santiagogo

It just shows how bad of a person she is. She is having kids because _she_ wants to have them, even though she knows it will hard for them growing up. Putting herself before her kids even before they are born is pretty shitty parenting.

The fun and, the status and the power come from controlling wealth to build or do things. As soon as you limit control, it stops being fun and they stop generating value.

If you think 100 million dollar houses are egregious, you could try to make building them illegal. But then they'll just buy one in another country, or a yacht, or something similar.

A lot of this is why capitalism works.

As an ex-smoker I think the same and that's what actually made it harder to quit for me.

Smoking forces you to find open air spaces, is relaxing and induces slow breathing. In some ways it's a form of meditation. Other times it forces social spaces with other smokers in which you have to ask for a ligher and you have a conversation starter.

A nice practice with a terrible health outcome.

Same here. Rushed to the hospital after two nights of not sleeping from the back pain and chills at end of Feb. First time I've ever taken an injection for pain relief.

Number of hours worked is not equal to production or richness of a society.

Productivity equals production.

A small team of engineers who design and create a machine to build brick walls en masse, could have the same productivity as hundreds of thousands of bricklayers working 16 hours a day.

A good example of this are Silicon valley, Singapore or New York, which are small social groups that have more economic and social output than most countries with a much larger population.

To be more productive and have a richer and better quality of life (richer is not necessarily more quality of life), it's generally more efficient and sustainable to have better education and social conditions for workers, than to exploit them.

Unfortunately (I am South American) I think you are wrong. Some of the most prolific serial killers have been South Smerican, but serial killers are not such a popular topic on the news here so it's not as widely known.

I would think it's also logical that serial killers tend to focus on women and children because they are generally easier to overpower than another male. There is probably also a sexual component to killing and I would guess that most serial killers tend to be heterosexual, hence why they mostly target women.

For reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serial_killers_by_numb...

Honestly I don’t think he cares/understands that much, but he’s pretty excited about the coworking trend in general and thinks it’s not going away.

I know one landlord who rented several buildings to them and he understands the risks perfectly, but says the price per sq/ft he's getting paid is so good that even if they blow up within 3 years it's still a great deal.

To some extent wealth and the comfort you can buy with it does reduce dependence on others and can help someone become isolated, since you don’t need help or favors and don’t need to engage in reciprocal social activities, since you can just pay for things. It doesn’t necessarily cause isolation, but it definitely helps someone who intentionally or unintentionally want to become socially isolated.

My mom has done it with my help. From what I've seen, it's a bit more profitable than renting out directly, but also very time consuming (especially cleaning and housekeeping). If you factor in the time it takes to manage the Airbnb it probably isn't much more profitable than regular renting, unless you manage a large number of Airbnb's or have a large amount of free time and enjoy the whole hosting thing, like my mom who is retired and loves meeting tourists.

I would also add that the city and location probably influence the economics and profitability of it a lot.

We like the idea of technology improving our quality of life because as a civilization it's worked for us spectacularly so far. Driverless cars are appealing because they build on top of a transportation solution that already works, reducing the problems and externalities of it, without requiring us to completely overhaul the way we build cities and live which could take decades. When half of the world lives in remote or insecure areas, driving vs public transport is not a lazy lifestlye choice like eating poorly. Autonomous cars will also bring about a lot of new use cases which could improve public transport design, reach and usage, like driving you to a metro station which has no parking in the morning and picking you up in the afternoon.

I sell SAAS to banks. Here are some tips for selling to large CO's I've picked up in the process:

1. Get your foot in the door with a small deal. Try and close a small deal, sell them a pilot, a three month trial or sell a small component and then grow your way in. Closing a large deal from the start is close to impossible.

2. When you have an entry point, get several members of the management team on board. As BostonEnginerd mentions, demo and network to everyone you can and try and get them on board. Executives at large established CO's tend to be risk averse even if they have decision making power, so they will try to shield their decisions as part of a team evaluation result.

3. Be prepared for a very long sales cycle. Some of the best deals will take really, really long to close. Work on as many leads as possible so you don't get demoralized if one doesn't come out and keep emailing them even if you haven't heard from them in six months.

4. Be persistent. Even if they desperately need your product, sometimes large CO's are so bogged down in bureaucracy and day to day operations that it will take them a long time to fit you in their agendas.

5. Large CO's suffer from severe FOMO. Use this to your advantage, show them a competitor who is doing something similar. Even if it's a test 8 time zones away, this will definitely shake them up.

As for your product. A successful early warning system for disease should be easy to sell to a large health insurance company which could potentially save millions or billions from preventing insurance claims. It could also be possible to sell it to an established software vendor in the health care industry.

Which do you recommend? I work with custom solutions for banks which a lot of times include fraud prevention services from third parties, so I'm consistently benchmarking for better alternatives.

Metro Manila also felt very much like that when I was there (except for the crime). I wanted to leave almost as soon as I landed. He probably got some inspiration from his country's capital.

I started suffering from exercise induced asthma last year. It sucks, but I've found that with good nutrition, using the correct medications and trying to stay in a clean air environment (air cleanser, HEPA mask, etc), it's very manageable. There is a lot of good recent research out there on how to manage it, but I've noticed that most asthma sufferers and doctors are not even aware of it.

Well, to be fair, leveraged buyouts can be a useful tool to take over a company when there is a bad management team or an opportunity to generate a synergy when it is bought by another player in the same segment. For example this was recently the case with Dell and Hilton.

But generally the high amount of leverage implies aggressive cost cutting, which negatively impacts the employees and in some cases R&D, which in turn means risking the future sustainability of the company for short term profits.

If you're interested in the topic, "Barbarians at the Gate" is a great book to understand the in and outs of LBO's. The writing style also makes it fun to read.

It’s a big country, so it really depends a lot on which city you live in and and what you consider a normal house. It ranges from $20,000 USD for a rural house near a small town to $150,000 for a 2-3 bedroom apartment in Bogota which is the capital.

Since a couple years back, we have a 1% tax on wealth in Colombia, which applies to anyone who has above approx. 330,000 USD in assets

I don't think it has disincentivated anybody from becoming less wealthy and/or working less. It just incentivizes tax evasion, but even that is not significant.

On the other hand, a large number of social programs have been built around this new tax. Anybody in the country could get cancer and would get free decent healthcare.

What I would see as problematic is that picking and choosing parts of globalization would probably involve limiting the development of technology, commerce, and in some cases limiting free speech. And depending on the restrictions put in place to limit it, it could end up becoming sort of a global discrimination program which leads up to social conflict or even a war. There is also a conflicting part in your statement, where if for example the US took a 10% hit in GDP, it would in real terms mean that unemployment would double or triple, education, health and the base of society in general would take a huge hit, besides loosing global military and economic leadership, probably leading to huge political instability which lead to less control and more uncertainty (which could give space for a dictatorship, an internal war or a slew of other social problems). Economic growth is sort of like a drug, because once you have a society hooked up and dependent on it, if you take it away cold turkey, everything else that society has built will come crashing.

Completely agree. As someone who lives in a developing country, it always seems funny to me how there is frequently a distorted view in developed countries of how globalization should work, where they get all the upsides but none of the competition.

Everybody loves the idea of selling in a global market, but few realize that with globalization there are more opportunities, but also that they will have to work harder, study more and be more creative to compete for businesses, jobs and assets, with billions of people who previously had little to no opportunities, but who are willing to put in a lot of effort to compete for a share of the global marketplace. The trickiest part is that with technology and education, globalization is inevitable in the long term, no matter what politicians do or think.

From my view, sometimes it looks hypocritical when people from developed countries criticize the local 1% and the rigged system and unfair privilege that keep rich people rich, but then demand and expect that they get those same advantages on a country wide level, without realizing that they are simply defending the global 1% because it benefits/affects them directly.

Hmm, your comment is actually kind of funny because the cool looking Ruta N building he mentions, in which the conference has held, is located right in the center of a slum, where it was intentionally built (like most big public works in Medellin) to actually make the city more inclusive by mixing people from different backgrounds in these spaces. It's a bit disturbing that you speak with such property when you have no notion of what you are taking about. I'd be very careful before extrapolating.

Building view for reference: http://static.iris.net.co/dinero/upload/images/2015/6/18/209...

There are 2 parts to it. Firstly, the guerrillas and narcos were heavily combated, thanks in part to Plan Colombia which was a collaboration with the US government to fight the criminal/drug dealing structures. This led to the narcos migrating to other regions and changing strategies (raw cocaine output wasn't reduced though) and to the guerrilla being weakened since most if it's long time leaders where killed, which in turn led them to peace negotiations and finally a very strange peace agreement (which the country voted against). All in all, we were very lucky to have two very successful executive administrations in a row. Secondly, the underlying problems leading to social conflict which are extreme rural poverty and inequality, have significantly diminished since 2002, with a close to 75% reduction in extreme poverty, thanks to economic growth. So as they say: growth solves nearly anything.

I agree with you, I'm Colombian and I think that the "No dar papaya"saying and mindset is terrible on so many levels. That mindset incentivizes distrust, cheating and exploitation of unfair advantages. I've personally thought about starting a movement called "Si dar papaya". I just haven't had much time to start it and no idea of where/how to begin.

A large amount of people disagree, but what has come out after the vote has shown than an even larger segment voted because they were intentionally lied to and confused about the actual contents of the agreements.

It was actually pretty funny, because the leader of the NO campaign gave an interview boasting about how they had successfully conned the country into thinking that gender ideology gay marriage and other subjects were being voted for with the agreements (they estimated that over 2mm evangelical christians voted No because of this), and how by lying on social media they managed to execute an incredibly cheap political campaign. He was removed as campaign leader the next day and the opposition quickly distanced themselves from him by pretending his role was minor, since he is also pending penal investigation and will probably go to jail, since under Colombian law intentionally lying to the electorate to change the outcome of an election is punishable by law.

This was the actual interview: http://www.larepublica.co/el-no-ha-sido-la-campa%C3%B1a-m%C3...

His new proposals do not include any significantly more punitive measures for the guerrillas, but rather seek more impunity by changing the transitional justice from an international tribunal overseeing a truth process, to a local secret tribunal with complete impunity for paramilitary leaders, business leaders and politicians who helped finance the both parties and took part in the drug trafficking that helped finance the war.

I like the fact that the article tries to be objective by recognizing that Uribe's government was of great value to the country, but that because of his overwhelming popularity as president he became entitled, arrogant and egocentric, and he has now become a spoke in the wheel for progress and peace in the country.

In addition to being corrupted by power, he has also surrounded himself with yes men who have led a Trump-like lie campaigns around the country (recognized by them) that led people to vote for No in the peace process, and is now demanding impossible concessions from the government and the guerrilla to try and stall the peace process until he or his party members are reelected into power (next presidential elections are less than a year and a half away), while leaving the country at huge risk of going back to guerrilla warfare, terrorism and political violence.

Thank you, this is by far the most insightful comment on this thread.

The peace agreements are imperfect and generate impunity, but it is the best possible tradeoff in exchange for long term wellbeing in the country, and Santos has successfully understood and negotiated under this premise, even though it has meant some huge compromises on his and the government's part. This is why he truly deserves the Nobel peace prize.

Unfortunately the opposition manipulated and lied about the contents of the 297 pages peace agreements (which the director of the opposition party openly recognized and for which he will probably go to jail for), and spread baseless claims that old people would lose their pensions, that communism would take over power and private property would be eliminated, which ultimately ended up in them winning the plebiscite.

But even after this big reversal Santos has not renounced to the presidency and is now negotiating with the opposition to see what modifications need to be done so that a peace deal with the guerrilla can finally be closed, coming to a 60 year division.

I also had it in Chile since a couple of months back and it worked very well for me. Had an Android phone which I won at a raffle and managed to sell it in 2 days after I listed it at discounted price.