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I've been to a handful of trailer parks with wonderful communities, and a lot of the people are not poor, just saving money, and stumbling upon community!

I'm also a nomad and have found that, with a little extra effort on my part (it helps that I'm extroverted and skilled with productivity apps), I can easily see many friends all over the world.

Also there was a study that found the reason some old folks lived super long in Italian towns is because of community.


Are there prospective studies on effects? Afaik it's just in vitro, and I wonder if our bodies have a natural mitigation mechanism that would allow up to a certain amount without harm. I'm just afraid of what I see as a trend to attribute small factors to big things that are caused by societal problems, etc.

Indeed. It reminds me of NNT's anti-GMO advocacy.

I read about a quiet little girl at school that turned out to know all the other kids (eg preferences) better than any other kid. The intro/extro dichotomy has been taken far in mainstream writing, and I think the author is addressing people that have gone too far in the introvert direction, or rather made it a permanent part of their personality.

Also, for those of you who are afraid of being judged when speaking, start by convincing yourself that other people have something interesting to teach you, then ask questions.


How does a quantum state travel through fiber? Does it simply maintain state naturally during the journey?

Light is remarkably good at keeping its polarization state intact for long distances through single mode fiber. At least historically, the main issues with doing quantum computation with light is that’s it’s hard to store light and hard to get one photon to interact with another one in a controlled manner.

(Polarization of a photon is a two-state quantum system, otherwise known as a qubit.)


Does that mean that an individual and unique photon travels the full distance from transmitter to receiver without interacting with anything?

That seems... really difficult. I'd always assumed fiber operates by continually absorbing and reemitting photons at low loss. Maybe I've fundamentally misunderstood optics.


Funny you mentioned Wal-Mart because they've already been providing support to an effective housing solution in the form of letting RVs stay in their parking lot.

I've come across many people that this type of housing seems to work quite well for. Of course, I wonder what might be the repercussions? Might require some oversight to prevent devolving into tent cities? But then again, I'm not personally aware of tent cities causing much harm (to anyone outside of the tent city)


RVs in the parking lot of Walmart is an effective housing solution? I think not.

Why not? It increases supply

An RV is better than nothing but they are not built for continuous use. An RV that is being lived in full time will start falling apart in a few years.

RVs can be repaired or replaced. And if the alternative is expensive enough, it's financially worthwhile to do so.

It's just the least insane option in an insane world.


It increases the supply of blight, perhaps.

I mean would you rather have RVs or tents on sidewalks?

Many of those in lower quality housing have jobs. The service workers and whatnot in every community have to live somewhere.


Neither. Raise taxes and have the government build decent houses.

that has zero realistic chance of happening in the US. Even repealing the Faircloth amendment that limits public housing stock is not broadly popular.

And these days all housing providers, whether for-profit, non-profit, or public, are running into the same issues with zoning, financing, rising costs, etc.


The wal-mart RV parking thing is intended for one night, for people who are on a journey.

It is not in any way shape or form a 'housing solution'


Plenty of Walmarts have signs posted that prohibit overnight parking

It’s typically due to local laws. Sometimes it is straight up zoning, but often projects on the scale of a Walmart have to be negotiated.

18 wheelers on the parking lot fringes are a good indication that parking overnight is ok even if the signs say no.


Years ago after some terrible things happened to a friend, she was "diagnosed" by a social worker in Los Angeles as schizophrenic and prescribed (I think it was abilifi). I called bullshit, so she skipped the drugs and has never had another "episode" (because that terrible thing that happened didnt happen again!)

A friend's son was about to be diagnosed Schizophrenic after more than a few nights broken sleep due to night-horrors. Fortunately his Mum could recognise schizophrenia and she managed to get sleeping pills prescribed (with much difficulty) instead of antipsychotics and he got back to normal over a few days with a few nights good sleep.

I don't think a doctor would work off of a social workers diagnosis, but I don't know LA. I have personally talked with the Attending Dr. at two of SF's psychiatric wards and they were emphatically opposed to making any kind of schizophrenic or even bipolar diagnosis for a patient without a significant history of psychotic episodes.

Makes complete sense to me. Drugs are an effective distraction because they're easy to use and often fast-acting. Outdoor/sport distractions require effort (driving, etc). Video games require much less effort. Add to that less-trivial things like investing and research, and you've got the perfect "addiction"

There are games designed to be addicting. Some even have gambling built in. Technology is just a tool.

I think your first paragraph nails it. I find the "Satori to Silicon Valley" concept plausible in the sense that when experts (who study their subject for years without psychedelics) use psychedelics it could accelerate lateral/outside-the-box thinking. The rub is that I've seen a lot of people talk a lot but achieve nothing while doing much larger amounts of psychedelics over much longer periods of time. To me this clearly shows that psychedelics are at best a minor tool (and only to those that dedicate themselves to a specific endeavor). I agree there's a place for it, but the annoying thing about funding it as research is that laymen will run with it as if psychedelics by themselves simply improves life. I don't think this is true.

Agree. I nomad, and about 6 years ago I saw my last TV without an HDMI input. And only once in that time, I came across a DP monitor. I now carry a USB-C to HDMI cable that lets me use my phone as a desktop whenever it's plugged into a TV.

Does this also have something to do with Vietnam being mostly robusta?


Nope.

Robusta is the primary choice across much of Asia. Vietnamese are heavy coffee consumers (so the domestic market is strong) and VNese coffee is cost-competitive in Japan and SK due to FTAs.

Furthermore, for historical reasons Robusta cultivars tend to be very popular across Asia (just like the Phin or Filter Coffee - the metal apparatus for drip coffee is part of the Colonial Era exchange across Asia - or chicory coffee mix)

It's just about money. Too many farmers entered the coffee industry in the 1990s and 2000s as it was the cash crop of choice back then, and there are a handful of larger wholesalers who cornered purchasing.

Nuts make way more money than coffee because of better margins and lower cost of inputs. A lot of this is also driven by Food Processors, as VN cornered the nut processing market (eg. most nuts from sub-Saharan countries like Côte d'Ivoire get exported to VN for processing) so there was excess capacity.


    > most nuts from sub-Saharan countries like Côte d'Ivoire get exported to VN for processing
Wow, that is crazy to think about. Exporting from one developing country to another -- on the other side of the planet, no less! Why can't Côte d'Ivoire do the processing themselves? That sounds like a great business opportunity. GDP per capita is about 30% lower in Côte d'Ivoire, so labour costs might also be cheaper.


> Why can't Côte d'Ivoire do the processing themselves?

Capital.

Historically, Asian LDCs like Vietnam and Cambodia have had access to Japanese and Korean development loans and grants which allowed for businesses to build and innovate.

Most Sub-Saharan economies did not have those kinds of capital markets.

Depending on where you are in Africa, the Gulf, Turkey, India, and China have stepped in to fill the capital gap, but they tend to be much more extractive in their terms.


Maybe it's similar to the "Grown in Argentina, packed in Thailand, sold in USA" pears issue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aH3ZTTkGAs


>Why can't Côte d'Ivoire do the processing themselves?

Their civil war ended in 2010, Vietnam's in 1970-s


this was likely due to the French whose coffee was traditionally robusta from their African territories, they almost certainly introduced coffee to Vietnam when they held it.


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