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AlexWest's comments

AlexWest | 10 years ago | on: Twitter's new timeline feature

If twitter goes full algo I will stop using it just like I did Facebook as soon as they stopped showing me everything in chronological order.

AlexWest | 10 years ago | on: Ask HN: What should we fund at YC Research?

Unfortunately many of the effects of humans are long-lasting. The elimination of buffalo, for instance, or the loss of most wolf populations in North America which lead to the explosion of deer, IIRC. I am quite interested in the possibilities of selective breeding to replace extinct species, and the major die-off currently happening could have negative effects we have not yet even begun to see.

AlexWest | 10 years ago | on: Ask HN: What should we fund at YC Research?

- Antibiotic alternatives (we're going to need them fast)

- As another poster mentioned, how do we suck the carbon from 150 years of burning fossil fuels out of our atmosphere?

- Cognitive enhancement

- Re-wilding - rebuilding devastated ecosystems in the Anthropocene with engineered biodiversity

AlexWest | 10 years ago | on: Request For Research: Basic Income

The bay area is an interesting example. Prices are skyrocketing from demand, but part of the reason why supply has been so slow is that demand has been so sudden. San Francisco has always had a high quality of life, but it did just fine until the tech booms. The majority of people now moving to SF are coming for economic reasons. Would UBI reduce these motivations, easing pressure on the local rental market? I don't know.

SF definitely demonstrates that the price of food will go up if there's enough money floating around. But you can still get a burrito for $6 if you know where to look.

But the more interesting possibility is actually that we don't increase demand. You have the unemployed, who will go from having no income to having income, and demand from them will certainly rise for the necessities. But for the large middle swath, perhaps this will not add to their spending, but instead provide a means for people to take longer vacations, stay home with children, or create artwork more adventurously. Perhaps this will, rather than increasing demand generally, provide flexibility sufficient for the middle class to feel safer in spending more time in ways that build social ties, benefit the community, and create cultural value that is insufficiently valued in the current economic regime.

AlexWest | 10 years ago | on: Request For Research: Basic Income

Look at the most basic need: food. Demand is relatively constant - you need enough to eat, and shouldn't eat too much (obviously in practice there is a certain amount of elasticity and differences in demand for different types of food). Supply of food already exceeds demand (look at food waste, supermarkets tossing out ugly produce or burning unsold items to maintain their profit margin). So - demand for food barely goes up, supply continues to exceed demand.

AlexWest | 10 years ago | on: Request For Research: Basic Income

It is always ironic when the leisure class who have enough money to do as they wish from birth become very concerned that the poor simply aren't EARNING the right to eat, sleep, and rest.

AlexWest | 10 years ago | on: Request For Research: Basic Income

Thank you for doing this. This is truly the kind of thing the tech industry needs to be doing in order to make a net positive impact on society and promote a more agile, results-based social super-structure.

EDIT: So many of the comments here are obviously ideology driven. I am ideologically in favor of full automation and UBI but doing this kind of research will help us move forward in an informed and scientific way.

AlexWest | 10 years ago | on: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley

But that's really the whole point of privilege - belonging to the group is enough to grant you the advantages of it. Period. It doesn't mean your life is great, it doesn't mean you don't have problems, but the members of a privileged class absolutely possess those privileges - that's how it works.

AlexWest | 10 years ago | on: San Francisco's Fog Over Growth

People who want to move here (for opportunities or work) by definition do not have an established life here, are not part of our community, do not have family and friends they have known for years based here, and have not worked to contribute to making San Francisco what it is. I am not overly concerned about how hard it may be for them to arrive.

AlexWest | 10 years ago | on: When Are You Really an Adult?

Hasn't 'twenty-something', in the popular vernacular usage, already taken on the meaning of a distinct life phase (not quite adult, not still adolescent)?
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