Hi Brian! I just found an old comment. Hope all's well.

Would you say that pages supporting the Libyan rebels should be banned then?

I think it is actually possible to wire individual articles, pages etc on a site into the social graph so you can send news feed items to them. But I don't know the gory details.

I've found switching between 'everyone' and 'just interact with most' makes no difference. perhaps it's too soon in the new system. i'm surprised it affects both the News Feed and Most Recent modes, I always think of views like a particular story type or friend list as showing absolutely everything in that category.

You've clearly thought about this more than I realised, and I apologise for being snarky. But I think we're talking at cross-purposes. I thought you were just talking about New York City, San Francisco etc splitting off and becoming independent states, or perhaps one weird dispersed single state of separate cities. I'm sure if that were to happen, New York'd be expected and welcome to trade with America, buying power and food, just like all the other countries that can't fulfil their food and energy needs alone (like America, for example). You seem to be talking about it being not only legally separated from the US, but blockaded by the US, with trading banned, Cuba-style. That seems a bit harsh.

That's a fair point about industry and finance; of course, there's a chance an independent New York would lose its edge, though I must admit I can't see any reason why a formal political separation would cause it to do so. All the signs are that economic activity is becoming more and more based around regional urban clusters, often across international borders, like Seattle-Vancouver. I find the idea that being separated would have much effect on New York economically pretty unlikely. What's certain is that without having to subsidise the rest of the state, it'd have far more tax revenue to invest in its own infrastructure etc.

Obviously budget-wise, California is not exactly a 'win' for us, but that's because taxes are too low. With all the OC guys moving to Idaho to shack up with you lot, we'll be able to raise taxes back to a sane level and get the state functioning again.

Seriously. California is what, the world's sixth biggest economy or something? New York, the 16th? You really wouldn't want these?

Do you get that there's a difference between places being well-run and their governments being fiscally healthy, and places having healthy economies? You can have one without the other.

Re the coastal divide: yeah, that's an issue. We'd have to work on Indiana, Nebraska and Wyoming as well as Idaho, 'cause we'd need the connection with Chicago. To be honest, though, I think you'd end up with a country called California, incorporating Washington and Oregon, and developing a megacity running all the way up to Vancouver over time; then another country called America, running dominated by another megalopolis from DC up to Boston.

I'm assuming we get to be called America: I mean, we'd have most of the founding states, and probably most of the Spanish-speakers once you ban all immigration or whatever...

I'm not sure if you're familiar with capitalism, but it's where the money is, not where the food is grown, that matters. New York State's GDP is over $1 trillion; I assume that isn't primarily coming from Albany. Norman Mailer actually campaigned on a NYC 51st state ticket.

Yes, good point.

Offer NYC that right now, they'd bite your hand off. And the rest of the state'd starve.

I'm intrigued about this. Who would go where, geography-wise? Would you guys have the midwest and us the coasts? That wouldn't really work, would it? You could do it south-north, but quite a lot of latinos would have to move.

I think you need to consider the possibility that even with Alaska's and Texas' oil, your US would end up a bit of an economic basket case; we'd have New York, Boston, California...