One key problem appears as misaligned ("perverse") incentives. But it has to be that because its essentially impossible for an average person to purchase health care in the moderately informed and choice-filled fashion that I can purchase a vacuum cleaner.
Of course, another key problem is trying to divide distinct parts of health care into distinct costs. Everyone benefits from having a good quality hospital in their area and so assigning a health care provider's cost to just a given patient and then trying to reduce the patient's cost is quite irrational.
Essentially, you have a public good that the state and private interests are trying to make into a public good. A lot of profit comes from this but little good for the patients.
As an American, I think most of my countrymen's arguments on the subject resemble something like "learned helplessness". The "healthcare system" is craptasm of kludges that each partly counter the fundamental irrationality of rapacious private healthcare but introduce their own idiocy. So the arguments and "ideas" involve this already dumb measure needs to be changed in that half-assed fashion. A few election cycles ago, an old woman was quoted saying "get the government out of my medicare [medicare is a state program, for foreigners trying to understand this stuff]"
I disagree. Zoning, building permits, inflated utility hook-up charges, etc is what restricts me from buying a one-acre parcel and putting in 30 snug cabins.
You are confusing marginal price (or profit-equalization) theory with numerical limits on the level of housing unit production.
If people were allowed to build as they wished, they'd build a lot of housing, much of the housing crisis would subside and then the profitability of building house would equalize with the profitability of other uses. But stable point would give a lot more people housing.
It's like... Taxation or similar things can reduce X use of resource Y. Remove taxation and eventually X use isn't any more profitable than other uses but a tautology of markets/economics, not an argument the taxation isn't limit the production involved in X use.
> If people were allowed to build as they wished, they'd build a lot of housing
You seem to be under the impression that building housing isn't already a nearly-unprofitable venture. There's no room to for "them to build a lot of housing" – builders are already pulling back on more construction because we have too much. Not "too much" as in everyone is amply housed, but "too much" to be able to do it profitably despite the fact that we still have a shortage.
It is hard for me to see how "formal structure combined with natural language content" can ever be different from "code with comments". Code often indeed requires comments but it's hard to see how any real generalization is possible from this.
I'd agree UIs are a sh*tshow but just saying this misses the wide variety of things that can put under "language is usage". Of course, the article itself misses the way the reveals texts between current elites are more equivalent to the grunts of cigar smoking old boys in clubs than to formal business communication. And that's just scratching the surface of the implication of informal business and other language. "Is it laziness or power signaling?" - both in complex layers.
As a side note, I grew up in the era of typewriters and cursive and that "interface" was utterly miserable - composing at the typewriter was considered bad, a fair portion of people couldn't type and typists would/could be hired for various tasks. I was vastly heartened when PCs with word processors became available at the college computer center senior. I think text processing interfaces reach their apex around 2000s (fusing power and usability) but when something gets to certain optimality, it can only go down and that where phones are.
> a fair portion of people couldn't type and typists would/could be hired for various tasks
Was typing harder then than it is now for some reason? Or are you saying that editing now (compared to correcting ink typed onto paper) means you don't need as much skill?
Was typing harder then than it is now for some reason?
Uh, yes it was. A manual typewriter required you to exert enough force on each key to get a metal arm to strike a ribbon and make a mark. Pressing two close enough together in time would cause them to hit each. An electric typewrite required less finger effort but it would send vibrations back to one's fingers. Also, erasing mistakes was a serious pain in the neck. Also you had calculate line-breaks yourself, keep track of the end of each and so-forth. "Cut-and-paste" People did that with scissors and tape but, again, a total pain in the neck.
There was a reason that word processors were hailed as a great innovation.
I agree but I'd also note that a capital owner actually has a couple motivations to get rid of high paid labors.
1) Cost
2) Flexibility. If you can hire random laborers to do most of your tasks, you can quickly scale up whereas if you depend on highly skilled and trained workers, starting a new operation elsewhere is hard. Similar, you can shift activity around, are less impeded by the opinions of workers, etc. Significantly, this may allow you to "franchise" your operations in various ways.
From what I am seeing in the consulting space for enterprisey companies is that there is an extreme push to normalize /standardize all tools/platforms not even talking about AI tools to be able to replace tribal knowledge with cheaper workers. The narrative and in some cases reality of AI is just bringing the badhavior to the forefront
It would be hard to believe that BMW doesn't have many industrial robots already deployed and in fact they do on a serious scale [1]. Now, to my mind, adding humanoid-robots to the existing mix of standard-robots and people seems not completely terrible.
The article's vacuous AI gloss language indeed makes it seem like they are indeed engaging in, crudely put, baloney. But your own language is weird here, like you don't realize robots are a standard thing in modern manufacturing. I mean, modern manufacturing "succeeds" massively using nonhumanoid robots at large scale.
Using Gmail as your primary email has become a serious risk. Email was once a distinct thing but Google tying it to your everything-account makes gmail terrible.
Yeah, crypto as normally managed is one of the most traceable currencies. The block chain is in fact a complete log of transactions. Naturally that means there are no untraceable uses despite your sound-of-one-hand-clapping thought experiment.
Of course, another key problem is trying to divide distinct parts of health care into distinct costs. Everyone benefits from having a good quality hospital in their area and so assigning a health care provider's cost to just a given patient and then trying to reduce the patient's cost is quite irrational.
Essentially, you have a public good that the state and private interests are trying to make into a public good. A lot of profit comes from this but little good for the patients.
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