Veelox

>Why don’t all obese people just change their behavior and then we don’t need to worry about cheap insulin anymore!

For type 2 diabetics, behavior changes should be a part of the treatment plan. That said, if you currently have diabetics and you don't get insulin you will die thus it does qualify as life saving medicine.

>Why don’t men stop having sex with each other and then they won’t be at risk for HIV?

While it is not pleasant, people are not going to die just because they have to stay abstinent. You don't even have to be abstinent, you can find a group of 10 or even 50 guys, make sure everyone is HIV negative and then you can do what ever you want, as often as you want, with no need for drugs.

Calling it a "life saving drug" is correct in many cases (NGO worker in parts of Africa) using the term "life saving drug" to advocate for people to be able to cheaply have unprotected sex with strangers is dishonest rhetoric.

> a life saving drug

I think you are technically correct that Truvada is a life saving drug but I feel you are being dishonest. If you exclude occupations where you could be exposed to HIV, most of the US users of Truvada could choose to change their behaviors and reduce their chance of contracting HIV to <1%.

There is also the general trend that US companies pay large amounts of money to develop drugs, charge US customers enough to cover R&D costs and then sell the drugs at cost internationally. Does that suck for us? Yes, but it helps the rest of the world significantly.

People I know who have worked in commercial aviation have claimed that it takes more paperwork to put a bolt on a plane than into a human body. While this may or may not be true, commercial aviation is a counter example of a tightly regulated industry that very much a free market that challenges your assumption that regulation alone are the reason for issues in healthcare.

>when a person is sick or injured, they usually are not able to comparison shop

You argument seems to be that since this doesn't work in all situations, it is useless. I strongly disagree.

On my current commute to work, I drive by at least 2 major hospitals and know that a 3rd is not far out of the way. If I was willing to drive up to 2 hours, I could choose from at least 7 major hospitals. For emergencies I don't have time to shop. If it is something important but planned (fixing a torn ACL) it would be nice to be able to look up the price at the 7 different hospitals. If one is 1/3 the price of the others, I know which one I am picking. Current rules make it impossible to price shop for fixing an ACL this would make it at least possible.

>at least three mass shootings in the past two years by Ben Shapiro fans.

Citation needed

Because the College Board isn't doing it in a way that truly reflects the adversity each kid faced.

For example, if Alice is raised by two loving parents in a so-so neighborhood she gets a score of 50. If Bob was abused as a child, put into foster care at 10, and adopted into a good neighborhood at 14 he gets a score of 25. Due to Bob's past he is way behind in school but works hard. Bob and Alice both end up getting 1400. At a selective school its possible that because Bob his a lower adversity score his application automatically gets rejected while Alice's application gets looked at and accepted.

This is the kind of case that is possible with an "Adversity Score" that bothers me.

While I am sure you are well intentioned in your efforts to increase diversity in the Bay Area, your comment makes me think the end result of your hiring policy is going to be diversity in everything but thought. That makes me sad.

Agreed also, these jobs involved putting items in boxes for 8+ hours. These are exactly the kind of mind numbing jobs where robots are great.

>You're not going to multiply your salary by 2x-20x

Well damn, I guess I am going to have to make do with 200k being a rank and file developer at a FAANG company.

I would agree that Damore is not a Shining White Knight of Truth. His actions since being fired are questionable. That said, in most of the Damore discussion I got a sense that there was a "right answer" to most of the questions he posed.

>If a person were concerned about being fired for expressing a politically-charged viewpoint, I'd personally counsel them to consider whether that viewpoint is worth the price of the job, and if it isn't? Be silent. Silence is free. Making the decision that one's viewpoint is more important than the job is always a decision one is free to make.

While this is a valid stance to have, I don't think the left as a whole follows this standard consistently. When there is talk of diversity and inclusion, its normally shown as a higher ideal that the left is ascribing to. So, if it really is I higher ideal, we can change the subject of your idea and see if it still works.

Would you support me giving the below advice to a gay coworker?

f a person were concerned about being fired for expressing a LGBT viewpoint, I'd personally counsel them to consider whether that viewpoint is worth the price of the job, and if it isn't? Be silent. Silence is free. Making the decision that one's ability to be out of the closet is more important than the job is always a decision one is free to make.

So you set up a spectrum and seem reasonable so I would like to know where on your above spectrum of acceptable to not allowed to "influence the public discourse". As a predicate, say I have a professional history of interacting with folks with diverse racial, gender, LGBT+, backgrounds. If I believe the below things, where on the spectrum would I fall?

1) I think that a physical border should be erected on the southern border. 2) I think same-sex marriage should be allowed. 3) I think those who engage in same-sex relationships are engaging in an immoral activity. 4) I think there are 2 genders, male and female, and they are fixed at birth. This breaks down for some people with medical conditions but make up a small enough percentage with should deal with that on a case by case basis.

>This person was peddling in ludicrous Obama-killed-his-friend conspiracy theories.

Can I get a link to what you are talking about? You are very clearly referencing something but I have no idea what it is.

I would just like to provide my outlook.

tweet 1: Against the Equality Act which would have made sexual orientation and gender identity federally protected classes using standard right wing talking points.

tweet 2: Promoting Heritage foundations critique of gender identify at the UN using standard right wing talking points.

tweet 3: (linked below) Support for the border wall using standard right wing talking points.

It really seems like she is getting hammered for being mainstream conservative. I understand the critiques about her not being technically qualified to understand the AI ethics issues. The idea that if you disagree with current transgender talking point you are not allow to work with Google in a public capacity seems extreme.

To put the point user redwood made differently. There is a trend that certain questions have a "right answer" and if you don't believe the "right answer" it is okay to bar you from any and all discourse.

While you might think "Trans rights are worth the sacrifice" the general trend in tech is that there is a "right answer" to same-sex marriage (Brendan Eich), biological differences between gender (James Damore), politics (all the flake Peter Thiel got for supporting Trump) and now trans rights. This trend is worrying because it shuts down discussion.

It is also alienating because if you disagree with one of the "right answers" you can get fired for it, which seems kind of counter to the narrative of diversity and inclusion. This is why you sometimes hear people voice the criticism of "diversity in everything but thought"

Part of it is the US has a lot of land. Japan is one of the more extreme examples but they have ~8.7x people per unit of land. That makes a big difference on the kind of buildings and transportation you build.

>it is about Walmart structuring their employment in such a way as to funnel labor costs onto taxpayers.

I am having a really hard time thinking about the situation and agreeing with your implied premise that Walmart should employee people if and only if they pay them enough to remove them from all government benefits (or even healthcare). Does Walmart purposefully structure employment so they don't have to provide healthcare? Undeniably! It saves them tons of money! I have a hard time thinking of this as an immoral act that you imply it is.

Why is it wrong for them to do it?

The author implied "without costing taxpayers a dime" to mean "without directly receiving tax dollars" which is true. Taking "without costing taxpayers a dime" to mean "ensuring their employee's received no government benefits" is quite a stretch.

> they specifically structured their compensation plan for their employees to extract a maximum value from the social welfare system

While the outcome of Walmart's actions might have been this, I think it much closer to Walmart's goal to say that they worked to minimize the total cost of labor. The two are very different ideas of what Walmart's obligations are.

>Even if Walmart employed more people than the smaller stores they replaced, if even 1 employee of Walmart would have otherwise had a job that provided healthcare, then "not a dime" is overstating things.

This is a really tricky standard. By this standard. Imagine if Walmart employed 50 people, 40 at minimum wage, 10 with full benefits, and drove out of two smaller stores that provided 25 full benefit jobs. There is a net loss of 15 full benefit jobs, you say this is really bad. But, 25 more people have jobs. This very well could net decrease government welfare to the area.

The details get really tricky and the truth could be one way or another. I personally have no data to inform an opinion one way or another.

The author's claim is that Walmart is "most successful social welfare system ever implemented" because it saves Americans billions of dollars every year due to the cost savings it provides.

Your claim is that this is wrong because Walmart intentionally structures their employees hours so that they do not need to pay for certain benefits.

I don't think the two claims are mutually exclusive. While I might not go as far as to say that Walmart is the most successful social welfare system every, I have not problem saying that Walmart has meaningfully improved the lives of medium and low income Americans over the last 40 years.

Job titles/level are really nice at my company because they have a help provide a language and social acceptable way to talk about the scope of tasks someone can accomplish AND a way to talk about the scope of a task or project.

It might be that I don't see how what you classify as Product A and Product B are different products. I see Product B as the monetization feature of Product A. If I "squint" I can see how they are different products but I am not convinced.

From the press release

>Google has abused this market dominance by preventing rivals from competing in the online search advertising intermediation market.

>Based on a broad range of evidence, the Commission found that Google's conduct harmed competition and consumers, and stifled innovation. Google's rivals were unable to grow and offer alternative online search advertising intermediation services to those of Google. As a result, owners of websites had limited options for monetizing space on these websites and were forced to rely almost solely on Google.

This just doesn't make sense to me. So Google offers the website search functionality. It then says "If you want to run ads, you have to use our ads" a few years later Google says "If you want to run ads, you have to give us the best N spots, and all other ads have to be approved by us." Because of this the EU concludes "rivals were unable to grow and offer alternative online search advertising intermediation services."

I am really trying to read the logic some other way but the logic appears to be as follows

1) Google let people set up search pages on individual websites.

2) Google set the terms for ads on those search pages so that Google had exclusive/best ad spots on those search pages.

3) 2 limited competitors ability to develop an alternative to 1.

4) Because Google had a dominate market position, 3 is illegal and should be fined.

This honestly feels pants-on-the-head crazy to me because I do not see how this logic doesn't apply to Google.com. Should Google be forced to let Bing run adds on "google.com/search?q=shoes"? No! Yet if it is "ShoeReviews.com/search?q=shoes" suddenly Google is required to let Bing run adds on it.

Edit: Formatting

How do you propose that Google should be split?

While I agreed the shopping issue was an issue of leveraging dominance, this seems more reasonable, if you want to monitize our free service, you have to use us to do it. At the moment I cannot come up with an example of that situation that would be an antitrust violation.

In all seriousness, who is it that you think is running the country?

>you were prohibited from showing non-Google ads anywhere else on the site.

Can I get a link or a quote to support that? If that is the case then yes, it crosses a line but I didn't see any in the linked article to support that view.

Edit: I reread the article and I think you are wrong. It specifically says on search pages. From the article

>In 2006, Google started to include "exclusivity clauses" in contracts which stopped publishers from placing ads from Google rivals such as Microsoft and Yahoo on search pages, the Commission said.

>From 2009, Google started replacing the exclusivity clauses with "premium placement" clauses, which meant publishers had to keep the most profitable space on their search results pages for Google's adverts and they had to request a minimum number of Google adverts.

I forget, is it Big Banks, Big Tech, Big Pharm, Big Oil, Big Agriculture, Big Telecom, For-Profit Prisons, or the Military Industrial Complex that is most in charge of legislators? I can never seem to remember which one is really running the country.

Just trying to get the facts straight. Google provided the ability to search your site. They also allowed you to show ads/make money from these searches. If you wanted to use this, you had to only show Google ads.

I don't understand how that is illegal.

I think there is an important difference if we are talking about the distinction between programmers and nonprogrammers and between senior engineers and nonsenior engineers.

Yes, programmers have very good jobs compared to nonprogrammers. Part of that is smart career choice, part of it is interest/skill set. I would allow discussion of privilege to go without comment in that context.

When you say "This is senior engineer privilege speaking" I am much less sympathetic to thinking it is privilege. There are tons and tons of way to improve and command a premium of pay. Almost all of those have nothing to do attributes typically defined as privilege. So it bothers me when you try and attribute to privilege something that is mostly a result of hard work.

I don't think spending years working hard to develop a skill set that is highly sought after counts as privilege...

Possibly, depends on what the fee was.