Hacker News: Replies to greedo

New comment by avazhi in "What happened to the Snowden archive"

avazhi — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 08:54:32 +0000

And you are trying to separate them mentally as if they wouldn’t have a close relationship in a society that has existed for many generations. You seem to be suggesting that controlling a populace and ‘hanging on to power’ are necessarily inconsistent with governing a society. I can think of examples where clearly hanging on to power and working advantageously for the society don’t coincide (run of the mill African dictatorships come to mind), but there are other cases where a government’s self-interested control and domination of its population clearly coincide(d) with a society’s well being at the population level (Sparta, China). Perhaps we are referring to difference timescales here - I’m talking about, let’s say, 250 years minimum. But the longer the better (think: certain Chinese or Indian hierarchies).

New comment by avazhi in "What happened to the Snowden archive"

avazhi — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 15:18:53 +0000

Ok? And?

Again, if a society has been around for awhile they (specifically their leadership) are doing something right in terms of their culture, societal organisation etc, yeah?

New comment by WalterBright in "How SpaceX streamlined the Raptor engine"

WalterBright — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 03:56:22 +0000

I cannot imagine anything more dastardly than collecting his best engineers together to design & build a device to save the kids.

New comment by sharlos201068 in "How SpaceX streamlined the Raptor engine"

sharlos201068 — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 07:59:15 +0000

I don't like Musk, butt that's not really that unusual. Starliner has been in development for much longer and still doesn't work.

New comment by win311fwg in "What will our economic future look like?"

win311fwg — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 23:09:22 +0000

> If we had twice the number of doctors, PRNs, PAs, and nurses, their annual income would drop dramatically.

Yes, but the parent is saying that the middlemen will still charge the patients the same and pocket the difference. The patients have already shown what they are willing to pay. There is no reason to charge them less, even if your labor costs are now lower.

Theoretically competition will eventually squeeze the middleman, but it's not exactly straightforward to build a hospital on every street corner like you can a restaurant. There is somewhat of a natural monopoly there. Maybe less so for basic clinic care, but where the infrastructure needs are complex...

New comment by GJim in "Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond"

GJim — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 08:13:55 +0000

Your society needs help.

New comment by sroussey in "You probably own this 7-Eleven (and that's why it looks so sad)"

sroussey — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 00:46:56 +0000

It’s a reference as to why people go to McDonald’s even though a local one off burger place is very likely better — expectations. Particularly when traveling outside your known regular places.

It does not mean that McDonald’s replaced all restaurants, nor that they are better, but it does mean that when you go to one you know exactly what you are going to get vs the uncertainty of the unknown competitor.

It’s why suburbia all looks the same.

And for that matter, it’s happening in cities that pride themselves on not having things like McDonald’s. There is cool kids Blue Bottle coffee in SF, and LA, etc. Whole Foods used to be only in hip places and now it anywhere trying to be hip (don’t worry, Erehwon is here to soak up hipsters cash).

New comment by LorenPechtel in "US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide"

LorenPechtel — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 20:37:46 +0000

It's around here. Doesn't look like much of anything, except an awful lot of fence for what looks like not much of anything. I've never seen movement. (The highest mountain in the area sticks up nearly two miles above the base and overlooks it. This time of the year most hikers will be on some part of said mountain.)

New comment by tolien in "US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide"

tolien — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 22:24:13 +0000

It didn't help that there was a sense that it was a non-job compared to direct flying duties - "what do you mean PTSD, you spend all day playing DCS!" etc.

New comment by tim333 in "Mykhailo Fedorov reveals struggle to secure Patriot missiles and Western support"

tim333 — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 21:03:44 +0000

>During flight it can maneuver at different altitudes and trajectories and can pull up to 20 to 30 G to evade anti-ballistic missiles. https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/9K720_Iskander

>Russia’s Iskander-M ‘Game-Changer’ Dodges Patriot in Final Seconds, Rewriting Ukraine’s Missile-Defence War https://defencesecurityasia.com/en/russia-iskander-m-termina...

New comment by kstrauser in "US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide"

kstrauser — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 20:56:54 +0000

Huh. My memory's slightly different on that, but I can't find the source to cite so I'm can't argue it.

New comment by kstrauser in "US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide"

kstrauser — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 20:35:27 +0000

D'oh! Yes, Offut, of course.

My Google-fu is failing me right now, but when we lived in Nebraska, there was a long article in the Omaha World-Herald (I'm fairly sure) talking about the mental health problems of the local drone pilots. This would've been at least 15 years ago or so, and things have very likely moved around since then.