Then it should be easy to show a self-driving car working in those conditions. Somehow, despite this argument coming up in virtually every discussion of this kind, nobody's done it yet.
Did they ever release any substantial information in that regard? The video just shows a few cars slowly driving around empty streets with barely any snow.
Then why ask philosophers? If you don't know what the other side of the moon looks like because rockets have not been invented yet, how could a philosopher possibly help?
Maybe not. It's not completely clear that, for example, string theory could ever be experimentally verified, since it operates completely at a level below all the manifestations of our observable universe. (AFAIK, I'm no physicist)
What technology can you imagine that could ever prove or disprove a hypothesis of our universe being only one facet of a multiverse? The apparatus would necessarily exist within the closed system.
But the multiverse theory is in competition with other theories, some of which make the same predictions. If two or five or seventeen theories all make the same predictions, do you pick one? Which one? If you want to pick the simplest theory, what criteria do you use to figure out that one theory is simpler than another theory?
Why do we subsidize sugar (High Fructose Corn Syrup through corn subsidies) one one end then tax it on the other? Seems like tax payers are double spending.
Because Iowa farmers get to vote on federal matters, but they don't get to vote in SF and NYC.
When I worked at Climate Corp, it was pretty interesting to hear the (nearly universally) Republican farmers argue for why there should be farm subsidies. About half wouldn't even try to justify it, and just said if the money's there I'll take it.
> About half wouldn't even try to justify it, and just said if the money's there I'll take it.
I'd respect those people more than the people who tried to argue it, as it's a case of don't hate the player hate the game (unless the player is rigging the game of course).
In this case, it's because Archer Daniels Midland can afford to buy enough federal representation to get the subsidies.
Sugar producers care more about the issue (because they get all the subsidies) than voters (for whom the subsidies are a small percentage of their tax bill). Plus, the subsidies represent a positive return on lobbying dollars, because there are a relatively small number of people to bribe. Sorry, I mean support.
This, however, was put on the ballot by local supervisors, and will be voted on by SF's population at large. That's a much harder dynamic to influence with money. Not that they aren't trying.
The government is not a single entity. There are various groups and conflicting interests, and it can be easier to do something that goes against a powerful lobby's interests on a local level. Corn subsidies are also meant to lead to stable food prices, which is something that benefits governing politicians. There are various conflicts of interest at work here.
By that logic wouldn't it best to buy everything possible through bitcoin? i.e. transfer fiat you would spend on products to bitcoin and enjoy deflationary prices
I don't think that entirely how the economics work.
If you transfer your EUR, USD, whatever to Bitcoin, it would make sense to delay any purchases to next week/month/year, because you would at this point get more value for your Bitcoins. This is bad for any retail that's not sell food or other essentials, where you can't delay the purchase.
When you see government and national bank attempt to pump out money, they are trying to do the opposite. This means that if you want to buy a new TV there's no point in waiting, you won't get a significantly better deal next month.
Bitcoins are still a bit weird, because you currently can't cash in large sums. You can't do your transactions in Bitcoin, you need a stable proxy currency for setting the value of your goods. We have maybe 8000 active products currently, all manually price in five difference currencies to maximize profit. This only works because these currencies are pretty stable and we can avoid adjusting the price for a product after a few month after initial release. It priced in Bitcoin, we would have to adjust the price of every single item multiple time a day. Of cause given the price fluctuation it would still be more profitable to simple buy Bitcoins, rather than physical goods and the later sell them... But that would be bad for employment.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of Bitcoin, precisely for the reason other people like it. I believe that governments need to be able to control currencies. If you don't trust your government, then that's a different problem.
Would it be valuable to you to have a single base currency in which prices are set (i.e. with a rate derived from the composite of underlying currencies), which then automatically sets the prices in the other currencies? I ask you partially because we are developing something like that and I'm not super aware of how large e-commerce providers handle this problem.
No, not valuable at all. I thought that it would make sense to, initially.
You want to set the price in each marked separately, finding the maximum price for that product in the given market. A product you can sell for say £10 in the UK, might sell equally well for the equivalent of £12 or even £15 in Scandinavia. You could sell the item for the £10 in every country, but why miss out on the profit?
Just using an exchange rate won't take the market (competition) and purchasing power in the different countries. Also you'll end up fighting sells personal who will want to be able to set the sales price, or set them as dictated by the suppliers ( it's technically illegal in many countries, but very few are willing to fight the suppliers, so you need to support it ).
Even in the Euro countries you'll want to be able to price a product differently in each country.
Would depend on your working capital position/turnover.
At the end of the day, you want to be net-long BitCoin. Its hard to set up a systemic trade like that because its one-sided. The price of the underlying assets just becomes a distortion. That is if I am understanding you correctly.
