thebradbain

> We wont let you starve to death.

Yes you will

> If you're truly physically disabled, we won't leave you to die.

Yes you will

Do you really think that as a nation that lacks so much empathy for the poor, THAT’S where we suddenly realize someone’s humanity? No, in fact if someone is at this point, most Americans would probably not even notice (and some amount would likely celebrate) their passing. If the safety net lets someone fall this far, why would it catch them now?

Just think of the blind eye we turn to people experiencing homelessness— as if their neighbors aren’t already wishing them harm while sipping a bottle of wine with their family and friends during their holiday dinner.

I didn't say millions in assets -- in fact, the way the system works is that those are the only people who come out with any of value to pass down to their heirs! The system is working for those people as intended; they benefit from lower costs (since everyone has to pay market price) and they are not penniless from it. The rest are drained of everything they spent their life building, and denied the opportunity to share that with their loved ones.

The thing is that death is a universal experience; Many, if not most of us, will end up needing some form of late-life care. Private insurance companies often won't cover what is ultimately inevitable. It would make sense for more of our public policy to aid in what is so common.

The average nursing home cost is $7k/mo. The average nursing home stay is 1-2 years. That's enough money to bankrupt most US families entirely yet comparatively little in the public budget. We spend _much_ more public money on incarceration every year.

> Americans spend tremendous amounts of public money on, for example, extending the life of old people a few months.

Medicaid is extremely stringent when it comes to income and asset thresholds for nursing homes (and in many states receiving social security can effectively disqualify you from Medicaid, even though Medicaid would be more helpful). So in many cases that public money is only applied once hospitals and nursing home facilities have plundered the estate of the soon-to-be deceased until the debt is paid or there is nothing left. Something as routine as old age will often wipe out any potential generational wealth building in all but the upper class.

I bring this up because I think this actually goes back to the original argument in the US that money does, in fact, rule everything. That's ultimately why Americans don't question their legal frameworks-- that's what guarantees the liabilities and debts and who keeps what in the end, not the other way around.

The TOS says any accounts that primarily focus on promotion of competitors will be banned, which, hm, but anyways. I think it’s obvious PG’s account was not primarily focused on links to other socials, so on to the next condition.

The TOS also says any accounts which post a direct link to such sites will be found in violation.

It does not say anything about purely mentioning the fact you have another social media (especially without saying the username), nor linking to a personal website, nor does it say anything about referring to where to find such a thing

By that logic, FDR was so far left he broke the scale! In the… 30s.

And yet he was considered then (and now) as less socialist / more politically to the right than many leaders in Europe at the time.

He was our most progressive president, and certainly further left than any US president since, but even he wasn’t “far left.” And certainly the neoliberal gerontocracy that dominates the current democratic party is nowhere near as left as he was.

This would technically also ban videos posted of Musk taken live of him getting boo’d en masse at Dave Chapelle’s comedy show, if you read the whole text literally.

Especially because he specifically tweeted he would not ban it: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1589414958508691456?s=46...

It’s public information by federal law. If it wasn’t in the public’s interest to know the data would not be available.

Eliminate the amount of people. Unrealistic, but I think the US should get rid of state governments and only have a federal and county governments. Municipal governments can still exist, but really only in regards to city planning and infrastructure decisions. Issues like schools, police, social, the environment should really be consolidated at the county level anyways.

Barring that, I think the current system is definitely better than adding congress to the list of decision makers. In fact, that increases the too many cooks in the kitchen problem even more.

Congress can barely agree on a debt ceiling without playing football every year.

Having them vote on the price tiers of postal service package weights or Amtrak route schedules seem like a surefire way to bring the management of every public agency to a standstill.

In fact, the only example we really have of our congress being in charge of setting rules for a public agency is the tax code— and its a mess of carve-outs, loopholes, stopgaps (AMT minimums?) that most lay people need to use a certified professional to simply perform a required function ever year. And it’s consistently subject to political football, drastic policy changes based on whatever party is in power, and core issues that congress was originally supposed to solve by running it (like supposed to balance how much money it brings in against public expenses) are often ignored anyways.

The point of a republic is not to put every decision to a vote, but to elect people we trust to be in charge— which includes who they appoint to run agencies, etc. In fact, that’s where most of the president’s power Tiber policy comes from— and it makes sense why, since he’s the only person in our government we all have a say nationwide in electing.

Why was Gemini, in my understanding as a fully US-compliant financial services company, able to offer such junk bonds/investments to retail investors?

I understand that FTX/Celsius/whatever else was in a legal gray area because they weren’t offering what would be illegal financial products to US-based customers (hence FTX US as a separate company), but has the SEC really not made any judgements or strict “guidance” to US-based crypto companies regarding what are essentially junk CDs? Especially since we’ve seen time and time again now these advertised APRs are not sustainable and border on willful false advertising if not outright fraud. Certainly the SEC knows that?

I think you’re falling into an easy trap when it comes to the word “gentrification”

No individual, be it in a state or a city or neighborhood, is to blame for gentrification. By definition gentrification is a collective movement — one billionaire with a ski chalet on a private mountain in extremely rural Montana does not gentrify the entire region, nor does it really raise the property values of any home near it.

Gentrification is systemic, and approaching California’s population loss and gain through this framework explains pretty much everything that is wrong with California at a policy and macro level.

The reason for this “gentrification” at the state level would confirm everyone’s priors: the cost of living is simply too high for most people. That would be greatly alleviated by building more housing to increase the supply for the bottom 90% of people who struggle with their mortgage payments, rent, or scraping enough money for a down payment together and realizing they can buy a home outright twice the size in Texas for what is just the down payment in California.

Which is fascinating, because while we know California is technically net-outward migration (people moving to other states), the demographic of people net MOVING to California is by people in the top 5%.

California is essentially gentrifying at the state level with wealthy transplants, pushing working and middle class people who grew up here out of the state.

[1] https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-skelton-income-t...

I've always thought that "user error" would be what ultimately ends the world as we know it...

That’s why many institutions are focused on extra-academic investment: better amenities, better campuses, better sports teams, better housing, better “neighborhood outreach”, better marketing, etc.

A school’s academics are, in a way, secondary to the school’s brand/influence (with built in networking effects in the alumni base)

Imagine some crazy world where education-level is a protected class for employment and degree/school can’t be considered or explicitly asked about in job applications. The credential monopoly would be no more. Yet you would likely still see top colleges thrive for the same reason top fashion houses do: status signaling, brand loyalty, and a sense of belonging with patrons who subscribe to the same values

A twitter vid downloaded shortcut is awesome, did you make it yourself or is it generally available?

I agree building is the only way out, I just think it’s a fun (but absurd) thought experiment

No one is arguing the policy isn’t insane, I’ll be the first to admit it is. It has a million other problems to it, but it would absolutely cause dramatic price reductions:

if everyone was limited to 1-2 units nationally (let’s say 1 home/unit in high demand cities), then there would absolutely be more supply than demand.

A 400 unit apartment building where the landlord legally must sell 399 units (or all 400 assuming they have other properties), repeated en masse throughout the city, would truly see there being more units on the market than buyers, because a) investors and high net-worth individuals would not be able to buy, as they would be having to sell off to get under the legal cap b) the only available buyers would thus be those who are under the limit of the housing cap, i.e. renters, which are mostly those who could not afford a home at the previous prices in the area

Considering the legal onus would be on the previous owners to sell per this insane law, sellers would rather make $100k>$10k>$1k than $0 and so there would be a rush to sell, exherting immediate downward prices on homes.

In San Francisco, which is a city where >66% rent where they live (and thus <33% of the city owns the whole housing stock), you would see a giant flood of homes hit the market that the existing landed gentry would be unable to snap up, equalizing around a 100% live-own rate (because, again, once you buy one unit you can’t buy another, no matter how cheap it is)

I mean, if corporate landlords legally were not allowed to own them, then supply would absolutely skyrocket as homes flood the market. Potentially to the point where they worth pennies on the dollar, as otherwise wealthy individuals would also be reaching the 2-3 home cap (with home prices so low, why not!)

Of course, this would also decimate the entire sector as a store of wealth, which, while some may consider that good (and I am partial to the view that a home is first a place to live than an investment), in the short term it would definitely have the effect of wiping out most middle class wealth, which is tied up in the primary/only home.

Then there’s also the problem you would likely see absolutely no units built in high demand areas, since the math wouldn’t pencil out until some sort of equilibrium was found.

Or, like how ravens were introduced to control the pigeon population in US cities and now we have both, we’d just end up perpetually with both drones buzzing about AND geese.

Also the fact that Canadian geese are smart and aggressive means it’s only a matter of time before they realize they can likely break the drones

The issue there is that… if you’re invalidated on that basis alone, then that seems to go against the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech” since, in this example, it’s quite clear the _only_ thing that would disqualify you is your speech (specifically, your expression of intent to boycott)

At its most extreme, then there’s no reason a GOP-run government could say “any company that has ever donated to, or has an employee who has donated to, a Democrat is ineligible for state contracts” in a bid to freeze donations to the opposition party. The only thing that’s been replaced in that sentence from current laws is “The BDS Movement” with “Democrat”. Obviously that would be an infringement of political speech.

Adding in the KKK or other hate groups into the mix doesn’t really muddy the waters— if a company is (reasonably suspected of) not adhering to other laws, like the Civil Rights Act (and any other equivalent state laws about protected classes), then the state would likely be prohibited anyways from continuing with such a contract, so it’s not the same.

Equally a fault of the people as it is the urban environment which shapes them…

> You can drink alcohol outside but in the US people would just be drunks everywhere and trash the place. And they trash the place without drinking.

Maybe if 95%+ of Americans weren’t indoctrinated since WWII with the concept of “a single family home and white picket fence” as the American Dream (and anything else is to be thought of as less than), Americans would grow up with a sense of and respect for shared space and environment. Instead we usually look at anything that is not our home/backyard/frontyard as “not ours” and thus “not important”. We see this in the lack of flagship public plazas/squares that you can usually find in even small European/South American/Asian towns, but also the continued shrinking of funding for libraries, neighborhood parks, etc.

If there’s no public realm in the first place, it’s no wonder most who grow up have no concept or respect for it. It’s a vicious cycle, and one many Americans (regardless of political affiliation) will insist is the “only” way, and actively fight anything else, since it’s all many know.

They're definitely available for those who are interested-- Criterion is probably the most well known. But a lot of successful indie movies also get picked up by regular streaming services, too. They're just usually not heavily promoted (usually little to no marketing budget).

They do! The largest one right now (which is also receiving a wide release, even) would be X (March 2022), then the prequel Pearl (September 2022), and the soon-to-be-sequel in 2023.

They spent probably less than $5M total on the 3 movies (and filmed all at once), and the first two have already brought in $25M at the box office. A pretty good indie success story.

Indie movies can range anywhere from $100k-$15M+, it’s a big range.

But I understand your point— mid-budget studio movies (romcoms especially) have been hit the hardest by the pivot to Marvel mania and cinematic universes. Unfortunately that’s as much because of audience preference as it is studios.

Yes! Exactly. You can find glimpses of the indie scene in many places, if you know where to look for it. But they’re not as pervasive/all-encompassing outside those two cities. Chicago/Austin have scenes, but they’re smaller; Georgia sort of does, too, but it’s more corporate/extensions of big Hollywood studios than an independent community.

As someone who lives in Los Angeles and is mostly surrounded by people in film/tv, the indie film industry is a LOT bigger than many people outside of the know realize. And I’m so thankful for that, because that’s where the “things that don’t scale, … original ideas that are difficult to translate to movies, etc” flourish. In a way, the indie movie scene is in better shape than it ever has been— with well-known big name actors even hopping in now and then.

You could argue the indie scene is similar to the startup scene in SV. You have investors/producers pretty much funding these films based on team/talent and a pitch alone, with the festival circuit (could be considered an analog to SV demo-days or investor powows) essentially serving as a way to get bought by big studios for potential wide release, limited-release runs (which can still make a lot of money for those involved), or teams hired/screenplays bought and adapted by other studios. You can even make it big right out of college (or in college) [1] with little-to-no connections, though of course even more-so than SV a name and pedigree gets you further faster.

There’s so much in LA (and NYC) that gets released in theaters only locally, and the city is better for it. It’s the wide-release that, almost by definition, must serve lowest common denominator in order to make its 8/9-figure budget back in a span of months (tech companies get years!!). It’s sad that SF and LA, so close geographically, have industries so socially polarized to each other in every way, since there’s really a lot of overlap when you get down to it (and each industry could definitely learn things from the other)

[1] https://variety.com/2022/film/news/apple-cha-cha-real-smooth...

I've been a daily user of Twitter since 2011. I mostly use it to keep up with the entertainment industry/Hollywood as I live in Los Angeles and that's where the sausage in this town is made (which when HN talks about Twitter, I think on the whole completely forgets about that huge contingent of Twitter), so not really into the whole politics/tech sphere there (that's what HN is for). Most people in that sphere don't really _want_ to care one way or the other who runs Twitter.

And yet from a technical perspective, I've already noticed broken links. Duplicate tweets being posted. False notifications... the cracks are already showing and its one day in. Others have too.

This has a cascading effect that people who previously do not necessarily care on the whole about who runs Twitter are now seeing the app simply not work how did yesterday, and attributing it to the new management.

And then there will be a huge class action in violation of California’s WARN Act.

He’s going to have to be paying out at least 2 months pay as severance.

But that time if they try they'll fail. Almost all avenues to municipal NIMBYism have been closed:

Strict SFH zoning? It can often be ignored now and build duplexes and four-plexes by right (no CEQA necessary!)

Amply sized commercial lots but no residential multifamily zoning? Those can be residential now. No CEQA necessary in some cases. I believe it's <400 units.

Parking requirements? Gone. In fact a city cannot even consider parking in deciding to issue a permit or not.

Procedural tactics? New laws have been passed capping the amount of required public comment meetings to 3, along with various other things like maximum review windows and mandatory ministerial approvals.

Bad zoning? Cities for which CA decertifies their zoning codes (housing elements) can be considered to _have no zoning_ until they present a housing element the state is satisfied with. Such cities include Santa Monica (recently fixed, but not before 4000+ units qualified), Beverly Hills, Pasadena, Redondo Beach, Davis, soon to be Palo Alto and San Francisco.

The only thing that's left, really, is CEQA reform. California is _so close_ to realizing a building boom. You have the Coastal Commission, too, but that only affects properties directly within the vicinity of the beach, and as a state agency is not something a city itself can really influence.