fivestar

That reads like a Bruce Sterling novel.

I think Tesla rolled it out too soon and marketed it as something it is not yet capable of and people died because of it.

Watching the Youtube videos of Teslas getting confused while on Autopilot made me immediately realize that the tech has a ways to go--there are roads that have odd paint or other odd features that confuse the car and make it choose a path that would get you killed if you didn't manually intervene in time.

I disagree with that statement--it is abundantly clear that the desire was for self-determination and not meddling by some unelected body which is not what the Brits signed up for with the EU, or at least not how it was sold to the public.

Get your MI5&6 under control, the way the US needs to get its IC back under control, and the crypto problem solves itself.

I hope you're right because it flies in the face of what every other government institution wants to do about crypto these days. What is it with the UK and their Orweillan nonsense? They need to get over the idea of backdoors that weaken crypto and just accept the fact that bad people do bad things--they seem to accept all the ISIS attacks in their country, so why not?

As far as the US goes, we have strong crypto because the system by which citizens come to be dominated is broken, and not for any other reason.

I can tell just from the postings on HN that SV people need better ethics training.

One reason why I think management in the US is so bad is because the entire corpus of managers went to the same few groupthink institutions and that is why they are so bad--no real risk takers, no real anything. It's like that in politics, too. We aren't promoting the right ideals, but merely conformity, risk-aversion, and foregone conclusions accepted as fact.

Stop taking digs at libertarians--for the most part, market based systems succeed where every other plan conjured up by fallible man fails! Most of the other "working answers" involved force and in this case, eradicating the human scourge that have encroached on the elephants' habitat. I guess a secondary move would be to eradicate the human scourge who think they need ivory in their lives. So if mass murder is your thing, then by all means, find a non-market solution. But keep falling all over yourself thinking you care so much!

Yes, I do find it interesting what gets downvoted and why. There is a great deal groupthink and foregone conclusions and not enough critical thinking. We are all subject to our own biases, but if those biases close up our minds to new ideas, then you aren't being scientific or seeking truth.

Being scientific means that when conclusions take you to places you are not comfortable with, you keep going anyways.

To avoid doing so is dangerous, and I see so much of that avoidance today, unfortunately for all of us. Reject that "religion" and free yourself from guilt.

Whether the past was better or worse is irrelevant. I only seek to understand the findings and have them inform our current times. I do find it hard to believe that life in the Victorian Era was longer/more enjoyable than today simply because modern medicine has evolved so much and because we know so much more about what harms people.

It makes no sense unless we truly have way more carcinogens in our modern world. Something doesn't add up--either the stats are skewed because modern populations are so much larger, or record keeping was bad, or...something.

Also, you downvoted me, then posted "life expectancy after age 5" which, in my thinking, only validates that article has little to do with "infant mortality" since age 0-5 covers a wide band of people who are not infants, right?

A tontine isn't really a modern thing--they were all outlawed. The only ones I am familiar with are from pop culture and literature. I think they are old world in origin and usually exist within a family or a small group like a fraternity or club of some kind and usually involve some item that can not be split up, such as a fine art or perhaps purloined treasure. The idea is that the last survivor gets the item. That's it. It's not insurance, it's more of a blood oath.

An annuity is not a tontine. It is a guaranteed payout for a certain period of time. I'm not a fan, but I suppose they can make sense to some people? Like reverse mortgages, they may help someone keep a certain standard of living at the cost of leaving anything to their heirs.

Funny thing about that: In my dad's pension plan he got an increase because so few of his fellow pensioners live to collect much of it. They typically retire and live for about two years and that's it. So the pension fund was adjusted to reflect that reality.

Tontine? Not a new concept.

The article is not as focused on infant mortality as the post title suggests.

Am wondering about the statement regarding cancer being rare. Is that only because people didn't live long enough?

I went to a Wal-Mart this past weekend, I know full well what is wrong with contemporary health--excess eating!

There is a debate raging over "right to repair" and the consumer is losing. Honestly, I can't continue buying $1000 smart phones. It's just not worth it. And no, I'm not going to insure them, either. That whole concept is a bag of dicks.

The problem with pharmacy is that it is a (an overly) regulated business. That isn't necessarily something Amazon can easily tackle anymore than anyone else can. Target has struggled with it for years. Target puts pharmacy management on the hook for store sales. The result is you end up waiting for your Rx longer than actually necessary in hopes you will go browse in the store and buy something.

But if you read the article, you will note that the "paper" is made from limestone and polyolefin, which is a plastic, which is also not good for the environment.

You have to negotiate your salary based on these assumptions. Or get paid hourly (as a consultant or contractor). I'm not currently hourly, but I am also not getting exploited, either. Most places I have worked didn't give a damn about their employees. They would just use them up and get new ones when people eventually got fed up and quit (or got sick and quit, in a few cases). When you bill hourly, projects are far more honest in terms of not shifting costs onto the staff.

Of course it's not--you just have to have leaders who don't want 100X what the average employee makes! It's about greed, it's always been about greed.

And it's so much worse than that, really. A lot of public companies are being strip-mined of their true wealth by the insiders. Pump the stock, gut the company, screw the investors.

Intelligent people capable of negotiating their pay in a market such as that for software development would only be encumbered by unions. Are there warts? Sure there are. Nothing is perfect.

What's not capitalistic about it? A company can be setup with any number of metrics that determine success besides just pure profit. That most don't is a matter of who is running them, not that capitalism doesn't allow it to take place!

Look at airlines--exec bonuses used to include metrics such as "customer satisfaction" and today those metrics are gone and only profits count. Nothing changed with capitalism, though. It's the asshole MBAs that changed.

I might add that many times over the years notable people have mistaken Onion parody as real news.

Because this shit has been going on a long, long time! That's why--you can't discuss fake news and then not bring up the key examples put out by official media sources. It's like talking about just Nigerian scammers when scams have been going on for thousands of years.

Google has abdicated all sense of objectivity, as have all the major SV tech companies. Not even a pretense that their technology is politically objective, but rather aligned with the far left now. It is disturbing, to say the least.

The fact is that there was a pedophile scandal in the UK. You believe that, correct? People were prosecuted, yes?

Also, you realize that US Catholic priests, and very likely priests in other nations have been involved in innumerable cases of child molestation. Also correct? Or is that just fake news?

So why is it such a giant leap of faith to suspect, given the rumors, that a similar scandal might exist amongst elites in the US?

Whether some pizza shop was the nexus of the whole thing, I have no idea, that isn't the point. The point is that powerful people with twisted appetites may be getting away with extremely reckless and illegal behavior and therefore deserves our attention.

Right now, we know there is 'human trafficking' going on. Who is involved? If wealthy elites outside of politics are involved, is it not that giant a leap to assume that political elites are also involved? And that some compare notes?

Chomsky talked about agenda setting.

Ha, I bet that is annoying to deal with. The things are fun, but they are basically toys.

I suspect, after dealing with many men of this type, that they are simply juvenile frat boy types who believe they are alpha status males. Some get away with it because they're rich. These are men used to getting everything they want and who are used to basically purchasing their women.

While I don't condone that banker's behavior in any way, I want to mention that I pretty much refuse to speak to any women where I work unless I absolutely have to. It's really the only way to remain safe in such politically correct environments.

I think something important is being lost in our day to day interactions with colleagues and not only that, but much has been taken away from our personal lives when we deal with overbearing rules. Again, not condoning the 'dick pics' that was way out of line, but merely observing that life in the US is just not any fun in or out of the workplace.

I can't even imagine trying to date in a an environment where your professional life is threatened merely by opening your mouth at all.

Also, there's a double-standard--women harassing men is overlooked by men, but when it goes the other way it is never overlooked. So unless a man's overtures of friendship are immediately warmly welcomed (and subject to later rejection, natch) that person's job is at risk.

Meanwhile, the C-Suite and higher echelon folks are all in bed with each other, which is the other double standard.