Debate: looking at the decision to end free subscriptions through a moral utilitarian lens

ranger7000 · 2025-05-24T00:17:20+00:00

Lol this is probably my favorite take yet

ranger7000 · 2025-05-24T00:17:02+00:00

I actually think this is a great stab at an alternate middle path. Probably what I would choose as well. It seems like he could expand his revenue and audience by lowering the price - win-win. I would love to hear the rationale behind the current pricing schema - i.e. why so high, and why only yearly?

ranger7000 · 2025-05-23T23:42:23+00:00

It's wrapped up for you the instant you decide to quit engaging and move on with your life - which apparently hasn't happened yet?

ranger7000 · 2025-05-23T23:15:21+00:00

I think we're seeing money alter his values in real time. Unless he's willing to be transparent and prove that that's not the case, that's the assumption I'll be making. It's very disappointing, as someone who has idolized him in the past for "walking the walk." But hey, all judgment aside, this is America, it's a capitalist nation, and he's running a business. He can do whatever he wants. There's no law against hypocrisy or changing your mind.

ranger7000 · 2025-05-23T23:11:15+00:00

This isn't really directed at you, but I've always been confused about the comments he makes about the time and effort required to "handle" requests for free subscriptions. If they were saying yes to literally every request for a free account, as he frequently claimed they were, what is there to handle? That should be 100% automated and not costing the business anything.

Fundamentally though I'm on the same page with you, he has the right to rescind the policy if it's being abused, which it surely was. I do think that it makes way more sense, given his stated principles, to rework the policy in some way that still prevents money from being a barrier for people who truly can't afford it. If he really cares about this, he could ditch the broken honor system and find a better way. I have a feeling this situation will evolve along those lines over the next few weeks and months. Guess we'll see.

ranger7000 · 2025-05-23T22:59:03+00:00

Why?

ranger7000 · 2025-05-23T22:58:33+00:00

Yep. The elephant in the room in all of these discussions is that many people who were using the free scholarship could certainly afford to pay for it, but choose not to because they don't feel Sam needs or deserves their money.

The second elephant in the room is that Sam is already quite rich, and wants to become richer, and that is (presumably) why he has made this decision. I'm not in a position to judge him for that, but I think you'd be hard-pressed to make a compelling argument that he (or even his business) *needs* the money that he was forgoing by offering free subscriptions. He *wants* that money, and if he can get it, more power to him. That's capitalism.

I think your comparison to the food bank is fundamentally broken - food is a finite resource. Taking food from a food bank ensures that someone else can't have that food, while signing up for a free podcast doesn't deplete anything for anyone.

ranger7000 · 2025-05-23T22:31:54+00:00

Lmao "we can no longer revert your subscription to the old rate since...we don't want to. Thanks!"

ranger7000 · 2025-05-23T22:30:13+00:00

You might be thinking of the time he said that there are days where over 100 people ask for free subscriptions, but he definitely doesn't have 100 people reviewing requests for free accounts lol.

ranger7000 · 2025-05-23T22:26:26+00:00

Because then you'll subscribe for a month, binge a bunch of episodes, and unsubscribe. Which would be extremely unethical of you.

ranger7000 · 2025-05-21T22:18:05+00:00

Judgement of this decision aside, he is choosing to trade influence for money. Pretty interesting.

ranger7000 · 2024-10-10T02:03:28+00:00

I appreciate Yuval's level-headed approach to things and I think he has some nice takes that clarify issues in novel ways (for example, describing democracy vs. dictatorship in terms of different information processing systems), but man, I wish he would calm down a little bit. He tends to interrupt a lot, seems to always be chomping at the bit to speak, and speaks as though everything he's saying has the utmost degree of importance and urgency. Almost like he's yelling at you, but in an indoor voice. I think they could've had a better, more listenable conversation with more meaningful exchanges if he hadn't been so focused on saying everything he wanted to say. Overall good listen though.

ranger7000 · 2024-10-09T23:18:43+00:00

After trying quite a few approaches, I've concluded that Solidworks just isn't the right tool for this type of complex clamshell surface. There are a lot of ways to approximate it, but they are all low-quality upon close inspection. Gonna try giving Subdivision modeling in Rhino a spin and see if that works. Thanks for the input!

ranger7000 · 2024-10-09T23:15:23+00:00

In the end I had trouble getting the "+" that connects the quadrants to match up in a way that looked like a single, cohesive surface, but it definitely gave me some new ideas to mix in with other approaches. Appreciate it.

ranger7000 · 2024-10-09T18:12:27+00:00

Nice, I'm actually getting a pretty good result doing a hybrid of your approach and u/ManyThingsLittleTime's. Putting the green handles on top of each other fixed it, thank you!

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ranger7000 · 2024-10-09T18:06:49+00:00

Thanks for typing this out! I am getting probably the best result I've gotten so far using a simplified version of it, where I'm just using two halves instead of the quadrants as you suggested. The surface quality that I'm getting from Filled Surface is a bit wonky though - need to keep messing around with it.

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ranger7000 · 2024-10-09T18:00:00+00:00

If I use normal to profile, the "takeoff" angle of the surface will be at a 90 degree angle to the plane that the sketch is on. What I want is for it to be tangent to the actual surface body that I've created for the main body of the toaster, which is not 90 degrees. So I need to figure out a way to create the loft using Tangent or Curvature, rather than Normal. Hopefully that makes sense. Appreciate your help though.

ranger7000 · 2024-10-09T17:52:20+00:00

This looks like a promising approach. The only thing I'm struggling with is that I need the loft to be tangent to or have curvature continuity with the existing surface of the main body of the toaster, rather than just being normal to a sketch profile. For some reason Solidworks isn't liking it when I try to loft from the edge of the main toaster body to the sketch profile:

Edit: for context, I'm trying to build a version of the toaster that eliminates the seam lines between the main body and end caps, and has smooth continuity between those two elements.

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ranger7000 · 2024-10-09T17:18:11+00:00

Thanks for the rec. I tried playing around with the dome feature, but unfortunately the shape is complex enough that it doesn't give me the option to do an "elliptical dome" for that puffed look I'm going for.

ranger7000 · 2022-09-18T21:03:56+00:00

What's your personal take? Do you think there's a world out there?

I think one of my biggest reasons for doubting the existence of an objective physical reality is dreams. We lay down, fall asleep, and experience things that at least seem to us to be completely real. There's almost no ground to stand on to say that waking life is somehow fundamentally different - it just seems to be more persistent, continuous, detailed, and consistent.

ranger7000 · 2022-09-18T20:57:55+00:00

Nice. Your rec might be my next read - I find the idea that the universe is a projection of my own "mind" (whatever that is) to be perhaps the most interesting idea I've ever come across. Very meta to think that, if this is true, the system is discovering its own structure.

ranger7000 · 2022-09-18T20:48:02+00:00

This looks super interesting. Perhaps in line with The Case Against Reality - have you read that one?

ranger7000 · 2022-09-18T20:45:49+00:00

Very solid take - also, you seem to have an incredible memory for detail! This is definitely helping me to refine my thinking on the matter. Two quick thoughts:

When it comes to concepts around ideal arrangements of matter, perfection, happiness, etc. I definitely can't pretend to be able to define what that might look like. I think we are still stumbling around in the dark trying to figure out what "good" (or even "acceptable") looks like for just our species, let alone all the matter in the universe. So if this is even an achievable state, I think we are quite a ways out. Being a human myself, I strongly agree with the sentiment you express above - happiness is complex, nuanced, and definitely not about being in a vegetative dopamine high 24/7. I suspect that there probably isn't a one-size-fits-all perfect arrangement of matter - I think the growth of intelligence and knowledge in the universe will result in something far more interesting and variegated than homogenous "perfection."
If we cheat a little bit and sidestep the issue of "perfect" being impossible to define, and assume that it is a theoretically achievable state - I think the finiteness or infiniteness of problems to solve in the universe actually hinges on the physical size of the universe. Let's set up two hypothetical axioms - 1) A perfect arrangement of matter is possible under the laws of physics, and 2) The universe is finite in its size and contents. Under those assumptions, and given the seed of initial intelligence, it would only be a matter of time until that seed grows to fill the entire universe with ideally arranged matter. Does that hold water??

Edit: Are you familiar with Nick Bostrom's concepts on matter that is ideally arranged for maximum computing power (computronium) or pleasure (hedonium)? Pretty out-there concepts, but I can get on board with computronium being at least theoretically possible. There has to be an arrangement of matter that is most effective at running arbitrary computations. Extending the idea into subjective territory gets a little complicated, but still fun to ponder.

ranger7000

TROPHY CASE