ClarityJones

Arbitration is an inefficient and unproductive process. I suppose that may be what the parties chose, but the public will likely never know what happened and the problem will be allowed to reoccur again and again. Things like these are better resolved in courts, with res judicata, precedent, and visibility so that legislators can fix statutes where necessary.

It's relevant in that the article mentions "research" 13 times, but "education" only 3 times.

Particularly when paying for more RAM means buying a completely new computer.

Yeah, it could be formed by one person, or from two parties, or possibly by an even more opaque network of influence backed by god knows who.

How should readers assess the credibility of these claims that 12k, 36k, or 100k have been killed? I'm not there. I haven't seen anything with my own eyes. Should I expect that if the death toll reaches X, then Y form of evidence would make it out?

The author said he saw Tesla prove that EVs were profitable, but it was profitable when taxpayers gave it $7,500 per vehicle sold... That's the whole profit margin on higher-end cars, and more profit than most mass-market makers get. EVs were never profitable.

If I understand correctly, you're saying that in a majority of cases (or something approaching that) the targets of these raids are not subject to lawful deportation?

I would be curious to have data / information showing that.

I'm open to either conclusion, but what law / right do you think is being violated?

As a general rule, the first amendment protects the right to say, e.g. "John Doe lives at 123 Main St." John may not like that people know that, but that doesn't generally limit other peoples' right to speak freely.

Capital continued to function just fine through the 1930s. Crops still grew on land. Dams produced electricity. Factories produced cars. What exactly failed?

I would disagree about capitalism being on the rise. Marx and his views grew after the 1850s and communist / socialist revolutions spread throughout Europe. There may have been more discussion of "capitalism" and an increase in industrialization, but "capital" had existed and operated for centuries before that. What changed was who owned the capital and how it was managed, specifically there has been a vast increase in central / government control.

I think this centralization of authority over capital is what has allowed for the power of lobbying, etc. A billionaire could previously only control his farms, tenant farmers, etc. Now their reach is international, and they can influence the taxing / spending the occurs across the entire economy.

Similarly, local communities were probably equally (likely far more) mislead by propaganda / lies. However, that influence tended to be more local and aligned with their own interests. The town paper may be full of lies, but the company that owned the town and the workers that lived there both wanted the town to succeed.

Yeah, that would limit the scale if they were betting against the platforms.

However, if you assume they were feeding the information to the platforms...

Okay, a lot of people cheated at a lot of poker games? I feel like we're being redundant here.

So, their cheating was organized and systematic? Yeah, you can't really cheat consistently without having a scheme.

Did anyone really think the mafia were running fair backroom poker games?

The raison d'etre for the offense of fraud is to protect commerce.

The state / society needs to enforce a basic level of trust for Business A to buy widgets from Business B, and for Customer C to be employed, etc.

Betting on sports / poker / etc. is not part of that. Nobody is creating anything of value when you spin the roulette wheel. At best, the house wins and most players lose... and that is a harm to society. At worst, the house cheats or some subset of players cheat, and most players lose... and that too is a harm to society. (Edit: At worse worst, it leads to violence, extortion, etc...)

Gambling does not deserve the legitimacy of being policed.

That's not the part that's bad. I don't care whether they cheat or not. I don't want the government policing what is and isn't fair in a poker / NBA / etc game.

I think arresting people for cheating legitimizes backroom / mafia gambling. All the other rings (and those left from this one) can say "Look, those other guys got arrested. The law protects you. We don't want that to happen to us. Our game is definitely fair." Of course, they too are cheating.

The only reason the FBI cares here is probably because one of the victims had pull. If you or I get cheated, the FBI won't care about that.

This is silly.

People used to play poker, and cheat, and the whole thing was illegal.

Now, people play poker, and cheat, and they want the government to police their poker games and make sure they're fair.

Complete waste of resources.

The guy was punished with a 4-month jail sentence. It's reasonable to assume his crime was of the sort that would result in a 3-6 month sentence... generally misdemeanors.

It's certainly in a different category than speeding or jaywalking, but it's a lot closer to that than to the 150 years that Bernie Madoff got.

Except, correct me if this is wrong, but he wasn't even convicted of money laundering, let alone the underlying crimes you suggest he was launder the proceeds of. It was simply for failing to register / setup an appropriate AML system. Whether any ML occurred, by whom, and in relation to what... are outstanding questions. If he had done all that and all they got him on was a 4-month technicality, that tends to suggest he was probably innocent (or the investigation was inept).

You're right that there has to be a connection now, and this uncertainty is part of the problem. If the connection is a crime, then what about that connection hurts someone? How can the government maintain the rule of law in this type of market? If a player bets me that he won't play more than 10 minutes, what does fraud even mean? Sure, he has every right to walk off the court when he's tired of playing. Even if he double-pinky promises to play for as long as he can, why endure the charade?

These are not arms-length transactions that contribute to the production of valuable goods and services. All it does is invite moral hazards into existing markets.

The real moral qualm that the public generally has is with the cheating / steroids / etc., which isn't a crime. However, those who want to deal in gambling are riding on that moral outrage to prosecute people for gambling in a way that other gamblers didn't like.

Fundamentally, gambling is a den of liars and cheats. If it's going to be legal, then make it legal... including the fraud. Let people know that, sure you're allowed to gamble on poker, and the other guy is also allowed to cheat. The government should not waste resources guaranteeing that everyone's gambling is free of cheating nor spend time investigating whether Player 1 was really injured when he took a knee in the 4th quarter, or if Player 2 took a peek at Player 3's cards. The nation isn't a casino. That type of law enforcement does not provide a valuable contribution to society.

Professional sports used to exist to profit off viewership, and thus games would occasionally be rigged to increase entertainment value and align with market demand. However, the authenticity carried a large part of why the sports were interesting to watch.

Now, sports exist to facilitate gambling. Sports are interesting to viewers who have money on the line, and thus the authenticity is irrelevant and actually undermines the sport. Every gambler wants to believe they have an edge and that the outcomes are rigged... in their favor. If the outcomes are determined by the players simply trying their best, then what's the point of gambling?

That's neat. The shape of the campus does fit better on the 8.5x11" paper when printed that way, but that wouldn't have required the text to be aligned the same. I see the main entrance is on Oxford, to the (not South...) West, making this a case where the campus has an orientation and they're putting the top of the campus at the top of the map.

I think this is a meta-allusion to the theory that human consciousness developed recently, i.e. that people who lived before [written] language did not have language because they actually did not think. It's a potentially useful thought experiment, because we've all grown up not only knowing highly performant languages, but also knowing how to read / write.

However, primitive languages were... primitive. Where they primitive because people didn't know / understand the nuances their languages lacked? Or, were those things that simply didn't get communicated (effectively)?

Of course, spoken language predates writings which is part of the point. We know an individual can have a "conscious" conception of an idea if they communicate it, but that consciousness was limited to the individual. Once we have written language, we can perceive a level of communal consciousness of certain ideas. You could say that the community itself had a level of shared-consciousness.

With GPTs regurgitating digestible writings, we've come full circle in terms of proving consciousness, and some are wondering... "Gee, this communicated the idea expertly, with nuance and clarity.... but is the machine actually conscious? Does it think undependably of the world, or is it merely a kaledascopic reflection of its inputs? Is consciousness real, or an illusion of complexity?"

Oh, are there states that don't issue IDs? In mine you can skip that stuff and just get the ID.

That's fair, but enterprises are often naive and prone to groupthink.

It was just a few years ago when automakers and rental car companies unanimously decided (has they had been told to decide) that COVID-19 would reduce demand for cars. They cut production, sold off fleets, and almost immediately found themselves unable to keep up with demand.

The phone rep is almost easier, because all they can do is withhold their confirmation. So, I told the Sirius guy who I was and that they were no longer authorized to charge my card, hung up, and wrote a note in my files. Sirius charged me again, and I submitted a chargeback. Quick and easy.

> Pfizer found other routes to remain successful (some, such as their mRNA COVID19 vaccine, also in-licensed from smaller companies).

> Even the biggest blockbusters can be dismissed ... by ... ambitious people, ... because ... ideas of how the market will react... .

> These same dynamics are undoubtedly playing out today [seemingly referring to previous statements on their COVID-19 vaccine], and it will likely take decades to determine just how costly some of today’s mistakes will prove to be.

> Though substantial progress was being made, Pfizer decided to pull support ... [t]he “gliptin” class of drugs peaked at annual revenues of around $10 billion and remains a major oral therapy for type 2 diabetes.

Or, perhaps the lender(s).

From [5] https://www.hiv.gov/blog/science-validates-undetectable-untr...:

> Even when viral load is undetectable, ... may have detectable HIV genetic material in ... semen, but there is no scientific evidence that such material is associated with HIV transmission.

What? Isn't that the primary transmission vector?

How is that morally reasonable? I think it depends on whether the court was aware of this and considered it during sentencing. If someone served 7 years for a major corruption charge, paid $1.5 Million in restitution, and $250k in fines, then I think $127k in fees might be perfectly reasonable.

If someone served 7 years on a drug charge, the part that I would find morally reprehensible would probably be the incarceration. In my mind 7 years of prison is a lot worse than the $127k.

I am not a bankruptcy (or criminal) lawyer, but it may also be dischargeable in bankruptcy. What I see online says "punitive" charges are not dischargeable, but "reimbursement" based charges are and this seems related to reimbursing the state for the cost of the bed.

Fla. Stat. § 939.06(1)

"A defendant in a criminal prosecution who is acquitted or discharged is not liable for any costs or fees of the court or any ministerial office, or for any charge of subsistence while detained in custody."

Edit: You can search scholar.google.com for "939.06" and find cases such as:

Starkes v. State, 292 So.3d 826 (2020) wherein the 1st DCA issued a writ of mandamus commanding the trial court to certify the defendant's costs (so that they may be reimbursed).