Dude, it's just a car. It's ok if people don't want to buy into the car culture, let it go.

Thank you for the response with the exact level of pedanticness I would have gone for personally. You saved me some time.

This is just he exception that proves the rule.

It's when you find TWO exceptions, that you should start to worry about the rule itself...

Hey, if you like to define yourself by your car, that's cool. For myself, the car is a box that goes from place to place. I spend my money on things that actually make me happy, not the box that I use to get there. If I don't buy a new car every 3 years, that's a good quarter million dollars over twenty years that I can spend on housing, travel, cultural events, hobbies, whatever. But if you think it's better to have a nice box, it's your money. The car companies certainly spend a lot of money trying to convince people that the box really is the most important thing in life.

The point of a cheap used car is to provide transportation. The point of an expensive new car is to make the driver look like someone who can afford an expensive new car. The point is that being expensive is going to end up being less important to shoppers than playing nicely with their phone (even though there are a lot of older folks who have trouble imagining a world where you can't judge someone by the car they drive).

General Electric != General Motors

Why on earth would someone want to spend a ton of money on a car? Who cares what the thing that moves you from place to place looks like? (Apparantly, the answer is "shallow old people".)

How does Apple "monetize" its userbase information right now?

It doesn't, because it doesn't need to (see: Stock Price, cash on hand).

Why does Apple feel the compulsion to plow money into an inferior map service?

Apple maps are superior to Google Maps at this point. They are more readable for one thing (true from the outset) but also I have noticed more errors lately in Google Maps than Apple Maps (and Google Maps always had errors to begin with).

The reason Apple continues forward is because that way they do not have to worry about how users are monetized by other map providers... which you are if you use Google Maps.

Originally said:
Stock valuations are based not only on actual assets, but future growth and earnings potential.

You replied:

They're comparing the stock valuation to what the company would sell for if purchased. When you sell a company, you're also selling the "good will" and other value inertia things like brand familiarity

Goodwill is ALSO something that can increase in the future, just like monetary assets - you buy stock with the idea that the entire company value (including goodwill) will grow. So the original point is still a sound one.

Impressive, but let's see smart engineers do all of that without capitalism (like in a country like North Korea).

Seriously, though, all those things you list are easy compared to trying to predict human behavior. I think most people fail at predicting human behavior (whether they are an engineer or economist seems irrelevant. . . ) and those that succeed become crazy rich and never reveal their secret (or, if they do reveal it, it no longer applies since human behavior constantly adopts new knowledge).

Clinton did not selectively keep emails she thought were state-department related - she came up with a small list of keywords she thought would match state-departmnent matters and deleted ANYTHING THAT DID NOT MATCH.

So basically her keeping state department related emails is only as true as her ability to come up with keywords that matched everything she did over years of service...

Not to worry though, the Chinese and many other foreign governments have a full backup, which they have pinky-sweared not to use as leverage should Clinton be elected president.

So sex differences only exist when they benefit men?

That mothers would be more invested in their offspring is easily predicted by that fact that they have a massive biological investments in their offspring that men lack, it's one of those things that I'll simply cite as obvious.

Unless you bring a weapon into the equation strength becomes relevant because it creates a power imbalance. I don't deny that female physical abuse exists, it might even be at similar levels to male abuse, but I'm very skeptical that it's as harmful.

I totally agree that ad-blockers are immoral. Realistically how can you support denying a web site ad revenue which is the only reason it can continue to exist?

However, just as immoral are the way ads are tending to be presented now. Full screen ads as noted, or un-avoidable popovers are to my mind a betrayal from the other direction - a web site needs revenue to survive, but that should not come at the expense of the sanity of the reader.

My solution is to simply sop using a site if I find the ads grow too obnoxious. But I also really can't see anything morally wrong with blocking ads from a web site that has gone too far in embracing abusive ads, almost as a form of punishment...

I think an unbiased system would be female skewed since mothers tend to be more dedicated than fathers but I don't know if the system is in fact unbiased. (And yes, I'm sure there exists seemingly unjust anecdotes on both sides).

Is that an actual policy or are you making a generalization.

Certainly DV by women exists, perhaps it's even the case that incidents the could be classified as DV are more commonly done by women.

But the strength difference between men and women is pretty drastic, I have little doubt that the most severe abuse is overwhelmingly committed by men.

At one point we needed the government just to reach space.

That time has passed. What we need now is not one gatekeeper to bring us into space, but the gates to be flung open. NASA still has uses but the majority of space travel and research going forward should be done by the people outside the government, the people who from time immemorial have been always able to do something hard and dangerous and expensive and make it better and faster a cheaper and more accessible to everyone.

Do you want to visit space? I do. I know that would never happen just having NASA around, just as I know it will be feasible giving some of NASA's money to SpaceX and its ilk to refine and commoditize space travel.