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SolaceQuantum commented on Supreme Court of the United States to Live Stream Oral Arguments   supremecourt.gov/publicin... · Posted by u/uptown
JumpCrisscross · 5 years ago
> it feels heavily political

SCOTUS is not apolitical. (No human institution is.) That doesn't make it a political body.

I've found helpful to read the official opinion of decisions I disagree with. Start to finish, including the dissent. With respect to modern rulings, I have yet to walk away finding the arguments abysmal. In almost every case, I disagree with the law, not the court.

When I disagree, it's because the law--as you say--had holes. The court fills these in, by necessity. On this, it's fair to find disagreement. But the degree to which these holes are filled is usually impressively restrained. There are very few modern case where, given the facts and circumstances of the case or controversy, and within the context of the surrounding law, I found the interpolation obscene.

> not on the level that you find in actual logic, math, or computational science

Courts aren't deterministic. That doesn't make them a political body.

It's an open debate as to whether we want the law to parse like code. I don't. As long as lawmaking is under human control, the law is comprehensible to humans and humans remain free agents, the law--and thus courts--will have a degree of unpredictability to them.

SolaceQuantum · 5 years ago
> I've found helpful to read the official opinion of opinions I disagree with. Start to finish, including the dissent. With respect to modern rulings, I have yet to walk away finding the arguments abysmal. In almost every case, I disagree with the law, not the court.

My impressions from the podcasts of actual law professors and lawyers is that there are various interpretations of the law that trend towards liberal or conservative values, and the strategic dressing of how the law is read is itself a political strategy to legitimize a political reasoning as an apolitical law analysis.

For example, the choice of a judge to read only the text and law as it is written (textualism) without caring about the general context as to why it exists or the effects of the law in modern day can often be used to ignore the actual injustice occurring as a result of a law that doesn't actually produce just outcomes even when the supposed intention is such. It's arguably pedantry.

But when the same purely text-based reading is applied for progressive arguments, as in the hearings for sex-based discrimination, the conservative justices have abruptly shifted their questions to be concerned about the societal effects (bathrooms) or the original intention of the law (originalism). This sort of flip-flopping of evaluation strategies is often used as a basis of argument that while there are multiple reading frameworks of law, the actual frameworks used are often for political/personal purposes and judges are proposed based off their conservative or liberal bent in analysis.

SolaceQuantum commented on Ask HN: Where do you write?    · Posted by u/rntc
SolaceQuantum · 5 years ago
If you’re interested in short stories To be published I recommend trawling The Submissions Grinder. This is duotrope but free.
SolaceQuantum commented on Free America Now (@elonmusk)   twitter.com/elonmusk/stat... · Posted by u/JeanMarcS
IfIEverCatchYou · 5 years ago
Faults in your argument:

Hospitals are mostly empty in the US.

Antibody testing is showing that herd immunity is rapidly growing.

Persons who could be severely infected by COVID are generally not in the workforce.

SolaceQuantum · 5 years ago
There is currently no proof that antibody testing is detecting antibodies greater than the false positive rate except in New York, which itself has biases in its study (only testing people who are already out in public, and that's only 1 in 5). Additionally there is no proof that the levels of antibody detected result in immunity or for that the levels of antibody will remain at immunity-levels long term.
SolaceQuantum commented on Free America Now (@elonmusk)   twitter.com/elonmusk/stat... · Posted by u/JeanMarcS
cwhiz · 5 years ago
NY, NJ, PA, CT, and MA have 53% of cases. It’s time to stop treating this like every state or region is in the same situation.

Edit: Some people apparently need to be reminded that Europe is a place. Individual countries are reopening as they see fit based on how they are handling the virus. It honestly is starting to feel like some people prefer the pain than the idea of safely reopening certain states and regions.

SolaceQuantum · 5 years ago
From what I understand Germany’s infection rate has actually increased as a result of the reopening moves.[0]

0. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/28/germanys-coronavirus-infecti...

SolaceQuantum commented on Free America Now (@elonmusk)   twitter.com/elonmusk/stat... · Posted by u/JeanMarcS
GarrisonPrime · 5 years ago
Based on the drop in cases, ludicrously low infection and death rates, the need to balance healthcare system burden with a speedy development of herd immunity,and the economic devastation.

People can’t just say “it’s worth it if we save just one life”. Bullshit. Everything requires context, and being under lockdown has its own severe consequences. Including the loss of life.

SolaceQuantum · 5 years ago
It looks like it’s several times more deadly than the flu if a hospital can provide optimal treatment. Should we go ahead and rapidly infect everyone the death toll will go to Italy. Additionally, I would suspect that the cost of rapidly developing herd immunity, the subsequent uptick in deaths due to 1 in 5 or so people needing the hospital and unable to receive assistance because the hospital cannot take 1 in 5 people at once would probably crater the economy much harder and longer... Every economist I’ve looked at has said this?

(EDIT: also from what I’ve seen it is entirely possible that infection results in long term reduction in health like lung capacity. That’s super fucked if we infect everyone in that case!)

SolaceQuantum commented on Free America Now (@elonmusk)   twitter.com/elonmusk/stat... · Posted by u/JeanMarcS
mgoetzke · 5 years ago
He might just want to do it as e.g Germany does it. i.e. basically opening most smaller and some bigger businesses. shops with limited people at the same time, masks, hygiene procedures etc. schools more or less closed until end of summer.

Though Germany already has receding numbers for a while now, US is still a little behind. Total number of cases vs deaths is (if counted and reported correctly in worldometers) quite comparable (to my surprise). UK is way worse in this respect.

Difficult to say what he really wants as he does NOT communicate well in this respect. In longer interviews he is way more thoughtful.

SolaceQuantum · 5 years ago
I actually heard Germany’s infection rate has now increased directly related to their reopening (before R0 was <1 now it is ~1?)
SolaceQuantum commented on The Anti-Amazon Alliance   stratechery.com/2020/the-... · Posted by u/kaboro
softwaredoug · 5 years ago
Yeah I agree. A lot of large companies can invest deeply just to drive out their competition. WalMart famously did the same to drive out other businesses in the 90s and 00s.

I think though we need to recognize that Amazon is succesful for a reason, and those reasons are why they are in a position to invent even deeper and more relentlessly...

SolaceQuantum · 5 years ago
I don’t think Amazon is inventing anything new in the space of driving out competition using a technique derived by gilded age industrial revolution
SolaceQuantum commented on An average family in Tokyo can own a new house for $850/month   curbed.com/2017/2/3/14496... · Posted by u/jseliger
harimau777 · 5 years ago
I agree that not everyone's entitled to waterfront views, but I think that in a functioning society everyone would be able to own a decent house (e.g. one that gets sunlight), within a reasonable commute of their work, in desirable part of the country (e.g. in a cosmopolitan city).

The difficulty that I see is that housing prices in America are so high that it's unrealistic for moth people to create enough value to purchase a residence at even that basic level of quality.

SolaceQuantum · 5 years ago
I think, unfortunately, the definition of decent in this case is viewed as luxury. Most specifically the concept that everyone should be able to own a house within a reasonable commute of work in a desirable location. This cannot happen while also respecting the idea of properties as investments, the wealthy wanting to be able to purchase disproportionately large places in multiple desirable locations, and the idea that so many people may desire to live in a city that the city cannot possibly take them all.
SolaceQuantum commented on Career advice for people with bad luck   chiefofstuff.substack.com... · Posted by u/undefined1
alufers · 5 years ago
Yeah, I really feel sad when I see those articles and comments telling you not to share anything that you don't want your boss to know with your colleagues, or even better ignore them completely and automatically treat as deadly competition. If you cannot trust anybody and have difficulties with assessing if someone won't turn his back on you, it may be a problem with your social skills, not with other people.

This kind of thinking encourages situations where the employer may have total control over his employees, like with Amazon.

SolaceQuantum · 5 years ago
There are definitely personal details that are dangerous for you to talk about with your co workers. It is still legal to fire someone for being gay or trans in a significant minority of states. There are two Supreme Court cases right now purely because of workplace bigotry.

I also don’t know how safe it would be to disclose having a disability or chronic condition in the workplace.

SolaceQuantum commented on Amazon threatens to suspend French deliveries after court order   bloomberg.com/news/articl... · Posted by u/rzk
SolaceQuantum · 5 years ago
A business is supposed to be responsible to avoid hiring people into hazards they didn’t sign up for when they were hired, but now cannot leave for risk of being jobless in the worst downturn since the Great Depression.

u/SolaceQuantum

KarmaCake day6089June 27, 2015View Original