bigthymer

> I suspect that's the demographic shift towards older average population.

I agree. The downside is that this is a sort of permanent\long-term shift since the world is generally getting older and we are reproducing at below-replacement.

> The point of a free market in practice is to ensure that sale values are correlated with, and reasonably close to, production costs.

Some free markets result in natural monopolies so they don't always cause sales values to trend to production costs. I believe the scenario you are thinking about is "perfect competition". A free market results in perfect competition when a number of other conditions are met, including, but not limited to low barriers to entry, and lots of buyers and sellers.

Maybe a better middle ground is that other people can record and report you instead of being forced to report yourself. This way, people can freely drive how they want so long as they are respectful of others around them.

> You are wrong, there is no such law in Sweden

:thumbs_up

I forget which country but there is one that limits campaigning to a single month. It has been proposed as a way to remove money from influencing politics but hasn't really gotten much traction elsewhere.

> electioneering is still essentially contained to a month before the election proper.

Correct me if I'm wrong but the one-month limit is by law. Candidates are not allowed to campaign for longer than that. Just a little context I wanted to add for those that are unfamiliar.

Yes, but only a Cat 1.

I would read a blog post about this friend.

One way to solve this problem is to be part of mutual insurance instead of a private company. Not sure if that is an available option for you.

> While I believe everyone should love mathematics and keep learning it as long as possible, forcing adults to study it is counter-productive. Lack of inclination to study maths also shouldn't stop people from attending university

The writer mentions that allowing students to slip by without math limits them to mostly economically unproductive majors. If they are going to limit themselves to only these majors, are they getting value from attending college at all compared to the debt they will be saddled with?

The NSA prefers getting all user data at a one-stop shop.

I think we have the same taste from the 2000s on. If you had to recommend one artist\track I probably haven't heard of yet, which would it be?

The best survey data I've found for this information is linked here [1]. It breaks data down by age range for those who read at least one book in the prior year. It defines avid readers as having read 50 books/year but doesn't do an age breakdown for this subset.

1 - National Endowment for the Arts - "U.S. Patterns of Arts Participation: A Full Report from the 2017 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts" - <https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/US_Patterns_of_Arts...>, page 44

> I'm not even convinced that foreign languages are worth teaching at school. Bryan Caplan writes about how in terms if effort/reward, English is the only foreign language that will be worth studying. Personally I spent many years in Spanish and French classes, and I've pretty much forgotten everything. Complete waste of time. Another thing that makes me feel like this is just another checkbox instead of something done for the children.

Myself and I believe all of my cousins took Spanish classes in school. I've hardly used it since then and my Spanish is terrible. However, theirs is much better. I think it largely depends on what type of career you are involved in and whether frequent interaction with regular people is involved. Most of us in the software world only interact with others in professional environments who speak English well.

I just watched an investor talk about any field that is effected by changing yields (interest rates) is getting crushed but others are doing fine. Tech was probably the most sensitive field but I think construction and banks are also effected. Construction is complicated because data centers are doing fine while multi-family and commercial are screwed.

> Does anything good come from encouraging kids to think that they will manage to sail through life as a successful business founder rather than an employee?

I think it probably has a lot to do with the US being the number 1 economy in the world so yes, it does appear to have society-wide benefits. Does it have personal benefits? I think this is probably more controversial. I suspect some people push themselves too hard and would have been happier otherwise, whereas others do indeed benefit from this advice. I suspect that the users of HN probably fall in the latter category.

> - Choose "Watch 1 long ad, then no more today" and pay the piper all at once with a couple minutes of ads.

People would walk away and do something else.

> I'm surprised more people aren't talking about the tracking in the official app vs third party apps

I don't think many engineers use the official app.

I can see how that would be a popular application. I imagine a software engineer that was forcefully returned back to the office would love the ability to have unlimited computer screens hidden from the prying eyes of busybodies around the office.

> The UI doesn't have anything to do with it.

I'm going to disagree somewhat...I think it has _some_ to do with it. I think the UI acts as a sort of pre-filter. I think just having a list of boring looking text (like HN) draws some types of people and repels others.

Are you a "generic" American?

I'm simply asking to get a better understanding of your view.

You have a point. He has a lot of power users and many don't want to pay. Many others may be willing to, but I don't think paid users alone is enough to sustain a site.

However, of all of the Reddit alternatives that have popped up and failed, this one seems promising because there is a broad base of users that are all angry at once. In the past, it has always been fringe groups that have been banned and sought another site. Because of that, the subject matter of the new site always had challenges getting site hosts and advertisers on board. This is different. Having power users hurts on ad revenue but potentially helps on site quality. I don't know what will happen but this is a uniquely promising opportunity. We'll see how it goes.

> Do you consider HN to be social media?

I think this site will get a flood of new users from Reddit once the axe drops. I think this will cause the quality of discussions to go down.

I don't think that will work because there will not be enough paid users to build critical mass. Enough of the never paying users provide sufficient value that I don't think there is a viable alternative without them. If there is going to be a reddit alternative, it is going to have to happen now or very soon after the paid Reddit API goes live.

He should seriously consider starting his own Reddit alternative. He has a sea of enthusiastic supporters that potentially have enough critical mass to get it started. Unlike attempts to create Reddit alternatives in the past, this group isn't full of racists and others who were kicked off the site for engaging in reprehensible topics.

I'm not the commenter that you responded to (ftxbro) but any listicle screams clickbait to me. I suspect he feels the same way.

> Even HMO is very lax in actually taking care of people.

Makes sense. The premium\cost is largely already paid so the less work is done, the higher the profit. It is FFS where you have to be careful about doctors ordering too much work.

Way back when, Ukraine implemented video recording of all politicians' offices in order to combat corruption. I read an article where a citizen was trying to get something done at a local government office, tried to offer a customary bribe, but was rejected as the officer pointed to the recording camera in the corner of the room.

Care to expound on the "what I learned"?

> as I result I can see secularism dying out long term

It won't die out for the same reason homosexuality doesn't. Recruits will be poached from the other team.

> Russia is rather socially conservative

They used to be communist. Communism generally gave women much more equality than most traditional societies. While Russia may be more conservative now, I think the effects take at least one or two generations to permeate through a society.