> Why should Mahathir get to call his country "poor" relative to China...?
A simple answer may be aggregates matter when it comes to country-to-country comparisons. A country's companies and government get 'strength' from the aggregate first.
This doesn't make sense at all. So are you saying that India or China is more developed than Singapore because their aggregate "strength" whatever that means is greater than Singapore?
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I didn't even use the word 'developed'. Nice try. ;)
I simply mean if you are comparing countries, you need to look at aggregate figures, such as total GDP or market size or population. If one country has lower GDP than another, you could say it is "poor" on that basis, even if per capita GDP (a dis-aggregated figure) were higher.
Taking your example, simply by population size and aggregate GDP and therefore ability to spend on military, India and China ARE stronger than Singapore.
I spend long hours staring at the screen, I need a dark theme for eyesight preserving reasons. I had a dark theme on OSX until Apple decided to give a massive middle finger to the theming scene when they released El Capitain. The built-in dark mode just doesn't cut it. Yet another reason I'm glad im on Windows now.
While this is entirely unethical, it is an amazing business decision if they get away with it without any harm to their reputation. I wonder if they reputation risks were considered when they rolled out this "feature". It's a good example for Bruce Schneier to add to the next edition of "Liars & Outliers: Enabling the Trust that Society Needs to Thrive".
I've spent some time thinking about basic income. At times arguing for it, other times arguing against it.
Unfortunately we cannot resolve the scarcity problem, particularly when it comes to real estate, i.e. the location one chooses to reside. There is a simple physical constraint: only one thing can occupy a specific space at a time. Cities in general are popular places to live because of their proximity to "things", the Arts and that interesting stuff happens where more people can collaborate in the real world. (Consider the demand to be close to your child's school or near a dog park.)
Given this (assumption if you will), let's consider a few rounds of economic cause/effect. Round 1: if everyone were given a basic income, many more people will be able to afford to live in a city. Round 2: not all people, but some, will seek housing (rent or buy) in this city. Round 3: owners will need to choose between [1] renting/selling at current price for which there is suddenly higher demand or [2] increasing their price until there is less demand. Round 4: most owners choose option [2] and excess income begins to be sucked up by higher and higher prices.
The issue is basic income increases the demand (perhaps good for today's global economic ailments) while supply of goods/housing will take time to adjust. Of course, given the opportunity to sell apartments in a city at higher margins will cause developers to build new supply, but this takes years.
One way to deal with the supply/demand issue is having a basic income that starts low ($100 a month?) and increases to a basic living wage over the course of 5 years. This way, investments can be planned ahead of time so supply increases with demand.
This is the basic flaw that everyone seems to be missing. Cost of living will just rise to meet the increase in demand resulting in no one except private landowners being any better off. Henry George identified the solution over 100 years ago. Basic income requires something like the Henry George land-value tax to be successful. At the same time, a land-value tax would also be the best way to raise funds for a universal basic income.
Like it says in the video, it's mostly a business decision. All the companies in the top list are customer/user facing, while Amazon's AWS is not customer facing at all. It's about the customer's impression of the platform they are interacting with on a daily basis (presumably not Linkedin). Standing up with Apple on this issue shows their users they are (also) serious about their privacy.
Turn the tables for a second:
What would the US do if a foreign government had access to their citizens' information?
Would it become an issue of nationalism to use your own country's homegrown smart phone, browser, social network, etc?
"Apple had asked the FBI to issue application for iPhone passcode cracking tool under seal, but government made it public, prompting Tim Cook's public remarks"[1]
so no, apple doesn't really have the security of user in mind, it's just turning this on its head and putting up a show
OSX example: Even 7 years ago Little Snitch on OSX was reporting to me every Apple App was trying to establish a connection home every time I opened it.
I just blocked it and didn't bother to inspect the packets.
The hack needed an extra rooted android phone and a special 'helper' app. It also took advantage of the subsidy they give new users and the driver for new users. (I have no idea if this has been patched)
Another subsidy I heard about gave about $1000 per week if you had over 80 rides. $4000 dollar subsidy a month goes a long way in China.
It really blows my mind that people think this is a sustainable business. Even after you out-spend the competition, who's stopping someone from downloading a new app from a new service? I've seen users in China blast all ride apps at once and just take the first one to arrive. Subsidies won't buy loyalty.
A simple answer may be aggregates matter when it comes to country-to-country comparisons. A country's companies and government get 'strength' from the aggregate first.