The Zvi's solution for spam and unwanted notifications; Lee Bressler on Delta Airlines' credit card; Tove K on Peter Turchin; Aaron Renn on getting ahead by knowing what vs. knowing who
I also notice that in each of your examples (Delta’s business travelers, AWS, groceries’ ads), the “primary,” low-margin businesses are all B2C (business-to-consumer) whereas the “related,” high-margin businesses are B2B (business-to-business).
I guess this is why the ads on streaming services (maybe on TV as well, I'm without TV) are all so depressing (medical), icky (matchmaking websites with icky closeups), or bewildering (literally can't make out what the product is).
I miss children eating cereal and Mom getting stains out.
Also, if anyone else has been watching "Only Murders in the Building" on Hulu: I can't wait until that woman answers the question "who do you want to be?" - or until they finally air that show and we can stop seeing the ad.
"Without actually studying people, we can't know which parts of our psychology are adaptable to current circumstances and which parts are stuck in the past."!
Whenever Robin Hanson has a great idea about how to reorder something and incentivize more efficiency and well being he is usually bumping up against this very hard. On Razib Khan's podcast with Lyman Stone they noted that if you poll the population not on religion but on belief in some kind of spirituality or magic the percent affirmative is stable at 90 percent. If one looks at the genetics of schizophrenia they have as of last year identified at least a 287 regions of the genome that involve this disorder. https://www.broadinstitute.org/news/two-large-studies-reveal-genes-and-genome-regions-influence-schizophrenia-risk
I am kind of waiting for more stuff to come out with this new info from last year, but a few other studies I have seen don't seem to show a large change in schizophrenia genes over not just tens of thousands of years, but possible hundreds of thousands years.
Yes, ~$33k/card does indeed sound high but what is it for American or United? And if there are 8mil Delta Amex at that spending level, how many for the other airlines? I'd bet choice of airline has lots to do with flight choices a person has from nearby airports. For example, Delta is unlikely to be first or even second choice for someone in Chicago.
And how many of those cards are sole business owners, or nearly so, who use the personal card?
Sorry, I can't judge whether Delta has something special based on Bressler's info.
Herein lies the rub. Nobody owns the email communication channel and there are lots of service providers. In fact, anyone can be one. Most critically, scammers can create an unlimited number of new email addresses and even new address domains (right word?) so that it is impossible to block these "new" bad actors. Each unwanted email could come from a different address.
Like your observation on open and closed networks. Beyond macroeconomics, all academia has become a closed network. We really need those contrarian thinkers to generate innovative ideas, which I fear have largely disappeared from our universities.
The annoying-notification button is an interesting idea. The potential catch is the problem of keeping the third-party tallyer and fine-collector honest. I'd think we'd have to have a tallyer with no incentive to cheat, and then we'd run into the problem of how they're to be compensated. It's a bit like the problem of police departments that get a share of fines and civil-forfeited assets...
I read the Tove piece and comments. Color me confused by this assertion in the latter: "How does Turchin align his theory with the history of the last 200 years? In the early 1800s Western elites made up, say, 5% of the population and 95% or so were near subsistence. Today those proportions are reversed."
Is this only a statement about "the West"? 5% are near subsistence and the other 95% are so well-fed they are de facto elite? Or is this person suggesting (unchallenged, so I guess this is obvious to others) that 95% of the world's population are *no longer near subsistence* via their own efforts? Or 5% of the population is *near subsistence*?
I have wondered at the wild enthusiasm to discard Malthus based upon a blip in time.
I also notice that in each of your examples (Delta’s business travelers, AWS, groceries’ ads), the “primary,” low-margin businesses are all B2C (business-to-consumer) whereas the “related,” high-margin businesses are B2B (business-to-business).
I guess this is why the ads on streaming services (maybe on TV as well, I'm without TV) are all so depressing (medical), icky (matchmaking websites with icky closeups), or bewildering (literally can't make out what the product is).
I miss children eating cereal and Mom getting stains out.
Also, if anyone else has been watching "Only Murders in the Building" on Hulu: I can't wait until that woman answers the question "who do you want to be?" - or until they finally air that show and we can stop seeing the ad.
None of this feels remotely sustainable.
"Without actually studying people, we can't know which parts of our psychology are adaptable to current circumstances and which parts are stuck in the past."!
Whenever Robin Hanson has a great idea about how to reorder something and incentivize more efficiency and well being he is usually bumping up against this very hard. On Razib Khan's podcast with Lyman Stone they noted that if you poll the population not on religion but on belief in some kind of spirituality or magic the percent affirmative is stable at 90 percent. If one looks at the genetics of schizophrenia they have as of last year identified at least a 287 regions of the genome that involve this disorder. https://www.broadinstitute.org/news/two-large-studies-reveal-genes-and-genome-regions-influence-schizophrenia-risk
I am kind of waiting for more stuff to come out with this new info from last year, but a few other studies I have seen don't seem to show a large change in schizophrenia genes over not just tens of thousands of years, but possible hundreds of thousands years.
Yes, ~$33k/card does indeed sound high but what is it for American or United? And if there are 8mil Delta Amex at that spending level, how many for the other airlines? I'd bet choice of airline has lots to do with flight choices a person has from nearby airports. For example, Delta is unlikely to be first or even second choice for someone in Chicago.
And how many of those cards are sole business owners, or nearly so, who use the personal card?
Sorry, I can't judge whether Delta has something special based on Bressler's info.
"If you use my communication channel..."
Herein lies the rub. Nobody owns the email communication channel and there are lots of service providers. In fact, anyone can be one. Most critically, scammers can create an unlimited number of new email addresses and even new address domains (right word?) so that it is impossible to block these "new" bad actors. Each unwanted email could come from a different address.
Like your observation on open and closed networks. Beyond macroeconomics, all academia has become a closed network. We really need those contrarian thinkers to generate innovative ideas, which I fear have largely disappeared from our universities.
"As long as you play by the objectively defined rules, you are welcome to participate. You won’t get banned for having the wrong political opinions."
Not yet, but it is coming.
The annoying-notification button is an interesting idea. The potential catch is the problem of keeping the third-party tallyer and fine-collector honest. I'd think we'd have to have a tallyer with no incentive to cheat, and then we'd run into the problem of how they're to be compensated. It's a bit like the problem of police departments that get a share of fines and civil-forfeited assets...
I read the Tove piece and comments. Color me confused by this assertion in the latter: "How does Turchin align his theory with the history of the last 200 years? In the early 1800s Western elites made up, say, 5% of the population and 95% or so were near subsistence. Today those proportions are reversed."
Is this only a statement about "the West"? 5% are near subsistence and the other 95% are so well-fed they are de facto elite? Or is this person suggesting (unchallenged, so I guess this is obvious to others) that 95% of the world's population are *no longer near subsistence* via their own efforts? Or 5% of the population is *near subsistence*?
I have wondered at the wild enthusiasm to discard Malthus based upon a blip in time.