Everyone claimed we invaded Iraq back in the early 2000s to take their oil, but the US spent a whole bunch of money on the military operations, and opened up oil and gas to basically every other country, including geopolitical rivals like China and Russia. Maybe "oil" is too simple of an explanation.
Normal Venezuelans saw absolutely zero benefit from whatever oil revenue there was, so even in the worst case scenario, which is not a given, their lives would not be different.
I think there's massive astroturfing with the usual talking points about drug trafficking, Maduro a dictator, Venezuelans are "Happy" plastered everywhere to try and distract from the naked fact of the oil.
Venezuelans for the past 5+ years have been the most or almost the most numerous asylum seekers in the US. And "poor economic conditions" or general poverty is not a valid reason to claim asylum
> Venezuelans for the past 5+ years have been the most or almost the most numerous asylum seekers in the US.
That by itself does not demonstrate that the majority have been exiled, even if we want to expand the definition of "exile" to be inclusive of those who were not actually forced to leave, but felt it was necessary to leave due to political persecution.
The majority of Venezuelans will never have a legal option to reside in the United States. This incentivizes Venezuelans to make asylum claims in order to gain entry. Similar abuses of the asylum process are seen at far smaller scales in Canada and the European Union.
What sort of persecution are these people claiming to have experienced, and more specifically, what rights are they alleging to have been deprived of by the Maduro regime?
Can anyone provide any attempt at rationalizing their decision? Could your computer overheat and explode if you do this? Could hackers take over your computer and play a flashing light pattern that will give you an epileptic seizure?
Stop assuming good faith. This is the same company that acquired Skype and de-P2P'd it at the pressing of the U.S. government to make interception feasible.
Microsoft just wants you reliant on them. They can't tap value if you aren't integrated. Simple as.
He purchased each plot for between $5 and $15M. The article describes the residents as "Doctors, lawyers, business executives and Stanford University professors".
These weren't inherently $15M properties - obviously price is no object for him and once he started buying adjacent properties the prices went way up. Zuckerberg paid $14 million in 2013 for a 2,600 sq ft house that was valued at $3.17 million [1]
As far as whether they're "regular people", depends on perspective. Relative to the US / world, a net worth that includes equity in a $3M+ house is an outlier but most of these people live what would have been considered a typical "upper middle class" lifestyle a couple of decades ago [source: me, ex Palo Alto resident, still have friends there]. Putting a couple of kids through college has become insanely expensive. They don't have compounds in Hawaii or fly around on private jets.
Okay, but it doesn't mean they're regular people. Owning a single one of those plots out them in the 1% of household net worth, even if they had 0 other assets.
Ok but what does that contribute to the conversation? I think a good enough definition for regular people is if the average person can achieve that title with talent and hard work more than luck (not that luck doesn't also play a major factor). Whereas becoming a billionaire has a lot more to do with luck than hard work (even though hard work still plays a factor).
The gulf between well paid white collar workers and regular people is so massive which is "closer" depends mostly on which billionaire you're measuring.
That doesn't pass the smell test. Outside the inflated prices paid by Zuckerberg the houses were worth around $4 million, which likely would be around be most their main net worth (let's say it is 5 million). The median net worth in the US is $200k so let's call the the cut off for "regular person" (by that definition >95% of people on HN would not be regular). So the gap from the millionaires here to "regular people" is a factor of 25, in contrast the factor to the smallest billionaire is 200, so no what you say is simply false.
iToilet, an app which directs you to the nearest decent toilet any where in the world, was also how Costanza made his millions(before losing it to madoff) in the seinfeld reboot that happened within the Curb Your Enthusiasm universe
I'm pretty sure everyone gets to choose what makes them happy. Sorry, I guess, if criticizing the life choices of a dead person are what makes you happy.
I did not take it as criticizing, but holding it up as an example of a life well lived. TLDR "The work won't love you back, pay attention to what can be learned from Gregg's life experience he shared." Certainly, seek out meaningful work, but prioritize loving relationships over it.
> "I have been unbelievably lucky in life, and particularly in my relationship with Rebecca."
(i strongly agree with this, fwiw, based on the data collected about regrets when people approach death [1]; also, we should take the life lessons from someone who has passed as a gift, with value to help us live more full lives with the time we have left)
Full disclosure: I haven't read the book myself. Logically, however, expressing regrets does not say anything about whether a specific course of action is better. By definition, one can only regret living one's life in a certain way if one actually did - so perhaps a high incidence of people regretting "working too hard" is simply indicative of working a lot being the most common experience, rather than any special reason why a life spent working should be regrettable.
And back to Gregg - he's personally been an inspiration to me. Who would I be to question his life choices, but I for one am grateful for the path he did choose to take.
That's a pretty privileged take there. No, not everyone gets to choose what makes them happy when they have obligations to others or even to themselves if they want to eat that night or not. Glad you do, but don't assume everyone does.
I think that is a misrepresentation of what the parent was saying. OP is not suggesting everyones gets to do what makes them happy, but rather they are free to say what is important for their happiness, even if others disagree.
This seems like a misreading of the comment. Anyone can choose for themself what matters to them, which is a different question from to what extent you can get everything you want without compromises.
Does it lead to obviously better results in quality of life compared to people who don't riot quite so frequently?
Is the average londoner worse off than the average Parisian? What about the average British person vs the average French person? I just pick the UK because it is nearby, approximately the same population and same GDP
I feel they can make a change through protest and it feels like an inherent part of their life that they get to protest when the government or officials have made a change that isn't what the people want. Whether it makes a significant difference is hard to judge without living there. Likewise who knows what life would be like if they hadn't protested. They have great working rights though, and a less stressful life in that respect so that is a positive.
