well, you'll know quite clearly within a few days where your workplace stands.
The used/refurbished market for Chromebooks is great for buyers, too. There's not much demand for used Chromebooks so you can get something quite nice for personal/kid use around $100-200.
That's a pretty great policy - and such a stark contrast to "maybe 3 years of security updates if we feel like it" on Android (Pixels aren't the norm!).
When selection is personal, you have a smaller set of choices and will respond to how things feel. If you're walking down a street looking at 3 restaurants, a surprising element in one might speak to you in a way you can't even explain. On the other hand, if you're just browsing in maps, you'll be going by ratings that reward a more generic notion of quality. That type of selection is algorithmic rather than personal.
More parts of our lives have been algorithmized than even before, and we generally like this because selecting things is hard. But algorithmization can drive us toward local maxima, where the pleasantness of familiarity draws us away from selecting or creating something truly personal. Of course, it can also draw people into arcane and corrupt niches like conspiracy theories.
The algorithmizations of physical spaces and social connections are probably the newest and most distressing. These realms used to be almost entirely localized; the idea you'd pick your friends or spouse by algorithm used to be rare and is now dominant. But personal relationships are incredibly nuanced and the algorithms are inadequate to the diversity of human desires. Yet they're shaping our desires in a way that is preventing many people from finding their happiness.