Ultimately the declarative way of writing apps is objectively better and more predictable than the old mutable way :)
Now that said, I agree on the performance costs, and too wonder why Walmart is hellbent on this strategy, given the endless resources they have.
But at the end of the day, they have a head of engineering and need to make their lives simpler just like everyone else. If you know how to squeeze the performance out of RN/React, developing apps in the semi-FP declarative sate-driven way is a dream compared to all the old ways of client app development. People who's views are so against React/ReactNative usually haven't experienced it for themselves. I suggest really giving it try before making these comments which usually serve just to validate decisions already made. I.e. to make one's self feel better about sticking to the old ways. However, I totally understand what it feels like for new tools to pop up that put into question old ways I've invested a lot into. That said, don't you think you'd be better off fully exploring these ways before shooting them down? Don't tell me you have--zero people that have grokked the effectiveness of declarative state-driven programming make these remarks. They usually leave some hint at their experience with React. In short, it's only you left in the dust :)
Give the tools a try, which I know will likely be hard for you because you are likely coming from the Native world. I will say this: it's a lot more than just one language to make hybrid apps (i.e. like past tools such as Titanium). And, of course perf will be a challenge. That said, the perf is amazing given what it is. But more importantly, the style of development is what it's all about. It's so different and so much more predictable/debuggable than the old mutable ways. To me, it matters not that it's in JS. What matters is the declarative state driven way of development. If you can do that in native code, you're basically doing the most important aspect--and basically there's no argument from me there. There are some libraries that allow for that, but it's nowhere near the extent of what you can do in React/JS, given its ecosystem. I lot of work is being put in here to make this the best of breed future of application development. If you can't see it, you're missing out. Do your homework on React once and for all. You can thank me later.
Last point: Walmart's tool here is specifically meant for making apps where some of it you want in "actual native" and other parts in "react native." Without a doubt coding the React style is the best DX for UI development. AND without a doubt, "actual native" performs far FAR better. So what they have here is a toolbox for those with an "engineering mindset" to pick the best tool for the job. Everything that's happening is just getting better and better for all parties involved, no matter where your experience lies.
I’ve done both native (Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, Gtk+, Tizen) and React.
Your post comes off as condescending fanboy hype. I understand you want to promote React, but this approach does more damage than good.
My personal experience is that “declarative” in this industry is a perennial silver bullet. What often goes unnoticed is that declarative languages are not very future-proof, as extensions are constrained by the originally chosen primitives. Pathological examples are enterprise Java+XML and CSS — both of these were hailed as declarative breakthroughs originally, and today they are the stuff of “TheDailyWTF” nightmares.
Surely that will not happen to React, you say, because it gets so many things right? Well, as a thought exercise, imagine what things could be like in 2027 and then imagine you’re stuck working in a 15-year-old patched up JavaScript/HTML hybrid. That is the endgame. I like React, but it’s subject to the same market forces as every other technology in this space.
> Java+XML and CSS — both of these were hailed as declarative breakthroughs originally, and today they are the stuff of “TheDailyWTF” nightmares.
Java+XML isn't declarative, XSLT was. XSLT declined when XML declined. CSS works quite well even today and is still widely used.
Declarative coding style is in many ways resistant to obsolescence since you're just declaring what you want than how to do it. The best example is SQL; mostly unchanged in decades.
As far as CSS goes — ask any front-end web developer if they would like all programming to be more like CSS...? It is a collection of thousands of properties, often overlapping or contradictory, some with their own sublanguages for further specification, and many features are defined as hidden side effects of one property when nested inside another. A total mess.
You can only declare what you want if the language lets you say it. (Think of Wittgenstein’s famous maxim.) SQL was a great design informed by decades of research. Most software designs are not like that, unfortunately.
I'm a fan of declarative (eg. logic) programming but how is XSLT declarative when Java and XML isn't? XSLT has been proven Turing-complete a long time ago (eg. [1]), and if anything, is functional, being derived from DSSSL/Scheme up to the XML syntax.
My point was that the world around will change, and at some point the declarative language that seemed so succinct will become clunky and inadequate to express the new requirements.
Java+XML really is the poster child for this. There was a time when it was the fresh declarative kid. React will most likely follow a similar path, not through any fault of its own.
Same will happen to your Swift or Android-Java codebases though. Go try to build and run on your 2015-17 machine+OS+devenv any just-slightly-real-world-beyond-hello-world run-off-the-mill 15-year old Visual Studio 6 line-of-biz (or other) codebase right now.. or whatever they used on Macs back then (I'd imagine the compatibility story for pre-OSX stuff is maybe even slightly worse than in MS land). Software that's meant to survive is meant to be maintained, I guess.
Or the server side of a web app? What's it gonna be, CGI or ASP 3 or PHP 3.. always the same story.
Bringing up HTML/JS/CSS from those days to function (though not shine) for today's requirements might prove comparatively tame by comparison =)
I can’t speak much for the rest, but old Mac codebases in particular hold up better than you might think. You can write an application that runs on every version of Mac OS from 1.0 (circa 1985) up to High Sierra with just a handful of conditionals through the use of Carbon [0]. Porting pre-OS X software should be similarly simple, given that it’s written in C or C++ (Pascal was somewhat popular for classic Mac apps, not sure what getting that code running on modern machines would look like).
When it comes to “new world” Mac stuff, the things keeping something written for OS X 10.0 from running on modern macOS have more to do with API deprecations than anything else. Objective-C is still widely used and is well supported (even with Swift’s growing popularity), so usually getting an old codebase of this nature running just means fixing a couple of deprecation errors, fixing a bunch of warnings, and hitting compile. The nature of change in the native sphere has largely been evolutionary, not revolutionary, so it’s largely stayed the same with new things being added. It’s not like the web where wheel reinvention and fads are a constant.
> What often goes unnoticed is that declarative languages are not very future-proof [...] Surely that will not happen to React, you say, because it gets so many things right? Surely that will not happen to React, you say, because it gets so many things right?
It is often not appreciated how simple React really is. Its simplicity is actually well suited to survive a long, long time. Forget classes, lifecycles, schedulers and all this stuff for a moment. If you boil it down what you're left with is but a single signature: `createElement(name, props, chilren)`. That's what JSX transpiles into.
With that you can map pretty much every visual-oriented api on earth and as we can plainly see it goes further than that and starts rendering flat out everything that can be rendered in the same friendly manner we're used to:
It's always the simple, almost trivial ideas that seem to survive and spread. React was released 4 years ago and has kept to a stable api. 16 was a rewrite, and it's a drop in replacement.
Forget classes, lifecycles, schedulers and all this stuff for a moment. If you boil it down what you're left with is but a single signature: `createElement(name, props, chilren)`.
When you pare it down to that, you're merely saying that GUIs are trees of configured objects. It's not a great revelation because the very first production GUI (Smalltalk 1972) already worked like that.
To get React from that idea, you need to add back all the stuff that you left out in the previous sentence. You add JavaScript, HTML-like syntax for defining trees and object attributes, component lifecycles and all that. And then it's not a generic idea anymore but a fairly specific implementation that will be superseded by something else eventually.
Also, coding in the React style is the "best DX for UI development" mainly if you're a web developer who doesn't want to learn the platform or the native tools but still wants to have "mobile developer" on your resume. (IMO)
I never coded native apps so forget my ignorance but how would you build an UI declaratively with swift? The turorial shows very imperative/mutative code indeed:
No need to apologize for asking an honest question :)
By combining a good databinding framework and reactive extension
so Bond & RxSwift or DataBinding (from google) & RxJava (or RxKotlin if/when it becomes a thing).
Of course, behind the scenes, this accesses the platform widgets in an imperative way (but that's also what RN has to do when it manipulates the same widgets). What matters is the API surface you interact with.
Declarative way of thinking is closer to how humans think while imperative code is closer to how machine works. That is why declarative way is objectively better and more predictable to model human behaviors, not necessarily the more efficient for machines.
Performance will improve due to Moore's law and optimizations.
The big picture is with more and more companies open source their technologies, software development is becoming a more and more social activity and Darwinian.
The mindshare winners are the survivors in technology (and talent) market.
> while imperative code is closer to how machine works
somewhat. less so these days than say back in the 8086 era.
cpu's these days do all kinds of wild stuff, with their long pipelines, staged execution, executing multiple instructions simultaneously, and other interesting behavior.
combine that with smarter compilers that can transform code in various ways to capitalize upon cpu developments, and you might be slightly surprised how some ostensibly boring and linear imperative code actually behaves on a present day cpu.
I already did give these tools a try and first rat out of the trap the sample code generated by React Native had build errors in production XCode8. I will confess that it did confirm my bias against bringing in any 3rd party dependency at all unless there is absolutely no choice in the matter and it also confirmed my practice of structuring my code so that any dependencies I'm forced to bring into a project (either by time crunch or clueless management) can be removed as soon as possible.
This point is likely subject to the "correlation is causation" debate. All the countries doing well with big governments are also likely resource-rich and home to ancient empires and culture.
What countries have small states that you are referring to anyway? Zimbabwe? Burma? Equador? Places in the jungle? There are lots of other reasons these places might not be economic powerhouses. It takes a lot more time to trade coconuts through a deep jungle.
Just because it seems difficult now under a heavy antiquated state-controlled system, doesn't mean, say, something like a crypto-currency-backed decentralized world isn't possible. We very well could one day be paying taxes just to local governments, and many local governments compete for our citizenship through things like low taxes. Cut the 25% u pay in taxes that goes to military related expenses (because, say, china now becomes the world's "supreme leader" as someone else said), and now we are well on our way to a small-state government.
I hope we can fix these problems. Things are so inefficient. I'm excited to see how far decentralization can take us.
Oil also goes to our partners in Europe and around the world. The goal isn't just having oil for the United States, but a stable world economy. George HW Bush & Co didn't want be at the behest of one or a few despotic leaders that could disrupt the flow of both oil and the world economy. They/we need heads of state dependent on the global monetary system--so that the decisions they make can be controlled. That's the idea. And at what costs is our day's number one dilemma??
Yes it's all about oil price stabilization. It's also a plan put in motion almost 30 years ago when we first attacked Iraq. So yes as solar and other developments change the landscape we are still foolishly following an old plan to insure the Middle East are willing client states able to be controlled by the global monetary system rather than erratic despotic wrenches in the system.
Terrorism and 9/11 likely is a false flag for ulterior motives. The motives can't be made so clear or nobody would believe the false flags and the media. We aren't to know just how important oil price stabilization is to the ruling elite's master plan.
Do you really think all the lives and money lost in the past 16 years has been the appropriate cost for just 3000 dead? We need to speak up and completely pull out of the Middle East immediately. The plan might have overall been good for the world but they were wrong and their dishonesty has destroyed people's faith in government and has made an entire region far more "terrifying" than they ever were. We are following an outdated strategy by outdated people that don't know better. That is to say they were never evil, but just impatient operating on a small big picture. I'm referring to the Bush Family, members of the Bilderberg group, the Rockefeller's, what remains of Standard Oil in obscured new company names such as Exxon and Mobil, and the tip top banking institutions that have been so arrogantly proud of the fact that money can be used to control the world and maintain peace rather than war as in past generations--for if everything can be controlled by money rather than might, we have the makings of a more peaceful world. So they thought...
I agree. The bush family (as representatives of the elite) had ten years to wait for an event to counter punch against. When ur the top dog in town u can mold any circumstance to ur aim. I don't maintain with all certainty that 911 was a false flag. I maintain that what was done and is continuing to be done was absolutely the wrong decision, capitalized on an event decision makers clearly found fortunate.
Right now we are supposed to believe we need to stay in Iraq and Afghanistan because we have to clean up the mess we made. I don't buy it. I think everyone there would prefer us gone. I think everyone here would prefer we left had we not been brow beaten by the threat of terrorism constantly. To me it's obvious that our actions are the biggest cause of terrorism. Those in power want to use the result of their actions to justify more of those actions. It's all pyscology and self development lessons applied at a larger group level--lessons the powers that be refuse to learn. We aren't going to get anything done in the Middle East just like we got nothing done in Vietnam. And if we did get anything done it's simply instill fear in other nations. Perhaps the master plan is no more than peace by strength. And that requires public displays from time to time. Think gang or prison behavior. There is a book though called The Dereliction of Duty:
I haven't read it but the gist I get is that politicians like Lyndon B Johnson didn't wanna be the one to lose the war. And generals all the same selfishly killed millions to preserve theirs and america'a image of strength and winning. To top it off, it looks bad to do so if not in the name of the greater good. So we always manage to justify our small picture thinking as if it's for the greater good. Again, nobody is evil. Just selfish and an unevolved conception of human psychology.
...but ps. I don't rule out that there are top secret weather control projects with capabilities beyond what is publicly shared. The point--as the false news trend has pinpointed--is that very little is knowable beyond your own immediate perception AND more importantly top sources (not just buzz feed) aren't trustworthy. Heads of news companies go to the yearly Bilderberg meeting and promise to not share what they learn and rather operate as willing participants using their media empires to push the party line forward. Supposedly. I don't know that either. But all said, my hunch is top players do fashion themselves as chess players with this planet being the board. We all do the same every day with our friends and families to different degrees. It's very conceivable that those with billions of dollars or the same in influence are doing this at a greater scale. I basically know I would do it. And I think we all would do so with our greatest conception of the greater good. What I'm saying is those in charge are stupid and fuck them! Their plan sucks. It's a pre-internet plan made by stodgy people. I also think a lot more peace is possible now than decades ago. Less might is needed. In fact it's a very bad thing and could be what thwarts the global system they are after.
In addition because of the internet we are not dumb cattle anymore. You have to realize that in 2001 the internet barely existed to the old people who crafted the plan. It might have been around but back then u could get by without it being stuffed down ur thrown like now. So we have old Bush Senior who maybe never used a mouse not recognizing how the internet was gonna connect us all and educate us all. The stupider set of masses we were maybe did need more cattle prodding than now.
Now, we are on the verge of a small set of vocal conspiracy theorists (people more extreme than myself) tipping the world on its side--all because the powers that be thought they could manipulate us incessantly. Whether 911 was a false flag or not does not matter. What matters is the plain as day INTENTIONAL manipulation the media does to us every day. What matters is we have wasted so much taxpayer money on military and debt to pay for it. What matters is the millions the us government has killed. What matters is we continue every day! Let's just stop now. Clearly somebody doesn't want us to. U could say the people want us fighting Isis, but that's only because the media makes us fear them.
What matters is that America is the Roman Empire in a hyperspeed world about to have its great schism and eventual demise. All that matters then is whether it sends us all back to the dark ages or if somehow we manage to make it a positive evolution.
..But yea, momma said don't trust the government. Don't. Ur an absolute fool if ur one of those people who can't believe America would do any of these power plays to get what it wants. There's a lot of people like this. Im surprised how many on hacker news. To them here's what I have to say to u: I know a bunch of the people u label "conspiracy theorists" want u to believe 911 was a false flag attack by our own government--u don't have to agree with that to have a strong hunch that ruling elite are up to foul play. It could be an accident they played to their advantage, ie to do what they really wanted to do. Start with that and do your best to read between the lines from the perspective that their may be a hidden agenda. Do you think it's fair we have killed 100s of thousands in the Middle East since 911 where we lost just under 3000. It's not right. Why does our news constantly talk about terrorism? Is the terrorism really as bad as we are told it is? Or are we just being told that? What happened to the Taliban, Al Quaeda? Will Isis be another has-been group soon enough too? I know we surely aren't afraid the Taliban is going to destroy the world anymore. What's the likelihood that Isis is another supposed threat that peters out (when the news stops mentions their name). What does that say about the actual threat these groups pose anyway? ..How many of the newscasters have spent any time in he places they are reporting? Whose really scripting this stuff? They all seem like repeaters to me. And people with opinions have biases based on what's been repeated to them. And the cycle continues. As the game of telephone shows anyone, biases change what we report as fact, thereby giving the audience a different perception of fact than what they could perceive if they were there. I'd be willing to bet if the American public was able to take a virtual reality guided tour of the actual events being covered we would form a very different opinion. Basically we would see how we have dominated the Middle East through violence, scared the shit out of people, made them afraid to come out of their homes, murdered their friends and family, and then we would see how utterly helpless they feel that they are willing to kamakaze themselves to express their anger/hatred. We would see so called terrorists for what they really are: people drowning in despair because we killed their family. End of story. ..oh and you say: "they are religious fanatics!" No they are religious people to begin with that see everything through the lens of religion. Underneath that the core is that they hate us for what we did to them. Not what they did to us.
This dates back to Israel. Israel is a made up country (not unlike many of the other Arab countries since the Ottoman Empire fell in WWI) but one whose religious and ethnic population was not their before hand. Israel cunningly made that area their own in 1948, we sided with them; and the people we took it from and their friends now hate us. In past centuries, there was no internet. Now u have Muslims far far away like Afghanistan with a common enemy. The west and the Jewish people played the land grab move too late in history. If it was the 1800s with the native Americans we could get away with it and beat the victims into submission. Now we can't and we are paying the price for our arrogance. The best thing we could do is admit our wrongs and leave the Middle East. Disown Israel and let them fend for themselves. They are sinking ship we never should have attached to. They will be dealing with suicide bombers for a very long time.
We are on the verge of a great schism because now there are too many truthers able to connect and share their opinion and breed more, while there are still many stubborn essentially idiots that believe in their governments, in America, who will never be willing to concede that perhaps we have done some really bad things we need to atone for, and that their is a hidden agenda enacted daily to manipulate us. America has been real bad. Our day is coming. We still haven't appoligized for Vietnam. You still can walk around that country and be blown up by our land mines. Shame on us.
well in my experience, and this has happened a few times with different requirements which is why I was generic, what happens is you try to use more and more of TypeScript's features to get strict typing (keyof, mapped types, discriminated unions etc) and they work great for 80% of cases. Then you push the feature too far and it falls down. For example, I managed to get tsc to hit a "stack depth exceeded" error by adding a minor variation on an existing complex type that I'd created. I find with TS types, less is very often more unfortunately. I'm trying to use TS like Haskell and it just doesn't play ball.
It's about how they go about it, putting the Middle East into so much turmoil for example, hurting people over there in an ends justifies the means manner. It's the wrong way to go about it and therefore at its core its rotten and therefore the sought outcome will never be positive in terms of the biggest picture for all. It's a dangerous track they now have us on and the people aren't happy. I'm not sure we could suffer another false flag attack like 911 without a violent revolution following it. The true path towards global integration is a slower patient one--one where the powers that be might not live long enough to selfishly bare the fruits of it. So they rush it. There's no doubt what's gone on in he Middle East is about oil. We don't need to be directly stealing it through a pipeline for the conspiracy to be true. It's about oil price stabilization, which is crucial to the steadily ticking "integrated" world that is good for business. And since it is about that, and this guy was head of Chase for 33 years, guess who likely was one of the biggest cosigners of and conspirators in these plans.
Just read the Wikipedia article on the Gulf War. It's clear GH Bush pursued it to keep the oil price stable. It's clear the US developed some enemies in despots that don't listen to us. It's clear America has a mandate to not allow harm to its image of ultimate strength on earth. It's clear that George W came to finish the job in his first year in office nearly 10 years later. The idea being it would secure oil prices once and for all while letting the world know America won't tolerate despots. It's way easier to control a democratic country than despots adamant on doing things their way. There are more ways to manipulate said country/government. It makes for a more "integrated" world for the ruling elite.
I believe they have good intentions. With outdated thinking. Narrowly constrained by personal self-interest. And as a result their intentions are not in fact good for all. I don't believe in James Bond style villains. Everyone is doing what they think is best. It's just unfortunate that the cabal's big picture is severely small and doesn't include all.
> Just read the Wikipedia article on the Gulf War. It's clear GH Bush pursued it to keep the oil price stable.
... Have you made any effort to try to learn foreign policy? Or are you relying only on piecemeal reading of events and your predisposed biases to determine your worldview?
Most politicians read a lot (Trump is an exception, and he's terrifying for it), and much of what they read is public policy theory books, things like Why Nations Fail or On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace. From these books, they tend to formulate their views on policy (including foreign policy) based on certain schools of thought, and you can often tell who influences these thoughts based on how they frame arguments and defenses.
The Gulf War was principally caused by Saddam Hussein reckoning he could invade Kuwait quickly enough that no one would care to try to stop him (this is what Russia more or less successfully did in Crimea). The other principal Arab states who did not like Iraq--notably Saudi Arabia and Egypt--were never particularly likely to accede to these demands. (Iraq did try to link Kuwait to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, but that was more of a stalling tactic than an actual honest effort to further that peace process, although it did incidentally do so). When Iraq began making noises about invading Saudi Arabia, that's when the US launched Desert Shield and subsequently Desert Storm.
And yet, when you listen to the testimonies of the officials who planned the war, it's clear that they hewed to a definitive Clausewitzian view of war: the planning of war needs to be shaped around the political objectives it is meant to achieve. And the political objectives they gave as their design for war was to a) remove Iraq from Kuwait and b) prevent Iraq from being able to exert regional power for 20 years. Note that oil isn't a primary objective. Of course, the Middle East being what it was, any planning of major operations in there is going to take into account near- and long-term impact on oil supplies, and it's not exactly a secret that the State Department's general grand strategy for the Middle East is "keep the oil flowing." But that doesn't mean that the only goal is keeping oil--if it were, the US would not have invaded but instead pressured Saudi Arabia to just deal with the Iraqi annexation of Kuwait (note that oil didn't stop flowing until Iraq's withdrawal from Kuwait).
You also have to keep in mind that you can't stick your head in the sand, ignore the world, and expect to suffer no consequences. The current migrant crisis in Europe is entirely caused by European unwillingness to deal with the issue in Syria.
You're going to have to rely on A) "piecemeal reading of events" and B) the lens that someone is pulling the strings to see anything other than what the powers that be put out through the media and foreign policy authors. So no, I'm no master of foreign policy, but I've done plenty of my own research, and reading between the lines I've determined there is a high likelihood that there are hidden actors doing major things, and therefore that the conspiracies are the bread crumb trail to something big, specifically within the United States Intelligence Community and the Military Industrial Complex. The school of thought you seem to be representing likely never acknowledges such--so it's like: who cares how much foreign policy knowledge you have when it's all geared away from so called "conspiracy theories."
All you need to do is use personal logic. Take JFK as an example: a man killed JFK. Then he was killed. And then within 3 years that guy was dead too. Is that not extremely fishy. Gun to my head and I have to make a split second decision whether that was a plot or not--the logical answer, for me at least, is that it's a plot. There are too many things like that. And all those events will never be proven until they are, at which point we'll be living in a very different world. That was their whole point--to hide and obscure what really happened and true intents. All these so called conspiracies were carried out by extremely powerful and formidable people with the sole aim of keeping them secret--do you think it will easily come out. Of course not. But with too many discrepancies it's become increasingly difficult to believe anymore.
All you really need to do is watch this short interview of General Wesley Clark on his shock about our pre-planned strategy to invade a bunch of Middle Eastern countries and--provided this guy is real--you know something is up:
Anyway brother, just remember one's true intent is extremely easy to conceal if that is your goal. Do you think all the true intents of all the politicians and heads of states are really out out there worn as a pin on their breast? No, it's not. If they are smart they will always find ways to make it seem like the enemy's fault, e.g. Saddam Hussein invading kuwait because what he claims was them lending Iraq money to fight Iran and benefiting from it and therefore should mean the debt is wiped clean. I'm not saying whatever nonsense he had in his head wasn't "nonsense" or that he wasn't working is way through Kuwait to Saudi Arabia. What I'm saying is a power as powerful as the United States can dodge and weave and use any circumstances to its advantage. That's part of the advantage of being the top dog--you can counter punch anything and still come out unscathed. But it doesn't make it right when the powerful intentionally blow things out of proportion to attain an aim the public would otherwise not support. And it's definitely not right if they fabricate lies to do so. I do believe everything is a matter of degree, and do I believe the US is far on the evil side? No. Do I believe they've taken it too far and tipped the see-saw to a very dangerous side. This I know to be true, even if they have been wrongly pegged by conspiracy theorists--their handling of conspiracy theories alone has been egregious in its inability to allow for any perspective other than a hyper patriotic one; no perspective is allowed other than one that thinks America can do no evil. I think it can, and I don't think the thought needs to be the end of us, but rather the beginning of a conversation and hopefully a new era. Either way, it's going to take something big to reverse the dangerous course we're on.
So no I'm not convinced America is a benevolent force operating for the broadest picture of the greater good, and I'm not going to be intimidated by anyone who's read tomb after tomb of perspectives biased toward the anglo-saxon tradition/hierarchy of the west or whatever you wanna call it. The west has been dominating the world in the open for Millenia. With the advent of media and various news networks, it now needs to do so in the shadows. I highly doubt the agenda has changed. I highly doubt those with lots to gain are able to see how ends-justify-the-means-mentality is not in interest of the biggest picture for humanity when they stand to benefit in the immediate short term by such actions. I do believe they think they are doing good. I dont believe in James Bond villains. I believe their perspective is outdated, skewed by self-interest and will not ultimately create a cooperative more integrated world as they hope. We have gun-to-your-head peace in the world now, thanks to the US. History has told us that never lasts. Somebody will creep up behind us and eat our lunch, and use our same aggressive tactics against us, and at this point in history with so much technological progress, it might be catastrophic. In short, America needs to lead by not muscling around so much. Our time will come unless we start to back down. It's as simple as that. We're dealing with people who have the thought process that you can only stay on top by ruling through strength. And I disagree. My opinion is it lasts for a time, but always comes to an end, and that what has far more longevity is a cooperative attitude that sometimes requires backing down, specifically when ur wrong. But America won't back down even when they're wrong--hence we never apologized for Vietnam, hence our approaching 20 years in the middle east that didn't need to happen. I firmly believe we should 100% get out today, and that THAT would be the best decision for humanity, even if it leaves things in a disarray. Most people believe we now have to pick up the pieces for the mess we made. Well, that's about to lead to us in Syria, etc, and all the other countries General Wesley Clark says has been on our list since 2001. Yea, we need to get out immediately. The world doesn't want this. It's only a matter of time before it results in a major conflict. In addition, it's just wrong. It's not the right way to go about it. You can't make a cooperative world through the lack of it. What goes around will eventually come around. America is the Roman Empire and it doesn't need to go down in flames--rather it can be a stepping stone to a more conscious cooperative planet. But our invasions will lead to us going down in flames, regardless of what good intents we can get the media and foreign policy authors to claim it was about.
So unless you're a foreign policy expert trying to see everything through the lens of "who's really pulling the strings," I don't value much what such a writer says. The reality is all the writers that are looking for whose pulling the strings are cast off as conspiracy theorists. So you're basically saying: if you don't trust the consensus the powers that be and the media put out, your point of view is a conspiracy theory or that of a dilettante. That's unfair and nonsense. The good thing is that times are changing--most educated people in their 20s and 30s, that i meet at least, believe the conspiracies or strongly entertain them. The world is changing, and though we may not have proof, we aren't stupid and it's not going to last much longer. Trump is a reflection of that. He may be egregious, but it's a step toward unraveling the powers that be within the Intelligence/Military Industrial Complex.
Are you trying to say that people who encourage international trade caused the situation in the middle east? Or trying to pin that on one political party? I don't think that's accurate or fair.
Well that's not what I'm trying to say all. I'm saying specifically the war on Iraq and Afghanistan was manufactured by the powers that be. They either made the attack themselves on the twin towers, knew about it, or capitalized on it nevertheless as soon as they were fortunate enough for such thing to happen. They are willing to make sacrifices that the rest of the world might not agree with in order to create how THEY envision a utopian earth. And because they are going about it in such an uncooperative manner they are destroying the likelihood of the cooperative/integrated outcome they are aiming for. They are rushing it so they can see it and benefit from it during their lifetimes. They are shortsighted and dangerous to all.
And what is your solution to this dilemma? As soon as you become leader, you are the establishment. Trump is the establishment now, and he's certainly elite.
There have always been leaders in society. We have parents, bosses, and presidents. It's just the way things are. You can still work to change your own situation.
There's a difference between leaders and leaders willing to go to any means to achieve their ends.
What I'm doing is sharing info in a more balanced less conspiracy-laden way than many would. And believe me I am--what I'm saying is tame relative to what many others would say and how they would say it. The problem is too many people still believe 911 wasn't manufactured just as the weapons of mass destruction Iraq never had was.
But this is changing. Alternative media networks like hacker news itself are growing in influence. Sharing this info in a balanced way and seeing what people think is what I'm doing. Our media is getting displaced just like every sector of society is fragmenting and decentralizing (think music industry, what Netflix and Amazon are now doing to film, etc). We need to form our own concensus to destroy the grip western media has on people. For example, without sharing a bit of proof and providing a bogus motive-centric report, the DNI told the media that Russia hacked the DNC and the media repeated it without question. That's a problem. It's a problem when we are all just supposed to believe our intelligence agencies without question. It's a bigger problem that the media actually did it. Russia likely didn't hack us, yet we'll never know--yet most people believe it without question!
The real problem is the journalists and politicians have no choice but to believe it in order to not appear anti-establishment. Basically our leaders can't go against a corrupt worsening country because it hurts their careers by making them appear anti-establishment. Some--Trump--have made a political career out of being anti-establishment, but he's an outlier. However as egregious as he is, he might be the impetus to many more taking stronger stances against our hidden government.
The only thing we CAN do my friend is achieve concenus in a grass roots manner amongst the people. That's the only thing that will stop this train. Do you think 911 was likely a false flag attack to spur action or not? That is the question.
Id assume it's more of an unspoken agreement and perhaps more in the heads' of the founders than YC. The degree to which both parties are conscious about it likely doesn't matter--the point is it's likely exactly what happens. Young founders come and get addicted to a train of mountain climbing in the name of the company, while potentially sacrificing happiness and control of the company. It's all very psychological and ego based--where young founders are driven to be famous and successful overnight--when a more patient route, eventually landing on doing something they are truly emotionally invested in, would be a better more psychologically balanced option.
I imagine more mature founders are confident enough to realize they can get past the "hardship" of starting without sacrificing equity until deeper in the process. If ur building apps, and ur a developer which u should be, and u have been doing it for 10 years--and ur worth ur salt--u don't need YC to get up and running. Younger coders living in their parents house who have it even easier often fail to recognize that for the prospect of Silicon Valley big wigs giving them pats on the back, and that's the problem here. It's basically akin to recording labels signing young dumb talent who don't recognize their capabilities and options. I know this first hand--as am I one such person having gone through these progressions. I'm 31 and used to dream of YC and all these people funding me. Now I don't want a single soul funding me beside myself and I've aligned my interests and my development skills with a concept I will be doing for the rest of my life. And I certainly don't want anyone in control of my own destiny but me.
There are other formulas for success with software, especially if you are deeply merged with what it is that u r doing, rather than just glomming on to the first idea for its potential to make money or create impact, then convincing yourself ur super passionate about home meal delivery. There are people who have become billionaires 30 years down the line for sticking to their guns and doing what they loved. In short I find the YC model extremely shallow and results in lots of young people ever eager to feed their ego with whatever idea will get them financial success, customers and "impact" as soon as possible. Because of how hard it is most get punished for their greedy ego-oriented thinking, ie through the pain of pushing such a thing through to success. Those that manage to win have no guarantees they are happier for it. It's not the success that makes one happy, but how u go about it. Too often than not it requires negative choices--just like Kalanick; I can't help but imagine his internal world being anything less than a greedy STRESSFUL never ending paper chase. Indicators of one's own internal world is what's going on around them, and just look how dark and ugly it's been getting for Uber lately. None of that sorta stuff is love and happiness. Paul Graham is a nice guy, but id urge him to question the concepts he's putting out into the universe. YC perpetuates ego ambition, not necessarily healthy growth. Good for all u guys, ur all rockstars from the narrow perspective of startups. Now achieve the same in ur personal life and in consciousness of ur own psychology and intents. That's far more important and our true tests in this life. That's not to say material success isnt important, but only up until it becomes a distraction from mastering your own true intent.
Except for here in the states 25% of the taxpayer money is going to military, intelligence and debt from past wars we know to have been bad ideas and knew all along were bad ideas.
And let's just say another 25% is misspent. In a country this big and bloated, that's also likely a low ball figure. But overall, only 50% of taxpayer money is going to anything remotely properly executed and needed.
That said, our public schools suck, we invest nothing in research, we don't provide healthcare until your old, and our interstate highways were built 70 years ago, and state and local governments handle needed construction now, yet they take the smallest percentage of our taxes. Some states like Nevada don't even charge state income tax.
In my view I'd be way happier paying taxes if this was managed right. That means cut military spending by 90% knowing we are never going to need an aircraft carrier again while completely evacuating the Middle East, and the state local government's charge more since they will be more effective at putting it to use.
Taxes should be no more than 30% total (federal, state + local) like the Apple App Store.
Yea, likely not happening any time soon. But that's what is correct imho.
On what basis do you think that you think you can write off 25% of non-military non-debt government spending? Is that just a hunch?
I would suggest trying it sometime. Look at the US government budget, and try to cut out 25% of it. It is a lot harder than just getting rid of "bloat".
I can believe that some people might be able to find 25% that they personally don't care about. Maybe you don't drive, so (you think) you don't care about highways. Or, you're not poor, so you don't care about medicaid. And so on. But could you cut 25% of the federal budget without causing a large fraction of the American populace to become very, very angry (and vote you out of office, git reset --hard your budget in two years, etc)?
I don't mean to say that the government could not be more efficient. It certainly could. But 25% of the budget is a lot of money, and not everyone has the same priorities as you.
> That said, our public schools suck, we invest nothing in research, we don't provide healthcare until your old, and our interstate highways were built 70 years ago, and state and local governments handle needed construction now, yet they take the smallest percentage of our taxes. Some states like Nevada don't even charge state income tax.
Don't forget we build highways with the wrong material which causes a cheaper initial cost and higher future cost. (Concrete rather than asphalt)
> Except for here in the states 25% of the taxpayer money is going to military, intelligence and debt from past wars we know to have been bad ideas and knew all along were bad ideas.
I don't disagree with your point (about wasteful spending on the military), but your number is substantially inflated and you're wrong on the financial conclusion.
The federal + state spending is $6.x trillion, soon to be $7 trillion. Closer to 10% of tax payer money is going to the military + intelligence. Federal debt service is closer to 5%-6% of the US Government's revenue year to year; less than half of that net cost is due to war.
Entitlements are by far the largest budget problem the US has, there isn't anything else even remotely close at this point. Within ten years those entitlements will balloon the US budget deficit back above $1 trillion, the military spending increases - which I disagree with - are comical next to the entitlement costs inbound. Unless you're planning to abolish the entire US military, you're not going to be able to financially resolve the truly epic entitlements funding shortfall just through military reduction. Even slashing the US military in half won't come close to fixing the problem (~$300 billion versus an inbound $1 trillion annual entitlement shortfall).
I admit my numbers were rough guesses. That said, I don't think really anyone can know--e.g. "black budgets" etc. But basically if your numbers are somewhat correct, I was only 2x off. You're stating 12.5% goes to essentially military. That's a lot. In addition, it seems that veterans are one of the biggest, if not The biggest entitlement--again, more military.
...a quick search shows this article saying 16% is going to defense:
I also read recently something to the tune of: 70% of our national debt comes from military related expenditures from the 2 Bush presidents, and by 2020 interest payments will go from 5/6% to 10/12%. What about the principal? When does that get factored in?
I admit I'm not an expert on these matters (as i chose to focus on what i can change). However, there does seem like there are various discrepancies here--so what if the number is closer to 18% vs. 25% or 12.5%. It's way way way too much and would make a difference--more importantly in the lives and hatred abroad we would be sparing. We didn't fix or help anything in Vietnam and no matter what they say, we haven't in Iraq or the Middle East--our selfish financial losses aside.
However, now imagine instead of taking out credit for those wars, we invested. That would be paying major dividends that would further counteract these numbers. Now imagine we invested in ourselves (not just financial instruments)--the potential is far higher.
Military spending without a doubt has put a damper on our progress and perhaps the sole reason America may never reach the potential it once had. America was never great--rather, it had potential to be great. Now it's mediocre, and other countries are eating our lunch, and rightfully so. Not that the world is zero sum--but we'd stand to benefit from taking a page from their playbook (e.g. nordic countries, etc). We have shitty education. We are well on our way to becoming idiocracy. We unfairly lock up way too many people for far too long in shitty prison conditions (and then let corporations exploit them for cheap labor!). We have plenty of money but we spend $11 Billion on the Airforce One and Marine One fleet. That would put $33 in every american's pocket. Our expenditures from the Middle East since 9/11 would put like $30k in each american's pocket. If that was $5k over 6 years, that's life-changing money for half of america. ..This country is just ridiculous. Paying 50% of your earnings as taxes in California is absurd. It's a crime. There's no point owning (why pay that 1% property tax), there's no point making lots of money. Just rent, make far less, and work way less hard--what sort of incentive is that! That said we have a problem of working too hard and too much in this country (at least for people of a certain class)--so from that perspective perhaps it's a good thing. I rather make whatever that sweetspot income is from a taxation point of view ($75k?), rent, not try to make billions from my startup and live a simple life.
And yes, we should cut 90% of our military. Instead, we maintain an arsenal of super modern nukes and a small extremely efficient elite navy-seals-like task force. + Yes, the best cyber-security outfit on the planet (while somehow keeping surveillance on citizens to a minimum). But fire most people in camouflage uniform.
Gun-to-your-head "peace" is not peace. There is no world peace. This "peace" we have enforced will not less forever. As soon as china knows they can beat us they will make us pay for our sins in one way or another. We need to become more cooperative now and show the world how to act NOW while we're on top, cuz once we're not we won't be able to set such examples. We aren't cooperative. We are forceful. Again, it's gun-to-your-head peace. The lessons of history clearly indicate to me that it's a recipe for disaster as those hungry come up from behind you and use the ugly strategies they learned from you against you. These are basically life laws we're talking about here. So we aren't setting a good example. We haven't created true peace. It's temporary peace. And things could get catastrophic unless America completely changes its ways. I'm not even saying gun-to-your-head "peace" wasn't needed to get to this point, i.e. the most peaceful point in human history. I'm saying it's run its course, and if we continue to operate that way, we'll regress--and regress bad!
So why not save some money (AND SOME LIVES) and show some real leadership. Real leadership is about taking risks. Risks and faith are what it's all about. As powerful as the US is, it has an opportunity to set that stage. That would be the turning point in human history that civilization has been looking for. It's the next evolution. We have that opportunity right now. We are on the precipice of a turning point while things are still relatively stable. Cut the military, we don't need it. Save us some dollars and focus on education.
