>>(Don't get me wrong, shit like Conservapedia has been around for years now. But most of the stuff I read, for better or worse, has been pro-social justice, pro-multiculturalism, etc. until now. Do fewer people buy into that nowadays? Or is what I'm seeing the result of more people participating?)
I am a liberal too and multiculturalism is good to some extent but I hope you don't want to bring Islamic sharia based barbaric culture (e.g. honor killing, stoning women, throwing gays off buildings) in the name of multiculturalism.
But what I have discovered is the left/liberal failure to address the rational fear of Islam (the barbaric, vicious ideology) that is grappling the minds of most sane people.
Liberals and leftists are failing to address these issues. Their response to this threat of Islam is utterly dishonest: they shun even legitimate criticism of the barbaric ideology of Islam under the phony reason of Islamophobia/racism. People have fed up with this.
I don't support Trump to a large extent. But I see that many people see only Trump making an attempt to address this issue in a meaningful manner. No surprise, he cashed on it.
Sam Harris has put it quite aptly: Liberals failure to talk honestly about Islam is responsible for the rise of Trump [1]
We've banned this account for repeatedly conducting religious flamewars, which is an abuse of this site. If you don't want it to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that this won't happen again.
You make a very good point about the thread going off topic (though you're doing it a bit yourself upthread) and rightly bring it up. Please do so civilly, though. Please don't junk up HN with this copypasta drivel. isn't constructive.
I know, and I do feel a bit guilty lol. I suppose I should've just let his comment sit in the greys. You're right, there wasn't much point in being nasty.
Please don't be tempted to discuss politics in a partisan manner, especially taking things further afield of the submission topic, regardless of what's happening in the thread.
I will send an email, as a humane customer, to their customer service email asking a clarification about their policy in this regard. I urge all people on HN also to bombard them with queries regarding such shitty practices they follow.
A thing to learn: Never, ever base anything big on a big player, be it Amazon, Google, or anyone else. They can screw you at any time with or without a valid reason.
Another lesson: All (especially not very big) companies relying on cloud must remember that AWS, GCE, Azure may sound very good, but they can screw your businesses at any time with or without a valid reason. VPS or on-prem should not be discarded without due deliberation.
> Never, ever base anything big on a big player, be it Amazon, Google, or anyone else.
It's certainly great advice - but for many this isn't really a reality.
Even in this case, you could argue that OP could sell on other platforms (and maybe they could), but that will depend on the product and whether they need fulfillment and such.
I think more practical advice is:
a) If you rely on any given service for a substantial or majority of your income, try your damndest to build contact(s) at that platform so you have a human with a relationship to turn to when something goes sideways. At Amazon this is much easier if you're their direct customer (AWS) than a seller, though.
b) Have a contingency plan or put a focus on building savings (if it's a case like this) to fall back on while determining next steps. That could mean money for getting legal help, starting new business, etc.
I am not a fan of FB but it must be understood that FB is not a news agency.
Another thing to consider here is: FB may be wallgardened, but what about the mainstream news organizations that are sold out to various parties? (e.g. Saudi Islamists have many huge investments/shares in many mainstream news organizations)
Many mainstream news organizations are worse than FB when it comes to spread lies and propaganda in the name of news. We can already feel the influence of Saudi money in the US mainstream media. The mainstream US media is suppressing any criticism of Islam under the flimsy arguments like racism and islamophobia. This is already creating a suffocating atmosphere for true liberals.
A factor to note here is even though the mainstream news organizations claim that they are liberal and left-leaning, they act like barbaric people when it comes to Islam. I do not see any criticism of Islam (e.g. horrendous treatment of women, homosexuals in Islam) in the mainstream media. Not even the discussion of problematic aspects of Islamic scriptures has any place in the mainstream media.
Why should a common man trust the mainstream media news media?
Then you see that it's the social media (FB, whatsapp, twitter, reddit etc) that gives the people what they think is needed to be reported/argued/discussed.
e.g. FB (along with many other social media sites) has helped lot of people to learn the dangers posed by Islamism.
How and why someone as lowly as Trump got elected? This may be very complex topic to analyze as there are many contributing factors but one factor played very important role in his win is the "outright dishonest approach by mainstream news media towards the issue of dangers posed by Islam".
Sam Harris has put it quite aptly: Liberals failure to talk honestly about Islam is responsible for the rise of Trump [1]
I have learnt over the years to not trust many of the pseudo-liberal news organizations like NY times, Guardian etc. e.g. When Charlie Hebdo people were killed by the Islamists, most of these left-leaning pseudo-liberal news agencies were/are very much partial and acted like outright sold-out to Islamists (Saudi funders) when it comes to deal with news related to the vicious and barbaric aspects of Islam and various Islamic cultures.
We must also understand that it's finally the reader's responsibility to filter all news, whether it's from FB or from other established news agencies/organizations.
> am not a fan of FB but it must be understood that FB is not a news agency.
It doesn't matter what Facebook calls itself. It has power, and responsibility follows.
> The mainstream US media is suppressing any criticism of Islam under the flimsy arguments like racism and islamophobia
I believe there's plenty of it in the news. Syria has been a top story for three years running. Everyone knows how Saudi-Arabia treats women. Everybody knows who was responsible for Charlie Hebdo.
Beyond that, it's not in the news because (a) it's not "new" and (b) there is nothing gained from a collective mob against islam. Bombing doesn't help. Being condemned by Americans also doesn't change a single mind in the mideast.
Instead, you get the opposite. How many stories have we had about muslims being forced off airplanes because they spoke Arabic or "looked like a terrorist". Of course they're usually professors of philosophy who grew up in the UK and studied at Harvard.
This. It also annoyingly ignores the problems created by increasing human population which is already very huge now. The huge and increasing human population is a very big problem the humanity is facing as it puts an enormous pressure on environment.
This is not to say that banks are innocent but the article puts a skewed view that is misleading.
>>For most people, this means coming to work some time between 9 and 11 AM (breakfast ends at 10 AM) and leaving between 5 and 8 PM (dinner starts at 6:30 PM). My schedule was a little different: I came to work between 9 and 10 AM and left between 12 and 2 AM. Yes, you read that right. I spent a lot of time in the office, to the extent that my co-workers asked me if I lived there.
This is the kind of devotion to work/study, I wish I could emulate. Especially, given his age, working for 8 hr on company work and then 6-8 hr on your personal work/study without getting distracted is amazing. He should, and he indicated would (which is good), not ignore the work/life balance.
Your comparison is almost like comparing apples with oranges.
India, although has achieved some good results, is mostly a third world country [1] (barring few metro places), and thus various project costs are mostly insignificant as compared to US California. Also cutting corners regarding project safety issues, labor safety issues is not uncommon in third world countries.
It is also similar to China being able to manufacture things at a cheaper price, with almost forced labor and no minimum wages comparable to USA.
It is also similar to Bangladesh being able to manufacture clothes at a cheaper price, with almost forced labor and no minimum wages comparable to USA.
Do you remember what happened in Bhopal? [2]
Granted, the company UCIL was American, but it was the Indian govt which allowed it to go scot-free.
Not saying I disagree that the comparison is a bit odd, I just want to add that I did find OP's information / the discussion around the costs of infrastructure projects in the US [1] interesting to say the least.
Looking at those sources in does indeed sound plausible that the US has some issues with costs of infrastructure projects compared to other (even first world) countries.
I didn't find a good explanation why OP thinks this is because of the lack of Social Technology though.
Internet archive is a great project. It has been allowed to be created, in the first place. Then it was and is allowed to exist. This is what I like to about the modern, freer, liberal western democratic nations.
Then there are the great people who spend their time, energy and resources to make such things tick. A great thank you to all those philanthropic people behind the Internet archive and similar such projects. It's because of you, people like me have a hope to learn something significant and with a relatively low cost footprint.
I learned many things thanks to FSF, GNU, Gutenberg, Wikipedia, Internet archive and currently the scihub. I spent only about $10 per month for internet access. Could I even imagine getting such highclass knowledge at such a low cost? Not spent ridiculously high fees for college and still could learn a lot in history, economics, and some things from science, math, technology, engineering and many fields of knowledge. In fact, most of my significant education happened on Internet, thanks to such projects.
I love the USA and the modern liberal western world who made such things happen. Hats off.
Disclaimer: I am from a third world country. $10 p.m. was an expensive thing for me for a large time.
PS: I hope to be able to contribute more to such projects soon. I do contribute a rather insignificant amount as compared to the scale of things.
This incidence underscores the importance of the Internet (neutral) and social media that is not a walled garden totally. Reddit, Telegram, Signal (HN to a lesser extent, due to its less popularity amongst general public) are good mechanisms to spread news which the mainstream media chooses to suppress due to reasons like corruption, pressure, political correctness.
In US also the mainstream media mainly sold out to Saudi money, tends to suppress news critical of Islam and the pseudo-liberal practice of intimidating any critique of the oppressive ideology of Islam in the name of racism, islamophobia and what-not.
If not for the Internet and social media, the ex-Muslims' voice would not been suppressed by the corrupt mainstream media. [1] [2]
>>It is the new Catholic Church, taking on only the worst of the qualities of its predecessor.
This. I am a liberal but I do agree with your characterization of the "liberals". The mainstream liberals/leftists have polluted the societal atmosphere so much by ascribing malice to even slightest criticism of their dogma and its ill effects.
For example, to accommodate minority (e.g. homosexuals) is a good thing for the progress of society. But the mainstream liberals apply double standards: they will never criticize Islam which is the most oppressive and vicious ideology out their oppressing all those who don't follow its dogma (e.g. homosexuals).
This podcast by Sam Harris is worth contemplating.
"Sam Harris - President Trump and the Failure of the Left" [1]
I am a liberal too and multiculturalism is good to some extent but I hope you don't want to bring Islamic sharia based barbaric culture (e.g. honor killing, stoning women, throwing gays off buildings) in the name of multiculturalism.
But what I have discovered is the left/liberal failure to address the rational fear of Islam (the barbaric, vicious ideology) that is grappling the minds of most sane people.
Liberals and leftists are failing to address these issues. Their response to this threat of Islam is utterly dishonest: they shun even legitimate criticism of the barbaric ideology of Islam under the phony reason of Islamophobia/racism. People have fed up with this.
I don't support Trump to a large extent. But I see that many people see only Trump making an attempt to address this issue in a meaningful manner. No surprise, he cashed on it.
Sam Harris has put it quite aptly: Liberals failure to talk honestly about Islam is responsible for the rise of Trump [1]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YCWf0tHy7M