What do you think makes an article "important"?

I think an idea is important if it describes a way to achieve a huge gain at a proportionally much smaller cost. Fixing these bugs would fit that criterion, since they're bugs on a government website that is used by millions of people.

Now, you might argue that even if I'm right, the information is useless to you because you don't do a lot of mailing, and because there's nothing you can do about the situation anyway even after reading about it. But that's also true of virtually all news articles -- not practically useful to the reader, and nothing you can do to impact the events described. So back to the original question: What do you think makes an article "important"?

Well I already clarified to the other poster that my sample of "smart people" is based on how well they do at math and logical reasoning (real outside-the-box stuff, not just getting good math grades in school), which is objectively measurable and not subject to my biases.

So, given that, what do you think? If someone puts forth a contrarian argument X, and the argument is considered interesting by a majority of people who are above a certain threshold in math ability, but everyone else reacts negatively, what do you think is reasonable to conclude about argument X?

Actually, that's a good point, so let me be more precise -- the people whose opinion I seek out tend to be very good at mathematical and logical reasoning, which is an objective (albeit incomplete) measure of their intelligence, independent of any biases of mine. Generally, the better people are at math, the more they think that the arguments I raise are interesting (which is not to say they always agree).

I'm not talking about people who got good math grades in school, I'm talking about people who did well in extra-curricular math-like activities that expanded your mind beyond the default curriculum. (And if you are in fact good at math in that sense, well, good for you -- I said it was a general trend, not a universal law.)

What do you think is the point of journalism? To give the people what they want? I think it's to pursue the objective truth, and then present what you've found.

One reason is that I often run the ideas past smart people whose opinions I respect, before running an article. They often find flaws in my own reasoning -- sometimes fatal flaws that shoot down the whole idea so the article never runs -- but sometimes after refining an argument to avoid the flaws they highlight initially, they agree it's an interesting question. If a representative sampling of smart people agree that a question is interesting, but a crowd of Internet commenters keep howling that it's stupid, is it possible that the problem is with the Internet commenters?

One of the most hated articles I ever wrote was questioning the merits of the Fifth Amendment, where I asked: Why is it a good idea that we allow defendants to refuse to answer questions, but that we can force third-party witnesses to answer questions, on pain of going to jail? Before I submitted the article, some people had given me fairly thoughtful answers to this question (e.g. that a third-party witness might only come forward if they know they're allowed to refuse to answer questions about their own illicit activity), but they agreed that the inconsistency was interesting.

But when the article ran on Slashdot, most of the useful discussions in the comments got drowned out by people shouting, "Bennett, you don't get it, the Fifth Amendment protects against SELF-incrimination, that's why you can require third-party witnesses to answer!" Each time, I rolled my eyes, and sighed, and replied, "Yes, I know what it says; that's not the question. The question is: Why is that a good policy?" Nobody in my pre-Slashdot smart-person cadre had ever missed the point so completely, or given that stupid of an answer.

Yes, I know that. What gave you the impression that I didn't? But I'm assuming that the thickness of the box is almost negligible, so that if you specify on the USPS website that your package is 3x4x5 inches, the website should be smart enough to know that you can use a 3x5x10 Priority Mail box, but not a 4x4x4 Priority mail box.

They have priority mail boxes stacked in racks on the wall, free for people to take, so I assume they intend for at least some people to box their stuff there.

In my local post office, there's a counter for boxing things, and then a line which snakes around the counter and (sometimes) out the door. I've never seen the counter anywhere close to being full -- usually only one or two people using it for boxing their stuff -- so as long as you just take a Priority Mail box off the wall, and your stuff fits into it, and you have the right shipping label, you're not imposing costs on anybody else.

Of course people are causing problems when they do the things you describe, but those are probably not the people who print their labels in advance before coming to the post office.

That's useful to know, thanks. Sorry that useful pointers like these get buried in the comments under all the tripe :)

Although my poitn is that it would have been nice if the USPS site itself spelled this out.

Because people can filter me out anyway by not reading articles with my byline. If someone is too lazy to move their eyeball one inch down the page, aren't we being enablers by accomodating them?

Small point, I was the author who raised the issues, Timothy was the editor who posted article that I wrote. I haven't read that book though, thanks for the pointer.

Initially of course many people would prefer a more expensive Uber ride that arrives sooner, but in an efficient marketplace, there should have been some people who would wait an extra 20 minutes to save $20, on, say, a ride to the airport. Then as the number of Sidecar drivers increased to meet that demand, the average wait time would be lower, thus roping in a few more potential customers who would be willing to wait 10 minutes, thus creating demand for more drivers, etc. The problem is that even among the people who are willing to wait, there's not enough awareness of the cheaper option, because the information marketplace is not efficient enough, so the ball never gets rolling.

I'm sure that's true for most of them, but if only some of them were interested in competing on price, that ought to be enough to start a price war. Surely there must be some drivers out there who are willing to drive for 75% of what UberX drivers are making. If they're not able to grab the business though by undercutting on price, then that suggests the market is too inefficient.

Right, assuming that rider demand never switches over to a lower-priced option, it's obvious why drivers would prefer working for Lyft or Uber. The curiosity is why the marketplace is so inefficient that rider demand doesn't switch over to the lower-priced option.

We have a widget marketplace where widgets cost $1 to make, and Lyft and Uber are charging $10 each for widgets. Sidecar is trying to undercut them by selling widgets for somewhere between $1 and $9. In an efficient marketplace, a price war should result, driving prices down to somewhere between $1. Instead nobody's even heard of the new entrant, suggesting the marketplace is really inefficient, to the detriment of consumers and price-competitive suppliers.

Odd that people resented the gas station so much -- suppose the situation had been reversed, and a sudden surplus caused the market price of gasoline to drop. Would drivers have paid extra at the pump to help out the poor gas station owner? :)

This article original appeared in Rolling Stone where the editors insisted that I use the alias "porcupine" because the real animal was unwilling to go on record. Unfortunately now that the story is unraveling, some right-wingers have begun outing the real species on Twitter.