Not necessarily a capacitor; sometimes a little counter circuit, on the MCU but independent of the CPU and not controllable (or vetoable) by it. In either case, not prone to systemic failures of the higher-level logic.

People overestimate the difficulty of adding low-level contingencies to high-level systems, and underestimate engineers' eagerness to do so. But this is the sort of thing that EEs worry about all the time.

I have, thanks. Now, read about the fact-value distinction, and reflect that average road speed may not be a reliable indicator of overall happiness.

That was the whole point: to help people live where they want to live and get to where they want to get to. Every car making up that new traffic jam is being driven by someone who is, on balance, willing to sit through it because of the positive effects it's had on them.

The refrain of radicals everywhere, and of all sides. "Just shut up and wait until we remake things as we want. You'll learn to want them that way too, we promise."

Thanks for your concern. Please refer to my fuck off from above. You donâ(TM)t get to decide what I want.

You're wrong on both accounts as well as wrong fundamentally. I personally donâ(TM)t want to drive. I quite dislike driving. I prefer a short walking commute, and when that's not practical I prefer mass transit. But for many people, driving is the only practical way to simultaneously accomplish several aspects of the life they want to live, including being housed in a very low-density area, working in a high density area, commuting without significant walking sections, etc. Those desires are not a matter of planning. Don't go so far the rabbit hole of social engineering that you forget that people actually can honestly want things.

Oh fuck all the way off.

This idea of "induced demand" always comes up in the context of traffic improvements, as though the goal of traffic design is to keep people from driving. (We had a sale on apples, and everyone bought our apples! Damn this counterintuitive induced demand!) Add a bypass and now it's full of cars? Good! That was the whole point: to help people live where they want to live and get to where they want to get to. Every car making up that new traffic jam is being driven by someone who is, on balance, willing to sit through it because of the positive effects it's had on them.

You can point to pollution and carbon emissions and freeways splitting communities, of course. There are plenty of reasons not to want more roads, and plenty of reasons to want to force people to adopt different living habits than they want to. But if that's your aim, at least be honest about it.

No. It means "correlation". If you find yourself with a thumb on the scale of causation, I think you owe it to yourself to ask why.

They said that, too. One can only go through so many rounds of histrionics about special circumstances and existential threats to democracy before one starts to mistrust the premise.

Yes, that is literally the policy being described here.

You can. This is what the Haversine formula is for.

Oh geez. Listen, nobody tell them yet, okay? They worked really hard on this.

Hence my asking them instead of you.

Perhaps so. That's not what the person I was responding to was talking about, and it's not what I'm talking about.

Nope, the fellow doubled down in a reply. Anyways, you're not the person I was asking, but thanks for... that.

I'm always baffled by what's going through your head, when someone like you posts something like this. Normally I don't bother following up, but this time, sure, why not.

Several professional researchers spent months or years on this research. Several other professional researchers evaluated the results and concluded that they held together and convincingly supported their conclusions. And now you looked at the headline of an article quoting another article quoting the paper, spent fifteen seconds thinking about it, and started wondering about the same confounding factor that literally anybody -- PhD or not -- would think of when even starting to consider this effect.

Do you believe that you have exceptional powers of insight? Or do you believe that the average statistician is fantastically incompetent? Seriously. Not a rhetorical question. I genuinely want to know your thoughts on the matter.

Hm. Maybe. Honestly, I don't see a put-them-all-up-against-the-wall reckoning in the near or medium future... these are large established market participants and politicians won't risk fucking with that unless they have to. And they won't have to: given the general public woo-woo around AI stuff and the lack of actual understanding, thereâ(TM)s plenty of security theatre they can engage in which wonâ(TM)t seriously affect their bottom line. One of the lower half of the big four puts out a whitepaper introducing "altruistic mandate boosting", thereâ(TM)s a mutual pledge to require it, tokens get 3% more expensive and 2% less evil, and the industry as a whole gets a few more years of runway. If you're looking for a real public awakening here, I don't think we're even close.