meowfly

CEOs also just don't have the kind of work most of us do. They have tons of latitude to direct their day. They can skip meetings. They have executive assistants that they can offload much of their admin work. If they find themselves too in the weeds they can hire a COO. Being able to be self-directed changes how you perceive "work".

Maybe the US will end up learning a similar lesson.

In most of Asia doing drugs (aside from the "normal" ones like alcohol and tobacco) is also considered something good people don't do.

Here (USA) billionaires microdose acid and take molly in the desert. The culture around drugs is entirely different.

I'm middle aged with no kids and a very common question i get is, "who will take care of you when you're old?"

How is that not selfish reasoning?

People throw around a lot of theories on the low birthrate but for me it's simply that having kids is a choice. I have low societal and family pressure, my SO and I have effective birth control, and we decided kids wouldn't make us happier.

Ive also read nothing but anecdotes that indicates people regret either decision. I think we all tend to confirm our own decisions.

It's probably much less cool to say you regret having kids, but I know a recent divorcee who sure acts like her kids are in the way of her dating. I'm also sure there are plenty of people who get older and alone and wish they had their own children. But ultimately it seems like having kids is about deciding you want kids in your life and it's no longer considered the inevitable outcome of a long relationship.

Perhaps my mind will change when my dad dies.

> Trying to force a countercultural artistic endeavor into a box created by the International Olympic Committee — the oldest of old-school conservatism

I watched a little bit of it and I thought it was fun. Break dancing is exciting to watch and the dancers were smiling and looked like they had a good time.

I think the ioc made a fine product for us normies to enjoy.

I keep seeing takes that are negative on breaking. Like let people have fun. I bet the competitors are happy to dance on the world stage.

I'm confused. Why would they emigrate? You just said "high salaries"?

Moreover, China is hardly low regulation. You would get there and then not be able to check your email.

I've kind of wondered if flattening the world isn't the root problem with social media. There are very few people I encounter IRL that I disagree too much with. We do disagree, but everyone kind of understands each other to some degree. In contrast, my values and the values of someone in Germany (as an example), might be less aligned. We frame so much of this as either echo chambers (we work in the set of people who agree) or ML targeted rage bait. Maybe the best algorithm is Californians mostly engaging with Californians with a spectrum of viewpoints that naturally exists from the urban rural divide.

I think half the problem is the form factor of using it as an auto complete.

I might instinctively know what to write, hit tab, and miss what copilot actually wrote isn't what I wanted to write. For example, it might add when you meant to subtract from a list but my quick scan didn't catch it. So you originally miss it, bump into a bug when writing tests, and spend more time fixing it than if you had just typed it out to begin with.

So I mostly agree with you if assigned seating was free. The problem I've had twice is where someone had asked me to trade a paid seat for a worse one to sit with a spouse. Obviously different than a child, but it speaks to something else I hate about flying. The airline makes their problems your problems. For example: flight delayed but we can rebook you for a flight that would have been cheaper if you had just booked that one, and you have no recourse.

Imagine going to a restaurant and they say they are out of steak but here is a burger, but we won't give you the difference because that's what you originally ordered.

What the rule should be is airlines can't charge for seats in the back half of their airplane.

What about protein bars? Those are processed foods where they add artificial sugars, protein whey, and artificial coloring.

I agree. McDonalds sold itself as the value option, especially good for families with kids. The current prices are damaging the brand even if it's leading to greater profits now.

Funny. I share your skepticism somewhat but I was thinking about cultured meat as the solution to those problems. I'd imagine no need for antibiotics. Cynically, they probably would still have to bleach the meat or something. Though the US does that to chicken now.

I'm an older DINK and I tell people I think having a kid is like buying a boat. It's a luxury good that has variable returns on happiness.

If someone was trying to get me to buy a boat I'd tell them I can't afford it. It's a shortcut to, Why would I spend money on something for "the economy"

This conversation always goes like this:

----

Person: Diet soda is bad for you

Me: It's better than sugar and especially high fructose corn syrup

Person: Just drink water

----

Ok... Such a helpful suggestion. We should all just drink water, just exercise, just save money, just work harder, just put down our phone.

I wonder why we don't all just do all the right things all of the time.

I've had a script for ADHD meds most of my life. Without them I daydream constantly. My parents thought I had a hearing problem because they would talk to me and I wouldn't know what they said because I was day dreaming.

I've had both adderall and ritalin scripts (both long and short term variations). I'm convinced that adderall is prescribe incorrectly. It is the most effective medication by far (there is one other that is basically meth, but nobody gets it), but it is significantly more prone to addiction and abuse. It's also harder on the body and brain. Many countries won't normally prescribe adderall for ADHD and they are getting along just fine. As an extreme example, and one I don't agree with, in Japan possessing adderall is illegal but they still prescribe ritalin.

Adderall should have been seen as a last resort medication. Like a doctor prescribing ketamine to help with your depression. Instead you can get an adderall script if you tell your doctor ritalin isn't working on your second visit.

Falun Gong owns a very large anti-China media empire outside of just the Epoch times called New Tang Dynasty TV (NTD). Popular youtuber's like China Uncensored are managed by NTD. Falun Gong also runs Shun Yun that Chinese dance performance that gets advertised everywhere.

> weed benefits have been pushed a bit too much too widely lately

Totally agree. The entire legalization political momentum started because cannabis has real medical benefits. Early legalization efforts focused on cancer, and AIDS, because the benefits there are very real. Marinol is a synthetic cannabis drug.

Then some how the movement lost the plot and people started purporting benefits for things like ADHD, insomnia, and anxiety. I am confident the large majority of medical professionals would claim there are better drugs for those conditions. Then legalization was sold as a better alternative to alcohol and opiates (which it is). But some how the low addiction rate got sold as no addiction. There are scores of people who are probably making their anxiety worse with daily cannabis use, who are under the impression they are self-medicating their anxiety. When they quit they might go through withdrawals, despite believing it's not addictive. I think the science is fairly clear and maybe not settled in certain places, but I think the pendulum has swung from the misinformation of DARE to the misinformation of the Cannabis lobby.

Yeah. I've always heard this as: make your child a board member and then have them put their money in a Roth. No idea if that's an easy path to an audit

> If the worker in Shanghai had similar economic freedom and rights to workers in the west have then this would not be an issue.

You're right. So I guess we are agreeing that the hyper-capitalist system we currently have relies on exploiting others?

We can build a system with less sharp edges without blowing it up.

Like worker representation on boards (Germany does this), cap gains that reduces as you hold investments (Clayton Christensen proposal), and holding the countries we outsource to similar environmental and labor standards.

Op is correct though. A CEO of a major US company who makes 1000x the wage of a factory owner in Shanghai who makes 100x the wage on the back of illegal migrant labor (very common) who is working to send money home to support their parents in the rural city they were born.

Just a few decades ago, that CEO would have paid his fellow countryman a modest salary and would have also made less themselves.

When you just imagine the staggering gap we've created, it feels deeply unfair. And it's not just a matter of starting a business. It is a structural moral failing.

Moreover, lots of people already feel like they've lost right when they've started. Imagine if you get a degree in the wrong field, like business administration, and find yourself working as a entry level marketing manager making 50k.

Rent eats up half your take home pay and while you're not terrible with money, you are also not super frugal. So you are ultimately saving a few thousand a year. At this point road to being rich is half a century away and pretty narrow. You better not get sick, or have to take care of an injured family member, or scammed, or divorced, or laid off for an extended period of time. And all around you is a media, political, and social ecosystem telling you the good times are over.

It makes sense why some people just decide to lie-flat.

If you're a young man in your prime without rich parents and you slacked or lack the ability to compete in the job market, unless you are very charismatic, you won't make a particularly interesting partner.

20 years ago your dating pool was far more limited to location and social circles you were in. Online dating has decimated that. The illusion that you are a big win away from achieving a fast track to status is the allure.

I tell language learners that being brave is the most important way they'll learn. I have friends who have practiced English from a young age in cram schools until college, but they are still too timid to speak it.

Despite their excellent reading ability, I feel like what really separates them and someone with high fluency is simply being willing to practice their spoken. I'm sure alcohol could help someone overcome that.

The model I'm noticing becoming more popular is a highly skilled US based team lead and exclusively Latam seniors and mids.

The reason to have some US devs is that the Latam hires are technically contractors and they need US engineers to hedge against the risk a change in Argentina tax law forces employees to quit.

Im sure it's very difficult to be a US based junior or mid right now.

I have a theory that a lot of the jobs listed are to prove you tried to find qualified candidates before you hire a developer's friend.

In defense of hiring friends: If the referer is considered a trustworthy employee, it's probably going to be your highest information hire.

Regarding your first point: I think you are correct. What we are seeing is something akin to a US elephant curve[1] but the chasm is widening to upper middle class professionals, while the trunk is pointing up more sharply.

When the US deindustrialized, the global poor got richer (manufacturing earns more than subsistence farming) and the rich got richer (it's cheaper to make things overseas), but the lower middle class got poorer. In aggregate it looks like the world got richer, so the Steven Pinkers of the world scold the complainers for not getting that we are living in the best time in human history.

I think the economy is turning against the kind of worker who gets a four year degree and might have a job title like, "data scientist", and everyone is going to tell them they should have known better.

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elephant_Curve

You get below the fold before there is any indication this is normal. The article is basically here is this analysis showing Congress has a conflict of interest with tiktok legislation. But it's really a dog bites man story that Congress enriches themselves in office by not addressing their own conflict of interest.

We are going to see lots of PR disguised as journalism from Byte Dance (Yass, Sequoia) and US Tech companies. Moreover, we will see lots US/China propaganda disguised as journalism. My cynical view is Gizmodo is taking this issue and framing it as TikTok specific, to carry someone else's water.

Sure. But that wasn't the intent of the article.

Part of being an elected official should be divesting yourself of conflicts of interest, but that isn't US law.

These are blue chip stocks and a large part of the S&P 500. You could write this same article about virtually any business legislation.

This is my issue with the term processed foods. If a food is processed because it has artificial sweeteners and food coloring, it's different then food containing high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated fats (which is what the study looked at).

If you are going to condemn processed foods, show me that it's worse to eat Quest Bars than fruit and nuts with honey.

I hold the problem is sugars (and alcohol).

No. It is partially true. From the NY Times article:

> Some users said on X that they were unable to use the app before placing the call. TikTok told The New York Times that users could swipe right to get rid of the message, which may have been confusing because users typically swipe up to see the next video on the app. The company also said that the “X” to close the page wasn’t visible for some users at first but that it later fixed that.