> Crypto data includes the “institutional” addresses such as exchanges. For example, the top Ethereum address is one of Binance’s, meaning that it isn’t all owned by one entity (although some might argue about that.)
Taking Ethereum as an example, if I exclude the known institutional addresses (taken from etherscan's tags), the results change very little. The top 1% has about 92.5% of the ETH. Obviously many of the untagged ones could also be institutions, so in that respect, yes, it's "useless" because we can't know exactly who controls every address.
It's not that exposure doesn't have value. It's that unpaid positions start to collapse the industry if it becomes too common.
SAG has minimum day rates for a reason. I imagine major studios could find plenty of people to do speaking roles "for exposure" to the point where no low level people have any real leverage to make any kind of living from MASSIVE corps. The massive corps would get free labor by exploiting the hopes and dreams of low level actors. The free market gets weird and fragile without unions here.
Photography doesn't have the same union powers, so we rely on public shaming as much as possible.
I'm assuming the rule is around because FB knows it's targeting isn't 100% accurate and it might ruffle feathers if an ad claims you're something you're not. I don't see that specifically as nefarious.
Especially because FB tells me why I am being shown an ad already.
In the early days of COVID I was curious what the difference between types of viruses. e.g. how herpes and HIV hides in cells compared to viruses like influenza and SARS-CoV-2.
One of those sites clearly had Facebook integration because now Facebook is sure that I'm an HIV-positive gay man, with ads that correspond. It is one thing to get the ads but it would be a bit more overt if there was a text ad declaring that I was an HIV positive gay man.
People take offense at being told that there’s a machine labeling them, and would demand the right to revise or remove the machine-assigned labels. Facebook prevents that outcome by preventing disclosure of targeting characteristics.
> if you can't get women, it's entirely your fault
I'm curious, and this will probably be too curt but I am honestly trying to figure it out: Whose fault is it? Because incels believe it's the women's fault, and this message is the opposite.
It doesn't seem productive to tell them that it's society's fault or some other external thing. What are they supposed to do about that?
Most men that I know, including myself, function better when there's something tangible to work on. Lose weight, hit the gym, learn to lower my ego, listen better, practice small talk, learn about fashion, etc.
I think there's a healthy way to "blame" yourself. Or if you want a nicer way to put it: to be able to have honest criticism of yourself. After all, if you can't fix it, what's the point?
I think the answer would go along the same lines as answering the question "whose fault is it that you can't get a job?" when aimed at an identity category such as women or minorities. Basically: society has failed them in some form or other.
I think this is the right way to look at it. This is why I gave myself as an example. I was raised by a mentally ill single parent in poverty. I wasn't taught how to socialize with others in a healthy way. As a result, I wasn't equipped to form healthy relationships.
I think there are a lot of young men who are in a similar position and if they are given proper guidance and healthy role models when they are young, they can be in a better position to succeed in friendships, work and relationships.
I'm not convinced it's the same. When talking about dating, there are a bunch of stuff that you can do that boils down to "make yourself a better person." See: my list above. It's obviously not guaranteed, and many are more genetically gifted than others, but it seems way more manageable of a task than your example.
You can't expect women to work on having more of a penis.
> You can't expect women to work on having more of a penis.
That's a bit simplistic, isn't it? Not to mention, maybe it's not just the penis. Maybe you can teach women how to copy the kinds of attitudes (eg: assertiveness) that help men succeed. Maybe you can get more women in engineering by giving them positive role models from an early age.
We can help prevent there being so many incels by supporting young men emotionally from an early age. Right now we have a very punitive approach IMO. The education given to young men is a lot of "don't do this", "that's toxic", "women hate it when men do that", but there isn't enough positive messaging and encouragement.
Yeah, for the most part I agree, I just think that it's possible to frame the fact that a lot of guys simply being at a loss of how to go about this can be framed as a societal failure of some kind.
These kinds of skills are rarely talked about in any setting. Maybe that's how it's always been, but it seems to me that young men really aren't given much actionable advice when it comes to attracting a mate, and at one point the rules/expectations were a little more codified than they are today.
My own experience: I would be a millionaire if I had a nickel for every time I was told to "just be yourself". On the other hand, I was told a lot growing up what NOT to do when interacting with a woman. Don't try to kiss/etc her without asking permission. Norms around when it's ok to flirt (almost never appropriate). All of these kinds of negative rules made interactions with women feel like a minefield to me so I just stuck to online dating, but of course that has its own rules and expectations that take a lot of getting used to. Don't mention sex or anything remotely sexual. Don't mention how attractive she is. Don't use pick up lines. Don't just say hi. Don't expect a reply. And then of course, there's a whole new minefield to walk through when you start getting more serious -- a lot of which comes down to boundaries, another thing we don't do a very good job of talking about.
I made it through though, amazingly. I had a reasonably successful 8 year relationship, and even though it ended, I feel like we were right for each other in the sense that we had things to offer each other and I learned so many valuable life lessons from my partner during that time. Now I'm 4 years into my next relationship and it's going great as well, still learning so much!
I think a lot of this just comes down to things changing a lot re: gender roles, norms, etc. We're in this liminal space where things haven't quite shaken out yet into something more stable. My hope is once that happens (it feels inevitable -- things can't just keep on changing like this forever, right?) we will be able to talk about it more concretely.
It is worrisome though. My younger brothers (24) have not yet made any foray into the world of relationships. I try and fail to get them to open up about their feelings about this or anything else. They don't use the word incel but it could certainly apply.
Generally agree with you. I guess I was looking at it a little differently. If I'm talking to an individual, the only thing that matters is what they can do to better themselves now. It's not productive, on an individual level, to say stuff like "if only society was better!"
> I try and fail to get them to open up about their feelings about this or anything else.
To be fair, opening up about my feelings to my family sounds awful. I know I know, society did this to me yada yada.
I learned by watching and doing, not talking about my feelings to my family. College buddies being my wingman and showing me the ropes, etc. and failing until I stopped failing. Then again, last time I dated, "can I buy you a drink" still worked to get a few minutes of face time and I didn't need apps. Not sure what's out there now.
I think talking about my feelings to my family would have done absolutely nothing.
> Don't try to kiss/etc her without asking permission. Norms around when it's ok to flirt (almost never appropriate). All of these kinds of negative rules made interactions with women feel like a minefield to me
Is the "don't kiss her without permission" really they difficult? And frankly the same with flirting.
If these make women minefield, I don't see how to make it better without sacrificing women who fly want to be kissed or flirted with while they have presentation at work.
> Lose weight, hit the gym, learn to lower my ego, listen better, practice small talk, learn about fashion, etc.
This is a bit of a fresh thought to me, but it seems that the standard male self-improvement advice ends up in one of three buckets:
1. The activity is its own reward (lose weight, hit the gym). Even if it’s not immediately successful at helping one find a partner, their benefits are almost immediately self-evident.
2. Advice that is vital for sustaining a relationship but usually not the missing piece when it’s time to find a new one (listen better, lower the ego). They’re needed to get the second date but can’t help get the first date.
3. Advice for the sake of having given advice (read books by female authors).
“Learn fashion” is hard to place on here. On the one hand, ensuring that you comb the crumbs out of your beard daily and wear clothes that fit better than a garbage bag is essential. On the other, becoming “into fashion” when it’s not a natural interest is often more of advice for advice’s sake unless you’re targeting a very fashion-conscious woman (or the fashion-forward portion of the gay dating pool).
> “Learn fashion” is hard to place on here. On the one hand, ensuring that you comb the crumbs out of your beard daily and wear clothes that fit better than a garbage bag is essential. On the other, becoming “into fashion” when it’s not a natural interest is often more of advice for advice’s sake unless you’re targeting a very fashion-conscious woman (or the fashion-forward portion of the gay dating pool).
Yeah I mean, I think most of the things on the list have a "basic" and "advanced" tier.
Lose weight/hit the gym: Basic is to not be obese. Advanced is to be fit.
Small talk: Basic is to be able to start and hold a conversation. Advanced is to be smooth and captivating.
Learn fashion: Basic is learning how clothes are supposed to fit. Advanced is... something like what you said. (I'm not advanced here! haha).
It's often fault of a psychological trauma suffered in childhood. Sexual abuse, for example. So counseling is one thing that society could provide to such men. Sexual therapy treatments have been used successfully in some countries.
This is much more convincing than dnissley's response to me. I wonder how many "incels" have suffered trauma in their childhood.
I certainly don't expect people to just work through childhood trauma without societal help. ex. Make it cheap, easy, and acceptable to get therapy. Much different than my list above IMO where most people can work on it themselves without many excuses.
Hadn't considered that -- but has there been a rise in childhood psychological trauma? There's definitely been a shift in the way we talk about trauma, just in the sense that we open up about it more, so that could be part of it.
The example I'm coming back to though are people like my younger brothers, who had relatively happy childhoods (afaik), but still have failed to launch for some reason or another. To be fair my father has anger problems to some degree, but nothing too crazy, just a proclivity to yelling more than was really necessary.
> Another way to phrase the original top comment (which, btw, is very deservedly the top comment): "If you can't be happy on your own, there's no way you'll be happy with a partner."
Why does everyone in this thread like posting definitive statements like this? As if it's universally true?
Life isn't as black and white as people like to think.
I was not much of a happy person before I found my (now) wife many years ago. She helps me deal with life in a way no therapist could ever do (and vise versa, me to her). We're in it together and help each other.
I could not figure out how to be happy on my own. Once I found my partner, I was able to be happy.
This isn't universal, of course. Many people are able to be happy on their own, but it's so strange reading definitive stuff like "there's no way!" when it's just not black and white.
People say it as a sugar-coated way to express "if you're unhappy, it's because of a character flaw, so you should internalize your frustration, not express it to other people, deal with it privately, and definitely don't politicize it."
Austin seems to take corp-speak to another level. See his response when they settled with the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation:
I am an outsider, but clearly looks to me like they chose to not fight that battle, which was just legal thuggery. Colleges in the U.S. are a racket that make the mafia look like a bunch of amateurs. The Bankruptcy Exception for student loans is one of the most corrupt scams going on in the USA today.
Lambda lied to their students for years about loan dischargeability. They were told to stop by the regulator, so Lambda did. The regulator did nothing to penalize them.
Didn't they lie by wrongly saying the loan can't be discharged through bankruptcy? Surely that would make candidates less likely to join Lambda?
Why is it even in their interest to say that? It's not like them saying it makes it true. And if it were true, it would mean that Lambda is a bigger risk for the student who therefore may be less likely to apply.
Lambda was securitizing the ISAs and selling them to investors on the backend, obviously with a discount based on risk.
Some people treat this like a bad thing, but it's really pretty basic risk-mitigation and cash-flow stabilization. This is kind of like basic factoring, or "modern" solutions like Pipe (https://www.pipe.com/).
There is an argument to be made that it disaligns Lambda and student incentives ("outcome it doesn't matter because Lambda already got paid") but long term, defaulting students would definitely decrease the sales values of the ISAs.
Part of the argument here is that calling these ISAs non-dischargable would lower the risk to the investor, which would make those ISAs worth significantly more.
> calling these ISAs non-dischargable would lower the risk to the investor, which would make those ISAs worth significantly more
I wonder how true this is. Declaring bankruptcy comes at a huge cost. It's not something people do lightly. Most people, if they have the money to pay back the loan, would probably do so. Once they're in that position (presumably with a stable job), they have little incentive to declare bankruptcy.
But that goes hand-in-hand with the aligned outcomes; it's best for Lambda if these people get good jobs afterwards, because they're more likely to pay the ISA in full.
If they don't, they're less likely, the risk is higher, and the ISA is worth less (to the investor).
The potential for bankrupcy is also a risk, which lowers the yield. Removing the risk of bankrupcy heightens it.
We could argue about the magnitute of these risks all day; I'm sure people significantly better at math than I am have done a lot of work here.
Physicians don't exactly do the research better than you do. They accept the standard line from their decades-old schooling, or CDC bulletins, or hospital administrators as gospel truth, and may occasionally update their priors in a year after attending a conference.
In the general case, a physician is obviously better than a patient in terms of being informed.
On the margin, however, a well-researched patient will almost always be better informed than a physician accustomed to the average patient. This is particularly relevant to the ~130 IQ HN populace.
> On the margin, however, a well-researched patient will almost always be better informed than a physician accustomed to the average patient. This is particularly relevant to the ~130 IQ HN populace.
It's quite dangerous and egotistical to think that you are in that group, though. When most people think they're a better than average driver, many are bound to be wrong.
If you think you're right about something and the doctor is wrong, get a second opinion. Don't assume you know better than a medical professional.
Someone responded with a good question but then deleted it: Aren't you allowed to disagree with your doctor?
Sure, in the sense that you can get second opinions if you're extra concerned about the topic.
If you're pregnant or have a blood clotting issue, by all means get a first and second opinion if you're worried about getting the vaccine.
But don't think that you are more qualified than medical professionals to understand the risks and side effects (unless of course you are a medical professional).
What you should be saying is that a more-informed person is less likely to make mistakes than a less-informed person.
You assume that doctors, in the couple of hours they may dedicate each day to catch up on all of the many plethora issues affecting all of their patients covering thousands of different areas of research that affect human health (and retain all of these things), is going to be more informed about the particular health issue affecting one person, who is extremely invested in this one aspect of their own health, and can dedicate the same or greater amount of their time researching that specific issue.
A specialist, possibly - but a general practitioner - unlikely.
On the other hand, I don't think I've ever gotten a cold/the flu, at least not since I was a young kid, and I don't take much care to do anything on your list. Sure, I'll wash my hands after using a restroom or before prepping food. But I'll definitely walk into a restaurant (pre-covid) and just start eating a burger without washing my hands first.
I feel the biggest factor is just what body and immune system you have... Some people I know just get sick constantly, multiple times a year, and they don't seem to do much of anything differently than I do. I don't think they're secretly licking doorknobs when no one is looking.
Even though the plural of anecdotes is not data, I must say that my personal experience matches yours as well. I pay no attention to disinfection or antiseptic cleanliness, and I can't remember the last time I was actually ill. In the good old days, whenever someone would "warn" me that they were a bit sick before hugging/sharing a bottle/shaking hands/etc, I would even joke “Don't worry, I don't believe in the germ theory of disease”, because in my personal experience it wasn't worth the effort to avoid it. Needless to say, that joke is now retired—not only because there are very good reasons to be cautious regarding COVID-19, but also because with so much bizarre denialism that has trended lately someone might even believe I was saying it seriously.
Damn I wish I had your immune system. Pre-covid I would get sick every September and probably 2 other times in the year (I would have the flu jab every November too!). I'm a germaphobe so wash my hands before eating, etc. I also try and stay fit, don't smoke and hardly drink alcohol.
Also not medical advice, but since I stopped being a germaphobe in 2016, I haven't gotten sick. Maybe it has to do with being less stressed in general, too.
So after my daughter was born 6 years ago I had to reduce my germaphobe habits, simply because it's not possible/practicable. Perhaps after a few more years of being around young children I'll build up my immune system...
How was your upbringing? Did you have to use things like public transport when you were young?
I imagine some of the early exposures and immune system build up might have good impact later on in life.
I am not germaphobe. When people saw someone with flu, they would stay away, i was indifferent. I'd just tell them i am ok with the risk, and most likely i would not even get sick, or if i did, it'd be a very very mild one. I never did.
The moment i read about covid 19 and lack of evidence for touch based spread (which was very very early on in pandemic, really), i stopped caring about many things (but ended up still doing some for a while because my wife asked me to). We still met with some people etc.
I had to use a train to get to school, so lots of public transport use I guess. I only really became germaphobe in my 20s so it's not like a lead a sheltered childhood.
> People just desperately want to find evidence that the stuff we did this year made a huge difference.
I don't think that's true at all. People have been receptive to the increased evidence that transmission on surfaces is pretty unlikely, for example, despite all the efforts we've put into sanitizing surfaces.
I think most people can appreciate that all the shit we threw at the wall throughout the pandemic eventually comes down to how much effort it is vs how much benefit we get from it. And our understanding of each measure has changed over time. We now know, generally:
Masks indoors are low-effort, medium reward. Masks outdoors are low-effort, low reward.
Cleaning surfaces is medium-effort, low reward.
Staying home is (economically, societally) high-effort, high reward.
To be clear: I'm not making a specific argument about masks vs. sanitizing vs. whatever here.
I'm just saying: responses like the OP immediately leap to the conclusion that influenza went away because of all the stuff we did. It's an error in logic, driven by the emotional desire to believe that the stuff we did must have had a serious impact, and that anything else is not worth serious discussion.
> I'm just saying: responses like the OP immediately leap to the conclusion that influenza went away because of all the stuff we did. It's an error in logic, driven by the emotional desire to believe that the stuff we did must have had a serious impact, and that anything else is not worth serious discussion.
I feel like you're coming down too hard on OP. He makes a valid argument.
> immediately leap to the conclusion that influenza went away because of all the stuff we did
It's not an error in logic. It's a reasonable conclusion to draw based on what we've seen and the links he provided. Whether it's true or not, that's debatable and probably nobody here on HN is going to figure that out definitively.
I'm really not sure why you're so argumentative without actually providing any substantial arguments against OP. It feels more like you're the one arguing from an ideological basis.
> That said, if the massive reduction in flu cases isn't a result of some or all of our Covid efforts, it'd be a hell of a coincidence.
Mmmm...I wouldn't go that far. Like I said, my current preferred theory involves schools, but other plausible theories involve things like mutual inhibition: infection with one virus somehow interferes with infection by the other.
We have some evidence of this happening in the past. Strains of influenza have abruptly vanished due to this phenomena.
Certainly, I'd agree that this is interesting (which is pretty much where I end up on this, vs. the OP, who thinks the matter is settled.)
more generally, it's likely due to greater (indoor) distancing, of which school closures is a subset. the slight differences in transmission characteristics between flu and covid (also represented as differential r0) likely makes flu relatively more susceptible to reduction by distancing.
and distancing is a first-order mitigation that overwhelms the effects of inferior/ineffective mitigations like cleaning, sanitizing, mask-wearing, extra ventilation, etc. those secondary mitigations can make more of a difference when we want to pack it in, like at a movie theater, but otherwise they don't do much because those circumstances are relatively rare.
folks just don't want to accept such a simple answer because it means there's not much to hang their anxiety on, and that cognitive dissonance is unacceptable, as it always is.
It's simpler than I made it out to be, which is why it's hated. The distinction between the law and the principle doesn't mean you can't make your own rules on your own property. In fact, they support that.
So doesn't that make this analysis useless?