tmcz26

Well that’s one way to go to bed on time :)

Would that be this? Just checking:

https://www.economist.com/the-world-in-brief

This Tolerance Paradox is something I’ve been discussing lately with family and friends, but was having a hard time articulating. Thanks for the link.

I see tons of parallels with today’s world, on both sides of the spectrum (left/right, woke/unwoke etc).

Like, I do agree that most speech should be free and that dark humour and unpopular ideas and whatnot should be allowed even if you or a portion of the population don’t like it.

However I also think you can’t just say whatever you want and hide behind that free speech protection, because that opens the door to really nasty stuff that the human species has lived through.

But where’s the line?

That comedian arrested in the UK for a tweet[0], for instance. Do I agree? No. Do I think it was an intolerant thing to say from my POV? Yes. Do I think it is in fact inciting violence and deserves arrest? No.

On the other hand, you have people preaching white supremacy and talking about inferior races. We know where that led us.

So where’s the line? Same thing applies for these “regulated” surveillances. CSAM sounds like a good reason, but the same tools can be used to limit or monitor other speeches and behaviors. (Not to get into the debate of effectiveness, since bypassing is doable if you really want to).

I don’t have an answer, and I don’t think there is a clear line to be drawn.

[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c07p7v2nn8mo.amp

You can’t provide properly for your family. The drug lord has a fortune. He can put her in the top colleges, fly her around the world, buy any car she wants - when she is old enough to drive.

Don’t me a bad dad, sell your daughter to the drug lord.

A local drug lord likes your daughter. He offers to purchase her for a load of cash. He threats to kill your entire family to get her if you refuse.

You do the pragmatic thing and sell her to him so you can save the rest of your family? Doubt so.

For countries, land has the same value of a family member. You don’t sell, you don’t risk it, you don’t let anyone touch it. Or else everything else falls apart.

Right. Afghanistan had 20M+ in 2001, what’s your point?

What I’m saying is that, geopolitically, Cuba is not relevant today the US has no upside in going after it. They don’t even put out anti-American rhetoric anymore.

I don’t know. I see more comparisons with Libya or Syria or Central America in the 60s-70s-80s. Invasions and government toppling of non-central countries that draw a frown, but that nobody would actually jump in the fire to save.

Denmark? An EU, NATO country? Shit that would really be unprecedented.

What’s Cuba relevance today? Back in the Cold War they had a strategic location, close ties to the USSR etc. But that hasn’t been the case since the other Castro died.

Today Cuba is irrelevant. I don’t even know the name on the Cuban president, they are not in the news, produce nothing, and threats nobody.

That would just be a wasted of “goodwill” IMO.

In International Relations the most dominant theory is called “Realism”[0], which basically says that States will be self-interested and cooperation happens when both sides gain from it, but also factors in each side’s powers, both military and soft. But in the end it’s RATIONAL actors.

Like having the Nuke is great because nobody is crazy enough to mess with you because you can nuke them, but also you will get nuked. Mutual Assured Destruction and whatnot.

I keep hearing people arguing that Trump is rational and making moves “because he can”. And the US absolutely can do pretty much whatever it wants because of it’s position in the globe. Where’s the limit though? What line crossed would make the world actually turn against the US?

To be honest I have a really hard time accepting that his actions are chess moves. The Venezuela thing is borderline crazy but the US has done it before multiple times.

The Greenland stuff.. THAT would be nuts. That would in fact show he’s not rational and his people can’t hold him back anymore.

Or maybe I eat my words and this is more like the tariffs thing, where he barks and growls but in the end is a bully tactic to get others to do what he wants. Because that has in fact worked somewhat well.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_(international_relatio...

So did the US before Trump 2 :)

This is funny after Jan 3rd:

Predisposition to Non-Interventionism — In the Declaration of Independence, America’s founders laid down a clear preference for non-interventionism in the affairs of other nations and made clear the basis: just as all human beings possess God-given equal natural rights, all nations are entitled by “the laws of nature and nature’s God” to a “separate and equal station” with respect to one another. For a country whose interests are as numerous and diverse as ours, rigid adherence to non-interventionism is not possible. Yet this predisposition should set a high bar for what constitutes a justified intervention.

I envy / admire that kind of persistence. But I think it just makes it clear this is about the money and not the company, product, problem, space, or users.

Recently I spoke to a recently funded, first-time founder. They worked less than 2yrs in each of their 5-6 jobs, between summer internships, a VC fund, and investment bank, etc. They told me they started looking at different industries and zeroed in in this particular space, and wanted to build something there because “there was a lot of opportunity”.

They never worked in that space before and had no experience in it. They mapped it out as a “tough problem” in B2B that could potentially earn a lot.

Two non-tech founders, zero customers, $2M in funding.

This story and this post both kind of have that “I’m in it for the cash” vibe with zero interest in the problem itself. I couldn’t do it myself.

I say that in most of my past experiences I learned how to NOT do something, so when facing a similar scenario, I’d do them differently.

Iraq feelings

Democracy emerge? Good luck.

Can you elaborate more on what you mean by that?

Why do I get a 403 when trying to read this? My IP is from Brazil, don’t see a reason to be geoblocked ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Reminds me of this 2019 post: https://ofdollarsanddata.com/climbing-the-wealth-ladder/

Look into Ménière’s disease . I got diagnosed recently and those are all triggers for it. When undergoing episodes I also have vertigo. There’s medication for controlling the bigger symptoms.

About a month ago this topic came up and I commented this about “just” creating a new Visa: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44611807

Look up “chargeback guarantee”. A lot of fraud vendors do this. Costs 2x or more though than the average transaction

Visa and Mastercard are called card _networks_ for a reason. Wherever you are in the world, or in any site anywhere, if your card says Visa and the merchant’s POS machine (or payment gateway) take Visa, both parties know the transaction is good. The merchant gets his money and you get the product.

You get your card from your issuing bank, so the consumer’s last mile is the bank’s problem. The merchant get their POS/gateway from the acquirers. Your bank and the merchants acquirer don’t know each other.

Visa and Mastercard are intermediaries. There’s no way a NatWest card in the UK is connected to whatever POS is in Chile or whatever. They all route through the card brands.

This is why it’s so tough to break this monopoly.

Do you remember the name of the travel guides/companies? That would actually be interesting.

If it’s a purchase using Credit Card, absolutely zero chance of going to collections. That’s not how it works. There’s no legal footing for collections and they are not in the habit of creating legal headaches for themselves.

If however it’s a credit purchase (personal loan, crediário, etc) then it might go to collections, then this advice works.

Online purchases though are 80% credit card and 15% Pix/Boleto so it’s unlikely they got a loan just to buy stuff. If they can get a loan, they’ll get the cash itself and run.

Edit: on a Credit Card transaction the burden of evidence is on the merchant. THEY have to prove it was you.

You can check any credit card issued on your name in Banco Central’s Registrato page[0]. Credit card, loans, etc.

However, HIGHLY unlikely they issue a card in your name and purchase stuff in your name online. If they have a card with them, they’ll go to physical stores and leave with the product with them immediately.

Typically (as I said above) they have purchased a stolen CC number online and are using it until it gets blocked or run out of balance/limit.

In any case, there’s zero fallout for you, the victim. These retailers are used to this (0,5% of transactions turn into fraud), so they’ll eventually figure out it’s fraud and they know it wasn’t you. They know you’re a victim too.

[0] https://registrato.bcb.gov.br/registrato/

Edit with the link

Stolen ID from one person (ID, name, sometimes using the real person’s email and phone, sometimes creating fake yet similar emails like wildrhythms2@yahoo.com), someone else’s stole credit card number, and a drop address to receive and reship (sometimes deliver direct to the purchaser of the fraud item).

Typically the item is resold for half the price and it’s spoken for. It’s not like they buy to resell later. If they make the fraud they already have a buyer

A few years ago, when our startup was just beginning, our bank simply closed our account out of the blue. I guess it wasn't worth it to them, as we had no revenue yet and bootstrapping, so very little money parked. It took several days to get our money out, we couldn't make payroll and pay vendors in the meantime.

We later opened two accounts in two different banks as a backup/failover strategy. One handled incoming invoices and accounts payable, while the other handled payroll, so we'd always have money flowing through both banks at all times. If one of them failed, locked us out etc. we'd have the other to fall back on. It actually happened once: due to an admin error one of the accounts was locked for 10 days. We just routed payments and receivables to the other bank and went on with our day.

Ask about the company culture and work environment, the team you’ll be working on. Compensation if they haven’t said anything yet.

This HR sniff test also serves to check for interest. When I interview, if the person has zero questions for me it means they don’t really care that much or weren’t paying attention. Questions mean you’re curious. A 10-minute speech about what the company is and the team does is not enough for you to understand the job and work, so follow-up questions are important. Also it lets the person know where your mind goes, what questions come up first, etc.

Just don’t brown-nose them and ask fake questions just to ask any :)

At my old startup I probably interviewed 80-100 people for all roles, from sales to SE. We’d have 3 rounds, the 1st being a quick 20min chat over the phone/call as a sniff test.

HR would do those to filter bullshitters, but also set expectations on culture, salary, work etc. If the person came from a huge bank and is joining a 50-people team, they need to understand the difference in work environments.

So I’d second other comments saying that I wouldn’t rule out a company just because HR is doing triage.

Edit: typo

I’ve been using pobox.com (acquired by Fastmail) for the past 3 months after doing a lot of research just like you. They have very decent pricing, support custom domains and multiple aliases/accounts, + addressing etc. So far looks pretty good albeit simple!