1. jean_tta Jan 6, 2023 parent

   From the perspective of the gene it makes sense - genes that are more sucesful at making offspring (aka getting copied) should be expected to prosper through natural selection.
2. jean_tta Jan 6, 2023 parent

   With ever decreasing EROI though
3. jean_tta Jan 5, 2023 parent

   You do here:

   "Take any revolutionary discovery. Compare making it freely available to anyone, or limiting the availability to those holding the patents. [...]"

   You take the situation where there _is_ a revolutionary discovery, with or without patents, and then wonder about the effect of patents on the next innovations. In doing that you do not consider that may be a revolutionary discovery with patents, and none without.

4. jean_tta Jan 5, 2023 parent

   You make two assumptions:

   - There are as many revolutionary discoveries with and without patents

   - Without patents, discoveries would be freely avalaible

   As far as I know, two (related) arguments are generally made for patents:

   - Patents create an indirect (by preventing the competition from using your invention) or direct (by licensing it) monetary return to innovation, potentially leading to more innovation

   - If a company wants competitors not to copy their innovation, they can 1. keep it secret or 2. disclose it and patent it; without patent the choice is between 1. keep it secret or 2. disclose it and have everybody copy them. In this case, patents lead to more innovation being made freely avalaible (with a delay!).

   Whether patents lead to more or less innovation is, as far as I know, contentious.

5. jean_tta Dec 21, 2022 parent

   If your point is that it offends "no one", except "people like [the other commenter]", i.e. people that are offended, then I guess this would apply to any word about any group.
6. jean_tta Dec 17, 2022 parent

   I don't get it; why would it be _more_ of a problem than with current tax & benefits systems? Politicians can already make the "increase $benefit"/"decrease $tax" their #1 policy.
7. jean_tta Dec 12, 2022 parent

   Isn't "money printing" monetary policy, as opposed to fiscal policy?
8. jean_tta Dec 4, 2022 parent

   "Électricité de France S.A. (literally Electricity of France), commonly known as EDF, is a French multinational electric utility company, largely owned by the French state." - from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lectricit%C3%A9_de_Franc...
9. jean_tta Nov 23, 2022 parent

   It would be tricky whatever the claim
10. jean_tta Nov 14, 2022 parent

    A very smart man, PG himself, once said [0]: > I actually worry a lot that as I get "popular" I'll be able to get away with saying stupider stuff than I would have dared say before.

    PG started writing essays about what he knows well (programming, start ups), then about things he knows a bit (painting) and then stuff like this, or his essays on economic policy. In any case, he predicted his own future quite well.

    [0] quoted here https://idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm from there http://lemonodor.com/archives/001091.html#c8508

11. jean_tta Nov 14, 2022 parent

    It's really tricky to compare marginal rates like that. Has the definition of taxable income changed over time? How many people were actually taxed at those marginal rates? And so on.
12. 1 point Nov 5, 2022

    Ask HN: What print magazines do you read?

    1 comment jean_tta
13. jean_tta Nov 1, 2022 parent

    > andard to be a high ranking politicians like presidents, ministers, or CEOs. In the 20 years before 2017, they used not only have studied at the same school, the ENA, but where mostly from the same prom : 1978-1980, the (in)famous Promotion Voltaire.

    For context, the ÉNA was a civil service school, i.e. it was for French civil service what West point is for the US Army.

14. jean_tta Oct 25, 2022 parent

    It's not _forced_, but it is common that applicants include this information.
15. jean_tta Oct 25, 2022 parent

    This is pure speculation, but I would guess it was simply expected information at the time. In some countries, it is still expected or at least common to see information such as: a portrait ; date and place of birth ; marital situation and number of children ; and so on.
16. jean_tta Jun 10, 2022 parent

    You take for granted that the Spartans were good at war, and reconcile "Spartans good at war" and "Spartans lost to other city-states" by concluding that there are "a lot of factors". Why not revise your assumption that Spartans were good at war?
17. jean_tta Apr 8, 2022 parent

    French military radio procedures also have specific pronunciations to disambiguate words. The fact that it is not used (assuming it is not) in ATC radio is not a feature of the French language.
18. jean_tta Mar 20, 2022 parent

    Is it fair to compare the very small region that is England to the very large region that is India?

    A fairer comparison would be Europe vs India at the time, or England vs the most advanced region of India at the time.

    "The most advanced region of Europe" vs "the average region of India" is nitpicking.

19. jean_tta Dec 8, 2021 parent

    How come the US military branches are so bad at working together?
20. jean_tta Dec 8, 2021 parent

    This is either satire or the worst possible example, since the war in Afghanistan is the only time in history article 5 has been used.
21. jean_tta Nov 16, 2021 parent

    This is essentially the philosophical zombie thought experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie
22. jean_tta Oct 13, 2021 parent

    This is what is new:

    > A trove of internal Amazon documents reveals how the e-commerce giant ran a systematic campaign of creating knockoff goods and manipulating search results to boost its own product lines in India - practices it has denied engaging in. And at least two top Amazon executives reviewed the strategy.

    As far as I understand, those documents were not known before.

23. jean_tta Oct 6, 2021 parent

    Every country has its own myths to both give legitimacy to the government and unify the people around a national project. Sure, the US is more extreme in its focus on its foundation as the core of its national myth, but is it so different from the French left rhetoric about the CNR program or the French right name dropping the founder of the (latest) republic left and right?
24. jean_tta Oct 6, 2021 parent

    Do spherical cows dream of mathematical potatoes?
25. jean_tta Oct 5, 2021 parent

    Surely studying the climate, i.e. a physical system, is completely in the realm of physics. Certainly, it is closer to whatever definition of physics you may have, than education or kidney donation (to take two examples) are to economics.
26. jean_tta Oct 5, 2021 parent

    Below is a quote from the press release we are discussing:

    > In the 1960s, he led the development of physical models of the Earth’s climate and was the first person to explore the interaction between radiation balance and the vertical transport of air masses. His work laid the foundation for the development of current climate models.

    As far as I understand (I am not a physicist), you're right: climate is not new, and climate models have been getting better for decades. And that's (in part) because of this guy's work, half a century ago. It sure pushed the boundaries of physics at the time, didn't it?

27. jean_tta Sep 20, 2021 parent

    I do not think anyone is arguing that the UK has some kind of legal obligation to inform France. Alas, alliance and more broadly international politics go beyond minutiae of contracts.
28. jean_tta Sep 20, 2021 parent

    See here: https://au.ambafrance.org/IMG/pdf/en_indopacifique_web_cle0f...

    The French government has openly stated that this goes beyond the canceled contract per se.

29. jean_tta Sep 20, 2021 parent

    If you ask about NATO _today_, I'd wager people would see it as a fancy name for "alliance with the US", which includes but is not limited to defense against Russia. A lot of people would think about Afghanistan, for instance.
30. jean_tta Sep 20, 2021 parent

    Australia went from an ever-closer relationship with France to ditching them, unannounced. Even if it is unwarranted, surely France reaction _is_ a major geopolitical consequence.

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