unimployed's comments

(1) While we are at it, let’s stop externalizing costs to some other territories. And to really make things equal, we are going to price all other things equally at a global level with certain cost adjustments to account for shipping and geography and similar factors. Oh let’s not forget that all labor needs to be allowed multinational freedom of movement and migration to anywhere, similar to how much freedom multinational corporations enjoy. And probably going to need to unify all 195 nations into 1 global state too.

Then this little immigration and globalization issue will finally disappear, which would be fantastic for everyone.

(2) Or we can continue opening up the globalization box piece by piece because each change is really great for some groups and really bad for other groups, which only serves to heighten social conflict and wars like the trade war that has been happening. There will never be enough assistance provided for groups that are negatively impacted by globalization; governments are much too slow acting reactively and proactively.

You realize that most of the changes that you and others want to make are just as unrealistic solutions as the above, and only one is a permanent solution? Right? And as a result of the fragmentation of the world we find ourselves in, incremental changes will not solve anything really. You can move the tech hub or dominant economy somewhere else and it will end up getting restricted again because there will never be enough relief from crowding unless the tech hub becomes more decentralized like most other industries. Further, even being decentralized there will be incumbents created in Canada that will eventually find the changes to be undesirable just like the USA.

Canadians will eventually say China is ok but Indians are externalizing too many degree education costs. And there might be another trade war, and someone thinks they have the answer by moving the dominant economy somewhere else and the same issues will surface again.. and round and round we go in circles until people have finally had enough of kicking the can down the road, throwing the garbage over the wall, and the globalization wars and option 1 happens.

Agreed. Looking for typical costs like median or average (not atypical extremes).

Looking to compare degreed programs only unfortunately.

What kind of taxes do Germans pay? It gets difficult to compare a German higher education to other nations when the costs are embedded in taxes instead of tuition. That’s part of the reason I want to compile more information.

I agree that is not a good reason to ban everyone that is simply mistaken. But I have seen users flag one another for absolutely no reason other than they dislike their views being colored as incorrect, or dishonest when the behavior is repeated again and again. That is rather absurd and provides shelter for ignorance. I’m sure those people are very intelligent in their actual area of expertise, but their immaturity shows through in other areas and it’s rather toxic to witness a mod stepping in to say their pride has higher priority than letting someone directly confront their ignorance with facts and truth. Yes this is the internet, we all have better things we could do with our time than debate with strangers. However this also one of the most intellectual and influential havens for discussing tech and nearly anything else found to be interesting.

Modern times have also brought on about a host of new issues where technology can be both beneficial and a detriment to society. The rapid spread of misinformation is a major technological and social issue. How are we going to navigate the new era that is becoming more complex, conflicts are increasing, and people are becoming more partisan and incorrectly reinforced because technology and modern life makes it very easy to filter out the inconvenient facts that they need not be confronted with?

My point is we should not be assisting the enablement of misinformation. Being a hotbed for powerful people and powerful ideas, there is a certain amount of responsibility that needs to be accepted in preventing the spread of misinformation. Rules of discourse that prevent resolutions is something I believe is harmful rather than helpful at HN, and enables the spread of misinformation.

Alternatively, those that don’t like an atmosphere where less than well informed views are actually challenged may very well choose to leave on their own accord, and they will no longer be spreading misinformation here. Bans are probably not needed at all really, we just shouldn’t be enabling.

That really doesn’t get to the heart of the issue, I’m afraid. It seems to offer a form of cover and protection for views that are known the be problematic and continue to spread. Partisanship and hyper-focus on views corresponding your identify are bad, we should not provide cover for it and partisan views not supported by facts via polite discourse. We should not allow these poorly supported views to spread. It seems HN has no actual stance or response that directly addresses this issue. Some of HN’s guidelines provide shelter for enabling unsupported views. Choosing to the focus the light inwards on yourself doesn’t really solve or address this issue in the modern age of misinformation, and the Tibetan analogy was chosen to illustrate the dangers by turning inward too much and ignoring the dangers. Does that make sense? I think I’m being fairly direct and specific here.

I agree, but generally the assumptions being made by authors and known issues with the data are unstated rather than stated. Further, when highlighting such issues, the reactions can often be negative and dismissive. Obviously people don’t like their work being criticized for reasons that they have little control over (it sucks but that’s the best data we have). My point is the topic doesn’t get discussed enough to improve—outside of some corners of academics.

China was chosen as the example “agent” in this case because they are a nation that is emblematic of manipulation (in currency, IP theft, free markets, etc.). China was also chosen for the historical imagery, forcing the Dalai Lama to flee while capturing a peacefully sovereign Tibetan territory in 1959 and killing 87,000 directly in the conflict and 430,000 dead in the ensuing occupation.

That is to say that China was chosen for reasons beyond the literally obvious example of state agents. I know from experience state actors are rare, as well as being rare to detect. My rub is that latching onto China or Russia state agents as the only concerning actors that spread misinformation is not accurate. Somewhat more common are paid or unpaid social media shills/trolls that have many generalized accounts to forcefully influence topics.

But in my experience misinformation is spread most by those with vested interests, deeply gross misunderstandings of the world, strong attachment to personal biases they only believe and never bother to confirm or disprove empirically, reductionist and oversimplifications and un-nuanced tidbits learned from an introductory course of some topic, and so on.

These individuals overwhelmingly choose to ignore facts presented to them and espouse their incorrect views (perhaps hiding behind politeness or qualifications or an institutional authority). The view that such an individual will eventually with enough patience, see truth... is rather intractable and untenable.

I’m afraid you have latched onto but one example, possibly missing its purpose of imagery in the comment and neglecting to consider the other examples of bad information and bad actors which are actually fairly common that spread damaging tropes (that while inaccurate, continue to circulate nonetheless).

Late to comment here, but wanted to throw in something I haven’t seen in the article or scanning the comments.

I appreciate the virtue of trying to carve out a space in the internet for a forum that is polite like a Tibetan monastery. I do.

However I don’t think that is a realistic goal to have when there is so much fake/misinformation floating around the world, and there are bad actors looking for every opportunity to spread misinformation into legitimate channels like HN in order to further their particular narratives.

Being patient and polite is one method to deal with misinformation, but a skilled actor is adept at spreading the misinformation while being equally polite and dragging out discussions to the point of attrition.

Unfortunately the Tibetan monastery falls apart when a bad actor like China decides to intentionally take advantage of these polite rules of discourse through subtle manipulation via misinformation, institutionalism, and other means to influence/protect a status quo with false narratives.

It is unfortunate that the HN rules value politeness, tolerance, and patience above eradicating misinformation and ignorance. Bad actors will intentionally take advantage of Tibetan and westernized rules to their own benefit.

We should not restrain ourselves in discourse with one hand tied behind our back when we encounter parties that spread misinformation and perpetuate more ignorance. Identifying individuals that are being less than honest in a firm, direct, and fair manner is more constructive than allowing the charade to continue. Sometimes those comments are flagged as inflammatory or offending the individual spreading bad information because their poorly informed ideas are under attack (rightfully so).

We can’t protect ignorance. All we can do is act with good intentions correspondingly exchanging information. When that like correspondence is repeatedly abused to ignore facts or spread misinformation, we must act instead of wait for good intentions to reveal themselves (a bad actor has no intentions of changing) and meanwhile hundreds or thousands of people have read and latched onto their misguided theories.

If the individual is being above the board, the facts will come to light and the situation is usually self-resolving. If the individual cannot defend their position, that is a good indication the HN community is perhaps better without that individual.

You may say that we should strive to create a culture of politeness and respect. I agree in so far as we must then come to terms with the fact that culturally, deception and dishonesty are also taken as being impolite and disrespectful—which presents a bit of a conundrum if we are paying close attention to our virtues.

Random downvotes without comments say you can’t think of a good response or reason to support your opinions.

My experience is from bureau members and long time members I’m able to identify as professionals. I’m well aware of the population of undergrad and econ101 members that are fairly easy to identify as well.

If you know of any sources that are well known references that acknowledge the shortcomings of BLS methodologies I would be interested in reading up on them. I have not seen those kind of discussions frequently in publications.

And still, we need to have accurate pricing data (reflecting quality and content) if we want to make accurate macroeconomic decisions in a modern age where the historical understanding of inflation and full employment appears to be broken, among other concerns your bum and most bums could appreciate—like the immediate effects of technological change and automation pertaining to your job or UBI... that gives your bum a cozy chair to sit in.

Ok, but what is your better suggestion to solve the problem of quality or content creep that affects consumers and economic data? Perhaps there is a good way to have consumers be informed, or perhaps there isn’t. But at the very least, accurate data for economic statistics should be available since that same kind of data is available at batch levels for safety and compliance purposes.

I always look for price/weight or price/volume or price/count stickers but many retailers and items only list the price making you do the math.

Even then, I’m aware that many items have differences in content which game the price/measurement like a lower ingredient content (less cocoa per measurement and more fillers or water content).

There is not really a great way to combat these practices if you are not some kind of professional buyer that only purchases at wholesale scales.

Pretty sure you are being sarcastic or you are not all that experienced.

Talk at length with most economic professionals on /r/economics and you will find the repeatedly stated and unstated views that “the CPI is the most studied economic measurement in the world” and “you are welcome to perform your own study covering the inadequacies of the CPI.” I paraphrased slightly but from memory those quotes are highly accurate, as well as the general dismissiveness and institutionalism/bias pertaining to official economic data. Also for a professional economist to question the accuracy of official economic data is career suicide. Why you rarely see that topic discussed by a professional economist or in a published study.

>The uncertainty principle If it happens on a sufficiently large scale, the practice of tweaking quality in lieu of price could play havoc with essential economic data. Statistical agencies do their best to account for changing product quality, but if adjustments are unexpectedly common or subtle then muted inflation figures could easily be concealing a more turbulent economic picture. Central banks watching for big swings in inflation or wage growth as a sign of trouble could be reacting to figures that bear far less relation to business conditions than they used to.

>What’s more, the substitution of quality for price as firms’ main way of responding to changing market conditions weakens the case for keeping inflation low and stable. Inflation makes relative prices less informative, economists reckon, making it harder to decide what to buy and how to spend. Rather than clarity, low inflation has brought a different sort of confusion: one of shrinking chocolate bars and lost holidays.

What has long been suspected by those outside the field, and rarely acknowledged by economists and statisticians inside the field. Consumer Price Index (CPI), a standard methodology of nearly every national bureau of statistics and economic measurement is susceptible to manipulation and gaming by producers and retailers because the statistical agencies employ limited resources to perform quality adjustments to the item price data.

The adjustment methodology is quite limited in what adjustments are made and the resources dedicated to comparing items and differences—there is no lab testing being performed and the most extensive research performed on some items is using product brochure data to make adjustments based on listed features at face value only (the brochure says this is better or comes with better features).

Often product data is limited so no adjustments are made, only assumptions like “we believe this product has the same quality or content” or “we will impute the missing price or data based on similarly available data or some kind of modeling abstraction.”

This standard methodology led by the U.S. BLS and other agencies has done a complete disservice to the reputability of economics as a hard science instead of a bureaucratic ideology.

It’s what seems to make sense.

Lower relative interest rates creating the overabundant demand doesn’t seem to carry as much explanatory power when you consider that interest rates were also relatively lower before the hyper-inflationary period. What changed is not just the interest rates being lower. True lower rates have some effect, it’s just not enough when you consider that the investments will also be lower growth.

Supply side economics has a hand to play here, already mentioned in deregulation, lobbying by corporate interests, decreasing tax-rates on corporations and the wealthy, financial sophistication and technology of said parties to avoid taxation and capture more of the economic progress. I guess the issue is with supply side... that it is very much USA centrist and is not entirely explanatory globally. The USA does have the world’s reserve currency though. But take Japan for instance, it started the trend of low interest rates and QE forever because of globalization issues with currencies and economies, not supply side economics.

I think supply side movement isn’t really incompatible with my explanation and it actually fits inside it instead of my explanation fitting inside supply side changes. I think it is helpful to remember that the neoliberal economic and libertarian agendas are responsible for all of this in any event.

Income inequality is another issue... economic progress for the laborers being incremental at best while the progress of capital owners has been explosive. There is a tie-in possibly, that the income share of labor is being hallowed (or crowded) out by capital. That the economy is making laborer and consumer activity highly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. The economy is more concerned now about retaining capital that be can pulled out en mass on a whim and major investments can be postponed on an indefinite basis for years until the conditions are capital-perfect again.

The relevance of consumption is diminishing and laborers and consumers are increasingly living in an economy that is not concerned with balancing the affordability of housing and education and health care with how the rest of the economy is performing... especially the items that are rather inelastic and you require to live or progress.

Because a mix of globalization, technological financialization, and perverse incentives.

The markets have become increasingly global to the point that there is never a shortage of investors or investment capital. However, profitable, low or no risk investment opportunities do not grow on trees nearly as plentifully. Due to an overabundant supply of investors with a high demand to seek profitable low or no risk investment opportunities to park their wealth for growth via interest, and a much lower supply of profitable low or no risk investment opportunities—the interest rates to park your wealth must fall. And they have fallen quite steadily and predictably since their peak in the 1970s and 1980s... which nicely corresponds with the technological globalization and financialization of markets and marks their triumph over inflation (why inflation has not returned).

There is another reason for inflated asset prices besides cheap interest rates. Many assets are also priced to interest rates in an inverted fashion (for bonds, that is exactly the formula how they work and are priced). Just before the recession, stock buy-backs were no longer prohibited and since the great recession and the ultra low interest rate environment coupled with stock buy-backs, stocks have become a slightly more risky alternative to bonds and stock prices became just as inflated as bonds and have more or less stayed that way. You see, when you have a combination of all those factors coupled with the ability to buy back your stock, stocks are now able to compete almost directly with bonds for investors and stock prices inflate accordingly.

Because globalization, technology, and financialization happen much faster than markets and regulation can respond, and there are vested interests by investors (corporations, banks, Wall Street, etc.) to maintain the status quo via lobbying the politicians and regulators... the situation is unlikely to resolve itself via some self-regulating efficient market hypothesis.

Physical constraints are more restrictive than information constraints. Physical constraints keep physical engineering from fragmenting into thousands of different but similar frameworks because the physical constraints rarely allow more than a few solutions to be competitive as best solutions. In information, the bounds/constraints are something more of a constructed popularity contest who the largest players are (Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, etc.) which carries as much or more weight than rigorously empirical comparisons.

Unfortunately I’ve seen most project managers, BAs, and product managers that have no understanding of the VOC, requirements, or the engineering.

Very common:

Product managers typically come from sales/business development and can’t articulate VOC or requirements in an intelligible way, even though that may be a listed duty of theirs. They are great at taking their customer base to the baseball game and knocking back a few beers, but engineering ultimately has to collect those insights on their own.

Project managers that have only a PMP or a some kind of tangential management qualification treat every project the same way but do not have the technical understanding to be useful. In their eyes rushing schedules, gate clearing, and release trumps any other concerns and often the result is shipping a turd product with bare bones checkbox requirements (that they never actually appreciated, understood, or cared about) that flops. But they get to claim they navigated X number of product releases on their resume.

Business analysts possess half the knowledge they need to be competent. You need expertise in the business, customers, products, requirements, research, and analytics (basically a step just below the base knowledge you need to do systems engineering without having the technicals to develop a systems solution). You usually get someone with just enough knowledge in one area of computer science, analytics, or business (but almost never a complete suite of knowledge to provide useful input into the process).

Engineering is hard. It’s a mixture of multiple disciplines of knowledge and wearing many hats. What holds back engineering salaries is that management, sales, and business types compete with engineering to improve the bottom line, seeking to minimize/outsource the importance of technical solutions and maximize other methods/budgets like marketing gimmicks, cutting costs, and inserting processes in a kludge or bureaucratic manner with the illusion of accountability (I have never witnessed actual accountability) via their hierarchies being closer to executives and board members who tend to have a disproportionate influence on matters like budget for competent engineers.

I have seen enough turd products released that do insurmountable damage to a company that I run if I detect the scent that engineering is treated as just another resource that translates requirements into shipped products and is not on equal footing and input as sales, business process, and management.

Maybe try field repair or emergency fix bibles. I always find I’m learning interesting, slick new techniques to solve mechanical problems by survival methods.