sethc2

I have a 1st generation SE bought in 2017 and still haven't replaced my battery. It's life isn't great, but I can generally get through the day without charging.

I've thought of upgrading for the same reason as your mom though.

I love this post. Just the perfect amount of sarcasm to force readers to think for themselves.

Does this really effect anything? If it did you figure the economic statistics would show drastic changes starting round then.

Wait you don’t have an extra room to use as an office? What about in one of your other houses? One of them has got to have at least one empty room you could use right?

Lol. Did you even read what you linked. The government hired mercenaries and they were brutally evil. That must’ve been because the government doesn’t have enough power.

Let’s just say Amazon and the government are both equally evil. You get to pick one to have more power. Are you going to pick the one who has given us the wonderful invention called the dmv, or the one who will let me order whatever I want and get it to me in a reasonable time at a reasonable price. Amazon does a better job at serving the populace than the government does. They both act like rulers, but at least one gives you something worthwhile for it.

The article brings up that for most a home office is a luxury.

And i thought how is that possible, just use some extra room in your house.

Then I remembered having a house and an extra room might be an easy thing to attain as a software developer, but that is only true because I don’t live in the Bay Area or Seattle.

Yet in those areas you might have more fun on weekends.

Just to see, I looked at prices for a round trip ticket from the pacific northwest to the bay, and how much a 3 night stay in a hotel would cost. I was able to find a non stop flight and a cheap hotel for $200 (which seems crazy to me).

So if I could find those deals every other week I could spend bout $1000 (food and Uber included) a month and get to spend six days a month in the Bay Area.

My mortgage is like $1900 a month for 4 bed 2 bath 2300 sq ft on an acre and a 15 minute ride to the airport.

I feel like if I did that and spent $2900 a month combined for my trips and mortgage id have both a good home office and would still get to work once every two weeks on a Friday in the office and enjoy awesome SF food plenty frequently enough while probably paying less then what most people in SF pay just for rent.

Anyone consider this? (I have a wife and kids so biweekly trips would be a “not gonna happen” for me)

I love the space trilogy. Out of the silent planet helped me think of what the “heavens” are. I’d definitely recommend them, though I love thinking of t he symbolic nature of things.

In a way, spacetime itself is therefore the aether.

This somehow reminds me of C.S. Lewis’s “Out of the Silent Planet”, where the narrator says regarding the protagonist

“He wondered how he could ever have thought of planets, even on Earth, as islands of life and reality floating in a deadly void. Now, with a certainty which never after deserted him, he saw the planets - the 'earths' he called them in his thought - as mere holes or gaps in the living heaven - excluded and rejected wastes of heavy matter and murky air, formed not by addition to, but by subtraction from, the surrounding brightness.”

What I figure is the printed money is given to people to buy things. It’s given to him who saved/inherited his money and could’ve bought that thing anyways, and to him who didn’t save/inherit his money and couldn’t. The seller of that thing now has two people competing for it so he can mark up the price further. He makes profit because he owns the capital, the non-saver or non inheritor, gets a good he couldn’t otherwise afford, and the saver is stuck paying a higher price. That saver/inheritor who doesn’t own assets but only has his labor to sell, or his inheritance to spend, is effectively having some of his money taken from him and given to the non-saver and the rich man with capital.

So at what point would printing trillions of dollars have an effect? If we just gave everyone 10k a month, would inflation occur then?

This seems counterintuitive to me if we assume a causal relationship. I’d imagine lessening religious faith would lessen ideological intensity. Then again when it was assumed most people were “religious”, it meant there was some higher thing than ourselves that we shared we could unify on. God however you take him, is at least a symbol of something above us, bigger than individuals, of an immaterial nature.

With the annihilation of God in the public discourse, we have to find something else bigger than ourselves that we can unify around on, and the ideological intensity maybe stems from arguing what that higher thing is. Is it science, love, security, pleasure, freedom? Different people will take on an ideology of some sort, and the intensity will because one groups higher thing they think is higher than another’s. God was the trump card for highest before, but now, I’m not sure what is for most people.

This seems counterintuitive to me if we assume a causal relationship. I’d imagine lessening religious faith would lessen ideological intensity. Then again when it was assumed most people were “religious”, it meant there was some higher thing than ourselves that we shared we could unify on. God however you take him, is at least a symbol of something above us, bigger than individuals, of an immaterial nature.

With the annihilation of God in the public discourse, we have to find something else bigger than ourselves that we can unify around on, and the ideological intensity maybe stems from arguing what that higher thing is. Is it science, love, security, pleasure, freedom? Different people will take on an ideology of some sort, and the intensity will because one groups higher thing they think is higher than another’s. God was the trump card for highest before, but now, I’m not sure.

These questions and some of the percentages really makes me wish I could see what other people think average is.

It would be interesting to see how often those who are actually less than average said they were more and vice versa.

Could it also be possible that it is experiencing well being that causes you to have a higher income?

Like let’s say I have a great marriage, good well behaved kids, lots of close friends, so I have maybe a network of people I can turn to, I have people to help me when I need emotional support etc, and having these things not only allows me to experience well being but then makes it easier to get and keep higher paying jobs?

To be fair I think it just goes both ways, but I really hope people don’t think more income is a magic solution for peoples’ problems leading to their happiness. I think the hard work it might take for a low income earner to get a higher income, is part of what also increases their well being.

(Take everything I say with a grain of salt because I haven’t had money problems for almost my entire life)

I’d say quoting Krugman is doing exactly what the ancestor comment said

and yet we will continue to believe the people making the incorrect predictions, especially when they reinforce our worldview.

I take Krugman’s advice with a grain of salt. In 2002 his suggestion was

“To fight this recession the Fed needs…soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. [So] Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble.”

I wouldn’t care but he was the type of thinker who caused people to say Ron Paul was a kook, who warned that the housing bubble was going to burst a couple years before it happened.

Asset inflation is most definitely occurring due to the increase in monetary supply. If I’m sitting in 100k in capital that I’ve saved by being frugal over the last 5 years, it is effectively becoming less and less valuable so I’m forced to spend it on some kind of asset not in hopes that the asset becomes more valuable but because my 100k is becoming less valuable.

To be fair there is much increase in home prices not due to inflation and more due to increased demand with the changes covid brought on.

And here is the legal crime that it brings about, I bought my current house with only 5% down for 350k and it would probably sell now for 390k, meaning my 20k of my frugally saved capital will have a 100% return in one year. You could argue if it lost 10% I would lose 100% of my invested capital but I bought right after I saw Trump turn on the printing presses so I was 99% sure this wouldn’t be like me buying a condo at the end of 2007.... shudder

I think you might have been missing his point. It came off to me that he was trying to defend drug addicts not shame people using drugs. Like if you have no money the way you might treat your anxiety is different than the way the wealthy developer does. Someone might get a new prosthetic leg, but they might have to fight their asses off to learn how to not rely on their former chair or crutches and they’ll likely keep them around when they just need a break and will always have a cane.

Right now people like me with ADHD can easily get drugs. But why should I assume I might not be struck by misfortune. If I end up poor and on the street, unable to afford nice drugs. If I have learned how to manage without a drug that would genuinely help me I’d probably be better off in that case.

Saying he is shaming those who use drugs is just covering your ears and wanting to pretend that there are no negative effects. Me saying if you learn to live without Netflix you’ll have more fun when the power goes out, isn’t meant to say Netflix is a wrong way to entertain yourself, simply that if you rely on it for entertainment it can be hard to find entertainment if the lights turn off.

Calling it an addiction, doesn’t mean that addiction is worse than the alternative. By reacting as you do, you paint addictions as something reprehensible and shame those who have them.

You’re missing the point.

A lot of these athletes come from very underprivileged backgrounds and worked their asses off to get there even then they often in the NFL let’s say have 2 year careers.

Let’s say they made 500k over two years so they take home 600k. Now they’re out of the NFL and make 50k a year for next 8 years. So over 10 years they make 1.4 million, but take home maybe 950k.

Meanwhile the person from a privileged background went to Stanford got a job in software at 140k a year. Over 10 years they gross 1.4 million but the total they took home is more than this athlete you so deride.

I watched sports then and watch them now.

I just love to see awesome athletes who have honed their bodies and reflexes to such a crazy degree do things I could never do.

The interjection of social justice issues hasn’t yet taken anything away from the joy of the game from what I’ve seen. Kneeling for the anthem, wearing armbands with messages doesn’t change any of that.

If they start saying we need more diversity in sports and pay athletes who aren’t the best because of their skin color or sexual orientation I’d be annoyed. If someone is gay or straight or white or black and is the best at his position but he doesn’t get a job because of his orientation or skin color then I’ll stop watching.

The only thing I hate is how many athletes who have such short 3 year windows have half their income taxed for those three years then go on to work “normal” jobs for the next 30 years, and someone who ultimately made the same income over 30 years at a high paying “normal” job got taxed so much less over the same time span.

That’s true. I should be more fair. My comment is a bit out of frustration at maybe one or two other comments.

While the criticism against “good habits build wealth” is legit when it leaves out the inheritance fact, i think I was just annoyed that the focus was on that rather than what was a good use of an inheritance.

Here’s a guy who saved his money and invested it and made a huge fortune from an inherited fortune, all so he could give it away.

The response - “ugh what an a-hole, who inherited his wealth”.

I’m so sick of hacker news. I mean if you were defending someone who squandered their opportunities but the bias was in the system, I applaud that defense. We should be very aware that some people are screwed and oppressed.

But it’s like you can do no good, unless you’ve overcome some huge gross injustice, or had zero privilege.

It reminds me of the Baptist’s who tell people they have no faith because you haven’t first went off and totally screwed yourself up and riddled yourself with addiction before “coming to Jesus”. If you respond well “I’ve just tried helping the poor, trusting and worshipping what I know of God, and being compassionate towards my fellow man” they’ll ask “but have you been first an awful human being then prayed the Jesus prayer?”

Likewise on HN - “I gave all my money to charity to help the less fortunate” response - “yeah but did you inherit that wealth?”

Well my guess is you haven’t been to many non evangelicals churches nor looked at how they act or behave. The church reveres a woman above all other humans save him who was both God and man. Orphanages were setup by churches. Hospitals, schools, homeless shelters. They do that explicitly because of their beliefs.

I’d say the church from Rome has always had problems like any group of humans. Collectively the churches established by the apostles I’d say got the truth right. Though if I were to pick a date where they went seriously wrong and led to what you saw at the time of the reformation and today I’d say 1054 AD

As for women being treated poorly that is not something the church introduced, but has practically been done by men since time began. If you read early church history you’d probably realize that your moral basis itself is founded upon the work church did.

If you’re someone who is open minded you should try to hear good arguments from another perspective. I’d recommend Dominion by Tom Holland perhaps - https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465093507/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_imm...

What I’ve found is people who actually don’t believe their opinions strongly avoid books challenging those opinions, while those who do are perfectly willing to be challenged, because they are confident their opinion is the right one.

For example a person who weakly believes in a free market will avoid reading Marx, a person who strongly believes it will. And vice versa for let’s say Ayn Rand.

A lot of christians foolishly think there is not any truth beauty or goodness in other world views and refuse to learn from them. There is a lot a Christian can learn from Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, even Mormons, and probably a whole ton of other religious beliefs. They can learn from Greek myths, eastern myths and so on.

I actually just wish non christians would just at least take the story of Jesus as a myth or legend that they could still learn from like other enduring myths. That would at least give the idea behind it the respect it deserves given its huge influence. The story of Moses even if just fiction is still a powerful story. I mean have you never read a book like Les Mis or LOTR or something and not seen the power those stories have for good?

Oh don’t get me wrong. I know this is my opinion. And I don’t think Hindus and Muslims don’t have very high symbols and good world views.

I’m just saying from what I’ve seen the symbol that Christ is it is very high and explains the world well. I’d love to have discussions over coffee with people with different cosmological explanations of the world.

The question why this isn’t something to be discarded is because a billion people share my opinion and we aren’t unreasonable for having it.

The idea that the most powerful king took up the side of the poor and needy, and aligned himself with them is an idea that I can’t see being defeated. The hero looking like he lost only to win once for all, to set the captives free is a story that is endlessly being recreated in books from people of all world views.

True though, to many, Christ is the symbol of what they’ve seen in American Evangelical Christianity and that symbol might just die out, but the one taught in the 1st century till now I can’t imagine ever dying out.

See, but even your straw man is based on that post schism period. And the church is what taught us that even those traditionally “on the fringe” should be valued and not discarded. You’re taking up the position the church convinced the world of to argue against her. I really do think your beef (and a legitimate one) is with evangelical Christianity (and possibly Roman Catholics but probably less so). You should read up on where those traditions arose from.

The question really is did Jesus rise from the dead?

Was Plato actually on to something when he said there were more “real” things which made our reality look like shadows.

The reason the church will continue to be is because there is no higher symbol than that of Jesus. There is no getting beyond that idea. Once you see it, there is no going back. So I’d be very careful reading old books if I were you.

Even quantum mechanics is starting to make us realize we might not understand what really constitutes reality. That at the deepest levels there is two eternally existing relationships.

Exactly. Fundamentalists miss the actual fundamentals.

People mistake the American Evangelical Christianity that is a few hundred years old for the church established by the apostles nearly 2000 years ago. That church was it which considered the weak as equally valuable as the strong, that insisted on helping the poor, that believed men and women both to be of the utmost value. That established hospitals to care for the sick. All of these things were not the norm. The weak were considered less valuable. Women were not worth as much as men. Sick people should be avoided. The poor aren’t worth helping.

People are rightfully scornful of American evangelicalism, but they throw the baby out with the bath water and try to pretend that the orthodox (in sense of true and right) church has not done tremendous good in this world.

Now I’m dissatisfied with what I put. There are just so many but these popped in my head first. Saw others put “the moon is a harsh mistress” ++ to that. LOTR I feel like changes me for the better with every re-reading.

Essay - C.S. Lewis - The weight of glory. Caused me to see all beauty in a different light.

Novel - C.S Lewis - That hideous strength. Caused me to stop thinking of conspiracy theories as people huddled in a room like the Illuminati.

Runner ups - Les Mis - helped me love the less fortunate 1984 - the importance of language.

“The series is notable for being the first Disney cartoon to be produced for weekday syndication, with its success paving the way for future Disney cartoons, such as Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers and TaleSpin”

I might just sound like an old man but I feel like ducktales was better than today’s kids cartoons. I like that it was usually not really trying to teach anything. It was just a story. Today’s kid’s cartoons, seem that they’re always trying to “teach” something. What if I just want my kids to enjoy a simple story though and not be “taught” anything?

I think they’re kind of awesome but so absurdly impractical and expensive, I could never justify buying one. I mean I have enough money to do so, but I’ve never spent more than $4500 on a car and ain’t gonna drop 40k or more for a cool car.

I could see getting your kid a truck so if they get in accident they’re less likely to die, but when my oldest starts driving I’m gonna get her a retired police interceptor. Burly and relatively safe, but way cheaper.