291–300 of 337 posts
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> Firstly, the downvotes are a recent manifestation of creeping groupthink. Political discussion has, for a long time, been discouraged on HN. Down-voting is one way to encourage people to stop.
This whole discussion is political. Downvoting mickey7's comments for that is extremely hypocritical, unless you downvote all comments and flag the submission.
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Is it really so hard for you to imagine prisoners dilemmas and tragedies of the commons? I'm willing to pay $1 for a public good if everyone else pays $1. But it is utterly irrational for me to pay voluntarily for this public good, for at least two reasons: 1) since most people won't be paying for it, if I want it I'll have to pay much more, and 2) whether or not it exists is entirely independent of my actions anyway…
> In order for fundamentalist libertarianism to work it will need to come up with a solution to the free-rider problem. Got one? Yes: http://fallibleideas.com/public-goods
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This whole discussion is political. Downvoting mickey7's comments for that is extremely hypocritical, unless you downvote all comments and flag the submission.
Maybe some points of view are seen as trolling and not as genuine discourse?
I am very in favor of community public investment, but I am skeptical that our libraries are an efficient allocation of the very large claim they already have on our public taxes.
Note in this story how the grandfather was so poorly served by the system. It's not designed to serve those who need the system most. In the end he only gets reluctant help from someone overqualified (overpaid) to give him the kind of assistance he needs.
Unlike other suggestions in this thread, I do not agree that the answer is to prop up the failing library system by pretending to use its services to make their numbers look better. We should be demanding that our libraries evolve to remove wasteful and expensive services (that many of its users can already afford to pay for directly), and focus on the needs of those who cannot pay.
Our average library staff salary and benefits cost $25/hr - couldn't we double the assistance to the underprivileged by paying trained "Web Assistants" $10/hr to help them instead?
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I'd like to believe that but the tone I got from the story is that we shouldn't be using our local libraries. I'd hate the thought that I have checked out a book I could otherwise afford to buy and deprived the use to someone that could not. Or that I am using a computer to read Hackernews that an ex-convict needs to use to apply for a government program to keep his grandson alive. Using the library deprives a slice…
This simply isn't true. The library keeps stats on how many books are being loaned out, and when they drop, they lose an argument for funding the service. Meanwhile, the people who genuinely need the library don't need it to take books out; lending out books is a service that disproportionately helps people with the leisure time to develop a taste for reading books for pleasure.
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> In order for fundamentalist libertarianism to work it will need to come up with a solution to the free-rider problem. Got one? Yes: http://fallibleideas.com/public-goods
Any evidence that this solves it?
Can I add to this one little point, which is a counterintuitive thing you can do to help your local library: Use your local library . During the year we started Matasano our Chicago team spent about 40%-50% of our time working from the Oak Park Public Library, sometimes in meeting rooms we booked, more often at study desks. It was great. The Internet access wasn't amazing but it was totally functional and we could VP…
That's fascinating.
What are some other unconventional ways to find space to hack on projects?
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> Firstly, the downvotes are a recent manifestation of creeping groupthink. Political discussion has, for a long time, been discouraged on HN. Down-voting is one way to encourage people to stop.
It's not just this instance, I've noticed in an increasingly broad variety of topics that when something goes against the accepted groupthink it is prone to silent downvoting. Even in the absence of ad homs, whining in general, etc. Also you'd be pretty hard pressed to say that this question isn't expressly relevant to the original article being discussed, and isn't overtly political in the sense that noone is agitat…
"Do buyers and sellers go to this man the way people go to real estate agents for their services? What would Craigslist buyers and sellers think of what he does if they knew about it? Respectfully, I think they would strongly prefer he weren't interfering." http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=3515735
... and:
"I doubt very much that sellers would appreciate this liquidity 'service' if it were spelled out for them. They would feel cheated, as would the buyers." http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=3515689
Pretty outrageous, in retrospect.