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Machine intelligence, part 2
This is part two of a a two-part post—the first part is here. THE NEED FOR REGULATION Although there has been a lot of discussion about the dangers of machine intelligence recently, there...
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Against Tulip Subsidies
I. Imagine a little kingdom with a quaint custom: when a man likes a woman, he offers her a tulip; if she accepts, they are married shortly thereafter. A couple who marries sans tulip is considered…
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The Impact of “Blind” Auditions on Female Musicians (1997)
Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, and business professionals.
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Quantity Always Trumps Quality
Nathan Bowers pointed me to this five year old Cool Tools entry on the book Art & Fear. Although I am not at all ready to call software development “art” – perhaps “craft” would be more appropriate, or “engineering” if you’re feeling generous – the parallels between some of the advice offered
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Facebook is not worth $33,000,000,000
Facebook is an amazing success as a social network. Anyone who can get 500 million people to connect, share photos, and click on little cows in Farmville deserves major kudos. But the bullshit monopoly-money valuation merry-go-round has to stop. It’s getting beyond ridiculous and when even…
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Wage suppression in 10 charts
Wages for typical workers lag far behind productivity growth. It hasn't always been this way and does not have to be this way. These 10 charts outline the historical context of workers’ wage trajectories, and what can be done to fix the gaping disparities.
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Book Review: Red Plenty
I. I decided to read Red Plenty because my biggest gripe after reading Singer’s book on Marx was that Marx refused to plan how communism would actually work, instead preferring to leave the e…
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The Unofficial Hacker News FAQ
Here is a small sample of stuff that pops up with some regularity, if you want me to add entries please mail me jacques@mattheij.com, if you ask a question that is hard to answer it may take a while before I can post it . Please note that I’m not affiliated with HN in any way other than being a user, the majority of…
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Introducing Buffer's Salary Calculator & New Salary Formula
We’re sharing a new version of Buffer's transparent salary formula, and a web app that anyone can use to find out what you might make on the team at Buffer.
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Futarchy: Vote Values, But Bet Beliefs
These policies are not just dumb in retrospect; typically there were people who understood a lot about such policies and who had good reasons to disapprove of them beforehand. It seems hard to imagine such policies being adopted nearly as often if everyone knew what such "experts" knew about their consequences. Thus…
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Elon Musk Series: Introduction
A post about how Elon Musk became the real world Iron Man.
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The Shareholder Value Myth
Shareholder-value thinking dominates the business world today. Professors, policymakers, and business leaders routinely chant the mantras that public ...
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On Pioneers, Settlers, Town Planners and Theft.
The rants and raves of Simon Wardley on Evolution, Technology, Economics and Business
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Who makes minimum wage?
Perhaps surprisingly, not very many people earn minimum wage, and they make up a smaller share of the workforce than they used to.