facepalm

I have to chuckle at the thought of Trump introducing such a tax on foreign house buyers. Imagine the outrage!

Not even sure if that is true, as most measurements seem to be relative, like "x% are poorer than y%". Even if income has stagnated, it seems possible that buying power has increased. I guess many measures try to correct for that, but maybe it is not enough.

I was impressed when I visited a medieval castle, where the luxuries of the lord included an automatically served table (that is, it would be manually lifted up from the kitchen). That required a whole castle with who knows how many employees.

These days, everybody can just Microwave their food, for a few bucks. Even though (almost) everybody is poorer than the medieval landlord in relative terms, in absolute terms everybody is richer.

Misleading headline: she threw the match to protest against the tournament setup, having to play against too many women.

Thank you for the recommendation, looks great indeed. Can't wait to try with my kids :-)

"The point is value can be derived from experiences uniquely tied to race and gender, especially given how we're taught race and gender. It often doesn't coincide with reality."

I can barely understand what you are saying (what does "coincide with reality" mean? What use is it for a company if it doesn't coincide with reality?), but perhaps you could clarify it with a couple of examples?

Also, isn't that argument a bit treacherous in that it implies that "diverse" people are different after all, meaning if they don't get ahead in some environments it might actually be because of their different ways of thinking, and not because of bias they face?

Edit: I was asked once in a tech interview to prove the theorem of Pythagoras. Yesterday I was in a museum for kids that also featured that theorem, so I feel inspired to use this classical problem:

Could you provide an example on how a woman, a woman of color, a white man, a black man, a latino, a gay person (or any other "diverse" person you can think of) would prove that theorem in different ways, unique to their race and gender?

Ugh - come on, you seriously suggest only a feminist would have listened to a fellow human being and have been able to come up with a solution? She (Valeria) framed it that way because she is a feminist. That is just an anecdote, not science. There have been thousands, perhaps even millions of bugs fixed in Unix over time. What makes this one so special that only a feminist could have fixed it?

Likewise, you can not prove things with movie references. I haven't seen "Hidden Figures", but it was obviously made to make a certain point, so they would insert stories "proving" their point.

I think science might be overstating it a bit. There are some indicators for some things. For example the first article unfortunately doesn't include a link to the actual paper, so we don't know what tests they used on the groups. I am willing to bet that for specific problems, qualification trumps diversity. For example, to build a new nuclear reactor, putting ten nuclear physicists together would yield better results than 10 random diverse people.

Also, seeing as recently a major share of psychology papers has been found to have serious methodological flaws, I would take this one with a grain of salt, too.

I didn't mention any laws. That said, I think the general assumption that racism must be the reason for unequal outcomes might not be based on reality in many cases.

A lot of talk is about hiring practices (like blind assessments), or retention. But that ignores a question that should be easy to answer: are there a significant number of qualified "diverse" applicants that could be hired with the right approach?

I seriously doubt any qualified developer would have troubles landing a job, regardless of race. Therefore I think the talk about hiring practices and cultural exclusion are misguided. Looking at the pipeline might be more promising, but it seems even Google can not turn the lives of millions of people around single-handedly.

Traffic is already the biggest killer of kids (afaik). You can only teach kids so much. They are kids - sometimes impulsive...

Why can't they keep doing x86 stuff and start something else at the same time?

Having a family is a choice, and it is OK that it costs money - it is worth something to have a family.

Privilege to run a startup - that should also be a choice. Convince somebody to give you money, everybody can try that.

What if I really struggled to get off the ground, lived on minimum income for years, with the threat of divorce hanging over my head because my wife can't take the economic situation any longer. How privileged am I really?

"How is this any different from Muslim families fleeing the ravages in Aleppo?"

Not everybody lives in Aleppo.

"Do you really think Muslim families are in any better position than Christian ones?"

Um - yes? If you live in a state were non-believers are executed, for example?

The point is not that no Muslims are worse off than Christians. Just that "Christian" could be a heuristic for checking "persecution status" in certain countries.

"Hell tell the people who went through the legal immigration process, the ones who have lived in the US for years that suddenly their lives in America was not enough vetting"

You mean green card holders? Sorry, I don't know enough about the process. But sure, it seems harsh. I hope they'll get their immigration status back asap.

fake news epidemic... Nobody cares anymore. Just write shit and hit publish!

"Christians are hardly persecuted in Muslim countries."

You mean, for example, a Christian family living on IS territory would be just fine? That seems very unlikely to me. But perhaps I have fallen victim to fearmongering about the IS.

"A blanket ban is not due process."

I am not saying it was handled well, but it seems an important distinction to note that the ban is temporary. The assumption seems to be that the checks previously in place were insufficient.

"That's the entire point, enforcing religious tests is absurd."

Are Christians actually exempt, or are you referring to the "prioritization of people who are religiously persecuted", who happen to include Christians in those Muslim countries?

"Yes, shocking enough, due process is necessary. And perhaps we don't grant visas and green cards to people who are considered dangerous then?"

But that seems to be the goal? I don't understand you?

"Guiliani" - will watch later, can not watch videos right now.

Perhaps the US is at war with Muslim groups in those countries, so it makes sense to (temporarily) ban Muslims? But how do they make sure someone is really a Christian?

Also the ban seems temporary to give them time to improve security checks.

Not saying it was handled well, but perhaps there is no other sensible way to do it? If you announce it beforehand, people you want to filter out will just rush to get through the door?

As for the Giuliani leak, I don't know - why not stick to actual policies, rather than rumors?

Well it says that people from a religion which has the majority in a country are probably not persecuted for their religion. That sounds lie a pretty reasonable assumption?

I have high respect for CodingHorror, which is why I am confused about some of his claims.

Perhaps HN can help me understand a few things:

- why do people claim it is a muslim ban, when really it seems to be a ban on countries that the US is fighting a war with (except Iran)? Whether there is a causality between "at war with the US" and "Muslim" seems to be another question?

- what is the proper US stance on Immigration? Is the "good" line that there should be no borders at all, and everybody should be able to enter at will? Because the wall, crazy as it sounds, seems to be aimed at illegal immigration. So why not fight for better immigration laws, rather than against the wall?

I have read the memes about Jews who were denied entry to the US and then died in the Holocaust. Fair enough, and as a German, I am actually extra concerned about that. I was always very pro asylum laws, because I thought what if one day there is no US to flee to, if shit hits the fan? Still, the examples also show that immigration to the US was never as open as people seem to think.

I am not sure if the temporary ban or the wall are useful measures - I am not a fan of Trump's politics as such (not all of it anyway). But I still think criticism should be reasonable. It seems reasonable for example to ban people from a country you are at war with from entering. Maybe people are just in denial about being at war? It is only droning, not real war? To be honest it reminds me a bit of Bill Clinton not having sex.

I am not sure illegal immigrants from Mexico are hurting the US - maybe they benefit everyone by providing cheap labor. But then, why not change the immigration laws, rather than pound on an arbitrary measure for enforcing the existing laws?

Packaging is useful, and can be properly disposed off. Microbeads - not really.

My mother, who is literally a grandmother, ran into the /boot old kernel's issue twice already. Very annoying.

Most "reliable sources of news" discredited themselves in the last couple of months. And the barrage was pretty onesided, too, wasn't it?

As for the barrage - again, how do you do that? Like creating bots on Twitter and Facebook and zillions of web sites doesn't mean people will read them.

Putins information war: number of web sites or fake social media accounts does not imply lots of people are reading them. In any case, Trump and Hillary wanted to win - all the strategies of the Russians would have been open to Hillary and Trump, too. Why should Putin be better able to employ them?

War - everybody has some interest to pursue, sure. That is nothing new, though.

Europe on its own: what risk do you mean?

"congratulating the dog on catching the car"

Becoming president seems more useful than a car is for a dog, though.

Edit: only now read the BBC link. That's even more ridiculous than "The Russians did it". Now it is Macedonian teenagers who rigged the US election? Come on...

Sure, but that to me sounds like a technical argument, not a political one (that is, it is neither Republican or Democratic, for example). It is not really a moral argument.

And it might not be the only possible scenario - in fact, with all the Hitler comparisons floating around, this stance towards China reminds me a lot of the appeasement politics towards Hitler.

Ultimately, saving face with regard to Taiwan is probably just one part of the general trade deal with China? So as the other parts, it should probably be up for negotiation? Or even be a factor ("we pretend Taiwan belong to you, and you give us moar iPhones").

Not saying that protectionism is a good idea, but also not saying that all trade deals are always optimal for both parties.

I think Ukraine was about more than saving face for Russia, too - Russia has always wanted the Krim for strategical reasons?

"the Russians would carpet bomb the nation with their version of the story"

But how can they carpet bomb the US with fake news from Russia?

"Even in Europe"

Maybe Europe will have to shake off its arrogance and realize how much they have always depended on the US. I say that as an European - and here, also, people are divided over Trump, just as in the US. There are elections in Germany this year (if you meant Germany), although to be fair, no major shakeup is to be expected. But that is only for lack of an alternative, there is no Trump here to vote for. But maybe some adjustment of policies will occur before the election date, anyway.

"Yes, but just like Hitler found out: you can't fight wars on all fronts at once."

Still, making a tactical error is not in itself evil. And chaos is a tactic that sometimes works. It won him the election already.

Btw maybe you can explain the Taiwan thing to me? Why is it the obviously good thing to keep supporting China in their policy of claiming it?

If Putin can control the US from his third world backwater, maybe he deserves to be in power. What makes him so good that the world's most advanced country is powerless against him? Is it because Russians are such good hackers?

Taiwan, Mexico and so on - fair enough. But overall it is not as if all the countries in the world were friends and only Trump is shaking things up now. There were always conflicts of interest, new trends that shift power (like oil and phracking), military interventions and what not.

I thought historians are still debating what caused the fall of Rome?

I can't really take you serious if you invoke Putin as the supposed mastermind...

International relations: because the countries he temporarily blocked for immigration have previously been such big friends to the USA? I don't think that accurately reflects reality.

We can disagree on the historical lessons. I wonder, right now, which historical lesson you are referring to? If you mean Nazi Germany, my opinion is that there aren't actually that many parallels. Or do you mean cases when cultures were eradicated by invaders (real Collapse for some examples, or look at the history of the USA)? Or maybe the cases where Muslims took power, like the Iranian revolution?

Any Trump supporters in YC are probably smart enough to keep their mouths shut.