People were optimizing for this here in Sweden, then a “peak effect charge” was introduced, where you’re charged extra monthly based on the average of the three hours of largest effect usage. This is dialed in to be approximately 25% of the monthly bill at normal usage (and can go much higher).

Implementing long-distance high-voltage transmission lines is a common counterargument against the inherent fragile and unpredictable nature of variable renewable energy systems.

It’s fairly frequent (several times per decade) to have high/low pressure systems with a radius of 100’s of km, at which point a variable renewable system (wind+solar) can reach an output below <1% of installed capacity (when combined with the winter season) for extended (hours to several days) periods of time.

At that point, there is the choice of grid-scale long term energy storage up to a magnitude of TWh’s (potentially seasonal), long-distance transmission (up to 1000’s of km) or ensuring that other energy production systems exist that can pick up the slack (requiring redundant capacity, which is inefficient).

It gets worse when you combine super LED brights with matrix headlights that are marketed to “allow the high beams to remain on even with oncoming traffic”.

The autobahn already achieves this on a daily basis for personal vehicles. It should absolutely be doable to build dedicated busses along highways that can reach this speed assuming separated lanes.

A key benefit here is that existing highway infrastructure can be repurposed rather than needing to buy (expensive) land and building a rail system from scratch (takes time).

This is an outside the box solution that might be self-justifying: providing faster (better) service than cars and potentially offloading enough passengers to reduce more than 1 lane of traffic. Many ways to get more public transit usage in the US are probably better than the status quo.

Would proper rail be better? Absolutely.

This is terribly inefficient in comparison, but maybe could be cheaper, faster and easier to implement. Worth having a few guys look into it at least.

Interesting, but the article also feels llm-generated.

100%, I’m terrible at remembering peoples names so I force myself to say it a few times after meeting someone new, really helps it stick.

Certainly an interesting article and it would certainly be a good thing if OAI was forced back into being a non-profit actor (though not for Musks sake).

At the heart of the case is his accusation that OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman betrayed the company’s original nonprofit mission.

This seems accurate.

…and the proposed consequences:

Along with seeking to force OpenAI back to a nonprofit structure and oust Altman and Brockman, Musk has sought as much as $134 billion in damages – which he has pledged to redirect to the OpenAI nonprofit.

I could get behind so long as those 134Bn never enter Musks hands.

One could argue that if euthanasia is legal, then there would be situations of: “Hey, granny is kinda taking too much resouces… maybe we should just pull the life support?” or “Okay my child has cancer and takes up too much of my money, and all this money would be wasted if the treatment fails, I’m gonna talk to the doctor and end this parasite once and for all”

Which is exactly why I’m in favour of euthanasia for humans on a moral level (people should be able to decide their own fate) but against it on a societal level (it will likely result in people getting pressured into “choosing” death.)

The harm of the people who are unable to choose death (a.k.a commit suicide) on their own suffering is a lesser evil compared to people who want to live being pressured into dying (in my view).

Within Swedish politics there is essentially complete agreement that the union model of labour negotiation should remain. Companies like Tesla are certainly an issue, but comparatively easier to deal with. The larger threat to the union model actually comes from undeclared labour which is a huge, systemic problem.

It ends up being significantly cheaper for the employer (no taxes, benefits, regulation) and can (in the short term) be beneficial for the employee (higher wage, still cashing in unemployment benefits etc.) even if it is disruptive for the collective long term.

In some businesses such as salons for hair dressers or mani-pedi, as many as 40% of labour is undeclared. Restaurants, construction and transportation are also high up.

Oh for sure, there are lots of companies pushing the gig-economy self employment model.

Strictly speaking, gig workers aren’t employed, but rather a contractor who is self-employed. This means that a lot of labour legislation doesn’t really apply (which would include minimum wages).

It is in the pipeline of legislation however, and I know that some unions have started targeting gig employers with collective bargaining. Foodora for instance is covered by collective agreement since 2021.

ironically the majority of those are government employees and police

It’s not ironic in the slightest. It’s for government employees that the conflict of interest between what’s best for the government (often low costs of labour) and employees (generous benefits and wages) becomes impossible to ignore.

Similar incentive structures do exist on a national economic level. For instance lower wages often provide a more competitive industrial basis internationally, even if that is not neccessarily beneficial for the individual employee.

Not much that I know of aside from a bunch of extra bureaucracy. Unions already perform polls on wages amongst members, and that information is generally available to the union members. Furthermore, there’s often even information available about wages within an employer organization if it is large.

The main problem I see with legislated minimum wages is that it becomes a legitimate target for employers in a “take it or leave it” fashion.

Partly, but there is more to collective bargaining than that.

a) Indexed inflation levels tend to be underreported (exactly due to things like this)

b) it does not allow for over-time adjustment of real wage levels. As productivity increases, the real wage usually goes up. During periods of economic crisis you often see the largest wage increases in absolute terms, but a decrease in the real wage due to inflation. These negotiations are the toughest.

Compared to the massive increase of meat consumption in the population-dense developing world & other major influences on price such as improvements in the efficiency of meat production, the impact of the veg-movement is nigh negligible.

The price impact is rather on the side of restaurants & grocery chains in their logistics, now requiring a more diverse offering to be able to serve both the traditional clientele and veg-customers. Spreading the same demand over a larger range of products leads to a lower per-item throughput. Hence slightly lower efficiency, more waste & more overhead, which leads to marginally increased food prices overall in western countries.

Was just thinking that, awesome little game!

I do think we agree on the practical implication for jobs - just that laws don’t align with that where I’m at. (If you can’t/refuse to do the job, you shouldn’t be working it)

That’s odd, because one could just say “I can’t change the job description without changing the role I am hiring, and I only need that role.”

It’s central to the problem. Individuals from religious groups sue employers (often successfully) citing that not hiring them or firing them for refusing to fulfill the job description would be discrimination. (This is not unique to any one group btw)

you’d prefer to force people to not adhere to their religion

No. What I’m saying is that they should be solely responsible for the consequences of their faith. Other people should not be forced to give them special treatment due to their religion.

I think you’re referring to Muslim practice as delusional

I wasn’t. I was creating a hypothetical of somebody non-religous (or at least not an adherent to a major religion) placing greater or equal value on not shaving as a religious person might. The point being that major religions are given preferential treatment as compared to other beliefs and preferences.

So to be clear, yeah, a faith to the Muslim god which forbids shaving is respectable and not delusional.

There are certainly different ways for religious folks to be faithful. However, in the modern day, literal adherence to many modern religions essentially amount to centering your life around a myth. At best, it is a sign of being misguided and ignorant with regard to scientific fact (which is incompatible with those myths) and at worst it amounts to a delusion (yes, I will use that word). Willfully rejecting overwhelming evidence.

Somebody can be respectable in spite of that, but in my book, it is a clear negative.

Yeah, obviously.

What’s so obvious about it? The initial example here is facetious and absurd, but what’s to say that I don’t take my “beard honour” just as seriously as someone else does their religion?

Because I’ve certainly met people who take their religion very lightly, yet absolutely will use it as an excuse for special treatment at every opportunity.

A less absurd example might be somebody with the delusion (a.k.a strongly held personal belief) that their value as a man depends entirely on their beard, that they might as well kill themselves if they were unable to have one. Or someone with a facial scar tied to incredible emotional trauma that they use their beard to cover up.

The simple fact is that special treatment of religious adherents is discriminatory, not against them, but against everyone else. The root of the problem is that laws that were intended to prevent special maltreatment of religious adherents have instead become leveraged as a basis to grant privileges. When they don’t get the job after refusing to follow hygiene protocol, shake hands with certain demographic groups or perform job duties, they sue their employer for discrimination. They demand the job, and demand that the job description be changed to fit their personal preferences.

I agree, it should be as simple as “can you do the job or not”. If being clean shaven is part of the job description (which I certainly could find good reasons for, such as gas masks or hygiene) and you refuse to be clean shaven, then you’re out.

The most at hand explanation I think would be biological differences between the genders. Male puberty is, on average, delayed by approximately 18 months in comparison. Girls/women are earlier in development and mature earlier, boys/men later.

Puberty was pretty much the defining factor back in the day for adulthood vs childhood.