hector126

I believe a big part of this phenomenon is the rise in public awareness of the efficacy of ADHD stimulants, specifically Adderall, Vyvanse, Ritalin, etc.

Eventually the genie left the bottle and people realized these medications make most (not all) people feel very good. Scott's written about this before, but they basically bump up your personal "productivity" metric. This effect is observed for those who suffer ADHD symptoms and those who don't.

Basically, these meds can allow a clinically unmotivated and lethargic person to clean their room and buy groceries and call the bank.

They can also allow a 'normal' person to work for 12h without a break then come home and continue writing their novel.

There are now online ADHD "clinics" which let you take an online assessment (!) before a 30min meeting with a doctor who'll then prescribe you amphetamines. If you're someone who knows to say, the process has been incredibly streamlined.

Would love an answer for this as well.

There have been many books written on the subject, as in my previous comment, I suggested The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.

It's not antisemitic or even remotely conspiratorial to acknowledge that Israel and Israeli-Americans have been very successful in exerting influence on the federal government. I think it's bad-faith well-poisoning for you to bring up nonsense like the Protocols.

That's very likely the case, though I don't think either of us have the details to make that assertion confidently. My comment was only in regards to lobby groups which operate freely on US soil staffed mostly by Americans.

Were there an analogous "ARPAC" which lobbied for Russian interests I imagine it would be under an immense amount of scrutiny.

Correct. My understanding is that there's no individual lobby group in America with more influence on foreign policy than AIPAC.

The book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy is a great read which fairly and methodically outlines how this influence works and what effects it's had on American policy, spanning decades.

Mohta wrote, “My family also runs several manufacturing plants in various industries, which has given me unrestricted access to assembly lines since I was 15.”

Color me not remotely surprised.

Can you imagine yourself or your women friends buying one if it was affordable?

If you're being honest about your position that 2028 won't be a fair election, I'm effectively offering you free money, right? There are loads of bet/escrow systems out there - I'd be happy to do all the facilitation myself.

They literally said "provably true".

Trump absolutely lies a lot. He doesn't lie _all the time_. I don't think that's an inappropriate level of nuance for someone to acknowledge.

I would argue that this is not the end of your country's democracy and that in 2028 a new president will be elected.

You'll have a new president in 2028, be it Vance, Shapiro, or Oprah Winfrey. Either way, it won't be DJT.

I do remember, obviously. Those kind of tired jabs are better suited for /r/politics, I'm sure you'll be right at home there :)

That said, I also remember when Trump said he'd build a wall and that Mexico would pay for it. A remarkable amount of what Trump says isn't true, I think everyone's in agreement on that.

If the country is happy with the state of affairs in 2028 then I expect you'll have JD Vance as your president. If not, maybe Newsom, Buttigieg (my hope), or Shapiro. Either way, if you truly think that 2024 was the last election Americans will vote in, respectfully, I think you're a little bit deluded.

Of the DOGE list's initial claim of $16 billion in savings, half came from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) listing that was entered into the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS) in 2022 with a whopping $8 billion maximum possible value.

According to a DOGE post on X, that number was a typo that was corrected in the contract database to $8 million on Jan. 22 of this year before being terminated a week later, and DOGE "has always used the correct $8M in its calculations."

Jeez, that's pretty damning.

This was an online survey with 1134 respondents. Comparable to a medium-engagement Twitter poll. It's surprising to me that you think this is representative of the perspective of the of your country as a whole.

https://carsey.unh.edu/publication/conspiracy-vs-science-sur...

I would argue that this is not the end of your country's democracy and that in 2028 a new president will be elected.

You'd disagree, I trust?

The first sentence begins with "Trump lies through his teeth with every word"

Love him or hate him, I would argue that there are indeed words Trump has spoken which are not lies made through his teeth. I would put that level of hyperbole within the realm of "dubious basis in truth".

I would put the odds at 99.9% that the US will hold an election in 2028 and that it will be the international consensus that regardless of the outcome, the election will be decided fairly by the voters and will not be "hacked" or "unfair" as current and past fringe commentators have tried to present.

I'm Canadian and don't technically have a dog in this race, but I do enjoy calling people out on convictions they present but deep down don't earnestly hold.

Would you be open to a $10,000 bet that the 2028 election is, as decided by unbiased international publications (BBC, Reuters, etc.), fair?

IIRC it was cash, but I'm sure others can confirm.

Should have been more clear, this was 500k for an E4 level role, you're correct that senior/staff at Meta and G are definitely making more.

Anecdotal, but I've gotten three recruiting emails from them now for joining their iOS team. I got on a call and confirmed they were offering FAANG++ comp but with the expectation of in-office 50h+ (realistically more).

I don't have that dog in me anymore, but there are plenty of engineers who do and will happily work those hours for 500k USD.

In my experience, having watched friends enter that position, it's drugs which cause drug addiction. Mental health might play a factor, but if I gave the average HN user meth or crack every day for three weeks, their brain chemistry would be almost irreversibly changed and would spend years, if not the rest of their life, wanting more. Same goes for powerful opioids.

One can argue that certain people are more predisposed to enjoy being high, I'm one of those people. When you see incredibly rich and successful people like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Chris Farley, and Philip Seymour Hoffman ultimately losing it all to that desire, I feel like it's hard to blame something like lack of opportunity or government welfare dependence.

The "bad" drugs, crack/meth/opioids/etc. make your brain feel a way sober-type people can't really imagine. I don't know what the answer is.

Truthfully, for all intents and purposes, I'm the one speaking out of my ass on this topic. These are some really good points. You describe a real-life experience which I clearly lack; I definitely concede my previous point. My apologies.

FWIW I think it's really admirable of you to maintain those community connections, not everyone would do the same.

I think it's hard to imagine someone who prefers homelessness to living somewhere cheap. I understand there's a lot of nuance and for the majority of homeless folks, $750 rent isn't necessarily more realistic than the $3000 rent I remember in NYC, but for the people for whom cheap living _is_ a viable option, I'm struggling to believe that their AA group or a friendly coffee shop owner are their reasoning for choosing NYC over a highway town outside of Rochester.

I actually think it's a bit infantilizing to suggest that any otherwise capable person would choose sleeping on the streets or in shelters over a basement apartment in a cheap, boring town.

Speaking personally, I'd prefer living in quite literally any town in the entire country if it meant a roof over my head.

My understanding is that countries who have "solved" homelessness either -

• Societally and culturally produce so few individuals who would behave the way America's most problematic homeless do that direct 1on1 intervention is feasible. There are school districts in the US where the truancy rate exceeds 70%. There are other countries where this is not the case. Switzerland and Norway come to mind.

• Involuntarily commit or arrest individuals who are mentally unfit to function in normal society. Institutionalization, basically. China and Russia come to mind.

If there was a silver bullet which was politically acceptable to "solve" America's homeless problem I ensure you, folks in California would have tried it.

Have we ever observed revolutionary change in tech which ran contrary to evolutionary change?

This seems like such an odd thing to expect will just "happen". Any other world-changing or impressive tech I'm familiar with has evolved to its current state over time, it's not like when Jobs announced the iPhone and changed the game there wasn't decades of mobile computing whose shoulders it stood on. Are you talking about something like crypto?

It's admittedly a bit confusing what you're asking for here.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-robotaxis-by-june-m...

Looks like it's still in the works. Sometimes when technologists promise something their timelines end up being overly optimistic. I'm sure this isn't news to you.

By your language and past commentary though this seems like the kind of thing which elicits a pretty emotional response from you, so I'm not sure this would be a productive conversation either way.

China's economy remains on track to surpass that of the United States within just five years, and yet they did sign that agreement.

I'd be very happy to take a high stakes, longterm bet with you if that's your earnest position.

What did Musk's promised driverless taxis provide that existing driverless taxis don't? The tech has arrived; it's a car that drives itself while the passenger sits in the back. Is the "gotcha" that the car isn't a Tesla?

Seems like we're splitting hairs a bit here.

(Throwaway as this topic can be inflammatory for those unfamiliar with the literature)

Behavioral patterns and personality traits have been pretty conclusively proven to be genetically inheritable. "Behavioral Genetics and Child Temperament" (Saudino) investigates this, as does "A genome-wide investigation into the underlying genetic architecture of personality traits and overlap with psychopathology" (Priya Gupta, et al).

There's no doubt that nurture and culture play a massive role in one's later personality and behavior as an adult, but it's incorrect to disregard genetics in this conversation. Some people are predisposed to be shy, some people are predisposed to be aggressive. Smart, critical people are able to appreciate genetic differences amongst broad human groups without letting that lead to unsavory viewpoints.

Cubefox is being downvoted but for those unaware, there's still a lot of disagreement amongst experts in the role of genetics vs environment in determining G. There is undoubtably though, a huge amount of political and social stigma surrounding the topic. Hence the green username - I daren't touch this topic with a ten foot pole.

The study "Survey of expert opinion on intelligence: Intelligence research, experts' background, controversial issues, and the media", Table 3 in particular, makes a good illustration.

https://www.hoplofobia.info/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/2020-...