csa

Thank you. I’m very familiar with the guidelines. I’ve think I can play my OG card on this one.

I added substantial commentary that makes it more than a “why the down votes?” type of comment.

‘rayiner gets beat on here a bit due to what appears to be his conservative stances on some issues.

While I don’t agree with many of the things ‘rayiner says, we can’t throw the baby out with the bath water if we’re going to have meaningful discussions here — especially ones that are intellectually stimulating.

IMHO, one of the reasons we (in the US) are where we are politically is precisely because we ignore, or downvote, or denigrate views from the opposing side (whichever side that is). It’s not really prudent to blithely downvote a considered and articulate comment without commentary just because you disagree with it or dislike the implications. In the case of hacker news, this type of behavior is antithetical to the goals of the site — intellectually stimulating content.

So, while I appreciate your citation of the rules (which may itself be a middlebrow dismissal), I stick by my original comment, and I look forward to anyone who could reply to it.

This comment is starting to turn gray for me, which means that it’s being downvoted.

I don’t know much about this topic, but all of the factual content mentioned above seems to be true.

Can anyone who disagrees with ‘rayiner here explain why they downvoted? Is it just an unpleasant observation? Is it a disagreement with his conclusion in the last few sentences? Is it just a downvote against the commenter (iirc, he tends to make conservative talking points)? Something else?

I genuinely want to know, as this seems like it would be an important set of talking points around immigration as a whole that any policy maker would want to consider.

I wonder exactly what you do, because almost none of your comment jibes with my knowledge and experience.

Note that I own an agency that does a lot of what you say is “solved”, and I assure you that it’s not (at least in terms of being an efficient market).

SMBs with ARR up to $100m (or even many times more that in ag) struggle to find anyone good to do technical work for them either internally or externally on a consistent basis.

> I am afraid that kind of jobs were already over by 2015.

Conceptually, maybe. In practice, definitely not.

> There are no code website makers available since then

… that mostly make shit websites.

> and if you can't do it yourself you can just pay someone on fiverr and get it done for less than $5-50 at this point,

Also almost certainly a shit website at that price point, probably using the no-code tools mentioned above.

These websites have so many things wrong with them that demonstrably decrease engagement or lose revenue.

> its so efficient even AI wont be more cost effective than that.

AI will be better very soon, as the best derivative AI tools will be trained on well-developed websites.

That said, AI will never have taste, and it will never have empathy for the end user. These things can only be emulated (at least for the time being).

> If you have $10k saved you can hire a competitive agency to maintain and build your website

You can get an ok “brochure” website built for that. Maintaining it, if you have an agency that actually stays in business, will be about $100 minimum for the lowest effort touch, $200 for an actually one line change (like business hours), and up from there from anything substantial.

If you work with a decent, reputable agency, a $10k customer is the lowest on the totem pole amongst the agency’s customer list. The work is usually delegated to the least experienced devs, and these clients are usually merely tolerated rather than embraced.

It sucks to be the smallest customer of an agency, but it’s a common phenomenon amongst certain classes of SMBs.

> This business is completely taken over by low cost fiverr automators and agencies for high budget projects.

This is actually true. Mainly because any decent small agency either turns into one that does larger contracts, or it gets absorbed by one.

That said, there is a growing market for mid-sized agencies (“lifestyle agencies”?).

> Agencies have become so good now that they manage websites from Adidas to Lando Norris to your average mom & pop store

As mentioned above, you absolutely do not want to be a mom and pop store working with a web agency that works with any large, international brand like Adidas.

I appreciate your points from a conceptual level, but the human element of tech, software, and websites will continue to be a huge business for many decades, imho.

> How much of a session is based on "reading players" vs "playing the odds"?

Several good answers here, but I will add my own take.

“Playing the odds” is basically playing good, fundamental poker. This is a baseline that most players will use when sitting down at a table of unknown players. This is often called a “balanced” strategy (note some people erroneously call this “GTO strategy, assuming the balance, which is not actually what GTO is).

“Reading players” is a thing, but it can be broken up into (at least) two categories: 1) physical tells, and 2) player habits.

Physical tells is not a big thing. Some people give off a lot of tells, but some folks are also decent (not good) at giving reverse tells. Honestly, you can be a wildly successful poker player while knowing nothing about physical tells.

(Side note: One of the most reliable tells is bet timing tells. This can sometimes even be a tell online, especially when people are taking shots at higher stakes or are deep in a tournament. It can also be faked, but some folks are super reliable with timing tells, and they don’t realize it.)

The second kind of tell is player tendencies — things like when players play too many hands or when they play too few (e.g., fold too often).

One very reliable way for good players to smooth out their earnings curve is figure out which players fold too often and in which spots. Once they’ve figured that out, they try to set up that spot and basically print low-risk (sometimes even no-risk) chips.

Taking advantage of these tendencies is called an “exploitative” strategy (as opposed to the “balanced” strategy mentioned above).

Really good players can take rec players on a journey through a series of emotions (and accompanying predictable gameplay) such that the good player can read the rec player like a book. The odds tip heavily in favor of the good player at this point.

Pro player and strong amateur players are so far ahead of recs in ways that the recs don’t even realize.

> That demand is all investor-driven though: investors are falling over themselves to make AI investments

Largely true.

> while consumers are not actually especially eager to have all human contact progressively stripped from their lives

Hmm… I agree with this sentiment, but I think it’s mostly a straw man. There are many things that AI can do well that people will end up embracing directly or indirectly.

Medical scans is one big one, imho.

Mundane but important legal services is another.

Skillful mediation of scutwork is definitely embraced.

Good and fast simple customer service via phone or text will end up being very welcome (at least in some contexts). I realize that most people will prefer superlative human customer service, but that’s currently not a widespread available reality, especially for simple tasks.

All sorts of learning (great and essentially free tutors).

All sorts of practice (e.g., language, speeches, debates, presentations, etc.).

All of the above (and more) are things that people are using AI for right now, and they seem to be loving it.

I realize that some folks use AI tools in regressive and sometimes dehumanizing ways, but that’s not the fault of the tool, imho.

> All they're investing in are AI companies...

Genuine question…

Do you not think that a large percentage of (random cut off) $1b companies over the next 10 years will be AI?

And/or do you not think that the next $100b+ company will be AI-centered?

> “We don't need to worry about the guy making serious noises about an unconstitutional 3rd term because he might die in office" is a position that does not do anything about the problems that have allowed Trump to happen. Could even say it leaves fertile ground for the next populist authoritarian who comes along.

> We must challenge the unitary executive theory. America is not intended to be a dictatorship or monarchy. It's not OK for Trump / those in his orbit to make comments about a 3rd term, it is a problem, it is something we need to take seriously.

This is all covered in my last paragraph (which, imho, is a separate issue from the current president):

“There is plenty of commentary that can be made about the political machine behind him, but let’s not project that to the dotard currently in office.”

The current president isn’t smart enough to do what it takes to stay in office more than two terms. This is all the work of those around him.

To be more pointed, fixating on Trump rather than the political and social machine around him — which many people seem to do — is missing the forest for the trees.

> Isn't it If he leaves office at this point, or does it only sound like it from Europe?

While I appreciate your sentiment, we really need to stop with this specific type of pearl clutching.

The current president’s mental and physical condition is deteriorating rapidly. He will be lucky to make it through the current term in a functional state.

Adding another number of years to his time in office would mean that he almost literally would need to be propped up by his caretakers.

Is it possible? Sure. Is it probable? No, and it’s not even close, imho.

There is plenty of commentary that can be made about the political machine behind him, but let’s not project that to the dotard currently in office.

> Are people still using Facebook in 2026?

Some of the best B2C customers are on FB — willing to spend, low expectations, low maintenance.

If you add IG to the mix, it’s even better.

Your typical HNer does not really fall into “ideal customer” profile for most B2C businesses. Our saving grace is our above average income profile. Other than that, on average we are tolerated rather than sought after (imho).

> Aside from all that, there are other American car manufacturers with great EVs: Mustang Mach-E, Chevy Equinox/Bolt/Blazer, etc.

Teslas aren’t perfect, and they are definitely starting to get a bit dated, but the list you made has precisely zero “great EVs” imho.

Ag or musician.

> Even for the remaining lawyers, I imagine that their billable hours will crater due to competitive dynamics.

Billable hours will absolutely crater for lawyers who cater to a low-end clients (esp. for defense) and lawyers who are not good business people.

That said, the best lawyers will almost certainly still be in incredibly high demand, since higher-end lawyering (much like banking) is a personal business as much or more than it is a technical one. AI will simply allow these lawyers to do more and better work.

So much of your comment is wrong:

> These extra curricular activities, were the secret game you had to play, to get into prestigious universities. At least, it was just a few years ago.

Extracurriculars have been a part of elite school admissions for about a century.

It hasn’t really been a secret for most of that time.

Some people (somewhat correctly) say that this requirement was added to discriminate against Jews at that time, but it was also an education idea (“Progressive Education” by Dewey) that gained popularity around the same time.

Regardless of what the initial catalyst was, the universities seemed to like having folks who were “doers” as a significant part of their student body.

> Besides niche sports like lacrosse and rowing

These are not “niche sports” in certain parts of the country.

> there was the volunteer activities like serving at a soup kitchen.

I can tell you point blank that serving in a soup kitchen does not help you get into an elite school.

For any school that ranks such things, if you have a laundry list of volunteer activities like this, it would get you the next to lowest rating in extracurriculars — this is basically the same as not doing anything.

The key to getting an high rating for any volunteer activity would be to show leadership (which is something the elite schools says point blank that they want) and meaningful impact.

> When Ivy League universities saw a resume like that, they knew which social class the student belonged to.

I’ve got news for you. A wide range of classes of people do these things.

There might be a floor at the absolutely lowest end of the economic spectrum (just due to instability of housing and food), but I’ve seen a ton of great examples from folks who were not upper or upper middle class. Often times necessity can be the mother of invention!

I assure you that these stories stand out to admissions committees, with the biggest challenge often being simply to get some of these folks from modest means to apply.

> You could just as logically say that if the user has spent money to remove advertising, then they now have less money and are less valuable to advertise for.

Thank you for the laugh.

While this may be true on an individual level, it’s wildly not true in aggregate.

The first dollar is hardest to get. Once someone has shown a propensity to spend on pretty much anything, they become much more valuable as an advertising target.

> You could zero out every dollar American insurers make and not materially alter consumer health care economics; their share of the health care pie is almost literally a rounding error.

What are you implying with this comment?

I generally enjoy reading your comments, as they provide some interesting and often unique insight.

But this one…

Either it’s something I don’t understand, or it has the potential to be incredibly misleading in its implications.

The impact of American insurers on direct costs, indirect costs, and opportunity costs of healthcare is much more than a rounding error. The incentives amongst various actors, with insurers in the middle, are massively misaligned. I’m sure you know this.

Ask patio11 about insurance in Japan. It’s incredibly affordable, it’s quite good, and there are both public and private options. It’s not perfect by any means, but I miss the healthcare options in terms of both cost and quality that I had in Japan.

> find my course near the top of Google

> Now the same thing happens, but there's 20x less sales per month.

You’re a victim of the AI search results. There are lots of those.

I recommend something like social media ads where your target audience hangs out (maybe LinkedIn, possibly Google).

Were most of your sales coming via your site and/or organic search?

It sounds like you have a solid product, but you need to update your marketing channels.

> I don’t understand this thing you do in the US of forcing you to do completely unrelated courses.

The framework for the current curriculum was developed when maybe 2% of the country went to college. The curriculum was meant to be broad, and it was meant to teach people how to think. It was not designed to train the students to do a specific job other than “lead” or “go to grad school and specialize”.

And the high school curriculum is just as bad. It was designed for a time when 4% of a cohort went to high school. Half of those went to a 4-year school and the other half went to 2-year schools. The other 96% didn’t go to high school. That’s why we have some oddities like required 4 years of literature in high school. Nothing wrong with literature, but it’s not really appropriate (at least as currently taught) for a mass audience, imho.

> Which viewpoint did you oppose? It matters.

> If it was "Women should be allowed to vote" I can understand the teachers reluctance to engage in debate.

I was in a class like this at an elite school 3 decades ago. I was told by two other students that my role as a cis straight white male was to say nothing or validate what others said.

This was during a time that the core concepts of what is currently called DEI were being fleshed out.

My “sin” was asking whether certain research and data were being reported and represented accurately (they weren’t). The creative interpretations led to policy suggestions that were about 180 degrees from what the author intended. How did I know that? I knew the researcher and had discussed it with him directly.

That class was an absolute circle jerk, and it’s the kind of circle jerk that gives progressives a very bad name while being completely unnecessary (i.e., many parts of the progressive agenda have plenty of solid research support without wildly creative interpretations).

Anyway, the professor in this class was having none of it. He appreciated my questions. That said, half the class thought I was satan incarnate.

> Construction, a few trades… Help me, I've run out of ideas without resorting to "Walmart Greeter".

I don’t think you’re trying hard enough.

- bookkeeper

- billing (esp. medical)

- data entry

- admin assistant

- inventory management

- basic tax filing

- content manager (for websites and social media)

- scheduling

- basic account management

- tons of stuff in supply chain

I could go on…

> Do you know any employers actively avoiding students from Ivy-league colleges?

Yes.

The Ivy grads are often considered over-qualified (rightly or wrongly). Especially for government positions that don’t normally hire elite school grads and smallish local/regional businesses.

I know plenty of people who work in different government positions (federal, state, local) who will not hire grads from an elite schools (Ivy, Stanford, Berkeley, etc.) because they think something must be wrong with them (“why would they apply for this job?”), or they think that the applicant will jump ship at the first opportunity.

I agree that those can both be issues, but I’m not sure those issues are limited to or are more likely in elite school grads.

I’ve certainly seen situations in which elite school grads have worked at an org that didn’t normally hire any of them, and the quality and quantity of work produced caused there to be some tough conversations in terms of standards and evaluations (they basically “crushed the curve”). In the two cases I’m most familiar with, the people in question were relatively non-ambitious female employees who just cranked out high quality work. They took those jobs because they were decent jobs near their respective families. In both cases, the companies had bittersweet feelings when said employees left —- they lost productivity, but they no longer had the manage outlier performers.

One of these ladies left her job to become a stay at home mom. The other joined a more prestigious privately-held company who seemed to know how to harness her abilities (she moved up quickly).

So… it happens.

> In both suburban neighborhoods I've lived in the past 10 years, there are basically zero middle school or high school kids doing anything except playing video games and messing around on their phones from the comfort of home.

While perhaps not uncommon, these sound like massively dysfunctional neighborhoods.

> Lemme just question how home schooling is at all possible without one parent (statically more likely to be a woman) staying home to supervise the learning.

There are at least two good answers to this:

1. The first is a via a home-schooling collective. With as few as 5 families, one can easily do a once-per-week rotation of home schooling responsibilities. Also note that the formal education part of this can be done fairly comfortably in 4 hours (even down to 2 hours with 1-1 instruction). As such, all that is needed is a 4-day a week job, or a job with a flex schedule who can do work on the weekend. I know one family that does something like this.

2. The second is to have a tutor do the instruction. For folks who are high earners, paying a tutor who can come in for 2-3 hours a day costs about the same as a mid-tier private school. Child care would still need to be covered, but that’s usually cheaper than a tutor.

So it’s doable, but either time or money will need to be sacrificed. I don’t think that’s a surprise.

That said, below are some things about home schooling that I’ve learned over the years from people who have done it:

- When done well, it’s probably close to an ideal education. When done poorly, it can mess up the kid, and many of these kids are very vocal about how bad it can be. Obviously there will be a whole range of outcomes between these extremes. Just be aware that it’s not necessarily a panacea, and it’s not necessarily an ideological cesspit.

- There is a ton of support for home schoolers in some communities, especially for socialization and specialization. Many people do not realize this.

- That said, some (perhaps many) home school parents are just ideological extremists — extreme beliefs, extreme (sometimes illegal) lifestyles, etc.

- A good litmus test of where a home school parent is on the thoughtful-extremist continuum is to ask them why they homeschool their kids. The thoughtful parents can rattle off dozens of learning opportunities that their kids have had that don’t exist or barely exist at normal schools. The less of these types of specifics they talk about, the more likely they are to have ideological reasons that they may or may not openly discuss.

- For folks who want a good learning environment for their kid, I strongly recommend a good Montessori school. I emphasize “good”, because some of them stray far from the Montessori ideals. This just requires a small amount of research and some observation. All that said, a good Montessori school almost always sets up a kid to be a solid person and life-long learner. Note that some kids absolutely hate the Montessori style, and you will know this in about a day or two. I will go out on a limb and say most of these kids will need special attention in home school contexts as well (imho).

> So I’m genuinely wondering if there’s a corresponding exit from the workplace or other demographic trends allowing/pushing this boom in home schooling to happen?

I don’t think so.

Most of the people I know who home school are already stay at home parents (mostly mothers, but one dad), or they have plenty of disposable income to throw at the problem via tutors and home school support services.

I will also say that some parents absolutely punt on the education part, and they can do their part (often negligently) while doing a full time work-from-home job — think handing out some work sheets and pointing their kid(s) to an online learning environment with very little scaffolding. There are some kids who respond well to this, but most don’t.

> Don't legitimate IQ tests top out at 160 for adults?

“Top out” can be interpreted many ways. It depends on how they are used.

Modern tests are fairly accurate up to 2sd (70-130). The tests start wavering in accuracy between 2sd and 3sd (55-70 and 130-145).

Over 3sd, and the only thing one can confidently say is that the examinee is most likely lower or higher than 3sd (55 and 145). The tests just don’t have enough data points to discriminate finely beyond those thresholds.

Let me further say that, on the high end, there are very few jobs for which I would make any selection decision based on how high an IQ score (or proxy thereof) is over 130. There are other variables, many of which are easier to measure, that are better predictors of success.

All of this doesn’t even take into consideration that there is relatively more type II error/bias in IQ results — that is, there are plenty of people who score less than their theoretical maximum (e.g., due to poor sleep the previous night), while there are relatively fewer people who score much higher than their theoretical maximum.

> i could envision a situation where there's a kid that has a bad home-life situation that gets resolved or a stretch of bad mental health that could really turn things around from one year to the next.

This happens.

Usually they will not get held back. Usually the teachers will know what’s going on. A passing C (or even B) can be manufactured in these spots. This assumes that they are normally good students.

Also note that most schools that reject people have a spot on their application where an applicant can explain any sort of extenuating circumstances (e.g., parents divorce, etc.), and a bad year will be overlooked as long as it’s clear that they are back on track and can perform.

If someone has consistent performance issues and just happens to be smart, then they need to fix the performance issues. This is usually best done at a junior college and then a transfer to a four-year school (e.g., State U).

> what happens to GPA if a kid is failed/held back a year?

For a kid who is held back a year, what good is any GPA? Genuine question.

I’m sure that one could construct some sort of edge case or corner case in which a college-bound kid has a bad year. That said, for each of those cases, I’m pretty sure I could come up with a perfectly good way for that person to find a reasonable path to a very good university.

That said, in most cases, the folks who are held back will have significant issues that will marginalize them anyway: social, psychological, cognitive, etc.

> Enough that some colleges have been bullied into eliminating the SAT or ACT requirements entirely, by those who allege they're unfair to that group. So those schools just admit based on the "homework grades" that are inflated by getting credit just for showing up and trying, success optional.

You drank the kool-aid. There was no bullying there. It was logistics.

In almost all cases, standardized test results were made optional. They were not “eliminated”.

Those who did not supply standardized test results, at least at any school that actually rejected people, had to provide a higher standard of proof of their abilities in their admissions materials.

I live in CA, and I know quite a few folks who glibly didn’t take or submit standardized test scores, and they absolutely did not get into schools that they were very academically qualified for (e.g., mid-tier UC schools like UCSD). These schools normally would have been safety schools for the given caliber of applicant.

Ivies made the SAT optional for a while, especially in 2020, but that was largely due to an access issue. I think they all require it now. And again, any person who didn’t have an SAT score and got admitted was almost certainly a strong admit anyway (super strong external academic validation, recruited athlete, etc.). I’m guessing precisely zero people sneaked into an Ivy by slyly not submitting a standardized test score while also being a marginal applicant.

Just my informed 2 cents…

> Are there any laws… in the US?

Laws are irrelevant if they are not enforced. Laws are being very slowly or very selectively enforced these days, while some of the powers that be are flagrantly breaking laws.

> Will they get their salaries and some extra compensation for the tardiness?

Theoretically, yes. Just regular pay plus OT that they are owed. No bonus or extra compensation.

Also, most of these folks can fairly easily get low interest loans from banks or credit cards that will be due when they get back pay.

Part of this story is not being told, but I’m not sure what part.

Were these folks who were about to retire anyway?

Were these folks who plan on getting hired back when the government reopens?

I’m not sure, but I don’t think the complete story is being told here (not necessarily with malice or intent).

> Absolutely no English speaker doesn't read 'PJs' as 'pyjamas'.

While I agree that “pajamas” is the most common meaning of PJs, there is a certain socio-economic class in the US in which “PJs” is used far more often in speech to refer to private jets than pajamas.

I’m a “language guy”, and it was a new one to me when I started spending more time around people who were referring to, and often users of, PJs.

While the person you were responding to took a crass line, their linguistic intent was very clear to me.

> A question to everyone unhappy paying for their insurance: would you be happier paying 50% income tax, 20% sales tax and not having to ever worry about paying for healthcare?

I hope it’s obvious that this is a false dichotomy.

There are many ways to have affordable health care that don’t involve “50% income tax, 20% sales tax”.

There is very good healthcare in places that don’t have those conditions. It’s not hard to find.

In the US, in most cases, incentives for the insurance companies and the insured are not aligned. Ditto for hospitals and patients. These are two very obvious systemic flaws in the US system that, if addressed in a constructive way, could have a significant impact on healthcare affordability.