ErikVandeWater

You forgot his reduction of regulations, of which at the very least some were deflationary.

"*But our main issue was that I did a terrible job at defining our long-term vision*...

My personal vision was that Pebble would become a brain-computer interface company, with the smartwatch as the first always-on, always-worn gateway between computers and our bodies. But I rarely discussed this with the team, or even the exec team...

I never invested time in building out a structured plan to actually make the brain-computer interface our company’s vision." [emphasis was in article]

So he thinks somehow Pebble would have been better off if they focused on brain-interface technology? No one has done anything with that.

"Overthrow the United States government" is a very rich interpretation.

Anyways I'd say there's very little reason other than blind faith to trust any election result that uses voting machines. Here's a John Oliver clip featuring:

- Hitting "remind me later" on critical Windows security updates for over a decade

- Administrators not believing the voting machines are connected to the internet, just connected to a "secure modem"

- Mappings of candidates vote counts being reversed, so candidate A gets all of candidate B's votes and vice versa.

- Machines being left unattended and having easy override procedures that allow anyone knowing the procedure immediate admin access

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svEuG_ekNT0

What would be an example of "that thing?"

Elephant racing could have the unintended benefit of reducing accidents (and their severity) by slightly lowering the overall speed of traffic.

If elephant racing very occasionally prevents an accident due to slower speeds, it might benefit all road users as they don't have to pull over for emergency vehicles, and don't have to wait for debris to clear.

Please raise your hand if you trust the head of a spy agency to tell the truth.

Are you equally critical of the obese? Or those who ride motorcycles on the highway?

As someone who is vaxxed, I struggle to see how the harm done by the unvaccinated is categorically worse than the risks taken by others at society's expense. I imagine you have none of the disdain for motorcycle riders that you do for the unvaccinated.

Edit: For those replying to my comment, please note the comment I replied to listed the cost of hospitalization and the crowding out of ICU beds for others as costs society has to bear; if you are crowded out of an ICU bed, whether it be from someone who is unvaccinated or someone who is obese, you are dead nonetheless.

> This country has no safety net and that's terrifying.

No safety net whatsoever?

AdrianN was responding to a comment about "crazy consequences" to messing with the weather. His point was that thus far there haven't been any, despite centuries of human-driven weather changes.

It seems like a situation where hospitals could be designed in such a way to reduce the likelihood of creating 'superbacteria.' Certainly some must be better than others?

They could also address society generally having poor health - If the CDC pounded the table about unhealthy foods/the obesity epidemic I'm sure it could move the needle in some way. Addressing the obesity epidemic would be killing 100+ birds with one stone.

1. The screenshot shows Facebook is telling owners groups of group that the information is "partly false." "Partly false" is obviously a distinct claim, and one that does not appear to be supported.

2. Quality reporting is being censored by selectively applying a label that belittles its objectiveness.

All the health agencies in the world know this is a problem, but are there any actual changes being made to prevent the worst-case scenario?

I worry this is the same situation as Covid, where health agencies knew for years hospital capacity was stretched thin, and lo-and-behold, thousands of people die unnecessarily when a new virus arrives because hospital capacity was overwhelmed.

> When was the last time anyone actually trusted a government?

My feeling is that people trust the government to the extent it does things their perceived enemies dislike. It's not about evaluating what's good for yourself or others; just knowing that your enemy dislikes it is a good enough signal that it's the right thing to do. Also, if your perceived enemy likes something that happens, that means it was automatically a wrong thing to do.

The government is just a cudgel each side uses against the other. And each side adds nails to the cudgel each time they possess it, even though they know its possession is likely to return to the enemy.

UBI would probably end up disproportionately filtering out non-troublesome workers. Non-troublesome workers are more rational than troublesome workers and would take a small reduction in pay in exchange for less headache. The troublesome workers that actually enjoy conflict would stay in the workforce because they can't find the same opportunities for conflict elsewhere.

Investing in their own content would not support them being a technology company.

Presumably you inherit it and that is part of their plan to impart wealth to the next generation.

A news source will at least try to get the other side of things.

It's odd to think no one has come up with a way to repel birds. It would be interesting to see all the things they've tried.

Does anyone else find it odd that often press releases are highly upvoted on HN (as opposed to a news article on the subject)? I understand it's source material, but the objectivity you will find in a press release is almost certainly less than you will find in a good news article.

I didn't use the word "exact." But regardless, the way CPI measures are used by policymakers and others assume they are highly accurate. Otherwise a 2% increase in the CPI would be meaningless, since there could either be inflation or deflation.

Sure. For example, healthcare is included in CPI. Let's say a new surgical technique is invented that reduces the chance of dying during a kidney transplant by 20%, and is adopted as a standard practice. The price of kidney transplant surgery does not change. By how much has the price of a kidney transplant deflated, since you are now getting better bang for your buck?

It's funny to me economists think they can measure inflation/deflation down to a single digit percentile with any level of certainty.

> Not allowing foreign scientists in, destroying evidence, arresting journalists, etc.

The Chinese government does all these things because it is routinely covering up illegal behavior. The fact that they followed standard operating procedure means they were probably simply continuing with the standard operating procedure of tacitly allowing illegal behavior. Illegal behavior in the context of a lab enhancing viruses is likely to result in a lab leak of a very dangerous virus.

Also, the scientists with the most power were the ones doing the misleading. For whatever reason, the power structure has been such that the scientists willing to mislead are elevated to positions where they are given the opportunity to mislead the most people, and not challenged by other scientists^1 like you would expect in a community dependent on debate to find the truth.

And it's not as if this is leading to a substantial change in the community. If we're being honest, scientists with positions of power are just as likely to mislead us in the future when they believe the truth might be harmful to their funding.

1 in a substantial way

Less involved, more corrupt. It's over-involved because it's corrupt. Giving the government more power will only increase corruption.

> Only an overly credulous interpretation of Koch-style market-knows-best propaganda would make you think that the "level" of government involvement was the root cause of its problems.

Not an appropriate tone for HN discussion.

> We really have dropped the ball and turned valid concerns by parents into a political finger pointing shit storm.

Who's "we?" Politicians?

> So you basically get the worst performing being also the most expensive. Which doesn't really fit the view that less government involvement results in a more efficient system.

The US healthcare is an example of the government being massively over-involved and creating massive inefficiencies.

Reconsidering, it is fair to say prison is a fully staffed assisted living facility (excepting when prison is assisting with the dying).

My implication though was that elderly were not "isolated from any contact with people they depend on for basic survival needs" in cases where they were put in assisted living facilities, because they provide for basic survival needs.

> I suppose you are one of the people who would also tell us that house arrest is "not hard".

Never implied that.

No, it isn't.

Where were they locking up the elderly? In fully staffed assisted living facilities?