Reminds me of how Stephenson describes Los Angeles in Snow Crash
"Los Angeles is no longer part of the United States, as the federal government of the United States has ceded most of its power and territory to private organizations and entrepreneurs"
I know it's polular to predict a dystopia future that resembles 1984; but I'm much more inclined to believe we are more heading into a Cyberpunk future where corporations hold the real power and nation states are more puppets for their will.
> we are more heading into a Cyberpunk future where corporations hold the real power
I believe we're more heading into an Idiocracy future where corporations also hold the real power (e.g. "Carl's Jr machine: Your kids are starving. Carl's Jr. believes no child should go hungry. You are an unfit mother.")
We have seen this coming for a long time. The thing is that 30 years ago, we thought it was going to be a technologically sophisticated, slick ultra-IBM type corporation that managed everyone's lives. Now, it seems like it's going to be more like a television station's advertising department manages your life.
You mean, regarding the dystopic aspect? Of course the societies depicted in those novels are dystopic, but I mean that it's possible to have similar systems of societal control in place without their being taken to an extreme.
Yea totally, Sawyer filters fit them nicely too. They're VERY durable, as in I've got one bottle I've carried probably hundreds of miles by now over several trips and it's been dropped and squeezed thousands of times. Looks like a bear chewed it up, but it still does not leak.
Pro tip: you can replace the O-ring that comes with the filter for a durable rubber one used for garden hoses for a real nice fit on the smartwater bottles, and have some extras because the worst is if you lose that seal (or it is damaged) and you are out in the wilderness.
President Trump's experience with the World Wrestling Federation qualifies him as the literal embodiment of Idiocracy's Wrestler President. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkghtyxZ6rc
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Short parents can have tall kids and vice-versa. Smart parents can have dumb kids and vice-versa. Genetic inheritance is complicated. Effective IQ can be downwardly influenced by factors such as nutrition. Reality is far too complex to be captured by your pithy sentence, or my pithy paragraph.
I think it's fair to say in some instances that a person would have had a higher IQ but for some thing, but the term "effective IQ" is semantic jibberish. The score simply is whatever the test says it is.
Fair enough, it was a term I just made up to concisely convey the notion you described: “were it not for these factors, the results of the test may have had substantive differences.” Perhaps I failed, but I think my failure was an unfortunate distraction from the main point which you seemed to apprehend anyway. So there’s that.
We've already been there. The 18th and 19th centuries were largely like that. The great wars of colonial Europe were heavily financed by private money.
Corporations held the real power in the US from ~1870 - roughly the beginning of the industrial revolution - until the vast Federal expansion of power and taxation of the WW2 build-up and thereafter.
Rockefeller single handedly stabilized the finances of the US Government by pledging his wealth as a support prop to JP Morgan. That premise is laughable today. The Federal + State governments spend the equivalent of a Jeff Bezos fortune every week. Meanwhile the US military is radically larger and more powerful than it was a century ago, as are all the agencies of the State.
If you think corporations are powerful today, the reality is they're hilariously weak compared to what they were a century ago. Further, back then there were very few regulatory restraints on corporations, while the giants were simultaneously drastically larger in comparison to the Federal Government and as a share of GDP. Most of the state governments barely even existed financially.
Indeed, the primary history of the last century has been the growth and centralization of power into the state, via the growth of state-capitalist ideology. Not just in the US, but across the whole world governments are larger and involved in 100x more areas they never were in the early 1900s.
I've posted this here before, but the first half of this book "The Fourth Revolution" has a really great history of how western governments have grown into behemoths.
The 2nd half about moving more towards a Singapore style limited gov - which has proven to be wildly successful there - is less persuasive, even though is fundamentally well motivated. As I believe they benefit from being small by nature not just design. Smaller states > large federated countries, as federalism constantly gets eatten away by centralized growth towards the executive/federal gov, away from state power. Without a concerted push-back and a strong culture, federalism will always result in top heavy administrations, where fewer and fewer people have more and more power over the whole country.
federalism will always result in top heavy administrations, where fewer and fewer people have more and more power over the whole country
You could say that about any form of government. I think it's human nature to want a single dictator, so the governed seem to eventually give their consent to one.
Your assertion seems off... Sure, the US federal government may spend far more money than any individual corporation or mega-wealthy person today, but who controls the spending? Corporations and wealthy individuals are simply using leverage today, buying influence with legislators via lobbying and campaign donations, to guide government spending.
Regardless the power has still fundamentally shifted from the private domain into public top-down control. Just because there are areas where lobbying has been influential in getting gov to help them doesn't make this not the case. If anything the corporations are then not private corporations as they were in the 1800s/early 1900s, but merely an extension of the government. They are being handed monopolies/oligopolies top-down, much like state owned corporations are sanctioned market power centrally.
So no, it's not the same. The corporation in a modern state-capitalist context doesn't have to provide value to the public to gain power and wealth, merely influence the right people in politics. That's way different than private industry, and potentially far more destructive and wasteful of resources (see: "private" prisons which depend completely on government for survival and have little of the benefits of market functions like competition and growth via customer value).
Not to mention special interest groups, unions, influential individuals, etc also have significant pull in the government as well. It's not just corporations. There have been plenty of economic intervention by the government, politicians have hardly been monopolized only by (pseudo private) corporate interests.
I can’t second this enough. Snow Crash and Diamond Age were fun page-turners. I slogged through Cryptonomicon, but beyond that I haven’t been able to finish anything else.
I’ve heard good things about Seveneves, but I’m a little hesitant to pick it up given that it’s huge and there are thousands of other books to read.
Pick up Anathem before trying Seveneves. Anathem might be his strongest novel, and it's the only one that holds up to Snow Crash and Diamond Age in my estimation.
I adore Zodiac as well but am in a decided minority in that regard.
I even liked _The Big U_. Pre Cryptonomicon Stephenson was weird and full of wacky ideas barely held together with a thin veneer of a story. I think he's a much better storyteller now, but the books aren't quite as dense with weird, magic and crazy ideas.
I loved Snow Crash and The Diamond Age. I've read Anathem twice and loved it. And even though it clocks in at around 3,000 pages, The Baroque Cycle trilogy is so good I've read it 3 or 4 times and I'll probably read it again.
The first 2/3s of Seveneves were pretty good. I think you can reasonably skip the last 1/3 of the novel. Anathem is definitely his best written work. Don't bother with REAMDE.
REAMDE was interesting to read when it came out as it had many ideas about the very-near-future that had yet to come about but are now true. One was how malware will grow dramatically in frequency and sophistication once there is an anonymous way to pay the criminals online. Written before criminals started using Bitcoin. I would agree it is now not worth reading unless one just wants to read everything by Stephenson.
Yeah, agree. You'll reach a point where you very obviously know you can stop.
I sometimes don't mind his "explain every little detail of the physics of how things work" style of writing, but when that's the majority of what you're reading over several pages of being introduced to new characters, it's a bit much.
Was in a similar position. The world building in Snow Crash (first 150ish pages) is one of my favorites in the genre. Unfortunately, the plot kind of lost me towards the end and I came out slightly disappointed.
I like the leadership of Domino's here. As logistics focus more on the home as the final destination, companies like Amazon, FedEx, Uber, or even Postmates are going to have to look at infrastructure conditions as a threat to their business.
Rather than lobbying to increase gas taxes and funnel more cash into various government bureaucracies, Domino's is trying to address the problem directly, by getting the money directly to the local agencies that actually fix the roads.
Direct funding is good- but ultimately the road is a (very expensive) public good, and Domino's can't fund full maintenance all by itself nor does it reap all the benefit.
Public funding has always made sense for road repair because (generally) everyone benefits, and roads are expensive, so everyone pays.
To be clear- direct action is laudable, and it's a neat project, but big picture, we need many orders of magnitude more money on the problem than Domino's can ever provide.
> but ultimately the road is a (very expensive) public good, (snip) big picture, we need many orders of magnitude more money on the problem than Domino's can ever provide.
I don't really understand this logic. Roads are cheap. Really cheap. (Yes, even if StrongTowns claims otherwise, roads are still really cheap). It's expensive to look at as a standalone figure, as everything is. But per taxpayer, roads are cheaper than military, cheaper than public education, cheaper than governance, and many more.
I can't speak to all municipalities, but I know on my own taxes, roads are even cheaper than public transit and cheaper than municipal garbage and recycling services.
If every citizen pitched in approximately one Netflix subscription worth of extra taxes, road repair would mostly be a solved problem. Yes, that's a lot of money, but it's not really a lot of money, as part of the context of the government budget.
Or to put it another way, Roads are so cheap that Domino's Pizza can afford to fix roads as a fun publicity stunt.
Your own link describes roads as generally nonexcludable:
Once a road is built, it is difficult to exclude people, although toll roads can exclude nonpayers.
Taking the definition to the extreme makes it no longer useful. Yes, technically you could make a road exclusionary and rivalrous. But their nature tends nonexclusionary and nonrivalrous. "Public good" is really an observation about whether something is more suited to private or public ownership, rather than some kind of strict legal term.
I agree, it's a really smart move and a good pre-emptive tactic for PR purposes because invariably towns are going to be looking for more money for infrastructure development as gas tax revenues decrease with more EVs and fuel efficient vehicles on the road so companies like Domino's that depend on public infrastructure will probably end up paying down the road anyways.
Given how poorly your packages get handled, given various videos of TVs thrown over fences and the like, I doubt shipping companies have a significantly greater need for good roads: You pack under the assumption it will get jostled significantly.
The interest shipping companies would have, therefore, would be the same as literally any company which has fleet vehicles: Damage to the fleet caused by the road conditions.
I don't whose ire you've drawn, but you're right. This is absolutely PR wank (albiet cheeky and well-executed). It's not like Dominos has a pile of cash big enough to make a serious dent in municipal infrastructure, but they do have a big enough pile of cash to make it to the front page of HN with a clever stunt.
My question is what's the core goal. Is the primary objective sales? Or is the primary objective shaming cities into actually funding their road maintenance budgets.
> shaming cities into actually funding their road maintenance budgets.
This makes it sound as if there aren’t hard choices to be made and that budgets aren’t tight. Would you rather have smooth roads, clean water, or low taxes?
Road maintenance is expensive, and tends to get deferred because of lack of funds or more important priorities. This means that road maintenance gets even more expensive. People then like to criticize the city for not fixing things when it would have been cheaper.
We like the narrative that government is wasteful and stupid and has all the money it needs to maintain everything in the city. Sometimes it is lazy and stupid, but mostly (especially at the city level) it is not.
When there isn’t money to do work, the government doesn’t do work—even if there’s work to do. Until we allow enslavement of government workers, this will continue.
Counterpoint, deferring maintenance is a classic way to make an unbalanced budget look balanced. A realistic accounting would show that you are steadily headed towards insolvency, and the budget needs to be fixed one way or another. That could be increasing revenue, it could be decreasing services, it could even be reducing the number of paved roads if your muni is really in crisis.
I make no accusations of stupidity or incompetence. My belief is more along the lines of the citizens have unrealistic expectations, e.g. how many miles of road their muni can actually afford to run & maintain for the taxes citizens are willing to pay.
You hit the nail on the head. I worked for a poor local government. The highway department was always the first on the chopping block, not because their issues weren't important, but because they were the only department with a significant amount of money.
The leadership here is another issue entirely, but every county in this area all had issues with money and the first thing that the board members asked was what roads could wait until next year.
The highway dept wanted to fix the roads so that they wouldn't need maintenance every few years, but they couldn't afford to do it to more than one road. So even though it is much worse band-aiding the roads that need work, it's better than not being able to do any work with them.
What are you on about? The person you're responding to isn't running out to get a Domino's tattoo; they're pointing out that there are places in America that are cash-strapped enough that they're willing to accept corporate sponsorship to provide basic government services.
Maybe not cash-strapped. In my experience (I worked for local government for several years), road funding is always at the bottom of the political campaign list because it's one of those problems that is very easy to just kick down the road (no pun intended). In my jurisdiction, we wasted hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars repaving the roads every 3 years or so with the cheap stuff instead of tearing up the road entirely and rebuilding it properly to last 20 years for only double the price of the 3 year repavement. So I see this from the perspective of allowing lazy politics to continue in these towns.
OP's comment is indicative of the exact demographic that is being targeted with this ad.
Not only does the comment depict a complete lack of understanding of infrastructure in the US and the upkeep challenges, but it helps to magnify Domino's marketing by providing an effectively useless contribution to the discussion.
No, they are fear mongering ("horrifying") because one is able to find cities that will accept handouts. Never mind the fact that these cities have no reputation to lose for accepting handouts. What is horrifying about this?
> Your comment is proof that Domino's marketing team is pretty good.
No, not really - it's more an indicator of how a lot of people in the US (myself included) have no idea how our tax dollars are spent, if they are spent wisely and if we're even paying the right amount in the first place.
Its our own damn fault, really. We let government slide on a lot of this stuff because we can't be arsed to demand accountability. If we do, then the first loudmouthed activist, polemicist or even vaguely interesting squirrel that wanders by captures our attention instead. Sometimes even the vicissitudes of daily life are too much of a distraction.
I don't know that I'd consider this ad wankery or noble effort - at least someone is trying something.
However, I'll deduct points for it being advertising. That stuff can burn in Hell.
I don't think anyone believes the hype here. The parent was simply pointing out that it's pathetic that this marketing vector for Domino's is actually viable and value adding to some extent, and I agree with them.
You say this like they are trying to trick me out of my money. If something like this boosted the price of pizza significantly, then perhaps I might care, but it's likely that this came from their marketing budget, and if I have a choice between Domino's and an equivalent chain, I'll probably get Domino's because it will encourage them to put more money into their marketing budget, and thus into things that benefit me as well. Plus, if other business see this as being successful for Domino's it will encourage them to invest in similar projects.
Why would you be buying chain pizza instead of putting money into your local mom n pop pizza shops? The best thing you can do to fix your infrastructure is invest in your own community.
Interesting, becauee here in the UK, pretty much every pizza place is cheaper than dominoes. The only advantage they have is they tend to be open more often.
It's not even noble. The corporatist, starve-the-beast strain of politician has succeeded in their goal.
I'm not buying this marketing as good at all. This kind of marketing shouldn't even work, because we should be a first-rate nation that actually maintains the infrastructure.
As much as I like what Domino's is doing here, it irks me that they didn't flush the idea all-the-way out. Domino's could have easily made an app that would allow users to manually fill-in potholes in exchange for piping-hot Domino's Pizza and sides. Imagine chronically unemployed individuals from all walks of life diligently scouring the streets looking for potholes. Documenting, geotagging and filling them in with non-Newtonian fluid repair packs. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2012/04/silly-putty-potholes
As a reminder, repairing potholes yourself can be very low effort; modern materials obviate the use of hot asphalt.
Buy some kind of "Pothole Cold Patch" compound at your local home improvement store and dump it in the hole. In this way you can fix the holes on your local street/commute route without waiting for the city.
Wow TIL. I even looked it up and $13 buys you enough cold-patch to fill in a few holes it looks like. Thanks for sharing, if I'm ever bothered by a pothole I'll just fill it myself now that I know!
While Domino's shareholders are free to run their company the way they wish, I would prefer that they invest their capital toward developing yummy pizza that is less unhealthy instead of filling potholes and lobbying against proposed rules to post calorie counts, etc.
This almost certainly came out of their marketing budget.
Considering the amount of free press they received, the relatively minuscule cost of fixing 50 potholes was a very efficient use of their marketing spend. On top of that, stuff like that builds brand awareness and brand loyalty, driving repeat customers.
Isn’t the pothole problem in Michigan due to climate? In Atlanta, the city proper has terrible potholes due to mismanagement more than anything. Outside the city proper it’s much better. Even in my city that’s within 5 miles of the city proper. I’m in Dekalb county which notoriously mismanaged and corrupt but out potholes are better than Atlanta.
The weather excuse is a common one, but only plays a small role. There are plenty of example municipalities with good quality roads and winter conditions.
The main issue, at least in Montreal, appears to be low grade asphalt. The reduced quality is due to addition of used engine oil to the mix, instead of fresh bitumen. Which makes asphalt slightly cheaper and needs to be replaced more often. I’d say it’s a win for the asphalt (monopoly) company.
I grew up in MI, a civil engineer told me that our pothole issues were due to poor road engineering (things like not laying down gravel so that rain wouldn't collect underneath the concrete && would drain)
ohio didn't seem to have the same issues that we did, at any rate.
If they spend the budget trying to convince the product managers at the big three that American consumers want vehicles that float over potholed dirt roads at any speed the result will probably be noticeable. It'll take 20yr for the up-travel and fat sidewalls to filter down to the average delivery driver though.
Former franchisee here - absolutely not true. The vast majority of Domino's are owned by individual franchisees and almost none of them had a corporate car.
> The mission of Strong Towns is to support a model of development that allows America's cities, towns and neighborhoods to become
financially strong and resilient. For the United States to be a prosperous country, it must have strong cities, towns and neighborhoods. Enduring prosperity for our communities cannot be artificially created from the outside but must be built from within, incrementally over time.
First world problem but south/east-bound El Camino Real from Page Mill until San Antonio Rd has some rough edges.
- Pothole so deep, it would swallow a bicycle, skateboard, motorcycle or Ferrari
near Military Way, Palo Alto, CA 94306
https://goo.gl/maps/rJjpmYL9Nnk
Worse, there are several left-turn prox sensors permanently false positive such that if you miss the timing, you’ll be stuck waiting for the Godot ghostrider. And in CA, it’s illegal to run a malfunctioning red traffic signal, because cities need fund$ from “guilty, next” traffic kangaroo court.
I was hoping this was some new tech they had added to their delivery cars to fill potholes as they drove by. Using them to at least log and identify potholes would be a smart move.
I live in the richest county in America. We don't need help filling potholes, but a whollleee lot of underprivileged, cash strapped rural and low income communities DO. I say forget nominations. Go forth and fill the holes in the most needy communities ASAP!
I worked for one of those poorer counties, and money was 100% the issue every department had every single year.
The highway dept's budget shrank before it would even get approved by the board. One of the first things the Finance Dept would ask is what roads absolutely cannot wait until next year.
If they spent a lot of money to make one road good for 10+ years, then they wouldn't be able to do anything to the roads that were actually a hazard for drivers.
So they would only get enough money to band-aide some roads. Now the situation is that it's better to band-aid a road for a year or maybe two than it is to not have any money to do anything to the road.
(We have a lot of bad roads, have cold winters usually and deal with farmers / truck drivers that can't read the weight limits on the roads)
While mostly just a PR play, this almost sounds like an experiment in what libertarians I've seen suggest road maintenance should be: That businesses that benefit from roads should be left to improve said roads if its useful to their business.
"Los Angeles is no longer part of the United States, as the federal government of the United States has ceded most of its power and territory to private organizations and entrepreneurs"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash