gabruoy

This is true for corporate bonds, but governments plan on generating their bond revenue by taxing citizens (which I guess could be a whole separate conversation on whether or not that’s productive) and by printing more currency, which seems rather circular in logic.

This justification never makes any sense to me. There’s already a safe way to make a percentage back that will generally be higher than inflation: government bonds, offered by the very same government that supposedly wants inflation. There are even TIPS bonds in the US that match inflation directly. And people do measure whether or not a risky investment will make more than just holding bonds. Inflation just screws over people who don’t have the ability to invest their money into other assets.

Labor shortages, in general, just don’t exist. There can be one time shocks like during Covid, but if there is a lack of workers for a specific job or industry, it means that the business is either unwilling to pay for the employees needed for the job, or that the business itself should not function as the cost of the labor needed is unsustainable.

Then we need a moral belief system to determine what improvement is and isn’t. This will eventually lead to a codified set of beliefs that look a lot like religion. And I don’t really like most of the moral statements I’ve heard from self proclaimed transhumanists. That’s why I’m not a one of them, even though I wear glasses.

Do you believe that humans improving themselves or their society through technological advancement is always a good thing? Or do you think that glasses are a good technological advancement, but maybe nuclear weapons or a theoretical totalitarian AI-ran government are not good advancements in technology?

I don’t think this is accurate at all. Transhumanism is a pretty clearly defined group with specific moral beliefs that not everyone agrees with. It’s like saying if you’ve ever forgiven someone when they did something bad to you, you’re a Christian.

Then unfortunately the internet will remain a luxury for people who aren’t able to afford the cost. The internet is a product, not a charity or human right.

I’ll put it this way to contrast with the other post on Hackernews about Americans driving their kids to school:

There is a much higher likelihood of a child being within walking distance of a church than they are to be within walking distance of a school.

My parents used to live in a city where violence and crime was common, and I received all sorts of lessons from them about how I shouldn’t go outside, don’t talk to strangers, always be guarded, etc. But my family had moved to a quiet, crime-free suburb and everything they told me seemed like the complete opposite of what I was experiencing in reality when growing up.

I tried using Apple News+ for a month free trial and ended up cancelling it after trying my hardest to find a use for it for a few weeks. It really does seem like something designed by a bunch of out of touch media people and not anything like a service from Apple.

What I want from a good news service are Ad-free, bias-free articles on things that are current, things that are close to my local area, and things that are of interest to me.

What I found out was that because I don't live in a major city, there was exactly one local news outlet that was available, and no topic category for my area, which is not a small place at all. There were still advertisements for things like hair loss products and other 'yuck-bait' reminiscent of the early 2000s (I think these might come from the article publishers themselves?). Then there's stuff like puzzles, sports, and now food that all seem like complete distractions. Puzzles are not news, Apple already has Apple Arcade for this.

I would find it interesting if Apple created a Recipes app. It's a popular topic, many app developers have put their own spin on the idea, but no one has made the 'perfect app' for it yet. But that isn't what this is at all. It's yet another 'perk' that has nothing to do with the problems of Apple News.

Now I'm using a combination of RSS Feeds and asking ChatGPT the news on specific topics, both of which are superior products to Apple News. I do still like their daily podcast though.

GDP is just more people spending more money for more expensive things. It's kind of a failed metric for economic productivity unless you think an $8 Big Mac is twice as productive to the economy than a $4 Big Mac.

I don't understand what point you're trying to make with your source. A relatively new company in the Japanese market (BYD) has increased sales in its specialized niche of EVs, beating out a minor competitor that sells only one model of EV as an option to it's brand loyal customers (Toyota, BZ4X). Meanwhile, the EV market as a whole has declined significantly in Japan over the last year.

If both China and the US were a free market that didn't subsidize electric car production and construction, neither country would have any electric car manufacturers.

You are pretty much correct. There is a ton of partisan vitriol that is currently obscuring the facts. My understanding is that Elon Musk is an advisor to the president, but not a government employee. Musk and his crew are given authority to do pretty much whatever they want in terms of cutting employees and programs, so long as Trump signs off on it. Is it legal? Probably, but nothing like this has ever been done before. You can very easily see it as private citizens with no official government power taking away power from more legitimate government employees.

It’s crazy to me that we’re still living on Earth, given the climate risks and the natural disasters destroying people’s lives.

He very literally did change the world. There wasn’t a forest there and now there is. In fact the conception of “the world” as an abstract global concept is much less impactful than what people see outside their window and in their city/community.

I understand what you’re getting at. Walgreens is a very old fashioned and frankly out of date brand in my view. This certainly changes something about that view. It’s just that on the list of things that the company could have done to modernize their store and image, this has to be near the very bottom of ideas that I would think to ever implement.

“We” do not want surveillance propaganda targeted towards children. The US government does not want Chinese surveillance propaganda targeted toward children. They’re perfectly happy when it’s done on US soil under US jurisdiction.

I never read pretty much any book written before 1970, never learned a foreign language beyond a single semester of Spanish, and certainly had no Theology in a US Public school. Now as an adult, I do want to learn all those things (to some degree) and feel like I missed out on it; “If only I had a better education.” But I probably would have been more like you, uninterested and equally as dismissive of my childhood education if I were forced to learn all of those things at that age. Is it a problem with educators, families, or just the children themselves that they will grow up and realize the opportunities they’ve lost?

Industrialists gonna industrialize I guess. There’s an innate human demand to conquer nature, and an innate desire for others to make the things people want more achievable. We’d need a massive change in society to do anything else.

How does anyone know when someone else is right on moral issues?

If there were any disagreement between the two articles at all then there could at least be some kind of conflict. The whole study rests on the idea that Reuters is a trusted investigative journalist, and if they said something like “coca-cola fails their pledge to do xyz” I would trust them over a company statement.

Instead the options given are a primary source of information and a news article that repeats that information while giving some context and opinions of environmentalists regarding the statement. I don’t see anything special about Reuters being the one to write this article that somehow makes it a more trustworthy news source.

Yes. In fact California defining how fast their high speed rail must go is part of what put them in their current situation because they aimed too high when no one in the USA has ever built anything like what they are trying to do. In their own legislation for the project the train must have a top speed of over 200 miles per hour and must go from LA to San Fransisco in 2 hours and 40 minutes, which necessitates an average speed of over 150 miles per hour.

At this scale, things aren’t being bought with money, but with other systems of value. Imagine if you had near-infinite disposable income, and also all of your friends do too. What could possibly be considered interesting or status-worthy at that point? Luxury status symbols that can only be bought with things like your own time spent with a brand, status, and personal connections are the only ways to distinguish yourself from others.

A big problem with the idea that “people don’t want small cars” is that that sort of statement comes from the car manufacturer looking at new car sales. People who want large trucks and SUVs are willing to buy new. People who want a small car have the option to buy a new 2024 Honda Civic, or they could spend significantly less to get a used Honda Civic (in normal economic conditions). Since the manufacturer only profits of of new cars, they have little incentive to sell any cheap or small cars since they compete so heavily against last year’s model at the used car lot.

Disney also has 44.5 Billion dollars in long term debt and over 100 billion in total liabilities according to macrotrends. They may be profitable, but most of their profit is going to pay off their debts (most of which is debt from the buyout of Fox, which is also the reason they are forced into buying Hulu). Disney does not want to be buying Hulu, in the since that 8.6 billion could be instead allocated to either paying off debt or creating real content. 8.6 billion dollars could be 43 blockbuster movies at a 200 million per movie budget.

As someone who knows absolutely nothing about Indian politics, I feel like I have become less knowledgeable about the state of India after attempting to read and then skim this article. The bias appearing to be with the author is insane enough to make me want to question everything that he is saying. While I understand that its an opinion piece and that he could very well be 100% correct about everthing he is saying, the fact that I am getting no context as to who these people are other than "this leader good, this leader bad" makes this article appear to me that this is just some partisan hack complaining about politics he doesn't like, just from his own county's perspective. This just seems like the same boilerplate article from Democrats in 2016 saying "Now that Trump is elected, America is doomed" and recently from Republicans saying "Now that Biden is elected, America is doomed", painting their party leaders as great heroes and the opposition as evil villains.

Maybe I should have the required knowledge of Indian culture and politics before reading this, but maybe since Bloomberg News is a global paper, not an Indian one, it should spend more time educating people about the facts of who certain politians actually are before resorting to calling them cult leaders.

You didn't go to the theater for your news, and by your own admission you didn't assume that the movie you were watching was reality.

Teenagers on TikTok believe that the things are of real people giving real stories, as they likely are. But the sense of popularity and constant repetition gives a false narrative of a vocal minority that likely isn't real, but is impossible to verify, except that the powers that be (being the Chinese government) are allowed to manipulate the recommendations for or against whatever the content is going to be.

The chinese being able to use data to influence 100 million American lives by determining what content is shown to people within a chinese app is a national security threat.

I have been trying to figure this out as well. I am just guessing as I haven't found anything specific, but since this is being issued by the department of commerce, I would assume that downloading an app from the Google Play or App Store would constitute a transaction, even if the price of the software is free, and the government can order that these are products that constitute a national security risk.