danjayh

Their primary function is risk pooling. Secondarily they ration limited resources, attempting to distribute the available resources to effect the greatest good (this is why you often have such a hard time getting them to cover things, and why everyone loves to hate them). They've also traditionally been in the business of managing moral hazard in such a way that people feel it necessary to sign up for insurance while healthy, but the government has dramatically changed that function in the last few years. There's also the basic book-keeping and shuffling money around the system ... and while all of the things I listed are somewhere in between crusted puke and a fresh horse turd in terms of their appeal, they are necessary functions that any system (even a government run one) has to perform. One huge advantage that the government has in the moral hazard department is that they can use guns and jail time to prod people into paying ... but for whatever reason the single-payer folks typically ignore that particular evil when campaigning against the private insurance companies. Personally, I feel that the government's tactic of taking someone's freedom for refusal to participate is much worse than refusing coverage, which is what the private companies do.

Not trying to be snarky - serious question: if you feel that way, what's stopping you? I've often contemplated what I would do if the US leans further left, and sadly, there aren't a lot of other places to go where I can have guns, freedom of speech (although in a lot of places people have been protesting against that lately, because they believe it should only apply to speech that's not horrible), and a private-business dominated economy. Looking in the other direction, there are a ton of places where you can get super-tight gun laws, a huge welfare state, and a government dominated economy ... so why not pick one and go?

My yard is 11 acres, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. 17 min commute.

My employer has traditionally been very good about 40 hour weeks. However, recently everyone on the team has been doing 55-80 hours per week. On about week 4, I pointed out to my manager that the last time we were on an extended stretch of OT, the company put in place a policy to pay us at an hourly rate equal to our annual salary / 2080 for all OT hours worked. He responded "Yeah, but [project x] was on OT for over a year! Besides, OT is expected at most other companies, and none pay for it." (never mind that most at least have bonus programs). It's now been over 3 months of OT for my team, and personally I think there is no end in sight. Of some slight consolation, the less senior team members do get paid for a portion of their OT (usually around 1/2 to 2/3).

Also, our company doesn't do bonuses at all, doesn't offer anything in the form of comp time, and has an unlimited vacation policy that's basically meant 'next to no vacation' for the past half year or so. Some members of my team have hinted to me that they're looking for new jobs, but I don't think management has a clue.

Exactly what I came here to say. Ramp up STEM grads? Pay drops. Ramp up attorney grads? Pay drops. Ramp up workforce in a sector? Pay drops. Adding women to the marketplace for a particular job significantly increases competition for employment. As an example, if a bunch of pro-male motivational speakers went out and encouraged men who currently have very dangerous jobs to move into nursing en mass, and the spots in nursing schools weren't artificially limited (they are, in reality), the pay would drop.

Let's add workplace injuries and deaths per 100,000 workers while we're at it. We could get another article that writes itself, and one that's gotten way less airtime and print space than the one you're talking about.

I've got a few answers anyway, if you're interested:

1) The federal government sucks up all of the money -- see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Federal,_State,_and_Local... . And that chart only encompasses income tax -- the overall federal tax rate is closer to 20% GDP. The average person in the US already works until April 24 each year just to pay taxes (if you were to take your all of your taxes and pay them at the beginning of the year). Higher income earners already work well over half the year to pay taxes.

2) People only want these things if somebody else is paying for it. 'Free' healthcare and college tuition seem a lot less 'free' if your property tax (or rent, if your don't own -- landlords still have to pay tax, after all) and/or state income tax suddenly jump by a large percentage to cover it. People are usually very happy to spend somebody else's money (the battle cry is "the rich", but the reality is more like "our children's"), but not their own. Local and state governments have less borrowing capacity than the feds and don't control the currency, so it's harder to obscure the true cost of these things.

3) A lot of people don't actually want them. Although large population centers (which hold a lot of sway at the federal level) tend to favor these things, much of the USA geographically does not. Massachusetts, for instance, already had something very similar to Obamacare (in fact, large parts of Obamacare were based on Massachusetts' "Romneycare" law), but it would have been a cold day in hell before a state like North Dakota passed something like that.

Most things that the federal government wants to do these days (healthcare, education, food assistance, etc.) can be done just as effectively at the state level (and possibly at the county or city level). In general, if things are done at lower levels of government, people in a particular area get more of what they do want and less of what they don't (for example Californians could have super-high taxes and single-payer, and Texans could have no income tax and a totally unregulated healthcare market). When you start pushing lots things up to the federal level, you get a group of voters on one end of the country forcing people on the other end of the country to do things in ways that they'd rather not do them. Therefore, everyone generally walks away happier if their local governments are left to do as many things as they reasonably can, the state governments take on the next layer of somewhat 'bigger' tasks, and the federal government sticks to things that only it can do - national defense, regulation of interstate commerce, issuance of currency, international treaties, etc. Most of the 'extra' stuff that the federal government does these days is done under a twisted interpretation of the interstate commerce clause, but wasn't actually intended to be the domain of the federal government by the founders, who had recently experienced similar problems in their relationship to England and wanted to avoid them within the USA. This is why the constitution is written the way it is.

EDIT: And if you're interested in learning about the constitution, I strongly recommend starting with Hillsdale College's free 'constitution minute' series ( https://constitutionminute.hillsdale.edu/home ), and if you like that, trying out their free 'constitution 101' series ( https://online.hillsdale.edu/course/con101/schedule )

I find the typical stereotypes about conservative voters to be kind of amusing. I'm fairly young, and I have an BSCE, MSEE, and a very decent paying job doing tech work. I'm a libertarian and I vote conservative because they at least usually claim to want to reduce the size and power of the federal government. Based on what I've seen in the media about people who tend conservative, I don't exist ... that or I'm actually either a buck-toothed uneducated redneck, a white nationalist, or a geriatric nursing home resident and somebody forgot to tell me :).

Also - regardless of how great their new system is, the old adage holds: "Garbage in, garbage out."

Honestly, I just go to Reuters now. It's better than most major news outlets, and certainly better than Google's aggregator.

> When it comes to the most central tenet of individualism — free will — the tech companies have a different way. They hope to automate the choices, both large and small, we make as we float through the day. It’s their algorithms that suggest the news we read, the goods we buy, the paths we travel, the friends we invite into our circles.

I recently quit Google News for this. Despite my best efforts at customization using the limited controls that it provided, it insisted on feeding me stories for sources I'd turned off (but were obviously preferred by Google News), and not from sources that I'd prioritized. Sure, it'd put some stuff in from the prioritized sources, but there was an obvious pattern of using Google's preferred cadre of media outlets for certain major stories, even when one of my preferred sources had an article on the same story. I would liken trying to customize Google News to herding cats.

The reason I don't care about the wall is simple: Yes, our immigration laws are complicated and need reform, but people shouldn't be crossing the border illegally, full-stop. That's why we have laws. A country that selectively enforces its laws is a country where the government can imprison you on a whim (because you've broken a rarely enforced law that they can use against you at will), and historically such countries haven't been nice places to live. So as a basis, you want and need a government that consistently enforces laws, and if the laws are bad, you change them -- which is less likely to happen if lax enforcement eases the pain of the bad laws. So how do I move from "we need to enforce our laws, and change them if they're bad" to "I don't care about the wall"? Simple: whether or not we have the wall, immigration laws need to be enforced as they are written (love 'em or hate 'em), which means that until the law is changed anyone caught crossing will be deported anyway. At the point that the law is changed, people who want to cross will be allowed through as specified in the law. With this philosophy as a background, the wall is relatively meaningless in a practical sense, although I do admit that it does have some symbolic weight. I have always had far more concern for pragmatic thought than symbolism and idealism (which probably led me to engineering), and I'm assuming that building a wall would reduced long-term border patrolling costs to compensate for the cost to build it, and so this leaves me in a place where it's a wash and I don't really care whether or not they build it. And yes, I have been called an emotionless robot before ... I took it as a complement :).

One more note: I'm not saying that I expect the government to achieve perfect monitoring -- just like it would be impossible to catch all speeders, it would be impossible to catch all illegal border crossings -- but I am saying that when the government does know that a law has been broken, it should apply a consistent response that is compliant with the laws that have been passed by a congress and signed by a president.

Also, justices last a lifetime. A few bad justices could shred the constitution and trash our entire democracy faster than you can blink. A president properly constrained by congress and the courts cannot. Nominating activist judges and justices can seem like a great idea in the short term, when the chips are falling in your preferred way, but in the general case it's a terrible idea. If you don't believe me, think about how happy people were when Obama started abusing executive orders, and how upset they were when Trump continued the trend ... although they're not the first presidents to do this, there are some lines that just shouldn't be crossed.

I really couldn't care less about the wall. I do think that choosing not to enforce immigration laws through an exective order was wrong - that is the domain of congress. In the case of an institution as important as the government of the United States, the ends do not justify the means if the means weakening the foundations of the entire system. I think that this applies equally to executive orders from both Trump and Obama that effectively seek to legislate through executive action.

Also ... sigh, I've already got negative two on that post :( The rain of judgement is why we're all silent.

All depends on your perspective. Unlike many on ycombinator, I voted for Trump. I suppose it is more accurate to say that I actually voted for his Supreme Court justice list -- I viewed that issue as far more important than the president for the next four years. I lean libertarian, and while Trump had several justices that I'm OK with on his list, Hillary had no list and probably wouldn't have nominated anybody that I like. I live in Michigan, and I'm proud of our role in getting him elected (and getting a justice with a strict interpretation of the constitution nominated).

Also, please don't crucify me for admitting that I voted for Trump. I usually don't tell people IRL, because most left-leaning folks are extremely intolerant about it, many to the point of anger/hatred and possibly violence. If you want to know why you can't find the trump voters out in the real world, I think that's one of the big reasons.

As others have stated, Detroit was eliminated for sluggish growth, not low population. Having said that, I'm definitely in their target demographic (35 yrs old, BSCE and MSEE, 10 years software development experience and team leadership experience), and I think that their 'has the right labor pool' filter is a bit off. I'd guess that Amazon is looking to rein in their labor costs a bit, and often a large city with some tech (but not a ton) can provide a very good labor pool at a reasonable cost. They got rid of a lot of places I'd be willing to re-locate to in that round (I can't stand huge cities), but perhaps I'm alone in my desire to live in a place that has low cost of living, reasonable traffic, and abundant housing+land.

PS - I actually currently live and work near Grand Rapids. I have 11 acres that didn't cost me a fortune, and I love it. GR would probably have also failed their 'amenities' filter, which I think is also wrong - any place with broadway, concerts, sports teams, good restaurants/breweries/bars etc. is probably good enough for most young people.

> Why not just have three exactly identical chips, run the exact same code on them, and compare results? If results ever differ, you power cycle the bad one, self test it, and you're good to go again.

Easier said than done :) But yes, that is a common solution.

Our problem doesn't have to do with radiation hardening. In fact, we don't even need radiation hardened cores -- our problem is actually due to design decisions that have been made in modern cores that sacrifice determinism for speed.

At the company I work for, we've been struggling with the fact that nobody has made a new-design CPU or SOC that's suitable for our safety-critical, "high integrity at the source" application with modest radiation exposure (avionics) for over ten years. We finally just gave up waiting and designed our own. We're told by our senior folks that they've received calls from their counterparts at several west coast companies (apple, qualcomm, etc.) expressing interest & best wishes for what we are doing.

Not completely true. With the advent of ScanTron, Blackboard, online tests and quizzes, etc. much of the 'manual' work of teaching can be automated. Couple this with online classes, and one professor can run WAY more sections of a class than he could if he had to physically teach all of these classes. Even with in-person lectures and automated grading, labor productivity has increased dramatically in the last decade or two.

and yet he goes on to say exactly that.

Hey, I'm not claiming this is actually reality, but did you know that women aren't as good at their jobs as men, and that's why they get paid less?^^

Yeah, I didn't think that putting a little disclaimer at the top was really good enough.

^^ Making a point about doublespeak. I think this statement is total BS.

Sounds like a lot of of stereotyping with a cop-out "hey, this is the reason! (but I really don't know)" disclaimer. Got any hard data to back this up?

Much of the problem lies with future unfunded obligations in Social Security. When Social Security was enacted, the average life expectancy was 61 and the full retirement age was 65 - the average person died before getting a dime. This is no longer the case, and it's why the program is going bankrupt. I, at 35 years of age, am not planning to ever receive social security & am saving at a rate that reflects that (slightly over Dave Ramsey's recommended 15%). I will vote ASAP to raise the full retirement age to 84, which is 4 years after the national average life expectancy of 79. Doing this will fill in a significant portion of the hole that prior generations have dug.

I would also support raising the retirement age for women to a higher value than that for men, due to the difference in life expectancy. Equal opportunity to collect, and all (ducks head to dodge flying objects). OK, maybe I'm half kidding about that, but dead serious about everything else.

Quite generous, referring to him as a philosopher. I mistook his 'philosophy' for a bad case of verbal diarrhea. I think he could benefit from George Orwell's rules:

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.

(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.

(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

I skipped to his last paragraph or two, which in only a few hundred words summed up his point. Your sentence is much better -- this man seems to think that he's far more intelligent than the rest of us, and yet he admits to being a Marxist.

I find this to be interesting, since every real-world instantiation of anything resembling Marxism has resulted in widespread famine and poverty. I practice engineering, which deals in applications, and I find it difficult to understand those who cling to a theory without concern for how well practical applications of the theory work out. That's an attitude of willful ignorance, which doesn't strike me as particularly intelligent ... but maybe that's just because I'm so far below his level :).

Provided that there is competition, it's actually a good idea. My knee-jerk response to this was "you can do this, but you have to take away their monopolies." In a heavily competitive environment, ISPs wouldn't be able to get away with BS because everyone would just switch.

Too hard to find people who know ada, and more difficult to do some of the low-level things that operating systems need to do (for the same reasons that it's safer). Might not be the case for application software -- I work mostly on platform/OS software.

Have it at work :)

This is a good amount of knowledge that I use in my day-to-day job all wound up in one place. Most excellent -- takes people years to get good at and accustomed to designing systems and software for a hard real time, safety-critical environment. We measure/characterize certain aspects of our software's performance down to the nanosecond (and more commonly, to the microsecond) ... pretty sure that's not the norm in most disciplines :). FWIW, we use Ada, a restricted version of C, and a version of C++ that's so restricted that it's really more like our restricted version C than true C++. Industry trend seems to be away from Ada and toward C, at least for non-military aerospace. We use Java, C#, Python, etc. etc. etc. for our ground-based stuff -- restrictions are only on flight software.

The actual plubusses were batteries, and the actual data was mAh/$. I have found that the relative mAh/$ for various brands stays fairly stable over time even as the price changes, so the data is valid. I've a plumbus change positions relative to another once over two years since I wrote most of my battery reviews.