> True but with the Analytic / Continental divide in philosophy you still get a lot of folks on the Analytic side of things who think that anything not quantifiable in the way that they are used to is bunk.

I am glad you pointed that out. Anecdotally, I have found that "philosophy" to many in the tech industry when used perjoratively means Continental vs Analytic philosophy. Plus, even with analytic philosophy, when people recognize it as the sort of thing that Russell and his lineage worked on, they don't really get what these philosophers "cared about" - that it mattered to them if mathematical symbolism expressed truths about the Universe in a metaphysical sense. They weren't just manipulating symbols to prove consistency etc.

To me, Wittgenstein's concerns portray the bridge between the two major schools (well, naturally, he was a European who chose to go study under Russell, the Englishman) very well. He cared about the formalism, but he also cared that it made sense in terms of finding meaning in the world.

Somehow, it's the latter struggle that seems to pass by unnoticed when "techie people" (to generalize) think of the work of philosophers.

Agreed! :)

The person who responded had a bunch of good points, but one thing they didn't specifically respond to, is how members of my caste (Brahmins, top of the heap) would know how someone is NOT a brahmin.

So if you aren't a brahmin, you probably haven't had the same childhood experiences of temple-going and specific rituals. If I really want to ferret your caste out, I might casually quiz you on this background, maybe even in the context of innocently joshing about, "hey, wasn't that weird our moms would make us do blah blah blah." And if you didn't respond right away with a story about how your parents did that same thing, I'd maybe start to become suspicious ...

If you ever let slip that someone in your family got a job because they utilized an affirmative action program (called "reservations" in India,) it'd sound weird, and I'd get suspicious ...

If I started a joke about how some brahmins are better than other brahmins (yep, that exists. I know because I am the best Brahmin.) and you seemed clueless about the typology, I'd get suspicious ...

You do this enough times, I'm gonna cross you off my party list.

I'm surprised there are no opinions on this, at Hacker News. Even if it is just to object to the conclusions that Carr draws :)

For the record, I'm a huge fan of Carr and his work.

Part of the reason you can't show a _why_ at this level is that each of these graphs have too many confounding factors. The lower level of life expectancy for example is owed partly to how the demographics of the US are different because of the more open immigration policies relative to some OECD countries (like Japan and Korea, e.g.) The greater expenditure on healthcare is owed partly to higher levels of obesity, which is a complex outcome from levels of wealth, hours worked, access to food, availability of childcare etc.

One simple way of saying this is that the US is a much bigger, more diverse, country than at least some of the countries it gets compared to. So the comparisons are not entirely "fair."

I'd be interested to see a comparison of the individual (US) states interspersed with the OECD countries - at least some states might break out and compete with the higher echelon of OECD countries on some of these metrics.

What is "fairer" is to compare the US to itself, across generations. The work that Robert Gordon did in this regard is extremely powerful, showing how, post-1970, the US has not been able to maintain various economic equity indicators. As someone else commented, this could be attributed to a shift in buying power from the "consumer class" to the "investor class," a shift that, contrary to the myth of "trickle down economics" does not lead to more accumulation of capital. Instead, it tends to flow to financial assets and international investment which don't raise domestic demand as much as if you had put that money into individual paychecks.

Then there's the gradual decline in new firm formation as well, which adds to this mess - again, this is a comparison within the US, and is "fairer" in assessing what's going wrong.

This is essentially what Marc Andreesen's point was in his "build" essay. Most local governments have gotten stuck in a perfect storm of rentier interests, environmental regulation barriers, union disputes, lack of public interest, etc. I guess it's a kind of short-termism, with each interest group looking out for its constituents. And there are too many interest groups at too many levels.

There's a great analysis of transportation infrastructure costs that came out in the New Yorker, as part of a story on the new head of the NYMTA, Andy Byford (Bynum?). The bottomline is that we can't blame any specific political section, like saying that it's all the unions' fault, or all because we regulate the environment too much. Other OECD countries have the same concerns, in terms of protecting worker safety and the environment. But in the US, the number of competing groups has gotten past some critical point that it's making the whole system move way too slowly.

Yeah, I am also having a really hard time reading this visualization as perpetuating any stereotypes - assuming ofc that the data itself is correct. It would indeed by perpetuating them if it were not the case that urban stress is disproportionately felt in the Black population - but even proponents of racial justice are quite clear that this is the case in many American cities.

The legend uses the words "Low/High" and not "Bad/Good." It's a quantitative measure, not a moral/aesthetic judgment.

The conclusion of this graphic would be - There is more stress in South Central LA, which has a higher proportion of Black Americans. Or possibly, the least stress is towards the West, where there are relatively fewer Blacks.

I guess if you are concerned it will read as, "In South Central LA, there are angry black people, don't go there!" - that leap of faith will be made regardless of how you visualize the data. "Poor people are naturally lazy/violent/immoral," is a stereotype that has existed for far longer than any widely accepted attempt at data visualization.

> The legend uses the words "Low/High" and not "Bad/Good." It's a quantitative measure, not a moral/aesthetic judgment.

This is definitely not true -- yes it uses Low/High, but different variables have different qualities for Low/High -- and "Good" is always on top. "Low" unemployment is on the top while "High" affluence is also on top (i.e. not purely numeric). That should be obvious because the positive emotions are being associated with positive ("good") variable ranges.

I mean, if a quantitative measurement were the main focus here surely we shouldn't be using faces which are known to be loaded with emotions.

You did not seem to address my main concern, which is specifically that low white percentages are portrayed as negative in the legend. (I'm trying to avoid the Motte/Bailey here) -- do you disagree?

> Poor people are naturally lazy/violent/immoral

I think it's more excusable to equate "Poor"=="Bad" than "Certain race"=="Bad", because it's generally accepted being poor is undesirable, while you can't change your ethnic background (and generally I don't think you should)

I think I see now why someone else asked, "Would it be okay if the legend was horizontal?" Because then you don't have the "on top/below" connotation. Is that what you mean by "portrayed as negative", because they are visually lower?

Re how faces are emotionally loaded, that is somewhat the point of using Chernoff faces as a visualization method, though I understand your concern that therefore it SHOULD not be used as such a method because it will convey ideas not implied in the data because of how we interpret faces.

Fundamentally though, to go to this data set in particular and away from the merit or otherwise of Chernoff faces, there's always going to be a tension to depicting the correlation between race and wealth in the US. One way or the other, you have to say the same thing - Blacks are poorer; and/or Blacks have lower factors of general well-being (though somewhat unintuitively, not lower levels of hopefulness.) And you can't avoid the fact that if you have a data visualization that really brings home the correlation then someone is bound to assume causation in the wrong direction and feel the data validates their racist feelings.

But that doesn't make the attempt at using that visualization a racist one.

Does anyone understand what point he's trying to make, or is it that the point is a very generic, "hey censorship is bad," which most people will agree with, but is argued rather poorly?

At the end he writes, "From everything I’ve heard, talking to doctors and reading the background material, the Bakersfield doctors are probably not to be trusted. But the functional impact of removing their videos (in addition to giving them press they wouldn’t otherwise have had) is to stamp out discussion of things that do actually need to be discussed, like when the damage to the economy..."

Does taking down a video of a couple of charlatans, "stamp out discussion of things that do actually need to be discussed"? I don't see how at all, maybe I'm missing something about why this has upset Taibbi so much. Other than, maybe anything that involves Google/Facebook playing a role in removing content from the Internet will just make him mad, regardless of the issue at hand.

Chastising a man that’s complaining about our loss of freedom of speech? The irony! Censor him!

He’s pointing out a disturbing trend, if you are pro democracy and pro freedom of speech. What’s wrong with that?

Not everyone believes in democracy / freedom of speech, but these two things go hand in hand.

You can’t have democracy without freedom of speech and vice versa.

The disturbing trend towards censorship is the first step towards totalitarianist dictatorships. A lot of people will argue this state is “inevitable” but resisting the urge towards tyranny is an ongoing fight.

Thanks for engaging - I appreciate the chance to have a discussion.

I don't intend to chastise Taibbi at all. I am a fan of much of what he writes - I share his disdain for the journalistic class as a whole, and I like that he gets so mad about stuff.

However, I do chastise his tone and direction with this essay. This essay in itself doesn't convince me that "freedom of speech" is at peril, nor do I think it is, now more so than previously in the United States. And Taibbi's style and targets isn't convincing me otherwise at all. What are the markers of a trend away from free speech? How is there more government suppression of private opinion now than 10, 20, 30, whatever years ago? I have really heard no convincing argument, though I have read and heard dozens of alarmist critiques that focus on this campus protest and that YouTube video personality, without making a strong argument that these are systematic, government-led, erasures of minority opinions.

Please provide examples of totalitarian dictatorships with freedom of speech.

The article doesn't cite even one sample of a violation of freedom of speech.

Freedom of speech doesn't entitle you to a presence on someone else's platform.

Freedom of speech protects you from oppression of your voice from the government, and even then it's heavily qualified to disallow incitement and such.

As far as I can tell there is no violation at all. In fact, I applaud the non-government organizations taking on the absolutely critical and necessary act of moderating their platforms, they should be doing it vastly more than they are.

The whole point of the internet is you can go and put up your own thing. Thinking the Googles and Facebooks have an obligation to amplify your voice no matter what you say is asinine and flat out wrong.

If platforms were responsible for what they actually distribute there would be fewer of these mega platforms and the world would be dramatically better off for it.

Let these doctors put their own video on their own website on their own computers. If ISPs decided to censor that then I'll start to see your side because ISP choice is limited at least in part by government restriction.

But even then, the constitution doesn't ever mention the internet or anything like it. These people can all go out in public and say what they like still.

They have not had any rights violated.

"In fact, I applaud the non-government organizations taking on the absolutely critical and necessary act of moderating their platforms, they should be doing it vastly more than they are."

To quote a Star Wars movie, "this is how democracies die, with thunderous applause".

These platforms are monopolies due to network effects. You know that. When someone says that they're going to shut down Facebook post for organizing protests, they're not motivated to not have the posting be present. Their motivation is to prevent the protest from happening in the actual physical space. Politicians have pressured these platforms to do this.

Again the agenda isn't to remove offensive content. The agenda is controlling the public. If that doesn't disturb you then you don't really get it.

Here's my take: stupid people need to be managed, but if you think you're smart enough to do the job you're one of the stupid people.

"With the best leaders / When the work is finished / The people all say / We did it ourselves." ~Tao Te Ching

From the article's comments section on the Erickson and Massahi video and "stamping the discussion":

> The comments section was filled with interesting discussion (I'd say as many against as for, but I didn't count). It gave people a public sphere. The point by point dissection of the doctors' presentation by many commenters expanded understanding. Many of the commenters provided refutation and data analysis. Taking the presentation down ended the discussion.

> The rush to censor is fearful. At least the Erickson and Massahi video provided (for a brief few days) a forum where people of different viewpoints engaged each other.

Thanks for engaging - I appreciate the chance to have a discussion.

I haven't read any previous thread on this issue. Just from your comment, it appears that discussion of this issue is absolutely alive and well - we are discussing it right here!

The question of balance between physical and economic health has hardly been suppressed - governors, mayors and public health officials across the country are engaging in it every day and are being quoted in major news outlets regularly.

I too wish, like Taibbi, that we didn't have a left/right media where everyone takes a particular side and vilifies the others, but while that points to a decay in journalistic decorum, I don't see how it qualifies as censorship and suppression of free speech.

If I want to know how conservatives feel, I read the WSJ and listen to Fox News. For middle-of-the-road liberals, NYT and NPR. To get mad about rich people, Red Rose Twitter. It's all out there, completely uncensored!

In the face of all this abundance, I continue to be mystified at Taibbi's rage about this one particular video, whose purveyors have suspect motives to boot. Like, if I was a lawyer trying to make a case, this wouldn't be one of my top witnesses.

I think, what is discribed in that comment, is essentially what free speech is all about: a spark for a broader discussion. It also is what the Springtime Revolutions of 1848 were all about: free communications and free assembly to facilitate a discussion, which may lead to a (democratic) formation of will. Inhibiting such a discussion by any means of authority (and an appeal to common good as perceived by that authority) is much like what had been before this and what that revolution was an answer to. In a sense, we're on the best way of backtracking to before 1848. Is this really the answer?

As to the discussion here, mind that it is not the discussion that was and may have been there, but a meta discussion on this discussion. The particular discussion is gone, with no traces left.

Regarding bipartisan divides, mind that I am located rather far away from the US (as may be guessed from the previous context, in Europe). However, the big platforms, which have established some kind of oligopoly for virtual assembly, while mostly located in the US, are of global concern and shaping discussions and chances for them happening at all in a global manner. Politics are derailing all over the world, with regard to a second half of the 20th century context, and there's no obvious answer in place. However, inhibiting virtual assembly by silencing those controversial sparks, which may ignite them, probably isn't the way. At best, it may just further the divide. (On the other hand, having a "spark free", homogeneous conversation is probably much in the commercial interest of anyone selling targeted advertising along with providing the very platform for this conversation.) Free speech in a lonely, homogeneous (echo) chamber, maybe in company of a few friends, who are consenting anyway, isn't what free speech ought to about in a political sense. It's more than a right to verbalize.

> Does taking down a video of a couple of charlatans

Having watched the video, the main things that actually stuck with me was when they mentioned the impact of isolation on the community. Explicitly he mentions how molestation, spousal abuse were "up" and suicides were "spiking", and that for those affected by these problems "will be with them forever rather than a season". He asked the question, at what cost does a few deaths outweigh all these other social issues?

The other impact that isolation had (according to the Drs) is that it weakens your immune system. One of their arguments is that a few months could have a devastating effect on the immune system of healthy people and they were worried about the effects on the hospital system when isolation ended several months down the road.

Whether or not the Drs have ulterior motives on re-openinig their hospitals, shouldn't be a primo cause of calling someone a 'charlatan'.

They also explicitly mention how West Coast and East Coast was very different.

They were very explicit in mentioning how isolation was a correct course of action: Initially the virus was unknown & there was fear of it's effects and that all they had were models available. They cited sources that changed their projections downwards significantly just a few days after initial projections were released (I forget exactly who 'they' were)

They were explicit in mentioning that the data was now available on the spread rates and the death rates.

They also mentioned how the Drs everywhere were being encouraged to add cv19 as a cause of death to issues of "Co-morbidity". That is, in their experience, that all the deaths they saw were with people with serious health issues already. Again, they were ok in mentioning how East and West were different.

They also mentioned how Lowes was open, but a coffee shop was closed, which to them made no sense.

So, I while I understand that other Drs might be mortified by the testament made in the video, people should have the right to be heard. At the worst, it certainly made for interesting viewing while isolating!

That's a long laundry list of the non controversial stuff that they said. But after watching the first ten minutes of the 1 hour video, I saw how they concluded that because X % of the people that were tested for the virus were positive, it meant that also, the same X % of the general population already had it, too. Therefore it was no big deal. (I don't know what else was wrong with it, because I cringed so hard I couldn't take anymore) Obviously this is untrue because people that don't suspect themselves to have the virus would not go and take the test. I'm sure if posted here, this assertion would have been laughed off of HN.

To be clear, however, I don't believe censorship is the right approach. Although, since YouTube is a private company, they should be able to do what they want.

Edit: Here's a link to the video: https://www.bitchute.com/video/WLp53rpJ2B7i/

> few deaths

60,000 deaths in just the USA and counting. That guy needs to revise what 'few' means.

> people should have the right to be heard.

That is an oversimplification of the situation. To allow videos to mislead the public into thinking that there has been just a 'few' deaths may cause more harm. Like screaming fire in a crowded theater when there is no fire is wrong, the same applies to call over 60,000 deaths 'few'. It's a lie and it is a harmful one.

> Does taking down a video of a couple of charlatans, "stamp out discussion of things that do actually need to be discussed"?

I pose the question, to which I don't actually know the answer, were the people who decided they were charlatans better qualified than the two doctors in question? More than stamping out discussion, I don't see how YouTube can authoritatively enforce their own guidelines. They lack the the technical competence to make consistently good decisions.

And yes this stamps out the issues that need to be discussed. The censors will be working on behalf of the 'don't do anything that might cause panic' types who were offering consistently bad advice until this pandemic was completely out of control. Possibly even clamping down on 'racists' who supported border closures and quarantines early when that would have helped. The 'shut down the borders now' types would all have been censored under this policy if it were in place 6 months ago and we'd all be sitting around arguing questions like 'could this risk have been foreseen' rather than 'why weren't the people who saw this coming taken credibly' which is a much more important question.

If we are censoring things on behalf of the UN we might also end up asking other questions, like 'why are you talking like Taiwan is independent of China?'. YouTube have started to enter dangerous territory using government agencies as a source of truth. Government is known to lie and mislead people from time to time, such as during press conferences or when politicians are involved.

> The American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM) and the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) jointly and emphatically condemn the recent opinions released by Dr. Daniel Erickson and Dr. Artin Massihi. These reckless and untested musings do not speak for medical society and are inconsistent with current science and epidemiology regarding COVID-19.

> COVID-19 misinformation is widespread and dangerous. Members of AAEM and ACEP are first-hand witnesses to the human toll that COVID-19 is taking on our communities. AAEM and ACEP strongly advise against using any statements of Drs. Erickson and Massihi as a basis for policy and decision making.

https://www.aaem.org/resources/statements/joint-endorsed/phy...

> were the people who decided they were charlatans better qualified than the two doctors in question?

Yes.

^ totalitarian mindset! Love how you don’t leave a shred of doubt. You’re 100 percent sure you’re right, you have 0 doubt. That’s really the mark of an intelligent and moral person! You’re just being honest that you’re 100 sure, since you must be very intelligent. I get it!

“If only me or my group of people I like controlled everything, we would achieve the utopia!” -> mindset that leads to totalitarianism

Truth is that it takes a really evolved mindset to support the two party state. A lot of people don’t get this. You actually have to want to stand for people who you might hate, or at least disagree with.

When people stop protecting the views of people they disagree with / think are stupid, that’s when we descend into tyranny.

Do you think your mind-reading mindset is helping? That's a lot of words to put in someone's mouth.

I also take it you are one of the people with a "really evolved mindset"?

Feel free to disagree with anything I’m saying. I think disagreeing is important to maintaining a democracy and I’m glad that you voiced your opinion. I support your right to voice your opinion and I would not support any effort to silence your voice, even though in this case, I don’t think you said anything interesting or insightful. I might have been reading too much into things but I don’t think you’ve read much into anything. Which is fine and should be legal.

One of the author's points (for example) was that "Experts get things wrong for reasons that are innocent", gave a few examples why and explained how this means Facebook's process has a central problem due to its emphasis on “authoritative” opinions. Whether or not you agree with it, it is a point he made. And if you're going to strawman their entire post to "hey censorship is bad" and then say it's a poor argument, you ought to actually tell us why.

Thanks for engaging - I appreciate the chance to have a discussion.

Actually, that part of what he said I disagreed with the most vehemently. His logic in that paragraph is very hard to follow - it goes:

1. "Experts get things wrong for reasons that are innocent." Okay, absolutely agree with the premise.

2. "Both of the above examples point out a central problem with trying to automate the fact-checking process". Hm, okay, I agree that "automated fact checking" is a chimera, at least in the journalistic sense, but these examples are about opinions based on models, not "checking of facts." So already I am losing Taibbi in what his thread is about

3. "“Authorities” by their nature are untrustworthy." Is this a new premise? It sounds somewhat axiomatic - are we supposed to believe it follows from the flaw of "expert innocence"? Or should we believe it because Taibbi says so? Now I am starting to feel like I've been bait-and-switched. We have gone from innocent experts, to untrustworthy ones, a real escalation of rhetoric.

4. And then the conclusion: "“Elevating authoritative content” over independent or less well-known sources is an algorithmic take on the journalistic obsession with credentialing that has been slowly destroying our business for decades." -> Again, this sounds like a brand new premise that drags in the state of the journalism industry into the picture, plus a specific announcement by some large tech companies. What in the previous paragraphs prepared me to believe this? Who are these "independent, less-well known sources" that have entered the picture, and why are they implicitly being cast as the "good guys" in this picture?

Do I put this together and try to believe that innocent experts, who became untrustworthy, decided to shut out more trustworthy people by erecting credentialing barriers in the profession to disguise their untrustworthiness, having made a devil's bargain with large digital media companies? That meanwhile the truth is to be found among others whose chief qualification is that they are not as well known, and/or are "independent"?

And his poster child for this angel of democracy is two doctors with suspect motives, running a clinic somewhere in the middle of California?

This really feels like a post facto conspiracy theory that works as a Michael Crichton plot. I love Taibbi, thoroughly enjoyed Insane Clown President, loathe the Clinton machine as much as he does, and yet, what he does with this essay totally feels like he went off the rails somehow.

Thanks for your response.

3. I agree its not justified to say all authorities by their nature are untrustworthy, and that was an escalation of rhetoric. But I would say this though, that “authorities” (in scare quotes) are untrustworthy if they are claiming to be authorities but don’t have any merit. So in some sense, we ought to be sceptical of anyone who claims to be an authority.

I didn’t read this as a conspiracy. There are many incentives at play, probably too many things to grasp and points like 4 that come out of nowhere (may have some significance, but didn’t fit into the argument well).

Theses doctors aren’t the poster child for democracy. I don’t think anyone’s claiming they are. Personally I think they were just in the right place at the right time to become a part of this censorship war.

Overall I think your criticisms are fair.

I just did some back of the napkin Googling:

https://rsf.org/en/news/time-magazine-censored-twice-over-co...

I always remember these things but never take heed because it just doesn’t happen much in the West.

Look up some magazines you know of and see what countries censored them and why. You’ll see how benign some of the triggers are.

It’s the benign censorship that will catch up to us.

Trump's a moron, but it isn't clear to me that HIS TEAM dragged their feet on anything. I'm a big fan of Bill Maher, and Dan Crenshaw's interview on the show had some relevant points, including the fact that the House dragged their feet on providing funding requested by the administration. They did, and there's a record of it. I checked myself when I was watching, because I didn't believe it. They did.

This is the issue:

Highly intelligent people disagree on things all the time, because human cognitive capacity is so limited in it's ability to assimilate massive quantities of information. We all have filters on all the time to keep from draining our daily limit of cognitive energy, blinding us to most of reality in a way we aren't aware of.

I'm a lifelong Democratic voter, but Trump, for example, has handled certain issues much better than people I voted for in the past would have. Holding China accountable, and the WHO as well, are small examples. (Being an asshole who doesn't care how you are perceived can have advantages) Bigger examples are trade policies. He basically has a classic Bernie Sanders attitude to American manufacturing (unfortunately it comes with Trump himself......).

The point is that elitist thinking, that the population can't be trusted, is the hallmark of every authoritarian regime in history. It certainly is the justification. You can't have it both ways.

I agree there's certainly enough blame to go around for this ongoing disaster. I've personally been indifferent about Trump up until 2020 - he's responsible for feet dragging throughout February and the continued lack of national leadership. Even as a libertarian I can respect that half-competent authority would be useful if only to reassure people to keep them from attacking each other.

Being anti-authoritarian, I certainly was not making my point as a justification. But our society is based heavily on authoritarian structures, and viewed objectively by its function, it has failed by electing not just a self-interested looter but rather someone who is actively self-destructive. If the political outsider had been kept out, the position would have been filled by someone who worked with the system to accomplish goals, and with a nonpartisan health crisis this would have been objectively beneficial.

> At the end he writes, "From everything I’ve heard, talking to doctors and reading the background material, the Bakersfield doctors are probably not to be trusted. But the functional impact of removing their videos (in addition to giving them press they wouldn’t otherwise have had) is to stamp out discussion of things that do actually need to be discussed, like when the damage to the economy..."

With all due respect to Taibbi as an outstanding Journalist, in making that statement, he employed the flawed “crash course in relying on the opinions of others” he illustrated in the beginning of the article.

From my own experience, I have been unable to engage in meaningful discussion about economic impact or death rates associated with poverty with anyone. It’s either “fu reopen now” or “are you crazy you selfish murderer?”.

The most concerning discussion I had was with a friend who is County Counsel in one of the Big 6 NorCal Counties that initiated the first lockdown. He’s writing the orders but not setting policy. I asked him why we aren’t talking about opening non-essential businesses with social distancing? He said “the medical experts haven’t green lit that yet”. So I further inquired “are there any economists or sociologists at the table”. He said no. When I said “poverty has a death rate too”, his response was “that’s just a Trump talking point”. I made sure he understood I had read a study by Columbia University in 2001 when unemployment was 4%, and they pinned the death toll from poverty at about 3x the current CV-19 death toll.

Like, I said he’s not setting policy but this type of blindness based on politics mentioned by Taibbi is very apparent to me with the lack of experts other than medical experts at the policy making table. That’s pretty fucking scary to me when at a time like this we need to remain objective. To analyze data. To consider all conclusions may be incorrect or may not be as optimal as others. And bottom line, if the goal is to save lives, then the death toll of the disease must be weighed against the death toll of any mitigations.

Extremely well said. I agree with you it's very hard to have a conversation about this because the science has been politicized. We tend to think of politicization of science as a GOP thing for global warming denial. And that's definitely a massive reason that I really don't like the GOP. It's interesting because nuclear power has a similar paradigm with the Democratic party.

And now here we are at these silly extremes on opening versus keeping everything locked down. Neither of which are remotely reasonable.

I'm lucky that I live in Colorado. unlike a lot of the Democratic politicians in other parts of the country Colorado has a tradition of business savvy leaders. Our governor has been excellent on this so far and very balanced in my opinion. He has definitely been consulting with business leaders because he consulted with my CTO and this was clearly a long laundry list of meetings that day with various business leaders.

I do think it's crazy to view this either 100% through public health or 100% through economic health. There has to be a balance.

What I know for sure is that the full lockdowns are not sustainable. Things that aren't sustainable aren't going to work for very long. That's the definition of unsustainable.

Really really frightening to hear that a government official in charge of so many people viewed research out of Columbia as a Trump talking point. WTF.

The pix2code paper is interesting, but it doesn't really answer the question of translating the UI requirements into the corresponding "business logic" - it's limited to producing the code that manipulates the "surface" elements, so to speak. The real challenge I think for an AGI is translating something like, "This button shows green, if the user has previously scored 10 or higher on the previous 5 tests, which have all been taken in the previous 6 weeks," into code.

Then there's the problem of edge cases - in this case, what if the user has not had an account for more than 6 weeks but has met the other conditions? Now the AGI has to detect that context and formulate the question back to the developer.

The "code will eat your coding job" hype sounds a lot like "we'll have self-driving cars all over the country by 2000" hype (yes, that hype did exist back then,) or going further back, "All of AI is done, we just need a few more decision rules" hype back in the seventies.

For sure, many coding frameworks are a lot simpler now than they were two decades ago, and yes, I think it has meant many aspects of digitized services are now much cheaper. You can build a Wix website for yourself, or a Shopify e-business, without paying a developer, which you needed to do in the year 2000. But the consequent growth in digital businesses has led to induced demand for more developers, as businesses constantly test the edges of these "no-code" services.

I would say we have reached some amount of saturation already. Anec-datally, it seems that if you segmented salaries by experience, you might find some amount of decline or stagnation in the lower levels of experience relative to a decade ago. So in that sense, the original point has some valence, but I don't think it has anything to do with "AI"

I believe it's "because on-tap kombucha." That's their secret sauce, or secret juice, if you will.

I think the author's point is, that in a recession, you wouldn't bite the bullet, because you (the average consumer) become cost-conscious. The idea is that therefore, WeWork's revenue model can turn on a dime but their debt obligations go nowhere when that happens, and then they are in a hole.

Moreso, the author's point is that other businesses that have these long-term depreciations trade their equity at a much smaller revenue multiple. He's basically saying, you can't escape the fundamentals.

Recession could be hedged with stock options, no? At their scale they will get custom-tailored option product to match their liabilities.

it'll be super expensive to hedge -- the higher the volatility of the underlying asset (here, the number of people who pay for a desk or whatever), the more valuable/expensive an option on that asset is. but I also don't think it makes a ton of sense. in effect, WeWork would reduce their cash flow growth, with payments going towards hedging. their entire pitch is that they are a fast growing company, which justifies an insane multiple, any hedging would reduce that risk.

you don't hedge against decreases in demand via financial instruments, instead you: 1. hedge against decrease in demand through diversification of services; if wework sells some property management software (for example) then that might be more recession-resistant than their actual leasing business. 2. hedge against decrease in demand through long-term contracts: getting IBM to sign a 10 year lease (for example) is usually a safe bet that you'll have a tenant through the recession; on demand hot desks are much less safe 3. hedge against cost increases using financial instruments: most corporations doing hedging are hedging against commodity price changes, e.g. airlines buying oil futures or mcdonalds buying beef futures. similarly, wework might buy kombucha or aluminum cup futures, but there is no derivatives market for on-demand desks :)

of course, there are different perspectives on this. matt levine has a really interesting column about the different philosophies of where diversification belongs, at the corporate level or at the investor level: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-04-09/ceos-l.... my finance classes were relatively recent so you might be able to tell my bias.

Patent post suggested drought of renters due to a recession. Recession can be hedged against by purchasing e.g. 12 months options that are far enough out of the money to be cheap yet close enough to cover a major recession event.

I don’t know if the math adds up, but I think it deserves studying.

I’m not looking to hedge against all kinds of customer flight with an instrument, that’s clearly foolish as you noted. But particular events can be hedged.

The cost of consistent recession hedging is prohibitive and larger than the benefit you’d receive, because of arbitrage (if it was cheaper than risk, you could invest risk free).

See: https://www.aqr.com/Insights/Research/White-Papers/Pathetic-...

If you could hedge a recession, we’d have no recessions :)

Hedging only works if you have short time durations (eg you wanna hedge specifically in October, because you have a big bill due then), or if you’re the one providing the hedge and capturing the Volatility Risk Premium.

I'm not looking for a blanket hedge though.

"We Work" can have a built-in cushion against smaller recession events - long-term leases, being able to predict which percentage of short-term leases will dry up, cash reserves, some sort of counter-cyclical lease agreement (e.g. with repo companies), counter-recession marketing/education/etc program (e.g. "let's beat recession together by sticking together!" or some such).

Where the hedge is coming in is making sure that the company does not end up upside down if recession hits harder than the built-in cushion can absorb. They could be buying 12 month S&P500 options on a rolling basis - buy a new batch every month as the previous batch expires. The idea is not to get paid each time SPY drops 5% down, but to get paid when it drops 35% down signaling an actual market crisis and have enough time/money to survive the hit.

I don't know if it makes sense as I'm just making this up as a I go, but your criticism is selling the idea short. Ahem.

what underlying asset would you buy the options on? if it's just on the overall market, then what advantage is there for wework to do that versus an individual investor?

I have made a long reply to a sibling comment.

Hedging via options is guaranteed to cost more than the benefit you’d receive, over the long run. This is due to the volatility risk premium (the insurers against risk must be paid, and will price it to come out ahead).

See https://www.aqr.com/Insights/Research/White-Papers/Pathetic-...

But no, you cannot hedge away risks of a recession - for cheaper than what a recession would cause.

It is not free or magic to do that.