clyde

Couple of things: -I'm interested in having a tournament next week. Taking table-nominations. -There's a Pinball FX2 Hunble Bundle https://www.humblebundle.com/weekly -I'm thinking changing the thread title to "Pinball Club: [table name]" for the tournament to attract more participants. Thoughts?

I think groups make different decisions than individuals do due to the difference in social pressures (both attractive and repulsive) in operating as a single agent and operating as member of a group. Inefficient biases still exist in groups, but I suspect that they are less likely to make inefficient decisions because of things like vetting, diverse self-interests, and how individuals want to be seen by their peers. I hate working in groups, but I'm also paralyzed when making decisions such as which type of health-insurance I should buy or where I should get my car repaired; groups take a lot of the pressure of failure off me and have a wider spectrum of perspectives with which to inform decisions. Also, I'd rather fail as a group than fail as an individual. As far as how to distributed funds to the groups, I don't know, but I would certainly prefer that individuals would still maintain some mobility between groups. It depends on whether or not the individual identifies with the group. Part of the reason I think it would be a better idea to fund groups rather than individuals is that it would hypothetically encourage the skill and ideology of collectivism. This becomes more problematic the larger the group and the lower levels of investment of individuals, but I'm thinking that funds would be proportional to the size of the group. By the way, we aren't talking about permanent, distinct groups necessarily. It could be something like project-proposals that individuals can choose to align themselves with and contribute their time or support to. Hypothetically they could move between projects. Churches exist in rural communities, I don't see any reason something like what I'm suggesting couldn't. Still, they would be the ones making decisions of how best to work together.

I'm not sure how to take this:

Regarding how far I would take it, I'm looking at my position more like where should we start. Until we have housing, medical care, food, transportation, environmental protections (which is a poverty-issue since environmental ailments are more likely to affect the poor), public education, communications, and an array of means of production guaranteed for all.. I think that a basic income is not as good of a value proposition than free public services. From what I understand, y'all are suggesting that basic-income is a good starting point and that public services should take less priority; that's what I'm disagreeing with. As far as our automated future and housing goes, I think that a better way to house everyone is through public housing programs (such as community-run collective residences) rather than just giving everyone cash and saying "Do what you want with it." I suspect that I think of currency in a much different way than y'all. In my view, basic-income would just be a new profit-stream for capital to vacuum back up. If we want to provide alternatives to the dystopian future that benefits capital, then I think funding (mostly) local community works that benefit more than single individuals would be far more likely to succeed.

The idea that groups should make decisions about which resources are available to individuals within the public because the infividuals are not capable of making the best decisions is obviously unpopular here. Do y'all feel that public schools should be dissolved and vouchers for charter schools should be distributed instead? How about environmental regulations? Would you prefer that individuals dispose of their garbage however they can (and not pay a mandatory garbage bill) rather than providing municipal waste-collection? If not, how do these examples seem different from what I'm proposing?

I would support removing the vetting of anyone (rich or poor) to receive public services. I don't mean to suggest that the best course of action would be to take mincome off the table and throw the money at existing public infrastructure without consideration by the groups that most need infrastructure and those who operate it. And just to be clear, I think that rich people spend their money poorly in the vast majority of cases. If that's something that you value enough to choose over a public program then I understand, but if I'm choosing, I would rather people have guarantees of certain living-standards than the high they get from shopping for consumer goods.

Both of these articles seem to be about how the poor don't spend as much on luxury goods as the rich largely because they are spending their money on basic needs. I don't think I'm suggesting otherwise. @superbiasedman Any community is going to be authoritarian in some sense, some more or less than others. In that way, yes I'm describing authoritarian allocation of labor and resources. But if we are measuring whether or not groups should make decisions on what resources and services individuals within that group should be provided with, I suspect we would use some measurement of averaged living-standards within a reasonably equitable spectrum (no enormous inequalities od wealth as we have now). Even though some people eat less than others and some people have kids that need education while others do not and some people benefit from a space-program more than others, I don't think that providing folks with spending money is going to provide society significantly more value than bolstering public education, subsidizing quality housing in every area, developing a medical institution that can serve people more effectively and more inexpensively, feeding everyone without exploiting agricultural laborers to the extent America does now. You are right that I don't have evidence that my suspicions are correct. But I do suspect that there is a larger benefit to a greater quantity of people (especially those in need) by increasing the availability of public services than putting cash in the pockets of everyone who is poor enough to get the benefit. We are talking about limited resources right? Of course I'd prefer both, but I'm viewing every dollar given in mincome as a dollar not spent on these programs. To avoid abuses by centralized authorities, I would hope that most of the increases in public spending would be used to fund projects that are conceptualized, selected, and operated by local groups.

If we are at at impasse it is not because recreation is not included in my idea of "healthy". I don't know why you are assuming that.I'm am being judgmental and condescending to the impoverished, because I'm judgmental and condescending to people as a whole when discussing their capability to wisely allocate labor that benefits communities beyond the ones with which they identify. I don't understand why you would require that I have the same faith as you in people to spend money in reasonably understandable, beneficial ways... in order to converse.

I'll use the term "expenditures that are unnecessary for living a healthy and productive life and that benefit a small set of individuals rather the a larger community" instead of "private luxury" to avoid confusion. What I am trying to say is that there is a huge amount of potential in improvements to the community as a whole that I think would better serve the purpose than giving everyone a little bit of money for candy after their basic needs are met. Public education, environmentally sustainable energy, public transportation, affordable housing, means to produce, infrastructure (like the internet) that makes it easier for communities to form on smaller issues. I think it's difficult to imagine the community running out of ideas for beneficial improvements before funding becomes an issue.

Saving up funds by not eating healthy is exactly the kind of thing that I wouldn't support. I wonder how those studies measure whether or not the desperately poor have spent their money well. Seems to me that if basic needs which everyone should have are paid for with public funds, then additional public funds shpuld be used on community development rather than private luxury. There are a lot of things public money could be spent on that would benefit a wide swath of folks that are not only not funded now, but would never be funded if it depended on infividual members pooling cash that they could spend privately instead. Also there are reasons that companies are willing to spend billions on advertising campaigns. People are susceptible to the illusion that consumer goods will provide them with better community statuses. I suspect that public programs have a better chance of lifting all ships.

I don't have as much faith in people as you do. I'm not being judgemental and condescending to poor people exclusively, I have the same feelings about the rich. I expect folks to spend money on stuff that won't help anyone but themselves and in many cases won't even do that. Why would we need a mincome if the money for it was spent on social programs that benefit us as a community? And programs that are decided on and formed by the community.

That's totally an update.

I think I'm more interested in funding social-welfare programs and public infrastructure for the commons than I am for mincome. I don't think that the majority of people have the ability to use free money for basic needs like healthcare, rather than luxury items. Advertising has convinced the population that consumable fads and convenience are necessities.

I live in a rural area and I just got back from a rare trip to New York City. I thought a lot about related subjects. I thought the public-transit system from New Jersey to Manhattan was impressively efficient and the number of people that seemed to be maintaining it compared to the number of people using it seemed to be ridiculously low; this is more like some sort of economy-of-scale in regulated infrastructure of the commons than automation, but they seem like pretty much different versions of the same thing. Once in Manhattan, I got a strong sense that labor-demand what absurdly low due to the amount of people who were willing to commute in to work. So think about this combo: centralization-of-the-means-of-production due to economy-of-scale AND fast and reliable transportation. The results seem like there is a lot of competition for any jobs. I'm sure I'm missing some aspects of this, economics always overwhelms me. Another thing I've been think about is how automation makes things less expensive for the consumer. The internet, laundry-machine, gas-motor, and refrigeration are great examples of this. I wouldn't be able to comfortably live on so little income if sending super-specific requests to a global network and retrieving answers, doing my laundry, hauling groceries, and keeping them cool were all things I had to do manually. That's a side of the coin to consider.

I just want to say that I hear you syntheticgerbil. This business-model seems to depend on people caring more about not looking like a douchebag to the delivery person than caring about the math.

So should students tip you?

I'm confused. I was under the assumption that Lyft was paying their freelancers less than Uber and depending on tips to make up for the difference. Is this not the case?

I really enjoy Frontline documentaries. I get excited about new releases and sometimes check the back-catalogue for refreshers on complicated topics. I think it might be fun to have a thread where we can discuss various episodes among those who are interested. The most recent episode is about the heroin-epidemic in the United States of America. The documentary proposes that the climb of heroin-addiction is directly related to attempts to correct over-prescription of pain-medications. Later on, the documentary looks at various forms of treatment and how it is affecting a few individuals in the various permutations of treatments. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/chasing-heroin/

I did not know that.

Unsurprisingly, I'm not the first to come up with this idea. http://www.thenation.com/article/socialize-uber/ This one was also good. I like how it points out that there is a massive opportunity for cooperatives to take over this economic distruption. http://www.geo.coop/story/cooperatives-uber-moment

This would Letting the driver be tipped just seems like a way to externalize labor-costs. This Scoot thing looks interesting; not because I am anywhere near San Francisco, but because it looks like it might be a consumer-cooperative. I wonder if it is a co-op. These sharing-economy jobs could benefit greatly from being run by a worker owned co-op imo.

This Postmates company sounds incredibly exploitative of their workers.

So if you don't tip then they don't make minimum-wage? How is this legal?

Gear VR is rad imo. I haven't used another virtual reality device, so I can't compare it to others. After using it for a few hours, I have some things to say, especially regarding what my assumptions were. Nausea: Nausea is an issue for both myself and my wife, but it's a spectrum, not a binary. What I mean by this is that we've been trying out the demos and developing understandings about what increases our nausea and what does not. The Gear VR does not detect head-movement beyond rotation and this is the biggest cause of our nausea. So we have to be a bit cognizant of how we move our heads; doing things like leaning in and straightening my posture when I'm hunching give me little stings of nausea which accumulate. The nausea is similar to the nausea I experience if I read an email or forum post in the passenger seat of a moving car. I can recognize it happening and stop doing the thing that is causing it (which is typically non-rotational head-movements while in Gear VR). Regardless of my head-movement management, trying out all sorts of demos, I can only last about 30 minutes right now. I suspect that I will be able to manage it longer, but my understanding of what is happening makes me look forward to VR devices that can track non-rotational head-movements. Radness: This thing is cool as shit. Listening to my wife's observations while she navigates cyberspace is very enjoyable. Being in cyberspace is fucking cool. The sense of scale is exciting. We are also experiencing notable moments of disassociation with the physical world which are entertaining and surprising us. My favorite example was while I was playing the Colosse which is a cartoony, paper-crafty, short play with two characters nearby; a NPC comes akwardly close while carrying a spear. In playfulness, I reached out to touch the spear and felt a chair in physical space that was inhabiting the same position. It freaked me the fuck out. It was an incredible moment of illusion. I don't see the value of this device being the ability to not be in physical space though, it's much more the ability to be in virtual spaces. I've explored probably 20 different environments briefly and what is most striking is just visually inhabiting a (typically central and unmoving) spot in a space created by digital media. Even the 2D, 360 photos can provide a novel perspective. The most impressive spaces I've seen though are the OTOY dioramas (which are 3D and seem to be somehow more plump than other 3D scenes) in the Oculus Photo app. There was a fictional one-room apartment that was claymation-esque and it was so cool to examine it. Exploring these brief experiments is super interesting and sci-fi as shit. Technical Limitations: I read a lot about VR developments over the last 3 years, keeping up with it as an enthused consumer. You've probably come across people describing things like "the screen-door effect" and heard passioned claims about the importance of a few degrees of FOV. All of this stuff has an influence, but I'd like to just give you an idea of which of these things seem relevant and which do not after an hour or so of use: -Screen-door effect: It's fine. Yes, you can tell that things are made of pixels. It's noticable, but it's not a deal-breaker what-so-ever. In fact, I kind of see it as a particular aesthetic that I know I will at some point be nostalgic for. There is this moment in Introduction to VR where you are hanging out in a yurt with some folks. They look pixelated, but it just makes it feel like an intimate tele-presence rather than a convincing illusion of reality. It's cool. -FOV, You are basically using a scuba mask the entire time. This is most noticeable during the underwater-simulations. This does create a sense of disconnect, just like when snorkeling. I always feel like a visitor in the environment, the FOV makes me feel like this is not a default perspective. But imagine having a scuba-mask that you can put on in your living room, that once on allows you to look around a remote or fictional place. It's cool as shit. -The lack of positional tracking (non-rotational head-movement): I can totally imagine this being a significant enough limitation for someone to decide to wait for another device. I have no regrets though and neither does my wife. We both feel confident that we can manage the nausea by developing best-methods and being picky about which apps we play. The ones that we can play without problems easily make the device worthwhile for us. Still, I can imagine never going back once we have a device that can track non-rotational head-movements. -Overheating: It totally overheats, but the manual says it doesn't damage the phone. I'm sure this will become annoying, but thus far, it happens when I should stop anyway (after about 30 minutes). Content: There is a bunch of free stuff. Everyone is gold-rushing to recreate every genre in computer-game history in virtual reality. The thing is that screenshots and videos are useless in determining what I will enjoy. Take for example Smash Hit. I looked at those videos of gameplay and was like "I think I can safely skip that one, it looks simple and boring." I just played it tonight and it was fun as shit. Flying through those environments at 45-60 mph throwing giant pinballs at pleasurably breakable crystals turns out to be surprisingly engaging when you are in there. Strong recommendation. Note: When it first starting moving me, I got a ping of nausea, but for some reason it stopped after about 20 seconds of play. The game doesn't make me nauseous at all now. Smash Hit is the only dexterity-challenge I've played thus far even though there are some other free ones, but it's worth saying that the rooms and spaces tend to be the main attraction for me. The OTOY dioramas were so cool. They are one of the things I'm looking forward to just looking through for a few minutes each. there's a lot of stuff like that. OK. that's about all I want to say about it now. Oh and if any of y'all have a Gear VR, I'd be interested in chatting in Oculus Social though I'm really difficult to schedule with. I'm not sure if you can look people up to chat with them though. I only did it for a minute once, for the first time this evening. Edit: Oh, and I don't think it's feasible to use this device without a chair that spins. Thank Erkki for cleaning it up.

Apparently Samsung announced a consumer-grade 360/video capture device which I assume is intended to democratize the ability to make content for the GearVR. I don't think it includes any depth-data, but it is might be a significant step towards that. http://www.roadtovr.com/samsungs-gear-360-specs-in-full-launching-q2-2016/