skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
There is an argument that the problems people see with both 'real wage stagnation' and 'increased divorce rates' are really problems caused by measuring the wrong thing.

The argument is quite clear when it comes to the divorce rate; Being alone, if financially tenable, is better than being in a bad relationship, so if you make being alone financially tenable for another half of the population, divorce rates will go up, and in that case, it becomes quite difficult to argue that increased divorce rates are bad. In fact, one could argue the opposite, that increased divorce rates indicate people being able to leave unpleasant relationships.

The argument is a lot less clear for wages. The strongest argument, I think, is that if you are measuring average per worker pay, women on average make less than men, and thus you will get a lower rate for 'average worker' than for 'average male worker' - even today, those numbers are stark, and before the 1970s, your 'average worker' demographics looked a lot more like what you'd see in today's "average male worker" statistics; I think you'll find that 'average male pay' has climbed rather a lot more than 'average pay'

The other argument, I think, is a lot weaker; if you double the number of workers, some would argue, you will naturally depress wages. (Of course, others would argue that the secondary effects of having more workers in an economy would make the economy more wealthy and drive wages up overall.)
> We're talking about whether they are willing to cooperate as a society.

And what does "cooperate as a society" mean? If there is indeed a goal that every member of the society has in common, then yes, it makes sense for everyone in the society to cooperate to achieve that goal. But too often, "cooperate as a society" really means that some people get to choose the goal and force everyone else to cooperate to achieve it, whether they agree with the goal or not. That is the kind of "cooperation" that the American culture of individualism rejects.
> ...the rich hoard their money in Scrooge McDuck cash vaults, keeping it out of the economy.

I did NOT say that. Please don't attack a straw man!

> All of it is in the economy, via investments. Even money kept in a checking account is invested in the economy (banks loan out that money).

It's a little more complicated than that. Since the Global Financial Crisis, many central banks around the world, including the Federal Reserve, have been doing EVERYTHING and ANYTHING they can to get banks to lend more, and to get businesses and individuals to borrow more and invest more.

Yet no matter what central banks have tried, individuals and businesses are not yet investing at historical rates, as evidenced by historically high liquidity[1], historically low money velocity[2], and even negative nominal interest rates in some countries[3], which are historically unique.[4] Keynes's argument that depressionary depressions/recessions may be caused by increased 'preference' for liquidity and lack of aggregate demand could actually be right, for all I know.

Meanwhile, the evidence I've seen suggests that redistributionist policies don't seem to have an impact on economic growth. For example, see: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2014/sdn1402.pdf

So, why not try it, e.g., in the form of UBI or works programs, say, in controlled regional experiments? If it turns out that it works, great; if it doesn't work, then let's try something else.

NOTES:

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AMBNS -- look at that jump in 2008!

[2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2V

[3] Example: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-snb-results-banks-idUSKBN...

[4] http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-5000-years-of-interest-...
I think the coercion argument is nonsense. There are all kinds of coercion including economic coercion that happens in free markets.

It also ignores vastly top end income tax rates for nearly 4 decades, which weren't less than 75%. And ignores the relatively higher taxes in other countries where people, where trust in government is much higher than in the U.S.

Taxes should be seen as fair, and increasingly Americans think that you can avoid taxes by having clever accoutants and attorneys. Leona Helmsley "We don't pay taxes; only the little people pay taxes" is an example of how tax burden has changed.
It seems you've already given up. Sad. If you want to understand more about how this all works in the future feel free to message me.
Custom Elements v1: Reusable Web Components
Yep, that's pretty much spot on. R/Bitcoin is extremely censored (and the mod logs are not public). R/BTC is another discussion forum that seems to be more open (people from R/Bitcoin will say otherwise). You'd think they'd spend more time talking about all the amazing things blockchain technologies are going to facilitate, but they mostly just spend their time hating on the other group. Sad, but what do you expect, both groups are comprised of "humans on the internet"!!
Solar Eclipse live stream
Wikipedia is a great example of a free decentralized product.

I suppose a way without having to ask for donations is one I would be interested in though I suspect there are " whales" who make up the bulk.

I think the issue with Wikipedia, though it has been able to scale to reach the world, is that it seem to lack the power to change how info is distributed and consumed in the spirit of Google and Facebook outside its digital border.
If you are to look specifically at the health angle (and it surprisingly even affects our mental health), we have suffered a double whammy of the change in diet plus the widespread use of antibiotics.

It is becoming increasingly clear that our gut microbiome has a wide-ranging affect on many aspects of our health; and that the standard western diet is not good for a healthy gut microbiome and that taking antibiotics can have a detrimental affect on the gut microbiome as well.

Our gut bacteria are not only responsible for digesting much of the foods we eat. They regulate our immune systems. They also create chemicals that pass into our blood steam, and even pass the blood brain barrier, affecting our behavior.

There has been a severe decline in the health of our gut microbiome in recent generations. The extent this has had an impact on our lives is yet to be determined ––

I suspect the rise of food allergy problems is at least one of the issues. There is also the possibility that this has been a major factor in the rise of autism (which is commonly accompanied by IBD), as well as the significant increase in IBD diseases.

It certainly seems possible to me that sperm count could be affected by our body's digestion system, and the health of the gut microbiome that is so central to it.
In particular, the article says:

"In a Harvard study published last year in the journal Human Reproduction, Jorge E. Chavarro, M.D., Sc.D., and his colleagues found a strong association between men’s consumption of soy foods and decreased sperm counts."

The study in question seems to be this:

https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article/23/11/2584/2913898/S...

"The intake of 15 soy-based foods in the previous 3 months was assessed for 99 male partners of subfertile couples who presented for semen analyses to the Massachusetts General Hospital Fertility Center. ... There was an inverse association between soy food intake and sperm concentration that remained significant after accounting for age, abstinence time, body mass index, caffeine and alcohol intake and smoking. In the multivariate-adjusted analyses, men in the highest category of soy food intake had 41 million sperm/ml less than men who did not consume soy foods." (For reference, various sources say anywhere from 20 to 150 million sperm/ml is average.)

Contrariwise, the Wiki article on soy points to this meta-study (from four years before the above):

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20378106

"Clinical evidence also indicates that isoflavones have no effect on sperm or semen parameters, although only three intervention studies were identified and none were longer than 3 months in duration."

Here's another from a few months after the meta-study:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19819436

That last one seems to be a randomized controlled study, where they gave a bunch of college men either milk protein or one of two variants of soy protein.

I don't know if there's anything in soy that isn't in the "soy protein isolates" from the last study. If there isn't, then the last study seems like strong evidence. The first one could conceivably come down to some sort of selection bias.
How is that ethical? You are now harming two people, one by mental trauma who is presumably innocent, to reach the same goal you could have reached by sending in a UAV.
Great article. If only that 30% bit were true about Rudin.
What's even more amazing is how much people paid for that "stuff".
Five female-led tech businesses aiming to change the world
I use guar gum at home in my ice cream as it helps guarantee a good mouth feel, you use less than 1/2 a teaspoon for a couple of litres. Why do you not like it?
Totally. The message of the Minimalism doc.

https://www.netflix.com/title/80114460

Got rid of 20% of my stuff this year and hope to get rid of 20% more.
http://archive.is/5vpqW
Did not understand what you are complaining against. There is no university education or any kind of training for life. My entire experience in tech is learning a new piece of technology every few years.

Any company that is likely to hire can only give you base set of skills, beyond this its on you take it forward from there. Also in my experience these companies have routine training for most bleeding edge tech. Not many people sign up for it. During my time there, very few people had the inclination or appetite to take on technically intensive work and bulk of the crowd was in only because they needed a job and it was easy to get one here.

Plus the motivation of many people was getting easy abroad travel opportunities and ability to get by life doing low intensity tech work at a good monthly pay.
Yep, and "South" is a somewhat archaic term to refer to developing countries. Australia is not of the "South" despite being in the southern hemisphere.[1]

It's also weird to refer to the Asian countries north-west of Australia as "Far East"; though that usage is also fading.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North%E2%80%93South_divide
I once made a comment like this to my father. His response was: "that feeling is a luxury of having grown up with a plentitude of stuff". And I think he's got a point. It's really easy to get rid of stuff if you know that you can replace it (or at least replace its function). If you travel to places where "stuff" is not plentiful, people cherish their belongings (stuff) more
Most of my "stuff" is clothes (which I actually wear), books, and hobby-related equipment. There is nothing in the garage but my washer and dryer, and, occasionally, my car. I have no desire to clutter up my apartment with more, though I am thinking of putting a workshop in my garage and just parking in my driveway.
bit OT but I was really disappointed by that documentary. It's a completely uncritical surface level look at the ideas. Was really expecting something a bit more developed.

Then I realized that the two who are interviewed for it were in fact the ones making the documentary, so it has a whole infomercial feel to it.
great tool!
Banks don't loan deposits, this is a common myth.
> women on average make less than men, and thus you will get a lower rate for 'average worker' than for 'average male worker' - even today

I've also heard that is attributable to woman having to bear the brunt of childbirth.
27" iMac has been 2560×1440 from 2009 until they went retina in 2014 (and they're now double in both dimensions, so same logical resolution).

At arm's length, on a 27" screen, 1440p is very practical. Getting more screen space than 1080p is what bumped me from 21-24" screens, and it fills my vision enough that if I jumped to 4k I'd either be moving my head back and forth with a 40" screen, dealing with even smaller UI elements, or wrestling with OS scaling.
My simple point is there are many cases where money better serves society as charity (no return on investment) rather than as an investment. There are cases where the free market fails to solve societal problems - all those charity companies and problems like healthcare/education.

I'm tired of seeing the same trope of "the free market solves all problems" when there are clear counterexamples. Its clear as day to me that $1B spent on malaria is better than $1B spent on the next advertising startup. The ad company may have been a great investment and many employees would be recipients of the money like you say. Doesn't change the fact that there are better uses for the money - uses not served by the incentive structure of free markets.
and... how old are you?
Actually, I'm in the process of getting the world's simplest v1 up and running. Please keep talking though -- it means you're not working.
Exactly. Whatever happened to the powerful radars these war ships carry?
This is what I recommend to people moving into a new place: Check your local classifieds toward the end of the month when leases expire.

Tons of stuff for cheap since everyone is trying to get rid of things, but nobody is buying.

My best deal was when I got them to help me carry over a coffee table, mini-dining table and 5 chairs. Of course I paid full price.

P.S. if you mail a lot of things, you can usually buy old stamps on Ebay for ~65 cents on the dollar from collectors whose stamps aren't valuable.
I think that's generous. If only it were limited to greed is good. This is about class, not merely greed. Class is the idea that some people are simply better than other people, be it by bloodline, family name, meritocracy. The preservation of the aristocracy is paramount, but right there along with it is aristocrats first, others second. Sometimes a distant second. If you have more money you get better education, health care, justice, and might even pay lower taxes as a percentage of earned income.

This sort of nonsense is also where we get prosperity theology from. You'd think these people would have read Job.
>> Propst himself accused companies of manipulating his original idea into “hellholes.”

Ironic.

This so-called visionary had no idea his futuristic ideals would be twisted by the drive to increase profit by cutting corners in an economy where people are seen as milking cattle.
Interesting. Only in Chrome 54/Safari 10.1/Opera 46 so far.
http://caniuse.com/#search=web%20components

But there's a polyfill, and more discussion here:

https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/architecture/...
A few years ago I took a job 4000km away, and I got rid of everything in my apartment. As I boarded my departure flight, I was carrying everything I owned in a backpack and carryon suitcase. I didn't even have checked luggage, and I didn't even own a pair of pants (wore sweatpants on the flight). It was a great feeling.
RE your second argument: population increases have always been happening, so why would it only be from the 70s that it would finally depress wage growth?
Both sides point to a plausible argument for "Less or More than (say) Ten things is undesirable".

EDIT: turns out Mel Brooks has already spoken on the matter: https://youtu.be/Ah-WdAwVg9c?t=59
You're painting open offices in a completely negative light without seeing that they also have upsides.

I'm in the same position as the CTO above and giving everyone a private office in my company is not even remotely close to being financially feasible. What's more, a lot of engineers actually voiced a preference for open space plans over individual offices.

Cubicles are on the table as an acceptable compromise but given the growth at which we're hiring and growing, it's just not physically feasible.
When my dad passed away about 8 years ago, my mum had this cathartic episode where she gave away virtually everything that she and dad owned, which even surprised us (my sisters and I). She even gave stuff away to strangers who came around to help her pack stuff to move to a smaller place.

In one way, it was great that we didn't have to sort it all out and deal with it, but in another, there were some things (like my dad's golf clubs and the family piano) that I would dearly have liked to hold on to because of the intense good memories those items represented to me (mum taught me to play piano on that particular instrument, and I have very cherished memories of playing golf with my dad when he used that set).

Now I am in the same bind, as I look around at all my stuff, including a collection of 30+ guitars that I have built up over the years. I've told my sons (who are both musical by the way) that they will inherit them when I am gone, but NOT to hold on to them as obsessively as I have. I explained to them that if it will help them to pay for studies, or buy a car/house etc. that they need, they should feel no hesitation in selling any and all of it as they see fit - there is no emotional obligation to them to hang on to 'stuff' unless they actually feel an emotional connection to do so.

At one stage, I even considered being buried with one of my favourite guitars, but then I thought 'No', it would do much better service above ground if they can use or sell it instead.
Opex vs capex
Children of men was infertility of women.
I would really encourage you to move on the interviewing as soon as you can. I was in your position, desperately unhappy with the working conditions, and now I'm in a small quiet office with 4 to 5 other people and I have never been happier in my work.

In the meantime, get yourself a set of Bose Quiet Comfort 35s. An absolutely life changing piece of equipment for me at least. If nothing else you will comfortable enjoy the movies on the next flight you catch instead of having to crank the volume to the maximum to barely hear it over the constant background roar of the engines.
>there seemed to be a connection between a disorganized living space with a disorganized mind/life. I cleaned all of that up and found I had better health, had time for the things I enjoy most in life, and was far happier than I would have imagined by having "less."

I agree and think this concept is ancient, evidenced by the concept of spring cleaning and the idea of-not necessarily the quote - "cleanliness is next to godliness".
It's quantified, along with the gains from ease of access to everyone and the increased communications and social geling of everyone.

Individual offices are simply not worth it, financially, culturally and physically.
Do you think those fights would have been possible without the possibility of financial independence?
This is the common theory but it doesn't really hold up. The weight of lab animals is also increasing. Even though we have records showing they haven't changed their diets or routines significantly. Chimpanzees in particular, the animal most closely related to humans, have increased in weight drastically each decade.

EDIT: Source https://aeon.co/essays/blaming-individuals-for-obesity-may-b...

>As were laboratory macaques, chimpanzees, vervet monkeys and mice, as well as domestic dogs, domestic cats, and domestic and feral rats from both rural and urban areas. In fact, the researchers examined records on those eight species and found that average weight for every one had increased. The marmosets gained an average of nine per cent per decade. Lab mice gained about 11 per cent per decade. Chimps, for some reason, are doing especially badly: their average body weight had risen 35 per cent per decade.

>In fact, lab animals’ lives are so precisely watched and measured that the researchers can rule out accidental human influence: records show those creatures gained weight over decades without any significant change in their diet or activities.
Western cultural values, I guess.

This seems to be a really weird talking point of the right wing (although I'm not saying that it's only the right, or that hyperdunc is right wing), that people have stopped caring about hyper-masculinity, and it must be caused by hormones and not just a change in cultural values.
So you prefer open floor plans to cubicles?
I just saw him in this documentary 8 hrs ago, Dying Laughing (2016) [0]

[0] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5068712/
Python: https://github.com/llSourcell/The_Power_of_the_blockchain/bl...

Relevant video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZEHOlZY2To
TSA “saw” Bitcoin in my bag and wanted to count it
Heading for second seed round!
Well homosexuality being more accepted I guess would be a cultural change, yes, but that doesn't mean there are more gay men now than there were before, it means there are more men who are openly gay than there were before. It's a bit hard to tell whether there was an actual increase in gay men due to the known fact that many men hid their sexuality prior to it being more acceptable.

I think this is a far more sensible and defensible position and a simpler explanation than something in water, unless that was a facetious comment.
Glad that you liked my advice. I am going to start doing it once more. I am a vacation at the moment.
Show HN: CLI for Spotify
Reddit has a lot of resources for you. For instance take a look at this

https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur

Here's a check list of things to be done for marketing.

https://www.sideprojectchecklist.com/
https://www.reddit.com/r/SideProject/comments/6s8b2u/a_check...
Watch Icarus or look into any of the state-sponsored avoidance programs. Your answers lie there.

Also Winstrol and Test Propionate (or Suspension) have short detection times, HGH didn't have a test until recently, and EPO was in the same boat.
An article from someone who knows little about the history of electric motors. I recommend "Men and Volts - A History of the General Electric Company" on this.

Early motors had serious limitations. DC motors wouldn't maintain constant speed as the load varied, had major brush wear problems, and tended to require frequent brush adjustment. Sprague, and the unknown person who invented carbon brushes, fixed that. AC motors wouldn't start under load. Tesla, Scott, and Steinmetz fixed that. Insulating materials were not very good. They were either flammable and subject to aging (varnished cambric, wood, paper) or not oil-tolerant and subject to aging (natural rubber). This limited the power density to less than 10% of what ordinary modern motors achieve.

The materials problem was particularly difficult. We're used to having quite good materials available for almost all purposes - insulators which can handle high temperatures and aren't brittle, wire that isn't brittle, low-cost ball bearings that run for years without oiling, all with consistent, repeatable properties from batch to batch. That was not the case up to WWII at all.

They did have asbestos, though. General Electric Deltabeston Wire. [1] "Will not age or crack." This was a high-end product around 1920.

[1] http://www.ebay.com/itm/1936-GENERAL-ELECTRIC-DELTABESTON-MA...
I don’t fully understand it myself, but this seems like a good introduction:

https://people.mpi-sws.org/~joshua/bitype.pdf

edit: but it’s incomplete: it never gets around to discussing subtyping and thus helping justify its existence. I think the main point is that due to subtyping and other complexities, we may not be able to synthesize the type of an expression just by looking at it, but if its type has been determined by other constraints, we can still check that that type is valid for the expression.
That's adding a lot of paperwork and process for something that should be done in a few minutes.

You're excessively reducing productivity if you require each face to face to require a meeting booking.
They say nothing brings people together like a common enemy. I'm surprised no one has correlated the periods of 'good feelings' with incidence of war, at least of the ones that posed credible threats to the nation. The first polarization low immediately followed the war of 1812. From there polarization increased until WW1, at which point it abruptly halted, then plummeted through to the end of WW2.