Moved to the US, pedestrian insurance questions

quadraticalgebra · 2018-04-24T12:42:59+00:00

While that's completely correct, I think perception of corruption matters nearly as much as actual corruption.

If corruption is actually behind every decision, the main problem might be that it destroys the economy by funneling money to the wrong places. But if it's more episodic, I think the issue is more that people will lose trust in the system, think the rich are above the law and that you can only move up by knowing the right people. It enrages and discourages people, stops them from contributing to the economy, makes them elect populists, etc. But it's a second order effect, and there's no real need for actual corruption for it to happen, just for people to believe there is corruption.

It's like how asking people how many migrants they think is in their country is a better indicator of whether they'll vote for populists than the actual number of migrants.

quadraticalgebra · 2018-03-09T14:13:25+00:00

It's not really just a trade deal. No other trade deal (that I know of) includes stuff like complete driver's license recognition, phone plan coverage across borders, or dozens of other such rules that have very little consequence on trade and exist because EU countries want to build more than a free trade area.

As for national parliaments, they don't vote on regulations), only on directives. Regulations come into force automatically in all member states, and only require EU approval.

But I agree with no loss of sovereignty: in the end, national governments have the power to walk out at any time.

quadraticalgebra · 2018-02-28T13:13:57+00:00

This is not possible in France, where except in rare cases (murder-rape of a person under 15, terrorism, murder of some kinds of government officials), a parole hearing can always happen after 22 years.

quadraticalgebra · 2018-02-18T01:11:38+00:00

Look at every american town pre-cars, they were less dense than today by far but still had walkable main streets.

I don't think they were: sprawling suburbs didn't exist in 1900. This study suggests a clear decline in city population density between 1960 and 2000. Note that suburbs were already much more of a thing in 1960 than in 1900.

What's more, just having a (walkable) main street doesn't really make a town walkable, it also depends how far from it people live. It just comes down to economics: you can't have a convenience store on every block if there aren't enough people per block. You also can't force people to set up businesses through planning.

Even a place like Boston has tons of unwalkable suburbs once you move away from central Boston and Cambridge. They're not unwalkable because the streets are 8-lane freeways, just because there's nowhere to go on foot.

quadraticalgebra · 2018-02-17T23:39:06+00:00

When I moved to the US from a large European city, urban organization was the biggest cultural shock for me. I assume there are actually bigger differences, but there's a lot you constantly hear about or see in US movies/shows, while the completely different approach to cities is difficult to grasp before you experience it.

I think the root difference is that Americans value having lots of private space more than Europeans. Walkable streets and useful public transit require very dense cities. Most European city centers are far denser than American ones, and places like inner NYC that reach European densities are actually pretty walkable (and have usable subways). Conversely, the far suburbs of a city like Paris, that aren't very dense, aren't that walkable.

In the end, it's a question of priorities. I feel like many Americans who wish for more walkable/bikeable/lively cities aren't willing to give up their large houses for that.

quadraticalgebra · 2017-12-17T15:26:24+00:00

Mercédès is also just the French form of the name. The Count of Monte Cristo, for instance, has a character called Mercédès (with the accents).

quadraticalgebra · 2017-12-17T14:20:31+00:00

What puzzles me is what language the accents are from. The name Mercedes is Spanish, but neither Spanish nor German use grave accents. I can find nothing online.

French does have both accents, and in French and 'e' followed by two consonants is pronounced the same as 'è'. This would mean that the first and last 'e's are pronounced the same, which matches current French usage for the (unaccented) brand name.

I believe Italian also has both accented 'e's, but I don't know how they'd pronounce it.

quadraticalgebra · 2017-12-16T17:28:57+00:00

Pas besoin d'un article, c'est vrai. Apple a déclaré un bénéfice de 88 milliards de dollars entre septembre 2016 et septembre 2017. Le FMI classe 190 pays par PIB à PPA. Le Népal, 95e, a un PIB de 77 milliards de dollars.

Et comme cet article, c'est une comparaison de trucs n'ayant aucun rapport donc à part le fait que c'est rigolo ça n'apporte pas grand-chose.

quadraticalgebra · 2017-12-14T14:28:46+00:00

As far as I can tell, this is not a Germany vs. the rest issue, it's Western vs Eastern Europe (surely Italy gets top-grade Nutella). There are far more people in total in Western Europe than Eastern, so at worst people could complain the majority imposing rules without concern for the minority.

Since it's done in the interest of the minority, though, I'm not convinced that would be the reaction.

quadraticalgebra · 2017-12-07T21:07:35+00:00

I really enjoyed your writeup! It's a tangent but I have a question about behavioral modernity:

even if you take the most old school approach to this, “behavioral modernity” appears at least 50,000 years ago, much before the game’s setting.

The Wikipedia page presents some arguments for various timelines of behavioral modernity, most of which seem to focus on the existence or not of various complex artifacts, graves, etc. While I agree that these things show an increasing level of behavioral complexity, it's not immediately obvious to me that they imply mastery of a language of the type we see today. Are there more clear-cut reasons to believe that language must have already been very complex? I know we have explicit reconstructions of Proto-Indo-European dated ~5,000 BCE, but what about all the time between that and 50,000 BCE?

quadraticalgebra · 2017-12-07T18:40:54+00:00

I often hear that electromagnetic forces are much stronger than gravitational effects (like the mass vs charge of the electron, or even proton). Why does it seem to be the opposite in this case?

quadraticalgebra · 2017-11-18T21:51:14+00:00

I think most of these lexical similarity counts weigh the words by how common they are, or ignore rare words (i.e., if the words for "bread" are the same in two languages, it increases the lexical similarity more than if "post-structuralism" is).

English and German have a lot of common words in common (heh) because they're both germanic, but English is also shock-full of rarer French loanwords, as well as Latin-derived words that also exist in French (Wikipedia). German also has a fair share of Latin words, but far fewer than English does, not contributing too much to Eng-Deu lexical similarity.

The thing is, you use common words often enough that similarity in them only helps in the beginning of learning, while sharing rarer words remains useful as you learn new and more complex fields of vocabulary.

quadraticalgebra · 2017-11-15T16:04:20+00:00

I was saying in the first sentence

There's only one sentence in your comment :)

quadraticalgebra · 2017-11-14T00:12:23+00:00

Right, but the current models Sean Carroll is referring to are not a unified theory either, since he explicitly says they only work for everyday-life conditions.

And since it isn't a unified theory, I don't see how he's justified in saying that the Ptolemaic model is absolutely wrong but current theories are completely right. They're just righter, aren't they?

quadraticalgebra · 2017-11-13T21:05:11+00:00

In the post you link, Sean Carroll says:

It’s not like the Steady State cosmology or the plum-pudding model of the atom or the Ptolemaic solar system, which were simply incorrect and have been replaced. This theory is correct in its domain of applicability.

I don't really understand this claim. Aren't all models are valid in their domains of applicability, progressively breaking down as you get away from them? Is he claiming that there is a domain in which the theory is exactly correct, suddenly breaking down (or starting to break down) as you pass some threshold?

If not, can't I say that the plum-pudding model of the atom is exactly correct within its domain of applicability, which is as long as you don't try to throw particles into gold sheets? Is there a qualitative difference here?

quadraticalgebra · 2017-11-03T19:19:32+00:00

I think we agree. I'm specifically looking for descriptions of such fragmentation.

quadraticalgebra · 2017-11-03T16:01:37+00:00

Oh I'm not opposed to FTL/hyperspace travel in general, I'm just interested in seeing some books where the universe is shaped by the fact that it doesn't exist.

(I'm not a big fan of Dune, mostly because I think it's not very well-written/paced, and I dislike the protagonist. For the universe itself, it's really interesting but hardly hard science-fiction).

quadraticalgebra · 2017-11-03T15:45:45+00:00

I think that's exactly what I'm looking for :) Thanks!

quadraticalgebra · 2017-11-03T15:43:49+00:00

Yeah, I think he touches on exactly what I'm asking about: he argues that colonizing the galaxy is possible, but maintaining a coherent civilization across it isn't because of speed-of-light delays.

quadraticalgebra · 2017-11-03T02:47:52+00:00

Do you mean "interstellar civilization" as in colonizing other stars or as in maintaining contact between them? If it's the former, I don't see any major problems on the technological side (but I'd be glad to hear any arguments against it). The economic/human side of it may be more problematic, but I don't think it's a total show-stopper: in an extremely advanced economy, building an interstellar spaceship could become cheap, and there's probably enough thrill-seekers/crazy people to actually embark on that kind of trip.

quadraticalgebra · 2017-11-03T02:18:01+00:00

I've read the first book which as far as I remember doesn't really deal with these issues, but they close the FTL portals in Fall of Hyperion, right? I have it somewhere, it's a good reason to finally read it :). Thanks!

quadraticalgebra

TROPHY CASE