You’re misunderstanding the question - he’s asking how Shopify could avoid jurisdiction, not avoid this suit. Jurisdiction is a threshold question before you get to the merits… maybe Shopify did the bad thing, maybe they didn’t, but before we decide that, we need to determine if California law even applies to Shopify.
The author seems to think that there should be some way for Shopify to avoid jurisdiction while still offering services in California, but I don’t really understand why he thinks so.
As a former student of the author, I don't think he's saying they should be able to avoid jurisdiction. I think he was musing on whether it would even be possible under this new Ninth Circuit framework/test. He concludes it's unlikely, and hence for Shopify (or any other company putting cookies in browsers) to have any chance of avoiding it, they're going to have to appeal to SCOTUS.
Not at all. I think he rightly concludes that jurisdiction is completely avoidable by geoblocking California.
It is baffling to hear the author ask the question “did Shopify ‘expressly aim an intentional act at California?” And subsequently conclude that Shopify’s entire business model is in doubt if it doesn’t do business in California.
Other than the one about using only one platform, which you referenced, it seems like he's really just asking for clarity from maintainers about what contributions they would like, and how they would like them to be provided.
What items on the list do you think are just the author's preferences, but other potential contributors wouldn't like? It seems unlikely that contributors would prefer NOT to know if the maintainer doesn't want PRs, or would prefer NOT to have an example of how to contribute, e.g.
Yes, I have one big beancount file tracking everything back to 2014. I use fava for visualization and git for history/backup. I've occasionally gone back and split or moved accounts, based on what metrics I want to track at that moment, it's pretty easy.
However, contrary to the article's automated method, my workflow is to manually input transactions every day (or every couple days, depending on what's going on) and balance my accounts. It's a bit of a ritual, but I like having a really good handle on day-to-day spending. Plus, I find ~10 minutes once a day way easier than (e.g.) ~3 hours once a month, even if it's the same amount of time overall.
I wonder if you consider the national debt? In a sense, the national debt continues to rise because of faith in the USA, which is similar to say "faith that debts will be repaid."
It won't be repaid by me, nor anybody in my generation (Millenial). So the world is kinda collectively assuming subsequent generations will repay. To your point, it's neither contrary-to nor aligned-with the will of the people, but seems like a massive point that people would say "i'm not responsible for"
Here are a few examples of times congress passed laws/acts which went against the will of the people:
The Fugitive Slave Act (1850)
The Alien and Sedition Acts (1798)
The Prohibition Act (1919)
The Vietnam War Draft (1960s)
The Troubled Asset Relief Program (2008)
OK, the only modern example on your list is TARP. I think the strength of your examples does not justify the strength of your statement.
Actually, I just read your update, you've changed from making a bold (and, in my view, wrong) statement about how government is not responsive to the will of the people, to a fairly boring technical point about how a representative democracy works. I have no idea if you're just doing a motte and bailey or if you were never trying to make a bold claim in the first place...
I'll just leave my piece here, in any case: I believe that the US system of government actually works really well, and in general we tend to get laws and regulations that are based on the broad consensus of a very diverse electorate. This is a good thing. In my opinion, when most people complain about how the government doesn't work for the people, what they actually don't like is that a lot of the country disagrees with them, and that disagreement is reflected in our government.
But, maybe I'm wrong and there's some other system we can come up with that will keep a vast and diverse nation hanging together prosperously for another 250 years. Shrug.
Gun Control Legislation (e.g., Background Checks, 2013)
After the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, polls showed overwhelming public support (over 80%) for universal background checks. Congress failed to pass significant gun control measures despite this broad consensus.
Net Neutrality Repeal (2017)
Public opinion polls showed strong bipartisan support for net neutrality regulations. Despite this, Congress and the FCC rolled back these protections, prioritizing telecom industry interests.
Affordable Care Act (ACA) Repeal Attempts (2017)
Repeated attempts by Congress to repeal the ACA (Obamacare) were made despite consistent public support for key provisions like protections for pre-existing conditions.
Stock Trading by Members of Congress
Polls show overwhelming public support (around 70-75%) for banning members of Congress from trading individual stocks due to conflict-of-interest concerns. Yet, no significant legislation has passed to address this issue.
Gun control - fair point, this is one where I think an ambitious legislator could really make a name for themselves by pushing for it. I suspect that there would be more pushback from the electorate than is indicated in the polling, but who knows. This is your best point, I'll be really interested to see how public opinion actually breaks if concrete legislation is introduced.
Net Neutrality - maybe? My read on it is that it's just too wonky of any issue for most people to actually care that much about, and polling can't really tell us much about how the electorate would lean if they actually studied it - phrasing of the survey question can probably skew things strongly one way or the other. But, maybe that's just a cop-out.
ACA - doesn't this strengthen my argument? It's popular enough that even when the Republicans had a trifecta they still couldn't repeal it, despite running on "repeal and replace"... Maybe if they had actually had a replacement ready to go, they actually would have succeeded... but they couldn't reach consensus on a replacement, so it didn't happen.
Stock trading by members of Congress - the jury is still out on this one... when did this push start, during Biden's term? If (1) public opinion stays strongly in favor of it during Trump's current term but (2) we still don't see any legislation during the next presidential term... then I would call this a mark in your favor, but not until then.
Overall, I'm still not buying your argument that our government is unresponsive to the will of the people. It's certainly not a perfect reflection of the electorate, but generally when we build consensus, we get things done... it's just that consensus is really hard to come by these days.
Have a good one my friend, thank you for engaging, I think this stuff is really important. :)
On the draft, that wasn't a new law. Selective Service was probably a 1940s law. A majority didn't think the war was a bad idea until 1968 and a majority supported Nixon pretty much to the end regardless of the reimagining that hippies were ever a majority.
My understanding is that the American soldiers who violated the rules of engagement or other rules of war have been rounded up and prosecuted. Can you provide any evidence to the contrary? Anyone who slipped through the cracks? Honestly asking, I haven't looked too closely.
Well, one famous example is this dude who was killing civilians for fun and taking selfies with their corpses as some kind of trophy - to be fair he was caught and prosecuted, but then Trump pardoned him because apparently he's a brave american hero and not a guy killing civilians for amusement:
Yes, the article mistakes punchlines for comedy. Watch some of Norm MacDonald's stuff on Conan (troubled moth, Jacques de Gatineaux, drunk dart thrower, Andy the Swedish-German)... sure, the punchlines fit the model in the article, but the real humor comes from his delivery and the weird worlds he creates leading up to the punchlines.
This is worth googling for anybody who’s not urgently meant to be doing something for the next ten minutes. Also on Conan, for anyone looking for an amazing example of humour without a punchline is “conan nathan fielder susan”
With all of these, there's an element of absurdity. It's not about the world Norm is creating, it's the fact that the words aren't the joke, the joke is on you. The joke is that it's a long, boring story to set up a shitty punchline. You wait, and wait, and wait for the catharsis, but it never comes from the joke itself, it comes only a beat or two after when you realize what just happened.
Matt Berry gets mileage out of responding to everything with a sort of bombastic over-seriousness. He is a character that does nothing small.
Observational comedy is the pointing out of absurdity in everyday life.
The author seems to think that there should be some way for Shopify to avoid jurisdiction while still offering services in California, but I don’t really understand why he thinks so.
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