powerslacker

Good for you. For the most part I agree on the denial bit. Particularly when the "lived experience" is centuries of casual human trials.

1) Take a short break of at least a full day and do something you enjoy. Get some exercise and some fresh air if you can.

2) Mentally prepare yourself for the grind ahead. A lot of the jobs you are applying to are already filled by the time you get there or the job has been pulled due to economic slowdown but the company is still interviewing because they are disorganized.

3) Try and make a list of the reasons why you are pursuing this job and this career specifically. Clarity around why you are choosing to take on potentially hundred of these gruelling interviews can help you keep your eye on the prize.

4) Be conciously grateful for your blessings. Some people never make tech lead but want it, you seem to have accomplished it early and have acquired a ton of valuable experience. There are others in far worse circumstances. Take heart, although this situation is very tough, because you have a set of problems that many would love to have.

Hope this helps you in some way. May God bless you.

These behemoths are a major vertebrae in the backbone of the US economy. Without Equifax, Transunion, Experian and Dun & Bradstreet a huge portion of economic activity would come to a grinding halt. The vast majority of sales of housing, cars, computers, phones, hot tubs, etc. are all reliant on on-demand credit scoring. We have made serious strides in regulating them, but disbanding them would be a financial disaster. Regulation has actually made the problem a bit worse since it has essentially turned the credit reporting industry into an oligopoly, further centralizing consumer data collection so attackers only have to hit a single target to get almost everything.

Not all taxation is theft. However, taxation taken specifically from one person or group in order to benefit another is theft. Taxation for the purpose of maintaining the military, police, roads, and other necessary public infrastructure is not theft. For example, it is not theft for the Senate to pay for reasonable military salaries. It is theft to levy a 100% tax on billionaires in order to redistribute those funds to all non-billionaires whether in cash, benefits, or other property.

The "benefit of the public" is a better standard than no standard - but is in and of itself insufficient to contain the state to its rightful domain.

This kind of response tells me I've struck a nerve. I don't have these kinds of conversations because I want people to vote for conservatives in the upcoming elections. While I certainly would not mind that outcome, what is far more important to me is the spread of the Kingdom of God. The fact of the matter is that the Bible has plenty to say on the proper function of government and even the levying of taxes and the purposes those taxes are to be used for. But even if the Bible had an entire book dedicated to marginal tax rates it is unlikely that you would care. The reason you would not care is because you, like all mankind, are opposed to the rule of God, because if there is a transcendant standard then you are guilty of violating that standard. I'm not picking on you specifically, this is applicable to all mankind, including me. We are all in rebellion against God's law and we are all guilty of violating it (Romans 3:23). If we were fairly judged according to God's standards we would be doomed. The good news is that the transcendent creator of the universe has made it possible for rebels to be reconciled to Him even though they are breakers of His law. Jesus the Nazarene is the promised Messiah which was prophesied to the nation of Israel (Isa 59). For over 2000 years, word of His death, burial, and resurrection revealed to mankind that the author of the universe gave a revelation of Himself to man through Moses, the Prophets, and Jesus - confirmed by the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus resurrection is the miraculous proof that he holds divine authority and that His claims are true (1 Cor 15). Those who believe with sincere faith in the capacity and work of the Lord Jesus will be saved from sin, reconciled with the Father of all created things, and be gifted with the presence of the Holy Spirit. I didn't come to these conclusions because I'm smarter than you or because I'm more holy than you. I'm terribly guilty of violating God's laws. It is because of the mercy and goodness of God that I have been saved and that I trust in His word. To know and understand these things is a gift from God. It is a gift I pray he will give to you and to all those who read this.

Laws are non-material by definition. You can't eat or touch the law of gravity for example.

Using "caught up in a religion" or "means something different to every member" as a reason to ignore an argument is arbitrary and an a priori dismissal of potential evidence contrary to your beliefs. In other words, you are ruling out a position simply because you are prejudiced against that position.

There are laws which claim to be moral supernatural law which are written down. If these laws are what they claim to be and are truly of supernatural origin then not only do they exist, they exist in a greater capacity than laws written by human hands or instruments.

A transcendant law presupposes a transcendant author and arbiter.

I fail to see a distinction here. The government defines what is legal. I suppose one can appeal to some higher power as the source of all law or something idealistic like that, but that's not how the IRS or the Texas State tax assessor work.

Right. That's what I mean by conflating. One can appeal to a higher law. I'd argue that's the only way you can make a moral judgement about the actions of a government, since as you've pointed out they have the ability to create laws. So either there is a law that can be used to judge whether a 100% tax on the individual is justified or there isn't. If there isn't a higher law, then you're right - the government is a law unto themselves. They are totally sovereign and no one can make any moral judgement about their actions since by definition their might makes them right. Alternatively, there is a higher law: a supernatural moral law that transcends the will of men and which the governments of the world and all the people of the world are accountable to. If that's the case then there is a limit to how far the government is able to justifiably tax its citizens - the amount that the transcendent law allows gives them jurisdiction to tax.

It's important to note that if there is no law that transcends the state, then the state is not limited by moral law in any way. In that case it's the source of moral law and nothing that the state does can ever be justified as moral or immoral since under such a worldview the state is the judge of good and evil.

Well this whole thread is regarding whether or not someone ought to vote for a non-conservative government. So the first thing you could do to avoid such a situation is vote to elect individuals who are true to their word and argue against policies that would rob you of all your wealth through taxation and inflation. Another step you might take is to promote a vision of society where we limit the government to a certain degree so that it does not acquire so much power that it can simply rob individual citizens without recourse.

Further, this particular question is whether the government legally ought to be able to tax without limits. You seem to be conflating that with if the government is able to tax without limits.

Sharing is usually voluntary. If the government levied a 100% tax on your income and assets, kept the vast majority of it, and then redistributed you a year supply of beans, rice, and a tent you would consider that to be a violation of their taxing authority wouldn't you? Should the power of the government to levy taxes be considered limitless?

It sounds like you are saying "Yes, but its justified because they stole first". Is that what you meant?

Isn't that just stealing?

We would need to limit the state in some way so that it would be unable to grow beyond a certain set of powers. The populace would also need to agree that such an arrangement was a preferable alternative to being subject to a state which attempts to control every aspect of life. Of course, in order for the populace to have a unified agreement to such a thing they would need a shared set of values and morals that transcend the idea that "might makes right". Essentially, we would need an agreed upon moral code that is superior to the state which could then be used to limit the state.

How would electing a non-conservative government help?

The Federal government in the US is (on paper) extremely limited in comparison to other countries. The US constitution was written specifically to limit the potential for tyrannical or mob rule. To regulate or disarm the citizenry of the United States is a particularly arduous task because the US Federal government does not have that kind of sovereignty.

I wonder how this will affect housing prices in the rest of the states. The bay area has a lot of people, if half of them migrate that's bound to have an effect.

The timing of the publication of this data is telling. The data is gathered from a total of 1018 total cases from 2017-2019. The CDC has also published totals of the national rates of maternal mortality: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/maternal-mortality/2020...

In 2020, there were 861 deaths total, at a rate of 23.8 per 100k births. If my math is correct that's roughly a .024% chance across all age groups of maternal mortality including deaths caused by suicide/mental health issues.

The number of pregnancy related deaths is incredibly low.

As @a-user-you-like has pointed out, your interpretation is a common misconception about what 'freedom of religion' means. The framers certainly did not mean that the laws passed by the state and federal governments were to be completely free from moral judgement based on religion or more particularly Christianity. There is no conflict, because neither the states or the federal government are instituting a state church. Instead, you have individual citizens insisting that the laws of their land should be derived from God's law and not judged by some arbitrary and immeasurable standard such as the happiness of prostitutes and their clientele.

A significant amount of people aren't looking at this as an issue of metrics, convenience, economics, or anything of the sort. That's a utilitarian approach. The vast majority of people opposed to legal & regulated prostitution are approaching it from a religious and moral perspective. The Christians that the article rags on believe that the Bible is truth that has been revealed to man by God and that it encourages the civil magistrates to deter sexually perverse behavior of all kinds including but not limited to pornography and prostitution.

Your bias and the bias of the study you cited are painfully obvious and assume a particular point of view as valid while rejecting others. The whole concept of the study is framed in a utilitarian value system. If you had a thousand similar studies you wouldn't proven anything to someone who does not hold to an empirical and utilitarian worldview because the questions that the study is asking are ultimately philosophical, epistemological, and moral. As such these questions transcend the usefulness of observational science. The study is worded in such a way as to sound very thorough but if you look at Appendix 2 you can see that even by empirical standards the evidence they have chosen to consider is slanted to a particular subset of the available data, let alone the anecdotal evidence which surrounds the researchers on all sides.

In other words all you've truly pointed out with this post is that the various members of the UK government have policy goals and that they are willing to use science as a cudgel to achieve their policy goals.

I don't think I've ever seen a clear separation of these things.

That's really too bad. Maybe I'll write an article or something.

Also, I would like to thank you for taking the time to reply thoughtfully! I do believe you've been very honest and approaching the conversation in good faith (I have difficulty reading this without it coming off as snide, so please just take it at face value).

[×] Taken at face value. I appreciate you taking the time to discuss these things, and I wish you the best on this wild ride through life. I pray that God will bless you with the opportunity to know Him.

Sorry, but I will not elaborate.

All appeals to an ultimate authority are circular by nature. Its the philosophical equivalent of bedrock.

That being said, you can understand Christianity and the Christian philosophy/worldview perfectly well without faith. You need faith in the capacity and work of the true and living God, the Lord Jesus, the Messiah in order to be saved from sin.

Intellectual understanding of the claims of Christianity and belief in its claims are totally separate.

This is one of the reasons you should speak to those who are competent teachers. You might try and ask Dr. James White if you have specific questions. I'm happy to continue the conversation here but the format is 'limiting' to say the least.

Sent you an email.

Happy to talk with you outside of HN. I used to be LDS and so was my wife. I'll send you an email.

Not all conversion therapy is benign. If you are talking about using shock therapy then we are in agreement. That's not really what I'm talking about. Counseling could be an example of benign therapy - depending on the context.

And yes, you are wrong.

I would mind. I can tell you that I have personal connections to persons who have abandoned their so called "sexual orientation".

It is trivial to search for examples. There have been entire organizations of individuals claiming successful change of their sexual lifestyle. The problem is that you have a whole host of individuals and organizations who are opposed to the very concept of being able to change due to their assumptions and presuppositions about God and sin. This leads them to attempt to smear or discredit any movement or attitude that opposes their own.

In my opinion, the onus of proof is on the communities, organizations, and individuals pushing the "born this way" rhetoric. In the 1990s and into the 2000s we were told there was a "gay gene" or that the right combination of hormones in utero was the culprit. It is now 2022 and no such 'smoking gun' has been found, yet there are still persons claiming they are no longer homosexual through the power of God.This is despite the media vitriol against such claims and the illegalization of even benign therapy. The naturalistic position claims the scientists just need more time and eventually they will find that people are born along some sexual spectrum instead of the traditional biblical position that sexuality and even attraction is behavioral.

Sorry to not give you what you are asking for directly, but I'm not interested in debating the validity of specific incidents over HN. You might have good luck discussing the issue with a competent Christian theologian or pastor.

There are numerous cases of changes to "sexual orientation".

Anyone who spends a few afternoons in the shady parts of San Francisco can tell you that the issue is not a lack of housing. There are some people who cannot live unsupervised in any kind of housing because they are a danger to themselves, others, and property.

Newsom is one of my least favorite politicians, but credit where credit is due this is one of the best things that has been accomplished under his administration.

I'm not calling the author an expert on sugar babies. I was providing an example to show that it is illogical to dismiss everything a person says, even if they have said something outrageous in the past.

Absurd: wildly unreasonable, illogical, or inappropriate.

It's not detrimental to discussion to point out an absurd statement. I'm not saying absurd in order to be rude, but pointing out that it's a logical error. It's not a poor starting place if my goal is to inform others that the addressed statement is in fact absurd. Since that is exactly what I was attempting to do I'd call it a very reasonable starting place.

Calling it a market is a bit odd, but I'll play ball.

Marriage. Unequal rules for participants based on financial success would be another. Arbitrary age limits.

I am generally a supporter of these concepts and this kind of meddling.