ravenscrow's comments

> So it's pretty obvious by now that we are actively at war with China and Russia on the cyber front.

We are actively fighting a cyber war with every country. The nations who we spy on the most are our allies. And the nations who spy on us the most are our allies. I know it's counterintuitive but it's international politics, geopolitics and intelligence 101.

For example, israel, Britain, Canada, germany, japan, south korea, etc spy on us the most. And naturally we spy on them too.

And taken a step even further, every nation's government spies the most on their own people. It's almost a certainty that intranational spying makes up most of the spying budgets of china, russia, britain, israel, US, germany, etc.

> The question is, are we winning?

Considering we are the epicenter of tech, what do you think? Considering our intelligence budgets dwarf both china and russia's budget combined, what do you think?

> Are we even fighting back?

Are you serious? Who do you think invented cyber spying? The internet was a DARPA project.

Do you really think only china and russia are spying?

[flagged]

That has never been the point of an opinion piece. The point of an opinion piece is to lie, cajole, trick, etc people into accepting your opinion or viewpoint. That's why newspapers separate news from opinion. The point of the opinion piece is opposite of getting people to think. The point of it is to stop people from thinking. It's to get people on your side.

> Pensions are not inherently a problem any more than any other form of retirement account is.

Sure it is. It's inherently problematic because it assumes perpetual growth of population and economy. Also, there is a difference between pensions and 401ks and IRAs. 401ks/IRAs will run out. Pensions can never run out. In other words, you can outlive your 401ks/IRAs, but you can't outlive your pension.

Or put it simply, with 401k/IRAs, you can't take out more than you put in. With pensions, you can if you live long enough. So who makes up the difference? The workers or taxpayers.

> “The essence of this strategy is to take tax policy out of the hands of experts and entrust it to activists. These campaigns do not usually have much credibility with card-carrying economists. ”

When it comes to economics and religion, the "experts" and activists tend to be one and the same and neither seems to be credible.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/opinion/elec...

One of our the "greatest experts" predicted eternal collapse of the markets after trump's election

"If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never."

and an endless global recession.

"So we are very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight."

> This lag between economic policy and outcomes is a big reason the US has such a disingenuous public debate.

Economic policy doesn't cause recessions. The business cycle and the FED raising and lowering interests cause recessions. No matter the economic policies, there will always be a recession. I believe it was jamie dimon who said we usually get one every 8 to 10 years.

> I'm guessing the problem - as with most small retail stores in Manhattan - is rising rent.

I think the bigger problem is jerks like me who go to bookstores to browse or use the restroom and then go home and order the books on amazon. Sadly, I just can't be bothered to carry the books home. I just can't.

> Ironically, that is resulting in plenty of retail vacancies.

Is this odd to anyone else? From the Manhattan mall to downtown to the UWS, I'm seeing as many vacancy signs today as I saw during the financial crisis 10 years ago. Strange to see so many vacancies in such a strong economy. Maybe it's that so much of economic commerce is going online. What's going to happen during a recession? Are all storefronts going to be banks and RiteAid/Duane Reade?

> So one special genetic characteristic of Proto-Indo-Europeans is their capacity to digest milk

A significant number of PIE were and a significant number of PIE descendants today are lactose intolerant. It is primarily northern europeans who consume milk and are the least lactose intolerant. Most PIE descendants consumes milk-products like cheese, yogurt, butter, etc.

Also, none PIE cultures ( mongols, turks, arabs, siberians, etc ) are primarily lactose intolerant but they consume milk-based products.

I think I read that processing milk into yogurt, cheese, butter, etc removes lactose or makes it easier for the lactose intolerant to consume. But don't quote me on that.

That's strange considering we've been told that kids today are the best behaved.

"Today's teenagers are the best-behaved generation on record"

https://www.vox.com/2014/5/25/5748178/todays-teenagers-are-t...

"Today's Teens Better Behaved Than Their Parents"

https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/the-kids-are-more-...

"Wonkblog Today’s teens are way better behaved than you were"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/13/today...

But it's summer ( notoriously slow news season ) and what better to sell than fear to parents. The other parental fear piece within the last 24 hours.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17214841

> Is there anyone in HN legitimately using Facebook anymore?

Yes. Most people on HN are on facebook. Most people in america are on facebook.

If you really want to see the dominance of FB within social media.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-net...

https://www.statista.com/statistics/248074/most-popular-us-s...

> my conversations and invites are moving to WhatsApp, Discord (surprisingly awesome), Instagram, Signal, etc.

Hate to be a bearer of bad news but WhatsApp and Instagram are owned by facebook.

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

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

So you really haven't left facebook. You've moved within facebook.

My advice is to stop believing clickbait nonsense from news media like bloomberg and what you read on small fringe sites like hacker news.