Hacker News Reader

squozzeron GoFundMe Bans Anti-Vaxxers Who Raise Money to Spread Misinformation

>that vaccines cause other medical problems serious enough to justify not using vaccines = talks about vaccines.

>this minority group will give you a disease if you let them near you = talks about people.

HN, just fucking delete my account and ban my IP address, as you obviously have a huge fucking problem with my fair-mindedness.

squozzeron GoFundMe Bans Anti-Vaxxers Who Raise Money to Spread Misinformation

What bothers me about the ban is that anti-vaxxers - at least the ones I've read - are not Luddites.

I've never heard an anti-vaxxer say things such as "It's God's (or Gaia's) Will that Johnny died of measles."

They believe, wrongly in my opinion, that vaccines cause other medical problems serious enough to justify not using vaccines. To me, that's legitimate dissent.

Given the stakes, maybe GoFundMe did the right thing.

But what's an acceptable threshold of risk?

Because, for various reasons, anti-vaxxing has become a political problem as well as a health problem. Maybe more so.

The political aspect - i.e. GoFundMe being vulnerable to political charges of endangering the public - is probably what drove GoFundMe to institute the ban.

Which leaves other politically charged uses of GoFundMe vulnerable.

squozzeron Rick Steves Wants to Save the World, One Vacation at a Time

I appreciate Rick Steves and always enjoyed his shows.

But reading recent posts on HN about how tourists are ruining Europe (and other places) makes me wonder if his message has become obsolete.

After all, air travel contributes to climate change. And I for one do not relish jumping on the QM2 - which surely burns fossil fuels - to spend two weeks (one week each way) traversing the Atlantic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Queen_Mary_2

Cheap airfares contribute to overtourism. Just ask Dubrovnik.

AirBnB has priced locals out of their own housing markets. Just ask Venice.

That said, I hope he continues doing his thing.

squozzeron Why Do We Murder the Beautiful Friendships of Boys? (2017)

Cui bono?

squozzeron Quantum Machine Appears to Defy Universe’s Push for Disorder

Is the Second Law dead?

squozzeron Instagram Is the Internet’s New Home for Hate

Interesting photo. One Q shirt and a bunch of red baseball caps. Looks like a typical guilt-by-association tactic.

squozzeron A new class-action lawsuit takes aim at real estate agents and their 6% fee

As someone who has bought a couple of houses, a buyer's agent mostly provides convenience because they can access the property just as easily as the listing agent.

While agent fees usually run in the thousands of USD, probably the larger source of tacked-on fees is on the mortgage side, especially when the buyer does not have the 20% down.

So not sure if transferring more of the fee load to buyers will help move real estate. After all, except for strong seller's markets or when shopping for a specific type of home, the seller usually has more incentive to sell their home than a buyer has to buy it.

Regarding selling, I'm not sure this development is the realtor kill-shot - I would argue outfits such as Opendoor (convenience) or even Redfin (eliminate realtor fees) probably will inflict more damage to a realtor's income.

Because selling a house is a 100x greater PITA than buying.

squozzeron Facebook’s Crisis Management Algorithm Runs on Outrage

>“There are real concerns with a private company determining truth or falsity,”

I can think of several US news orgs who dabble in the truth business.

squozzeron High taxes be damned, the rich keep moving to California

>In fact, more wealthy people are moving to California than leaving, research indicates. It’s the poor and middle class who are departing.

The LA Times must be so proud.

And who will provide all the services that the sophisticated rich demand?

squozzeron A belief in meritocracy is not only false: it’s morally wrong

I would argue that as a way to describe a selection process, "Meritocracy", warts and all, works great.

By warts, I mean that merit, as shorthand for "assessment of skill, talent, or capability", has other factors mixed in because flawed people decide who gets life's prizes.

The Gates example shows the missing ingredient - not luck, but recognition of luck's role in success, what some might call humility. The article referred to gratitude research, which probably means the same thing.

It's a missing ingredient because it doesn't seem too valuable anymore, especially when compared to other qualities, such as the ability to "talk smack."

And it's associated with sackcloth and ashes, or being a "loser." Moreover, it's often called false.

Coming back to meritocracy, what do we have as alternatives? Random selection? Suppression of individual differences (aka C.S. Lewis' "Parity of Esteem")? I don't know.

Parity of Esteem ref = http://www.samizdat.qc.ca/arts/lit/Toast_CSL.pdf

squozzeron Steam lists “Rape Day” game to play as a “serial killer rapist”

I think I'll wait for the sequel - called "Surviving Prison." Should be quite engaging.

squozzeron The Stigma of Choosing Trade School over College

I'm a regular college grad, but always liked working on my own car (and didn't always trust professional mechanics.)

That lead me to consider becoming an auto mechanic at one time but after hearing some stories - and looking at the pay scales - I jumped back on my desk and rode off into the sunset.

The stories -

1) Constant complaints by mgmt about productivity. 2) Grueling work schedules 3) Pressure to upsell additional work 4) Customers blaming you for new problems

Sounds a lot like working in tech for 25% of the pay, doesn't it?

squozzeron Facebook refuses to disclose “chuck Chequers” Brexit advertiser to UK parliament

I think we're past the point where differences in political opinion can be aired without fear of violent retaliation.

squozzeron The Oppression of the Supermajority

>Hand outs and taking people's money at the point of a gun is what the heirs do from those who work and create wealth. Larry Page talks about how the police encircled the auto plant his hammer-armed grandfather was [striking].

Would Larry appreciate a 75 - 90% tax on his earnings over ${rich_dude_income_threshold}? I'm not sure we can pass a law that taxes proletarian-grandkids-made-good at a lower rate than trust fund babies.

I will agree with your implicit point that if we tax income, we treat wages and capital gains equally.

squozzeron The Oppression of the Supermajority

>About 75 percent of Americans favor higher taxes for the ultrawealthy.

I would ask that if 75% of the population favor something, how many election cycles should it take to install a Congress willing to carry it out? Even in single-party districts, opponents can run in primaries.

So Mr. Wu's analysis has holes -- one I would mention is the role of political marketing -- by which I mean, sure the incumbent is in the lobbyists' back pockets, but they did ${something_heroic_way_back_when} and besides, the challenger did/said ${something_that_sounds_bad}.

And I think too that people believe too strongly in the "write a letter to your rep" fairy tale, which when balanced against the lobbyist USD, is found wanting.

Maybe incumbency is too strong an advantage.

>And when running for office, Mr. Trump did gesture at his support for popular policies, promising to control drug prices, build public infrastructure and change trade policy to favor dispossessed workers. Yet since coming to power, Mr. Trump, with a few exceptions, like trade, has seemed to lose interest in what the broader public wants, focusing instead on polarizing issues like immigration...

Mr. Wu seems to be wrong here. In the past weeks, I have heard news about Congress wanting to get a handle on drug prices; trade policy seems to be creeping slowly in the direction Mr. Wu would like; and around the time the last Congress was swearing itself in, Trump had mentioned something about infrastructure.

If Congress can find the time to pass an infrastructure bill, that is.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/1675/most-important-problem.asp...

squozzeron California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

And the defining characteristic of that decision is the social status of the location.

squozzeron California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

Another alternative is reducing energy consumption. I'm sure the people of California have no problem with the consequences of that.

squozzeron About Face: Death and surrender to power in the clothing of men

If you liked this, you should read Art Spiegelman's Maus.

squozzeron About Face: Death and surrender to power in the clothing of men

FWIW, my tastes in military attire run a bit old-school.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Cavalry_Regiment_(United_S...

Oh, and the illustration of the poor peds being mowed down by the big truck - Bravo!

Long, slow, sardonic clap follows...

Funny how a complaint against dehumanization resorts to dehumanization.

squozzeron Starbucks' music is driving employees nuts

OSHA? That should go straight to The Hague as a crime against humanity.

squozzeron China’s Social Credit System:Millions Banned from Taking Flights, Trains in 2018

Sounds like a perfect complement to the Green New Deal - use social credit scores to deprive deplorables of transport, energy, shelter, and food.

squozzeron Expensive Loans to Desperate People Built the $90B Payday Loan Industry

As someone who worked at a pawn shop, I can tell you it's not so much that the interest rates are high, but that the loans are small, and costs to the lender are fixed at a certain point.

Some of it also is to encourage quick payback, generally the longer a high-interest runs, the more likely it will be defaulted.

Plus, many borrowers have credit / banking problems and/or their loans are too small for other lenders.

That said, it seems a field ripe for "disruption" - crowdfunding - maybe called crowdlending / crowdgranting?

squozzeron To end mass incarceration, cap all prison sentences at 20 years – Vox

The funny thing about a 20-year cap is that at least for murderers and rapists, some vengeful loved ones of the victim(s) may still be alive to take retribution. For which they might get 20 years.

squozzeron Journalism Isn't Dying, It's Returning to Its Roots

I think the main problem with biased-by-intent news is that has less credibility, and therefore (usually) less utility.

If you must cross-check every statement (assuming the cross-checking process is reliable), why bother?

Instead, just pick a team and ignore everything related to that sphere.

Save your brain cells for processing useful information and designing experiments.

squozzeron Gavin Newsom abandons SF-to-LA high-speed rail

>"Merced, Fresno, Bakersfield and communities in between are more dynamic than people realize. The valley may be known around the world for agriculture but there's another story ready to be told."

It's been seemingly eons since I last drove through Bakersfield, Fresno, and Merced, but it seems that if SF - LA can't make economic sense, not sure how connecting a bunch of agro cities would make more sense.

Yosemite, maybe?

squozzeron No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover

http://ocean.otr.usm.edu/~w304644/ajha/americanjournalism/fa...

"During the Civil War the federal government was responsible for the greatest amount of newspaper suppression in the nation’s history. More than 300 newspapers were shut down, most of them Democratic papers that were sympathetic to the Confederacy. Some historians have criticized President Abraham Lincoln for allowing such widespread constraints on the press. This article reconsiders the nature of Lincoln’s view of press freedom. Based on a letter the president sent to a Union general, it concludes that Lincoln changed his thinking about midway through the war and began to believe that suppression of the press was not the appropriate policy."

squozzeron No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover

squozzeron Is Genocide Predictable? Researchers Say Absolutely

>Interestingly, the U.S. currently ticks off many of the early stages of a country headed for a bloodbath, according to Stanton. There's polarization, discrimination, dehumanization. But strong legal and government institutions in the U.S. are likely to block such a disaster from happening, he says.

Any 'Murican with a social media account would agree with the first two sentences.

But I'm not sure about the third. It seems our strong institutions are not impartial, and can be bent to serve strictly political purposes.

squozzeron The infrastructural humiliation of America

Not to mention that even those who support improving infrastructure have to receive a pet project (aka a bridge to nowhere) as part of the transaction.

It's also obviously clear that at least one person in the US government doesn't like the current state of our infrastructure and would love to do something about it.

squozzeron Skin in the Game by Nassim Nicholas Taleb – digested read (2018)

Author's critique = 100% infantile sarcasm. I know infantile sarcasm. Read my comments if you doubt. Then both of us will have skin in the game.