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They're quite obviously not.

They're lying so they can get unlimited time on the test and/or look at their phone.

They're smart kids that see a loophole in the system. They will take advantage!


> They're smart kids that see a loophole in the system. They will take advantage!

This is just not an acceptable cultural viewpoint. Abusing a permissive system must be discouraged.


> Abusing a permissive system must be discouraged.

Fine. Where are the doctors? Why is the debate on the students?


Both are culpable.


Should we not bring up to doctors our issues or worries?


This question lacks nuance. Where do you draw the line? I'd draw one at suicide thoughts that you can't stop on your own and before seriously considering using any kind of psychoactive drugs for self-medication. Anything else IMO needs about as much medical intervention as a low fever case of common cold.

Oh, and once these two lines are back at comfortable distance you stop.


Agreed. You have to really narrow the definition of "disabled"

Of course, anyone who fears falling outside the definition would fight that vehemently


That's how most of the people in the world are, including the dearest friends and family. Most people's only motivation in life is to find a loophole to abuse. They will even convince themselves they are something they're not to achieve it.

God have mercy on us.


Right. What I'm saying is that we've probably screwed up by creating a system that incentivizes people to "be disabled" even if they really are stretching the definition of disabled


I hope you realize that the students don’t think of themselves as “disabled” in the disparaging way you mean it. I have ADHD and I’m color blind. Both conditions make me “disabled” in some sense, and yet I went to college and have managed to have a job my whole adult life. Being “disabled” doesn’t mean “useless” or “incapable of doing anything” as you seem to imply.


I don't think you understand my position and you're certainly reading tone I didn't intend into my words

I am nearsighted, I am ADHD, I am hearing impaired in one ear, I am celiac. All of these are lifetime conditions that are not going anywhere

If glasses didn't exist, I would certainly be disabled. But let's be real, no one considers glasses a disability, even though glasses are just as important to a vision impaired person as a wheelchair is to a walking impaired person


You clearly know nothing about how these accommodations are handled.


Can you clarify? I heard about the test time thing from students. That corroborates the parent comment.


I sincerely pray that Maria Corina achieves her goals. Incredible bravery. I'm pretty sure she remains in hiding in Venezuela to this day

My "acid test" for whether or not someone on the left actually cares about freedom, democracy, etc is whether or not they support the Maduro government

There's a shocking amount of people who do!


When I first moved to LatAm, the cashiers always asked how many "cuotas" I wanted to pay. I was initially confused and realized it meant I could take a (interest free?) loan to pay for my purchases in installments.

I never understood how this was common in high interest countries in LatAm, but unheard of in the USA.

Does anyone know? Like actually know, not speculating.


It's common because people want goods but don't have the money to buy it

Oh you want a $140 Instant Pot? I think you mean a 1.5x minimum wage Instant Pot

So the only way to buy an Instant Pot is to do installments


It's interest-free for the customer because the interest was already bundled in the good's price.

It's risk-free for the retailers, as the full purchase amount is taken from the customer's credit card limit, but they will only receive the money in installments, unless they opt to receivables financing.

There are retailers that offer discounts if you purchase in one lump sum. Now recently some banks started giving discounts if you pay the installments in advance.

This is common in high interest countries as there is this whole financing industry that revolves around customer credit, and as the interest rates are high enough, there is lots of money to be made.


It really will depend on the country

If you're using a credit card, you specify at POS how you want to split the purchase (Number of installments, or cuotas in spanish), if it's free of interest will depend on your deal with the bank (And if the seller has different plans)

It's common for even the worse cards to charge interest at least from the third month onwards, but most banks have special deals with seller of costlier products (I'm pretty sure I could make a car payment with 0 interest (to my card))

Can't comment further, but the US has always seemed particularly backwards regarding their banking: - Needing a third party to allow instant transfers - Mobile POS being weird / Needing to take a card away from a table to charge it - How common checks are - Overdraft fees


People can't save so they need to pay with credit to buy things they want, even it that means paying 2x the original price.


HN feels very low signal, since it's populated by people who barely interact with the real world

X is higher signal, but very group thinky. It's great if you want to know the trends, but gotta be careful not to jump off the cliff with the lemmings.

Highest signal is obviously non digital. Going to meetups, coffee/beers with friends, working with your hands, etc.


it used to be high signal though. you have to wonder if the type of people posting on here is different than it used to be


When people ask "how do we fix our government?"

I answer "Did you try turning it off and on again?"


Implicitly assuming that there is some well defined state that can be recovered when turning it back on. That's not how the real world works, and historically what revolutionaries fail to fully realize is that the trajectory out of a period without government is extremely unlikely to wind up in the state that they desire, much less one that was "stored" or "defined" by a set of per-existing laws.


true- the only "revolution" that I'm familiar with that was mostly successful is the American Revolution and even that is probably a misnomer.

Rather than a call for revolution, my comment was a joke- given the technical bent of this forum.

Because turning things off/on again actually works for so many bugs lol

If we could actually do it- it would actually look something like idealized DOGE. Terminate all contracts. Fire everyone minus the absolutely essential employees. Or at least the employees that can't even send an email (minus NOCs?)

Then slowly build back until it needs to be done over again.

This contract seems like another grift. Hopefully I'm wrong.


There's more than a grain of truth here.

I think we're in a Gall's Law situation.

The system has evolved to extreme complexity and no longer works as intended because people learned to game the system, which keeps the best people for the job out of the system; emasculates the essential checks and balances; and creates a vicious cycle that adds further complexity and races to the bottom.

The (likely) only way to fix things is to treat our history to date as a rough draft and to start over with simple systems that work, evolving only as necessary.


There's no simple system that will work on the scale of half a continent and 300M people, and a simple way to prove this is to look at large corporations. There's many of them, they compete with one another tooth and nail, (so there's real pressure to simplify and streamline) and they all suffer from complex internal systems. And they are all dwarfed by the US government.


I agree that there is no (one) simple system that would work. Many simple systems are required, but should be as few in number as possible to limit complexity.

And it may be (almost certainly is) that a certain level of (high) complexity is required for such a system to work. I believe that some complex system, evolved from simple systems that work, could itself work. That belief coexists with my belief that the current complex system, having evolved, no longer works; and that it can't be made to work without re-evolving something from simpler systems that work.


I agree with this line of thinking, but I also think it's impossible to have a complex system that is universally acknowledged to "work".

In Minsky's Society of Mind, he describes a mind made up of layers of agents. The agents have similar cognitive capacity.

Lower-level agents are close to the detail but can't fit overall picture into their context.

Higher-level ones that can see the overall picture but all the detail has been abstracted from their view.

In such a system, agents on the lower levels will ~always see decisions come down from on high that looks wrong to them given the details that they have access to, even if those decisions are the best the high-level agents can do.

He was describing a hypothetical design for a single artificial mind, but this situation seems strikingly similar to corporate bureaucracy and national politics to me.


It's true: I/we haven't decided what "works" means.

I've been meaning to read that book; I haven't yet, so I'm not in a position to evaluate its argument. But the argument as you describe it makes intuitive sense, and I would agree that the hypothetical mind would be at least analogous to national politics.

Suppose "works" means that the majority of citizens (lower-level agents?) may readily implement its collective will for society's governance and benefit within the bounds of constitutionality. (Take, for example, the will for universal, affordable, high -quality health care.)

I would contend that the federal government was intended (in part) to enable the implementation of such will, and that it no longer works as intended. (Reasons include filibuster and other intra-chamber parliamentary rules; gerrymandering; corporate interference à la Citizens United; etc.)

(Of course one could argue that the Constitution applies pressure against the tyranny of the majority in several ways, but let's leave that aside for now.)


It's a great book!

The question of what "works" will probably never be settled since any decision, even a globally optimal one, will probably leave some of the agents worse off than they could have been under some other regime.

But I do expect this question to become less and less emotionally relevant as prosperity continues to increase exponentially for the bulk of the agents in the system. The rising tide of technology-enabled economic growth lifts all ships, even imperfect systems or unlucky agents.


StarStories: You get a real physical book featuring members of your family

https://www.starstories.ai/

1. Upload photos of your family members (or describe them if you don't want to upload)

2. Select a topic

3. See draft book

4. Make edits if you want

5. Order book

6. Read book to your kids

7. Read book to your kids

8. Continue on loop


This is the sweetest AI application i have seen so far!


Thanks, spread the word!


I just built a chicken coop (nice building something with my hands) and I just put 7 chickens in there.

No asking for permission with the town because of course they'll have something bureaucratic and dumb thing to say.

We're on good terms with all the neighbors, and just mentioned the chickens in passing. Everyone was excited to get eggs. It was a neighborly project.

We live in small town Maine, where I guess we do things differently than in Michigan.


"It's not against the law until one of your neighbors complains."

True for a lot of ordinances.


Nature has a way of keeping things in check.

Government, not so much.


Incurring your neighbor $200,000 in costs for having 7 chickens is a "reasonable restriction"


"roosters should not be allowed"

Why? We have a rooster. He protects the hens. He crows in the morning, just like dogs bark, and F-250s rev past the neighborhood road. Where do you think chickens come from in the first place?

It's just another small step to say "hens should not be allowed"


> Why?

Because I have a right to sleep peacefully in the morning until a certain time. Just like I cannot host loud dance parties at 2AM on a Saturday or start mowing my lawn at 6AM on a Sunday. For people to coexist peacefully in a society, there have to be reasonable boundaries.

> just like dogs bark...

And that's not allowed either. Check out answers at https://www.reddit.com/r/Georgia/comments/17kpm52/barking_do... or https://www.reddit.com/r/homeowners/comments/13r23zc/would_i...


Protects them from what may I ask? I live in a city where chickens are permitted, and my neighbors chickens are all roaming the streets free-range, and their greatest danger is cars which roosters can't stop.


I'd imagine cats would be an issue unless you live somewhere that just has no (outdoor) cats.


Cats

Hawks

Possum

Racoon

Coyote

Etc.


And rats and mice, which eat eggs. Roosters have been known to hunt them. They then parcel out the meat to their harem.


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