I think the preceding comment was operating on the presumption of linear returns from medical research. Since higher medical costs in the US goes directly towards medical companies, and indirectly to medical research after taxes and dividends and stockbuybacks...
Of course the biggest issue of all time is that germs are evolving to survive our antibacterial soap, we may need to develop a large variety of antibiotics.
No need more merchants, everything shall be a non-counterfeitable Amazon Basics product. Other merchants will have to compete on price while everyone can trust Amazon quality.
I am still in team Europe and believe that taxes are important and that rich individuals can't take better care of public infra. I just don't want to make stupid mistakes at the beginning with my company structure.
It takes the same time for an armored division to travel from coast to coast as it would for a legion to march across the Roman Empire, at least a week.
Inertia isn't the problem, failure to take responsibility is. Although it does seem like inertia, a cornucopia of policies that can't be coped with, such as wastage that everyone turns a blind eye to, gradually increasing deficits of supply versus demand (for the Soviets it was grain (somehow Russia is now a grain exporter), for the Americans it is potholes).
Numbers are worthless, most Romans were illiterate, and they didn't have Arabic numbers. Bafflingly illiterate workers and automated machines are economically equivalent, otherwise there wouldn't be such a difference between high school dropouts and graduates in work productivity.
"The cause"? A failure to tolerate ambition, even when society converts into a fishbowl where everyone is neighbors. Unless ego is abolished and the most horrifying of social engineering programs could be enacted, the problems of late empire are simple: men like Robert Moses, condemned by equally corrupt later generations, are no longer permitted to ensure things run smoothly.
> It takes the same time for an armored division to travel from coast to coast as it would for a legion to march across the Roman Empire, at least a week.
This sounds like a dramatic underestimate in the case of heavy infantry (a legion).
Elite infantry units similar to Scipio Africanus' legions went from Tarraco to Carthago at 26 miles per day forced march which is a pretty high rate of speed [1]
Using the excellent Orbis site from Stanford [2], it is possible to calculate this at accurate detail @ ~179 days marching 30KM a day, from Tarraco to Alexandria, which is across the empire.
Comparing that against an armored division, it would depend on which armored division since some are more road capable and limited mainly by fuel supplies. An M1A2 can go on roads at 45MPH and has a range of 265 miles.
That’s one reasons why tanks, when not in action, get transported on trailers.
The text even says “significant numbers of failures were recorded during months with zero usage”, indicating that keeping a M1 parked isn’t easy, either.
You're conflating fleet size numbers with the individual. And, an armored division is designed to recover vehicles with their own trucks, while retaining mobility. Military planning is all about %s, e.g. 80% are functional based on a table of equipment (TOE)
> That’s one reasons why tanks, when not in action, get transported on trailers.
While that may be a minor reason, the actual big reasons are the most current M1A2 SEP tanks at ~147,200 pounds destroy roads, convoy operations are a giant pain, tanks are an immense hazard to trucks and cars, and the fuel consumption is off the charts, making this not economical.
> The text even says “significant numbers of failures were recorded during months with zero usage”, indicating that keeping a M1 parked isn’t easy, either.
Zero usage doen't mean that preventitive maintenance checks & services cease. Given that even idling a 1500hp turbine for maintenance is a major undertaking that is a good amount of start/stop and usage of the entire system, even if getting no road time.
Robert Moses isn't condemned for being corrupt, he's condemned for bad urban planning decisions that we are still paying steep prices for, decades later.
I suppose Robert Moses is the wrong man to bring up, though maybe my argument is flawed and should be totally ignored. I take it that you're taking that approach. Given the direction this argument is heading, perhaps urban planning could be simplified, pedestrian only neighborhoods with nearby parking garages provide a great incentive for people to shop at local small businesses instead of supermarkets being a one stop shop with everything from fresh starbucks to factory made bread. The French subsidize their local businesses and from what I hear, their communities are better for it. Naturally so many factors go into urban planning, and how to live in a dense community is something that will always be considered to be unexamined.
Ehh little bit of both, no? He made bad decisions but he also made some of those for corrupt reasons like obeying his rich friends. And if you believe The Power Broker, by the apex of his power, he was effectively running the old state patronage system. Sure the main reason you'll hear about Moses these days would be his racist, aggressive, destructive urban planning, but the grift definitely didn't help.
I suspect we have different feelings about the individuals involved, but I have the same takeaway from studying the period. One of the fundamental concerns of civilisation is the management of warlords. You can wish that highly ambitious, capable people don’t arise and choose to accumulate power, but that isn’t going to stop them. You need a system that puts them to productive, non-violent uses and this to me is a strong argument for capitalism. It gives would-be warlords a way to service their ambitions that can generally be a benefit to society.
Alternatively in a scarcity system with anxiety over one's own future, absolute authority becomes more desirable, not less. The only law that could be removed to prevent this would be the law of nature, since the only greater driving force than one's legacy is to promote the future of one's own children (the least mentioned failing of socialist societies).
The existence of a warlord tendency isn't totally abolished with capitalism, it is only mitigated by pressures to conform which is problematic for modern society versus Victorian or 50s society because various brands or artists wish precisely to stand out.
There is no way for anything to ultimately be a benefit to society without any understanding that one is part of a greater whole, which will be an interesting argument to present to anyone involved in designing curriculums.
The advent of the agricultural revolution, the telegraph, and the teletype each resulted in massive increases in "tribal size". To the point that after the teletype, it was a bipolar cold war.
So I don't think you have any qualifications to say a single word in this matter.
Your comment has broken the site guidelines badly. We ban accounts that do that, so could you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here? We definitely don't want swipes or flamebait in HN comments.
I don't see how his comment justifies yours-- either your reading of it (I don't see any claims about "tribal size" in his comment, and I'm sure we're all aware that there's a whole range of affiliations we have from large-- 'Murica-- to small-- HN fans) or the vitriol.
I posit that at the root of all societal friction is the widening income/wealth gap within the US, along with shifting socioeconomic statuses with some losing ground and some gaining ground.
Note that people are in many tribes of many sizes simultaneously, and constantly shifting priorities and allegiances as it suits them, and trying to figure out others’ priorities and allegiances.
The only divide is in whether it’s something that is even a problem that needs to be addressed. Income inequality doesn’t divide people itself, just the focus on it does.
I don't agree. We're increasingly divided along lines that are very well correlated with demographic factors. Like, age, sure, but also income, religion, race, etc.
And the link makes it pretty clear income is a pretty strong predictor of political leanings. (And when you combine income + rural/urban split, it's a very strong one).
In other nations (e.g. Mexico, Peru, Ghana, Thailand, etc.) health care is provided to all. In USA lots of people can't afford any sort of health care. The family left behind by someone who dies at 48 because he couldn't afford e.g. blood pressure medication doesn't need any sort of "focus" to see the divide.
Health care is just the starkest illustration of this. One sees the same phenomenon with any other necessity: housing, food, transportation, etc.
What is shocking about it? Rural is by nature less efficient than high-density urban. Less productive. Everything costs more and pays less because rural living isn’t as “good” (in the ways that relate to income/velocity of money) as high density living.
You trade off dollar wealth green wealth: more trees, bigger land, less crowding, cleaner air, quieter environment, private living. The costs are in Longer drives, higher prices, less selection, lower pay, greater energy use, potentially far fewer cultural/educational/social opportunities.
I don't understand how what you said here relates to what I said. I didn't say that lower income people are more rural; I said that if you look at the left leaning subset of the lowest income people, they are very urban, and the right leaning subset of the lowest income people, they are very rural.
> A significant chunk of the US votes on single issue matters that have nothing to do with economic status (abortion, gun rights).
I wonder if the design of our so-called democracy has something to do with it. It's funny how this major foundation of our society escapes scrutiny, and it is mostly only the players within it who get any attention.
I don't understand how modern hard drives are not helium proof. Apparently, everything is a permeable solid.