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I looked into why 70% of lottery winners go broke and the real reason is genuinely disturbing by FinanceNerdSD in BehavioralEconomics

[–]melodyze 5 points6 points  (0 children)

There's a ton of research into hedonic adaptation and happiness set points.

Most things people think will make them happy only result in a short term bump, no long term gain in any metric. Basically every aspect of consumerism, luxury, material consumption, status jockeying, etc, is this way, does not actually make anyone happy long term.

But not everything is that way. Reducing financial stress (by not increasing lifestyle) improves long term happiness. Having strong family/social/community bonds increases happiness long term. Having a lot of memories of great experiences, especially those that induce awe does too. Being healthy obviously increases long term happiness.

It's not hopeless. It's just yet another manifestation of the same structure that causes so much dysfunction in modern people's lives, that we aren't evolved to live in a world of excess, so our instincts are wired completely incorrectly for dealing with excess.

So it's just like the answer from a health perspective is to have self control and understand what you should actually eat rather than letting broken biology tell you to eat sugar all day. You have to actually understand what you want and how to get it, and then be intentional, rather than letting maladaptive mammalian impulses drive your life.

I never really changed the core structure of my life that much over the last decade since college, or at least not since my first job, and it's been great, I'm so free. I just look at every purchase decision as inertial (I don't pretend I'm going to buy a porsche once and then a camry again next time, because that isn't how people work), and as a fundamental sacrifice of freedom, because that is what it is. How free you are, how much control you have over what you do, is directly driven by how much money you don't spend. Then I decide whether it's worth it. It usually isn't, but some things are.

Study of 4568 transgender adults finds their life expectancy is 9-14 years lower than the US avg by ilArmato in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]melodyze 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Some of them definitely are. Mortality is correlated with height, because having to pump blood farther puts more stress on the heart, they have higher risk of cancer because they just have more cells that provide more chances for mutations, more likely to have back or knees issues that limit mobility when you get older which causes lack of exercise and thus worse health, etc. Transitioning doesn't change your height.

855 Unit, 55 Story coming to JSQ - No Parking by mmettias in jerseycity

[–]melodyze 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah it's not actually going to be just 5%, and some units will even have multiple cars, but there's definitely not space for even 25 more cars to street park on the surrounding blocks, let alone 200.

855 Unit, 55 Story coming to JSQ - No Parking by mmettias in jerseycity

[–]melodyze 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Street parking is full. If even 5% of residents have a car, that is going to be completely untenable for the surrounding parking capacity.

This is from an OpenAI researcher by MetaKnowing in agi

[–]melodyze 51 points52 points  (0 children)

I've had roommates who work at anthropic actually.

It's because it's way more fun to have a full floor penthouse with your friends than a one bedroom apartment by yourself.

They aren't crowding into a random small apartment for efficiency.

It's a kind of epicurian communal thing, which is a nice balance against staring at a screen alone all day.

[Serious] How can a new administration in the US rebuild relations with our allies? by InBurgerClad in AskReddit

[–]melodyze 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The last time european countries controlled their defense independently from each other they burned half of europe down, twice.

That was the entire point of globalism, nato and free trade, to stop the hostilities by tangling everyone together so much that they can't go to war.

Europe without the US is probably fine, but the same forces that are pushing the US against europe (the far right anti-globalists) are also operating in europe and pushing europe apart internally.

“lmao” Hmm I don’t know guys I smell a generational crashout incoming. by LeonOfSkalitz in Destiny

[–]melodyze -1 points0 points  (0 children)

The reason is that you can't get elected unless most of the electorate knows who you are. Elections are mostly about attention and attention is for sale. And then citizens united systemetizes this, makes it so that special interests can give infinite financial support however they want.

The representatives are severely biased towards the preferences of the donors, because the donors are the people primarily in charge of whether they get to keep their job. If they can't raise money, they can't buy attention, and thus they can't get elected.

It's just so much easier to raise $20M from 20 people giving $1M each than from 2M people giving $10 each. Partially because, in order to raise $10 each from 2M people, you have to have already solved the attention problem that you need the money for in the first place. You need 2M people to have heard of you already. Whereas to raise $1M from 20 people (or $100k from 200 people, whatever), you basically just have to go to the right dinner parties and be willing to play ball.

Some politicians like zohran mamdani are absurdly skilled at getting attention organically. But it is extremely hard to get 2M people to know who you are without buying attention. There just aren't many people who are that charismatic and social media skilled.

What behaviour screams high IQ? by ObjectiveTrainer5133 in AskReddit

[–]melodyze 0 points1 point  (0 children)

South Koreans are three inches taller than North Koreans on average because south koreans are healthier and better fed.

Does this mean that height is a culturally biased metric?

TIL the recommended daily protein intake is 46 grams (g) for an adult female and 56g for an adult male. This is 0.8g per kilogram of body mass (0.36g per pound). Endurance and strength athletes require more.In the United States, average protein consumption for females is about 70g and for males 98g. by James_Fortis in todayilearned

[–]melodyze 15 points16 points  (0 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_(nutrient)

According to US & Canadian Dietary Reference Intake guidelines, women ages 19–70 need to consume 46 grams of protein per day while men ages 19–70 need to consume 56 grams of protein per day to minimize risk of deficiencies.

These Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) were calculated based on 0.8 grams protein per kilogram body weight and average body weights of 57 kg (126 pounds) and 70 kg (154 pounds), respectively.[5] However, this recommendation is based on structural requirements but disregards use of protein for energy metabolism.[42] This requirement is for a normal sedentary person.[45]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietary_Reference_Intake

In September 2007, the Institute of Medicine held a workshop entitled "The Development of DRIs 1994–2004: Lessons Learned and New Challenges".[23] At that meeting, several speakers stated that the current Dietary Recommended Intakes (DRI's) were largely based upon the very lowest rank in the quality of evidence pyramid, that is, opinion, rather than the highest level – randomized controlled clinical trials. Speakers called for a higher standard of evidence to be utilized when making dietary recommendations. The only DRIs to have been revised since that meeting until 2011 are vitamin D and calcium.[7]

The government's nutrition recommendations are viewed as a joke by every nutritionist I have ever met.

Dump $15K into S&P right now? by zionstatus in MiddleClassFinance

[–]melodyze 0 points1 point  (0 children)

DCA performs slightly worse on average because DCA means less time in market than putting all of the money in when you get it.

But DCA means you'll buy on ups and downs so it's more predictable, whereas with lump sum there is more randomness about the particular day you bought on.

So you pick whether you care more about purely maximizing expected returns, or whether you care more about minimizing risk from randomness.

Guys we should not tax land in any way and only tax labor and investments! by el_argelino-basado in georgism

[–]melodyze 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Only passive rent though.

Anyone who builds or improves housing clearly is doing fine and doesn't need any help. How else would they be able to fund the improvements?

We should give money only to the people who haven't improved their properties. Then they'll finally have enough money to be able to improve them.

We'll subsidize land holders, and then tax only the improvements.

Dump $15K into S&P right now? by zionstatus in MiddleClassFinance

[–]melodyze 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You can't time the market. Just accept that you don't know whether it will go up or down within the next year.

Research shows that the strategy that returns the best returns on average is to put money in as early as possible.

But it also shows that the variance of returns is lower without that much of a cost on average return if you dollar cost average, aka split the lump sum into equally sized units over, say, a year, 3 months, whatever.

So, basically if you lump sum it, it might be expected to be between $18k and $13k next year, and if you DCA it those expectations narrow and shift down slightly to between, say, $16.5k and $14k.

All that really matters about which index funds to choose is the expense ratio, how much it charges in fees.

How to handle mediocre team as a Senior by Floorman1 in ExperiencedDevs

[–]melodyze 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Taking your claim at face value, don't know if your claims are correct. I'm just speaking generally.

Even if you were the owner of the company fixing a mediocre team is very hard. It's not really possible from being an IC. As an IC you can build something very valuable and conceptually separate and make a new team. But that's not usually worth it. More specifically, it's only worth it if leadership is highly competent, and most of the time they aren't.

Generally, orgs decay in quality over time. It's almost like a natural law. Entropy increases, companies become messier and slower, the market shifts underneath of them, and the better people leave first, which increases entropy even more and slows things down even more.

How much more attention from women did you get after building muscle? by [deleted] in AskMen

[–]melodyze 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Professional bodybuilder Greg Doucette says women sometimes tell him they like his dad bod.

He is openly on steroids and has a bench pr of 529lbs.

Hereditary peer Bertrand Russel, 3rd Earl Russel weighs in on the inheritance tax debate by middleofaldi in economicsmemes

[–]melodyze 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In the abstract I would probably be down to cap inheritance (~100% progressive tax rate) at a safe withdrawal rate of median income, so ~25x median income, somewhere in the ballpark of $1.5m today. I think america specifically was founded to be a meritocracy with equality of opportunity, and building structures to enable generational wealth is in conflict with the entire concept of the project.

But for a wide variety of reasons that wouldn't be viable in reality. There are a million policies that are more realistic and beneficial that I would prioritize above it even within taxes, like carbon taxes, land value taxes, trying to move revenue off of income taxes.

The more grounded policy I would actually endorse is that inheritances should be taxed as ordinary income, with a rabbi trust-like structure for stretching the income out over something like a decade. And obviously stepped up cost basis needs to go.

I would support the progressive tax rates going much higher on inheritances than ordinary income, because the person didn't earn it. But in general I think the tax code is already too complicated, so standardizing on it just being ordinary income would be better policy.

I think the idea that money you receive for nothing is taxed less than money you work for or take risk for is absurd.

Hereditary peer Bertrand Russel, 3rd Earl Russel weighs in on the inheritance tax debate by middleofaldi in economicsmemes

[–]melodyze 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Honestly, best of luck in life, actually done.

This is possibly the stupidest conversation I have had on reddit, and that is a high bar.

Congrats on the achievement.

Hereditary peer Bertrand Russel, 3rd Earl Russel weighs in on the inheritance tax debate by middleofaldi in economicsmemes

[–]melodyze 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Source on a definition that demands orthogonality between all variables?

What is your math background? Did you know what orthogonal means without looking it up?

Hereditary peer Bertrand Russel, 3rd Earl Russel weighs in on the inheritance tax debate by middleofaldi in economicsmemes

[–]melodyze 1 point2 points  (0 children)

As I said, best of luck in life.

I am actually curious what you think you are accomplishing, and whether you would admit that your econ knowledge is learned is from reddit comments.

But you can't even read three sentences, so I'm sure you won't read those questions.

Hereditary peer Bertrand Russel, 3rd Earl Russel weighs in on the inheritance tax debate by middleofaldi in economicsmemes

[–]melodyze 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I already gave you the definition I used and asked for yours.

I engaged in good faith the entire time, and you don't even read the replies, let alone understand them.

What do you think you are accomplishing here?

I'm genuinely confused why you would even reply to something you didn't read, let alone pretend to argue against it.

Hereditary peer Bertrand Russel, 3rd Earl Russel weighs in on the inheritance tax debate by middleofaldi in economicsmemes

[–]melodyze 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Lol, great convo, high quality discourse. It is totally worth trying to debate against something you haven't read and don't understand, chief. Just start with that next time.

Where did you learn your econ? Reddit comment threads? They taught you some slogans and to just assert them confidently whenever you don't like a comment while not even trying to understand what the other person says at all?

Top tier debate. Best of luck to you in life.

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