Hacker News: nec4b

New comment by nec4b in "China Overtakes U.S. For First Time as Top Spender on R&D in 2024"

nec4b — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 15:57:40 +0000

> Yes, we'd have to squeeze the richest people and share a little more equally.

China rejected the ideology of squeezing the rich and became wealthy. Why would you like to do exact opposite and expect to come on top?

New comment by nec4b in "Has Violence Against Teachers Become Accepted by Society?"

nec4b — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 19:41:36 +0000

I think you are exactly right. This is the product of society which has more empathy towards the bullies, because they are the real victims, ignored and left behind by the society. On the other hand there is very little empathy towards actual victims themselves. And to go further probably the majority of teachers believe, support and vote for people holding such ideas.

New comment by nec4b in "Japan moves to tighten rules for foreigners"

nec4b — Sun, 27 Sep 2026 18:24:55 +0000

Because that is how they want it. What more of explaining do you need?

New comment by nec4b in "How high is current immigration to the United States in historical perspective?"

nec4b — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 19:15:37 +0000

>The US inherited corn, pumpkin, tomatoes, chillies, and tobacco from the native population.

You have almost all of that e.g. in Europe and nobody associates it with native Americans.

New comment by nec4b in "Remembering the King who Drowned"

nec4b — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 14:55:37 +0000

Do you think Turkey can again become a great regional player in the near future? Looking at the population projections for the Balkans and surrounding countries like Hungary, things don't look great long term. Also Austria is afraid to make a statue of the polish king who saved Vienna from Ottomans in order to not hurt t the feelings of it's Turkish migrant population.

New comment by nec4b in "U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications"

nec4b — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 20:38:51 +0000

If you were a native American it certainly felt outrages or do you think otherwise?

New comment by nec4b in "And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway"

nec4b — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 21:05:46 +0000

Ironically you are making his point. Countries that have stronger respect for property rights dump way less or no garbage in the oceans as the countries where there is no such respect.

New comment by nec4b in "Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record Territory Ahead Winter"

nec4b — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 15:08:58 +0000

So which economical system enables us to talk to inanimate objects or unborn babies, since you think this is a fault of capitalism? You have a deep misunderstanding of markets and capitalism!

New comment by nec4b in "Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record Territory Ahead Winter"

nec4b — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 15:06:23 +0000

Again you brought it up.

New comment by nec4b in "Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record Territory Ahead Winter"

nec4b — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 19:03:38 +0000

A country that can't provide basic goods like bananas and coffee, needs to send millions of it's people to another country so they can survive, represses minorities and political dissidents, has Lukasenko type of dictator for life as president and finally bankrupts and violently disintegrates with a genocide is a definition of a failed state. I do ideologicaly oppose to such a system to be revived, it would be criminal to want that.

New comment by nec4b in "Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record Territory Ahead Winter"

nec4b — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 18:55:49 +0000

How exactly can you ask an unborn child, a river or a glacier what it wants? Did the Yugoslav dictator ask Kosovars what they want before violently oppressing them?

New comment by nec4b in "Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record Territory Ahead Winter"

nec4b — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 21:58:53 +0000

You brought the failed state of Yugoslavia as model. I don't have a clue why though. Its economic model certainly doesn't solve any of the existing problems and it would exacerbate them. The forest will burn and rivers will run dry as long as this planet will exist. You are acting as if this is not a naturally occurring phenomena.

New comment by nec4b in "Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record Territory Ahead Winter"

nec4b — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 21:51:04 +0000

No, every one participates. Ordinary people the most, because the capitalist first and foremost need to provide value to us. I'm not sure what do you mean by rivers, glaciers or others not participating in the market? Isn't it evident people assign great value to natural resources. The world is a bit older then 120 years in your graph. There were a lot of natural disasters that wiped quite a lot of living beings from the planet.

New comment by nec4b in "Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record Territory Ahead Winter"

nec4b — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 16:09:23 +0000

>>Value for who? Value as determined by who?

Value for us, real people who have needs. We decide what we want to buy and not some apparatchik on their pedestal.

>>Rivers here are drying out. Glaciers are melting. Forests are burning.

As if this never happened before capitalism?

New comment by nec4b in "Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record Territory Ahead Winter"

nec4b — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 16:02:00 +0000

Yugoslavia failed spectacularly economically. People had to smuggle bananas, diapers, coffee and jeans among other goods from the neighboring Italy and Austria. Millions of people (Gastarbeiter) migrated to Germany to be able support their families, because there was no opportunity at home. Inflation was horrendous, people exchanged the local currency to german marks on the same day as the payday, otherwise by the next day it was worth half as much. There was a shortage of gasoline and people sometimes waited years to get a car. But yes the dictator and the red nobility lived very well for sure.

New comment by nec4b in "Everything you do is being recorded"

nec4b — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 16:05:35 +0000

Do you never have problems with transportation like breakdowns or accidents stopping the traffic for a while or having some sort of emergency where you need to drop everything an take care of it?

New comment by nec4b in "The USSR in 100 Photographs"

nec4b — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 12:20:08 +0000

People miss their youth. You can do the same poll anywhere and the results will be similar, whether that place was a communist dictatorship or not. And no it's not a simple fact that people enjoyed their lives. Maybe it was for your family who was either close to power or ideologically agreed with the dictatorship. Communism was good to the the people aligned with the regime, but for anyone who had a dissident idea, it was hell on earth. A lot of things were missing and not available to buy. People had to make do with what they had. And reporting did happen as well, even if you try to brush it off. Poland would be a first world country had it not stay behind the iron curtain.

New comment by nec4b in "The USSR in 100 Photographs"

nec4b — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 18:57:40 +0000

In my experience those are the people who miss the "good" old times, when everything had order and hierarchy. Wikipedia says the communist party in Poland had 3 million member which is about 10% of the population at the time. If you add the family members and close relatives, the number of people living a privileged life was quite big. Red nobility is known phenomenon in former communist countries.

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_United_Workers%27_P...

New comment by nec4b in "The USSR in 100 Photographs"

nec4b — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 16:14:36 +0000

He is also probably not aware of how many people Stalin's KGB murdered or that even kids were supposed to report their parents.

New comment by nec4b in "The USSR in 100 Photographs"

nec4b — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 16:09:40 +0000

>My family had an absolutely happy life for all the generations that followed WW2.

Most likely your family was part of the communist elite. I believe you had a very happy life.