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What do you mean?

Please consider that you are in an extreme social media and/or real life filter bubble. "The elites" aren't some secret Soros/Clinton/HerEmails force out to destroy America.

I've found that taking a long-ish break (2-3 weeks) from reading the news and social media can be extremely eye opening.

ciarannolanon Nicholas Carr on deep reading and digital thinking

I think it holds up extremely well since it's more broad than just specific internet technologies. It's more of a history and sociology of humans and technology.

I can't recommend it enough.

ciarannolanon How Police Secretly Took over a Global Phone Network for Organized Crime

Thanks!

ciarannolanon Nicholas Carr on deep reading and digital thinking

His book, The Shallows, is an incredible journey into the human/technology relationship. As much as we create and change technology, it likewise changes us.

Worth a read for anyone in tech.

https://www.amazon.com/Shallows-What-Internet-Doing-Brains/d...

ciarannolanon How Police Secretly Took over a Global Phone Network for Organized Crime

Well, presumably not the ones with "77 firearms, including an AK47 assault rifle, sub machine guns, handguns, four grenades, and over 1,800 rounds of ammunition" or "More than two tonnes of Class A and B drugs have also been seized by police, as well as 55 sports cars, 73 luxury watches and over 28 million street Valium pills – a drug that has caused a number of deaths in Scotland."

ciarannolanon How Police Secretly Took over a Global Phone Network for Organized Crime

Can a French speaker please give us a tldr?

ciarannolanon Ask HN: What kind of ideas are not VC-backable but should exist in the future?

Eh, sorry, I was making a lame joke.

ciarannolanon Ask HN: What kind of ideas are not VC-backable but should exist in the future?

When you launch this, I would recommend not including the phrase "cybernetics jack-in" in your marketing materials.

ciarannolanon Ask HN: What kind of ideas are not VC-backable but should exist in the future?

Do you mind if I ask how you know about this? Is it an industry you work in/around?

I'm always curious how people discover these kinds of business ideas.

ciarannolanon The percentage of Americans who are employed has fallen from 61 to 51

> America isn't the richest country in the world. It's a poor country with a lot of rich people.

ciarannolanon The percentage of Americans who are employed has fallen from 61 to 51

This is fascinating.

What is this theory called? I'd like to read more.

ciarannolanon The percentage of Americans who are employed has fallen from 61 to 51

> What do you do with the people that don't produce $20 an hour in value. Throw them out?

> The average college grad starts at $25 an hour.

I think you're almost all the way there to answering your own question.

ciarannolanon The percentage of Americans who are employed has fallen from 61 to 51

No, that statement is applicable to all taxes. Look at my second quote and its link.

The average American household pays about 5-7% of its income in taxes other than income tax. I think that qualifies as "very little".

ciarannolanon The percentage of Americans who are employed has fallen from 61 to 51

If you can barely make ends meet, you do not pay income taxes in America. In fact, you get free money from the federal government once a year via the standard deduction rather than paying them.

If you're scraping by on, say, $500/month after rent is paid, $10 of that on sales taxes is insignificant imo.

ciarannolanon The percentage of Americans who are employed has fallen from 61 to 51

What kind of healthcare do you suppose a person gets for $67/month?

What sort of meal do you suppose a person gets at a sit down restaurant for less than $10?

How is a young married couple supposed to establish some wealth and make their way in life on $20K/year each?

Every day HN amazes me at how completely out of touch some people are. "I make six figures typing on a screen in an air conditioned room all day. Why can't these damn poor people just take their $10/hr and shut up?"

ciarannolanon The percentage of Americans who are employed has fallen from 61 to 51

Not exactly what you're looking for, but close: https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm#00-0000

ciarannolanon The percentage of Americans who are employed has fallen from 61 to 51

I agree that "It’s definitely a livable salary for a young person in a low cost of living area." is a laughable claim.

But, it is true that most Americans pay very little taxes.

> According to the Tax Foundation, the top 50% of taxpayers paid 96.96% of all federal income taxes in 2016, the last tax year for which comprehensive and vetted statistics are available from the Internal Revenue Service. This means that the bottom 50% paid just 3.04%. [1]

And yes, sales tax is "almost nothing". About 2-3% of an average American household's total income.

> With that in mind, the average American pays $10,489 in "personal taxes," representing 14% of the average household's total income. This includes federal and state income taxes, as well as other taxes such as personal property taxes, vehicle taxes, and certain other small taxes. $8,367 of this amount is federal income taxes, $2,046 is state and local taxes, and $75 is other small taxes. [2]

[1] https://www.thebalance.com/what-the-average-american-pays-in...

[2] https://www.fool.com/taxes/2018/04/22/how-much-does-the-aver...

ciarannolanon Show HN: Health monitoring for loved ones on the cloud

Sorry, I didn't see that part.

ciarannolanon India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

Thanks. I didn't answer because it common for people making a lowest common denominator comment to just pepper you with questions that never land on a final point.

I think your point is interesting. What do you mean by "power alliances" in this context? Do you mean that they're mostly (or entirely) allied for their combined war making power?

For my part, I think the relationship is based on a general understanding that their people are alike in custom, beliefs, traditions, geopolitical place, etc. After all, America is the troubled child of the UK that grew up to dominate the world.

ciarannolanon India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

I don't think there was really a point to be missed.

If you have a point, go ahead and make it.

ciarannolanon India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Relationship

It's always disappointing commenting on HN only to get reddit/twitter "zinger" replies.

ciarannolanon India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

>[not all] International Partnerships are not based on values or Democracy/*cracy

FTFY.

Think about the "special relationship" among the UK/US that is (definitely was) primarily based on values.

The Saudis are a pragmatic ally, not a values-based one. Both exist.

ciarannolanon India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

From the Wiki:

>WhatsApp is owned by Facebook, whose main social media service has been blocked in China since 2009.[208] In September 2017, security researchers reported to The New York Times that the WhatsApp service had been completely blocked in China.[209][210]

>According to Time, Sarsenbek Akaruli, 45, a veterinarian and trader from Ili, Xinjiang, was arrested in Xinjiang on November 2, 2017. As of November 2019, he is still in a detention camp. According to his wife Gulnur Kosdaulet, Akaruli was put in the camp after police found the banned messaging app WhatsApp on his cell phone. Kosdaulet, a citizen of neighboring Kazakhstan, has traveled to Xinjiang on four occasions to search for her husband but could not get help from friends in the Communist Party of China. Kosdaulet said of her friends, "Nobody wanted to risk being recorded on security cameras talking to me in case they ended up in the camps themselves."[211]

Are they still putting people in concentration camps for having an app on their phone?

ciarannolanon Show HN: Health monitoring for loved ones on the cloud

>shipping is more important than creating an appsec team or bug bounty program

Is it? Isn't "not losing people's personal health data to a breach" more important than shipping?

ciarannolanon Life is 90% of my use cases for org-mode

haha, it's not :)

Just making a joke that HN loves 1. emacs and 2. websites that are just a .txt file.

ciarannolanon Life is 90% of my use cases for org-mode

This is too peak HN for me.

ciarannolanon Algolia's Index of Hacker News Is Down

Thanks, Sylvain, much appreciated. It's working for me now.

I must say I expected this post to kind of go into the ether, not for Algolia's VP of Engineering to reply with a solution within an hour :)

Have a nice weekend!

ciarannolanon Unilever is latest brand to boycott Facebook

Probably because they all participate along with Facebook in the same anti-privacy racket.

ciarannolanon Unilever is latest brand to boycott Facebook

>Facebook brought in nearly $70 billion in advertising revenue last year.

What % of that was from companies that are now boycotting, including Unilever?

I have to imagine a company like Unilever was spending no small sum on Facebook ads.