I don't know if Despommier suggests this, but mightn't his idea make more sense if the towers were used for growing things like mushrooms?

I agree he's full of shit, but to be fair, that was one of Pinker's relatively few factual examples. I think it was good form on Gladwell's part to address only facts and not Pinker's thesis.

I feel bad when I get downvoted because I respect the opinions of other people on HN and they tend to use their downvotes pretty responsibly.

I don't think upvotes are quite as meaningful, though.

I doubt there's an example of a monarchy anyone would seriously want to move to, but Medieval Iceland was a fine example of a funstioning anarchy: for longer than the United States has existed they had aterritorial, voluntary government by gothar (sort of kind of like chieftans, also sort of kind of like lawyers) who competed to provide people with governing services.

> I doubt there's an example of a monarchy anyone would seriously want to move to

You doubt that people wanted to move to the old European monarchies? Even if we're only talking about the present, I'm not a fan, but there are plenty of people who would love to move to the UAE.

I suppose you're right. I shouldn't have said "anyone." But I don't think there's any example of a good monarchy.

But Milton, you forgot Milton. I'm reading Paradise Lost. Maybe it is one of those things you're supposed to read, but it's genuinely really good. Like,

"to be weak is miserable doing or suffering: but of this be sure, to do aught good never will be our task, but ever to do ill our sole delight"

In my case it means the latter.

I don't understand. Have you actually read it? Where does he say anything about sticking it to the man, touching and feeling, or being special?

I assume you think progress is good and the world is right, but you haven't explained why.

You're being very dismissive.

I think his message was mostly about how he is more free to use his time as he chooses, which seems like a noble goal to me, although I have my doubts about how well "dropping out" as he has done accomplishes this.

Also, calling the statement "property is theft" a meme does not make it untrue.

Wouldn't it make more sense to downvote either to eliminate spam/noise or to signal disagreement? I'm all for stoning spammers, but I think it's more constructive to write a response if you disagree with someone.

Sometimes a response is not worth writing.

If people make reasonable (and even to your knowledge correct) arguments for X, then someone replies to say nothing more than "X is wrong/bad/inefficient" with no counter-argument or evidence, why answer that? If someone makes a bigoted remark (anti-gay, anti-American, whatever), why answer that? If someone's trying to drag a discussion off-topic, why answer that?

The answer is "I don't have to write an answer." You have a channel for expressing a reaction, and just as it's unnecessary to write "That's so right!" replies instead of up-voting, it's unnecessary to give gratuitous replies instead of down-voting.

The teams thing might be an interesting idea.

But doesn't "structure with incentives, accountability, clear lines of authority, and very tangible goals" pretty much describe a typical classroom, and doesn't a typical classroom suck?

If you by structure and incentives you mean do this work or you fail, and by clear lines of authority you mean the teacher is right and if by very tangible goals you mean telling the student that getting an A on this test will mean you have the chance of getting a job after getting about 1000 more As on these tests.

Then yes, but making school into a game where people work together(ie not just alone) you drive accountability, incentives to work, and a very tangible result when the team pulls it together.

I worked there for three summers. During my first two summers for the most part all the campers were on one level of authority, then they'd answer to the assistant counselors who would answer to me. It was a very flat organization.

My third summer I created a structure where every 5 "first summer" campers would report to 1 "second summer" camper and form a "squad." Every 3 squads then reported to a "third summer" camper and formed a "platoon." The two platoons formed a company and reported to the best third summer camper that week, who reported to the counselors.

Then we pitted the squads against eachother in room inspections, sports, percentage of members who had dates to the weekly dance, shower frequency, all sorts of weird stuff. We collected a crapload of data on the squads and posted it up publicly where they could all track it.

The winning squad each week got a big rock that I painted green. The counselors and I sold it to the campers as an old camp award that had been unfairly forgotten by previous counselors. The squad leader could keep it in his room for the week after his squad won it.

Results:

1. The kids worked a lot harder at the things we were grading them on.

2. They spent a lot more time talking to each other and less time talking to the counselors.

3. They generally became more proficient at all of these tasks.