RedBeetDeadpool

Yea its peanuts.

Not as quickly as your politicians are.

Because there are no dollars involved. If they do as you suggest, at the start:

A holds gold.

B holds dollars.

C holds oil.

A trades B, gold for dollars. A holds dollars, B holds gold.

A trades C, dollars for oil. A holds oil, C holds dollars.

After your suggested trade result:

A holds oil.

B holds gold.

C holds dollars.

If there is no "middle man", party A gets oil, party C gets gold. Party B keeps their dollars. End result:

A holds oil.

B holds dollars.

C holds gold.

Assuming "B" is USA, USA doesn't get to export its inflation/funding for stimulus checks/student debt/pension crisis/(or in trump era - a wall that does nothing) away to "C", whoever that ends up being, meanwhile, Ghana gets the oil it wants, and "C" gets currency without having to pay for the choices of politicians they have no control over.

> What does matter: the NYT's decision to focus skeptical reporting on tech as an "important power center" sure seems to have been vindicated.

So in effect the NYT which have been an "important power center" of American media since the 1800's, decides that another entity that comes along with too much power needs to be "taken down a peg".

Its a power play to discredit a new entrant into a business sector that threatens the inheritors of the incumbents.

So call it vindication, but its only in the same vein of a third generation monarch trying to quell threats to his inheritance. But to that perspective I agree, its definitely the correct power move to keep threats from taking away the power one inherited.

> Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

> It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

> it makes boring reading.

> it makes boring

> boring

> boring

> boring

Oh my! HackerNews has an escape hatch for banhammering something they idealogically don't like!

Thanks for making me aware.

How you said it:

> Twitter’s already headed down the uncool social media curve like Facebook before it. There will be an exodus, but it would have happened either way. Once the parents get on, it starts the decline. When the grandparents are there…

> The “political” polarization is part of it. The older folks bring it with them. The majority flock to sites for information and escapism. The back and forth is just exhausting.

> It’s clearer for geek sites. Slashdot died when it got corporate and the content went to crap. Digg was the same. Reddit’s in process except niches. It’ll be same here.

> For everything there is a season.

What you sound like:

Yes and there shall be an exodus from the Twitters.

The parents shall come in, then the grandparents shall follow. Once those generations arrive the decline shall start. Not before. Not long after. But right after the grandparents, whence they arrive.

The polarization shall induce the decline. This wrought on by the older generations. And this is when the majority shall flock to sites for information and escapism.

Just as Slashdot, and Digg, declined before it, so shall the Twitters decline as well.

For everything, there is a season.

---

With your prescience, you must be a billionaire. Why don't you just buy Twitter off of Elon?

Looks like you were downvoted ... no response. You know what that means.

> My belief is that public forums with reach into the tens or hundreds of millions are fertile ground for nationalist and genocidal movements, and they will be used for that purpose if it is not actively prevented.

Yes, we must crush all opposition so your side can have absolute power!!!

Let them speak?

Not one chance, where shall you draw the line? Where only your side wishes to draw the line, of course. Perhaps, the only choice then is to crush the other side, for if you don't they will use the forum for "nationalist and genocidal movements". So you see, they must be eliminated in their entirety. Wiped from the existence of all forums, wiped from participation in establishing truths. Or maybe, since they always seem to find support, always seem to find people willing to fight for the rights they represent, always seem to come back when you try to silence and silence and silence every mouth that exists, instead of repeatedly ineffectively trying to suffocate a voice that wishes to speak, maybe what you need to do is to eliminate them all, all of them from existence. This is the only way you will ever prevent genocide.

> Reddit has hundreds of millions of users and millions of subreddits. HN is probably fairly comparable to a mid-sized subreddit

Yes, since you're going to bring up a generalization in my argument in order to dismiss the whole thing, let me clarify it with more words than would have been acceptable in the first post. There are free-speechly(for lack of a better word, since liberal means authoritatian these days) run subreddits as well authoritatively run subreddits. Hacker news is like a free-speechly run subreddit with moderation to reduce spam but not opposing viewpoints. A whole universe of subreddits out there. I should have been more careful to keep my argument less leaky, but largely most mainstream subreddits suffer from an ideology protecting regime.

Well run or not is not, that's a matter of opinion. You probably think those reddits you defend run by authoritarian reddit mods who believe in silencing "viewpoints dangerous to the reputation of their ideologies" is well run. I happen to think it approaches the fervor, passion, hope, zeal, and spirit of the third reich.

What are these ideologies? Ive already mentioned one. Communal vs Capitalistic beliefs. Reddit moderating is a job for people who believe in contributing to the community, and thats a good thing inherent to human nature, but a gaping flaw when we move so far past dunbars number that it wouldn't even register when looking at the whole. These very good ideological beliefs thus left unchecked in an environment it wasn't meant for transforms into the thing we see today where communal maintainers feel threatened by non-communal actors and often take the dark side of abusing their power to maintain order through authoritarian means. A complete removal of discussion of outside ideas because they threaten an ideology that only works when everyone plays along.

I'm not here to discuss that topic of communism/capitalism or any other "ideologies" though. Just here to point out that the rules that govern the system self selects personalities that gravitate towards ruling through certain means. That's the "conspiracy" that is observable in real time.

yikes. Fair enough.

Chicago is slowly dying by self imposed policies. Cue in guy shoving stick into bicycle wheel then holding shin meme. Chicago is a great city and everything you mentioned is completely avoidable. But again, its shoving a stick into its own wheel, quite intentfully at that.

Good news is they do exist, and manufacturers do make them even if they are prohibitively expensive. If you want it enough you can actually pay to get it made and shipped to you, which is better than not having that option at all.