> Never mind that every country we idolize, e.g. Japan, Scandinavia, are essentially [ethnostates].

In Sweden 25% of the population has foreign background, in Norway 19%, in Denmark 14%.

Hardly "ethnostates" at all.

Okay, but those are very recent developments to which the historical sentiment hasn't fully caught up. To the extent it has, it's via negative memetic sentiments, e.g. "Stockholm is now the rape capital of the world!" Sweden, at least, also, doesn't capture racial demographics, so we don't know the makeup of the foreign born population. Walking around Helsinki, you don't need statistics to notice the homogeny.

Didn't have time to check Norway and Denmark before, but looking now it seems most of the foreign born population is still white/European.

> figures from World Population Review suggesting around 83.2% are Norwegian, and another 8.3% are other Europeans, totaling roughly 91.5% of European descent, though exact "white" percentages vary by source and definition, with estimates often placing the broader "white" or European-origin population well above 90%.

Another source I found puts non-Danes in Denmark at 9%, putting their white/European percentage at 95%.

For approximate parity comparison, Japan is 98% Japanese, UK is 82%, and France is 71%, all falling. Imo Norway and Denmark still qualify as ethnostates, though maybe not for much longer.

If any weapon can be remotely shut down by anyone, that should be a deal breaker. But is there any evidence that is the case?

How the hell would anyone know? You think they ship detailed plans and schematics to 3rd parties? Even the US government can hardly get those things from the manufacturer in general. Are we to believe that governments that want to backdoor your phone and every other personal device, would not put backdoors into equipment sold to foreign nations?

The commenter above is saying that your suggestion that there is some contradiction here indicates a mathematical error. The post claims 60% have read a book; you claim 20% can't read at all; both can be true.

Yeah… I didn’t say they both weren’t true due to a mathematical error… I was insinuating that the survey is probably flawed because if 20% of Americans can’t read… they likely aren’t even taking this survey.

It is also my uneducated guess that the actual percentage of Americans who haven’t read a single book in the past year is MUCH higher than 40%. Maybe a survey of HN commentators but not of the general population.

I think that ship has sailed.

A classic never dies.

Do you mean that they were dinged if a PR they opened received too many comments? Can you elaborate on how the communication style changed after this? Like they were more willing to seek clarification/discussion?

> Can you elaborate on how the communication style changed after this? Like they were more willing to seek clarification/discussion?

More willing to seek clarification and less likely to try to defend choices with 'This is what the scope of work said'. And also more willing to jump in on colleagues and my own PRs to provide feedback.

Which was also an important part of how to frame the communication "I'm not telling them they are doing their jobs wrong, I am telling them how to do it better to make all the stakeholders happier."

> Do you mean that they were dinged if a PR they opened received too many comments?

It was never explicitly said at first, however the communication was inspired by past work experiences where yes, too many comments on a PR or similar review could get held against you for far longer than was productive or even healthy, and yes it was something the whole team had to deal with (i.e. very much a shared experience amongst colleagues.)

In fact I'd argue that the time I've been at shops where people weren't afraid to give feedback has been about 50-50, while also noting that the shops that had a culture shift where giving feedback became OK and safe for all parties, quickly became more productive.

Cause, the other thing to consider, is that people don't necessarily want to risk causing animosity by jumping into a colleague's PR and pointing out a problem, they don't want to be the guy that makes their colleague "look bad". Which is of course unhealthy, but again by re-framing the context of PR feedback for Taylorist robot management, you get better response from their management as far as buy in.

That seems to have become the received wisdom on the subject in certain circles but I do wonder how strong the evidence of this dynamic actually is.

But "using wealth" precisely means spending money, doesn't it? That is to say, the opposite of hoarding?

Exactly. And guess what would happen if 1 million was divided between 100'000 people ? This would mean 10k per person and it's fair to say that at least half would spend (some of) it. Therefore, the velocity has increased.

A person having 200 billion is not spending a big percentage of their wealth nor using it. Yes it's not cash but it doesn't mean it's unusable.

I'm not against the ability to be rich; I'm against the ability to be that rich. The system isn't made to have such wealthy people. My country is one of the rare ones that has wealth tax and you just have to see where the progressive tax rate stops to see what I mean.

This would probably get me sent to an American prison.

>A person having 200 billion is not spending a big percentage of their wealth nor using it

How is it not being used? Walk me step by step where you think this money 'is'. It really seems like you're not understanding here, or maybe i'm just not understanding, so please go slow, explain EXACTLY where you think the money is and why it's not being used like you say.

If I have the equivalent of $100B in shares and keep them for a very long time, the $100B exchanged hands about 0 times. Therefore, the vast majority of the wealth did not move one bit (literally).

I don't know how you imagine that billionaires use their money but I think we have very different ideas.

JFC do you not know how the modern banking system works? Do you understand how market caps are calculated??? (surely not, why am I even asking).

Do you not know how the fucking STOCK MARKET works? Why are you having this discussion about things waaaay over your head?

The only "money" that is not moving is the company cash they store in a vault somewhere. If Amazon has 40 million dollars in the bank, it is exchanging hand MANY times. It's being loaned out by the bank. This is fucking basic stuff that's embarrassing for people not to know.

Now onto stocks.

Let me explain really really simply: If I start a company and someone invests 10 million in the company, i'm. using that to hire some engineers and buy some servers, etc. The money is exchanging hands. My 'wealth' is now a billion dollars because I only gave up 1% of the company for that ten million. What money am I hoarding? That billion is literally created from nothing, there was no 'billion' before I took that investment. Do you understand something that basic?

Just sounds like typical marketing copy to me.

This pretty much matches my preferred workflow for scripting with LLMs: don't ask it to do the task, ask it to write a script that does the task, then validate and execute or refine.