You can quickly find historical availability & consumption data and I don't think it supports any trivially obvious hypotheses like these. You'll find headlines saying things like that we're at a low point in vegetable consumption going back to 1988, but I'm reading an NIH paper charting '70-'2010 and the patterns look stable, except for increases in total calories, in dairy, and in added dairy fats and oils.
Whatever's going on, it's probably going to end up being complicated and multifactorial.
To add to your point, not only will you find that the patterns of consumption look somewhat stable, but that this cancer did like all other cancers in the last 50 years and plummeted in incidence.
This is almost true, but not quite. WireGuard is a protocol, but it's also the Linux kernel implementation of that protocol; there are design decisions in the protocol that specifically support software security goals of the kernel implementation. For instance, it's designed to be possible to implement WireGuard without demand dynamic allocation.
Part of the ethos of HN is that we don't do content/subject silos; it's a way in which HN is very distinct from Reddit. I don't think this will happen and I think if it does it's a bad idea (not least because I don't think a site dominated by software developers is going to separate itself from AI, any more than it will separate itself from programming language discussions), but I understand the impulse. They're not the funnest stories to comment on.
/ask and /show are sort of HN's version of content/subject silos; posts there can technically appear on the front page but are comparatively less likely to. I imagine they could add a /slop section for AI posts, and then tweak the ranking logic for the main /news page to prevent too many from showing up at once.
I understand the suggestion to be moving all posts about AI, agents, etc to a silo. Generated posts are generally already off-topic here (I gather they're about to add a new flag for that).
I think it's going to be really difficult to segregate discussions about AI from discussions about software development over the next few years.
"The scales startled a sleeping cat inside the station. The cat lept in alarm, claws bared, and clung to a length of cord. Suspended by the cord was a small anvil, dangling above a board balanced atop a saw horse. Frayed from the cat's claws, the cord severed, and the anvil plunged towards one end of the board. On the other end of that board was a marble..."
There is no legal requirement to maximize shareholder value. The very idea is an economic theory popularized by Friedman and his students.
It gained popularity in corporate governance since then but it’s not a legal requirement it’s a shareholder preference. But that preference is violated all the time.
People often cite a 1919 era case from Henry ford because it has a pithy statement but the court in that case explicitly upheld many of the decisions Ford made that violated the principle.
That is, there is no law or precedent that requires corporate officers to only consider shareholders.
I was under the impression the application was more akin to 'fiduciary duty provides an executive shield for morally reprehensible corporate choices' rather than 'it provides an ability to sue someone for not following it.'
Legal defense instead of offense. IANAL, correct me please.
I don’t think “morally reprehensible” is a legal standard (but i’m not a lawyer either).
But to the point of this thread, there is no legal requirement that makes it so a boards fiduciary duty is in conflict with broader moral decisions, nor one that requires them to forget about their humanity when applying their duties as corporate officers.
If they are assholes, its because they are assholes, not because they are required to do so by their obligations to the corporation.
I mean in the sense that if there's a morally distasteful business choice, but corporate officers pursue it, then are sued, a solid defense is claiming fiduciary duty. To wit, they thought it would make the company money.
Modern shareholder law is definitely a strange business. People have successfully brought suits for a variety of bad-but-not-illegal causes. There were a lot of lawsuits about sexual harassment and climate change, I believe the theory being that “bad thing will make the stock go down, and the company didn’t disclose that they might do the bad thing”. Then more recently a lawsuit against target proceeded (I don’t see whether it’s completed yet) despite target having disclosed the risk (in this case of their DEI activity).
The claim in the suit is notably that the company failed to disclose the behavior, not that they did the behavior (Target notwithstanding), which mostly agrees with your line of questioning.
Ok, but "Everything is securities fraud" (pace Matt Levine) isn't really what we're talking about here. E.I.S.F. cuts against the Chicago School "shareholder value" thing as often as not.
It depends on your legal jurisdiction but it means COs need to act in the corporation's best interest and not their own. In some places, that requires them to take shareholders' interests into account (especially for mergers or takeovers) but also the employees, consumers or creditors. In the US and notably Delaware, courts generally value shareholder value over anything else.
Considering the vast majority of US corporations are incorporated in Delaware, I think it's accurate to say most US companies only aim to maximize shareholder value.
No, Delaware does not in fact require corporations to "maximize shareholder value". That simply isn't a real thing.
"Fiduciary duty" is a duty to operate in good faith, without self-dealing, in whatever (1) you believe to be (2) the best interests of the company. Both (1) and (2) are totally subjective. You can believe the best interests of your company reside with employee welfare, or with customer satisfaction. You will not find a Delaware case that says otherwise.
So far as I know, the only time the actual value of a company's equity comes into the picture is if there are multiple competing offers to acquire the company.
It definitely is a thing in the eyes of Delaware courts:
In eBay vs Newmark:
>Having chosen a for-profit corporate form, the craigslist directors are
bound by the fiduciary duties and standards that accompany that form. Those
standards include acting to promote the value of the corporation for the benefit of
its stockholders. The “Inc.” after the company name has to mean at least that.
Thus, I cannot accept as valid for the purposes of implementing the Rights Plan a
corporate policy that specifically, clearly, and admittedly seeks not to maximize
the economic value of a for-profit Delaware corporation for the benefit of its
stockholders—no matter whether those stockholders are individuals of modest
means or a corporate titan of online commerce.
In the Trados case:
>It is, of course, accepted that a corporation may take steps, such as giving charitable contributions or paying higher wages, that do not maximize profits currently.
They may do so, however, because such activities are rationalized as producing greater
profits over the long-term. Decisions of this nature benefit the corporation as
a whole, and by increasing the value of the corporation, the directors increase the share of
value available for the residual claimants. Judicial opinions therefore often refer to
directors owing fiduciary duties ―to the corporation and its shareholders. This formulation captures the foundational
relationship in which directors owe duties to the corporation for the ultimate benefit of
the entity‘s residual claimants. Nevertheless, ―stockholders‘ best interest must always,
within legal limits, be the end. Other constituencies may be considered only
instrumentally to advance that end.
Legally, sure. (there's a citation, a case between craigslist and a minority shareholder (ebay I think?), that backs up your argument about the common trope).
But when stock valuations are completely disconnected from fundamentals like earnings, then regardless of the legality we're kind of circling back to the market pushing that dynamic, aren't we? It's like the market is no longer even optimizing for short term gains per se (eg quarterly earnings), but rather for whatever memes might boost their meme stock. Sometimes this is [still] quarterly earnings, and sometimes it's about the perceived size of the market or how they're cozying up to the fascists in power. So for public companies, it's not like major shareholders, the board, or management really have the ability to work towards longer term plans that go against this dynamic.
> Earlier I made an analogy to being an explorer; here's another I like even more. Think of yourself as a wildlife photographer. Obviously you need to be in the right place (you won't get a great picture of anything from your couch) and you need to be skilled at your craft. But once you've met those preconditions, the way to get the best picture is to just spend an unreasonable amount of time waiting for exactly the right circumstances to arise.
> The only rule that matters is delivering the message to your reader
The point is he is a superb writer in my book, it is fun to read and there are similarly good quotes that say the same in different ways. It is not enough to hone your technical skill alone because "the right circumstances" do not appear if you only change one variable.
When I read this I see someone having fun, being able to convey that is a good trait.
He is a really good writer and a very fair criticism of everything he says in this post is "yeah this is all easy for you to say" because he does appear to be supernatural.
Whatever's going on, it's probably going to end up being complicated and multifactorial.
(I do love me a crucifer, though).
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