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3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

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Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#541

Post by taylodl »

chaz wrote: post #455
sushisource wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh.... On the flip side, processing and storing some simple text forms should be able to handle 1000s of simultaneous users on one box. So, probably like most software of this nature, the reason it's not scaling is simply because the people who made it probably weren't the greatest engineers on the block.

These are the same kinds of assumptions that lead engineers to think they can build a [any product] clone in a weekend. It's unlikely that the problem or constraints are nearly as simple as one may think. Consider: single auth across all the state's services, external APIs, identity verification, address verification, employer ID verification, federal/military ID verification, income/tax verification, phone verificat…

Admittedly it's a value call. My thought is generally if it's a small incremental cost that greatly increases the robustness then you should go for it. But - sometimes the money or time just isn't there. I'm bothered more by the people not even wanting to have the discussion than by those who do a summary analysis and decide it's not worth it.

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#542

Post by [deleted] »

Demiurge wrote: post #412
kazagistar wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren't choosing to have crap infrastructure, their infrastructure is intentionally defunded as part of a political campaign to engender distrust in government functions and increase privatization. Government is incompetent because if it is, its easy to justify selling off the country to the incredibly wealthy so they can get wealthier.

It's a bit worse than that. The infrastructure isn't actually defunded, there are huge funds allocated to projects, but they're being consumed by managers at Deloitte, Lockheed, Booz Allen, Accenture, etc. The times when we see success is when enough funding trickled down to the few engineers who could make it work with what they get. Other times we see success is when there is enough public oversight by sufficiently…

[deleted]

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#543

Post by Demiurge »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #502
Demiurge wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest by campaigning to bring logic and critical thinking into early childhood education. Then philosophy, the classics. Science education. Once you have more people who can understand that there are scientific and moral issues with manifest destiny, and religion isn't going to solve global warming, there will be some shifts in the public discourse and public policies.

Having the schools teach RightThink instead of WrongThink tends to be a hard sell to an ideologically diverse nation.

The whole point of logic and philosophy is that it teaches to think and analyze for yourself, Think, not SomeThink.

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#544

Post by carapace »

crazy1van wrote: post #192
wpietri wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it? Let's set aside the scorekeeping systems we use (money, profit, ownership, wealth) for a moment. I see no reason to think we can't get people properly fed indefinitely. We'll still have power, water, sewage, bandwidth. And it's not like the shut down businesses will evaporate or anything. The buildings will be there. The equipment will be there. 97%+ of the staff will still be around. Eventually we'll have a…

> We'll still have power, water, sewage, bandwidth Don’t forget about food. There’s a lot of complexity and people involved in getting food from a farm to your local restaurants and grocery stores. If it gets really bad and even a fraction of people in these industries stop working, stay-at-home life might get a lot less comfortable.

It's worth remembering how efficient our modern food systems have become that less than 3 out of 100 people are enough to work them.

That said, it wouldn't hurt anything to start a "victory garden", it's the right time of year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden (but that's a good idea anyway, orthogonal to the virus.)

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#545

Post by jahaja »

big_chungus wrote: post #498
jahaja wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might be the most unethical thread I've ever read on HN, and that takes a lot. Shame on you.

Where do you get that conclusion? You think crashing the economy won't hurt people? > Shame on you. Seriously?

Yes, seriously. You're willing to sacrifice a million people to keep your house of cards economy going instead of fixing the root cause. To add insult to injury you want to shrink the state, thus collective resources, even more and calling every citizen of the US welfare queens? What the hell?

This is some fundamentalist "the cause justify the means" bullshit. An economy that requires 1 million in human sacrifice during a crisis is nothing to keep around. Not to mention the already ~60k/year that dies due to lack of healthcare access because people like you want to keep the welfare state to this non-functioning minimum.

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#546

Post by gwright »

standardUser wrote: post #267
rubber_duck wrote: post #35

And this is just the start. While I think the US response to Corona was slower than the response in my country I feel the US is the only country that's seriously discussing economic repercussions and debating the medical experts. In EU (at least in my country) it's doctors running things and we are in "stop the pandemic at all cost". Everyone is in panic due to Italy situation. But doctors are only trained to see the…

Most wealthy nations already have a robust social safety net in place. They don't need to rush to cobble together a temporary one in the same was the US does.

This really isn't helpful to the discussion. The US has unemployment benefits, Medicaid, food stamps, and many other programs. And it seems to be pretty premature to declare which country is or isn't going to come out of this with the least amount of damage.

It is a bit of a mystery to me why Congress isn't just providing better funding/financing for all the existing programs. I'm not sure why there should be new types of programs to help individuals. I'm deeply suspicious of efforts to prop up businesses, I'd rather have the focus be on individuals and let businesses figure out the best way forward. For some businesses bankruptcy might be the best solution because the business model has completely changed.

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#547

Post by bigbob2 »

aianus wrote: post #490
HappySweeney wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If this lockdown continues indefinitely the death numbers from the economic fallout will likely eclipse those of the pandemic. Seeing that doing nothing will likely lead to lead to millions of deaths, how would the lockdown possibly kill more than that? Are you under the impression people will just willingly starve to death, or that fighting over food will get so bad that millions of people will die?

> Seeing that doing nothing will likely lead to lead to millions of deaths, how would the lockdown possibly kill more than that? The lockdown is wasting months to years of billions of people's lives. That has to be equivalent to some number of deaths, hard to quantify how many, but it's greater than zero. Also, a bad economy literally kills people by starvation albeit in foreign, poor countries that don't have food s…

It is seemingly easy to (roughly) quantify the number of deaths which have occurred as a result of COVID-19, and it is certainly greater than zero. It would seemingly be difficult or impossible to quantify the number of deaths which have occurred as a result of social distancing policies (aka "lockdown"). For that reason alone the certainty of a COVID-19 threat seems greater than the certainty of death by economy.

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#548

Post by legolas2412 »

smallgovt wrote: post #512
rubber_duck wrote: post #35

And this is just the start. While I think the US response to Corona was slower than the response in my country I feel the US is the only country that's seriously discussing economic repercussions and debating the medical experts. In EU (at least in my country) it's doctors running things and we are in "stop the pandemic at all cost". Everyone is in panic due to Italy situation. But doctors are only trained to see the…

For those who are willing to go through this thought exercise, if we're purely trying to maximize humankind's total well-being, how much wealth would we have to create to counteract one coronavirus victim's loss of life? Here's a set of 3 questions that I think leads to a possible answer. - How much would someone have to pay you to be put to sleep for 8 years, during which period you have no sensory input or output?…

Shouldn't there be a difference between 2m$ I can spend myself 8 years from now and 2m$ that some rich person earns if I die.

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#550

Post by chameleon_world »

rubber_duck wrote: post #538
smallgovt wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those who are willing to go through this thought exercise, if we're purely trying to maximize humankind's total well-being, how much wealth would we have to create to counteract one coronavirus victim's loss of life? Here's a set of 3 questions that I think leads to a possible answer. - How much would someone have to pay you to be put to sleep for 8 years, during which period you have no sensory input or output?…

I think you're framing the question - the tradeoff at this point is not how much value will be created but how much value will be destroyed. The impacts of corona measures will lead to the economic slowdown and general reduction of wealth - for you this might mean that you lose your job, can't afford to buy a new apartment, car, furniture, electronics, clothes, etc. but for people that live close to poverty level tha…

Well the dot com bubble comes to mind concerning people not willing to invest in risky tech companies but that didn't stop new tech from coming to the market
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