The appendix is interesting because I have noticed that a lot. I think it might be because I'm on mostly American sites but it seems like any sort of "why can't we do this in America?" always has some sort of explanation why not. No one ever considers that the answer is "we could, actually, if someone chooses to do it". For instance, gigabit fibre in San Francisco was this impossible task if you ever asked someone. It would cost too much, SF is too old a city to trench, America is too big, etc.
In practice, all it took was a dude called Dane Jasper deciding that the barriers were mostly regulatory and he could beat it and boom! Sonic covers so much of the city in $60/mo symmetric fiber. I think people will still explain why it's impossible in SF.
Occasionally, and I am saddened that I haven't bookmarked these for later amusement, someone will ask "Why can't we do X here?" and people will come up with an explanation for why X would never work in America, etc. while I'll be sitting experiencing X here.
Perhaps that's the thing. Human beings have a very natural status quo bias and we have a very quick explain-why-this-is bias. So if you tell someone that Y is the case, they can come up with a posteriori explanations. But that's why good science is hard: you have to make a priori claims and then subject to hypothesis testing. And in normal conversation that is really hard.
I don't claim to be immune to this. But knowing it is a flaw is a better position than not knowing, I hope.
> In practice, all it took was a dude called Dane Jasper deciding that the barriers were mostly regulatory and he could beat it and boom! Sonic covers so much of the city in $60/mo symmetric fiber. I think people will still explain why it's impossible in SF.
It often is impossible to get past the regulatory burdens in SF, although sometimes it's just because the supervisors ask you for bribes.
In practice, all it took was a dude called Dane Jasper deciding that the barriers were mostly regulatory and he could beat it and boom! Sonic covers so much of the city in $60/mo symmetric fiber. I think people will still explain why it's impossible in SF.
Occasionally, and I am saddened that I haven't bookmarked these for later amusement, someone will ask "Why can't we do X here?" and people will come up with an explanation for why X would never work in America, etc. while I'll be sitting experiencing X here.
Perhaps that's the thing. Human beings have a very natural status quo bias and we have a very quick explain-why-this-is bias. So if you tell someone that Y is the case, they can come up with a posteriori explanations. But that's why good science is hard: you have to make a priori claims and then subject to hypothesis testing. And in normal conversation that is really hard.
I don't claim to be immune to this. But knowing it is a flaw is a better position than not knowing, I hope.