ohdannyboy

Can't you do that at normal auctions using (for lack of a better word) a shill bidder?

My mom was a RN most of her career then got her masters and went into education. My dad is a nurse practitioner. I didn't specify it explicitly because I didn't think it was relevant -- I was not trying to use vagueness to imply they were medical doctors and use them as a source of authority. All was trying to do was build them up at least a little, they do know more about the body than most people even if they aren't anywhere near experts on what the vaccine does.

My mom was a RN most of her career then got her masters and went into education. My dad is a nurse practitioner.

Off the top of my head:

Fauci told the American public that masks don't work. My mom already owned N95 masks and got looked at like a crazy person because she was wearing one when shopping, ect. Then suddenly it became "the science" on the heels of all the research that already existed... Turns out it was a noble lie to protect the supply of masks while production caught up with demand.

It looks like Fauci lied about the lab leak theory for his own reasons, although I'm pretty out of date on that issue. Even if not Fauci we know that scientists with conflicts of interest all signed an open letter saying the theory is bunk and it was uncritically paraded around as "the science."

We were very clearly told "get the vaccine and you'll get your life back" but that hasn't even happened in paces like Israel with extremely high rates.

The vaccine was initially sold to us as something that would prevent infection, but that turned out not to be true. (I'm willing to concede this probably wasn't a lie but just something we learned as time went on, but it does reflect that they may have been overconfident and refrained from discretion because it was a pro-vaccine talking point)

Vaccine passports used to be conspiracies. Same with the idea that we'd have to get booster shots every so often to stay current.

And this is probably the biggest one: So many of the politicians pushing covid restrictions fail to practice what they preach outside of photo ops. The list is a mile long of local, state and federal politicians constantly violating their own restrictions. It lends credibility to the idea that none of them believe any of it.

    Can you expand on why you were hesitant because of censorship? ... Have you heard rumors of some problems from vaccination?

It made it more difficult to ascertain what the risks were, I didn't feel our officials were being honest with us (something I still think). Back in early 2021 it was a lot more open to speculation since it was an minimally tested treatment who's delivery method had never been widely deployed on humans before. We still don't know if there's long term effects and there's no way for us to find out until enough time has passed. I didn't want to be part of the initial test group.

    Since covid is so deadly if you get it

I'm relatively young and not in any risk categories, covid does not pose much of a death risk to me. Significant non-deadly outcomes are another story (permanent lung damage, loss of taste, ect). I decided that protection from the latter category (significant non-deadly outcomes) was worth my rather nebulous fears that we'll realize it does some harm over the next decade.

    and there are basically almost no cases of serious health issues with vaccination and furthermore

"Basically almost no" is a difficult term to quantify, but VAERS database does have plenty of entries.

Her belief was that she'd be feeding into a system that encouraged things to happen that were against her principles. I wouldn't call that self harm out of spite. Spite would be "they were right, but I'll be damned if I let them know that!" She never changed her mind on the censorship.

    Is it that Yes people are too stupid to make their own decisions, but a government mandate isn’t the right tactic to influence their behavior?

That's pretty much what I see. People make sub-optimal decisions all the time for a variety of reasons and these decisions often affect others. Government mandates on bodily autonomy get tricky and have massive externalities. It's all good fun until you're the one the government says is making a bad decision.

    What’s the right tactic to influence stupid people?

I don't think making a sub-optimal decision makes you stupid. In this particular case I think a better question would be "how do we influence people who are making bad decisions based on emotions and politics?" It's pretty tough to craft a government solution to that last part since the government is always political. Polite discourse is the best way IMO. It won't turn everyone, but when people get interested they won't be thrown back into their in-group by seeing nothing but coercion and vitriol.

    I didn't say they're stupid, I said their fools for believing what is obvious a bunch of politically motivated lies, science is no place for emotion.

No, you said "while believing anything Trump says without question."

    If we can't change people's mind with the truth, what possibly could make them realize they have been duped? 

Packaging matters. People are emotional and make rarely make factual determinations in a vacuum. Your attitude in our conversation so far tells me that you have a near-zero opinion of their intellect and have no idea why they believe what they believe (ie you say that they believe 100% of what Trump says, but 10 seconds later acknowledge they'll boo him at his own rally). You most likely come across as smug and superior in these conversations so while you may just be explaining that mRNA therapies have been in development for decades they will see it as an attack on them... Logical? No, but it's how humans operate. Maybe you're perfectly logical but I kinda doubt it.

Lets use creationism as an example because it's what I have the most experience with. You can argue until you're blue in the face with facts and won't get anywhere most of the time -- there were certainly people who had that experience with me 15-20 years ago. Looking back I wasn't interested in the facts. The Adam and Eve story had to be literal to explain original sin, which had to be a thing to explain Jesus' sacrifice which was one of the most central things I believed in. So when you'd crush me with facts demonstrating that the earth cannot be 6,000 years old you'd actually be tugging at the single most central thing I believed. Good luck.

I was reasoned out of young earth creationism, but I had to be in a place where Jesus was also on the table to be discussed. It took about a year from "oh shit, that's how radiometric dating works" to "uh yeah, none of this makes sense." Open discourse was the only way that was possible -- the talk.origins archive, books like Why Evolution is True by Coyne, lectures by friendly scientists, ect.

    while believing anything Trump says without question.

Trump is pro vaccine... He still brags about his involvement with Operation Warp Speed. How does this work out? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA306aNtvmk

I too have to deal with hard right wing Christians... I used to be one. The idea that they are too stupid or deluded to be talked to about anything just isn't true. Talking to people about emotionally charged issues is hard, and if your attitude is that they're all idiots you're not gonna do it productively. "Crushing" someone with facts will never, ever change their mind.

I've been able to have a lot of discussions with these types of people (albeit not everyone) because I understand them.

I don't think he's disputing that experts are real. He's saying that we need to be able to question the experts (ie the lab lead being refuted by scientists with massive conflicts of interest). Experts are also not a monolith, there were experts saying the lab leak theory was credible but they were shut down during the early stages.

I was hesitant for a while and the massive censorship was part of it. I got vaccinated in May and have convinced others to get the shot since the side effects, while existent, appear to be minor compared to the reduction in harmful symptoms. Talking to my doctor is what did it for me. He cleared up most of my concerns and pressed me that my remaining concerns were too nebulous to be useful. If he just said "shut up and take it" I wouldn't have.

My mother only got vaccinated last month. She and my father are both medical professionals (she's retired and my dad got it early on since he's super high risk). Her main hangup was the lies and coercion. She believed that if the vaccine was actually as great as they're saying they'd be able to make more objective goalposts and win arguments instead of stopping them because the other side is too stupid to make their own decisions. I'm confident there was also some element of "if I get it now I'm telling them their tactics worked."

Huh, looks like it was. That would make me apprehensive about continuing to trust them.

    Then there's the whole 'we never keep logs' claim which can't be proven. So, caveat emptor folks! 

It can be trusted with a fair degree of certainty depending on the company. For instance, we know that PIA at the very least was willing to testify under oath that they had no records to provide the US government. Could they be keeping secret logs or have changed practices since? Sure, but at some point the claim seems credible.

Now those flavor-of-the-month budget VPNs that cannot possibly be profitable unless you're the product? Different story.

If you like documentaries there is a whole genre on Youtube that covers air incidents. Lots exist but the ones I follow are Mentour Pilot (technical / crew focused analysis from an airline pilot), Wonder (more TV style focused on the passengers and stories), Air Safety Institute and FlyWire- scott perdue (small-time incident analysis geared towards educating private pilots).

Is this an insiders take on what is actually happening or just some bloggers fever dream? Its always hard to tell with finance.

Yes and no. Laws on when you must identify yourself to officers varies wildly from state to state but social media isn't a part of that. Lawfully refusing will usually be enough, but there are cops who don't care and will arrest you for obstruction (watch YT channels like Audit the Audit, it happens all the time). It looks like this article is about LAPD cops adding this to information they ask for, just like they ask where you're going or if they can look around the car. Just assert your 5th amendment rights and decline to answer questions.

That being said, if you ever end up in court your social media activity is pretty much always discoverable. This is different from an officer demanding it during a traffic stop but still important. It is all accessible.

I started programming in C when I was 12. Computers had always interested me so this was a natural progression. This predated regular internet access (if I was lucky I could get on once a day) so I was entirely dependent on books, all of which are outdated now. What got me hooked was the precision of specifying instructions to computers, controlling what went on behind the scenes. This interest has always been my hook to the subject so it's of little surprise I write firmware for small microcontrollers now.

    What is your experience with university? Did you get a degree, was it worth it, do you think it helped you find work, what did you love/hate about uni?

I went to UIUC for Computer Science and it definitely improved my prospects. My path through college was a bit weird so I was actually in my early 20s when I went in. I was one of the most experienced coders upon entry but that is a really small part of what you need to do well. Up until then my knowledge was entirely practical and I didn't know any of the mathematics or algorithms behind what we do. Those topics along with a rigorous dive into subjects like computer architecture have proven extremely useful since leaving the university. Simply having a top engineering school on my resume has also opened a lot of doors.

    How did you get your first paid work (family & friends, internship, freelance, full-time)?

When I was 16 I got fired from a summer job at a fast food joint and decided it was time to start making money coding. I began offering services writing small PHP applications online, starting at $16/hr and working my way up to $100/hr by the time I stopped in college. It was a great way to make money when I was younger, but the work itself was really boring and the way I structured the business would not support anything more than side gigs. My first "real" programming job was given to me at age 19 by an older friend/mentor who was the director of web development for a regional mortgage lender.

    What do you do now and what do you love/hate about your job?

I write embedded software for IoT power meters and love it -- I also really like that my company helps third world countries get reliable power for the first time. This company is pretty small and I have tended to like this environment more than giant corporations (I've worked for Intel and Qualcomm in the past). It wouldn't surprise me if I end up back at a big company at some point since they pay more, but I really like where I am at the moment.

I wonder if this was the plan from the beginning. Perhaps the bankers and business people with no connection to reality just wouldn't believe how disastrous that policy would be, so they make the announcement and use the backlash to get the point across.

The idea itself was not obviously satire to me, sadly. Once I saw the list I realized they were making fun of using version 0 as an excuse for unfixed bugs.

He didn't say that all measures to protect children should be rejected out of hand. He is just saying that if someones argument starts and ends with fear baiting around children then they probably have ulterior motives.

> Countless ideas never got off the ground because the innovator refused to talk to investors or partners without an NDA or withheld important details.

If I had a nickel for every time I've seen that... I've met enough of these types as a freelancer that I have a fairly hard rule of not doing business with people who think their ideas are the most valuable contribution. Even if they have money I will avoid them because they're not worth the hassle (although the two are rarely seen together).

If you think your idea is that easy to steal then you have no idea how the implementation will work at any level. The odds that you have identified some truly "low hanging fruit" is exceptionally low. It's probably that you just don't value any contributions but your own.

My uncle was a lifelong smoker and survived lung cancer (in remission getting close to 5 years). He vapes now and seems to be doing a lot better. It seems preferable to cigarettes considering his odds of full cessation are basically zero.

It did for me. Substantially. I had a rough childhood and homeschooling was one component so I don't know how much can be pinned to that one thing. It can be done well but has to be handled with care since isolation is dangerous. If your home situation is bad it will be very bad.

While the Youtube purges did follow some obvious political lines, most of them were nuts. The only reason you go to Bitchute is that Youtube gave you the boot so that's their niche right now. I think these companies are trying to position themselves to be in a good place if these platforms ever trigger a more mainstream exit. But the fringe content makes them highly unpalatable so good luck. This is why I won't sink a penny into these sites right now despite my issues with Youtube, Facebook ect.

This may provide Bitchute with some diversity of content. I think this counts as a fringe community just not one that's all American right wingers. It remains to be seen if these communities are compatible (one group calling the other one "sand ****ers" in the comments might be an issue since Bitchute doesn't censor anything).

It is not disrespectful to the FBI or the government to expect that they play by their own rules. China is being dealt with like an oppressive dictatorship and the FBI is being interacted with like a law enforcement agency in a functioning democracy.

Next thing you know software devs will fight thunderdome style over which console text editor is superior, bracket placement and tabs versus spaces.

Interesting. I do look at related videos so it's not about noticing anything... We clearly have different experiences.

The difference I see is that I have an account with subscriptions and years of activity data. I guess the algorithm knows I don't click on that stuff so they stopped trying to show it to me. I'm very surprised to learn they are giving users these recommendations by default.

Is that actually your experience on YouTube or is this just something people say to encourage deplatforming? I don't think I've seen anything at the level of flat earth or Q on my related videos since like 2017... I've even attempted to seek out some of these videos just to see the claims and it was difficult to maneuver past Youtubes search redirections.

Want a non-conspiracy example? Search "obama is gone" on youtube then on DuckDuckGo. Even a stupid crab rave meme is buried, presumably for the purposes of preventing Obama related conspiracy theories from emerging.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=obama+is+gone https://duckduckgo.com/?q=obama+is+gone+site%3Ayoutube.com

I'd still never park my kid on Youtube but things aren't like they were pre-adpocalypse.

While I agree that this book isn't very useful for self learning, I have to defend the model you describe as adversarial. I took CS473 at UIUC (it's CS374 now) so I can tell you firsthand the course is brutal -- easily the hardest course in the CS program. You're given a LOT of resources through office hours and everyone uses them. The TAs are good at leading you down the right path instead of just showing you the answer and making you feel like you connected the dots (you probably didn't). Most of the answers are on Chegg if you want that, although I think Chegg is the worst thing ever for actual learning.

Unfortunately I don't have a good solution for the self learner here... There is no way in hell I would have gotten through that class without the TAs and workgroups. Just being able to peek at the answers would have been terrible.

Car manufacturers learned these lessons incrementally over decades while their competitors were doing the same. Tesla finds themself being inexperienced in a market where the established players are really good.

As an aside, car companies actually consult for others industries because they're so good at manufacturing. When I worked for a big defense/aerospace company I got a tour of their satellite assembly and they actually paid Honda to come in and improve their manufacturing pipeline. They claim the changes sped them up and lowered bugs found after manufacturing.

The problem is that the investigation is about figuring out who is actually the criminal. Cops deal with mostly bad people. Actually innocent people who get caught up in the criminal justice system are relatively rare -- ask any defense lawyer. This makes investigators incredibly jaded and willing to treat everyone as guilty because it's usually right (and even if they didn't do it they did something).

This is what makes your take on this question so dangerous. This is not about how cops are allowed to treat people they know are criminals, this is about how the cops are allowed to figure out if someone is a criminal in the first place. Telling an innocent person "we have DNA and video of you committing the crime, just plea down to manslaughter and you'll be out of prison by the time your kid graduates highschool" puts them in a devastating position. They may decide that they've been framed and just confess because they think they either do it today or face mandatory life without parole. Even if the majority of people put in this position actually did the crime it's still wrong. Same goes for beating confessions out of people.