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Comment Re:Yes (Score 2) 269

Countering the racism claim with "there's brutality against whites too" does nothing to help the situation. Do you also go up to those holding "Save the Whales" signs and complain that they should save all the animals? Police accountability is a problem for all people, sure, but there is clearly a disproportionate impact of police brutality on people of color. Doesn't it stand to reason that if you focus on fixing the worst of the problems (police brutality vs people of color) it is likely to positively affect the larger problem (police brutality vs all)?

Comment Re:Insanity (Score 4, Interesting) 144

Um... in the US 100k deaths would make it the 7th leading cause of death by annual numbers and at the current daily rate it is the #3 leading cause of death in the US right now behind heart disease and cancer (and a few weeks ago COVID-19 was #1). Comparatively, influenza kills ~55k people per year so in just a couple of short months COVID-19 has nearly doubled that, and if you compare the daily average, COVID-19 is currently killing ~1400 people per day in the US, while influenza kills ~150 people per day. Just wanted to provide some of that perspective you claim to value so much. Source

Comment Re:"ensure that Stripe.js is loaded on every page" (Score 1) 116

It's certainly an issue and creates an opportunity for abuse -- my comment doesn't argue against that. The assumption that the data *is* being resold is what I take issue with. There is no evidence that is the case, and it requires the assumption of malice where the situation can adequately be explained by incompetence.

Comment Re:"ensure that Stripe.js is loaded on every page" (Score 4, Interesting) 116

Bet: it's all about gathering and selling customer data. Since they are active in Europe, I wonder if they've thought about the GDPR consequences of this?

Keeping to Hanlon's Razor, my bet is one of two things:
1. It really is intended for fraud prevention, and the incompetence lies primarily in the lack of communication to customers how & why it is built the way it is; or
2. It's just really shitty code that calls home all the time just because the dev team didn't think through what they were doing, were just doing the quickest thing that met a requirement, and the company has no mechanism/staffing to truly vet the implementation.

Based on my experience in corporate applications, I suspect #2 might be closest to reality. Could also be a combination of the two.

Comment Re:Irresponsible Behavior Should Not Be Rewarded! (Score 2, Insightful) 402

20 year old me might not agree with parent, but 38 year old me who has spent the last 20 years racking up and then paying off "bad debt" does. I got my shit together and paid off my student loans, credit cards, etc. If you now forgive all that for others who still haven't gotten their shit together, you're effectively punishing me for doing the right thing and encouraging me to exploit the system going forward instead. IMO we punish people enough for doing the right thing in America already. Obviously I can't speak for other countries.

The people that are stuck under "bad debts" should follow existing rules if they can't pay. Negotiate, go into bankruptcy, etc. Our social safety nets *should* exist and they should be primarily assisting with basic needs -- food, shelter, healthcare, basic education. The only one listed in this article that I could get behind eliminating is healthcare debt.

Comment Not too worried about the virus itself (Score 1) 425

My wife and I aren't in any of the high risk categories so not too worried about ourselves, but don't want to be part of the problem by getting it and spreading it. I'm paying a lot more attention to washing my hands, avoiding holding handrails on stairs, etc. and with all the major events being canceled there isn't much reason to be out in crowds right now. Also, I already work from home so no change necessary there.

What I am worried about, though, is that with all the panic buying going on and people wiping out grocery stores, that is going to cause severe difficulty getting necessities if you haven't already stocked up -- which creates more angst about stockpiling and therefore continues the cycle. The grocery stores here are not able to keep up and it sounds like they may be forced to temporarily shut their doors if only to catch up on distribution and stocking. I'm not so worried about toilet paper because there are other ways to clean yourself, but the shelves here are devoid of canned food, fresh meat, etc. so it's getting to the point where you can't get food at all, let alone enough to stockpile. I am starting to see stores rationing these items so that individual customers can't wipe them out but they still have lines outside before they open in the morning. We're trying to opportunistically grab a couple extra of some of these items when we are grocery shopping but not going crazy -- there are only 2 of us, we shouldn't need that ridiculously much to survive for a couple of weeks.

tl;dr: We're buying a little extra to stock our pantry when we shop, working from home, and washing our hands more often and more carefully.

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