Viewing profile — asift

> Plus, isn't the free speech crowd usually about letting private companies do what they want? You can believe that a private company has the right to do something but also be oppo…

1.25 per 100 million miles is almost certainly a bad benchmark since the majority of those miles are interstate miles. Fatality rate per mile of urban driving would be much better,…

Do you own a car? Do you realize how big of a pain in the ass it can be to own one (maintenance, parking, cost, etc.)? I live in a suburban area in the Midwest and even I would lov…

I find that law even more ridiculous given those requirements. Making it illegal to do X unless they force you to do X undermines almost all arguments for criminalizing X.

It seems like you have an impossible standard for determining proof of identity. What type of verification do you envision that isn't subject to flaws? Presenting an ID in person a…

There are lots of coherent cases against Social Security. For instance, there are far better ways to achieve the desired ends of providing a social safety net. My favorite would be…

It's only coercive when you adopt some backwards conception of what coercion means. (E.g., The rapist claims they are being coerced because they can't do whatever they please with …

>By their standards, we've got machines producing everything we need. Except we don't live by their standards -- we live by our standards. And even if they had lived to see today, …

The fact that governments rely on coercion to enact policies like Social Security is not controversial among political philosophers. It's widely accepted. The controversy is regard…

To think in absolutes would be to believe that human desires are finite. Even if I'm 100% materially comfortable in life (an unlikely occurrence given our ever increasing standards…

It's not that advancements are going to hit a wall. It's absurd to assume human demand for consumption is finite. There will always be human desires that cannot be satiated by mach…

How? Free market capitalism is the epitome of creative thought. It's not a limiting doctrine that says you can only do this or that. It's a doctrine that says you are free to engag…

>If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. When you start with ridiculous premises, you're going to reach ridiculous conclusion…

I think you're being too narrow in your conception of what markets do. I'm not denying the existence of snake oil salesman--they absolutely do exist--but there are many ways market…

Uber will reimburse you if your driver screws up. It would be better if they didn't make mistakes in the first place, but this type of accountability never existed among yellow cab…

Uber is highly regulated by the forces of market competition. Forces which are far better at protecting and serving consumers than the government. >What is superior about purely pa…

My wife is a therapist as well. She has to clock out and do documentation on the evenings or weekends to meet productivity (documenting while treating isn't an option given her nee…

I think there is a flipside to this too though. If you're not wealthy, you're less worried about living on start-up income. I think you particularly see this among immigrants who r…

Does that surprise you? As far as I know, they are underrepresented in medicine, finance, and law as well. There is more mobility than most people realize, but it's not like employ…

I support a universal basic income as a replacement to the status quo, but don't pretend that a minimum wage is a way of "valuing someone and the quality of their existence". It's …

>The state may need to step in with a minimum wage Taking away a low-skilled worker's best bargaining chip (the willingness to work for less money), is generally not a good way to …

That often cited minimum wage statistic also just so hapens to start at a time when minimum wage was near it's all time high on an inflation adjusted basis. Why do you suppose that…

I get that, which is why I said it's useful for teaching, but I disagree with your notion that game theory is incapable of being anything other than an educational tool. When model…