The implication of “Consumers are far better now than they were” is that they are better, because of the App Store. This is false, completely illogical, and a straw man argument (as no one suggest users of tech have it worse in 2019 then 2005). Consumers are better off now, because technology has gotten better, not because App Stores have made things better. App Stores have actively caused harm to the consumers through lock in and through a compression of imagination amongst end users of how much better things could be.
You’re also factually incorrect about “a small elite had access to the internet”. That may have been true in the 80s, but by 2000 usage was at 50% and climbed to 75% by 2010. I mean the dot com boom was predicated on wide user adoption, so I don’t even know why you would even think that stat made inuitive sense.
> The implication of “Consumers are far better now than they were” is that they are better, because of the App Store. This is false, completely illogical, and a straw man argument (as no one suggest users of tech have it worse in 2019 then 2005).
No, it isn't false. Buying and/or installing an app today is orders of magnitude easier, safer and cheaper than 2005.
You clearly don't like it, and you probably are part of the little elite that had access to the internet before the general public did.
You can still do online everything that you used to in 2005, nothing was removed.
> That may have been true in the 80s, but by 2000 usage was at 50% and climbed to 75% by 2010.
Sorry the break the news to you, but the US isn't the world.
Maybe you should step out of the hacker news bubble for a minute.
Being pro democrat is not being left at all. It’s being center right. The left since Carter has pushed forth far right neoliberal economic policy. Bill Clinton is universally known for his right wing policy. Obama literally bailed out the banks rather then the people with mortgages. Obama could have easily bought up the bad debts from the bank at a discount and allowed people to restructure their mortgages with 4.7 trillion dollars. Instead he gave it to the banks, allowed everyone to lose their house and be bought up by predators like Blackstone Realty.
The TARP program was 800 billion dollars, not in the trillions. Not sure where you are getting the 4.7 trillion figure from.
The problem wasn't really the bad debt. The problem was one of confidence, and putting the money into the banks restored that confidence.
As repugnant as it seemed, and still seems, to give that money to the bankers that created the problems, it was likely the right move at the time. We'll never really know since we can't go back and try the other way, but things were grinding to a halt, and putting money in people's hands was it going to move things quickly enough.
4.7t is probably in reference to QE, which in part was used by the central Bank to purchase mortgage backed securities, the rest spent to supress bond yeilds. Banks ostensibly offloaded their poor performing mbs's onto the average citizen who earns and spends in USD. When the central Bank decides to invent trillions to support poorly managed debt obligations it is debasing the value of your earnings potential. The act should be vigourusly debated and the method by which the funds are dispursed should be scrutinized heavily.
>The problem wasn't really the bad debt.
No, it was a problem of bad debt, poorly managed securities specifically MBS lead to a Ponzi like situation that should have been allowed to wind down instead of propped up. Lenders should have bit the bullet and lessons should have been learned. The political fallout from the decision to put off the the inevitable are only starting to become manifest in current politics.
I live in Canada where atypical interest rates as a result of lockstep CB policy with the US has completely distorted our real estate market. The result is going to be a lost generation that lives at home for a decade longer than their parents. This is all the result of fiscal policy trying to hold up the remains of the 2008 crisis instead of raising the problem to ground and starting again with a more humbled outlook. The Piper will be paid, it's just a matter of when, and who will be paying.
I’m not worried about the fictitious and overblown “SJW” strawman youtube has lead everyone to believe are everywhere. I’m worried about corporate interests, ideologues, and charlatans publishing biased nonsense and making the world even more crowded with bad information without any recourse or ability to investigate what the motives behind the papers may have been.
But this just leads back to my original point - the motives or authority of the speaker for an idea should have little weight into whether or not it's valid or sound. If there is bad information or a biased approach, that would be easy to root out when focused on the facts and logic in a vacuum.
Editorializing or investigation into possible motives and the like puts the discussion on something that is not as important.
I recently started strength training as a software developer and it’s been a huge boon on my mental health, my confidence and for sticking with decent eating habits.
For people looking to get started, I would suggest Starting Strength, which is a book on Amazon (pretty lengthy, but extremely thorough) or Strong Lifts 5x5 (google it to find the program it’s free on the web).
The basic gist is to do full body barbell movements for 5 sets of 3 or 5 and increase the weight by 5 pounds (2.5 pound plates on each side of the barbell) per session.
The basic barbell movements are
Squat
Deadlift
Overhead press
Bench
Bent over row
(I don’t do power cleans)
Do YouTube proper form, benching especially can rip up your shoulder when done incorrectly.
YouTube channels I watch to keep motivated and to learn stuff like form and nutrition (they limit the bro science as far as my untrained eye can tell):
Alan Thrall
Jujimufu
Eric Buggenhaggen
Jeff Nippard
Scooby1961
Omarlsuf
Remember the following:
-no one is looking at at the gym
-lift only what you can lift, start slow, you will progress very quickly
-Commit to going every week three days a week, except for illness and injury
-Carefully watch form videos on YouTube for the lifts (Alan Thrall and The Art of Manliness are the best)
-If you do sustain an injury, let it heal for a weak or two, but continue lifting around the injury
-strength training is not body building, but it is the ideal place for creating a foundation of strength and overall health, you will lose weight, you will gain muscle and you will be out of the gym in under an hour with the basic barbell movements.
I’ve been lifting for 7 months now and I love it. I suggest everyone do it.
You’re an immoral and evil person. Anyone who makes excuses for the powerful restricting the rights of people with limited power is a horrible human being. You should be absolutely ashamed of yourself.
We've banned this account for egregiously violating the site guidelines with this comment and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17661668. You can't post this way, regardless of how right you are or feel. We all know what the online shaming culture leads to, and we don't want that here.
If you don't want to be banned on HN, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. Those are at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
It is absolutely the responsibility of every sovereign citizen and every company made up of those citizens to resist objectively evil behavior regardless of the larger apparatus at work.
Saying it “isn’t fair” for google to take the high road is the most asinine childish argument you could possibly put fourth.
It isn’t fair that people are having their human rights curtailed for profit. So that some people in some part of the world get amazing healthcare and amazing lunches, others have to suffer.
ICE was invented recently under Bush in 2003 preceding the Homeland security act. You are wrong to say we democratically voted in ICE. Even if we did vote it in, kidnapping children is evil fullstop and should be protested.
No American is free of using third world slave labor. This is unavoidable and all we can do is bring attention to it.
Your kowtowing to the powerful and buying into their propaganda is insanely stupid, evil and you should be ashamed of yourself.
>You are wrong to say we democratically voted in ICE.
Do you not understand how your own democratic system works? You don't democratically vote in any policy. You elect representatives charged with creating laws (Congress) and enforcing laws (Executive Branch). ICE is a federal agency created by Congress under the Homeland Security Act, with specific task of enforcing immigration laws and investigating immigration law breaches.
“More to the point, corporate directors are protected from most interference when it comes to running their business by a doctrine known as the business judgment rule. It says, in brief, that so long as a board of directors is not tainted by personal conflicts of interest and makes a reasonable effort to stay informed, courts will not second-guess the board’s decisions about what is best for the company — even when those decisions predictably reduce profits or share price.”
Did this guy pay for this article? It's a pure personal branding/ego piece about a guy who watched a lot of YouTube and had also happened to write for Washington Post (owned by Amazon) and The New York Times, known for publishing absolute reprehensible garbage op-ed pieces justifying atrocities perpetuated by neoliberals while ostensibly still being on the left.
I agree, reads like a pure bio PR, the title says it all. Lots of trust building about his personally,the usual pantomime of nazi's and Russian bots, no bias there..
So we should't trust content pushed by people centric platforms, and only trusted news sources with well written introductions..
Reading his website makes him seem less like a master of anything serious and more a master at self aggrandizing douche baggery.
B=MAP reads much like any self helpy gimmick, something so obvious and so useless you somehow feel smart for having had your obvious thoughts on a topic reworded and handed back to you in corny new configuration you can share with your vapid fake friend group.
You’re also factually incorrect about “a small elite had access to the internet”. That may have been true in the 80s, but by 2000 usage was at 50% and climbed to 75% by 2010. I mean the dot com boom was predicated on wide user adoption, so I don’t even know why you would even think that stat made inuitive sense.
https://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/internet-broadband/