aetherson

Equally, you and I can't prove that hindu myth isn't a record of contact with advanced space aliens, and wouldn't it have been fun if it was.

But it's implausible for all kinds of basic reasons.

It's just clear all throughout history that humans do not have trouble making up fantastic creatures. There's no reason to think that these fantastic creatures weren't made up. It just seems at first blush that there might be a reason because it was "very long ago." Until you realize that "very long ago" by the standards of hindu myth are wildly different than "very long ago" by the standards of hominid species.

The vanaras were probably conceived of around let's say generously 3000 years ago. Neanderthals disappeared about 40,000 years ago. You live ten times closer in timeline to the original Ramayana story than neanderthals did.

It's just not very plausible that hindu mythology is a corrupted record of living with multiple species of hominids. Timeline-wise, it's not much different from claiming that Tolkien's orcs and elves were part of some kind of historical memory of hominids.

There is obviously a deep desire for personal penance and absolution that manifests itself in the environmental space. (see: paper straws, plastic bags, formerly compact fluorescent lightbulbs, low-flow toilets, etc.) I'm not sure I agree that this fundamentally is about people being misinformed; it seems possible that people would want this even if they were fully clear that these penances were trivial -- even in aggregate -- in the big picture.

I think that people do care about "the environment," but what they mean by "the environment" is much more "my personal connection with spaces that feel unspoiled" than "atmospheric CO2 levels."

I'm a parent and while I invite people over (indeed, this last Sunday we had another couple and their kid over) and do this thing, very few of our parent friends appear to do it. Or I guess maybe they do it with each other and just don't invite us, but I think it's rarer than you think.

She's probably not? If she's gone two and a half years since her gallbladder was removed, and years before that when sge had gallstone symptoms but thought they were something else, that was before widespread use of GLPs.

I believe they wouldn't have to because of the stepped-up-basis, but my point is that even if somehow they were paying the full 40%, it's still an inconceivably large amount of money.

Even very large salaries are probably not a very significant amount of wealth for these people. I think this is a case where "all large numbers look the same."

If Warren just directly gave his money to his three children equally, and paid 40% inheritance tax on that money, and then the children each just used 1% of that wealth per year, then they'd each get:

144000000000 * 0.6 / 3 / 100 = $288 million each year.

No foundation pays its CEO 10% of that much money. I think we may have to accept that in fact this is a way to give money to charitable causes, not just horde it.

What else would his repute be based on? Maybe telling retrospective truth? Per the article, he does terribly by that metric as well.

You could imagine that pre-diagnosis confusion relating to Alzheimer's increases the risk of traffic accident and kills taxi drivers, too. Might not operate for truckers as much because they're more likely to survive accidents.

18.

Okay, if it's bad for the price they're offering, use the more expensive API. If they themselves can't afford it I don't know what you want here.

That was very much on the table, though not locked in.

The US's population is not declining. However, without immigration, our population growth would be very close to zero, and a yet lower rate of natural increase is locked in over the next couple of decades (more old people who will die than children).

And, I mean, it's obviously hard to predict beyond that, but it doesn't seem like anyone has any real clear answer to the trend of steadily decreasing TFR right now.

I mean, he was pretty vindicated on Uber. Which kind of hurts me to say, I was a long time Uber bear. But it did indeed emerge from the pandemic stronger.

Sure. But that's not the subject.