weirdstuff

The government may not be out to intentionally "get" anyone, but it's still very capable of harming when it intends to help.

That's what's behind a lot of the consternation over government responses. A lot of lives are at stake, and not just those which might be taken by COVID.

City populations are some of the most unequal in all society. Extremes in close proximity. I've read research on this in the past, although I don't have any links at the moment.

The Fed never unwound, at least beyond an initial and failed attempt.

When the Fed started unwinding a little over a year ago, they had to suddenly stop when markets tanked—hard. After the Fed ceased, stability returned.

I'm not sure there will ever be an unwinding, at least in the traditional sense.

Topping it off, starting last September, the Fed began emergency "not-QE" liquidity injections, which have unexpectedly grown over time.

And now, this black swan event. Nobody knows what's going on.

If we want to handle this crisis, let's not create a yet larger crisis in the process. I'm not ready to go weapons-grade nuclear on civil liberties.

Not even close.

All of your civil liberties? Really? That seems to be a very high price to pay given we all die someday.

I'd rather live in a world of risks than one without liberty.

My mother is older and has chronic health issues. We both rather risk it and have choice in how we live our lives while we are still here.

After a long and respected career at MIT he’s no joke.

You'll likely deal with each of these no matter which route you go; these things just occur naturally. School provides a little safety margin, but at a cost. And there's a different cost to not going to school. Choose your own adventure.

Let’s not accuse HN’ers of being Russian plants, it’s bad for discussion in my opinion. It’s rotting Reddit already.

It’s amazing how controversial Marx is 150 years later, and I’ve only ever met one actual “authority” on the matter outside Marx’s actual writings. (And I’m in economics!)

Makes me think there’s something very lasting about his ideas, moral interpretations aside.

No, they don't need one. The article shows how some groups are pushing for legislation to allow news orgs to form a cartel, in order to compete with the likes of Google and friends, who themselves enjoy a high concentration of market share.

So, instead of promoting a competitive economy with fewer cartels, there's a push to promote cartels within the economy, ostensibly to... compete?

Nice. These are, indeed, interesting times. Cartel economy it is!

I'm kind of tired of the trades "break your body" argument.

I think just as many bodies routinely get destroyed in office environments—especially in tech. You know the trope. Sitting all the time under artificial light breathing nasty "inside" air staring at screens in open office environments with a lot of mental stress. Etc.

In each case, blue collar or white, proper care can be taken to avoid these injuries. Especially in blue collar trades.

I urge you to look at this chart: https://www.financialsamurai.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/...

There's a strong correlation there. Fed funds rate seems to lead a bit.

I agree with you about the all the bad writing. It's pernicious.

It's a bit of circular logic. Big names are where big populations are. By that criteria San Francisco city has more "nowhereness" than San Jose.

New York metro area is much more nowhere than Tokyo metro if you want to go buy sheer population in a continuous urban conglomeration.

And to me, personally, NYC is just as nowhere as Boise, Idaho. Just a bunch of people living in groups doing things they find interesting, or can't leave due to financial/family/personal reasons. You can do lots of stuff in and around Boise that the same people can't do in NYC and visa versa, depending on individual preferences.

Many folks I know get bored quickly in NYC and SF. I do. I still love NYC and SF, though. I suffer from a bit of Stockholm Syndrome ;)

I'd add it's not just HN, but most social sites are far into self-censorship territory. I agree though, HN is much more hostile these days.

WRT dang, even today he shut down a thread regarding the deepening SEC inquiry into Musk (which had new news as of this afternoon), and said that this was something along the lines of "Musk hysteria" or some such thing.

I was kind of shocked at the removal of that thread as it was covering a new development, and was not, as dang put it, a dupe or hysteric.

We've done a pretty bad job at bringing back jobs. Labor force participation rate has fallen, while people are retiring later. Retirement/aging doesn't even help explain the drop. Especially since the younger generation has more than replaced the older one, and the older one isn't retiring at the same historic rate.

We're not in great shape, employment wise.

https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000

It doesn't mean they're automatically wrong, either. Not sure you're saying much. They created a whole website to outline their argument.

These patterns are likely to happen in times of extreme wealth inequality. Many people point the finger at Google and the like, and they may have a good case.

That's not what they're saying. They don't want Google specifically, for reasons they detail in-depth on their website. Being welcoming to everyone doesn't really work, or otherwise we wouldn't have prisons.

Being open-minded is a two way street, remember.

I think it's pretty obvious NASA does this so that we can eventually send the former middle class to Mars and make more room here.

Alchemists were experts on alchemy, but now we know their insights weren't all that useful for what they intended. (Although they were some of the smartest minds in their day.)

Same might be true for many economists. We like to think we've got the right experts, but it turns out we really don't know if the so-called experts have the most useful perspective on matters.

You make a good and valid point. But I think I'm just refuting his/her authority, not establishing my own. Also, there's so much pushing and shoving lately it's hard not to get caught up in it. Lately HN has a very policed feel to it. I think I'm entitled to be honest about how I feel. (We all should.)

In this particular case, I felt the parent to my comment was basically invaliding the honest feedback of its own parent comment. To me, that comes off as "conversation shutdown" and that's somewhat unsettling.

As an aside, the more educated the arena, the worse conversation shutdown seems to feel to me. My city, for example, has a major upper-end university at its heart, and it's very on-edge right now. You can feel it, and people are talking about it (and fighting). It really affects me and seemingly the student population too. It's as if we're not allowed to be honest with each other, or audible about what's happening.

I'm also wondering if these forums are worth visiting these days, for the sake of conversation. It's hard to have open, honest discussions and sometimes I get frustrated and lash out. That's my own fault. (Moreover, I'm not sure if there's much constructive conversation to be had at the moment.)

Oh, the times we live in. Guess I'll log off and read some Dickens.

Not just you. It's a high price and I wouldn't go for it. Don't use it enough.

Well, it was a good run.

Not sure about that. Wasn't the Doomsday Clock just moved back to an all-time dangerous spot?

And it started right after Trump won. Before that night the wisdom was exactly the opposite: that our elections can't be hacked, and we shouldn't believe claims about it.

Then Trump won and created mass hysteria in the political community, then the FUD went full steam ahead about Russia.

Instead of talking of the contents of the leaks, all we now can talk about was that there was a leak – and, oh – it was Russia hacking! (But don't discuss the details in the leaks, though. Instead pivot the discussion to malevolent hacking.)

I'm extremely skeptical Russia and their paltry spending had any effect on the election. Clinton and Trump were well known in this country long before the election anyhow. Clinton had a close relationship with Russia for that matter. And domestically Clinton/Trump and U.S. stakeholders spent billions of dollars to sway public opinion. Russia can't compete with that.

It's unfortunate that countries do increasingly exist to serve markets. In my opinion that's a real inversion, although subtle, that's been taking place.

Which leads us to a bought political system, at the moment at least.

This is the elephant in the room. U.S. based interests spent billions to influence public opinion here and abroad.

But less than $1 million spent by a Russia media organization (to maybe attract viewers?) and some trolls tossed the election? I’m more than skeptical.

This is a distraction campaign if here ever was one.

This is my fear: the UBI would be instituted and then the "Universal" part slowly erode into a sticks-and-carrots regime like how taxes and transfer payments are used today.

We need to make damn sure that adequate opportunities to generate wealth ourselves remain so that UBI doesn't become the only income for large swaths of the population. That'd just put producers and UBI-only recipients at odds. Not to mention inflation pressures.

I don't know; living here in the rust belt has been a pretty harsh wake up call if you ask me. Economic value is primo in the U.S.

(It's shocking to see first-hand entire regions in various states of collapse; furthermore becoming normalized in pop culture.)