BigBubbleButt

The point of the paper is they had inside information, so they did predict it.

Believe it or not, there were some traders that seemed to predict 9/11.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/503645#metadata_info_ta...

Elon Musk explicitly waived his right to due diligence. You're right about these things being expected, but Elon can't be hampered by such standard conventions.

I’ll still stand by some web3 idea like using an NFT as some kind of license to access a service using web3 auth is a true and valid use case.

How is this different from setting up a website and requiring a password to access it?

Is that not an objective statement? I'm aware of the controversy, but that doesn't mean we should ignore facts.

Individuals and corporations have to make explicit decisions to respond to what they can see of the M2 effect, and none of these decisions are a law of nature.

The law is called supply and demand. If there are more dollars and the same amount of resources, the value of a dollar goes down.

Let's just agree to disagree. Cheers.

Honestly, that's really not that important for what I was saying, because we're talking about the Fed. The Federal Reserve can choose to fight inflation or it can choose to inflate assets, and that lies on a spectrum. The "why" of inflation isn't nearly as important as the severity of it. If inflation is at 10% you're not going to debate it before doing something about it - that just allows the situation to fester instead of taking initiative. The reason we're in this situation where inflation is still getting worse, a year after being told not to worry about it, is because it's politically untenable to actually try to fix the problem. Meanwhile inflation continues to worsen while we make symbolic gestures about fighting it.

Yes, understanding what's causing inflation matters. I'm not saying it doesn't. But when you have a crisis, you want to focus on mitigation first and then root causing it after the situation is averted.

Also you mention two possible causes of inflation. Limited resources and distribution, and companies deciding to raise prices because they can. What about the Fed printing money like crazy, flooding the M2 money supply? That's the one that's relevant to this conversation.

In my personal view, it would be stupid to hike to 10% since that will also cut off the needed supply response: this will decapitate energy, farm, and housing expansion while at the same time decimating all forms of wealth. But there is a possibility depending on how trigger happy the fed becomes.

The only reason Volcker managed to bring down inflation is because he was willing to actually do what needed to be done. If borrowing money is cheaper than inflation, why would anybody not just continue to borrow money indefinitely? The Federal Reserve can fight inflation or it can fight a recession; it cannot do both simultaneously.

You have to decide which is a bigger problem: a recession, or inflation. The notion that you can walk a tight rope between the two is disconnected from reality. And while you continue to make inflation worse, you only make the inevitable recession worse. Tick tock.

You need complete despair.

I agree. We are fucked.

I've had the misfortune of suing insurance companies in the past; I'm very aware of how the system works. You are technically correct. It's just that you're grossly exaggerating exceptions as though they will ever be useful to a majority of people.

You're assuming the hospitals don't all do this. You're basically discussing market dynamics with a legalized cartel.

This is like when people point out problems with fiat currency which are very real, and then people suggest theoretical solutions from cryptocurrency. It doesn't actually help solve the problem in any meaningful way, and you are living in an alternate reality from the problem space we are discussing.

I don't know if the comment was edited or not, but I hope you're not claiming "vigilante" is a slur. I looked up the definition of slur just to be sure and you are technically correct, but I'd say you're abusing language far more than the person you're responding to.

Technology is only neutral in the sense that guns, nuclear weapons, and neurotoxins are neutral. No, not all technology is the same, and much of it is evil. This loosely falls into the same fallacy of "it can either work or fail, so there's a 50% chance" - you are wildly misrepresenting the space in order to project a stance of neutrality.

I really think what you're saying is just something engineers tell themselves to feel better about what they do. I hear it more often from people at FAANG, defense contractors, and other morally ambiguous places than anywhere else.

Also, if you're the guy building a tool that's oppressing someone, you are the guy building the means to oppress someone. There's nothing neutral about that.

I donno, I feel your reactive defense of a smart thermostat (with a comical origin story) is more absurdist HN than the person you're replying to.

I think if you succeeded in making a game that successfully simulated the experience of poverty, it would be extremely unfun to play.

I don't think you're someone that plays many videogame simulations, as the whole point is making something fun that's inherently boring in real life. There are so many popular simulators for famously mind-numbing jobs: farming, janitorial services (and further niches within this including powerwashing), driving for hours on an empty desert road (both as a trucker or as someone that's just bored), and more.

Here's a great game that simulates trying to survive in an imaginary Soviet country. You pretty much always die, are coerced to murder people as part of your job, and usually watch as your family starves or freezes to death despite your best efforts to keep them alive. And you know what? I honestly think it's one of the best videogames ever made.

https://papersplea.se/

If the goal is to actually present the experience of poverty, then yeah it would be unfun to play by design. I wouldn't want that job in Arstotzka either, even if the game is fun to play. I'd also never want to be a truck driver, but I love the idea of doing it in a videogame.

I spent 5 minutes researching. Hell, you could just get the information from other comments if you're too lazy to do that.

Have you researched at all or are you just assuming the entirety of their claims? Did you know they lie about their efficacy rate? There's no upside. They've thought about nothing but how to make money from carbon credits.

It seems to be pretty common today, yeah. I'd say it's probably the most important thing for everyone I know, even moreso than compensation lately.

You have persuaded me.

Why?

You make a good point. Their product is better and cheaper!

Then what you're saying makes even less sense. Because what happened with Robinhood is they turned off the buy button, but still people could sell (which means there were buyers from other brokers or outside retail).

I realize every buy needs a sell. I also said "typically" and considering there obviously were buyers since you could still sell, everything you're saying is irrelevant to the discussion we had about GME in 2021.

Anyway, we're not getting anywhere. You can respond but I'm not responding anymore.

Except they do. All the time when bubbles pop and other crisis form.

Market halts are completely different from what we are discussing. And one of the purposes of market makers is to provide liquidity in extreme cases as you are describing (I'm not saying it works perfectly, but it's one of their reasons for existing).

Anyway, I feel like we aren't quite getting our points across to each other. Not blaming you just saying let's agree to disagree.

I am aware of that, and that is Robinhood being unable to manage their collateral requirements in order to continue trading GME. There were other brokers that managed to do it just fine. Robinhood messed up here. Really I think the DTCC is who messed up, but that's a much larger discussion.

The reason I dislike the analogy is because brokers aren't (typically) supposed to run out of shares to buy and sell. Retail traders don't think of trying different brokers for availability like you might trying different toy stores. The point of having a large enough float is so that you can continue trading the stock. Market makers exist to provide liquidity. It's supposed to keep trading, and only some brokers like Robinhood were unable to manage this.

The GME situation got into a "sold out" situation. Much like how a toy-store runs out of Furbies back in the 90s, Robinhood ran out of GME-stock to sell to its customers.

This is a poor analogy. So long as there is a large enough float, which is a requirement to be listed on some exchanges, there should always be stock to buy and sell.

Don't compare it to something else that's commonplace and misleading. I am aware of the margin requirements and what happened with DTCC and am purposefully avoiding that more complicated subject only to point out how much I dislike your analogy.

You say I deserve harsh criticism but get upset when I call you out for being an asshole? Man you just keep victimizing yourself. It's obvious you're convinced you're right and nobody can change your mind. I understand your perspective just fine because I used to agree with you. Then I grew up. I suspect you will too some day.

You actually make a lot of great points, and I agree with you up until this part:

When you try to justify racism and sexism against white men like you are doing above, you're not just slapping yourself in the face, you're slapping the rest of us too.

Yes, I did choose an absolute example. You're not wrong about that. The part you're missing is that you sound tone-deaf. To quote a famous movie: "You're not wrong, you're just an asshole." Are you the guy that says "all lives matter" instead of "black lives matter?" It's like you don't get the bigger picture. Yes, the problems you point out are real - they're also trivial. And if you want to make a mountain out of a molehill I can't stop you, but you come across as an entitled jerk.

The point isn't white men are bad. The point is white men are clueless that others are suffering more than them and are only focusing on themselves when others need help more than they do. It's selfish. It's similar to billionaires complaining about taxes. You also conveniently avoided my question - what's the greatest adversity you've faced as a white male? Because that's the perspective you're lacking.

FWIW I actually appreciate you writing a long response. Anyway, agree to disagree.

Those are raw numbers. What happens when you consider that there are more white people than black people in the United States? It reverses your claim. Your numbers show there are roughly twice as many white people shot, but there are roughly 4x as many white people as black - so being black makes you twice as likely to be shot by the police in the United States. This is so obvious I assume you're arguing in bad faith.

The sign of privilege is being unaware of it, because you're not regularly confronted with adversity. What is the worst adversity you've faced in your life as a white male? Mine is maybe being denied a lucrative job. Boo fucking hoo for me.

You're focusing on one tiny anecdote of my life and generalizing it to my entire existence. I never said being discriminated against for a job was an example of incredible privilege - it's many of the other things that most white males never notice. When I get pulled over for speeding I don't have to worry about getting shot like black men do. Do you have any idea how fucking horrible it is to go through life worrying about legalized thugs with a proven history of racism regularly getting away with murdering you just because of the color of your skin? I don't because I'm white. That's privilege. If you think "driving while black" is a joke then your ignorance is making the world a worse place.

Holy fucking shit I cannot stand the echo chamber that is tech sometimes. Get out of your bubble and try to experience the world outside of reading about it on HN. There are worse things than being denied a job because of bullshit HR policies.

The company I worked at pushing the "diversity" agenda is Cruise. It seems unfair to name and shame the other company as I can't actually confirm that was why they declined to interview me.

I recently interviewed for a job because my friend asked me to and put in the recommendation. They refused to interview me and just said they weren't interested. My friend got back to me and said "I'm pretty sure it's because you're a white male." It's speculation, but it probably happens more often than you think.

I also used to be on several hiring committees and it was very obvious that HR essentially forced non-white-males to be hired in some instances.

This is not some "white men have it hard" diatribe. Obviously as a white male I experience incredible privilege overall. But at least in tech they seem to have swung so far the other way that there is some discrimination against white males. I'm not mad, we all have to play the hands we're dealt and honestly being born a white male is about as good as it gets with regards to demographics. Just sharing my anecdotes.