Of the top twenty most developed countries in the world (ranked by HDI), over half (13) have some form of proportional representation. They aren't all Scandinavian countries, though predictably many are. Which of them would you not consider a stable government?
Y Norway
Y Australia
Y Switzerland
Y Netherlands
United States
Y Germany
Y New Zealand
Canada
Singapore
Y Denmark
Y Ireland
Y Sweden
Y Iceland
United Kingdom
Y Hong Kong
South Korea
Japan
Y Liechtenstein
Y Israel
France
Correlation isn't causation. The best conclusion you can draw from your list is that neither PR or FPTP inherently hampers development.
> Which of them would you not consider a stable government?
Whoa, that's some strawman. The standard we're looking to prove is "proportionality of representation is pretty closely linked to public satisfaction with government".
Awesome to see the Rising Star Expedition on HN! I was working in Johannesburg while the expedition was active and my partner managed, through a serious of very fortunate events to become a caver on the expedition. Here she is carrying up some of the first bones they extracted - https://i.imgur.com/IfT4PQz.jpg.
The expedition occurred nearly two years ago, and there were so many bones still left in the catchment that they left many behind.
Incidentally, though the article says it was scientists who discovered the fossils - they were actually discovered by amateur cavers. The Cradle of Humankind (so named because there are so many similar catchments in the surrounding area) has a massive system of caves and some of the most hardcore amateur cavers in the world.
For those of you who are looking to get into nethack, or play it all the time... (shameless plug) I've been working on a project for some years that helps ease some of the monotony of playing.
For example, it keeps track of where you see shops, so you can come back, maps out levels and what you've seen on them, and auto-price identifies things you pick up.
There's a rudimentary plugin system so you can write your own extensions (more coming soon).
Delta used to have an awesome frontend for Timatic (the system that all of the airlines use for determining their own liability in visa requirement issues) that I used exclusively. Sadly, it seems they've removed it from their new site.
I was able to find a similar offering[1] for free on Gulf Air's site, though.
A nice frontend to Timatic would be awesome, but I suspect that the licensing is too pricey...
Hypothetically, I wonder if there would be legal issues with running a bot to scrape data from Gulf Air's page. They don't seem to have a ToS which prohibits it, as far as I can tell; and I would expect the data itself to be non-copyrightable.
I haven't looked closely at it, but if Timatic are held liable for the accuracy and ultimately responsible (assuming litigation), it might be justified.
By "Take control of..." you mean "act with the permissions of the app", I assume? I can't see how Angry Birds the app would ever have full control over my Facebook account unless there's a catastrophic vuln. in the Facebook API.
As an American living in Sydney: I've found it to be exactly the opposite. Sure there's a ton of coffee places, but mostly they're the same crappy $4.00 burnt roast. I suspect Melbourne is probably better, but I haven't had enough coffee there to confirm.
My speculation is that this is due to a general lack of hip/divy/young "artisan" cafes/restaurants in Australia (yes, yes, I know there are some, I'm talking purely about prevalence) compared with "hip" American cities. This is particularly true outside of the hip parts of town (Surrey Hills, mostly).
US coffee quality depends greatly on which city you're in, and the barista being a cool job is true in many places as well. The Pacific Northwest (Portland, Seattle -- despite the Starbucks black mark) has really amazing coffee shops, and they're everywhere. If you're ever in Portland, I highly suggest Barista -- http://baristapdx.com/ -- it will change your life.
I have lived in Sydney a long time. I agree. Most of it is not that good. But everywhere you go there is usually at least 1 place that you can count on.
Without exploring/understanding a problem space, how would you propose the formation of solutions occur?
Moreover, you're ignoring that to get corrective action against entrenched financial/economic incentives requires overwhelming proof of a problem and public sympathy.
> Americans have the optimism and energy of youth, but they're also comparatively unsophisticated.
Aside from the obvious ambiguities of what defines sophistication of a culture: It feels like you're begging the question to me. "Americans are unsophisticated because they're a young culture so they're unsophisticated..."
Moreover I think suggesting that an entire culture is full of optimism and youth because it's only 300 some-odd years old strikes me quite sweeping. The modern nation state is barely as old, and it's not as if Americans don't have some cultural heritage that goes back much further than that.
I didn't have a because in there. What I said was that Americans seem unsophisticated but energetic and optimistic, and that since all those qualities are associated with youth, you could compress them into one statement by saying American culture felt young.
Nor did I say that American culture has this quality of youthfulness because the US is a comparatively young country. In fact that seems unlikely to be the cause, because there are younger countries that don't have it.
I see your point, re-reading your original post. The phrase "young culture", to me, carries a heavy emphasis of literal age.
Ultimately -- and semantic quibbling aside -- I think you're right that American culture is (and by extension, typical Americans are) particularly energetic and optimistic.
I'm not sure I agree with unsophisticated, unless you mean "less formal".
Yeah. How can the US be exporting more culture than any other country, yet, have less of it? Something doesnt add up.
There is lots of influencal US culture. From rap to mcdonalds. We may look down upon it now, but all of tat will age into cherished cultural relics when they stop being relevant.
I think the point the OP wanted to make, is that the US has less dead culture, compared to say Europe.
Europeans (and Chinese, etc.) have a lot more historical culture. Entire large and well-documented civilizations which have passed. US culture is basically independent of pre-Colombian American culture, and most pre-Colombian cultures are badly documented and understood compared to the Greeks, Romans, various Chinese dynasties, etc.
You might also consider various fine arts to be "dead", in that their peak point has passed. Not sure if I'd argue that, but it's clearer to argue that specific schools of art meet that definition. e.g. I don't think anyone will surpass Bach in organ music.
Modern European culture isn't the part that's dead, it's that there are also "dead" cultural artifacts in Europe, while the US was basically a clean slate. That's a plus for Europe in some ways, but in some ways actually helps the US -- having to create everything from scratch, taking the best (well, maybe) of other cultures, is itself interesting. Look at Singapore for another example.
So pretty much the most Christian developed country in the world is free of what you term 'Pre-Columbian' culture?
Christianity is a fusion of Greek, Roman and Jewish thought.
The founding fathers of the US were profoundly Christian. Their politics of the day was largely what made sense to ex-British subjects. The revolution of 1688 affects the US vastly.
US political systems were created built on thousands of years of European History. Prior to 1492 US history is European History.
The US has altered and changed the ideals and beliefs that the people who founded it started with but it was not a Blank Slate.
Just because Jerusalem and Rome are not in Ohio it doesn't mean they affect the US any less than they do Sweden.
I meant that the Aztecs, Maya, Inca, and other Native Americans are largely irrelevant to how US culture developed (which is I think your point), not that US culture is independent of everything which happened before Europeans came to the US.
"Pre-Columbian American culture" being that of the various Native Americans, not of the world in general pre-Columbus.
(I wish I could s/Colombian/Columbian; so easy to get those confused in various contexts)
I'm guessing the dead is as in deadweight --not contributory. For example, royalty and its traditions, its cultural baggage. The British still endure what's called "the Norman yoke". That is the Normas took over a culture and imposed it on the locals. This resulted in a sharp divide between the rulers (initially foreign royals) and locals (now landless and considered lower class commoners). This division is entrenched in British culture to this day.
Well, everything from any of the previous empires, for starters.
I dont mean to suggest Europe has little culture, but unlike the states, it also has a lot of dead culture. Culture that may still inform our identity, and of which relics and remainders are embedded in the fabric of everything. Yet it is dead culture: most of us not even capable of imaging how life would be in such a culture.
