Earlier quoted context omitted.
The alternative explanation that he is against cryptocurrency actually is true.
Seems to be a bad use of "racist".
Oh I agree. I’m mostly just being facetious.
Fraud investigation is believing your lying eyes
191–200 of 221 posts
Re: Fraud investigation is believing your lying eyes
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm working on making it a thing, but my theory is that power can't be destroyed, merely transferred, and in most cases I'd rather have the power be vested in a democratic government.
Suppose an asteroid strikes the Earth and all human life becomes extinct. What power, specifically, has been transferred, and to where?
When an asteroid strikes Earth, its kinetic power is rapidly transferred primarily to the atmosphere, surface, and subsurface in the forms of thermal energy (heating and vaporization), mechanical energy (crater formation and ejecta), and seismic energy (earthquakes and waves).
Re: Fraud investigation is believing your lying eyes
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing which is beyond intellectually serious dispute is industrial-scaled fraud. You keep wanting to make me "own" the CCAP's estimate. I will not reciprocally try to make you "own" $5 million, because I am charitable and because history has been unkind to the officials who made it. I do ask you to own: "Minnesota HAS NOT suffered industrial-scale fraud across several social programs." Otherwise this is judging a…
Of course Minnesota has suffered industrial-scale fraud. FoF alone clears that bar. I've never said otherwise. But your essay doesn't just claim fraud exists: it presents the 50% figure as the evidence that "staggers the imagination" and makes the case "beyond intellectually serious dispute." That's not parenthetical color. The paragraph is load-bearing on that number. You charitably won't make me own $5M. I never cl…
The essay reads to me as 5000 words on why epistemic standards should be lowered for effective fraud investigation. Requiring retrospective evidence - the highest epistemic standard - is too slow and expensive, so the government needs to copy the private sector's epistemic standards where a collection of solid heuristics and smart observations is sufficient to preemptively block payment.
It's an insightful point, but it seems consistent with those epistemic standards that it's unimportant whether the 50% figure is valid in retrospect. The observation of "industrial-scale fraud" is sufficient to act, it doesn't need a retrospectively validated 50% figure and he would like you to get all the way off his back about it.
Re: Fraud investigation is believing your lying eyes
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
> (unless you have gone back and deleted the comments, haven't checked yet!) Minor point: I'm pretty sure that HN comments cannot be deleted/edited after about an hour. Very different from most web forums in this regard, and worth keeping in mind when digging into past discussions! Maybe the rules are different for a superuser like tptacek here with lots of karma, but I doubt it. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Two hours, I believe. But they can't be deleted if they have been replied to.
The only thing I get for my abnormally high amount of karma is the right to veto one YC startup out of every batch.
Re: Fraud investigation is believing your lying eyes
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
No government body is run completely on the ball, which is why it's such an effective bad-faith demand. I don't even know where this belief comes from. I'm certainly not aware of any historical scenario where authoritarian regimes end when their opponents finally embody perfect behavior above reproach.
It would be a bad-faith demand if I was asking people to assume every blue-state government was bad. But I'm not: I'm simply asking to recognize one that clearly is.
You don't need to ask people to assume every blue-state government was bad, Nick "name a Democrat city that's prospering right now" Shirley will do that after you, you just have to tee him up by saying the first part: "we need every government body we run to be completely on the ball".
I doubt you yourself are engaging in bad faith (of course I recognize your username) but it's still a bad-faith demand to expect "completely on the ball" behavior above reproach and your intentions don't matter when you echo the demand.
For the author, it wasn't enough to simply recognize a failure to prosecute fraud fast enough, such a failure must be characterized as the cause of the irresponsible demagoguery that followed. Then turns around and wonders why his article isn't treated as the apolitical dissection of fraud that he claims it to be.
Re: Fraud investigation is believing your lying eyes
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would be a bad-faith demand if I was asking people to assume every blue-state government was bad. But I'm not: I'm simply asking to recognize one that clearly is.
You don't need to ask people to assume every blue-state government was bad, Nick "name a Democrat city that's prospering right now" Shirley will do that after you, you just have to tee him up by saying the first part: "we need every government body we run to be completely on the ball". I doubt you yourself are engaging in bad faith (of course I recognize your username) but it's still a bad-faith demand to expect "com…
I don't understand this at all. The DFL-controlled government of Minnesota royally fucked up and allowed fraud against a social services program on an industrial scale. That fraud isn't a small crime; it's a grave crime, victimizing the most vulnerable people in our society. It's a very big deal. This is a technical post discussing a variety of different ways in which program administrators could hope to prevent something like it from happening in the future.
How are people finding ways to downplay or dunk on this? I just don't understand. What do I care how "apolitical" it is? I don't care. I do not care. The fraud is what we should care about. That's what the post is about.
Re: Fraud investigation is believing your lying eyes
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is a common error to misunderstand the base rate of an event. In this case, the frequency of media articles about Trump dwarf other political subjects. Or one could assume a vast conspiracy to explain the phenomenon.
False dichotomies like that are easy mistakes to make. Consider Reddit, no conspiracy, and yet overwhelmingly of some opinions. Coordination requiring conspiracies is naïve, but forgivable among novices of epistemology.
Observers of this exchange will note the main point, the base rate fallacy, has not been addressed. Instead, a nit about rhetorical punctuation was indulged.
Re: Fraud investigation is believing your lying eyes
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course Minnesota has suffered industrial-scale fraud. FoF alone clears that bar. I've never said otherwise. But your essay doesn't just claim fraud exists: it presents the 50% figure as the evidence that "staggers the imagination" and makes the case "beyond intellectually serious dispute." That's not parenthetical color. The paragraph is load-bearing on that number. You charitably won't make me own $5M. I never cl…
The essay reads to me as 5000 words on why epistemic standards should be lowered for effective fraud investigation. Requiring retrospective evidence - the highest epistemic standard - is too slow and expensive, so the government needs to copy the private sector's epistemic standards where a collection of solid heuristics and smart observations is sufficient to preemptively block payment. It's an insightful point, but…
The charged language (“get all the way off his back”) is unnecessary. You are responding as if I am attacking him personally or the post in general.
I am not. I am repeatedly enthused about it. You are in fact, parroting positive things I am saying about it.
I am on Hacker News, responding to him responding to a critic on a particular point.
Re: Fraud investigation is believing your lying eyes
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then I think you need to read more about Tammany Hall, because it was not simply a widespread pattern of fraud in social services.
There was few social services at the time. It was a patronage system. Different rewards but buying votes all the same. My point is that patronage is a long storied American tradition so I don’t know why people are al shocked that such schemes are still ongoing. Republican and anti castro cubans is or was a similar patronage system.
Tammany hall got people murdered [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammany_Hall].
Re: Fraud investigation is believing your lying eyes
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
The essay reads to me as 5000 words on why epistemic standards should be lowered for effective fraud investigation. Requiring retrospective evidence - the highest epistemic standard - is too slow and expensive, so the government needs to copy the private sector's epistemic standards where a collection of solid heuristics and smart observations is sufficient to preemptively block payment. It's an insightful point, but…
The charged language (“get all the way off his back”) is unnecessary. You are responding as if I am attacking him personally or the post in general. I am not. I am repeatedly enthused about it. You are in fact, parroting positive things I am saying about it. I am on Hacker News, responding to him responding to a critic on a particular point.
Sorry I meant that humorously in the vein of Ryan George's comedy YouTube series "Pitch Meeting" where one of his catch phrases is "I'm gonna need you to get all the way off my back on that"