kolbe

53 ms·

631.
by kolbe 6y ago
> The existence of billionaires clearly undermines the core principles of democracy which is that all people have essentially the same political power. Why is this axiomatically good, though? We should not be maximizing adherence to some
632.
by kolbe 6y ago
I hate that you are getting downvoted for this (and I will for this). Needing evidence used to be the penultimate expectation of every hacker news comment. Now its witticisms wrought with extreme prejudice. And even you asking to maybe see
633.
by kolbe 6y ago
Not only is it ambiguous, it changes. Insider trading also need to come with an exchange of value. But we’ve been litigating for decades what that means. Is friendship value? Is admiration value? These things actually change over time.
634.
by kolbe 6y ago
> Which side is it? That there are less people people who have insider information, or that it's harder to monetize insider information? It’s both. There’s no reason to acquire the information if you cannot monetize it sufficiently.
635.
by kolbe 6y ago
Insider trading is more or less dead. The only people who do it are a very small overlap of the Venn diagram of people who have access to material nonpubluc information and don’t yet know it’s impossible to monetize it. Every hedge fund kno
636.
by kolbe 6y ago
You are not alone in this conspiracy theory. A significant portion of Google’s business right now is to fend of anti-trust accusations.
637.
by kolbe 6y ago
It takes a very partisan mind, IMO, to not see that yelling in dense outdoor crowds is nearly as dangerous as singing in a large building with 50 foot ceilings.
638.
by kolbe 6y ago
Trump’s executive order for the latest stimulus. The stimulus programs are clearly legislative, and as such are constitutionally the duty of congress. He even watched congress debate and negotiate a stimulus package, didn’t like their resul
639.
by kolbe 6y ago
> I've had coworkers who would put this before every method call, because...? When calling your own method, in your own class, that inherits/implements no other classes, why on earth would you decorate your own method call with
640.
by kolbe 6y ago
The distinction is purely a classist one. But functionally speaking, going to nursing school (a trade school) and going to medical school (a professional school) are the same concept, but with one side rebranding themselves as to not be ass
641.
by kolbe 6y ago
I agree this bothers me to my core. Even the 22 year old hasn't developed a fully functional neocortex. I know it seems a little hypocritical of me for getting sad when this happens to a young programmer and not an inner city gang memb
642.
by kolbe 6y ago
Thanks for the same history lesson I got in high school. I know it's not in-vogue today, but I'm in the game of describing reality of what is and trying to address it. The history of how we got here is only valuable as a lesson to
643.
by kolbe 6y ago
Humanity at its finest: depleting a potentially valuable resource forever so you can make more of a drug that ruins hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of lives a year.
644.
by kolbe 6y ago
It's an unjustified claim and a little demeaning, but not obviously wrong. But citizens choosing to believe in the effectiveness of digital contact tracing is a far larger variable in the success of these apps than the quality of the a
645.
by kolbe 6y ago
If I give you $80,000 and loan you $20,000, the semantically important part of my action is as a "gift", not a "loan". Why do you want us to ignore the $80,000 and only pay attention to the $20,000?
646.
by kolbe 6y ago
Well, it was going to be a minimum 25% to allow all the first-year students in, because Harvard saw that they were going to defer in droves if they couldn't go on-campus.
647.
by kolbe 6y ago
You want to know why people are having difficulty trusting science? Because the institutions that guide science in the United States seem to frequently come to self-serving decisions. In this case, Harvard is not allowing all first years to
648.
by kolbe 6y ago
"Inequality is at what many would consider to be unacceptable highs" Many people also routinely watch the Kardashians. We're trying to get at the root of a moral right, and citing what "most people" think is basical
649.
by kolbe 6y ago
That may be the real intent of facebook when they defend freedom of speech, but it is not what they are claiming it to be. They claim to be defending their users' rights.
650.
by kolbe 6y ago
The cynic in me says that Microsoft/Amazon/Google will not be selling to police agencies, but instead to wholesalers who then sell the services to them.
651.
by kolbe 6y ago
What are the lucrative tax arrangements that are keeping them here? What about the US's tax structure is better than Switzerland's? https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/Switzerland/Corporate/Taxes-on-...
652.
by kolbe 6y ago
Another way to think of it (sadly) is that companies that are over-levered can do well, since their income stream is in real value, but their debts are in dollars. If you want to cynically think America is kleptocracy for the elite, and the
653.
by kolbe 6y ago
I'm not particularly sucked into the drama either, but I just want to note that this is a problem that transcends partisan politics. And if someone says the solution is to ban specific partisan targets, then they're more likely pe
654.
by kolbe 6y ago
This is not partisan to the right. And if you think it is, you're part of the problem. Trump and Alex Jones do not accurately represent reality, I agree. And America suffers because of it. But just yesterday, the hottest trending topic
655.
by kolbe 6y ago
I find the whole convoluted whack-a-mole approach to the problem of spreading misinformation to be so pathetic. Much like drugs, so long as there is demand for misinformation, we will always have a supplier. It doesn't matter how many
656.
by kolbe 6y ago
Funny. I'm sure the Wall Street Journal knows the same thing, but reaps profits from it as well.
657.
by kolbe 6y ago
Sure, but what does this have to do with a single state actor that hides everything they do (with fatal consequences in 2020) hacking another?
658.
by kolbe 6y ago
Uber is up about 20% from the end of March.
659.
by kolbe 6y ago
Palantir is relevant because you cannot invest in it. That's the whole point. Did you read the previous part of this discussion about how publicly traded indexes do not represent a targeted bet on the economy because there are plenty o
660.
by kolbe 6y ago
If GM (in indexes) goes bankrupt and Tesla (not in indexes) stays alive, or if IBM (in indexes) goes bankrupt and Palantir (not in indexes) stays alive, then you as an investor in public indexes do not reap benefits of the economy improving

More ›