anthonygd

We might be talking about different things then. Or maybe not.

You want people in government making long term strategic decisions that steer society. They should be listening to the will of the people as to what direction to steer it. I hope we can agree on that much.

I think people forget that "regulators" though are really just large organizations that enforce/interpret laws. The obvious example is the SEC; it has 4200 employees and none of them create laws, their rules are an effort to enforce the laws created by congress using their technical competence in finance.

> You want competence for strategically sound decisions to achieve a goal, but setting it should be done with input of people that have not been groomed that advertising is a human necessity.

That's the world we live in. Congress has been completely incompetent when it comes to regulating finance and I'd expect them to be even worse when it comes to technology.

There absolutely has to be a layer of industry specific competence (from "insiders") to make any sense of industry specific laws. I don't want insiders choosing direction though; I want congress to be less reprehensible idiots.

Which is fair, but also don't assume everyone is addicted because you are. Don't assume everyone is trapped by their addictions because you are.

Most of all, don't try to legislate away everyone's freedoms because you have a problem with something.

> In the particular case, they should not hire directly from the very industry they regulate. Ensuring that the regulators have expertise will be a problem, but at least no conflict of interest

That feels like trading a problem for an even bigger problem. Everyone has greed but not everyone has competence. The world is in desperate need of more competence. Greed isn't necessarily a problem as long as it's regulated e.g., most people want nice stuff but don't burglarize their neighbors.

We all have conflicts of interest.

> It’s literally as simple as not putting a cigarette in your mouth and smoking it.

Literally the approach I used when I quit smoking.

> Crazy thought but what if we had a sample size bigger than you.

Well, that sounds like something everyone can agree on. Or do you just mean your opinion is bigger than anyone who disagrees?

Realistically if you just want to try out someone else's contract in a safe environment, the existence of the test nets is entirely irrelevant.

The contract is going to be at a different address, all the accounts involved are entirely different, the state of the contract is different. Even proving a contract at one address is the same as the contract at another address is non-trivial.

Pretending the existence of a test net proves anything is a lot like pretending the availability of source for your OS, compiler and dependency stack proves something. Maybe possibly for a professional with unlimited time, but that's it.

Well, I'm guessing irony is lost on that group so I'll concede the point. Reminds me of the Rick & Morty sign for "peace among worlds".

I realize it's probably too late to respond, but I don't completely disagree.

I really don't like referring to Republican's as conservative or Democrats as liberal precisely because neither party really sticks to those concepts. "Conservatives" as a political unit are not conservative and "Liberals" aren't liberal.

The world is a dumb place.

Are you sure it's actually been used unironically?

I've wondered about that, but don't personally know anyone who's used it in any way. Are you on good enough terms with an actual white supremist who has used it unironically to confirm the intent is racist?

You're right. A conservative is a contrarian. They fight change.

Chesterton's fence is a rational argument in favor of being conservative.

It felt overly authoritarian to me as well, but I think that's part of the point. In all the examples the author did have the authority to say no.

In any sort of leadership position you should absolutely take advice and talk to people, but as soon as a decision is made you have to stop talking about it and just communicate the decision. It's more frustrating for people to think a decision is up for discussion when in reality it's not.

All the things you mention are problems. The stakes are high and the chance of a mistake is as well.

FWIW - When I've used washer-drier combos I haven't enjoy the convenience of discovering my clothes are all damp. They just don't dry well, so the do-it-all-while-away convenience is only true maybe 50% of the time. The other 50% of time it backfires badly and you have to redo the wash.

Why do you suspect blinders? Do you know of many cases where the disruptor pattern should be used by isn't?

It seems like such as clear cut example of how "bad people" think though. They always considered themselves justified in harming others.

Variations of "the golden rule" are common around the world. If you actively decide to treat others in a way that you don't want to be treated, then you've failed the most universal rule of being a decent person.

I fully understand thoughtless knee jerk behavior that is unethical, but taking your time and calming coming up with the idea that you are special and it's ok to harm others... it's just a bit strong on the cognitive dissonance.

Doesn't seem fundamentally different from any other PR firm. They tend to specialize in clients leaning in one direction or the other, but don't have specific interests beyond revenue.

The page showing their work (https://www.bermanco.com/television-video/) has a bit of a theme but nothing jumped out as outside of the mainstream, definitely not worthy of the devil.

I'm always confused when I see these sorts of comments.

You're so concerned with ethics, while having no qualms about lying and stealing? Ethics are optional when personal benefit is involved?

Is this something you have any firsthand experience with?

My assumption is that Apple exposes an API or page that can validate a gift card. If someone physically sees that card at Target and is then able to poll Apple with the number, that could go a long way towards enabling a scam. All the scammer needs is some automated mechanism to test whether a card has been activated.

Could be as simple as a balance checking service that either gives a dollar amount or an error code indicating the card isn't active.

Feels like a clear cut answer: Yes.

> You should try to reconsider what you think you know about the people who disagree with you, because you are absolutely incorrect and borderline delusional.

You are doing exactly what you're insulting. Some self reflection is in order.

> Who makes that decision? In a democracy, the people do, via the government they elect.

So, you're proposing people don't form opinions or try to influence opinion? You're just arguing for maintaining the status quo here.

> Also, wealthy people consume less, proportional to their wealth, than poorer people do. It's pretty much impossible for a billionaire to "consume" their fortune, unless they decide to do something useless and absurdly grand, like building a thousand ziggurats or something. Consumption taxes only work to concentrate the tax burden on non-wealthy people.

In real terms the wealthy consume far more than the poor. That's how Ferrari's exist; that's why consumption taxes make sense to a lot of people.

The money the wealthy don't consume (therefore the part that wouldn't be touched by consumption tax) is invested in producing assets and is already being used by society. Consumption taxes produce more money from the rich, and provide incentive for the rich to invest more and consume less.

> One important thing that's missing from your analysis is power.

Real power only comes from the use of wealth, you can trick some people by the promise of eventually paying but that wears thin very quickly. Influence via media campaign is easily taxable (probably already is?); gifts are already taxed once they get meaningful. Paying public officials for preferential treatment should be treated like the blatant corruption it frequently is.

If you want to improve society, that's great. Consumption taxes are a way to help society. Bashing consumption taxes because they don't hurt the rich sounds more like petty bitterness.

In what way are you saying we steal from the poor? How does bitcoin steal less?

I'm not sure if there's anything 95% of developers are on the same page about.

From what I've seen, every company has a different idea of what _best practices_ are. Generally comes down to what some influential developer likes.

Depends what you mean by end well... I'm sure everyone that counts will declare it a wonderful success. They'll probably even have graphs proving a x% reduction in Bad Stuff (TM)*.

In my experience those claiming to "sit and wait" have all been vaccinated now. After they waited a month or two and saw minimal side effects.

Dear god no... if your sense of morality requires lying, you need to reevaluate some things. Thank you for not lying.

It's more accurate to say you depend on the teaching/explaining talent in addition to code talent. Why is that a problem?

I've never heard anything as helpful for learning as the Feynman technique: https://fs.blog/2021/02/feynman-learning-technique/

The article's mention of "best practices" rings incredible true. If it's a "best practice" you should be able to easily list a half dozen reasons why. Otherwise you don't really understand what you're talking about.

Trials also need incentive. Everything does. Is your answer is to nationalize everything? If not, where do you draw the line? The world doesn't work the way you want it to and you're not making a real argument that it should.

More people die if research isn't done _and_ developed. In no way does just not paying improve the situation.

"Think of the children" is just an empty appeal to emotion over reason. Great indicator of a bad faith argument though.

Are you saying risk-adverse is a bad thing?

The healthcare industry does a lot of really shady things, but you're picking the worst example.

No doubt drugs could be cheaper, but denying pharma an incentive to ever develop them is not the answer. Of course manufacturing is cheap, but the research and clinical trials are expensive and have to be paid for somehow. Focusing on only the manufacturing costs is a bizarre combination of dumb and disingenuous.