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Comment The UK has fallen (Score 1, Troll) 127

Maybe the US should colonize it.

No. Not really. But seriously, the people running that place are deeply evil. Arresting children for *reading* social media posts. Arresting people for quietly reading the Bible in public. Arresting people for defending themselves from gang violence. Forced digital ID? Draconian capital controls. Security cameras on every corner. Attempting to repeal Brexit against the will of the people.

On the other hand, they haven't started killing populist politicians en mass like Germany. Yet.

Comment Re:who will be the first russian propagandist (Score 1) 62

labrador's law: Only agitated dogs bother barking

The average post online gets something like 1000x more views than comments or replies. A post generally has to pass the viewer's threshold of emotional response to elicit the effort of a reply. Therefore, the responder either has a personal connection with the author or subject or feels strongly about it, and as such, the response is much more likely to be polarized, given the rarity of passionate moderation. This is a key contributing factor to online polarization: the majority does not feel as strongly about most issues as the people writing articles or posts about the issues. However, over time, saturation of the online media landscape with polarized posts and replies gives the illusion of higher polarization, which probably leads people to feel and believe that the issues themselves are polarizing and that most people ARE polarized on the issues.

Because we generally take sides in politics based on social acceptance rather than individual evaluation of the issues, the discussion becomes even less rational. If my social group is almost completely party-aligned, I will be much more likely to simply accept and promote the 11th-ranked plank of my party's platform than to depart from it, risking social isolation unless I deeply care about that particular issue.

This is why the most important issues are never the leading planks of a party's platform, but the most devisive issues ARE the leading ones, even if they are sometimes the least important, because that's how you gather support. Consider issues like abortion, racism and non-traditional sexuality. None of these issues affect more than 25% of people directly, yet they are hot-topic issues that drive emotional support of political parties.

Comment Meh (Score 1, Insightful) 159

Everyone who makes actual economic decisions based on this kind of data have long-ago abandoned confidence in government reporting. It's politicized and it's been systematically sweetened to preserve the illusion of low inflation and higher employment for decades. The fact that people don't want to answer questions may have as much to do with distrust of government as anything else. Why waste your time?

Consider the counterfactual. If it was the Swedish government from the 1990s asking you to answer questions, you'd probably take it seriously because it would credibly inform responsive policy.

BLS stats are mostly just headline generators for the propaganda machine.

Comment I have a question (Score 0) 186

Has anyone here done serious investigation into the reliability of the models and research indicating that human activity is causing climate change? I keep hearing that anyone who publishes research contrary to the dominant narrative becomes effectively unemployable. Is there evidence that the research is unbiased?

Comment TFA is not particularly great. (Score 1) 98

1. MEMS clocks with microsecond-per-day accuracy are commercially available and they're getting better.
2. 1 ns drift = 30 cm position accuracy.
3. You still need signals from known positions to triangulate your location.

So while jamming GPS is trivial, the alternative is using other sat networks or building terrestrial radio beacons. Variations on the same problem. Just having accurate, portable clocks does not help.

This article boils down to: UK is working on portable atomic clocks, just like everyone else.

Comment No free market (Score 1) 236

CA dept of insurance regulates this. It sets prices, practices and coverage requirements. It's not really a free market, so the limitations make it impossible to offer insurances that would otherwise be available.

The first approximation of a fix should be to abolish the department, but a better solution might be to create something like a set of standards for coverage verbiage to make it possible to commoditize offerings and make products comparable. All other limitations should probably be removed. A free market gives people the chance to actually discover the cost of insurance and find innovative ways to keep themselves safe. Unfortunately, in the name of protecting people, we severely limit the options that are available and add a lot of overhead costs in regulation. Companies pulling out and state-backed insurances are telltales of broken markets and wasted resources.

Same story in Florida.

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