basetop

I already knew all of that. Are you saying the NYC didn't exist before the eerie canal was built? Are you saying NYC wasn't the largest and most important city in the US before the eerie canal?

So the eerie canal joined the hudson with the mississippi. The mississippi is 2300 miles long, the hudson river is 300 miles long. So which is the more important river?

I wish you addressed my comment rather than posting a bunch of quotes. But I can see this won't go anywhere. You are entitled to your opinion. I'm sorry I could't change your mind.

Justifying or defending something based on a quotes is recipe for contradictions and disaster.

For every quote, you can find an equal and opposite quote.

"Actions speak louder than words." vs "Pen is mightier than the sword."

"Many hands make light work." vs "Too many cooks spoil the broth."

It's like the bible, I can find a quote to justify pretty much anything. And then I can find a quote to denounce the same.

I think it's silly to advocate for physical activity with a quote. I think it's better to defend physical activity because it keeps you healthy physically and even mentally. I used to be a big quote collector ( from benjamin franklin to the bible ). I'm not any longer.

Kara Swisher isn't a saint either. And I'd hardly call her a tech reporter. She's more of an authoritarian censorship advocate and a person who comes from enormous privilege.

Will the Patriots win the Superbowl? Will Brad and Angelia get back together? Will Biden beat Sanders?

So much of the news is now just speculative junk where after you finish reading the article, you realize you got nowhere and just wasted your time. Sometimes I'm embarrassed at how much time I've wasted on junk news.

"Uber can't make money and here is why" is a factual claim and news. Those are the stories that the economist should be writing. "Can Uber ever make money" is pure speculation and a waste of time.

NYC was already the largest US city before the eerie canal was completed. It wasn't the eerie canal that made NYC, the eerie canal was created because NYC was the most important city in the US. Whereas the article's point was that the rivers ( like shanghai ) and its access to the hinterlands is what drove the development of shanghai. The complete opposite is the case for NYC.

Also, do you know which river the the great lakes feed into? The mississippi river which bisects the land with the most arable land on earth. The missouri river also cuts through much of the continental US. The hudson river doesn't. I've lived along the hudson river pretty much all my life, so you can take my word on this.

If you think the thames or the hudson river is anywhere comparable to the yangtze, mississippi or the missouri, I suggest you take another look at what these rivers are. The hudson barely spans a few hundred miles in length. The yangtze, missouri and mississipi span a few thousand miles deep into the hinterlands of china and the US respectively. Compared to the mississipi or the yantze or the missouri, the hudson river is a stream.

Well at least after 10 years or so, a few miles of the 2nd ave line has been completed. I think everyone deserves a pat on the back don't you?

Interesting article. But "London and New York, the world’s current leading cities, share Shanghai’s foundational geographic logic. Their safe harbours are easily accessible to the world’s trade, and their Thames and Hudson Rivers provided a ready route into a huge hinterland."

Does Thames really lead to a "huge hinterland". Does a small island like the UK even have a huge hinterland?

Also, the hudson doesn't lead to a "huge hinterland" either. The mississippi and missouri rivers does though.

I think it's a bit of a stretch to compare the yangtze river ( shanghai ) with the hudson or thames rivers.

That's disturbing. Rather than producing "human-like brain waves", we stay with growing mini-brains with worm-like or insect-like brain-waves for a very very long time until we master simpler neural systems. We know so little about the brain and consciousness that I think we should err on the side of caution. 100 years from now, imagine if we learned that these "mini brains" had semblence of human consciousness that we weren't aware of. It would horrifying.

But I also don't know how we can advance in neuroscience without taking some risks. So much of knowledge and advancement requires us breaking things apart and making mistakes. Maybe the risks are worth it especially for something as important as knowledge of the brain and consciousness. In many ways, is there anything more important than that?

It surprises me sometimes how innocently naive people are. How people miss obvious jokes, parody and sarcasm online. I figured as more people use the internet, the less naive they'd be, but it seems like the opposite is happening. And the more obvious the joke, the more people seem to take it seriously.

This tends to happen in every major bull market. The CEOs get an undeserved amount of credit. Nadella's been CEO only since 2014. Since then MSFT market cap gained $650 Billion in value. That's not all Nadella. It's simply the bull market and a strong economy boosting everyone's market cap.

The market keeps hitting new record highs and that's helping a lot of stocks

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/stock-market...

On the flip side, CEOs tend to get an undeserved amount of blame during recessions and market declines.

Actually discussing things that are wrong is just as important as discussing things that are right. Going through what's wrong is one of the ways to get to the what's right.

"It must be worth exploring" is the dangerous authoritarian ideology that is the basis of censorship. It's why free speech is a right. Not the "right to explore those worth exploring".

"What is worth exploring" is entirely subjective.

If we applied your logic, then things like LGBT rights, civil rights, physics, biology, etc are all left to the whims of authority. If people truly thought like you, then heliocentrism wouldn't have been explored because "it wasn't worth exploring" 500 years ago. Actually, it was blasphemy.

You do realize that "everything worth exploring" was pretty much banned, taboo or attacked throughout history? It's why the founders enshrined free speech into the constitution.

Things that are wrong are just as important to discuss as things that are right. It's part of the learning process and part of progress.

That is discussed in every philosophy department. Epistemology isn't a "settled topic" and open to debate and discussion. Claiming that religion is just epistemologically valid as physical science isn't controversial. No more than saying mathematics is just as epistemologically valid as physical science. Or art is just as epistemologically valid as physical science.

Why would anyone be dismissed from a tenure track for that? Pretty much every philosophy professors argues for that position.

I suppose that's possible for an already distressed company under financial strain desperate to sell itself to avoid bankruptcy. But I'm not sure how that would work on a profitable company. No board of directors would approve selling itself for an short-driven discount. A takeover of a profitable company involves a premium, not a discount. A profitable company can wait out a short position. Hell insiders of a profitable company would be buying shares in droves in anticipation of crushing shorts.

If you've read 4 or 5 articles already, maybe it signifies a trend?

Another common theme in these threads are comments attempting to dismiss and marginalize these victims because it doesn't align with one's political ideologies. I'm surprised you didn't mention that. If you've read these threads, I'm sure you've noticed the support for censorship and the sneaky attempts to justify censorship for political ideology.

Yes, you are right, if a professor teaches that the sun orbits the earth, that should be questioned. And if it was that blatant, then we would know about it already. But what if a professor teaches that biological sex exists? Should they be censured? What if a professor says there aren't anything such as biological sex? Should they be censured?

How many of these censorships are because a physics professors claimed that the sun orbits the earth? None. If you've really paid attention to this issue, you know that most of these censorship are due to political reasons - whether it is Evergreen professors or the CERN scientist and everyone in between.

I can understand the support for censorship in the media, but I can't understand any support for it on a hacker news site. Even for ideological reasons.

Actually, rather than having issue with liberalism, he seems to be defending it. His argument seems to be questioning the "bowing down" to "authority". All "authority" - scientific, religious, etc - should be questioned and we shouldn't be "bowing down" to them.

Religion and science are not the same thing ( thought social science is far closer to religion than science ), but authoritarianism and appeal to authority are the same thing.

After all, "scientific authority" was the basis of white supremacy and nazism ( social darwinism ). It was "settled science" not too long ago supported by every scientific authority that white people were superior and non-whites are inferior.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism

You should feel bad for anyone who is a victim of censorship. Being happy that someone is oppressed because they don't align with your political ideology isn't any better than enjoying seeing someone suffer because they aren't part of your race.

And if you are a true "liberal", then you should be against "bowing down" to any form of authority.

Another example is the life expectancy of holocaust survivors. Holocaust survivors in israel have longer life expectancy than other israelis. That's because you had to have the best immune system and psychological will to live in order to survive the disease and starvation ridden concentration camps.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/surviving-holocaust-contribute...

I agree with your point about demographic lottery. Your genetics and where you are born probably contributes significantly to your life expectancy.

No for two reasons.

1. Share price has nothing to do with bankruptcy. Bankruptcy happens when a company can't meet its obligations and debts. If a company is profitable, then by definition, it met its obligations and debts so it cannot go into bankruptcy. You go to bankruptcy protection to ward off creditors. If you are profitable, you paid off your creditors and made money on top of that so there is nothing to protect you from.

2. Shorting involves borrowing shares. There are a finite number of shares that you can borrow. So you could have an infinite supply of money but your broker only allows X amount of shares available to short.

Shorting doesn't cause bankruptcy. It's a method of profiting when companies veer towards bankruptcy of their own accord.

Think of it as surfing. The surfer doesn't cause the wave, he just rides the wave.

No. But it can be an "act of war". There is a difference war and an act of war.

An "act of war" or any casus belli doesn't necessarily lead to war. Economic sanctions are "acts of war" but most do no lead to an actual war.

In other words, the NSA found a better way of snooping. If they are asking to drop phone surveillance, then they found a superior method of data collection.

I'm sure FB improved its monetization and will continue to improve it as it grows as a company. But they also benefit from an overall increase on online ad spending - which is expected to grow 19% this year ).

https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/20/emarketer-digital-ad-forec...

Nearly 19% increase in online ad spending overall + FB's 8% growth + improved monetization and you can see why FB ad rev increased 30%. Online ad spending is expect increase by double digits for many years so FB, GOOG, etc are sitting pretty as long as they can hold onto and grow their userbase.

Even if FB did nothing, their ad revenue would most likely increase by double digits every year simply because the digital ad space is increasing by double digits every year. Money is pouring into digital space and they have one of the biggest buckets.

Youngest kids are sticking to instagram rather than facebook because facebook is where their parents are. Has nothing to do with privacy. If you want to make something "uncool" to young people, get the parents involved.

There is a great documentary about origami called "Between the Folds" if anyone is interested. It goes into the historical, cultural, practical, mathematical, artistic and current aspects of origami.

With databases or anything in general, I believe in doing first and then learning the principles.

Play around with a small RDBMs like sqlite. Do a project around it. Look at the source maybe and then learn about the principles. Foundations of databases are based on discrete mathematics ( where relational comes from in RDBMs ) so a background in discrete math helps.

For enterprise level stuff ( clustering, replication, distribution, etc ), it's more practical to learn on the job where you have access to the hardware, servers, etc.

The oddest thing about 1984 is how the education system ( at least here in the US ) has turned it into a warning about the soviet union when it was in fact a warning about the west. Animal farm was about the soviet union. 1984 was about the west. And yet we are taught over and over again that 1984 was about the soviet union.

George Orwell worked as a propagandist for the BBC during ww2.

"I was wasting my own time and the public money on doing work that produces no result. I believe that in the present political situation the broadcasting of British propaganda to India is an almost hopeless task."

https://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-orwell-sta...

Orwell based the Ministry of Truth and Room 101 on the BBC. And yet the BBC is building a statue for Orwell for his work as a "journalist" at the BBC. What an insane world we live in. The BBC is co-opting Orwell to burnish their own reputation, even though Orwell criticized and warned us about the BBC. You have to respect the hubris even if you disagree with the misrepresentation.

Thank you. I wish newspapers would stop this deceptive practice or openly mark the "article" as an ad. It's far worse than clickbait titles to me since I can immediately spot the clickbait, but you won't realize the article is an ad until you've read the damn thing.

"Same number of readers" is deceptive since the overall population has increased. In 1990 there were about 220 million people in the US. Today, there are 320 million.

So newspapers have a smaller market share and a much older demographics.

It's more than "ad revenue generated per subscriber", it's also operating cost to generate revenue. Most newspapers are unionized and salaries, benefits, costs, etc have increased while revenue stagnated. That's why newspapers have to constantly lay people off. If costs stayed stagnant along with revenue, then newspapers theoretically could be fine. But inflation doesn't allow that.

Due to legacy ( essentially what advertisers know and are comfortable with ), advertisers spend more for each pair of eyeballs on print, tv, etc. Since digital is new, advertisers spend less per pair of eyeballs. That's can't last forever as digital gets more established. It's why large newspapers are moving quickly onto social media and the internet. It's where eyeballs and ad spending is going to be.

Also, local and mid tier newspapers are facing digital headwinds as social media focuses on boosting "trusted authoritative sources". So the big boys - The NYTimes, WSJ, Bloomberg, etc are going to thrive as they eat the smaller newspapers' lunch with the help of google, facebook, apple, etc.

What we are seeing is a form of stealth media consolidation. Smaller newspapers are being bought up by larger newspapers. Sadly, it's happening in every industry. More consolidation, less competition.

I've read that vegan propaganda so many times that I knew you'd post it before I posted my comment.

Plants create carcinogens to defend themselves from being eaten.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/10/01/228221063/wh...

Not to mention carcinogenic pesticides all over vegan food.

https://www.businessinsider.com/kale-dirty-dozen-contaminate...

Your post reminds me of another false vegan trope. Fish is bad for you since it is filled with cancer causing chemicals. Yet, the healthiest and longest living people on earth are fish consuming japanese and mediterraneans.

A healthy balanced diet. Not the unhealthy extreme vegan or carnivore diet. But the natural human diet that all humans have always eaten - omnivore diet.

Meat consumption is expected to increase as less developed nations like china, india, ASEAN countries, africa get wealthier.

https://ourworldindata.org/meat-and-seafood-production-consu...

People forget that for much of the 3rd world, meat was an unaffordable luxury. It won't be for much longer as they develop.

Also, meat is a natural part of a healthy human diet. It's unrealistic to think that meat consumption is going to be viewed as tobacco. It's even more unrealistic to think a natural food source like meat is going to be replaced by lab produced processed food.

That's an idealized but incorrect version of the news industry.

We know that news companies work with PR firms to publish ads as articles. The "suit" PR that is famous here.

http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html

We also know that news companies sometimes kill or refuse to cover sensitive stories that might reflect poorly on their benefactors or their politics. We know that the news companies attack social media as being toxic while demanding preferential treatment on the platforms they say are evil. I don't think we should view anything industry or government with rose colored glasses. The forces of money and corruption are felt just as much in the news industry as it is in every other industry and government.

But I agree with you that as long as the message gets out, it is a net benefit to society. It is better The NYTimes exposes privacy concerns even though they themselves violate their customers privacy. We don't live in an ideal world so we should hold everyone to an unattainable ideal standard.

Every comment supporting censorship here is just restating the pro-authoritarian censorship rhetoric. Not a single comment on Cahill's points or research.

Cahill, his platform he publishes on and everyone else is allowed to be biased. Just like feminists and the publications they use are allowed to be biased. For every person who thinks Cahill is dangerous, a lot more think feminists are dangerous. But I wouldn't support silencing feminists, just like I wouldn't support silencing Cahill and stopping scientific research.

If you don't like someone's research or position, then show where the research went wrong. As I said, people tend to support censorship ( especially in research and academia ) when facts and reality go against their worldview. This is true whether it is religious conservatives or feminists.

As for software development, the industry should be politically and ethically amoral. There is nothing ethical or unethical about software. No more than hammer makers are ethical or unethical.

The dyspotian future is being created by authoritarian feminists who want to politicize and censor everything from social media to scientific research. That's what I feel we should be worried about.