That may be a perk of having had an aristocratic ruling class, the first industrial revolution, and global empire (not being sarcastic- I'm a big Hidden Houses of Wales fan, would love to renovate an old castle). The UK was historically wealthy and has amazing old houses. In the US every decade has had significantly better housing stock with increasing standards of living, so its much less appealing to get an older house in 95% of the country. Especially anything 40s - 70s you get smallish rooms, low ceilings and questionable "vintage" building practices like I'm dealing with now (aluminum wiring, poor insulation, etc).
For all the focus this article seems to put on "hedge" I can't imagine there are many hedge funds left that are really market direction neutral are there? With the performance of the SP500 being what it is in the past few years you'd have to think you have some wickedly smart strategy to match that without going net long. Plus almost all assets, even things that were supposed to be countercyclical have been trading together so when the market really dumps even gold and silver get sold, if only to provide liquidity to cover other positions.
When the market really dumps, it's generally been quite temporary. All fundamental asset's have their time, cash's is just shorter and worse over time. If you think that's interesting, take it one step further and you have ultra cash: physical bills, not just bank IOU's and electricity. It has even a further niche time and even worse over time, 0% interest.
This is a strangely mechanistic view of the economy not allowing for human joy (which economists would lump in as utility.) I get a great amount of satisfaction from great food or art far beyond the costs required to produce them. I don't see how that isn't creating value beyond the simple energy equation.
The amount of satisfaction you have is arbitrary and your own personal opinion. It's valid to you but not a valid part of the discussion because it's so arbitrary.
It could be that in reality the satisfaction I gain from art is worth 999 trillion dollars. If it's true then it's true but is it worth discussing? No.
The critical point here is that even things of value that people believe to be seemingly abstract are connected to a physical and limited resource.
This is not just pedantry. Art such as Opera or symphonies or blockbuster movies require a huge energy hungry economy to produce.
You can't get most of the art you "enjoy" from human powered economies like tribals still living in the Amazon rain forest. None of the "art" mentioned above can ever come out of economies like that. You can't even get children's drawings (art) like you do from modern economies because tribal economies can't even produce crayons or paper.
There is a huge correlation between the quality of the abstract things you enjoy and the energy required to produce it. It's just a general correlation but it's a correlation nonetheless.
So rather then call it strange. Take it as new insight. You once considered "art" to some abstract concept that you "enjoy". Now you know that art is also a low entropy configuration of paint. Lowering entropy costs energy therefore most abstract things are always related to energy. You can still enjoy a painting, but now you are armed with additional knowledge.
Greater knowledge means things that were previously mysterious can now be viewed in a more technical light. You can call it strange or you can call it learning something new. It's up to you.
Either way you are still free to enjoy your art as if it was worth 999 trillion dollars.
Sorry for the late reply, I don't entirely agree but thank you for laying out your argument point by point, it has certainly given me a different way to look at things.
I do agree that the quality of art is roughly proportional to the size of the economy that "spins it off" so to speak. Obviously hunter gatherers are not going to produce great art without surplus goods or division of labor.
At base I think we can't just write off human pleasure because some of it varies based on the individual. Economists estimate things like this all the time. I enjoy my favorite music albums very much, much more than say a $10 album cost, but if it cost instead $300 and my choice was between an album or a bicycle you can bet I would buy fewer albums no matter how much I liked them, so we can at least bound my enjoyment at $10 - $300 and realistically much narrower.
I do admit most of my favorite poetry and literature was produced by great imperial powers, even if by relatively impoverished or humble members of that society. There is something to this- whether Rome, Song China or Colonial Britain lots of good art and luxury is created by conquest.
The entire idea that you must be anti-racist is borrowed from Marxism- a totalizing ethos that sees everything through the lense of race (instead of class). Its not enough to say I am a neutral person who treats individuals the same regardless of the color of their skin- if you are white that is seen as a subtle way of preserving your race (class) interest. Only by actively joining in the struggle can you convince the successor class that you are sufficiently anti racist (formerly anti bourgeois).
Across all my HN comments I've found there is an optimum level of detail where it sounds like you know what you're talking about, beyond which is too complicated to get many upvotes. The exception is occasionally on HN you get an undisputed expert on something to come in and set the record straight.
Is the Bay Area really friendly to all immigrants in a way that metropolitan Texas is not? I think the definition of friendly should include being able to afford decent space to live. I could imagine that for a young well off Chinese or Indian engineer many cultural aspects such as food and being around many members of your community would be preferable in the Bay Area certainly. But Houston is of the most foreign born cities in the US and for less skilled immigrants their pay check will go much further in Texas.
Look at the directionality of prices for one way rentals. Because of the outflow from big cities NY area pickup -> Southern US dropoff prices are still 3x+ vs going the other direction, where I believe they used to be similar prices both ways.
I think people know that a piece of meat on a grill that is totally burnt black is not healthy. And likewise I'd throw away or at least scrape off burnt toast.
Browning on foods is a huge source of flavor though (Maillard reaction I think), is this also a concern? It seems like an occasional steak with thin grill marks could be worth it, but I have no idea where to draw the line on this, compared to something like alcohol, because there is no study for how many grams of burnt food you can eat per week etc.
I consider myself well informed and I had no idea burnt food was unhealthy. I would just figured it was carbon, and I don't have any reason to believe carbon would hurt me.
I think this is a very well known thing that I learned as a small kid, but I (and my family) still rather eat a bit of black on the outside of the meat than eating still raw parts in the middle (for pork and chicken that is). It's all about juggling risks.
I think the key here is the analogy is just a warm up for the actual full detailed explanation. Where I find analogies always fail is in journalistic tech books that just use analogies to explain concepts but never get down to low level details and leave the reader with a vague feeling of understanding something, but if you asked them about any of the implications of the model explained they can't state anything.
Out of all resources I have found Wikipedia to be almost uniquely useless for teaching yourself a new concept, its like "explanation by committee". On the other hand if I can understand a Wikipedia article I know I am at least intermediate in a area.
