But they were successfully arrested for it. The level of naïveté displayed in the HN comments here seems like willful ignorance of autocratic behavior.
Considering the ongoing due process deprivations this is the most concerning aspect to me. This is a sitting judge which is a significant escalation against the judiciary.
I was talking to someone earlier about how we in America, today, are not entitled to anything. Just in the last hundred years, people lived under secret police, dictators, state-controlled media, occupation, you name it. Hundreds of millions of people lived their whole life under the KGB or Stasi. Hundreds of millions live in autocracy even today. Some straight up live in a warzone as we speak. The idea that "we" can't be going through this is beyond entitled. Nothing is guaranteed to us. We are being shown how fragile this all is by the universe.
I expect America to be a beacon of light and I will fight for it. We all need to fight for it, especially the people who frequent this message board because we are among the most privileged and capable. It’s disappointing to me how many of our tech leaders forget what made them great in the first place and abuse us all in the pursuit of personal wealth.
For people who don't live in crazy town, this would be considered an oppressive action, arresting a judge for following procedure simply because it inconvenienced you.
Ah, but: freedom for "me". The libertarian HN posters are in favor of unlimited freedom for themselves and a police state for everyone else, especially non-Americans who dare to exist in America.
And yet many people calling themselves "Libertarian" signed themselves up for full-throated support of this fascist wannabe dictator. Their supposed interest in "freedom" doesn't extend past their own interest in oppressing others. The dynamic is especially pronounced in the surveillance industry, where digital authoritarianism gets a pass by appealing to the individual fantasy of creating your very own digital authoritarian startup.
I'm not saying it's good, for sure. But I don't think it's a sign that the push for autocratic authoritarianism is winning, either.
My optimistic take is that this is the sort of stupid overreach that works to turn other arms of government against the executive. The judiciary tends to be prickly about its prerogatives, and Trump's far from the point where he can just push stuff through without some cover.
The fact that HN is letting political posts stay on the front page after months of suppression shows that we are past the point of denying the authoritarian road we are on.
We've been heading this direction with hardly a pause, let alone step back, since the '70s.
Authoritarianism was winning for 50+ years. Nobody with power meaningfully tried to stop it, and voters didn't give enough of a shit to elect people who would. Where we're at now, is that it won.
> My optimistic take is that this is the sort of stupid overreach that works to turn other arms of government against the executive
This is your take given the blatant corruption and clear constitutional violations of this administration? Sure, let's hope that norms and vibes save us against an executive ignoring due process. Those other branches don't even have a way to enforce anything; the executive are the ones who arrest people.
The power of the executive is constrained, ultimately, by what people let them do. Including people inside the executive branch -- the people who're doing the arresting, transporting the prisoners, gunning down the protesters, etc. There's a lot of people involved who aren't committed to some authoritarian project, they're just... doing their job. They can be swayed by vibes, and general unpopularity of the regime.
The alternative to this view is either giving up or preparing for armed struggle. It's certainly possible that we could get there, but I don't think it's guaranteed yet.
(I acknowledge that this position is quite the blend of optimism and cynicism.)
Like this judge they're being ousted for the smallest pushback and are being replaced by project 2025 people, they even set up a system that you can apply to do exactly this. Trump (or Vance that is fully in with Thiel) will have full control over all agencies where all low level employees are on board with this Christo fascist takeover and the judiciary will be powerless.
Trump is calling for the Fed's Jerome Powell to be fired for not lying and saying everything will be fine as a result of tariffs. He pulled the security clearance of former CISA Director Chris Krebs, and anyone associated with him, for not lying about the result of his cyber security investigation of the 2020 election. He also pulled security clearances for political rivals including Biden, Harris, and Cheney as well as the Attorneys General involved in his civil case for fraud, which he lost and was ordered to pay $355 million.
This is blatant and unambiguous. "If you cross me, I will use executive power to destroy you". There is no optimistic view of this.
If it turns autocratic then there's no discussion to be had. Judge will waterboarded in Gitmo and Trump is de-facto king. We are no longer a nation of laws, the USA is renamed to Trumpopolis and we all have to get government mandated orange spray tans.
So assuming that doesn't happen, this is an action by a non-autocratic executive meant to have a chilling effect on low level judges who don't want to spend a few days in lockup just because. A knob that the executive is (mostly) allowed to turn but that is considered in poor taste if you wish to remain on good terms with the judiciary. The bar for arrest is really low and the courts decide if she committed a crime which she obviously didn't.
Autocracy comes in shades. Arresting judges who do things you don't like is yet another shade darker than we've seen so far... And things were already pretty dark.
You seem to be quite blasé about the possibility of autocracy. But yes, there is a risk that Trump becomes a dictator and we're no longer a nation of laws. It depends on how people like us react to consolidations of power like this, or the illegal impoundment, or cases like Kilmar Abrego Garcia's. The law only matters insofar as we and our representatives can enforce it.
I'm not so much blasé about it, more just nihilistic because I am the last person with any kind of power to stop it. I imagine most of HN falls
into this bucket of people with no real political power or influence. My realistic option if it happens is to move.
Protest! People power is the best way to resist autocracy especially in the early stages when resistance has a chance of success. Don’t ignore the fact that protests are happening. Musk is fleeing Washington because the backlash successfully tanked Tesla. That’s a big win right there!
Consider just how much more inconvenient/shitty/tragic it will be for you and the people you know if you are indeed forced to move, as compared to successfully pushing back right now.
I'm also making plans contingency plans to move, but I may not be able to. Individually, no, we don't have power, but if everyone actually protested, we would - the Ukrainian revolution[1] started out as just mass protests (Euromaidan), for instance. The problem is that not enough of us are doing it, maybe because too many people are apathetic, uninformed, or don't take the possibility of autocracy seriously.
Yes, but that doesn't mean the people who had houses that lost value are screwed. It just means that they didn't pocket as much profit as they could have. They bought a value and a rate they could afford. They're no more or less screwed if the value of the house goes down. They're screwed if they can't pay the mortgage. Lots of people are screwed by high housing costs. The only rational conclusion is to lower housing costs. I say this as someone paying a mortgage.
I suspect arthropods are way too diverse to fall under a single umbrella of "is_allergic". Millions of years of evolution can produce very radically different things for our bodies to worry about. Just the fact that there are no marine insects (completing their lifecycle within an ocean) tells us something about how different their biologies, and therefor allergenic "surface" are. Poison pathways from venom can target completely different systems in a humans.
> The coastal species lay their eggs close to the water surface on rocks, plants, and other structures near the shore, while the oceanic species attach their egg masses on floating objects such as cuttlebone and feathers.
I know of Halobates, they live on top the ocean, not in the ocean. I.e. they have no adaptations to breathe in salt water. There are many other species like this that are restricted to tidal (flies, parasitic wasps, etc.) or costal areas and nowhere else, but again, not under water.
Right, they are not underwater. Hemimetaboulous insects like Holobates look like baby adults when they are born, and undergo multiple "partial" metamorphosis. In this case their wings are almost non-existent. They will go through multiple molts, gradually looking more like the adult. Holometabolous insects (e.g. beetles, wasps, butterflies, flies) are the ones with radically different body plans, often exploiting different niches, the larva could be aquatic, the pupa and adult terrestrial. Some more "basal" insects (dragonflies, mayflies) also have different body-plans at different stages, though instead of "larva" we say "imago", and things like that, for those lineages.
Radiation tolerance is one case. For the price of a tiny tapeout run you could count on one hand how many qualified radiation tolerant ICs you could buy. There's some sauce involved with process choices for radiation tolerance, but one of critical things to do is use large features.
Yes, up to 15 mg. Maintenance levels at 5, 10, and 15. If you cannot tolerate a maintenance level you can still get it, but insurance will not cover it ($1000/mo rather than $15/mo.) This is not an unreasonable situation.
Luckily during the “shortage” you can currently get GLP-1’s in vials rather than injection pens.
The brand name GLP’s you can’t control the dose. But when you get it in a vial from a compounding pharmacy you can inject however much or little you want.
Not looking forward to ever using the brand name version specifically for this reason
The injection pen I have see has two marked dosages, but there is nothing stopping you from injecting more or less.
Basically it is a ratcheting mechanism where after ~10 clicks you get .25 mg dosage and 20 clicks gets you .50. Basically, no doctor is going to endorse it, but you can dial a dose to whatever amount you want.
Aren’t any states like California trying to ban compounding pharmacies? It’s an unfortunate attack on individual freedom, but I am not sure if we will still have them 20 years from now.
> Aren’t any states like California trying to ban compounding pharmacies?
No. California has not banned compounding pharmacies, nor is there a significant movement to do so in the legislature, among the people (who could do so by ballot measure), or a proposal by the governor to do so. California does require additional licensure for sterile compounding, but that is very much not a ban on sterile compounding or compounding more generally.
Relevant to GLP-1s, though, several state pharmacy boards (not California’s, as far as I know) have raised issues that compounded GLP-1 drugs that they have seen appear to be illegal, because they use a form other than the FDA-approved base form of semaglutide (which is only available from Novo Nordisk), and th3 form used is not itself approved for human use, and have taken steps to crack down on that. But that's also not banning compounding, but enforcing existing rules on compounding.
I think the issue is more the FDA has hit compounding by announcing semaglutide and tirzepatide are no longer in shortage - so compounding pharmacies aren't legally able to sell the cheaper compounded versions. Since most insurances don't cover GLP-1 for weight loss, this is a huge issue given they cost almost $2000/month in the US out of pocket.
I was approved for semaglutide but now compounding pharmacies like Hims are stating their cheaper (<$200/month) compounded versions are out of stock.
First, there's no legislation. What is happening is that the branded drug was in shortage so compounding pharmacies were legally allowed to step in under existing regulations.
The shortage status was first updated in the summer, and Novo went on a lawsuit spree. Suing everyone mentioning GLP on a website.
But, there have been more back and forths since, very recent.
TLDR what is restricted now is not the sale of the compound, but the manufacture of it. Therefore, you can keep selling inventory past the restriction, but of course that will either run out, expire, or be restricted as well. As of now, if everything stays the same, expect the last few compound pharmacies to run out of product at the end of Q3/25 .
However, I understand there's groundbreaking legislation being worked on that will dramatically change the status quo for the better, meaning more choice for end consumers and less profits for Novo.
Hum, I don't know, here in the UK, no one is forcing you to do anything. I am free to chose if I want to step up, down or stay on the current dosage every month. And I took the cautious approach to only step up when I stopped feeling the effects at the current dosage, so 8 months in, I am only starting on 10mg (range is 2.5 to 15mg in 2.5 increments).
If you want lower dosage, then there's a simple trick: just use less frequent injections. For example, try one in 10 days instead of 1 every week. It will result in lower steady-state GLP-1 levels.
Yes well your PCP / pharmacist should not have prescribed you an appetite suppressant when you have below average body fat %. The effects are very worth it for people weighing them against heart disease and mobility issues. It's not a Faustian bargain, it's all right on the tin. When you stop taking it the effects go away. If you want to be indulgent and it fits your lifestyle you can reversibly make that decision. The power to make that decision is difficult to overstate.
After using them, I think GLP-1’s will eventually be rebranded as a weight management / weight maintenance drug rather than a weight loss drug in order to appeal to the masses.
It’s a very interesting feeling to feel like you’re in full control of what you eat, not influenced by random cravings or hunger.
In my case I’m planning to only stay on it another month or 2 to drop 10lbs. I can easily see people cycling on/off this drug throughout the year to keep weight in check while removing will power from the equation completely. It’s quite remarkable.
They might be branded that way, but that's not what they are. They have dramatic effects on the metabolic pathway and insulin response that need to be carefully considered if you're not actually diabetic.
I recommend that you listen to the most recent Peter Attia podcast, which is a 2+ hour interview with Ralph DeFronzo (diabetes expert) where he goes deep into the effects of GLP-1 agonists on insulin response and other metabolic pathways. I came away with the impression that we're being too casual with how these drugs are being used -- if you're overweight these impacts are probably all for the good, but if you're not, it's more questionable.
I’ll have to rewatch that video. Saw it a couple days ago and walked away with the opposite take. DeFronzo spent a whole lot of time heavily praising the generation of drugs (including the next generation in phase 2 trials)
If there’s a specific part you remember talking about the negatives I’d be interested to hear.
I legitimately have a difficult time finding anything negative when researching the drug, other than tolerable side effects like GI upset.
He's praising them for people with clear metabolic syndrome, and I'm reading between the lines as someone with prior knowledge. As a simple example, while it's probably good to inhibit gluconeogenesis in people with elevated A1c, doing so in a healthy person could lead to hypoglycemia.
I don't have a list of exact timestamps, but there are multiple places where he discusses the impacts of the GLP-1 agonists (of various generations) on insulin signaling, glucose transport etc., and the conversation is generally complex, nuanced, and wide-ranging. We don't understand everything these drugs are doing, but they're clearly banging around a complicated metabolic/hormonal system with a big, blunt hammer.
Yeeeeah, he says that "they're quite safe", but it's in the context of a wider conversation focused on people with metabolic syndrome. I wouldn't be eager to extrapolate from that comment to "let's put this in the water supply" (exaggerating for the sake of argument).
A rebranding to a non-prescription drug will depend on how the prevalence × severity of side effects [0] turns out longer-term. I hope that you are right, but it seems too early to tell.
People seem to handle it very differently, according to my doc. I never had issues while taking Mounjaro or Synjardy (a prescription pill for diabetes management with similar side effects) alone, but the two together meant I could count on a couple of bad days a week.
Sidebar: Mounjaro changed my life. I'd been very diabetic (300 units of insulin a day) for years on end. Taking that much insulin, my normally large frame got very large indeed. A couple of months into the Mounjaro and I was off insulin; a year into it and I was down 75 lbs and healthier than I'd been in 20 years.
It’s actually the opposite. GLP-1s slow down the digestive tract, so my shits are far more well formed than before. This isn’t like olestra, where excess fat caused diarrhea.
fwiw tirzepatide (likely the GIP component) cleared up my lifelong IBS within days of my first dose.
I consider it a likely lifelong medication now simply due to that night and day difference to my life. It’s extremely rare I have a day where I need to be within 5 minutes of a restroom now.
My primary care doctor mentioned this might be a side effect when I first started, and she ended up being more correct than even she expected to be.
It’s wild. I’ve never experienced burping food and tasting what I ate earlier, food just kinda rolls right through. Now, I get to really enjoy it a second time.
“common gastrointestinal side-effects of GLP-1RAs treatment (including nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and constipation) can persist for several days and may affect more than 1 in 10 patients”
In this sense, I see adoption among some people as akin to nootropics or attention management drugs like modafinil. A way to have more control over your own mind. Interesting times, I guess, but caveat emptor.
Why is it only appropriate for people with heart disease / mobility issues but not for someone who is merely overweight? This feels like finger-wagging for the sake of finger-wagging.
It isn't. 20% body fat is 6% below average. That isn't "merely overweight", it's likely underweight. No, I don't think underweight people should take appetite suppressants and I don't think that qualifies as a hot take. I think anyone who is medically overweight (which is a very modest BMI qualifier for anyone with any amount of muscle) should have the choice. Many US medical systems and insurers agree, which is a good place to be.
The only way this can possibly be correct is if you think that the "correct" weight is whatever the population average happens to be which is just...wild to me.
If we assume commenter is male (a statistical likelihood), then 20% is the high end of normal, and could very safely be halved. In the less likely case that they are female, then it is right in the middle of the normal range, and could safely be reduced by 5-10% at least.
> The only way this can possibly be correct is if you think that the "correct" weight is whatever the population average happens to be which is just...wild to me.
The medical definition of overweight is basically if you're some number of standard deviations above the average from whenever they ran the stats, so population average = correct weight seems like as reasonable a standard.
I tried to find corroborating sources and couldn't, so take this for what it's worth, but Claude seems to think the cutoffs are based on epedmiological evidence for health impacts at various BMIs, which, even if that _wasn't_ how it was arrived at, seems like a better option.
What are you smoking? 20% is a perfectly healthy bodyfat number and (for a man) anything down to 15% or so is fine. Sub 10% is when you pretty much need a crazy bodybuilder lifestyle to maintain it. And on the other side, 25% is around the lien where you start facing some minor health risks from excess body fat.
I assume GP isn't a woman, why do you think 20% is normal for men. The point is that there are no side effects and there is no reason to stop taking it, especially if it saves him money.
Are you just using average as weasel words here? I get my best pump and generally have the best workout sessions at ~10-12%, which is easily maintainable for me, but definitely not for most people, having a drug that makes it effortless for most people is a GOOD thing. People shouldn't have to suffer to get to <15% if they aren't born with good genetics?
And what about strength athletes who want to build up a large runway? Now literally all of them can get down to ~7% no problem, and have no problems on the way up either.
> Yes well your PCP / pharmacist should not have prescribed you an appetite suppressant when you have below average body fat %.
Why do you think this? I agree that people who have associated risk factors should be prioritized, but if there's enough for everyone why wouldn't we give it to anyone who wants it?
People who don't need to be chronically medicated should not be. There are always side effects, and we don't even know for sure what the long term risks of these medications are yet.
And crowing about saving $200/mo not buying food at Starbucks, well now Novo Nordisk is getting that.
I am not an expert but my impression is semaglutide has been in development since the 90s and in use as a drug for about a decade for people with diabetes. The drug and mechanism are old, the use is new.
I do not agree that people who don't "need" to be chronically medicated should not be. I think you can decide to take whatever you want for your own reasons. I am not going to tell you what you can and and can't take - unless you're like...taking something that makes you destructive or generate externalities or whatever. But this seems like the opposite?
Lots of questions here around profit and the awful medical system in the US, but on a basic level I think people should be able to do what they prefer and is safe.
> People who don't need to be chronically medicated should not be.
If they're like typical westerners, they already self-medicate with coffee every day, with alcohol occasionally, and a big fraction of them (though much less than couple decades ago) also treat themselves with tobacco smoke - and ironically, weight loss is one of the few benefits some people actually use to defend their smoking.
Do they need all that medication? Well, it's socially unfavorable to say so wrt. alcohol, but ask any of the daily coffee drinkers whether they need their morning coffee...
The consequences of tobacco are so well known and so negative that they are legally mandated to be graphically depicted on every cigarette packet around here, and the main reason they are not banned is the observed impossibility that undid Prohibition in the USA.
So, sure, we don't know the long term risks of semaglutide ("just" 30 years or so) — but I say let people try it if they want, we let them use things we explicitly know to be dangerous, so why should we stand in the way of something that only might be eventually?
This really just seems like a shit take to me. Everything has side effects, that doesnt mean everything is a net negative. People should be able to weigh the pros and cons of chronic medication and decide if it improves their life.
Because anorexia exists it would do harm to completely unregulate access to appetite suppressants. Someone should be looking out for people who would willingly wither away.
Putting Ozempic over the counter at a local pharmacy would be more than enough to keep people from wasting away, the same thing they do with asthma medication. In 2025, if you really want something, a dark web tutorial is 30 seconds away. And from what I've heard from a client, Ozempic on the dark web is roughly 5x cheaper.
sure thing, but can you trust it ?
There are so many horror stories abroad (like LATAM), that despite the 4x price point, people still buy US-manufactured GLPs instead of going to a foreign market to get the same prescription.
This is being injected directly into your flesh, there cannot be any mistake, or shortcut.
I don't think anyone is suggesting it should be over the counter? Of course a doctor should monitor you while you are on it. We shouldn't give it to people who would use it to deepen a mental health diagnosis.
Those concerns have nothing to do with the fact that it's ok for people to choose to start or stop medications if they would prefer (supplies allowing).
You shouldn't have to ask permission from a PCP / pharmacist in the first place. Who are you to decide whether side effects are worth it for anybody but yourself?
I can't speak to their choice of taking the drug, but it's wild how warped people's perceptions are now of what constitutes "healthy" and "fat" thanks to the obesity epidemic. People remark on how George Costanza on Seinfeld was once considered fat (because he was), or how Homer's scale-tipping 300 lbs. in the King-Size Homer episode of The Simpsons was considered comically obese (because it was). Never mind the fact that people almost always underestimate how fat they actually are and are almost always disappointed by their DEXA scans. Even if the OP's estimate is correct that they're just a little north of 20% BF (as a man), they're still overweight, and specifically overfat, and probably look soft and doughy.
Are you suggesting that railway megaprojects are being done to service communities with no people? I have a hard time finding dense communities with good rail systems.
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