It is something impossible to prove that people are paid to post anything so what's the point on arguing about that?
I agree with him, there is enough proof already of non-western countries spreading misinformation and propaganda online. And if you want to find about it there's Google and many other search engines.
It would help to see like, a single example of this being uncovered on the site. Failing that, it would help if he/she could point out a specific account they believe to be astroturfing here.
I agree that there have been examples of non-western countries spreading misinformation online. I have not seen any evidence that they do so on HackerNews. What I do see frequently is posters upset/surprised that the crowd here disagrees with them and then concluding that everyone else must be paid to hold such opinions.
Almost everyone I know and all newspapers I read here, in Argentina, do talk about that. The cost is an inevitable one when you reach 3 digits inflation. Hope we learn our lesson though we didn't in the 2000s when we brought inflation again.
To give anyone reading this perspective, Argentina had inflation for almost 80 years, only a brief pause in the 90s and then again since the 2003. What other way is there?
Of course but once you have 3 digits inflation, what other way to reduce is there besides cutting the supply of money suddenly in a shock? People won't like it, I didn't like it either but the two other presidents tried various methods such as price controls and that didn't help, on the contrary.
If you have long-lasting inflation, you need some shock to cut it. But reducing the supply of money only does shock, it's keeping it constant over the long term that avoids inflation.
And well, price control never works. This is well known. It's also well known that Argentina's last few presidents were people that wouldn't let patently known and unavoidable facts get in the way of their policies...
My two cents even tho I'm afraid this thread might become a political battleground:
I'm from Argentina and 30 years old, of course he led us to a recession but for the first time in my adult life I can keep prices in my head and I know next month they'll be pretty much the same. Some people who never experienced +10% inflation in a month can't even imagine that and I understand it. I for one like this stability, dunno.
Regarding your second paragraph, I work for a US company as well and I've been dealing with the mess that is just getting your hard earned money here. Only few people are aware that we still are mandated to change our dollars for pesos at the rate that the government says. Of course nowadays it's not that bad because that rate is almost the same as the one you get in the famous "cuevas", the black market exchange places. But in 2022-2023 sometimes the difference between those two were almost 100%. So you had to deal with tons and tons of cash, it was a nightmare.
There’s a saying: “In Argentina, everything changes every day, but if you come back after ten years, nothing has changed.” In your case, you were born around 1994. Until you were about six years old, if you went to the supermarket with your family, you could probably keep track of prices in your head. By the time you were 16, the inflation rate was likely double what it is now. If you ask someone at ~70 years old they will tell you similar stories about cycles of high and "stability".
I don't think so because except for the 90s Argentina had inflation since the 1950s[0]. That 70 years old would only remember the 90s as the most stable period. Sure, the 60s weren't that bad but we still had high inflation.
First, it is important to highlight for people no familiar with Argentina that the current yearly "Milei" inflation is above 40% and it could be difficult to go much below. This inflation takes into account a very basic basket. The current inflation is very high and the country is in a recession. This is just a macroeconomic measure beyond Milei and its legacy.
Then, sorry, you are mistaken about historical inflation rates and you can check that easily [1]. Comparing just one year of government inflation as a data point is not enough to extrapolate, and I haven't started talking about carry trade that gives investors more than 10% per month in USD. Last time that happened, just two governments ago and with
The same guy, there was a crash one day.
IMO the correct analogy would be a physical object where you could switch back and forth between Harry Potter and books used for learning. If that were the case I'd agree with you. But here we are talking about two separate distinct physical objects, the Harry Potter book and, for example, a biology book.
When a person is reading the latter they can't easily switch to HP, but I can do that while learning anything in my computer. It's as easy as doing ctrl + T + red + enter and I get to the infinite entertainment that is Reddit thanks to the browser autocomplete, for example.
Switching to nonsense with physical books is as easy as having two books in your bag/desk, or reading a physical newspaper with a comics section. Treating the ability to switch context quickly as essentially bad for learning is reductive, especially when the ability to add more context (searching unknown words, useful videos, articles etc) can obviously be incredibly useful.
Stopping the ability to do ctrl+T+reddit.com also prevents the huge amount of info the rest of the informative internet can provide.
The article also includes smart watches as computers, and personally as a Apple Watch user, the amount that this device can distract is incredibly low, and obvious to viewers like a teacher.
I use instagram as a tool to follow certain parties and tattoo shops (for announcements of visiting artists). Since about a year they've spammed their 'reels' on me and make it much harder to avoid them. But every time I look at them it's the same brainless crap as the tiktok-branded videos that people send on to me via whatsapp or telegram.
I don't really understand how people are being captivated by this. It's all so hollow, shallow and brainless.
Youtube is no better. Only full of corporate marketing drones like marcus brownlee and linus tech tips. All very hollow, sponsor-ridden and glossy. The only one I appreciate is dave from eevblog but he posts pretty rarely these days so I never really watch youtube anymore.
I considered adding them (also considered adding links to the book page) but I ended up preferring the uncluttered titles only version. (I know it makes it inconvenient to lookup the book).
