jorleif

This is commercial enterprise, not regulation. Taxation could simply make driving them around too expensive.

That is a good point... So now I'm back to the giant slingshot idea.

Increased pageviews, yet many users also hate constant outrage and leave the platform entirely. It is not obvious that a platform with civil, high-quality discussion would lose in the marketplace (not obvious it would win either, though).

I wonder if gliders that are powered by electric motors only during takeoff and landing could be a solution here. It's not like we get very annoyed by eagles soaring in the sky.

Sure greed/profit motive, but it is accepted by the general public because it is local direct benefit (less crop failure) vs diffuse harm to a large area.

It is not necessary, but if society was good at assigning a price to the relative merits of informational resources vs physical goods it would result in a more efficient economy.

Yes, science and art will progress, but if there is no economy attached, then they will be dominated by people who don't have to make a living. Unless we fund the whole thing publicly. That would work, but in other contexts we believe the market is more efficient.

These kinds of techniques are often claimed to be effective against flash floods, which makes sense since they slow down water transfer to rivers. Does anyone know any studies about how effective it could be against seriously heavy precipitation of the scale of Harvey or South Asia floods right now? In other words, how well does the approach scale?

True, but from the car manufacturer's point of view, all of their customers buy new cars, so comparing what is low-range or high-range to other new cars makes sense.

The author does not articulate his critique very well beyond claiming that the VC get disproportionate return compared to land and labor. A much better critique is Jaron Lanier's Who Owns the Future. There he argues that the problem is when companies create monopolies that shrink the overall economy (Instagram vs Kodak, Facebook vs publishing in general). The startup then provides the public with free services but at the same time it decreases employment opportunity. The whole machinery works as long as some other sector of the economy grows, but that is unlikely to be the case forever. Somehow there would need to be economic growth, not just lowered cost.

This seems closely related to PG's essay Black Swan farming: "there is probably at most one company in each YC batch that will have a significant effect on our returns, and the rest are just a cost of doing business"

It seems that for the publishers as well, rather than betting big on a few predicted winners, they could bet small on a large number of authors with big potential in the best case.

Is it actually feasible to 3d print a realistic rhino horn from synthesized keratin? Googling keratin 3d printing mostly turns up Pembient itself. One would suspect that keratin printing would have plenty of more humble applications (synthetic hair, nails, biomimetic prosthetics).

I feel this solves a very small part of the problem. This is only about the morality of the individual scientist, while the problem is at the level of the collective process of science. I mean, it is of course good if the individual scientist who discovers X way to kill off humanity keeps it secret, but eventually someone else will also discover X, and then someone else, and so on. Do we require of scientists that they all keep these things secret?

Of course, we may not want to have terrorists building atomic bombs, so some secrecy is prudent, but secrecy does not generally hinder: 1) Some bad people from accessing said information, now having monopoly, which may make matters even worse 2) Discovering the same thing independently - Yes, we may keep it secret, but that does not change the laws of physics, the exploitation potential is still there.

Having done a little science myself, usually there both are small incremental improvements with small but predictable gains and large leaps with big potential gains but very unpredictable outcomes. The former are optimizations around a current local optimum, and the latter try to escape it towards a better local optimum. For that reason the incremental gains tend to saturate over time, and I suspect that is what Goodenough is dismissing.

I don't disagree, but experimentation should still be on the table. Maybe a certain state or municipality should be sponsored to try policies more along the scandinavian kind. Of course this is problematic. How do you for example stop everyone from moving into that particular priviliged district, etc?

This is a very interesting idea and has some good potential for social change. So much energy, so misplaced. As a scandinavian my first thought is: Don't Americans realize that there might a point where it is cheaper to provide (or more exactly, force) better education and social security on those at risk, than increasing the police force and incarceration rates?

There is something that is not quite right with this narrative that Gladwell spins though. His past examples are about the winners of their era. On the other hand, the contemporary examples are losers who end up killed and squeezed by the police. Presumably, in the earlier mafia era there were also plenty of losers, we just don't hear about them.

The main thesis which I think is sound, though, is that innovation often (usually) involves a certain amount of breaking societal norms (which includes laws). It can take violent forms, such as the mafia, but also less violent law-breaking is often present. Think Napster, as a clear example but why not include Uber and AirBnB as well? Often innovation is not just about new technology, but rather re-negotiating social contracts. For this reason, when technological or social change introduces new economic opportunity, often it becomes populated by people who are willing to violate laws. I think as societies, we should try to figure out how to better utilize the violent and rebellious behvior of people, while limiting the detrimental effects. The same adrenaline addict might kill himself and a few pedestrian on a motorcycle when evading the police, but could instead be allowed to risk his life in some space exploration program or why not a technology startup.