Hacker News Reader

defertoreptaron Vatican Uses Donations for the Poor to Plug Its Budget Deficit

What do you think grandma would've wanted? Would she be mad at the church and felt entitled to be buried through their service despite not having been involved with that church for 2 decades?

Would she have felt it was her children's duty to pay more than necessary to be buried a certain way? I'm not asking this rhetorically. I really am curious. We all want a dignified funeral for our loved ones, but did grandma make her wishes known?

defertoreptaron Greeks set to face fines if they don't spend 30% of their income electronically

Sounds like a case for swapping to land value tax if I've ever seen one. Can't hide land.

defertoreptaron If Wealth Is Justified, So Is a Wealth Tax

The law protects that property, but isn't that the justification for the progressive tax scheme that we already have? If someone has ownership in a business that is earning them millions in income, then they are paying a much higher effective tax rate.

defertoreptaron Nearly half of American workers have low-wage jobs

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/business/global...

This is saying it puts you in the 67th percentile when adjusting for purchasing power, which is still saying a lot.

defertoreptaron The main sell point of Go is not simplicity, but overall balance and flexibility

After using Go and being forced to "think in composition," I loathe having to use inheritance when working in other languages. There's something about writing Go that feels crisp. When I'm having trouble making it do what I want, I almost almost realize that it was because I was doing something stupid and there was a simpler way.

defertoreptaron [dead]

Huh? That seems uncharacteristically flashy for Buffett.

> Buffett met them at the airport and escorted them to Borsheims, a jewellery business he bought four years earlier.

Ah, now it all makes sense.

defertoreptaron Master–Slave Morality

Egoism frames this in such a way where the second set of "bad" traits are the authentic human traits, namely self-interest. The "good" traits are then secondary, a means to an end. E.g. we are honest and don't steal because the legal and social consequences are not worth it. We see the path to a life where we best get what we want as the one where we cooperate with others. This could explain Adam Smith's "invisible hand" of markets, where everyone acts in their own self-interest, but the whole prospers as a result.

defertoreptaron Amazon Go Cashierless Supermarkets, Pop-Up Stores Coming Soon

> As for removing retail jobs, Amazon does hire a ton of people for every store to restock, answer questions, prepare deli foods, etc. So the jobs are likely moving to different parts of the store.

Is it fair to say that you are making the claim that there is no net decrease in labor hours when compared to a similar store that does staff cashiers?

defertoreptaron Telling users why their content was removed reduces future issues [pdf]

It's not about democracy or ideology at all. If we have the ability to design a better place for people to share ideas and discuss what's on their mind, we ought to make it as good as we can. One of the strengths of Reddit's "subreddit stewardship design" is how it allows the site to scale while still having people take ownership of each subreddit, allowing them to give it a more personal touch and better able to respond to specific community needs.

One of the weaknesses of this is how, at least on some subs, mods are able to censor discussion largely unnoticed, without being held accountable to the community. See r/declineintocensorship, r/watchredditdie, and r/yallcantbehave for several examples of egotistical mods overextending their role with no real benefit to the community.

I can't help but think that there's a way to hold mods more accountable to their communities. For example, if the modded comment wasn't spam, it could say "this post was removed for breaking rule x which states y. Click here to see the comment," with the mod's username attached.

I would also like to see statistics on removed posts, where a subreddit gets some sort of penalty for censoring too much, such as not appearing on /r/all, or becoming downweighted in some way.

defertoreptaron $350k a Year, and Just Getting By

I think it can just be brought down to consumption. Someone who spends 300k a year is not going to feel like they're living in poverty. Rockefeller's children, if they lived the lifestyle of what could be bought by the middle class, wouldn't feel rich because they were unable to consume what the rich do.

defertoreptaron DuckDuckGo's traffic keeps growing

Sometimes I find myself searching for something I specifically remember in the past, but I can only find one side of the story. Then I remember, "oh yeah, I have to use duckduckgo for political subjects."

Google's bias has gotten especially noticeable this past year.

defertoreptaron Discussing Blackness on Reddit? Photograph Your Forearm First

Isn't a rule that says people of one skin color are not allowed to have a voice in and of itself such a power structure?

defertoreptaron Single malt Scotch whisky targeted by United States tariffs

> Do you expect Boeing to come out and say they accept subsidies when their whole business model is to sue the competition?

I don't have to, since Boeing already came out and said as much on the URL I posted. They make a distinction between legal and illegal subsidies recognized by the WTO.

defertoreptaron Single malt Scotch whisky targeted by United States tariffs

Boeing contends otherwise:

> Myth: Aerospace is different from other industries and requires some level of government support.

> Fact: Boeing has proven otherwise. We have financed all of our new airplane programs without the kind of government handout that launch aid represents.

http://www.boeing.com/company/key-orgs/government-operations...

defertoreptaron Single malt Scotch whisky targeted by United States tariffs

> The EU imposes a 10 percent tariff on passenger cars, compared with the 2.5 percent U.S. duty on European autos.

A study by the CESifo Institute in Germany found unweighted average EU tariffs of 5.2 percent, compared with the U.S. rate of 3.5 percent.

“The EU is by no means the paradise for free traders that it likes to think,” Gabriel Felbermayr, director of the think tank’s Center for International Economics, told the German business newspaper Handelsblatt.

https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jul/22/europe-resist...

defertoreptaron The Gentleperson's Guide to Forum Spies (2012)

Merriam Webster:

> Gentleperson -- a gentleman or lady

I wouldn't say it rolls off the tongue well, but it's technically correct usage.

defertoreptaron The myth of the teacher pay gap?

> From the fall of 1987 through the fall of 2015, the number of public-school students increased by 20%, but the number of public-school teachers increased by 64%. More recently, in the four years leading up to the 2015-16 school year, teacher employment grew by 400,000, even as the number of students barely changed.

The effect of supply and demand has on job markets gets mentioned too little when discussing whether salaries are fair. We can't at the same time be encouraging more students to become teachers and complain about salaries when demand for those positions don't dictate incentivizing the supply. A more productive discussion would be about nudging students toward career paths that need them. The article mentions there's a "premium" on nursing right now based on the method used to criticize teacher's pay. Maybe there's a good reason for that.

defertoreptaron US set to impose tariffs on $7.5B of EU exports in Airbus row

Boeing isn't just saying that they "think" there are illegal subsidies. They're pointing to the WTO's rulings. I guess I could've looked up those particular cases and cited them directly. However, I reckon if they were lying about what the WTO was saying, that wouldn't be difficult for you to find and point to yourself. In fact, we need look no further than the article that started this discussion to verify. Let's look at the actual content of the argument instead of relying on circumstantial ad hominem.

defertoreptaron US set to impose tariffs on $7.5B of EU exports in Airbus row

The question is not if there are subsidies, but whether they are legal subsidies.

> “The WTO has now rejected every allegation of unlawful subsidies to Boeing with the single exception of one measure—a Washington State business and occupancy (B&O) tax rate. Boeing has pledged from the beginning of this case to comply with the WTO’s rulings, and the B&O tax rate will be no exception. Boeing will support the United States and Washington State as they take steps necessary to fully comply with today’s ruling.

> In 2006, after attempts to negotiate a bilateral agreement, the U.S. Government (USG) filed a case with the World Trade Organization claiming Airbus had received $22 billion in illegal subsidies. U.S. officials estimated the economic benefit of those subsidies (in 2006 dollars) at more than $200 billion.

http://www.boeing.com/company/key-orgs/government-operations...

defertoreptaron Why It’s Hard for Startups to Create Wealth in Europe

I didn't want to make my post needlessly long, but the article continues,

> In contrast, American employees typically pay a 0% to 20% rate on capital gains when options are redeemed, though they may have to pay additional levies when they’re exercised, depending on the timing and the type of equity incentive program. Germany and 14 other countries, including Sweden and the Netherlands, are more burdensome than the U.S. regarding options, according to a 2018 study by Index Ventures, a venture capital firm in London and Silicon Valley.

defertoreptaron Why It’s Hard for Startups to Create Wealth in Europe

> This article is trying to suggest that equity incentives are somehow especially and unfairly (!) singled out by European tax schemes but I don't see any meaningful argument to support that.

From the article,

> A few years ago the Dutch capped bonuses for bankers, money managers, and other financial professionals at 20% of their base salaries. Entrepreneurs must navigate onerous tax rates and restrictions that often make equity sharing and options more trouble than they’re worth. When employees in Germany exercise options, they have to pay income tax on the difference between the fair market value and the strike price, and that rate runs from 14% to 47.5%. They also have to pay a 25% capital-gains tax on additional profits when they sell their shares. [End]

> If you want to make the arguments made by this article, IMO you have to first make the general argument that taxing wealthy people heavily is a bad thing.

Silicon Valley startups have gotten a reputation for being a way to get stinking filthy rich. What happened as a result? Tons of people, many of which visit this website, are out there everyday foregoing traditional careers, trying to make something new and something people want to buy.

The argument is that it takes a big carrot to get people to take big risks and work really hard to make something from nothing.

defertoreptaron Hard comp-fi reading list

I also found it interesting how it considered the "clock speed" of simulations and how that impacts interactions with real world inhabitants.

defertoreptaron The Spinner

OP, what do you think "gaslighting" means here?

defertoreptaron The Battle to Rewrite Texas History

> The lie is that it's possible to somehow extract Southern culture from its racist roots, as if slavery and its legacy can just be ignored and set aside as not really pertinent, when slavery was as foundational to the South and its culture as anti-Semitism was to the Nazis.

And yet we do not hold cultures of the world accountable to their roots. Many religions and cultures of today stem from primitive patriarchal beginnings. And just as many have people within who hold these backwards views (anti semitic Palestinians, racist rednecks, Post-Apartheid racism, etc.)

As soon as you generalize the people of a culture and make assumptions about them separate from the non-controversial aspects of the culture, then that is when you yourself need to question if you're being the prejudiced one.

defertoreptaron The Battle to Rewrite Texas History

I worked with a guy who was very much the type to have a confederate flag and grew up worshipping the Dukes of Hazzard. I remember when the controversy started lifting off and they began taking down statues, he was confused and upset by it. I've seen this guy around all sorts of people, and he's about the furthest thing from a racist Nazi there is.

I believe the "confederate rebel" idea is a source of pride for some groups and is ingrained into their culture. Sometimes that may be mixed with antiquated and racist themes, but they're not always the same thing.

defertoreptaron U.N. postal union clinches deal to keep U.S. in

Didn't the terminal fee UPU agreement happen in 1969? China was considered a third world country back then and got favorable rates. Isn't all of this due to how in the last 50 years, the rates have not been updated to reflect how countries such as China have grown in the e-commerce era?

defertoreptaron Brain research on boys’ preference for video games and girls’ for social media

Hitton's point is that "you can't reject [Peterson] just because you happen to not like them." If it was instead "because his claims are unsupported by evidence," then I could see how your counterpoint is apt. However, that is not the case.

defertoreptaron Brain research on boys’ preference for video games and girls’ for social media

The way to make a counterpoint is not to bring up someone else and say "this other guy's claim is unsupported by evidence."

Instead, you'd do this by showing how Peterson's claim is unsupported by evidence, specifically on how his view pertains to the current topic.

defertoreptaron Brain research on boys’ preference for video games and girls’ for social media

Is there a way to design the flag mechanism so that quality articles do not die even though they are polarizing?

defertoreptaron A Son’s Race to Give His Dying Father Artificial Immortality (2017)

A better example is going under anesthesia. I had a procedure done, and after I drifted to sleep, 30 minutes passed instantly and they were rolling me to the other room.

The point is that we can lose our continuity of consciousness, yet we don't consider this "dying" in normal life. If we duplicate our exact physical brain and processes and immediately destroy the original while this happens, there is no loss of continuity, but this feels like dying still.