StackRanker3000

> Giving away food to homeless is a crime in many places. Bad capitalism.

How is this due to capitalism?

I mean, I can maybe see how you can tie it to NIMBYism, and from there to capitalism through the desire to maintain or increase property values. But that's a stretch, and only one mechanism

There are many drivers for this type of regulation, some more well-meaning than others. Most of them would not go away simply because we ceased private ownership of the means of production

The way I understand it (and my understanding is certainly poor, so I welcome well-supported pushback on it), is that few, if any, components in the food that we in developed countries eat today are actively harmful in themselves (with the caveat outlined below)

The main issue is overconsumption leading to overweight and obesity. Food that’s high in refined sugars and/or saturated fats tend to contribute to this, because it’s palatable and calorie-dense

So in that sense, yes - I believe that as long as your diet is varied enough that you get sufficient intake of all, or at least most, of the essential nutrients, and you don’t eat too much (i.e. in moderation), the ratio of macronutrients doesn’t make a big difference to your health outcome

The crux is that moderation is hard when the food is jam-packed with calories, and it’s so delicious you just want to keep stuffing your face

So the only two options you can imagine entail his detractors being irrational and emotional? You can not comprehend that anyone can have any valid complaint regarding him and his behavior at all?

Musk has accomplished some remarkable things, by having grand visions, ruthlessly executing on them, and being willing to repeatedly take on a massive amount of risk. If that had been all, I don’t think many people would be decrying him like this. It’s still easy to justify admiring those bits, if you’re so inclined

But he has also done a lot of things that make him unlikable and are harder to justify. He happily whips up massive amounts of hype, regardless of how likely his claims are to actually manifest (which is a large part of why the Tesla stock price is where it’s at). He sucks himself off at every possible turn, and takes dubious personal credit for a lot of things his companies achieve. He is vindictive and has exacted retribution on people with much less power than him (or pouts about it in an undignified fashion when the opponent is too powerful to crush, like the SEC). He has an easily bruised ego and lashes out in a very childish manner (remember the diver he called a pedo on Twitter). He enters into realms he has no expertise in and proclaims to the whole world that he has all the answers. He directly interferes in US and world politics by wielding his wealth and influence, sometimes with disastrous results (it doesn’t help that his political views usually are unsophisticated and immature, especially since he acts so certain of them). Etc, etc

Basically, he’s a dickhead that thinks he’s the best in the world at everything, and many of whose actions are detrimental to both individuals and the world at large. He doesn’t get a free pass for that just because he’s done some impressive things with his businesses

Free speech by foreign governments (or controlled by foreign governments) has never been protected by the US constitution, right?

I do agree that Trump, in both his administrations, has made it starkly clear that its checks and balances are quite impotent against a person or party that doesn’t care to follow the rules, so long as they have enough supporters that also don’t care, or are misled

> Hm, those are all valid, but they're also from the perspective of only caring about external forces. It's as if the work itself is only relevant insofar as we get something out of it.

From the perspective of the organization that pays you to do it, it is? At best there may be another mission that it genuinely cares about, usually there’s only a profit motive (which is also fine). If you want to create software as an end in itself or enjoy the craft without compromise, it usually can’t be in the context of a job or a business

Our job is to produce the best possible outcomes given the constraints we’re faced with, and inform leadership so that they’re aware of the tradeoffs when they make their decisions. Sometimes those decisions are going to be bad, and obviously it’s justified to be frustrated then. Other times they are correct, even when it means compromises on the engineering side. That’s when we have to just suck it up (or go elsewhere)

I still think there’s room for enjoying the work of creating software even under imperfect conditions. Striving for perfection is for hobbies, or the very rare circumstance when it’s justified by the goals of the organization

I don’t think anyone is arguing that the basic idea of offshoring was invented after the COVID pandemic… But rather that workplaces and workforces geared towards remote working has made it more feasible and accelerated the process

Spotify offers lossless now. But before that the highest quality was 320 kbps AAC, and if you’re able to differentiate between that and lossless even on state of the art equipment under perfect conditions, for the vast majority of songs, you’re an extreme outlier (and in that case, sure - go for the lossless option)

You can also download up to 10,000 songs per device for offline use, which should be enough for a plane ride

I can see other issues one might have with Spotify, but I don’t really think those are among them. I’ve had it for about 15 years, and I’ve been consistently happy with it for my own use

Not saying you’re wrong in this particular instance, but there are all sorts of areas where we accept that harm will occur at scale (e.g. that 40,000 people per year die in motor-vehicle incidents just in the US). How do we determine what is reasonable to expect?

A synecdoche can either be when you use a part to represent the whole, or conversely use the whole to represent a part

I think it’s valid to consider the US government a part of the US. Thus, referring to the US government when saying that the US did something is a synecdoche

I can mainly speak for Sweden, but basically the answer there actually is ”everybody who wants to and meets the minimum requirements (essentially having graduated high school)”

Sweden has higher gross enrolment in tertiary education than the US, and a larger proportion of older students (people who go back later in life to progress their education or change paths)

I’ve heard that in countries like Germany people are often ”locked in” by choices they’ve made at an early age. There’s an element of that in Sweden too (more vocationally-focused high school programs may not give you all the courses that you need to enter all university programs), but that is not too onerous to overcome if you change your mind later (you can do ”foundational studies” to bridge the gap, or just sit exams to prove that you’re qualified)

Edit: but it’s maybe also to your point that universities have limited seats, just like everywhere. Maybe your high school grades or score at the equivalent of the SAT aren’t high enough to study mathematics at the top-rated institution even if you’re qualified, because there are too many people ahead of you. But you will be able to go to uni somewhere to study something

> For an extreme example: Harvard's tuition is nominally $60K per year, but for families earning $200K or less it's $0. Many prestigious universities follow similar patterns resulting in a large percentage of students paying no tuition, the middle ground of students paying some fraction, and a small number of students from wealthy families subsidizing everyone else.

As someone from a country (Sweden) that to a larger extent has decreased people’s reliance on their families, and grown the welfare state instead, it’s weird to think that your parents wealth or income should have any impact on things like tuition, once you’ve reached the age of majority

Once I finished high school, my parents had nothing to do with my business as far as any institutions were concerned, and vice versa. But uni was tax-funded and free at the point of use. And when they get too old to care for themselves, it will likely be the government supporting them financially, not me (unless I strike it rich first, in which case I suppose they’ll spend their sunset years in style)

But that doesn’t explain why this particular justification is especially ”wild”, does it?

It could, it just doesn’t want to. Or at least the inertia and obstacles of gaining enough political support for doing it, paired with the reluctance of the powerful entities that gain from the existing system, prevents it from happening. But there is nothing that makes it fundamentally incompatible with still allowing private enterprise and profit

Yes, it’s similar in the UK.

If you make over £100k, you lose your personal tax-free allowance. That means that your effective tax rate from £100k-£125,140 is 60%

That doesn’t in itself make you worse off than people making less than you, but when one parent makes over £100k, that’s the cut-off for receiving 30 hours of free childcare, as well as additional tax-free childcare up to £2000

So if you have small children with childcare needs, you can suddenly be worse off as soon as you or your partner hit £100k

One way to avoid both of these is to pay the additional money into your pension instead