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The brain was not designed for this much bad news

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Re: The brain was not designed for this much bad news

#321

Post by consensus1 »

miki123211 wrote: post #305
roenxi wrote: post #11

The other option is to be more realistic - people often have wildly unrealistic expectations of how the world should work and seem to get a bit stressed when they are confronted with reality. The more pressing problem is the voters who accept policies being put in place based on something going wrong one time without accepting that things go wrong and we have to tolerate problems to some extent. If policies were made…

So well put! Another problem is misunderstanding incentives. People think that, if fish protection should be a goal of society, any fish protection law is a good one. Not many can think through second order effects, the drag of regulations on pro-safety innovation, the impact of foreign jurisdictions that don't have this law (or only pretend to follow it for their own gain).

And before the question of trade offs there is the question "does the Fish Protection Act actually protect fish at all?" In a very large number of cases it does not.

Re: The brain was not designed for this much bad news

#322

Post by kelipso »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #296
kelipso wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the posters in this website are teenagers or in their early twenties. Let’s not be delusional here, this is still the internet.

There may have been a time when most people on the Internet were in their teens and early twenties, but I don't think that has been true for a long time.

I think it's still the case, especially during summer. People get busy and less interested in online bs once they graduate high school or college. I've noticed, someone mentions their age here and it skews younger pretty often.

Re: The brain was not designed for this much bad news

#323

Post by _DeadFred_ »

cholantesh wrote: post #258
_DeadFred_ wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

As opposed to treating fact-free rehashings of Israeli state propaganda as 'non-flattering statements' and decorating such treatments with thought-terminating epithets.

I included specific examples from the latest Iran discussion. Flagging responses dead like that is even more thought-terminating than my poor computer geek writing style.

Please respond to those examples in context/a substantive/HN worthy way and have a discussion, not a fact free handwaving of 'they're XYZ evil foreign power's propaganda'. How do the examples I provided break Hacker News guidelines and deserve not only a downvote but to be actively flagged dead? This is a discussion site, not a popularity site. Flagged is not supposed to be used to shape the discussion, but for severe violations of HN guidelines, which the examples do not rise to. The proper response is a response.

Re: The brain was not designed for this much bad news

#324

Post by BirAdam »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #320
BirAdam wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah. People actively voted for a guy who said no war. Then he got the USA into a dumb war. Just like all the rest. Voting has objectively not produced the results that the people have wanted, and this is not new. Voting doesn’t work. Being “informed” changes nothing. The only way the hoi polloi can have any effect whatever is typically through rather violent uprising. This works for maybe a generation, and then it al…

Well, voting doesn't produce the results you want when you vote for a liar. That doesn't mean that voting never produces the desired result, just that it doesn't in that condition.

Well, politicians are generally liars. Trump, Obama, Biden, Bush, Clinton, Reagan… we can go all the way back to McKinley and I could easily say that the campaign people voted for was not what was delivered. Even more, it was usually the opposite.

Re: The brain was not designed for this much bad news

#325

Post by nathan_compton »

consensus1 wrote: post #321
miki123211 wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So well put! Another problem is misunderstanding incentives. People think that, if fish protection should be a goal of society, any fish protection law is a good one. Not many can think through second order effects, the drag of regulations on pro-safety innovation, the impact of foreign jurisdictions that don't have this law (or only pretend to follow it for their own gain).

And before the question of trade offs there is the question "does the Fish Protection Act actually protect fish at all?" In a very large number of cases it does not.

I've felt for a long time that laws should have an attached "intent" section and one function of the courts should be to invalidate laws which, after a period of being in place and some analysis, fail to achieve their stated intent.

I think it would be good for democracy if lawmakers had to put in writing what the law is supposed to accomplish AND if that were something legally binding.

Re: The brain was not designed for this much bad news

#326

Post by paulryanrogers »

tadfisher wrote: post #313
zbentley wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> voters who accept policies being put in place based on something going wrong one time without accepting that things go wrong and we have to tolerate problems to some extent I think this is almost the correct diagnosis, but the real problem is adjacent to that: it’s very easy for opponents to capitalize on political decisions that accept risk. It’s not that people love “do something, anything” policy making—rather,…

...except for guns. That topic is off-limits at all levels of government. The problem is never guns, it is mental health, or drugs, or poverty, and the only solution is more police and more people in prisons.

> and the only solution is more police and more people in prisons.

The solution is more guns, or so I'm told. If only more people were "packing heat" then surely criminals wouldn't dare to commit crimes.

Just disregard the circular firing squads that too often occur when these would-be heroes start overreacting to everything, including each other.

Re: The brain was not designed for this much bad news

#327

Post by mc3301 »

tadfisher wrote: post #313
zbentley wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> voters who accept policies being put in place based on something going wrong one time without accepting that things go wrong and we have to tolerate problems to some extent I think this is almost the correct diagnosis, but the real problem is adjacent to that: it’s very easy for opponents to capitalize on political decisions that accept risk. It’s not that people love “do something, anything” policy making—rather,…

...except for guns. That topic is off-limits at all levels of government. The problem is never guns, it is mental health, or drugs, or poverty, and the only solution is more police and more people in prisons.

Clearly the whole gun thing is working, though. Regular citizens can all feel safe in public areas and schools, while the potential of a fascist government greed-fueled rise is kept well-at-bay by the fact that the general populace has the right to bear arms.

Re: The brain was not designed for this much bad news

#328

Post by paulryanrogers »

consensus1 wrote: post #317
anigbrowl wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's facile. Such statements are clearly a synecdoche for the phenomena of well-organized grassroots campaigns getting steamrolled by massively-funded advertising from PACs, or popular votes/referenda being overridden or stymied by small numbers of electeds. Anyone who is politically active has seen numerous examples of this: here's a recent one from Utah: https://utahnewsdispatch.com/2026/05/04/box-elder-commissio…

What is the corruption you are alleging here? I live in Salt Lake City and I haven't heard any arguments against that data center that don't boil down to some kind of conspiracy theory or just a fundamental lack of understanding of scale and engineering. Are you claiming that the commissioners were bribed?

Why build data centers in water scarce, often hot deserts?

Perhaps folks are also upset the DCs will host AI that may affect their job prospects or at least compensation?

Isn't the salt lake an environmental disaster waiting to happen, especially as it is drained for more development?

Re: The brain was not designed for this much bad news

#329

Post by inigyou »

BirAdam wrote: post #319
kjkjadksj wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

War with Iran was not on anyones bingo card.

Nah. People actively voted for a guy who said no war. Then he got the USA into a dumb war. Just like all the rest. Voting has objectively not produced the results that the people have wanted, and this is not new. Voting doesn’t work. Being “informed” changes nothing. The only way the hoi polloi can have any effect whatever is typically through rather violent uprising. This works for maybe a generation, and then it al…

People actively voted for a known serial liar, idiot, and warmonger who said no war.

Re: The brain was not designed for this much bad news

#330

Post by consensus1 »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #328
consensus1 wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the corruption you are alleging here? I live in Salt Lake City and I haven't heard any arguments against that data center that don't boil down to some kind of conspiracy theory or just a fundamental lack of understanding of scale and engineering. Are you claiming that the commissioners were bribed?

Why build data centers in water scarce, often hot deserts? Perhaps folks are also upset the DCs will host AI that may affect their job prospects or at least compensation? Isn't the salt lake an environmental disaster waiting to happen, especially as it is drained for more development?

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