Anyone have advice for blocking reddit on an android (not rooted) phone? I found the site too addicting and time-wasting so the site is listed on my host file for my PC, but now I exclusively browse on my phone.
Don't forget about the feedback loop... Do you think home prices would be as high as they are without the existence and wide availability of mortgages?
And yet you are both happy to do it; if you couldn't, you would have a worse living situation and he would be poorer. That looks to me like a paradigmatic case of value being added to the world.
It's counterintuitive, maybe, but any sort of trade adds value to the world even though all that's happening is that goods and/or money are being moved from one place to another. What enables this is that different people have different preferences; in the case of your mortgage, it's differences in how you value future money relative to present money -- you want money now and having less money later is a cost you're willing to pay, whereas your mortgagee prefers to have more money later and doesn't mind having less now.
And so you make the trade -- in this case, you exchange a pile of money for some obligations to make future payments adding up to somewhat more money -- and both parties consider themselves better off than before. If that isn't adding value to the world, I don't know what is.
It's not a very glamorous kind of added value: it's less exciting than inventing a new kind of machine, or shaping raw materials into beautiful sculptures. But added value it is.
(Assuming, of course, that you and the mortgagee aren't badly wrong about your preferences. If it turns out that you're going to be spectacularly unable to repay the mortgage, so that you lose your home and the mortgagee loses the money, then maybe everyone loses. See, e.g., 2008. But on the whole it seems like the existence of mortgages is a considerable net benefit.)
You're mistaking something that's sometimes necessary, or something that makes people happy, for something that creates value.
Nothing new is created when ownership changes hands, as in the case of me possessing the money to buy a house, where before I didn't.
A change of ownership, or a new contract that two people have signed, or a promise to do something, none of that adds value to the world. The value is in the doing.
Syria is a failed state since it is in the middle of a civil war. The USA is not a failed state because the government still effectively governs. And from my perspective, many European countries appear to be more xenophobic than the USA. France's crazy anti-Muslim laws are a good example.
Yes, I was being a bit hyperbolic. But the US certainly fulfils some of the qualifications of a failed state according to the definition of the phrase on wikipidia anyway. For example..
'Erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions' - It appears that a lot of US policy is decided by private special interest groups, lobby groups and corporations and not by any sovereign or democratic process.
'Inability to provide public services' - Aforementioned lack of education, healthcare, adequate drinking water etc. for a large cohort of the population.
'Inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community' - Arguable as the US has acted unilaterally, breaking international laws during the invasion of iraq for example.
The respected US commentator Noam Chomsky makes the point that the US is becoming more and more like a failed state in book 'failed states'
hmm, have you been to the usa? adequate drinking water? This isn't mexico :)
Every country has problem, money in politics is a problem everywhere. I would say Europe and the USA are pretty equal in every regard, some have some pros over here, some cons over here. It would be better if everyone could try learning from each other.
Could someone describe the dataset for me? Is it just two columns with one for usernames and another for passwords? Or is there any other info included? I'm on mobile right now or else I'd grab it myself.
This is like saying that all computer programmers are responsible for enriching themselves for hacking target and home depot. It is crazy that you are so easily dismissing an entire academic discipline.
