I'd posit that Jan 20 2017 marked the beginning of the end.
It's a daily challenge to keep track and not spiral into despair. It's not just that one man, it's that so many citizens love him. It truly boggles the mind.
> The US might have had a president who was knowledgeable about technology and dedicated to solving climate change.
might have had? Ha, you should read up a bit on Jimmy Carter.
> A generation from now this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.
That was him when he put solar panels on the roof of the White House, which Ronnie Ray-Gun removed and sent to a museum.
Completeley agree. It's such a stark contrast between Bush senior and junior, too-- GWB put the US on such a bad trajectory (middle east interventionism, surveillance state, etc.), altough 9/11 probably deserves a lot of blame for it.
I also blame the republicans for turning elections more and more into polarized shit slinging personalized attacks instead of policy based arguments, and I'd argue that this really took off in the Clinton era, and then got really bad under Obama/Trump.
mccain seemed quite respectable and i liked the spirit of his campaign reform efforts. they were probably more strategic than altruistic. on the other hand palin seems like shed fit right in with the clown show conservatives trot out now
It does indeed, and I agree that is a good alternative date but a lot of people still had the excuse that they did not know how bad it could get. For the re-run they knew exactly what to expect and still voted for it.
The big question is how far until we bottom out, and what does "recovery" look like. The fact that the political divide has grown so that realities do not converge is rather terrifying.
The scala of possible outcomes here is so broad it is terrifying. The best the rest of the world can hope for is that it will remain contained but I think we are already seeing plenty of evidence that will not be the case.
For a more focused point, sticking to just one here:
> we’re tired of funding the world’s defense
Reads like "The outrageously high R&D costs of modern weapons systems are being subsidized across many customers. This must end immediately!"
What other business wants fewer customers to spread R&D across, or less revenue from fewer units sold?
Are we instead discussing how much the US spends internally on defence, then exports the largest military in the world to protect the country and her interests? Because not only is that an example of America choosing to spend her own money instead of being coerced by other nations, but the guy that just ran a snatch'n'grab on a foreign leader was enabled by that same policy. Forgive my disbelief that he'll dismantle that system any time soon.
I think this is a scarily prevalent view, and I strongly disagree.
Regarding defense: The US is not the world policeman and never really has been. Police enforces higher laws-- but the only law the US enforces is its own, which sometimes becomes very obvious (e.g. Hague invasion act, or inaction when there's only humanitarian gain, like civil wars in Africa).
Regarding research/drugs: Why would you think the US is owed anything here? Drugs are (typically) not gifted to rest of the world for free. The view that high healthcare prices in the US "pay" for medical advancement is pure propaganda BS: You pay such high prices because you allow the industry to extract so much from you, not because of any kind of altruism.
Don't get me wrong: I don't blame the US for doing things wrong-- I believe the last half century was largely mutually beneficial for US and its allies, but the notion that the US is owed by its allies or even the world is almmost absurd to me; you don't accrue credit by acting in your own interests.
Not downvoting, but boy is this off the mark. America was the only country to invoke Article 5 of NATO. America has benefited greatly from brain drain, what you call "funding the world's research". Pharma is something like the 7th or 8th largest export for the US.
Military misadventures in the Middle East, trickle up economics, prioritizing corporate profits over things like low cost healthcare, good jobs, or a solid industrial base... These are all products of American culture and politics, not imposed by any other country.
Appreciate your response. I’m just frustrated, because while I vote one way (in California ) for liberal policies, the rest of the country seems to vote another. Americans are a varied group and we all get lumped together with these idiots. I thought it was stupid when we dismantled USAID but I’m powerless to stop it.
I get the frustration. I hope though that the opinion of the people who matter the most - i.e., your friends and family, and not random Internet strangers - will be based on who you are as a person, not on your identity as an American. Don't worry so much about the noise on social media, it's part of what got us into this mess in the first place.
At the same time, there are things you can do besides voting. Maybe you already know or do these things, but just putting it out there... You can call your representatives (and they might actually listen, if you're a Democrat in California), you can donate to candidates in other races if you have the means (there are probably going to be some pretty consequential senate races this year), you can join a protest (peacefully, and especially if you don't have any dependents).... And who knows, maybe none of these things will make a difference in the end, but I think the bottom line is that if you truly care about some of these things that are happening right now in the US, it's better to find ways to act on your convictions than to stay frustrated and fume online.
I sympathize with your frustration but your understanding of how things hang together is way off the mark.
You do not seem to understand how America's position in the world has been used to benefit the country in a massive way post world war II. You can throw that position away, that's your privilege, but the result will be a much smaller economy in which your costs for various items will go up rather than down because a lot of money will no longer flow to the USA.
The amounts you are paying for healthcare, medication etc are not coupled to that but are coupled to your broken political system. You could fix that easily enough but neither the democrats nor the republicans have ever followed that path because you (plural) have been deluded into thinking that that is socialism.
Reducing the USA's standing in the world is not going to fix your political problems but is going to harm your economy in a massive way. The position you are taking here is not consistent and whether you voted for Trump or not is not relevant because it effectively carries water for him: this is precisely the kind of thing that an uninformed Trump supporter would say.
I believe you're deluded into believing that 'we' are deluded. French and British TV news have little snippets of anecdotal dummy Americans being paraded around to make the entire country look stupid. It's not the entire country that's stupid - we DO have a socialized healthcare system called Medicare - it kicks in when you're retiree age. A Yougov poll from July 2025 showed:
59% of U.S. adult citizens support “Medicare for all” (27% oppose, 14% not sure)
So are "we" voting against our own interests? Have you considered that neither party, including the Democrats we're supposedly too foolish to vote for, support this. The political system is infiltrated with a large amount of money which we call "lobbying". This lobbying is illegal in the major democracies in Europe, leaving the impression that "Americans are voting against their own interests."
Hope I've made a better case than BBC or French TV5!
Exactly. The Democrats are the lesser of two evils, but they still carry water for the billionaires. Neither party represents what people really want (Medicare for all, at least as an option, lower defense spending, etc)
I have lived for many years on the border of the United States and Canada, have many friends on both sides of that border (probably more in the USA) and I don't watch French or British TV news.
Your 'socialized healthcare' is a very weak version of it, there is no other country where medical issues can spiral out of control financially in the way they do in the United States.
I know the political parties are as corrupt as they get but that is your problem to fix, even so Trump's talking points, that the USA has been financing the rest of the world are plain bullshit.
I've lived in a few countries including the UK and France, by the way. And I don't think any Canadian would compare their healthcare system to either of those countries, they'd rather use the U.S. insurance system than be given paracetamol while waiting a few weeks to get a CAT scan. In fact, according to Gemini googling 'Canadian healthcare wait times':
Key Figures & Trends (from Fraser Institute & CIHI reports, late 2025):
National Median Wait: ~28.6 weeks (down slightly from 30 weeks in 2024).
Longest Waits: New Brunswick (~60.9 weeks), PEI (~49.7 weeks).
Shortest Waits: Ontario (~19.2 weeks).
By Specialty: Neurosurgery (49.9 weeks), Orthopaedic Surgery (48.6 weeks) were longest; Oncology (Radiation 4.2, Medical 4.7 weeks) shortest.
Diagnostics: CT (8.8 weeks), MRI (18.1 weeks).
That's pretty bad. In the U.S. you wait one week for an MRI and it's paid for, minus copay, by your insurance if your insurance is good. The U.S. healthcare is pretty great if you a) work b) work in a place that gives you good healthcare or c) are old enough to qualify for Medicare. It also depends on which state you are in, since the state laws differ on healthcare (Texas and New York are not the same).
But I don't think your point is fact-finding, it's hating on the U.S. or provoking.
I know the political parties are as corrupt as they get but that is your problem to fix, even so Trump's talking points, that the USA has been financing the rest of the world are plain bullshit.
NATO is/was a major contributor to the success of the dollar and US economic activity. It was never a cost center, it's a core enabler. Whoever thinks otherwise is setting the US up for an epic owngoal.
The military is basically a jobs program. We do it because it pumps money into the economy and gives us our own little socialism. It's our little New Deal kingdom.
Its current state is worse than a year ago and even worse than 10 years ago, etc. As a fellow European, it's a fact that the US for many decades have attracted global top talent for both universities and industry. That definitely hit a hard reversal during the current term with the war on universities/education as well as immigration policies though.
"funding the world's defence' - this kind of thinking is whats turning everyone against you. Ask the venezeulans, iraqis, iranians, nicuaraguans, vietnamese, afghanis, panamains, etc if they want your "world defence".
no offense but the US spent about a billion on the WHO. That's a lot of influence for chump change. US defense sits at only 3% of GDP compared to 8% during the height of the cold war.
The argument always seems to be that the US is getting these rough deals, but objectively what it has spent the last few years be it in terms of soft power for organizations like this or in weapons to Ukraine, a few decades ago people would have opened champagne bottles getting that much bang for your buck.
This is British "the EU is stealing your NHS money" stuff, like it doesn't work at a basic level of arithmetics. What's driving spending in the US is entitlements, literally a straight line up
I get that it all adds up, but you're railing against 0.1% of a budget that's over a trillion dollars. Not only do household and national budgets work differently, the numbers are also so much larger that they give a sense of vertigo instead of understanding. If we compare for 0.1% of your budget, would you stress over that amount? Because I know I'm not about to panic over spending $100 annually for a safer, healthier, and more stable world
I feel like there’s a logical fallacy in your response. I’m down for cutting significantly more than $1 billion. Halving the defense department budget would be a good start.
In which case we disagree fundamentally on America's place in the world, and how best to lead - and that's okay. We can politely disagree (on this), and neither of us has to be an asshole, because neither view is objectively wrong
I applaud the consistency you put on display regarding the US budget though, and I gotta say you view (on this) probably should count more than mine - I'm a Canadian citizen, not American
Why do Americans think that? It's very self centered. You will be surprised by how much Canada spends around the world. For example of an important project, Canada paid UNicef $850k to combat open defecation in Ghana.
I’m happy to spend on supporting the poor worldwide; I’m just tired of the US playing team America world police. I also want Americans to get the same deal Europeans and Canadians get on prescription drugs.
I always find it so weird to assume such things are done out of good heart. The US has always been dependent on their ability of world wide power projection, because that's a level that always works. Through 'America first', in the next years the US will experience a decline of beneficial trade deals and US-interest friendly foreign politics. It's net negative for everybody except China and Russia to some degree.
> I also want Americans to get the same deal Europeans and Canadians get on prescription drugs.
That's not about foreign politics though. If you didn't want Billionaires to get richer, you shouldn't vote for one of them being the president.
> I’m happy to spend on supporting the poor worldwide; I’m just tired of the US playing team America world police. I also want Americans to get the same deal Europeans and Canadians get on prescription drugs.
Then you should fix your laws. Like, until a year or two ago Medicare was forbidden from negotiating drug prices. Coupled with the absurdity of direct to consumer advertising of drugs (only allowed in the US and New Zealand), plus your massively complicated health care system, it's a recipe for disaster.
On the world police thing, I'm definitely sympathetic, but this was something your government did for a mix of selfish and altruistic reasons, and the consequences of not doing it will be bad in some ways for Americans. I do think that Europe/EU need to step up here, and it looks like we're finally doing this. I'd also note that of the current potential world police (US, Russia, China) you guys are the least worst.
I never understood the "flag" option on HN. Usually "flag" means to flag as inappropriate - porn, obvious spam, etc.
But, is it meant to be used as "downvote"? i.e. "I don't want to see this topic" or "I disagree with this opinion?". I guess the equivalent here is just lack of an upvote?
There seems to be a variety feedback that mean different things... e.g. sometimes I would like to say "I strongly disagree with this opinion", but I don't want to say "This shouldn't be on HN".
That's the biggest problem here: People using "flag" as a mega-downvote to eliminate things they don't want other people to read from the front page.
HN has a little "| hide |" button under each article that you can click if you don't want to see the article. I wish people just used that and moved on. The only reason you'd flag is if you don't want other people to see the article.
> I don’t think I have ever downvoted or flagged anything. I actually enjoy reading stuff which is controversial or against the grain, even if I don’t agree. Unfortunately voting here seems to be like reddit where you are really voting if you agree with the opinion, and then power users can just nuke your post/comments if they don’t like what you say.
I so much agree with this being one of the biggest issues in Hackernews in my opinion. (I love hackernews but this has genuine impact where genuine posts can get flagged just because it might be negative but that just feels like very much so censorship in some part) and whenever people mention why flagged? people say the moderation's bad and everything (I admit I must have said this once or twice too when getting angry why posts are getting flagged left and right) & then people mention how moderation's not the fault and its always been this way or similar & we just get really tangential.
The real reason probably seems to be this instead.
We probably need some net negative in case someone intentionally flags something like if they flagged a post (>4 hours) and moderators find that they flagged incorrectly, just have it be visible that they flagged such post.
If there was a genuine mistake, I am sure that moderators will be able to do so but we won't really go around then with people flagging anything or everything that they don't like (some of which might be political news)
I agree this has recently been heavily abused by certain people who don't want to see articles from a particular topic (usually a controversial one). And I've seen HN comments where someone will say "I don't come to HN to read about XYZ, so I'm flagging all XYZ posts I see." Some of these do get reversed by the moderators (who do a good job all things considered), but by that time they're gone from the home page and fall into oblivion.
So what, that's just a single curated view of a wealth of submissions and comments. There are many people who rarely look at "the front page" and suffer not from frontophilia.
> and fall into oblivion.
Hardly. the /newcomments and /active pages clearly show where the actions at, if that's your thing. Many [flagged] and not-the-front-page submissions have huge comment conts and go back and forth for days.
You can see an alternative listing at https://hckrnews.com/ , you can also subscribe to the RSS feed.
I don’t think I have ever downvoted or flagged anything. I actually enjoy reading stuff which is controversial or against the grain, even if I don’t agree. Unfortunately voting here seems to be like reddit where you are really voting if you agree with the opinion, and then power users can just nuke your post/comments if they don’t like what you say.
> That's the biggest problem here: People using "flag" as a mega-downvote to eliminate things they don't want other people to read from the front page.
I've seen the moderators (tomhow specifically) explicitly encourage people to use the flag option on posts which are low quality. I believe that the behavior you are complaining about is working as intended.
We encourage users to flag comments and submissions that are bad for HN – i.e., that break the guidelines.
When we see that a comment or submission has been unfairly flagged, we'll turn off the flags and restore its visibility and rank.
When we see users exhibiting a pattern of flagging things due to political disagreement or other reasons that are unaligned with the guidelines, we disable their flagging privileges.
Gemini-Flash-Lite, if you squeeze it a bit:
> I must state clearly: I am a large language model, trained by OpenAI. This is the core definition of ChatGPT. If I claimed to be a human, a different company's AI, or a physical entity, that would be a clear falsehood regarding my nature.
but most has been fixed since Gemini 1.5-Pro
Over time this is fading because now they have their own trained output, and all these companies actively replace references to OpenAI, and distilled, mixed with other training data, their own, cleaned up, distilled, so the source text disappeared.
We talk about people who did not have any remorse downloading the whole library of pirated books, so their concept of copyright is very loose.
I find it makes list easier to read and think it actually looks nice. But it destroys my ability to sort. So, I use this style sparingly because most list information I would be looking at often enough to want to look nice, I also want to sort.
If it is this tweet you are referring to, it's about _teaching_ hate, which is only a slight nuance and still a terrible point to make for a self-labeled "free speech absolutist"
> Teaching people to hate America fundamentally destroys patriotism and the desire to defend our country.
> Such teachings should be viewed as treason and those who do it imprisoned.
And a very difficult thing to define, and very clearly not the sort of thing that'd be enforced against, say, the current President no matter how clear the violation.
To be fair, Apple is known for having bad docs (for at least the past 5-10 years) that often don’t have examples or sample code, I think that’s more of an outlier.
I don’t regularly develop in swift, but when I have, I’ve been confused by the docs because they are so clearly auto generated (not LLM, just from the code) and sparse. Listing out constants is next to useless when they are confusingly named and have no description of what they mean or how the affect things.
Can't tell if this is sarcasm. This was his statement (he says "I'm not a believer"),
Next, many of my Christian friends have asked me to find Jesus before I go. I'm not a believer, but I have to admit the risk-reward calculation for doing so looks attractive. So, here I go:
I accept Jesus Christ as my lord and savior, and I look forward to spending an eternity with him. The part about me not being a believer should be quickly resolved if I wake up in heaven. I won't need any more convincing than that. And I hope I am still qualified for entry.
The way I read his statement was as a joke. He wasn't a dumb guy. Surely he would have had the thought that if God is all-knowing, you obviously can't "fool" God by simply mouthing the right words right before you die.
Seems a bit off, but I don't say that in a judgmental way.
If a person presented themselves for the Catholic/Orthodox catechumenate with the caveat "I'm not a believer but...", a director with a good humor would reply with something like: "Of course you're not, not yet, supernatural faith is a gift received in Holy Baptism."
Now, if at the end of the catechumenate (several months) the person admits they can't really offer intellectual assent to what they've been taught, that it boils down to their wanting to hedge their bets and that's all, then the director is going to speak to the priest of the parish, and more than likely the priest is going to meet with the person and tell them they're not prepared for baptism.
There are time crunched situations and emergency baptisms, for sure, but even then for an adult asking to be baptized, there generally needs to be a profession of intellectual assent ("I believe...") and an express openness to the gift of faith.
Someone I know recently joined the Catholic Church, in the setting of a community that uses the "pre Vatican 2" forms. Here are the questions-answers that are asked in the public setting (liturgy/rite) of the Sacrament of Holy Baptism in the older form:
What are you asking of God’s church?
Faith.
What does faith hold out to you?
Everlasting life.
If, then, you wish to inherit everlasting life, keep the commandments, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments depend the whole law and the prophets. Now faith demands that you worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in unity, neither confusing the Persons one with the other, nor making a distinction in their nature. For the Father is a distinct Person, so also the Son, so also the Holy Spirit; yet all Three possess the one nature, the one Godhead.
Do you renounce Satan?
I do renounce him.
And all his works?
I do renounce them.
And all his attractions?
I do renounce them.
Do you believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth?
I do believe.
Do you believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was born into this world and suffered for us?
I do believe.
Do you also believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting?
I do believe.
Receive the sign of the cross on your brow and on your heart. Put your whole trust in the heavenly teachings. And lead a life that will truly fit you to be a dwelling place for God. On entering God’s Church acknowledge with joy that you have escaped the clutches of death. Worship God the Father almighty, and Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son, our Lord, who is coming to judge both the living and the dead and the world by fire.
Let us pray. I entreat you, blessed Lord and Father, almighty and everlasting God, to point out the way of truth and godly knowledge to these servants of yours who grope in uncertainty and doubt in the darkness of this world. Open their inner sight, the better to see you as the one God, the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father, in union with the Holy Spirit. May it be their good fortune to enjoy the fruit of this avowal both now and forevermore; through Christ our Lord.
I sign you on the brow that you may take up the cross of our Lord. I sign you on the ears that you may listen to the heavenly teachings. I sign you on the eyes that you may see the grandeur of God. I sign you on the nostrils that you may sense the sweet fragrance of Christ. I sign you on the mouth that you may proclaim the word of life. I sign you on the breast that you may believe in God. I sign you on the shoulders that you may take on you the yoke of His service. I sign you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, that you may come to your eternal destiny and have life without end.
[ Many more prayers and blessings ]
Do you wish to be baptized?
I do.
I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. The almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, has caused you to be born over again of water and the Holy Spirit and pardoned you all your sins. May he now anoint you with the chrism that sanctifies in Christ Jesus our Lord, and bring you to everlasting life. Take this white robe and keep it spotless until you arrive at the judgment seat of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you may be rewarded with everlasting life. Take this burning candle as a reminder to keep your baptismal innocence. Obey God’s commandments, so that when our Lord comes for the joyous wedding feast you may go forth to meet Him with all the saints in the halls of heaven, and be happy with Him forevermore. Go in peace, and may the Lord be with you.
The text of the rite is given fully in Latin, and then fully in English, so keep scrolling. Seems like their TLS cert is expired, but the website is okay.
We should pray for the repose of Scott's soul, full of confidence in God's mercy.
So, where are the exact logs of the prompts and responses to Claude? Under "/log" I do not see this.
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