motoko

Oh, I mean that I don't agree that Peter Thiel and his investment group is "equally responsible" for the decay of ethics online because I don't think Peter Thiel believes in money. I'm sure Peter believes YOU believe in money, but he himself probably would prefer a world with some better way of storing and moving wealth ---even if to get that world, he must sponsor companies he himself does not like.

I don't know Peter Thiel; this is what I think from his writing and his past history. PayPal was originally the "new world currency." There is an old PayPal sticker on the pool table that says "PayPal: New World Currency" in Molly's Tavern in Mountain View. I think Peter Thiel and Max Levchin meant that literally... but, then their investors intervened to secure a safer cash exit.

What do you do with your life when almost succeed to make an actual New World Currency... but then people you trusted, they sell you out for millions of the currency that you convinced yourself was a corrupt illusion?

I don't include Peter Thiel as equally culpable. As far as I know, Thiel failed to invent a state-free currency with Max Levchin, and over decades, he witnessed the defeat of uncompromising humanity over unconditional growth, and now Peter Thiel probably understands himself as like the Adrian Veidt character from the Watchmen.

That is my best hypothesis. Who has obsessed more about the cancers of human behaviors than Thiel and his circle? He seems like a person who would feed cancer now if he projected his culpability as minimizing E(cancer).

Don't need to be celibate to go extinct. Remember Nixon? Hoover? They used to run America from colonial times until... well, know any Quakers?

"Although official Quakerism may not have abided the activities of many of these feminists, the Quaker belief that "in souls there is no sex," and the opportunities provided Quaker women to preach, hold meetings, and write epistles, gave rise to the high percentage of Quakers among the "mothers of feminism," including Angelina and Sarah Grimké, Lucretia Mott, Abby Kelley, Susan B. Anthony, and Alice Paul."

Degenerate diseases don't kill you before you can have children.

"Those changes we predict for 2409 could be wiped out by something as simple as a new school-lunch program."

Stupid. African nations have both the highest birth rates and the worst nutrition. If anything, expected good health after reproductive age negatively correlates with fecundity.

"Uniquely in the living world, what makes humans what we are is in our minds, in our society, and not in our evolution."

If Steve Jones knows of some supernatural force that excludes the operation of the human body from physical reality, he should describe that force and submit it to a physics journal. Otherwise, yes, minds are minds, but minds are not magic: they're meat.

"The bastard science of eugenics, [Jones] says, will haunt humanity as long as people are tempted to confuse evolution with improvement."

"confuse evolution with improvement" I agree.

"bastard science of eugenics" What an appropriate slur: "bastard". Well, whoever parented that bastard wins this debate ---whatever that debate might be--- when you and the children you didn't have all die. You can go sit in the ground with the Quakers and the Spartans.

People will look like the people who most have children.

Do you have children? If not, then the people of the future will probably look less like you and more like the people who compounded faster than you did.

If you were a man of titles and wealth from a family of the same, and you overheard a lean stranger say to a man of some skilled employ to you: "The best servants burned down estate once..." how would that make you feel?

...Especially, if you knew that was true?

Keep feeling; invert class.

I worked at McDonald's. It helped make me the man I am.

Mark, have you also considered advice to burn estates? It is analogous from the under up as your flipping burgers is from the over down.

I remember asking engineers at deCODE about building server centers in Iceland. They said it was too expensive to build and staff a server center and that there was no surplus bandwidth to depress costs. They said that limiting constraints for computing in Iceland were personnel, then logistics, then bandwidth ---not energy and cooling.

"And, in an irony not lost on a country brought to its knees by finance, one early customer rumoured to have signed a deal to move servers here is - well who else - one of America's biggest investment banks. "

This "server farm to save the world" story smells like spin for a dish-washing debt service ---probably because Iceland hates aluminum smelting and fears the imported masses who'd work there.

I don't understand how a more powerful message system will make email as "asynchronous queue of messages" obsolete.

As far as I know, gmail is a surface abstraction of wave between Google's private servers.

I do understand that most email tools suck, but that is the fault of the tools and email culture, not "asynchronous queue of messages."

OP did tell the truth. Your interpretation adds judgment.

The relevant facts to the listener (prospective customer) are:

- "This is a picture of software to buy"

- "This software to buy will solve your problems."

Here is what you added:

- "These are just..." we ourselves do not believe that this software to buy is valuable despite we are here to convince you that this is software to buy is valuable

- "figure out..." we ourselves do not believe that this software to buy will solve your problems despite that we are here to convince you that this software to buy will solve your problems

zero minutes: microbes die at temperatures below boiling, by the time the water is boiling, it's pasteurized enough

That is: if it were true that expected talent/dollars is greater in women than in men, and this is widely known public knowledge, then why do no tech companies select for women over men in their own self interest?

Possible answers could include: 1) They do, but you realize it.

2) They do, but you don't know about it.

3) They don't, because the premise is false, because women are not undervalued.

3) They don't, because the premise is true, because women are not selected over men despite having a higher talent/dollar value.

4) They don't, because organizations of people are not rational economic decision machines, or values like "talent / dollar" are too vague to be pre-test predictive of individual productivity, or "self interest" is not necessarily defined by maximizing economic exchanges, or that men already in tech simply know other men better and so tend to work with other men.

You are paying for $299 worth of emergency room, not $1 of oxycodon.

However, I do agree that distribution of drugs in the USA has become a franchised back office sales game of all rent and no responsibility. I don't like that.

"The problem is that in my country you cannot get a prescription without a doctor’s appointment."

Acute viral bronchitis: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_0_9?url=search-alias%3Dhpc...

"They actually do that to make money (see above)."

In the USA, doctors do not make money from drugs directly, though they may indirectly benefit from pharmaceutical "good-will." However, that's more common for new drugs that patients would take chronically, like psych drugs, not antibiotics to treat common, acute issues.

"And the doctor will tell you that it is really necessary. Since most people do not know the field they will believe the doctor with blind trust."

Well, do you really know the field enough to know that it's _not_ necessary? And if so, then why would this be relevant to you?

"Those “similar drugs” are run of the mill anti-biotics that have been on the market for 20+ years."

The standard of care evolves ---as do the "biotics."

> The problem is that doctors charge ridiculous amounts even for simple treatments.

Assuming you are a programmer, why should I pay to use your software? I would prefer to pay nothing because it doesn't "cost anything" to copy it. Oh, well, ok, I'll pay for my 10 minute share of your time at $40 / hour. You have to eat, too.

> If I have Bronchitis I know exactly what I need and the doctor knows it too.

Great. Go visit a counter clinic and get exactly what you need ---though I'm sure you know that you have acute viral bronchitis and you only needs some over-the-counter drugs to treat symptoms. Then, you can go reinvest your "shitload" in something more intelligent like car insurance or a new graphics card. Like, your lungs are fine. I'm pretty sure all lungs have been fine forever for everybody, and if not, well, you can buy a new lung from the lung store and swap it in for all those shitloads you saved in ten minutes years ago. It will probably even be a better lung than your old obsolete one.

"The same with medical tests – the doctors draw blood and send it to a pathologist. They then charge you a 400% mark-up on that and make pure profit."

You're right. Health care should be like sex. Free only, illegal otherwise, immoral regardless. There should be laws to enforce this.

"Then it is the unnecessary x-rays (if the doctor happens to have a digital x-ray machine that he is itching to use)."

Say no.

"If a doctor prescribes anything he will prescribe the most expensive antibiotics ever – even though a much cheaper run of the mill one will work as well (I don’t know why they do that)."

Did you ask?

Also, doctors prescribe generally prescribe what will be most likely to work the fastest because ---if you remember from a century ago--- bacterial infections kill you and then spread to your friends and family to kill them. They don't care that you can save $30 with some similar drug they don't know much about.

"Why do they want routine appointments (once a month) for chronic medicines?"

Because

"No offence, but I think modern day doctors focus on ripping off medical schemes because there is no apparent victim."

If you know some rip off scheme perpetuated by licensed medical doctors, write it down and submit it to a medical journal. I think modern day people focus on engorging distractions while they mindlessly spawn and decay because there is no apparent victim. No offense.

I know the primary care outpatient business, and I support "Walmart medical care." (We call them "counter clinics.")

People who don't want expert medical advice go to the counter clinic, we don't have to serve resentful patients, and we can spend our time thinking about medicine with patients who appreciate our service.

Further, patients sometimes visit a counter clinic, but they have issues beyond what the counter clinic can handle. So, the counter clinic will refer the patient to us ---the medical doctors. One of our most regular patient referrals is corner CVS because the local medical doctors introduced themselves respectfully to the CVS clinic staff.

However, don't be fooled by the "cost cutting" nonsense. My estimation is that counter clinics increase total medical spending in the same way that shopping at Wal-Mart increases total consumer spending. Yes, each individual purchase of "health care" is moderately cheaper. However, given the lower prices, omnipresent availability, and cross-marketing of other products in the store, people do not simply buy the same things at a lower cost, they impulsively buy many smaller purchases of dubious value.

So, rather than visit an outpatient medical doctor for an hour for $500 (that is what we bill, though we usually only collect about $300 of that from insurance), one visits the Wal-Mart counter clinic for $70. That's a savings of $430, right? Maybe. Assume the counter clinic treated your sore throat, but you also had another issue, and later visited the medical doctor. Both issues could have been treated by the medical doctor for $500 now rather than $570 over several weeks. Oh, and you also bought "health supplements." Add another $30 recurring cost. Well, actually, you don't go to the doctor at all because you only have $500 for health care, and the doctor costs $500, but you only have $400 because you've already spend $100 on the counter clinic and supplements ---oops, actually, that $400 is already spent by your employer for health insurance.

So, you still pay, but you never visit a doctor, chronic heath conditions continue to exasperate, and in addition to suffering from chronic health problems, you eventually get very sick, progressively lose your ability to function, and are hospitalized sooner at a much higher cost.

Even a single day of missed work at $5 minimum wage due to illness not addressed by a counter clinic is quantitatively worth more than the $37 best case savings at the counter clinic. Primary and preventative care alternatives are almost never "cost savings" unless you know precisely otherwise.

By the way: there is some ludicrous cultural myth that exasperated health problems can be "fixed," or if you can just avoid "having a a serious problem" and "keep natural," you will be OK ---or at least, you can "fix" health "issues" "later."

No, you don't. You die.

Also, jeez, you spend so much time and money making your face and buying clothes, but when you have a disease, you're thinking about saving a few dozen dollars? Bleh.

It's honest for TechCrunch to broadcast their own sincere celebration in Mint's success. It would be suspect if TechCrunch did not emphasize its own participation in Mint's headline success in a TechCrunch headline. TechCrunch doesn't deserve to be called slimy for this.

Do technology startup founders get paid too much?

And: if you think doctors do get paid too much? What are you going to do about it? Offer to pay less? That would be reasonable, but do you pay your doctor?

What is the tell between a spam site from an authority?

1. Why does my country have the right to be occupying Iraq?

A1. Because if the country just thinks about "rights," then the people with means can have what they want, while the people without want the meaning of have.

2. Why should my country not support an international court of justice?

A2. Everybody supports justice. Your country must believe that that court is not just justice.

3. Is my country not strong enough to achieve its aims fairly?

3A. If all agreed the aim was fair, then why the strength to achieve the aim?

4. When the leaders of a country cause it to do terrible things, what is the best way to restore the honor of that country?

4A. Collectively forget about the terrible things in that country.

5. Is it possible for potential new leaders to raise questions about their country's possible guilt, without committing political suicide?

5A. If committing political homicide, then yes.

6. Do I deserve retribution from aggrieved people whose lives have been ruined by actions that my leaders have taken without my consent?

6A. According to the aggrieved people: yes.

7. How can I best help set in motion a process by which reparations are made to people who have been harmed by unjust deeds of my country?

7A. Open a commercial franchise and employ those people. Sell those employees DVDs and iPhones.

8. If day after day goes by with nobody discussing uncomfortable questions like these, won't the good people of my country be guilty of making things worse?

8A. I don't know, because day after day everybody constantly discusses questions like these, yet they are good people and their country belongs to them. Maybe you belong to the country, and maybe you are good because it's inconceivable to you that you could be any other way.

> Apparently, Google has decided that its formal complaint system is "the Internet."

Apparently that works if you're Google.

That is simple, but Google explicitly states that they will not do that. Instead, Google linked to:

https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=...

Which states:

"Why was my account disabled? Can you tell me more about the invalid click activity you detected?

Because we have a need to protect our proprietary detection system, we're unable to provide our publishers with any information about their account activity, including any web pages, users, or third-party services that may have been involved. "

So, you may submit more information to Google, but Google will not submit any more information to you. Thus, there is no need to entertain a discussion regarding your account ---at the expense of both parties--- as Google will not submit any further information to you.

That's reasonable to me.

How do you know? What if, according to Google, the problem was the customer? How do you tell a publisher that their website is not appealing to advertisers such that the publisher will satisfied? Isn't that implicit in the account cancellation? So why say it again explicitly?

I don't understand what Google could do differently to handle these incidents other than staff handlers to parrot empty reassurances to angry customers.

"your input" => "general customer complaint", I mean.

It's not evil to fix a machine when its users publish that the machine not working as expected.

It's not evil to refuse a human conversation regarding that machine.

You want reasons? What, some phone operator is going to be able to know the specifics of your exact circumstance and the entire Google system at a moment's notice and produce for you an actionable response? For all people in the world? For free?

You would prefer hold music and a canned response?

I'd prefer if Google fixed the problem as fast as possible. I prefer if that process didn't require my input, and Google probably doesn't need your input to fix their machines anyways.

The advice was "do something worth being sharp." The attitude communicated was relevant. It was good advice.

It was: "don't be such a pussy." It works. If it didn't, then athletic and military leaders wouldn't use it.

OK, but what about eye telescopes for healthy eyes?

But, at minimum, that university student would need room and board ---plus income to service debt--- to work with you. Not all people have trivial access to that even small income ---particularly if their family does not live in the metropolitan area.

This doesn't mean that unpaid internships shouldn't exist if they otherwise couldn't exist as paid positions, but it does mean that some empathy and social awareness to offer even a couple hundred dollars a week, plus lunch, would help many young people "find something that pays them back in ways that will help them."