Ask HN: What’s a big trend we should all be following? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What’s a big trend we should all be following?

#241

Post by tomjen3 » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 7:23 PM UTC

sunstone wrote: post #92

Electric bicycles (and other light electrics) are going to remake the world's cities in the next 30 years. The signs are already in place. The biggest transformational factor is the lack of exhaust allowing a lot of personal transport to be moved indoors.

I went on a voi (electric scooter) today. It was fun but I would probably crash about once a week, they are much more dangerous than a bicycle. The upshot is that I can leave them anywhere and take mostly the route I want. Downside is that I can't drive them as fast as they should be driven (they are legally restricted to 20km/h here, a better speed would be 30) and renting one was so expensive I could have taken the bus, if it wasn't because I try to avoid public transportation right now.

I don't see the electric scooter or bicycle replace the car, I see it can become a competitor to the bicycle.

The people I hear from are not replacing their cars with electric bicycles (mostly) they are replacing their manual bicycles, or getting one for the first time in a long time.

Re: Ask HN: What’s a big trend we should all be following?

#242

Post by AlexTWithBeard » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 7:34 PM UTC

chiyc wrote: post #206

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Information bubbles on all sides of the spectrum. People not willing to compromise and move in small steps. Making bogeymen out of your opponents. And, obviously, downvoting all the dissenters into the oblivion.

I think this comment exhibits a few problems as part of the conversation on systemic racism. "Information bubbles on all sides" is vague, but it seems to imply people trying to fight racism are either fighting for the wrong reasons or misunderstand the problem they're facing. Without more detail, it doesn't contribute anything meaningful for people to take away. And what is there to compromise on racism? The comment…

"Information bubbles" means that people on both sides are only willing to communicate with those who supports and shares their own opinion. People are not listening to each other, people are not giving the benefit of doubt and even heavily ostracize those who suggests there may be "some fine people" on both sides of the barricade.

A compromise on racism is easy: for most people being non-racist is enough to make this world better. We cannot and we should not mandate everyone to be actively anti-racist. Race relations is a complex topic. It's actually more complex than most people think and there are no easy answers. The same way like everyone should not be actively anti-covid: leave it to doctors and nurses and simply do your part not to make the problem worse.

The BLM issue is too vague to detract it further: the way it's put now it's "against all bad and for all good". Is it about black lives? Or about police brutality? Or about police accountability (or lack thereof)? Or about racism - in its direct sense when people are laid off purely because the color of their skin? Or about black culture which does not promote education and other "white people values"? Or about economic inequality that went through the roof?

And, by the way, when I wrote about refusing to make a compromise, I was thinking more about police unions: they've built the dam that is now broke open.

Re: Ask HN: What’s a big trend we should all be following?

#243

Post by sunstone » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 7:52 PM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #241

sunstone wrote: post #92

Electric bicycles (and other light electrics) are going to remake the world's cities in the next 30 years. The signs are already in place. The biggest transformational factor is the lack of exhaust allowing a lot of personal transport to be moved indoors.

I went on a voi (electric scooter) today. It was fun but I would probably crash about once a week, they are much more dangerous than a bicycle. The upshot is that I can leave them anywhere and take mostly the route I want. Downside is that I can't drive them as fast as they should be driven (they are legally restricted to 20km/h here, a better speed would be 30) and renting one was so expensive I could have taken the…

The people you hear from might have a been a bad sample. In the bike crazy Netherlands, where last year they bought more e-bikes than regular bikes, the most common use of e-bikes is to replace car trips of up to 15km distance. That is my personal experience as well and I was quite surprised.

Re: Ask HN: What’s a big trend we should all be following?

#244

Post by noxer » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 8:17 PM UTC

pgcj_poster wrote: post #227

noxer wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well we would not literally die out just a lot people would die. No one know how many people could survive but clearly far less than there are now. Veganism isn't only about not eating some snuff. It's about abstaining from the use of all animal products for all possible use cases. People who call them self vegans obviously all have their own definition because it's simply impossible to not use animal products they m…

The idea of veganism is that humans shouldn't oppress other sentient beings for our own gain—it's not an aversion to organic material that happens to lack a cell wall. Fossil fuels are made from dead animals, but unlike, say chicken nuggets, we don't produce fossil fuels by breeding billions of animals to live in some of the worst conditions imaginable up until their slaughter. Likewise, humans are animals, but their…

Like I said "all have their own definition". If you are fine with using animal products if they did not suffer because of humans, you still can't use fossil fuel because obviously your goal then is to avoid animal suffering and billions of animals suffered and died as a direct consequence of humans using fossil fuel.

Veganism can be turned and twisted however one wants its either based on total flawed concept or the only real solution would be to remove humans form earth. Which would guarantee no further bad effects due to us but it would certainly not stop animal suffering for millions of years to come.

Re: Ask HN: What’s a big trend we should all be following?

#245

Post by Imanari » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 8:20 PM UTC

Meditation. Has huge benefits and should be taught to kids in schools.

Re: Ask HN: What’s a big trend we should all be following?

#246

Post by mycall » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 8:42 PM UTC

lol768 wrote: post #31

whycombagator wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also Blazor[0] [0] https://dotnet.microsoft.com/apps/aspnet/web-apps/blazor

Blazor's WebAssembly variant is much more interesting and exciting in my opinion than the server-side model. Finally, a language for the frontend that's a joy to use. Still early days of course, but something I'll be watching closely.

I'm sure some hybrid will come, as I can see some features being wasm and some being server side, depending on use case (eg. ease of maintenance vs. offline support).

Re: Ask HN: What’s a big trend we should all be following?

#247

Post by mycall » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 8:43 PM UTC

elamje wrote: post #114

chrisrickard wrote: post #4

Serverside Rendering * https://laravel-livewire.com * https://github.com/phoenixframework/phoenix_live_view * https://dotnet.microsoft.com/apps/aspnet/web-apps/blazor edit: added blazor

I use Blazor day to day. It’s really awesome. You are trading off ease of development for a potentially laggy UI connection, since each UI action re renders across the wire. I see it being used heavily for enterprises that know C#, don’t care to learn the latest JS framework, and just want to make a SPA quickly and cheaply. WASM or client side blazor is definitely interesting, though the client must download the whol…

What % do you see Blazor eating React's lunch?

Re: Ask HN: What’s a big trend we should all be following?

#248

Post by throwaway743 » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 8:55 PM UTC

nine_zeros wrote: post #233

hwbehrens wrote: post #54

Digitization of national currencies [0] -- don't think cryptocurrencies, but rather a harmonized API for financial transactions. In particular, I expect this to drastically affect cross-border transactions by substantially lowering the bar to implementing them (as compared to SWIFT, for example) by whatever country gets there first, in the hope that their digital currency might replace the USD as de facto internation…

Can you summarize what the real advantage of digital currencies are? What does it enable that the current system doesn't?

Advantage for governments is more control. For citizens, not much. Should the virus be around during this push, it'll be promoted as a "safer alternative" to physical cash.

Re: Ask HN: What’s a big trend we should all be following?

#249

Post by CM30 » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 9:04 PM UTC

highfrequency wrote: post #32

Cloud gaming. GeForce Now immediately upgrades a $500 laptop to a $1500 gaming desktop with modern GPUs.

I definitely see this as a trend, but I genuinely hope it doesn't become one. Cloud gaming is yet another step in the slow erosion of our ability to actually own stuff, and would be bad for everything from selling games to making mods to video game preservation.

It's disheartening how many people don't see the dangers in only being able to access media/software at the whim of a large corporation who can shut said access off at any time for any reason.

Re: Ask HN: What’s a big trend we should all be following?

#250

Post by pgcj_poster » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 9:07 PM UTC

noxer wrote: post #244

pgcj_poster wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of veganism is that humans shouldn't oppress other sentient beings for our own gain—it's not an aversion to organic material that happens to lack a cell wall. Fossil fuels are made from dead animals, but unlike, say chicken nuggets, we don't produce fossil fuels by breeding billions of animals to live in some of the worst conditions imaginable up until their slaughter. Likewise, humans are animals, but their…

Like I said "all have their own definition". If you are fine with using animal products if they did not suffer because of humans, you still can't use fossil fuel because obviously your goal then is to avoid animal suffering and billions of animals suffered and died as a direct consequence of humans using fossil fuel. Veganism can be turned and twisted however one wants its either based on total flawed concept or the…

I didn't say "humans should never cause animals to suffer." I said that humans shouldn't oppress animals, meaning that we shouldn't treat them as commodities and we should respect their rights.

Obviously it's impossible to never cause any animal suffer, just as it's impossible to never cause any human to suffer. For instance, if you don't donate all of your available organs, you're causing another human to suffer and die. We accept that, because we'd rather live in a society where people have rights over their own bodies, even if it hurts others. However, just because you can't avoid hurting other humans sometimes, that doesn't mean that you're justified in enslaving, murdering, and eating humans. Likewise, it's wrong to do any of those things to animals, even if human civilization inevitably hurts animals sometimes.

If you want to go from a pure act-utilitarian perspective (which is psychologically impossible, hence rule-utilitarianism), then indeed, you would not technically be a vegan, because you wouldn't hold any special principal regarding the use of animal products. However, if you were maximizing utility, you still wouldn't eat meat or dairy products, because those things cause massive suffering to animals, and cause environmental damage, with no benefit (except taste and slightly easier access to B12) to humans living in developed economies.