blackhawkC17

Killing is not the point. It’s to feed raw terror to terrorists, giving them a nice taste of their own medicine.

Wow, you’re actually admitting to being a terrorist sympathizer? You could have just made that clear earlier so we’d know who we were conversing with.

Literally everyone understands that they'll cease to exist one day, whether religious or non-religious. That some people hope there's something after this life doesn't mean they can't fathom a case where that isn't true.

Harvard's endowment is $50 billion, and its expenses in 2023 were $6.25 billion [1]. To fund that, the endowment will need 12.5% annual interest, which is impossible. Tuition revenue is not remotely suitable enough for Harvard's operational expenses.

Again, people don't understand how endowments work. When endows a specific program at Harvard, their money must be used for that program alone. The funds can't be sent to the general pool for the entire university.

There are many ways to criticize wealthy educational institutions, but calling them "hedge funds" makes no sense. Which hedge fund subsidizes their clients' expenses with donations?

1- https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/421...

They employ hundreds of contractors to run the operations.

Egypt elected the Muslim Brotherhood into power. There's nothing about the Muslim Brotherhood pertaining to "modern governments built around such ideals as individual rights, rule of law, checks and balances, multiple political parties, free speech, independent court systems, a secular state".

Better to deal with a secular dictator than an elected religious extremist. Elected Islamists always crap on democracy once they're elected.

I'm from a dysfunctional third-world country, too (Nigeria), and I agree with the GP. Our population lacks the ability to cooperate for the greater good. Politics here is insanely tribal and corrupt. We're heading for the tatters, except something miraculous happens.

If you've never lived in a poor, corrupt, dysfunctional place, you'll not understand how bad life is that'll make someone wish to be occupied.

The issue is not Starlink. It's that the Brazilian government is too inept and corrupt to tackle illegal mining in its backyard. Many countries have huge landmasses (US, Canada, China, etc.), yet no one gets away with something as brash as illegal mining.

This is such a bad faith character assassination. The “child-beating” is an accusation from his partner after he stopped paying 150,000 euros a month in child support [1].

Of course, some weird accusations suddenly come out in such situations, coincidentally not when the money was flowing. The Swiss government hasn’t charged him with anything, so he’s innocent before the law in that case.

The issue here is between Durov and the French government. HN won’t care if he was indicted for domestic violence or something else not related to his app.

Thanks for falling easy to outrage rumors though.

1- https://archive.is/TTwFf

> Posting this as a reply to someone who just shared their own experience getting doxxed in a country where victims have legitimate grounds to fear for their lives... feels a little out of place.

They should pick a bone with their country’s government that allows such thing to happen, not Telegram.

I imagine a dystopian feature where ransomware hackers encrypt people’s brains and ask for ransom to unlock the contents.

Anyway, this seems cool tho.

I wonder why tech employees (labour) earning high salaries should represent a problem. That's a very good thing.

> Once again, yes, RealPage might be able to push things a few percentage points up and that's bad, but it is simply not capable of turning Houston prices into Los Angeles prices.

You didn’t address the point though. If the issue is collusion, why haven’t landlords hiked mid-tier city rents to San Francisco levels?

Or maybe it’s simply supply and demand.

Source? That seems like the laughable lie that originated from a certain TikToker.

People don't like taking responsibility, so they'll blame an external source instead of tackling the underlying issue—the lack of new housing supply.

The same story applies to most booming cities, both in the first world and third world. They'll always blame "greedy landlords," expats, private equity, tourists, and whatever the latest boogeyman is.

South Korea is an outlier even among wealthy countries. They have an extreme work culture (beginning from school in the early stages) that takes a toll on people .

On one hand, we can say this work ethic/culture enabled them to go from third world to first in less than a century. But stretch it too much and the country suffers population collapse.

I wonder if being bordered by a rabid enemy (North Korea) also plays a role in the low birth rates. Maybe people don’t want to give birth to kids that might end up fighting war in the long run.

Let’s hope a democratic ruler takes over in the long run, and definitely not an Islamist.

Otherwise, going from autocracy to military rule is like hating the frying pan and jumping into the fire.

> For all intents and purposes, the US is as "authoritarian" as the chinese in this aspect. This is even demonstrated, albeit rightly so, by the russian financial sanctions, and currency freezes/seizures.

No it isn’t. The reserves were frozen under due process and can be returned under specific conditions, i.e., Russia withdrawing troops from Ukraine. That’s what the rule of law is, unlike China that can seize your Yuan anytime, and there’s no due process to get it back.

> If you're part of the global south, but is rich enough to have foreign reserves, you will start to think about how to diversify.

They’ll still overwhelmingly stick to the dollar, not a currency that operates on the whims of a dictator.

> At some point, china would also be able to convince the global south to start trading in the chinese yuan.

It’s a pipe dream to convince people to trade in a currency controlled by an authoritarian and corrupt government.

The global south can yap all they wish, but they still prefer to trade in dollars and euros, the currencies of countries with rule of law.

South Korea and Taiwan reformed from authoritarianism into prosperous democracies without violence.

The money to repurchase shares must be coming from an external source?

I assumed Character.AI wasn’t profitable, like most AI startups.

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> Many AI and Crypto projects have gotten similar amounts. As a society we decide were to invest our money.

Biotech companies (including those tackling Alzheimer’s) have gotten much larger amounts from VCs.

The U.S. government also directly funds medical research to the tune of tens of billions of dollars annually.

I guess people must find a reason to bash investors.

No they don’t. China got richer when they implemented free market reforms, proving the idea.

Unfortunately Xi is now focused on saber-rattling about national security and bullying neighbors. He has cracked down on free markets, and China’s economy is suffering due to his incompetence.

Who are these invisible elites you speak of? I won’t be surprised if you mention the fictional “deep state.”

Then they should be ready to pay higher rents for it, because everyone else also wants the same thing.

The GP boldly said the Soviet Union wasn’t communist.

Please then, what was it? Capitalist? Feudal? Democratic socialism? I need a clear answer..

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Norway has more billionaires per capita than the USA.

It’s not socialist in any sense. It’s a diehard capitalist country with a lot of public services and welfare (funded by taxes generated under a capitalist system).

> The Chinese state takes a rather strong hand in allocating capital, and that has treated it fairly well over the past few decades.

The Chinese government has spent massive amounts on vanity projects. A lot of government funds have also been looted by CCP honchos.

Thanks but no. I’ll take American capital allocators over the Chinese any day.

Most importantly, I don’t want to live in a dictatorship.