> [Graham's] judgment was based not on Altman’s track record, which was modest, but on his will to prevail, which Graham considered almost ungovernable.

One thing I don't understand is why Paul Graham offered YC to Altman if he knew how slippery he was..

I will give the PRT (formerly Port Authority) a shout out though:

1. Bikes are quick and convenient to bring along

2. The numbering system is intuitive enough that you can almost guess how to get to new neighborhoods

3. Accessibility is clearly a priority, and they successfully serve many disabled people

It's true that the technology currently works as an excellent information gathering tool (which I am happy to be excited about) but that doesn't seem to be the promise at this point, the promise is about replacing human creativity with artificial creativity which.. is certainly new and unwelcome.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45616607

Points: 2

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[1] https://www.pa.gov/agencies/education/programs-and-services/...

Why of course? Is the reason this is obvious to you unique to teenagers? When they turn 18 (or 20) do the reasons to restrict their freedoms immediately go away? Is there no possibility the 'obvious' reason in your mind couldn't occur for a different person in a different age bracket?

Effectively the problem is that wealth is an inherent feedback loop that naturally creates Pareto distributions instead of normal distributions. People don't have to be 'unfair' for this phenomenon to occur.

In this regard, I usually think of wealth as a proxy for agency. There are other (negatively correlated) proxies that can be conveniently disregarded by certain political persuasions:

* Debt - effectively going into debt is sacrificing future agency for the sake of the present. In the moment of obtaining a loan you will of course have more liquidity at your disposal but after that moment in time your freedoms are limited due to your debt obligations. It's more obscured with purely financial loans - the way it negatively impacts democracy is more obviously seen in quid pro quo arrangements.

* Welfare dependence - like any other dependency relying on welfare decreases an individual's agency. They cannot afford to live without the welfare apparatus they depend on for survival.

In a democratic system we want every voting individual to have as close to the average agency as possible so that there isn't a non-democratic force continually applied corrupting the democratic process. Conversely we know that human beings are strongly motivated by agency maximization which society also needs for progress - in other words, humans need opportunity. The job of a statesman should be to manage these competing priorities.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42341040

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Java -> Python -> C++ -> Rust -> Go

I have to say, given this progression going to Rust from C++ was wonderful, and going to Go from Rust was disappointing. I run into serious language issues almost daily. The one I ran into yesterday was that defer's function arguments are evaluated immediately (even if the underlying type is a reference!).

https://go.dev/play/p/zEQ77TIP8Iy

Perhaps with a progression Java -> Go -> Rust moving to rust could feel slow and painful.

I would say in a perfect world everyone should have all of these things.

The problem is that the marginal cost to giving each of these things to everyone increases to infinity as we approach 100% of a sufficiently large and diverse population. For example, creating a city water system should efficiently deliver clean water to a large proportion of an urban population. However, not everyone lives in an urban setting and delivering clean water to remote populations can get astronomically expensive.

As rational citizens we must acknowledge this unfortunate reality and figure out how to deal with it fairly and equitably. Profit seeking enterprise has been astoundingly effective at driving down these marginal costs for a whole host of goods for centuries. Many of these things you mention only exist because profit seekers developed and distributed them!

We as a society don't want to lose artistry that was painstakingly developed - there's no guarantee it will ever be developed to that level of sophistication again. I don't want future generations to look at my generation as we do the dark ages.

I think it's easy right now to think that progress is guaranteed or the opposite - that it's impossible to achieve. As population levels out civilization will need to become more about archiving what we know than pushing the envelope but no one wants to lose information.

U S Po st O ffice - Your package is with us, but we couldn't deliver it due to incomplete address information. Please update your details within 48 hours to ensure successful delivery. Click the link: https://t.co/lMeg8IZVfu?Rjk=iz518dOizI We'll schedule a new delivery within 24 hours after address verification. Regards, U S Po st Off ice.

It went to a form prompting for my name, home address and email/phone number.

I filled out the form without thinking much about it, didn't at first enter the email/phone because I thought it looked suspicious but then decided to do it anyways because they obviously already had the phone number.

The second page of the form was for a credit charge of .19 cents for a 'charge' for a redelivery. Chrome prompted to fill in the credit card info and I did it, didn't put in the security code and looked closely at the domain...

usco.dbgsmk.top

I looked up usps domains - it wasn't there... and I tried going to the index page for the domain and it was a bunch of chinese..

Question 1: how likely is it that the second form posted my credit card number?

Question 2: how bad is it if they got the credit card number w/o the security code?

I've locked the number but I'd rather not have to replace it...

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41130086

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_Zephyr

> One Zephyr can replace 250 cell phone towers. It can be used to perform intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) with a wide visual payload coverage of 20×30 km (12.4×18.6 mi) and can be equipped with radar, LIDAR and infrared technologies.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40846021

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

> Conclusion: I Genuinely Don’t Know What These People Are Thinking

Two things can be true at the same time (and are always true of 100's of aspects of modern life):

1. A devastating possibility is in theory possible, the likelihood of it happening is non-zero.

2. We can't live and make decisions catastrophizing given _we have absolutely no understanding_ about the real likelihood.

Is the coffee example a good argument? Of course not! But do we know the likelihood of humanity's ability to create super intelligence AND that that intelligence will cause unimaginable suffering? Uh I don't think so?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40063712

Points: 2

# Comments: 0