John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight' • Hacker News Board

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#241

Post by BallinBige » Mon, Jun 06, 2016, 4:41 PM UTC

ritchiea wrote: post #174

partiallypro wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the end of the day it's a comedy show not a news show and his job is to make people laugh He and Jon Stewart keep (kept in the case of Jon) using this excuse when they get things wrong, but when they get things right they take all the glory they can get. The show(s) have to have some sort of accountability. For example Couric was just ripped for adding 6 seconds of dead air on a documentary....but that's literal…

Can you give a specific example of someone who was manipulated to make look bad on the Daily Show? Most of their interviews are with people the host disagrees with but are happy to share their views (gun rights advocates, abortion rights advocates, etc). Typically guests and participants in segments are not being manipulated. I can't say it's never been done but it's certainly not an epidemic at that show.

Never gets old: http://www.cc.com/video-clips/6p62fp/the-daily-show-with-jon...

Jason Jones talks to two hunters, a non-fatal hunter and a fatal hunter, to see what method is better. (4:33)

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#242

Post by MrJagil » Mon, Jun 06, 2016, 4:43 PM UTC

There was a terrific story about this in the NYT a while back https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8182953

"This is one of the most unbelievable articles I've ever read. If you didn't read it all the way through, do so over lunch or something; it's amazing."

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#243

Post by myth_buster » Mon, Jun 06, 2016, 4:45 PM UTC

dvcrn wrote: post #43

As a non-american guy that has never seen John Oliver before, I found it very hard to sit through the entire thing until the end, though the payoff was definitely worth it. This guys looks to me like he's been in TV for a little too long and tries very hard to find a audience with very simple jokes (that feel kind of forced) amplified by background laughter. He has the right idea and did the right thing but I persona…

I think it's addressed to rile up a certain demographic which otherwise would not get involved in issues.

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#244

Post by kiruwa » Mon, Jun 06, 2016, 4:45 PM UTC

efaref wrote: post #156

efa wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes you are supposed to buy insurance (though many just take the penalty). Many Obamacare plans are pretty crappy with low max pay outs. It drives me crazy when people don't read the plans they are buying. My plan has a huge deductible (10k) but no max pay out. So basically I pay 100% for everything but if I ever need some serious hospital time I'd only be out 10k. (And it's very expensive).

I'm really going to miss the NHS when the tories have finished dismantling it. :(

NHS and ACA really have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

The NHS has serious problems related to accountability, the typical problem with huge multi-level government bureaucracies. Honestly, the NHS has similar problems to the American public education system, for mostly the same reasons.

The ACA has the serious problem that it was explicitly sold as a way to contain costs both at an individual and aggregate level. That has pretty much been exposed as a lie.

The ACA has been good for the narrow band of people who were included in the expanded medicaid coverage, but it's not too hard to imagine a separate (and much simpler) bill that accomplished that part of the bill, without the massive rework of healthcare for the middle class.

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#245

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Jun 06, 2016, 4:53 PM UTC

xviia wrote: post #137

ritchiea wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of the day it's a comedy show not a news show and his job is to make people laugh. You can't make people laugh with jokes about insider domain knowledge only possessed by experts. If you consider the constraint that Last Week Tonight is primarily a comedy show themed around important newsworthy issues rather than an investigative journalism show it's hard to imagine it done any better.

The show is interesting because it combines a late night talk show format with a news format. Their special segments are often in the same format as a nightly news program, where they take an issue, perform research, and prevent a side. Should we hold these types of shows to a talk show standard or a news standard? When CBS presented a fabricated military report about George W., they were rightly condemned for presen…

> The show is interesting because it combines a late night talk show format with a news format.

As with The Daily Show, The Nightly Show, and the (former) Colbert Report, among others, the format is a variation of the format of a mixed news/commentary show of the type that is the staple of the cable news networks, and they all use that format because they are parodies of that kind of show.

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#246

Post by tptacek » Mon, Jun 06, 2016, 4:55 PM UTC

sethbannon wrote: post #18

I'm not aware of any other show that so seamlessly combines rip-roaringly funny comedy with essential insight into the way our society and system of government is deeply flawed. And on top of that, he even manages to direct action to fix the issues he draws attention to -- taking down the FCC website being one example[1]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/03/john-oliv...

If you like John Oliver, check out Sam Bee's _Full Frontal_ on TBS. I like both shows, but Bee's is the better of the two.

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#247

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 06, 2016, 5:01 PM UTC

partiallypro wrote: post #183

ritchiea wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give a specific example of someone who was manipulated to make look bad on the Daily Show? Most of their interviews are with people the host disagrees with but are happy to share their views (gun rights advocates, abortion rights advocates, etc). Typically guests and participants in segments are not being manipulated. I can't say it's never been done but it's certainly not an epidemic at that show.

You're joking right? The entire interview segments are spliced and edited. Pauses are added for comedic effect, they splice different questions with different answers. It's not a single example, it's literally every interview segment. That doesn't mean I agree with the person they are interviewing, or that that person isn't ignorant...but there is no way you can see their reporting as objective.

[deleted]

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#248

Post by nthacker » Mon, Jun 06, 2016, 5:01 PM UTC

I have a question:

Isn't the real reason that these debt-buying companies(and the evils that come with it) exist because of bad-lending and in this case, an overpriced, inefficient health-care system?

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#249

Post by AstroJetson » Mon, Jun 06, 2016, 5:04 PM UTC

thwarted wrote: post #224

iheartmemcache wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tape as backups are arguably still valuable, but any important information being passed by Excel is a travesty . I've worked on the quant side of things and trading securities has standard protocols (primarily FIX, but more esoteric protocols are used by some MM's). I've worked with insurance conglomerates - health information has HL7 for EHR. Purchase orders between Walmart and their suppliers use EDI. All of these…

any important information being passed by Excel is a travesty I think that's putting it mildly. A major issue with using Excel files for data transfer is, to put it bluntly, the lackadaisical way people treat Excel files. They are passed around and edited. Passed back once edited. Passing them around creates copies of them. They get goofy names as people try to manage the multiple editors and editions. There's no ver…

I checked with the company, and they do track the debt they "forget". They also send a letter to the debtor to say that the debt has been cleared. That takes care of the case where it comes back to life, the debtor has some level of proof that the debt was taken care of.

I didn't ask if they tracked all of it in an Excel file ;-)

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#250

Post by pentae » Mon, Jun 06, 2016, 5:08 PM UTC

partiallypro wrote: post #136

ritchiea wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of the day it's a comedy show not a news show and his job is to make people laugh. You can't make people laugh with jokes about insider domain knowledge only possessed by experts. If you consider the constraint that Last Week Tonight is primarily a comedy show themed around important newsworthy issues rather than an investigative journalism show it's hard to imagine it done any better.

> At the end of the day it's a comedy show not a news show and his job is to make people laugh He and Jon Stewart keep (kept in the case of Jon) using this excuse when they get things wrong, but when they get things right they take all the glory they can get. The show(s) have to have some sort of accountability. For example Couric was just ripped for adding 6 seconds of dead air on a documentary....but that's literal…

Accountability? What about accountability from FOX news, CNN and all the other programs that do an even worse job and aren't comedy shows? Shouldn't they be accountable first and foremost?