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throwaway1748on Analyzing the Facebook ads placed by the US presidential candidates

This is great data, but missing one crucial piece: how much reach did each candidate achieve given their spend? Both what they directly paid for with the ads, and then what the ads achieved organically beyond the spend.

My suspicion is that Trump, by being outrageous, realizes far cheaper effective ad rates (i.e. when you factor in both paid & organic reach) than any other candidate.

throwaway1748on Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charged with Fraud

No, be Elizabeth Holmes and Tim Draper and use gender as a means to dismiss valid investigative reporting from the Wall Street Journal.

And yeah, bad actors will sometimes use accusations of sexism / racism / etc-isms to silence those speaking the truth about them.

throwaway1748on Cora – Kitty Hawk's prototype air taxi [video]

Sadly negative comments are the norm here on hacker news. No matter how amazing the news, the top comment is usually a snarky takedown of the linked article.

(It's nice to see the top comment on this one is actually positive!)

throwaway1748on Coinbase Index Fund

I imagine fund investors will get instant exposure to any new crypto asset listed to coinbase or gdax. Which might be worth the price of admission alone if you think Coinbase listing an asset has the potential to drive the price up

throwaway1748on Coinbase Index Fund

Presumably they'll be launching many more coins this year. There are other advantages in holding crypto through a fund rather than directly, like simplified tax accounting and not having to worry about security, either digital or physical.

For many people that is worth 2%

throwaway1748on Coinbase Index Fund

There are also great disadvantages from owning coins yourself, like physical security.

throwaway1748on Income Inequality (2016)

If anything, I think the rich in Silicon Valley are the most willing to do something about it. Basic Income is a very popular idea amongst left-leaning wealthy people these days

throwaway1748on Income Inequality (2016)

Has investing in the stock market become democratized? Sure you could invest in Amazon at a low market cap back in the 90's, but what about Uber, Stripe, Dropbox, or any recent breakout 'unicorn'?

The privatization that has happened in financing high-growth startups is not great news for Joe Q Public

throwaway1748on The Human Driving Manifesto

This is the central thesis, but the author made up the idea that we are supposed to already have these cars that are safer than humans. Nobody thinks this. Nobody.

Elon Musk does

https://www.inverse.com/article/38049-elon-musk-self-driving...

throwaway1748on The Human Driving Manifesto

I doubt such a lobbying effort will be necessary. You can still ride around in a horse-drawn carriage on most public roads. It seems far-fetched to think human-powered driving will be made illegal, it's far more likely that most people will just opt-out of it.

I also expect once autonomous vehicles are the majority of cars we'll see stricter enforcement of speeding laws. When everyone is speeding because that's the norm, you don't stand out. When every other car is self-driving at the limit and you're going 20 over in your Corvette, you stand out like a sore thumb. The UK already uses average speed cameras. I think the only reason they aren't widespread elsewhere is simply because many people speed.

throwaway1748on [dead]

I assume this means Harvey Weinstein will earn 100's of millions from the deal, yeah?

I guess it's still much less than the company was worth a year ago

throwaway1748on The Drugging of the American Boy (2014)

Sure, but the procedure for testing vision is far more precise than how we diagnose issues with someone's mind. There's just no way to know 1) to what degree someone's neurology differs from the "norm" 2) if the adderall is truly having the effect of "normalizing" the patient's brain or if it just appears that way to an outside observer.

These are dangerous stimulants that are shockingly similar to readily abused street drugs.

throwaway1748on The Drugging of the American Boy (2014)

Wow, that's insane that a kid would ever be prescribed medication by a school doctor/nurse. That seems like a doctor's visit a parent should book & not just be informed afterwards that thier child was prescribed a dangerous stimulant like Ritalin.

throwaway1748on “We’re committing Twitter to increase the health and civility of conversation”

Yeah but Facebook haven't really fixed the problem. That change was a nudge in the right direction but News Feed is still fundamentally optimized for engagement. Hyper-partisan content is just more engaging than nonpartisan content.

throwaway1748on Rebecca Black’s “Friday”, Or: Dear Internet, You Should Be Ashamed of Yourself

Ah, a simpler time

throwaway1748on Random computer simulation produces wealth distribution similar to reality

Yep, that works too. And has little to do with chance.

throwaway1748on Random computer simulation produces wealth distribution similar to reality

Sure, but taking appropriate risks in one's career isn't a negative-EV bet, whereas virtually every bet in Vegas is negative-EV

throwaway1748on Random computer simulation produces wealth distribution similar to reality

It depends on how one define's 'rich', but if you go by the metric of having $1MM+ in the bank, it strikes me there are plenty of opportunities to get there that aren't pure chance.

The most obvious is to join a high-growth startup, particularly after the initial period of high risk. An example of this would be to join Google in the early 2000's, Facebook from 2007 to 2012, Stripe from 2012 to 2014, Uber from 2012 to 2014, etc etc. Today those companies would probably be the ones on this Breakout List, plus a few others like Coinbase and Robinhood: https://breakoutlist.com/

Join one of those companies as a software engineer and there's a very good chance you'll make decent money. You don't have to be that lucky or clairvoyant to identify these opportunities. This current cultural phenomenon of explaining all success as either the result of luck or immoral behavior is seriously troubling...

edit: would appreciate a discussion here rather than just being down-voted.

throwaway1748on U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

I don't think there are only 3 groups of people that oppose it. You can draw some nuance here. For example, many people believe that work helps give people a sense of purpose, and a mere basic income might enable people to make poor life decisions. A "basic minimum job" might still be a re-distributive system, but with some nuance.

throwaway1748on Los Angeles’ homelessness crisis

That's an easy statement to make, but I don't think it holds true for most wealthy people. Especially wealthy people in Silicon Valley. If anything, most wealthy people I know are extremely aware of how bad things are for the bottom half and regularly vote against their economic self-interest for progressive candidates.

Runaway inequality isn't due to some evil conspiracy by rich people to hoard money from everyone else. It's due to the leveraging nature of technology and the plummeting demand for unskilled labor

throwaway1748on How poverty changes your mindset

I don't understand how that's not the case today. I grant you that there are a small percentage of folks who in such a disadvantaged position where this wouldn't be possible, but a lot more could follow this advice and get ahead: learn how to code. That could take a number of forms, whether it's online training, coding bootcamps (some of which are free until you land a job), or studying computer science in college / community college.

throwaway1748on How poverty changes your mindset

Not seeing the comment you're referring to. But my point is that a broader cultural phenomenon is occurring where successful folks are demonized and individual accomplishments are considered more a function of one's 'privilege' than hard work.

throwaway1748on How poverty changes your mindset

If anything, I find that successful people are culturally un-welcome in the conversation today. It's considered presumptive or 'privileged' to give advice on how to be self-reliant and grow wealth.

Culturally this is happening in a number of areas. Victimhood has become such a powerful status to claim that we increasingly refuse to listen to so-called 'privileged' voice, regardless of how solid their advice may be.

throwaway1748on Nothing Is Cheaper Than Proof of Work (2015)

If you could design a coin that "wastes" human effort in a productive way, that might be a hugely positive force for humanity. For example, if you could somehow devise a "proof of carbon capture" scheme that was immune from reporting fraud.

throwaway1748on Technology Change Not the Culprit in Wages Falling Behind US Productivity Gains

Not sure why this comment wasn't upvoted higher. Inflation has effectively been a slow-moving tax increase to the middle class, as tax brackets don't change with the decreasing value of the US dollar. A $100,000 salary in 2018 was equivalent to a $65,000 salary in 2000, meaning much more of one's 2018 income is pushed into the higher 25% bracket rather than the lower 15% bracket.

throwaway1748on The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM

That's not the conclusion I would draw from reading sites like Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, or even mainstream news like NYT or The Washington Post.

throwaway1748on Facebook plans to use U.S. mail to verify IDs of election ad buyers

This is a good step, but more reforms are needed for political ads on Facebook.

One of the most glaring problems is dynamic ad pricing. Ads from different candidates can see wildly different prices based on how 'engaging' their ads are. In my mind this gives a clear advantage to incendiary, sensational, populist candidates. In some cases the difference in pricing between ads can be as much as 10X, based on how 'engaging' each ad is.

That's fundamentally unfair for someone running a clean, policy-driven campaign.

throwaway1748on Gates says billionaires should pay 'significantly' more taxes

Yeah, I really don't get why your post is being downvoted. There's nothing inflammatory in it, just an opinion. Censoring opinions you don't agree with via downvote shouldn't be acceptable on HN

throwaway1748on Gates says billionaires should pay 'significantly' more taxes

That's a ridiculous statement in Gates' case. The Gates Foundation is giving away tons and tons of money at a rapid pace: https://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/Quick-Links/Gran...

They're not "preserving" his wealth in any way whatsoever

throwaway1748on Gates says billionaires should pay 'significantly' more taxes

One big reason is liquidity. Many 100MM+ net worth individuals have their fortune tied to one corporation of which they're a founder or officer. Forcing those people to liquidate pieces of their business to pay taxes on their own fortune could very directly harm the company.