The End of Weather Forecasting | Hacker News Reader

The End of Weather Forecasting

thinc.blog

122 pointsnickcotter97 comments

It literally was scripted already in the Project 2025[0]:

They said exactly what was going to happen, all pre-planned, and anyone is surprised that it is happening?

To be clear - FUCK Project 2025 and especially FUCK anyone messing with NOAA/NWS.

And if you think I'm exaggerating:

"Focus the NWS on Commercial Operations. Each day, Americans rely on weather forecasts and warnings provided by local radio stations and colleges that are produced not by the NWS, but by private companies such as AccuWeather. Studies have found that the forecasts and warnings provided by the private companies are more reliable than those provided by the NWS."

[0] https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_CHA...

"Break Up NOAA"

And even the companies who are supposed to provide this “cheaper and more accurate“ vehemently object to it:

https://www.accuweather.com/en/press/accuweather-does-not-su...

WTF is that press release. It says that "AccuWeather does not support Project 2025 Plan to fully commercializing NWS operations" and that "NOAA has critical role in American Weather Enterprise", but then it follows by basically saying "NOAA is just one of 190 inputs for us, NWS suuuuuuuucks; we're proud to be collaborating with them because we're better than them at everything; look ma', we have AI and Superior Accuracy™."

This is not a statement of support, it's a fucking ad. There's no actual "vehemently objecting" - in fact, between the lines, it basically says they don't think disbanding NOAA (as per Project 2025) is necessary - just cutting down to bare minimum will suffice.

My reading between the lines is that AccuWeather realizes that NOAA and NWS are golden geese which give them very cheap access to high quality data, and that if those were privatized, they'd probably have to pay more for that kind of data.

You're right that it doesn't read like they care as much about the public's ability to be directly able to access that data; They're just aware that if the taxpayer is funding it, they're going to be demanding some sort of access, and since a lot of that raw data still needs to be 'digested' to make sense to the average person, it's not a big deal if the raw data is publicly available. And anyone that tries to also commercialize it to compete can be crushed by their Superior Accuracy(tm).

Well, they did vehemently deny it was part of their plan.

I wasn't someone who believed their denials, but yes, some people will be surprised by this.

They probably won't believe it's happening even while it's happening.

You can notice that pattern with conservatives again and again and again. They talk about what they do. Those who read it and believe them are labeled crazy paranoid and polite people are expected to euphemism it.

Then they do it. And again and again. While being awarded excessive amount of benefit of doubt again and again.

Even now, when I read news, they euphemism and undersell.

The term is 'sane-washing'. The media, even the big media companies so often claimed to be left-leaning, do this. And I think its because the right is just so good at crying victim, that when a news organization just reports what they say, they shout that its an unfair portrayal and fake news. It has been remarkably effective.

I believe you're correct - major media imagine their product is objective. They remediate accusations of conservative bias. Over the years they've reduced themselves to quoting and same washing.

As an Argentinian, seeing the current US admin applying the "lessons" learned thanks to the javier milei experiment is the stuff of nightmares.

Preventable and predictable nightmares.

It seems to me that Milei blazed the trail for the second Trump administration. I think we can count on similar economic effects, and a sharp increase in poverty. But to me (from the US), Milei seems politically weaker than Trump, and less likely to be able to seize total power over future elections. The way Milei's policies have impacted the Argentine economy, do you think he has a chance of being reelected? How much damage does it take before the pendulum swings back?

I do think Milei looks weaker than Donald because:

- He is one year in (Donald just began so his fans are still in the honeymoon phase) and still "trickle down" is not working. He did get inflation to go down, but in a way similar to how bleeding out to death also lowers your blood pressure. Argentina needed a Corpus callosotomy, but got The Simpsons Dr Nick for the operation.

- The sheer power of being the USA president is orders of magnitude bigger than being Argentina's president. Argentina depends on fresh money to pay its debts, debt rollover, etc. Also, Argentinians are one of the biggest USD cash hoarders in the world due to currency trauma so we directly depend on what the USA does. no kidding.

- I have NO IDEA how the legislative elections of 2025 or the presidentials of 2027 are going to go. Trying to predict how Argentina will be in 6 months is harder than predicting Norway's next 50 years. Does he have a chance? Of course. The longer he can keep the ARS/USD stable the longer he will be in power. In the worst case it could take ten years, like last time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Carlos_Menem

> How much damage does it take before the pendulum swings back?

oof. Menem's period was followed by one of the most pathetic presidents our country has seen, which ended in this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998%E2%80%932002_Argentine_gr...

I really, really hope someone stops Donald from doing something irreversible. If that is even possible anymore.

>> Argentina needed a Corpus callosotomy, but got The Simpsons Dr Nick for the operation.

Lol. So, I don't know how I should read this. In some sense I agree with you. Did you initially agree with Macri? I was living in Argentina when he was elected, and my Argentine friends lost their minds. Privately, I was not a fan of his socially reactionary rhetoric... he seemed like a version of George W Bush. But I thought that his plan to float the currency and end the blue dollar was the only thing that made any sense, given the ridiculousness of the economy - even my communist friends who were protesting at his election had more USD under their mattresses than ARS in a bank (most worked for the government, and got the preferable exchange rate, after all). Macri did seem to control inflation for a little while, without completely taking a chainsaw to the state. The IMF was initially pleased. Does something like that seem... palatable now?

Having created a technological terror regime, those who present the greatest threat are the people who built it, understand it, and can dismantle or change it. For tyrants and terrorists, it's important to make sure there are very few capable counter-forces, and that they are fully under your control.

In 1976 Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime committed mass atrocities against the entire educated population, setting that country back by centuries. Similarly, Stalin's purges from about 1937 on focused on eliminating engineers, scientists, and doctors.

Science is a threat to weak minds because, when all said and done science is about truth. Those who are seizing power in the West now loathe and detest truth. Truth has the potential to empower people.

I do not expect Trump/Musk regime to stop at public science. All those private companies who thik they are going to be 'winners' have a very rude shock coming. Any capable, educated minds left will be pivotal to the survival of democracy in coming years.

Same reason why the first thing Talibans do is going after education.

Any sane person with an IQ >100, I recommend exercising 2a and forming local defense councils.

The goal is stupid supremacy without respect for anticipating consequences. People will die and life for everyone will suck more because of this unnecessary bullshit.

They are messing with everyone and everything… all at once. Musk and Trump. And it’s too late to stop them without blood…

Ooh, there's no bread, let them eat cake.

There will always be enough bread and circus. They're #1 and #2 necessary things to always give people to keep them silent on a couch rather than protesting or worse.

That's the thing though: it's not so easy to just feed a continent's worth of people. As a ruler, if you keep running around like the elephant in a china shop, breaking critical infrastructure left and right in the name of "efficiency", you may discover that, come next season, there just isn't any bread to give, and there's fuck all you can do at that point.

An Italian plumber had a solution

He had a brother though and he likes powerups too.

I'll point out some higher order impacts of this, since the article doesn't: Losing these forecasts will be catastrophic for American farmers. Crops literally live and die on weather forecasts; forecasts tell farmers what to plant, when to plant it, how to plant it, how to water it, and when to harvest it. Without these forecasts we will see negative effects on the entire American agricultural industry and all of the people it feeds, US citizens or not. I'm not a farmer myself, so I can't tell you exactly how severe the impact will be, but there will be an impact, whether it's an immediate crop failure and outright famine this year or "only" shockwaves bouncing through our entire economy as farmers plant the wrong crops and go out of business over the next few years. This is one of the scenarios I've been most worried about when it comes to the stability of human civilization, up there alongside the looming specter of nuclear war and the randomisation of US foreign policy.

I hate that my cynicism is at the level where I think one of the things they will do if they end up privatizing it, is use price discrimination to hide 'sticking it to those liberal states'.

For example, a massive part of California's economy is in farming, and while most farmers are more conservative leaning, I am sure a vindictive admin will have no qualms with sacrificing them to stick it to California. Similarly with Oregon and Washington. And when prices of food go up commensurately in those states, they will spin it as "look at how shitty those places are, look at how much they charge you for food."

Or they will give discounts to large farmers while lowering data quality and increasing prices for the small ones, impoverishing or causing them to fail, such that they can be cheaply bought out, thus further consolidating the ag sector into a small handful of massive companies.

Another secondary effect that is worrying to me is in regards to how much aviation relies on weather data. Commercial aviation probably won't suffer much immediately -- they'll pay for the good data and pass on the costs to their passengers. With how much prices for airline flights already fluctuate, the difference will probably get lost in the noise so there won't be much public outrage. But GA pilots, especially ones operating from smaller airports might be affected pretty significantly. Flying a plane isn't exactly a cheap endeavor as is, and having to pay much more for weather data to fly safely might turn even more people off from flying. Down the line, that means less pilots that can fly commercial, which leads to yet another pilot shortage. It will also probably mean more GA accidents due to insufficient or shoddy weather data.

Not just farmers, pilots, and anything that flies long distances will be hugely affected.

Pilots rely not just on forecasts, but also warnings like turbulence, icing, thunderstorms, low visibility, etc. Without precision, and relying on other sources will cause a higher risk of encountering unexpected weather. It will increase costs, as they'll have to subscribe to alternative weather services, emergency responses will be affected as well. Need a helicopter to medevac someone? Well, better hope they updated their weather subscription, and that it covers the area you need to be evcuated from and to. It'll also increase delays due to the adverse weather events encountered unexpectedly.

Best case scenario a couple trillion more are printed to bail out the farmers.

you can't print out food though (never mind "food printing")

After a tree fell on their camp during a wind storm my very red friends depend on this and on their weather alert radios when they go out hunting.

Farmers will pay to some less precise but sufficient private weather service. It will make them poorer and consequently more resentful, so they will vote for conservatives again and more to punish perceived left.

this - as it has always been with so many sectors previously in the US. People getting screwed by corporations lobbying republicans, and conservative media propaganda pins the outrage and consequences on the "woke" left.

Farmers won't stop getting forecasts. They simply get their forecasts from someone other than NOAA.

At what price? Privatization always turn into either monopoly or cartels, that is, price inflation. Those believing that privatization will help them also to pay lower taxes either don't know how it works or are part of the plan.

> It was designed to integrate multiple forecasting centers in one building to improve operating efficiency

Oh man, the irony of the "Department of Efficiency" closing down a branch that was made specifically to make the system more efficient

Well, they probably figured - DOGE has saved 60 billion in 4 weeks, this department has existed for a long time and hasn't saved shit.

They haven't saved any money at all. Please stop with the fake news, we try to stay accurate on HN.

Multiple sources have pointed out how they fail at the their. Saving pennies while losing pounds (in the form of things like National Parks and NOAA) is bullshit.

Out the other side of this will be diversified weather reporting with less reliance on the US. They lose influence.

Fine, save short term costs. Fine, expand the private weather marketplace in America. Ok, so explain to non giant agribusiness US domestic farmers why they now pay for what was a free/low cost service. They vote more by numbers than the corporates do. So you've alienated your base for what?

Tornado season may be interesting or another beast from the east, or reduced air flight reliability.

Not to mention, it's not just the US itself that relies on those forecasts - the rest of the world too. All this turmoil and confusion creates an opportunity for the EU and China (and perhaps also Japan and others) to take the lead.

(I'm not having high hopes for EU to move on this fast enough to achieve anything, but who knows.)

Little by little, the US is relinquishing the economical and political power it holds over the world. Which is worrying, as it increases the risk of a nuclear war.

Yes I should have been explicit that diversity came with international consequences. I wonder if they intend turning off the sat ground stations and services or if the DoD has pointed out how silly that would be.

The word climate probably caused the problem. They should have stuck to weather. Maybe they can call themselves "the weathermen" and move underground?

Europe has the ECMWF which is the leading meteorological research institute with the best forecasts in the world. Apart from that, all the large national weather services in Europe are top notch. In comparison, the US weather services are in a sorry state with outdated forecasting models.

I have no direct knowledge. But I can tell you for the coming cyclone here in Brisbane the city council is using a web page view which federates data over BoM (Australia) USGS, NOAA, ESRI.. and other places.

So the 'extraterritorial' nature of decisions to cut back on weather and climate services has reach beyond the borders.

I continue to think this is a GSA accounting stuffup and the occupied offices will be restored, or relocated because the necessity of a NOAA seems hard to contest. No, the private sector does not replicate. it complements and augments.

The illustration in the article is extremely appropriate.

It's quite strange why Americans tolerate that an unelected, and even unappointed foreigner would destroy their country piece by piece. Isn't that exactly what the much-touted second amendment was designed to prevent?

Edit: YCombinator "AI Startup School" [0] used to present the list of speakers, and Musk was the first one on that list. Now there's no list anymore. It would be interesting to know if it means he's not coming, or if YC isn't comfortable with publishing their choices.

[0] https://events.ycombinator.com/ai-sus

Original text on that page was: YC is throwing our first-ever AI startup school in San Francisco on June 16 and 17th.\n\nAI Startup School will gather 2000 of the top CS seniors, masters, and PhD candidates in AI to hear from speakers including Elon Musk, Satya Nadella, Sam Altman, Andrej Karpathy, Andrew Ng and many more

> It's quite strange why Americans tolerate that an unelected, and even unappointed foreigner would destroy their country piece by piece.

The guy is certainly unelected but he's a citizen of the US who happened to be born overseas. When do you believe someone stop being a foreigner?

When one holds no multiple citizenships?

There’s a bit of a difference between a foreigner and a dual citizen (or a person with multiple citizenships).

The most strident proponents of the 2nd Amendment voted for this.

> Isn't that exactly what the much-touted second amendment > was designed to prevent?

IIANM, the second amendment is motivated by the interest of maintaining a militia, mostly against invasion attempts like the British one in the US war of independence.

That is not what most second amendment proponents assert

> Isn't that exactly what the much-touted second amendment was designed to prevent?

The historical record is actually very clear on this: the second amendment was designed to prevent the United States from establishing a standing army.

Re elected: Musk's DOGE role was very public before the election. A major part of the Trump campaign promises was to do this.

Re foreigner: Would it be ok if he pays $5M for the gilded citizenship or should the job be given to a citizen? Would that make it ok?

It would not make it ok if he was American-born, but the fact that he wasn't even born in the US adds insult to injury.

> It's quite strange why Americans tolerate that an unelected ...

They literally voted for this nonsense. Trump won by an undeniable landslide. His previous administration, campaign, and his constant stream of consciousness on X provides all you need to know about his plans, ambitions, intentions, etc. He's not doing a bait and switch here; quite the opposite. So, people can't really claim ignorance. Or that this isn't exactly what they voted for.

As for all the outragism, end of world nonsense, and general level of panic visible among (mostly) the minority of people that didn't vote for this, I don't think it's that helpful, constructive, or persuasive. This constant level of "OMG we're all going to die!!!! Boooohoooohoooo!" is just endless variants of the boy who cried wolf. It's having the opposite effect of training people into learning that this is all fine. Who even listens to that stuff anymore? Probably not a majority of voters. That's how we ended up with this situation.

And given that there are mid term elections coming up November next year, now would be a good time to come up with a better plan than just handing that on a silver platter to Trump. Again. There's a sense of urgency that is a bit missing here. Democrats are in full on panic & headless chicken mode currently. That's worrying.

There's a real possibility to win back the house and senate for Democrats. But that will only mean something if those two institutions can live up to their constitutional responsibilities and not be deadlocked into inaction; like they have been for the last half century or so.

Is there a plan beyond just trying to restore the status quo that lead to all this? That doesn't sound like a very good plan to me. Why should people vote for that? If there is a plan, can somebody please articulate what it is? All this reactive outragism is wearing people out.

I'm btw. a European moderate (in case you thought otherwise); I don't vote for populists. And I have no vote in this. I do have a stake in the outcome. All this nonsense is threatening to throw the world into big recessions, war and chaos. So, I am kind of grumpy with you people in the US. Get your shit together please. This is embarrassing.

It’s a little silly to write six paragraphs about people having unhelpful responses to something they are powerless to change and then end with “get your shit together”.

A good first step would be to stop the daily dose of outragism on what Trump, Musk, et al. did yesterday. Gloomy headlines like "The end of Weather Forecasting" are not helpful. The opposite actually. It re-enforces the notion that democrats don't have a better plan.

Given that Trump is demolishing federal institutions currently, what's the plan for rebuilding those? Raise a lot of taxes and rehire everyone? Might not go down that well with voters. Restore it exactly as it was in all its gridlocked and dysfunctional ways? Same thing. That's not a plan. It's not even the beginning of a plan. I get that people are upset and emotional about this. But, reality check: it's happening. So, what's the plan forward from that? Simple question. I'm not aware of a coherent debate about any of that.

My recommendation would be dealing with the shit that's raining down currently. Accept that federal institutions will have been downsized by the time power reverts to the Democrats. Given that, how do can they make it better? What's their vision for getting things back on the rails? I don't think a reset at the federal level is necessarily that bad even. This seems to be a bit of a taboo topic with democrats. Because it involves admitting that things maybe weren't that perfect. It's easier to whine about how bad things are than it is to suggest concrete alternatives.

Nah, that is what democrats were doing for years. Rational discourse does not work. It is not that democrats would never lie or never get emotional or whatever.

But what Trump made clear is that rational reasonable plans are not a path anywhere.

Trump and Musk plan to destroy our government institutions and sell off the parts and your advice is to just accept it and come up with a plan for what to do in the aftermath?

As someone who actually lives here, I think it is very appropriate to freak out a bit and want to put a stop to this. It’s very easy to destroy, but extremely difficult to build back. I like the post office, national parks, and the national weather service and would like to keep them as is, thank you very much.

Your attitude, shared by centrists in the US, is why we are in this current situation. Might I suggest you worry more about the AfD and less about US politics?

You seem angry. Trust me, you are not half as angry as we Americans who are watching our country about to burn. You don't have any skin in this game. Is your livelihood, your house, your assets, your family, your children, your friends, your university, your retirement, your city, your town, your civic life all at stake? It is for us. We are going to have to decide how much violence we will tolerate in a few months, and how much blood and money it will take. It's terrible. Here I was, just about to enter retirement, and now I am confronted with this idiocy by people with no morals, no ethic, no wisdom, about as ignorant as you can possibly imagine, with their brains eaten by TDS. I just can't.

He did not win by a landslide. He didn’t even get a majority of the vote. The final tally was 49.8% - 48.3%. A victory of 1.5% is not a landslide.

Further, Trump spent a huge amount of his campaign denying any association with project 2025. I also don’t recall any moment where he said he would turn over control of the government to Elon Fucking Musk.

The ~36% of eligible non-voters "won". Reps had ~32%, Dems ~31%.

Something about the US makes its voting behavior resemble the uniform distribution.

Trump did nor wom by landslide. It was fairly close.

It really wasnt very close. Trump won 58% of the electoral college. Most since obama. You can disagree with how presidential elections are run but until that changes electoral college margin is all that matters

Even by that measure, it wasn’t a landslide. Trump’s electoral vote margin of victory is ranked at 44 out of 60 elections. And it’s not like he crushed it compared to Biden. Trump was at 57.99% in 2024 and Biden was at 56.88% in 2020 (47th place).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presid...

I meant popular vote. I mean yes, electoral college is designed to give south and conservatives advantages. But popular vote is what gives you legitimacy.

While it's important to point this issue out, I have to say that this "blog post" is nothing more than a link to a Bluesky post and a verbatim copy & paste of the Axios article on the subject.

https://www.axios.com/2025/03/03/doge-noaa-weather-building-...

Wondering if the unacknowledged agenda Musk is acting on is to cut off all data that informs us of the trajectory of climate change?

Yes.

Project 2025 linked in the current top comment here https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_CHA... says

"NOAA consists of six main offices: [list here]

Together, these form a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity. This industry’s mission emphasis on prediction and management seems designed around the fatal conceit of planning for the unplannable. That is not to say NOAA is useless, but its current organization corrupts its useful functions. It should be broken up and downsized."

It's like tobacco and junk food companies blaming doctors for spreading misinformation about the healthy effects of smoking and fat and sugar consumption. That explains everything.

Why would he do that? Even on a purely cynical level, isn't that something he relies on to sell Teslas?

No. Electric cars as a class (when done correctly) are cheaper and better than petrol cars. It makes business sense, primarily. Also good for climate change, but that’s an irrelevant side effect.

Fair question. In addition to the other reply, he'd be wary of at all challenging any point of Trump's committed direction.

Of course. The thing conservatives hate the most is facts. They almost always contradict their agenda.

[dupe]

Blogspam

Doge seeks to cancel lease on key NOAA computing facility

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43248492

Other discussions:

The American Weather Forecast Is in Trouble

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43224862

The whole DoGE thing is about Ideology. It has nothing to do with efficiency. It should actually be called Department of Ideology.

Its about privatization.

Americans should read up on what happened with Thames Water in the UK.

Another absolutely horrific act of sabotage making the whole world worse for no particular reason.

Trump is Putin's agent, but Musk is just sabotaging everything, including himself, for no apparent reason at all.

They are both puppets of forces they don't fully understand.

Arent we all?

I believe we are. And that is why we need to very cleverly design the systems that we employ and live in, so that the risk stemming from this weakness is minimized. Or checked, and balanced, if you will.

To make Mars viable you first have to make Earth _really_ bad.

It is not possible to make Earth bad enough for Mars to be viable.

Nah, at this point I suspect the Martians actually felt threatened by the progress SpaceX made, and switched Musk for a lookalike, in order to stop the Mars mission and kick us around a bit for good measure, so humanity is looking inwards worried about geopolitical stability, instead of continuing to advance.

I mean, given how he went 180 on everything almost instantly, that's one of the most plausible explanations.

The reason is his amusement, something that I assume gets harder when your hedonic treadmill has long ago accelerated beyond what seems humanly possible. As someone who has trollish tendencies myself, I cannot help but feel a bit of grudging respect for his recent accomplishments in that regard, though as one of the "NPCs" in the country he has chosen to troll, I can't say I'm terribly amused. And as someone with a Jewish girlfriend, I'm a bit worried about how far he intends to take the ironic Nazi-ism.

Trump and Musk both pattern-match to my understanding of clinical narcissism.

With the usual caveats:

1. I'm not a qualified psychiatrist

2. You could tell that without me saying so, because qualified psychiatrists know better than to diagnose people from public behaviours alone

3. Even private interviews for diagnosis are not perfectly reliable

4. Gell-Mann amnesia effect on public reporting

A certain class becoming richer and ensure their dominance is a hell of a reason. They're psychopaths without any consideration for human life who aim at destroying the poor and replace them with AI and automation to keep their economy safe, and this has nothing to do with ideologies, left, right or whatever, those are thrown in just to gain support by the indoctrinated and less educated masses (MAGA & co), most of which will realize they're being screwed by the same guy they voted in only when it'll be too late.

This platform is linked directly with one of the worst of them (Thiel) so I won't expect this post or my account to survive much long, but I don't care anyway.

well the reason is greed

Why is this flagged?

* "the end of weather forecasting by specific government institutions"

>The Trump administration has informed NOAA that two pivotal centers for weather forecasting will soon have their leases canceled, sources told Axios.

And the work will eventually be outsourced to IBM who are working on forecasting AI models.

At 10x cost to the taxpayer and < 10% of the current accuracy?

Could be worse, I guess, it could end up farmed out to Oracle ...

It can always be outsourced to Grok…

There is no data indicating this. Based on your logic capitalism shouldn’t work since all private companies are making margins, which is the basic incentive.

> There is no data indicating this.

"examples of privatisation increasing costs to us taxpayers" ..

* First up, the entire US health system compared per capita to other industrialised countries.

* Any reasoned debate on whether privatization serves the public interest will include substantial links to wins and losses on either side, the classic preamble quote being something like:

   there are flaws endemic in both private and public ownership: private ownership is not free of its own set of problems. In short, public provision suffers when public managers pursue actions that are not in the interests of the citizenry—for example, the employment of unnecessary workers or the payment of exorbitant wages. Private provision suffers when private managers take action inconsistent with the public interest—for example, performing shoddy work in an effort to boost profits or denying service when costs are unexpectedly high.

( ~ https://hbr.org/1991/11/does-privatization-serve-the-public-... )

Your blanket denial is in error.

> Based on your logic capitalism ...

Not my logic, there are examples of PE companies rorting public sector funds post privatisation from around the globe .. that's public, global, empirical observation not random forum "logic".

Then there's the hilarious question of "capitalism" .. do they have that still in the US?

I commend you on your nom de guerre, using the pet name of Elon's dildo to reply here is pure genius. Chef's kiss.

Capitalism works, but simply working is not a very high bar. Slavery also works for production, for example, or rape is working for reproduction. What we are aiming for, and yes, this should have been more explicit, are much higher standards.

Capitalism does indeed work and I'm all for it although I lean left, but capitalism without safeguards (that is, allowing uncontrolled profit maximization) is a cancer. Having incentives to grow is a great thing, however one needs well defined limits to protect the poor. Corporations repeatedly find means to not pay or pay ridiculous amounts in taxes, which will invariably end up weighing on the shoulders of the middle and lower classes; that is something any sane government should address immediately, but it's hard to do that in a system where every campaign is run using mostly the money of the same entities it should tax.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com