HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

SolaceQuantum

6,089 karma · joined June 27, 2015

submissionscomments
SolaceQuantum··on Supreme Court of the United States to Live Stream Oral Arguments
> I've found helpful to read the official opinion of opinions I disagree with. Start to finish, including the dissent. With respect to modern rulings, I have yet to walk away finding the arguments abysmal. In almost every case, I disagree with the law, not the court.

My impressions from the podcasts of actual law professors and lawyers is that there are various interpretations of the law that trend towards liberal or conservative values, and the strategic dressing of how the law is read is itself a political strategy to legitimize a political reasoning as an apolitical law analysis.

For example, the choice of a judge to read only the text and law as it is written (textualism) without caring about the general context as to why it exists or the effects of the law in modern day can often be used to ignore the actual injustice occurring as a result of a law that doesn't actually produce just outcomes even when the supposed intention is such. It's arguably pedantry.

But when the same purely text-based reading is applied for progressive arguments, as in the hearings for sex-based discrimination, the conservative justices have abruptly shifted their questions to be concerned about the societal effects (bathrooms) or the original intention of the law (originalism). This sort of flip-flopping of evaluation strategies is often used as a basis of argument that while there are multiple reading frameworks of law, the actual frameworks used are often for political/personal purposes and judges are proposed based off their conservative or liberal bent in analysis.

SolaceQuantum··on Ask HN: Where do you write?
If you’re interested in short stories To be published I recommend trawling The Submissions Grinder. This is duotrope but free.
SolaceQuantum··on Free America Now (@elonmusk)
There is currently no proof that antibody testing is detecting antibodies greater than the false positive rate except in New York, which itself has biases in its study (only testing people who are already out in public, and that's only 1 in 5). Additionally there is no proof that the levels of antibody detected result in immunity or for that the levels of antibody will remain at immunity-levels long term.
SolaceQuantum··on Free America Now (@elonmusk)
From what I understand Germany’s infection rate has actually increased as a result of the reopening moves.[0]

0. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/28/germanys-coronavirus-infecti...

SolaceQuantum··on Free America Now (@elonmusk)
It looks like it’s several times more deadly than the flu if a hospital can provide optimal treatment. Should we go ahead and rapidly infect everyone the death toll will go to Italy. Additionally, I would suspect that the cost of rapidly developing herd immunity, the subsequent uptick in deaths due to 1 in 5 or so people needing the hospital and unable to receive assistance because the hospital cannot take 1 in 5 people at once would probably crater the economy much harder and longer... Every economist I’ve looked at has said this?

(EDIT: also from what I’ve seen it is entirely possible that infection results in long term reduction in health like lung capacity. That’s super fucked if we infect everyone in that case!)

SolaceQuantum··on Free America Now (@elonmusk)
I actually heard Germany’s infection rate has now increased directly related to their reopening (before R0 was <1 now it is ~1?)
SolaceQuantum··on The Anti-Amazon Alliance
I don’t think Amazon is inventing anything new in the space of driving out competition using a technique derived by gilded age industrial revolution
SolaceQuantum··on An average family in Tokyo can own a new house for $850/month
I think, unfortunately, the definition of decent in this case is viewed as luxury. Most specifically the concept that everyone should be able to own a house within a reasonable commute of work in a desirable location. This cannot happen while also respecting the idea of properties as investments, the wealthy wanting to be able to purchase disproportionately large places in multiple desirable locations, and the idea that so many people may desire to live in a city that the city cannot possibly take them all.
SolaceQuantum··on Career advice for people with bad luck
There are definitely personal details that are dangerous for you to talk about with your co workers. It is still legal to fire someone for being gay or trans in a significant minority of states. There are two Supreme Court cases right now purely because of workplace bigotry.

I also don’t know how safe it would be to disclose having a disability or chronic condition in the workplace.

SolaceQuantum··on Amazon threatens to suspend French deliveries after court order
A business is supposed to be responsible to avoid hiring people into hazards they didn’t sign up for when they were hired, but now cannot leave for risk of being jobless in the worst downturn since the Great Depression.
SolaceQuantum··on William Gibson says today’s internet is nothing like what he envisioned
Serial Experiments Lain seems to be kinda happening.
SolaceQuantum··on U.S. Postal Workers Were on the Front Lines Before. They Were Ignored
That’s not what I asked but okay. Also the reference is what looks to be on some persons blog post.
SolaceQuantum··on U.S. Postal Workers Were on the Front Lines Before. They Were Ignored
What are the laws preventing UPS from delivering to extremely rural areas?
SolaceQuantum··on You're a Slave to Money, Then You Die
This doesn't work for people who want to have children, who may have healthcare conditions, who need to take care of their parents, etc. Spending significantly less than you earn won't mean much if inflation means anything you earn is worth less year over year.
SolaceQuantum··on You're a Slave to Money, Then You Die
Yes, if black swan events happen every 10 or so years, and the black swan events wipe away all the gains of before... is that really helpful advice?
SolaceQuantum··on You're a Slave to Money, Then You Die
How does the reasoning of buying stocks and bonds work over time given the current crisis has wiped out all the gains for many people made in the past several years utilizing this strategy, and before that was 2008 which did the same?
SolaceQuantum··on Artificial intelligence is quietly disrupting the fragrance development process
Art would most definitely help us populate a new planet or harvest space materials. It paves the way, quite literally, in the imagination to even understand it might be possible and the implications of such.

Additionally, a society that has no meaningful manner of media, culture, or expression sounds exactly like the sort of stuff that art has been exploring for decades. It’s usually not portrayed as some sort of utilitarian utopia though...

SolaceQuantum··on Why Amazon got out of the Apple App Store tax and other developers won’t
What legal standing is preventing someone from posting “Apples treatment of Developers is neither fair nor consistent”????
SolaceQuantum··on Why Amazon got out of the Apple App Store tax and other developers won’t
It’s more than just inconvenience. If Apple can be protectionist about its Apple store than the developers can be protectionist of their skills and careers as developers on the Apple platform.
SolaceQuantum··on Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker
Didn't the federal gov't just cut SNAP benefits? The maximum a single person can receive is 6$/day, the average a single person receives is $4/day.
SolaceQuantum··on How to resolve a conflict when both sides are right
> That is because people don't think about things objectively which they should be doing. But I am an objectivist so I suppose I am biased.

But whether or not they are thinking about things objectively has no basis on whether or not they are thinking objectively right now. Neither is whether or not you are an objectivist with your own bias (a feeling) relevant to the fact that someone has their own feelings that need to be understood during the analysis part of problem solving.

SolaceQuantum··on How to resolve a conflict when both sides are right
Handling a problem dispassionately requires resolving the meta-problem of emotional response around the problem in the first place, especially if it's part of what made the problem happen. EG. A co worker's parent has been hospitalized from covid19 and therefore their emotions are preventing them from matching previous velocity in the previous sprint, which puts heat on the project manager. This is a conflict that requires and understanding and consideration of feelings to resolve.

In my experience feelings-type problems are significantly more numerous than technical problems to resolve dispassionately.

SolaceQuantum··on How to resolve a conflict when both sides are right
Someone feeling a certain way is a fact. In fact, if a conflict is that someone is upset, it is the critical fact before we can conclude a decision requires making!
SolaceQuantum··on Bill Gates calls for nationwide shutdown
Am I missing something? The NYT lists each state having at least 100 cases.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-c...

SolaceQuantum··on Amazon fires worker who led strike over virus
Amazon was unable to appropriately document a man who was dead in a warehouse enough to get them medical help for a significant length of time.
SolaceQuantum··on Amazon fires worker who led strike over virus
This may be a bad interpretation but-

If a company functioning is a matter of national security, it should be significantly more controlled by the nation.

SolaceQuantum··on Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?
NK Jemisin's Broken Earth Trilogy, which has won a hugo for every book in the trilogy.

Nnedi Okorafor's Lagoon and Who Fears Death are also excellent books.

I also highly recommend Jeff Vandermeer's Sourthern Reach trilogy, of which the first book Annihilation was adapted into a movie.

SolaceQuantum··on Covid-19 and Human Irrationality
"what percentage of us had the forethought to divest our retirement accounts at that time? (I'm not looking for bragging anecdotes here, my point is that most people didn't.)"

The people who were educated and briefed on the full ramifications have done just that:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/03/19/repo...

SolaceQuantum··on Covid-19 and Human Irrationality
This is a very weird evaluation: It describes a post mortem on all of humanity from a site that, from what I can see, is mostly an entrepreneurship op-ed e-zine?

Certain points are also reflect a strange dissociation or at least misunderstandings of the very thing the essay appears to be describing as interesting to evaluate. For an essay describing human behavioral analysis, the writer appears to look down on emergent human behavior like elbow-bumping. Its analysis of individual rationality vs irrationality is incredibly silly- it is far more rational to evaluate the circumstance to understand that a systemic risk exists and to encourage systemic action as well as individual action than it is to hoard-buy toilet paper.

SolaceQuantum··on Effect of economic crisis on America’s small businesses [slides]
Shareholders are not the ones who lose the most when the ravens come to roost.
Page 1 of 34Next →