This is analogous to an elevator that’s unidirectional

One that lets people enter. We will figure out exiting later, with exiting on a different floor as a stretch goal.

Or just a paternoster

A lot of field studies on chimpanzees also indicate similar behavior (ie taking care of former leaders after they aged out of their prime)

The Persian Gulf would be a goldmine for this.

Surprisingly the Persian Gulf is likely the exact opposite scenario. Modern research suggests that ancient likes like Ur were likely on the coastline while modern Basra would have been totally submerged. In most of the world the post glacial trend has pushed the coastline in but in the Persian gulf the trend points the other way. There is the possibility that the reason that Iraq is such a gold mine for archeological sites is because it is one of the rare places where the sea went the other way.

I think we are undercounting how much silt gets deposited by major river systems over millenia. The ruins of Lothal, which was a Harappan port city contemporary with Ur are pretty far inland as well. Who knows? Maybe Giza was closer to the coast and was part of a major Nilotic coastal metropolis

Persian gulf is just silt being deposited increasing the coastlines. Plenty of other river systems are doing that too.

My thoughts exactly.

In physical environments where people are bombarded with low-information “noise”, gatekeeping (ie credentialism) emerges as a natural mechanism.

Could this lead to a situation where user agents also need to have their identities verified with a certificate authority the way websites do?

We'll be back to attestation in the browser (like Google's still-as-of-yet failed WEI proposal). It's coming.

All this needs is a song that starts immediately playing when this loads in your browser and you have a full nostalgia trip

i built this but could not get to stream it properly so removed it before deployment. my local version plays a playlist when this loads in the browser and its a party

Bell Labs like orgs can only exist within companies that are protected by a rock solid moat (ie ATT monopoly)

And a willingness to allow open ended exploration of wide of problems, combined with putting together all kinds of experts. Plenty of companies have this moat now but aren't willing to leave thins as open ended.

Sadly our academic institutions and how they are funded by the govt is also hyper focused with grants and goals required to "prevent waste" and require specific results - serving as blinders to wifer ranging exploitation

And those loosey goosey accountants.

Modern companies are under much tighter control.

Kinda of agree. There are some research places funded by private donation, such as Simons Foundation. Wonder if those are properly managed to attract the right people ...

and a ton of government cash doesn't hurt either. Post war science boom was nearly all funded from government grants that have mostly dried up and are extinct under Trump, its why America started falling behind post Reagan.

From across the pond, no they don't, even if the government redistributes much more money from the GDP.

Government funding tends to have a problem with bureaucratic overreach, the need to persuade committees mostly composed of old ossified has-beens, and the need to produce papers at any cost to "prove" you are not slacking off.

France redistributes over 50 per cent of domestic GDP. It has some scientific successes (as measured, say, by Nobel Prizes), but not dramatically more than other comparably developed countries.

As opposed to sex workers in other countries?

This article has a “every 60 seconds in Africa, a minute passes”

or “In Japanese culture, killing someone is frowned upon” vibe to it.

The article is in a "South Asia" category, the author seems to be based in New Delhi and all the people interviewed in the article are based in India.

Seems it would be irresponsible for the author to draw any conclusions about things outside of India when the focus of the article is in India. I don't think the article seems to claim that this doesn't happen elsewhere, but at least they've verified it is happening in India.

So was Europe. However, most European countries have not grown much since then. 2008 is an important year in divergence between the two

Paying people to alter historical genealogy records to hide caste origin was a fairly common practice in India, especially by new kings.