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mcpackiehon Ex-owners of sex work site Backpage convicted of prostitution scheme

> What’s funny is prostitution was legal most of the time and in most places in the western world until recently.

That attitude towards prostitution closely correlates with those same societies considering women to be property. Anti-prostitution laws and the emancipation of women go hand-in-hand.

mcpackiehon Before OpenAI, Sam Altman was fired from Y Combinator by his mentor

My intention was to chop out everything about the "whites below the eyes" version of it, because it's the "whites above the eyes" variant that is relevant to the discussion above. This kind of analysis is not medical at all, it's "traditional medicine". If "traditional medicine" were real medicine, it wouldn't be called traditional. To call something "Chinese/Japanese medicine" amounts to the same, not real medicine. If "Chinese/Japanese medicine" were real medicine, it would just be called medicine.

Also I said after that quote that it's not scientific, but it nevertheless seems true. That's my editorial take.

mcpackiehon ESA’s new Ariane 6 rocket passed a major full-scale rehearsal

> subsidies

e.g. the government giving them free money just so they can continue to exist? SpaceX does not survive on subsidies.

> contracts

Doing work in exchange for money? Yes, that's how SpaceX survives. That's the way any rocket company is supposed to survive, yet you're construing this as somehow a bad thing. Seems like a sad case of EDS.

mcpackiehon Before OpenAI, Sam Altman was fired from Y Combinator by his mentor

I think the people who support Worldcoin do so either on the basis of it being another shitcoin they can make money speculating with, or because they're in Sam's personality cult.

mcpackiehon Before OpenAI, Sam Altman was fired from Y Combinator by his mentor

Yeah, Lex gives me those vibes too.

mcpackiehon Before OpenAI, Sam Altman was fired from Y Combinator by his mentor

All lowercase signals casual aloofness; it says the situation doesn't meet your bar for formality. It's like Zuckerberg wearing a hoodie when meeting with Wall Street types.

mcpackiehon Before OpenAI, Sam Altman was fired from Y Combinator by his mentor

Transitive trust is a bad idea. The telephone game aka "chinese whispers" demonstrates why.

mcpackiehon Before OpenAI, Sam Altman was fired from Y Combinator by his mentor

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

> According to Chinese/Japanese medical [...] when the upper sclera is visible it is said to be an indication of mental imbalance in people such as psychotics, murderers, and anyone rageful. In either condition, it is believed that these people attract accidents and violence.

It might not be scientific but people with this look certainly do freak me out. (FWIW, I haven't seen any images of Sam with these eyes.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Applewhite#/media/Fil...

mcpackiehon Seven signs of ethical collapse (2012)

You don't have to be phony, you just have to not be unethical and screw over the people you meet, turning your acquaintances into enemies. If you behave like a normal reasonable moral person, you will make friends and form a social safety net that can support you when you need help. Poor people who behave unethically are truly stupid. Any short-term gain you might get from screwing people is going to come back to bite you before long.

mcpackiehon Children, left behind by suburbia, need better community design

That "horrifying automotive blight" is less than one square kilometer and virtually nobody lives there. If you don't like it (few people do) then don't live there. The rest of Bedford Country has thousands of other square kilometers for you to live in, with numerous small towns that aren't interstate rest stops. Go streetview in Bedford PA, where about 3000 people live vs Breezewood's <200. It's a modest community, the people there aren't rich but they have nice yards, sidewalks all over the place, and few cars on any of the roads. Teach your kids to look both ways before crossing a street and they'll be fine. Only somebody who's hopelessly neurotic would worry about their kids walking to their friend's house in Bedford.

> kids don't like growing up in the country

Most do, but if you think yours won't then go live in a small town or a city. Citing Breezewood as a problem with American society is simply idiotic. It's a tiny aberration that doesn't effect you or anybody else except for the handful of weirdos who choose to live there.

mcpackiehon Children, left behind by suburbia, need better community design

2-3 generations ago, parents weren't terrified of letting their children play outside in suburbia. Or if they were, it was because of previous moral panics like satanism and kidnappers, not cars.

mcpackiehon Children, left behind by suburbia, need better community design

Those aren't the kind of roads that suburbs are made of. Tell them to stay away from those roads. Kids in high density urban areas need to worry about those roads, but this discussion is about the viability of suburbia for children.

mcpackiehon Children, left behind by suburbia, need better community design

Tell your kids to not play in the street, to watch for cars when they cross the street, then stop worrying about it.

The absolute number of pedestrian deaths has been plateaued for 50 years despite the population size increasing: https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedes...

60% of pedestrian deaths occur on high capacity urban roads. Kids in light residential neighborhoods don't deal with those roads. Tell your kids to stay away from heavily trafficked roads.

30% of pedestrian deaths involved a drunk pedestrian. Tell your children not to get drunk.

https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/pedestrian_safety/i...

73% of pedestrian deaths occur at night. Tell your kids to be home before dark.

17% of pedestrian deaths were on freeways. Don't walk on freeways!

https://www.ghsa.org/resources/news-releases/GHSA/Ped-Spotli...

If you still find yourself worrying despite taking basic common sense precautions, then you should unsubscribe to whatever fearmongering echo chambers you're getting this fear from (reddit and youtube are common sources for this fearmongering I believe.)

mcpackiehon Children, left behind by suburbia, need better community design

Nobody intended Breezewood to be the way it is, it's the result of a bureaucratic jam between the state and the federal government decades ago. It hasn't been fixed since then because it's profitable the way it is. Virtually nobody actually lives there so there's no local pressure to change it. It is in no way representative of other communities in the region.

mcpackiehon Children, left behind by suburbia, need better community design

It's an absurd meme perpetuated by the ignorant. I've been through Breezewood countless times, I grew up less than a hour away. If you drive just a minute or two away from Breezewood you'll be in the beautiful rolling hills of Pennsylvnaia. Gorgeous countryside, a great place to raise kids.

This is 3 minutes outside of Breezewood. This is what urban propagandist dudebros would have you believe is suburban hell: https://www.google.com/maps/@40.0062641,-78.230818,3a,75y,35...

Breezewood isn't even a suburb, less than two hundred people actually live there. It's essentially a rest stop, a bizarro artifact of some esoteric interaction between I-70 and the turnpike. Any other small town in the area is completely different.

mcpackiehon Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

It's not the government's obligation to give legal council to a corporation.

> I don't get why so many people on HN are simping for...

Why are you simping for crypto merchants?

mcpackiehon Sam Altman, OpenAI board open talks to negotiate his possible return

> for lack of a better word, nerd influencers

Personality cult. Seeing hundreds of employees swearing fealty to their [ex]CEO has been very bizarre.

mcpackiehon Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

So what?

mcpackiehon Seven signs of ethical collapse (2012)

Rich people have the resources to safety burn bridges, make enemies and get themselves into trouble they can dig themselves out of with lawyers, bribes, etc. If you're poor, then for your own sake it is even more important to behave ethically, in a way that makes other people inclined to like you.

mcpackiehon Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

Binance may be a "working exchange" but that doesn't mean it was operating within the law.

mcpackiehon YouTube blames ad blockers for slow load times, not the browser

This is why my parents only permitted me to watch public broadcasting until I was 13. I didn't appreciate it at the time but in retrospect they were right. It's utterly bizarre how much time most kids spent watching commercial propaganda.

mcpackiehon OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

Reminds me of a certain rocket company that specializes in launching large satellite constellations that attracts top talent with altruistic sentiment about saving humanity from extinction.

mcpackiehon OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

They accused him of being less than candid, which could mean lying or it could mean he didn't tell them something. The latter is almost certainly true to at least a limited extent. It's a weasel phrasing that implies lying but could be literally true only in a trivial sense.

mcpackiehon OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

If the board had already lost control of the situation anyway, then burning the "OpenAI" fig leaf was an honorable move.

mcpackiehon My Free Speech Means You Have to Shut Up

I haven't misunderstood anything. In a "public house" you can be kicked out of the owner doesn't like what you're saying, because it's private property. In places which are actually public, like a town square, this isn't the case.

I understand that it is conventional to speak of some places that are private property as being public, but they are not public in the sense that actually counts for the protection of free speech.

mcpackiehon My Free Speech Means You Have to Shut Up

> "___ is a lunatic and their message should not be permitted" is limiting speech

No. That advocates for limiting speech, but is not itself limiting speech. If I say meat should be banned, that doesn't actually prevent you from eating a burger. The distinction here is important.

mcpackiehon 75% of Software Engineers Faced Retaliation Last Time They Reported Wrongdoing

I listed those three countries for two reasons: First, because they are adjacent to the first two I listed. Secondly, because workers from those countries are numerous enough in the companies I have worked that they could plausibly form ethnic enclave teams if they were inclined to.

In contrast, I have only worked with a small handful of Australians.. they are too few and far between to plausibly form all-Australian teams. I have worked with far more Japanese, Korean and Pakistani coworkers; these nationalities have been heavily represented in the workplaces I have experience with yet I've never seen nor heard of a team where they were conspicuously over-represented.

Another thing: In my entire career I've never been on a team of only white people (of any nationality), nor to the best of my recollection have I ever seen a team larger than 4 or 5 that only had white people. Guestimating some rough numbers... if a company is 50% white and 15% Chinese and there are no ethnic biases present, what are the odds I would see numerous large all-Chinese teams but never a large all-white team? This sort of circumstance arising without bias seems deeply implausible.

mcpackiehon My Free Speech Means You Have to Shut Up

Our "public spheres" are in fact not public, but rather are private property. Advertisers having control over them is a consequence of this.

If you actually go into town IRL and talk in the public square, no advertiser will be able to silence you because the public square is actually public. Or if you use an actually public means of communication like the postal service, again you won't be cut out because some corporate advertisers consider your speech bad for business. This phenomenon of corporate advertisers being gatekeepers of the "public sphere" only exists in actually-not-public spaces.

mcpackiehon 75% of Software Engineers Faced Retaliation Last Time They Reported Wrongdoing

Some people are inexperienced and/or naturally trusting. HR always talks sweet and acts like they're the good guys here to help you. They wouldn't do this unless some people were going to fall for it.

mcpackiehon OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

Business Insider is simply saying they did their due diligence and aren't being hoaxed.