maria2

Why? Plastic is made from oil. Oil exists deep in the earth, more or less permanently. If we extract oil, convert it to plastic, and then sequester the plastic permanently, e.g. via a landfill, then that seems net neutral.

Yes plastic ends up in the ocean. But most plastic waste in the ocean comes from recyclables shipped from first world to third world countries with poor refuse control.

One of the main indicators of in the study you linked was sales volume, i.e. demand.

> It really doesn't matter that a store can make a healthy profit by serving customers who live in a low income area. If that same store feels that they could make even greater profits by being in an area with wealthier customers

This only holds true if a chain can open a fixed amount of stores. In reality, they can open as many stores as they want provided that the stores operate profitably.

Even if this anecdote were true, it’s just an anecdote. It’s important not to let anecdotes influence you emotionally. All types of individuals, religious or otherwise, do messed up things. Cherry picking examples that fit your world view is a great way to succumb to confirmation bias.

“Ducks are mammals” contradicts “mammals have mammary glands”. When this type of contradiction happens, we call the logical system inconsistent.

Investing money in SPACs to boost revenue is like peak ZIR environment. Kind of sad to see a lot of net worth obliterated by the higher interest rates, but seeing the deflation of this kind of wasteful enterprise makes up for it a little.

How can something be both logically sound and violently at odds with reality? What you’re saying is that those who hold YEC beliefs have an inconsistent belief system, but the belief in YEC is constructed with valid arguments within that belief system. That’s like the opposite of logically sound.

What part of the law does this violate, explicitly?

Sugary beverages have been correlated with obesity and weight gain in multiple other studies, however. One thing that’s interesting having read a few of these is that there are often contradictory results when doing meta-analysis of multiple studies.

Having empathy on a subject is definitely important. But it’s also important not to take an argument personally and not let personal anecdotes influence you more than they warrant. We’re not really talking about every poor person here and we’re not talking about your childhood friends. We’re mostly talking in generalizations about broad demographic trends.

Random study on obesity’s correlation with sugary drinks: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2862465/

Feel free to share any resources you find particularly illuminating.

I understand what you're saying, but, a priori, how can you say the existence of food deserts is because of reason X vs. Y.

For instance, the poorest Americans drink the most sugary drinks [0]. I can accept there may be other reasons for the existence of food deserts, but to outright dismiss that preferences might differ across incomes without any evidence feels like an argument made purely out of ideology.

[0]: https://theconversation.com/poorest-americans-drink-a-lot-mo...

This sounds very smart, but essentially what you're saying is that there isn't enough demand to support a store that sells fresh produce.

Yes, the ability to profitably run a store is based off of margin and volume. Both of those are driven by demand.

So why do food deserts exist? The article simply states people live in food deserts. The article doesn't offer a reason for their existence.

> … unless you live in a food desert, in which case that capitalist society is failing to provide for basic needs.

Yes, you're starting to get it! If demand existed for cheap, nutritious food, someone would provide it for profit. We already know the food can be provided cheaply and profitably in other, more expensive, regions. So what conclusion can we come to other than that food deserts exist because the demand for the food doesn't exist?

My argument is that nutritious, affordable food exists. We live in a capitalist society. Where there exists demand for a good, supply materializes.

I'm open to other interpretations. But I would need a compelling, non-demand reason why affordable food, which exists in surplus elsewhere, can't be sold in certain neighborhoods.

Nutritious food can be very cheap. Others have mentioned beans and rice. Beans are an amazing source of nutrition. Dried beans are dirt cheap and require little work to prepare. Organic bananas from Whole Foods are about $0.50 each. I'm pretty sure you can find a cheaper banana elsewhere. Broccoli costs less than a $1 per head, typically. Organic rainbow carrots are $1.50 a pound. I could go on.

The point is, good food can be cheap. And yes, food deserts exist. And yes, people buy poor quality food from stores like Dollar General. But perhaps there is a correlation here? Maybe (some) food deserts exists because there is little demand for fresh food in those regions.

Would it? If you tell me you poisoned my wine I wouldn’t give it a single thought. Or is there more to this analogy that you’ve neglected to mention?

Housing prices aren’t even part of the inflation calculation.

True. I guess my point is that those who fear for a loss of truth are generally mistaking malicious pretext for ignorance.

Wolf reintroductions to Yellowstone, for instance, totally changed the ecosystem for the better.

Animals evolved to keep each other in check. If you remove one animal, but not its prey, then the prey can cause an even greater loss of biodiversity by excessive proliferation. In the case of Yellowstone’s wolves, their absence allowed elk to proliferate. Elk then ate too much vegetarian, which prevented forests from developing. The lack of forest lead to a decline in song bird and beaver populations. The decline in beavers lead to a decline in dams, which removed key habitats for other animals.

To flip your question on its head: the reintroduction of wolves was clearly beneficial for Yellowstone. What is the argument against reintroducing the wolf, or reintroductions in general?

That seems bad? Look for /winnie/i in all private repos. The repo name includes the owner. Then go and arrest them.

> all of those things are great, but their ability to stay great is conditional on a huge, precise system that depends on trust (which in turn depends on truth) to run.

I 100% agree that the system is built on trust and that the system is where I derive my enjoyment of "bucolic normalness."

However, trust in the system has absolutely nothing to do with truth. All systems are driven by those with power. The opinion of the masses, whether informed by the truth or otherwise, doesn't matter.

For instance, another person mentioned the lie of "de-nazifying Ukraine." Russia has also plainly expressed its imperialist ambition and the ability to reduce NATO's influence in Eastern Europe. Both of those things are true. Does that mean Russia is justified in invading Ukraine because they told the truth about their intentions? The population in Ukraine is strongly against Russian influence. But if those in power wanted Russia's influence, the population would be powerless to stop the transition. To see evidence of this, look no further than Belarus. In Belarus' 2020 election, something like 90% of the population voted against the president. 5% - 10% of the population actively protested in the streets. Workers went on strike. And yet, the elites in Belarus aren't interested in regime change so nothing happened.

Take gerrymandering as another example. The goal of gerrymandering is very plainly to disenfranchise certain voters. Everything knows that. It is the truth. And yet gerrymandering still happens.

Another example: do you really think Trump, the senators, and representatives responsible for the Jan. 6th insurrection really believed that the election was stolen? Of course not. They wanted power and "stop the steal" was just a pretext. I'm sure many of the "stop the steal" supporters understand this too. The lie is just a pretext to get what they want. Again, the truth doesn't matter. You're not going to convince Jan 6 supporters of "the truth" and have them change their mind, because they're motivated by a selfish grab for power. They could care less about the truth.

Ultimately, trust in the system comes from the shared belief that our representative form of government is the best for everyone. Sometimes, that means needing to sacrifice a personal objective, like a quest for power, for the good of the entire system. If the elites want a different form of government, like one where they consolidate power for themselves, then that is what will happen. That is what's happening. The truth isn't going to stop it.

That’s the thing. You’re not surrendering to lies. You’re just choosing not to play.

You’re fighting a pointless war.

The red countdown timer means run in the US.

We’ve been in a post-truth society for some time now. Anything that makes it easier to lie is a positive in my book. Society needs to accept that we’re well past the time where information can be trusted. Either we adapt or die.

One thing that helps me is to understand that I really don’t need to know the truth. I wake up. I see my family. I watch my daughter smile. I enjoy the company of friends. I drink a nice glass of wine. What value does the “truth” have in my daily life? Most of the time, what is true and what is lie only comes up in a political discussion, and it almost always is unpleasant.

But Swift has no way of signaling to C that the memory can be freed so I’m pretty sure it does a copy when using String’s cString constructor.

Memory gets moved for a lot of reasons. Any type of FFI usually requires memory copies. For instance, if you pass a C string from Swift to C, the C side needs to copy the memory to use it after the immediate call. Or if C returns a string to Swift, Swift needs to copy the string into its own format.

They usually go to a black market currency dealer and keep the money under their mattress, or at least that's how they did it in the USSR.

The friend could have purchased a stablecoin. For instance, as of writing right now, he could have bought USDT and had the same amount of money after 6 months. Obviously, the stability of USDT is rightfully questioned. But the stability of storing many liters of petrol in your house should also be questioned.

Why should we let philosophy define technical terms for ML? Many words have many meanings. Welcome to the imprecision of human language.

As a slight tangent, I really hate this type of comment that inevitably appears on many HN submissions. Personally, I find it distracting when the main conversation happening on an article is a pedantic discussion on whether or not a word means what the author thinks it means.