Hacker News: jbarciauskas

New comment by jbarciauskas in "The Twitter Files"

jbarciauskas — Sat, 03 Dec 2022 04:29:18 +0000

They exercised their free speech rights on their platform.

New comment by jbarciauskas in "The Twitter Files"

jbarciauskas — Sat, 03 Dec 2022 04:27:30 +0000

Sorry so which part of Biden or Trump asking for Twitter to review content that is against its own policies isn't free speech?

New comment by jbarciauskas in "The Twitter Files"

jbarciauskas — Sat, 03 Dec 2022 04:24:53 +0000

This is not how Section 230 works at all. The CDA got rid of the neutral platfom requirement. You are spreading misinformation. https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/22/20700099/section-230-comm...

New comment by jbarciauskas in "Is engineering management bullshit?"

jbarciauskas — Wed, 07 Sep 2022 16:01:05 +0000

It's extremely odd to characterize all modern management as Taylorism from the outset. The post seems to be flogging a strawperson argument and concluding with a summary of what I think is a fairly broad consensus about what modern management of knowledge workers actually looks like: finding competent people, setting rich context and providing frequent and actionable feedback.

New comment by jbarciauskas in "Blocking Kiwifarms"

jbarciauskas — Sun, 04 Sep 2022 00:09:45 +0000

Yes. Also gray areas do exist. This isn't one of them.

New comment by jbarciauskas in "The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero"

jbarciauskas — Sat, 03 Sep 2022 16:38:14 +0000

The way this is phrased, I expected to learn there was some benefit to a low amount of fraud, as such. There is not. There is a benefit to a high amount of trust, which necessitates accepting some amount of fraud.

New comment by jbarciauskas in "Prediction Markets Beat Polls"

jbarciauskas — Tue, 17 Nov 2020 23:19:36 +0000

This is lacks a strong causal analysis. We still don't understand why polls are consistently undershooting Trump support. Given the performance of polls in 2018, it seems highly correlated to Trump's presence on the ballot, and unclear if it will recur in a future presidential election. Ascribing better analysis to markets than polls requires us to ask "how?", and there isn't a clear mechanism.

New comment by jbarciauskas in "Is insurance more expensive in Black neighborhoods?"

jbarciauskas — Thu, 06 Aug 2020 02:55:17 +0000

I don't understand the question.

The OP was edited in response to this, but I'm still mystified. I'm not making a particular claim about anything other than the experience of Black people in America, so I don't see how the question is relevant.

New comment by jbarciauskas in "Is insurance more expensive in Black neighborhoods?"

jbarciauskas — Thu, 06 Aug 2020 02:06:18 +0000

There are a lot of replies here asking about correlation with non-racial factors such as economics or crime. The fact of the matter is that Blacks in America are poorer, suffer higher rates of unemployment, lower educational attainment and are forced to live in higher crime areas as the result of decades of racist housing policies and centuries of oppression. This is reflecting that legacy. Black people pay many different taxes merely for being Black in America, this is just another in a long list. As another example, Black people pay higher tax rates due to higher relative property assessments (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/07/02/black-pro...).

For a more complete accounting, I recommend reading The Color of Law https://www.epi.org/publication/the-color-of-law-a-forgotten...

New comment by jbarciauskas in "Building a Developer Cult"

jbarciauskas — Tue, 21 Jul 2020 03:35:06 +0000

Agreed. There's very little evidence to support the claims about what is discussed here is what made Stripe successful. Intuitively many of the claims seem true but where is the data?

New comment by jbarciauskas in "Nearly half of global coal plants will be unprofitable this year"

jbarciauskas — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 01:16:15 +0000

It's an industry with highly inelastic supply and a huge drop in demand.

New comment by jbarciauskas in "Fed “digital dollars” are part of debate over coronavirus stimulus"

jbarciauskas — Wed, 25 Mar 2020 02:14:50 +0000

That's incredibly regressive. Give money to people who will spend it.

New comment by jbarciauskas in "Fed “digital dollars” are part of debate over coronavirus stimulus"

jbarciauskas — Wed, 25 Mar 2020 01:59:10 +0000

What? Who cares about taxes when you don't have cash in your pocket or food on your table

New comment by jbarciauskas in "What happens to a mail-order mattress after you return it"

jbarciauskas — Sat, 22 Feb 2020 05:43:55 +0000

Yeah that's fair but that's not a realistic way to view the cost of a finished consumer product.

New comment by jbarciauskas in "What happens to a mail-order mattress after you return it"

jbarciauskas — Fri, 21 Feb 2020 00:33:14 +0000

COGS for Casper is ~50%, which doesn't quite line up with your $50. I suppose if you mean $50 in raw materials, plus construction costs, then fine, but that doesn't get you to 20x markup. The margin isn't that crazy. Typical retail markup is 30%.

New comment by jbarciauskas in "Twitter locks WikiLeaks account days before Assange's extradition hearing"

jbarciauskas — Mon, 17 Feb 2020 22:30:19 +0000

I don't think the evidence is that that's the biggest issue in general, and certainly not in this case.

New comment by jbarciauskas in "Facebook quitters report more life satisfaction, less depression and anxiety"

jbarciauskas — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 02:53:38 +0000

I think the idea is that if you are privileged enough to have the time to be politically engaged, you are morally obligated to use that privilege to make society more just. Failing to do so is a moral failure. Note that this perspective could be equally applied regardless of other frames of reference, e.g. it could equally mean you feel obligated to advocate for UBI or lower taxes, whatever you think would make the biggest difference.

New comment by jbarciauskas in "Richard M. Stallman resigns"

jbarciauskas — Tue, 17 Sep 2019 02:56:43 +0000

The standard of evidence is lower in civil cases than criminal ones. Taking away someone's bodily autonomy is different than saying you can't have a prominent role at a prestigious institution. You don't (or shouldn't) have an inalienable right to power.

And, again, the facts aren't even in dispute.

New comment by jbarciauskas in "Richard M. Stallman resigns"

jbarciauskas — Tue, 17 Sep 2019 02:48:59 +0000

I don't think the many people who have experienced his abuse directly, or the victims he is trying to minimize, would agree with your assessment of what's important.

New comment by jbarciauskas in "Richard M. Stallman resigns"

jbarciauskas — Tue, 17 Sep 2019 02:40:18 +0000

Demanding the same standard of evidence we demand in court and science to disrupt human power structures helps those with power retain it and use it against those who have less power.

Also what he said is fully public, so I don't understand what you, or he, is objecting to.