pigeonburger
2d ago
In West, we seem to be much more capable of keeping large protests under control without too much violence and death.
There's a difference in how existential for the regime protests are in regions like that vs in countries that have been stable for over a century are.
In the West, even a riot is mostly just the population trying to convince the government it's totes mad enough to take to the streets. Look at Jan 6th, even if they take one of the seats of government they just don't know what to do with it, they end up taking a tour of the place, it's cute. For many/most governments in the middle east, latin america, africa, even eastern europe, rioting is within living memory how your or your neighboring country's government got the job, so it's taken a bit more seriously. If a middle eastern riot takes its capitol, you can expect a lot worse than stealing a pedestal.
What makes it true or not is how healthy the competition and the market is. A company that only did this to extract more money from each sale would find itself having a hard time finding buyers compared to cheaper competitors. Companies that offer a genuinely good deal don't do it from the goodness of their heart, they do it because it's also a valid business strategy to aim at making a larger number of sales with a lower profit margin.
The issue with price discrimination is that instead of both parties capturing some excess value from the trade, one party captures almost all the excess value, while the other captures epsilon (as in, just enough to make the trade worthwhile, but no more).
In the case of "signaling" addons, it's quite possible that both the car manufacturer and the customer are happier with price discrimination. After all, the point of signaling is that you're showing everyone you paid for something expensive because you have money. If it was cheaper, or if it was available on every trim, that exclusive paint color or colored stitching the rich person paid for wouldn't be useful to signal how rich he is.
Yes, that's the plan. I'm planning on moving to a city next to a paddleable river this year, I want to practice in that river this summer, and then in autumn do a weekend trip not necessarily a trip down a river where I'd camp along the way, I'm also looking at campgrounds next to scenic paddleable lakes for daytrips.
pigeonburger
4d ago
I'm currently looking to get into canoeing as a hobby, inspired by tales and aesthetics of it from preceding eras, and I'm very afraid that I'm about to arrive into a hobby that had all the discovery and enjoyment (for me) optimized out of it. People are already reporting that national parks have to be reserved at the opening of the season if you want to have a chance to get a camping spot. My plan to avoid this is to use my contrarian superpower to look for under-optimised strategies. Everyone's reflex when it comes to these things is to go to national parks, maybe I should look at private camp grounds? Or at hunting/fishing lands, which do regulate the recreational use in a different scheme than national parks.
pigeonburger
4d ago
The steelman of price discrimination is that it enables a lower floor to a product's price than if it had to offer a single price point, which helps accessibility. It can even be good, in that the people who overpay for a few extras (especially for stuff like "color stitching" on seats or other visual upgrades which are pretty much just signaling that they could afford to pay for a fancy trim) are subsidizing the product for the people who get the cheaper ones. That if you made it illegal and that all cars had to have only one trim, it'd be a middle trim, it'd be more expensive than the current middle trim and the people who could only afford the base trim now just can't buy it anymore.
pigeonburger
6d ago
He's not actually saying anything about invading allies, what happens is that he mentions he'd like something that's a long shot, journalists jump to ask "is a military intervention ruled out?" and then he (or a surrogate) answers "nothing is ruled out" because the administration doesn't want to play or discard cards in their hand because of some jackass journalists. And the circus of "he's planning to invade an ally!" starts.
pigeonburger
6d ago
and the EU seems to be taking it seriously.
I don't think that means anything. There's political capital to win for western politicians in being the one who's most against or opposite Trump, and that's easier if you interpret everything he says in the least charitable, most unhinged way. We saw the same here in Canada, a certain defeat for the liberals was flipped by the media acting like Trump is seriously planning to invade.
It's not exactly multiplayer in that sense, but I suggest taking a look at Death Stranding. The game's main theme is how cooperation is better than isolation, and the gameplay is tuned to deliver that message. When you first enter a region, the game forces you through a painful slog with pretty much no help from other players. Then slowly as you do deliveries for NPCs in the area the game allows more and more player built infrastructure in your game. When you use someone's infrastructure you can spam "likes" on it, which the creator of the infrastructure might see; those do essentially nothing (not completely but pretty much) except convey your gratitude. Eventually, you'll find yourself building roads or zipline networks through regions you don't have to stay in anymore because you just want to be helpful.
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