wavepruner

Reposting because this article was clearly flagged by people who don't want other perspectives heard.

Before the pandemic, you could make $15-30/hr AFTER expenses driving for Uber in my city. This includes gas, maintenance, depreciation, and cleaning. This was with a Honda Fit.

But only for 10-15ish hours per week. And you had to know when and where to drive.

You could find another 20 hours making above minimum wage.

Any hours beyond that though were usually at or below minimum wage.

The part where hard work comes into play is this:

When one understands the value proposition of Bitcoin so thoroughly that they have the confidence to buy a large amount and hold through the bad times.

This takes a tremendous amount of research and confidence in your own ability to discern truth. Then, upon deciding that Bitcoin is worth the risk, one must tolerate derision and scoffing from their peers year after year. Many people in one's life will loudly express their desire for you to fail. It is very alienating. One must often create a completely new life for themselves. This is why revolutionary change is so difficult. The resistance to change is so massive that people will openly hate those who push for it.

That you view it as gambling and low-effort makes it clear you haven't spent a lot of time understanding Bitcoin's value proposition. That's fine, but just know that there are a lot of people who have spent years of their lives researching and working on this technology. It is not gambling to them.

The main advantage of Bitcoin is that it cannot be corrupted by the state. Perhaps you trust the state, but then you are not the target market for the product.

It doesn't take much effort to verify these claims.

But it's not worth my time digging it up for you.

If you don't want to believe it, then don't. Doesn't make a difference to me.

Tether is backed 1:1 with USD in traditional bank accounts. Some of it may still be seized and held by the US government, not sure if that's been resolved yet.

USDT also trades freely on open markets against USD. If USDT was being printed without USD backing then those markets would decouple.

I make trades based on analyzing data that historically has not been available in financial markets.

I designed custom compression algorithms to manage the huge amount of data.

I came up with a new charting technique for the data that I have yet to see elsewhere.

Then I apply some "technical analysis" principles that traders use to analyze price data, but I add a few ideas of my own devising to make the analysis appropriate for the kind of data I'm using. Edwards and Magee are a huge influence on my work.

I'm working on algorithms now to automate the analysis.

"And I get it, they have to deal with a lot of people, all with their own opinions, many of which are indeed wrong."

This is a great point, but it's important to keep in mind that many medical professionals INSIST that you get your healthcare from them.

If you're going to force people to obtain their healthcare through the system you run, then you are obligated to address all their concerns.

But this is impossible. That is why medical freedom is so important. Medical freedom as in the ability to choose your own insurance, decline medical treatments, or pay out of pocket for whatever test or treatment you desire.

They have a terrible track record of being able to tell who is faking and who isn't.

The most important use-case for Bitcoin is the separation of money and state. As in, taking the place of USD as the worlds reserve currency. It does not need to be used to settle every little transaction for this, but rather used as a base layer for institutions. I know you are unlikely to see this use-case as plausible, but that is why so many people are buying Bitcoin right now.

For this use case, the amount of energy used to secure Bitcoin should be compared to the amount of energy used to secure the USD. Not just the energy to print cash, maintain digital system, etc, but the energy and human lives spent on war to maintain dominance.

Assuming we're all USA citizens here.

We've lived in an individualist society that has left behind people like the OP. Almost no one, if anyone at all, argued for collectivism to undo the bad thing that happened to them.

You're argument seems to be that now that something bad has happened to enough people, it's time for collectivism. That is one massively bitter pill to swallow for all the people who have been left behind in the past and had to fend for themselves.

And why does it have to be all about what you want? Because you are part of a majority? Does that make it okay to steamroll other people, because you, as a member of the majority, have more value? Because more people agree with you, and you add all those people together, and you have more value than a minority? Do you not see how your argument has been used to justify all the terrible things that have been committed against minorities in the past?

All of this could be moot though if these vaccines are truly 95+% effective. Not everyone will need to get it for herd immunity. The most likely scenario seems to be a combination of natural immunity and vaccine immunity before we even have enough doses to give everyone.

Very true.

Social safety nets only work for people who are believed to be oppressed. So what happens is the oppressed groups just end up being the people no one believes are actually suffering.

Yea, starting your own business is the only option for a lot of disabled people.

You don't believe I'm sick so you won't provide me healthcare. Progressives even managed to convince my own family I was crazy.

What you did to me is evil.

This post is outdated. I now use emeramide.

Edit: emeramide is currently in phase 2 clinical trials for FDA approval.

I did not purchase a health care plan with the money. I purchased effective treatments. To be frank, the healthcare system is worse than useless for many when it comes to debilitating chronic illness.

I do qualify for disability, but I can't afford the legal fees to convince a judge. My illness is very controversial and would require paying a very expensive doctor to support my case. It's cheaper for me to just pay for healthcare out of pocket. Fortunately my condition is reversible.

The ADA is a disaster for many disabled people. It has created a tremendous amount of hostility and misunderstanding.

"No clue what this means or how you could possibly even know that."

I know this because I have the illness and have been to 40 doctors who all denied me healthcare based on this fact.

"Bold of you to assume that I'm healthy and don't have a vested interest in universal healthcare getting passed"

I edited my post to remove the "you" part so as to not make that assumption. Apologies.

No, the treatments I need are experimental, and there is a tremendous amount of hostility from healthcare workers directed at people with my illness. It is very controversial.

Europeans are just as fucked as Americans when they have this illness.

As a disabled person who has also benefitted immensely from Uber, I hear this a lot, and it is really frustrating.

No one will help me, especially progressive leaning people. You don't get political or social brownie points for helping disabled people the way you would for other minority groups who are struggling. We are constantly ignored and forgotten.

I was in a situation where I needed money for healthcare that will never be covered by insurance, especially government sponsored universal insurance (EDIT: it will be covered eventually, maybe in 10 years). Gig jobs played a key role in my ability to purchase that healthcare and survive.

Regular employers will never hire me. Unions will never let me join them, because I can't meet their requirements and make life harder for their able bodied employees. Gig work is the only option.

Healthy people aren't nearly as caring as they'd like to believe, especially progressives.

As an Uber driver, I can tell you, the majority of drivers are against AB5, but that doesn't fit into the mainstream media or Democrat's agenda, so you'll rarely hear that fact.

The driver's that are for AB5 tend to be newer one's who have yet to figure out their market and how to be profitable.

I'll clarify the sentence.

The body produces water as a byproduct of ATP (energy) metabolism. During a fast, fat and other tissues are broken down by catabolic reactions to accomplish this. Knowing this, I am willing to entertain the idea that abstaining from water for a period of time can be beneficial, or perhaps I should say at least not harmful, because there are mechanisms in the body that synthesize water. Obviously, a sufficiently long period of time without water would be harmful.

I haven't done the math to figure out how much water this is, and so I do not know how sufficient it is to keep minimally hydrated during a water-fast. I'm just saying that the thought of abstaining from water during a fast isn't necessarily as dangerous as it sounds, because your body can and does produce it's own water as a by-product of energy metabolism.

When I first heard of abstaining from water while fasting I also had a strong emotional reaction to the idea.

After realizing that water is a byproduct of catabolism, I'm willing to entertain the idea that it is beneficial.

I lost my entire former life to chronic illness. I got to the point where death was imminent. Just managing symptoms and living whatever life I could wasn't an option.

The best advice I got was to treat it as if I were at war. Nothing else mattered until I won the war, because if I lost, nothing would be left.

This meant I had to find a way to reverse the progression of the illness, which meant an accurate diagnosis and a cure. To do this, I used my environmental engineering background, free access to research (thanks to open access and sci-hub), ability to communicate with others in my position (thanks to social media), and ability to communicate with some of the best biochemists and doctors in the world (thanks again social media).

It took about 4 years of 60+ hour weeks studying biochemistry and anatomy. Well over 10,000 hours. And this is a conservative estimate. My ability to focus on studying was uncanny. It was survival instinct, but instead of focusing on a predator I was focusing on knowledge. I could barely think about anything else even if I tried. Entertainment became boring to me. Relationships became meaningless. I had to find a cure. This was in addition to the previous 10 years of 5-20 hour weeks studying. Part of me knew by age 18 that it was not going to end well unless I figured out what was going on, so I was always learning about my symptoms.

After all that I came to an accurate diagnosis and cure. This was not a linear process. It happened in fits and starts and I went down tangents many times. These tangents all tied together in a unified understanding once I found the root cause.

I've been pursuing treatment for almost 3 years now. Progress has been slow, but nothing short of miraculous, and I expect to make a full recovery within the next 2-5 years.

For those curious, as I always get asked this question on HN, my diagnosis is chronic mercury toxicity, and a key part of the treatment is chelation therapy with emeramide. Emeramide is currently in phase II clinical trials and will probably be approved by the FDA within 5-10 years. The right nutritional supplements, taken in the right forms, and at the right time, is also key. That, unfortunately, gets very messy and controversial, and all the chronically ill people I know spend a tremendous amount of time trying to figure this part out.

So it decreases dust levels in the entire house, even far above the floor?

That would suggest a major source of dust on counters / shelves is the floor. Seems counterintuitive!

The argument you're making is common and always boils down to this belief: "most people are too stupid to discern the truth"

History shows this to belief to be incorrect, and instead shows that any central power holding this belief will eventually commit terrible crimes against humanity.

A small group of "intelligent" people can not possibly out-compute billions of humans' brain processing power.

Metaphorical thinking.

Race in this context refers to the action of racing, not the races of humans, or even horses.

The only way this argument would make sense as a critique of Trump's supposed racism would be if you believed some races do _not_ have good genes. I doubt you believe this. I certainly don't.

This is a basic combinations of words from the English language. You do not own it.

It's likely that they are referring to the comments section, not the posted articles.

You don't have to read many comments on ZH to see what the OP is talking about.

Nurses and restaurant workers never do a 2 hour shift, whenever they feel like it, deciding at the last minute. Nor has surge pricing ever been used in nursing or restaurants.