Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Getting Back to Work

tesla.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 332 posts

Re: Getting Back to Work

#291

Post by clouddrover »

dang wrote: post #272
pgsbathhouse3 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Celebrity frenzy multiplied by pandemic rage is producing as wild a burn as we've seen on HN. I think the problem is the audience that's been cultivated on here. Not the topics. You have a topic that's has real world effects. Reality demands us to act contrary to a particular narrative, and this forum can't handle it. Apathetic, intellectual sophistry only works when you don't have any actual problems to worry about…

I'm not sure I follow all of this? Also, it's a bit strange to have this discussion in the context of the Nth outrage of the Musk Sequence, where the dominant factor is obviously internet drama. But I'll give replying a try. This is one of those cases where it's super helpful to have one thing you're optimizing for, i.e. to know what kind of site this is and what it is not. In HN's case that's clear: we're trying to…

> In HN's case that's clear: we're trying to optimize for intellectual curiosity

That's not what's happening on this particular topic. Submissions of higher quality articles which present both sides of the issue are getting marked as duplicates of low quality, one sided tweets from Musk.

Re: Getting Back to Work

#292

Post by concordDance »

hyko wrote: post #271
concordDance wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the link, I shall read it in a bit. EDIT: Looks like they address the point on breakdown by sex but I can't tell whether they address breakdown by type of comorbidity. They don't discuss how large a factor is the unaccounted for subpopulation traits potentially causing both decrease in life expectancy and increase in covid19 morbidity (or one, but not the other, which would bias results the other way),…

I guess one thing to point out is that the cost of social care (circa £20 billion) in the UK is not borne by the NHS, but by a mixture of local councils (70%) and private individuals (30%). Nursing home deaths will not really significantly affect the NHS budget (circa £150 billion, 10% of which is spent on people aged over 85). The wants and needs of nursing home residents create a demand, and we fulfil that demand u…

I thank you for taking the time to look up the figures and correct my misapprehensions.

In the case of local councils there are a huge number of improvements they could do locally. Roads, parks, community centers, etc

Now, I know this isn't really the place for a lecture on economics but I find this model of economics very unintuitive. Surely the inheritors of the estates of these elderly people will also have plenty of demand for many goods and services? I certainly could do with a cook and chauffeur. A trope of dancers wouldn't be ammiss either. If I promised to spend the savings of these deceased people on cooks and dancers, would you be happy with that money falling to me to keep demand constant?

Re: Getting Back to Work

#293

Post by DanielleMolloy »

dang wrote: post #53
DanielleMolloy wrote: post #27

[flagged]

Please don't take HN threads into ideological flamewar. Not what this site is for. There are plenty of critical comments (in the four threads HN has had about this topic) which have not been downvoted. Ranty flamebait, on the other hand, should certainly be downvoted and flagged. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I accept your decision, my apologies - but could you please let me know in some more detail why this was flagged so that I can get a chance to understand and correct my mistake(s)?

Because I can only conclude „don’t try to discuss side effects of capitalism” right now. Is there a heated debate I’m unaware of, that my comment might have been attributed to? What is the flamewar bit? I did not read the other threads.

Re: Getting Back to Work

#294

Post by markvdb »

BobbyJo wrote: post #283
tsimionescu wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can look at employment rates in countries with generous social welfare and unemployment benefits, and notice that the percentage of the population sitting idle who are not sick is minuscule, and not significantly different format the idle population in countries with weak unemployment benefits. It is true that there are systematic exceptions - especially people born rich.

Productivity in the US is considerably higher than most, if not all of those countries, when you account for productivity per hour and hours worked: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/v/s/www.forbes.c... Unemployment just tells you people have a job, and nothing about how much that job is contributing to the collective resources.

According to the OECD, productivity per hour worked [0] in Scandinavia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland is comparable to the US, and in some cases significantly higher. All of these countries have much more generous social safety nets.

P.S. The link you gave 404's here.

[0] https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=PDB_LV

Re: Getting Back to Work

#295

Post by marcinzm »

mdorazio wrote: post #269
marcinzm wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the difference between plan and guidelines from any practical point of view. There is a statewide timeline and counties can open slower/faster. There's a list of criteria for counties to consider. This is a slide deck summarizing things at a state level, it notes a variety of metrics that are being looked at: https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Update-on-...

Here's a plan: when we get to X new cases per day, we will reopen. Here's a guideline: we'll reopen when we think it's safe. The former has concrete goals that you can measure against and take action on. The latter has no clarity whatsoever. If I presented a project plan the way California has presented its Covid reopening "plans" I would be fired.

Except "the population feeling safe" is the only metric that really matters. Everything else is a proxy. If the population doesn't feel safe then they will protest and not resume activities. The other metrics can be golden but if the population disagree you will have trouble in a democracy.

Re: Getting Back to Work

#296

Post by throwlaplace »

dang wrote: post #272
pgsbathhouse3 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Celebrity frenzy multiplied by pandemic rage is producing as wild a burn as we've seen on HN. I think the problem is the audience that's been cultivated on here. Not the topics. You have a topic that's has real world effects. Reality demands us to act contrary to a particular narrative, and this forum can't handle it. Apathetic, intellectual sophistry only works when you don't have any actual problems to worry about…

I'm not sure I follow all of this? Also, it's a bit strange to have this discussion in the context of the Nth outrage of the Musk Sequence, where the dominant factor is obviously internet drama. But I'll give replying a try. This is one of those cases where it's super helpful to have one thing you're optimizing for, i.e. to know what kind of site this is and what it is not. In HN's case that's clear: we're trying to…

>trying to optimize for intellectual curiosity

Can you please define for us intellectual curiosity so that we can recognize it and its distinction from apathetic sophistry? Note that the oft-quoted rules aren't descriptive but prescriptive/normative.

Also telling people that disagree with the ethos of the website to go away isn't very productive don't you think? For better or worse we dissenters are part of the tech community and we're entitled to advocate for what we feel a commons like hn should be like.

Re: Getting Back to Work

#297

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

dang wrote: post #44

Three threads on this already: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23126517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23127552 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23129216 Not sure this one is going any better. Celebrity frenzy multiplied by pandemic rage is producing as wild a burn as we've seen on HN. If you're about to comment here, could you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html first and ma…

>Not sure this one is going any better. Celebrity frenzy multiplied by pandemic rage is producing as wild a burn as we've seen on HN.

I take issue with this line. That is your opinion and you're injecting a negative motive into this thread. Your warning would have the same effect with this removed.

Re: Getting Back to Work

#298

Post by BobbyJo »

markvdb wrote: post #294
BobbyJo wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Productivity in the US is considerably higher than most, if not all of those countries, when you account for productivity per hour and hours worked: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/v/s/www.forbes.c... Unemployment just tells you people have a job, and nothing about how much that job is contributing to the collective resources.

According to the OECD, productivity per hour worked [0] in Scandinavia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland is comparable to the US, and in some cases significantly higher. All of these countries have much more generous social safety nets. P.S. The link you gave 404's here. [0] https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=PDB_LV

The average hours worked are significantly less for those small upticks in PPH. If you factor in hours worked, the US comes out far ahead of most if not all.

Re: Getting Back to Work

#299

Post by babesh »

billjings wrote: post #243
babesh wrote: post #218

This is the very best article I have read on the lockdown: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/04/seattles-leade... The positive is that Washington state acted early and the Bay Area followed quickly which resulted in lower hospitalization and deaths. Tech’s quick move to WFH probably helped slow the spread. This was driven by the Washington state health officials who worked with Microsoft. Bay Area tech compa…

I think the point "Health care officials and government don't respect the public" is worth some deeper consideration. As a thought exercise, I'd like to put myself in the shoes of that public health official and see what my responsibilities are. I'd know for a fact that, without extreme measures, there will be a huge death toll. And I'd have working experience to know for a fact that, if I come right out and advocate…

That power is very, very dangerous and has been abused in the past. It doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be used.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization

Re: Getting Back to Work

#300

Post by marcinzm »

BobbyJo wrote: post #286
okaram wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can’t we wait? I’m not arguing we should, but I’m not sure we can’t. What I think is that we sorta can and sorta should; we need to figure out the trade-offs, as best as we can, and decide what measures we want to keep for another year (will vary by country/state/city).

I think most people would rather take the risk than commit to 12-16 more months for a 'possible' way out, one we have no means of quantifying yet.

Most probably but a non-trivial percentage would rather wait indefinitely. I'm seeing many liberals who equate opening things up to literal human sacrifice for corporate profit.
Post reply on HN