Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

tomscott.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 440 posts

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#341

Post by hypertele-Xii »

adolph wrote: post #228
that_guy_iain wrote: post #143

Even with this information included. I think the moral of the story is America has some very serious third-world problems. The reason things like this go on in America and not in any other developed country is that Americans just accept it. "They didn't pay, so they die." Here is how much they accept it, firefighters literally stood and watched a building burn down instead of playing with their toys. Not only that, t…

> firefighters literally stood and watched a building burn down instead of playing with their toys Please reconsider your apparent lack of appreciation for the work and risks of others. Firefighting is not "playing with toys."

They have a water gun. They chose not to stand at a safe distance shooting water into a burning building. Because... water is too expensive to waste on these people who didn't pay their taxes or whatever. Instead, they chose to stand at a safe distance, not shooting their water gun, and just watch the building reduced to ash.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#342

Post by jakear »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #234
jakear wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the fire department was contacted, did not hear of any lives at risk, and did not show up. What an entirely reasonable response to getting a service request from someone who has not established a SLA with your company. Do you personally work at a company? If so, I demand you to help me fix a problem I'm having. I haven't paid you, but that shouldn't matter. What's that? You won't help me? But you helped my competi…

> So the fire department was contacted, did not hear of any lives at risk, and did not show up. The article doesn't say that does it. They say the fire department was contacted and responded that they weren't on the list. They refused to accept any payment. And only turned up when someone who was on the list called. We have a phrase for people like you, jog on.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

The claim “firefighters wouldn’t come if someone’s life was in danger from a fire” is extraordinary. The evidence “firefighters didn’t come when no one’s life was in danger from a fire” isn’t.

Come up with real evidence or quit bellyaching.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#343

Post by [deleted] »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #143

Even with this information included. I think the moral of the story is America has some very serious third-world problems. The reason things like this go on in America and not in any other developed country is that Americans just accept it. "They didn't pay, so they die." Here is how much they accept it, firefighters literally stood and watched a building burn down instead of playing with their toys. Not only that, t…

[deleted]

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#344

Post by abduhl »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #333
twblalock wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong on a moral level about this story is that the homeowners refused to pay for the fire department, decided to live on unincorporated land, and then expected the firemen to risk their lives to save property -- not to save lives, just to save property. We can't have a functioning society if people who opt out of paying for it demand to benefit from it anyway. If people could get away with that, nobody would…

> We can't have a functioning society if people who opt out of paying for it demand to benefit from it anyway. We clearly can. Why can't you? Over here, we help first, figure out who owes who later. In America, first you gotta figure out who's paying, then you get help.

In the last century you (as in “you over there,” not you) made Iceland default on its loans rather than help them out causing them to suffer both as a country and as a people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932011_Icelandic_fi...

In the last decade you failed to offer help to hundreds of thousands of refugees because nobody could figure out who owed who. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_European_migrant_crisis

In the last year you failed to aid Ukraine in their war against Russia, failing to even provide weapons that you’d agreed to provide (but only agreeing after terms had been reached to make sure you got paid something). https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/16/ukraine-slams-germany-for-fa...

In the last month you failed to provide public transportation because you couldn’t agree on wages. https://www.wantedinrome.com/news/italy-national-general-str...

And that’s just on the continent in the last 20 years. If we were to go back to say around 1945 I’m sure we could find a couple more instances of Europeans being not so helpful.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#345

Post by RC_ITR »

lmm wrote: post #338
RC_ITR wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Xinjiang compare very favourably with those in the US https://www.chinahighlights.com/china-trains/urumqi-lanzhou-... LOL, keep spreading that propaganda comrade!

So what's your point? A comparable part of the US railway network is what, Chicago to Denver: 10% less distance, 33% slower even over that shorter distance (much the same as the non-high-speed trains in Xianjing), 1/4 as frequent (and that's only if we ignore that Xianjing also has the slower trains) - and significantly less punctual IME (to say nothing of nicer to ride).

My point is that over that distance, any train is impractical?

Like sure China has fast trains in a small area, but west of Chengdu, they don’t, so saying “China is a country nearly as large as the US with a robust train network” is a red herring.

The US is much more spread out than China or Russia, even if land areas are of similar scale.

This supports the original point that it’s hard for large countries to have robust train networks, which was the idea that was being challenged.

Did you not read the whole thread?

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#346

Post by RC_ITR »

Animatronio wrote: post #330
RC_ITR wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Xinjiang compare very favourably with those in the US https://www.chinahighlights.com/china-trains/urumqi-lanzhou-... LOL, keep spreading that propaganda comrade!

All I was saying was that the easiest argument to shut down a discussion is to invoke the fact that "America is huge". Nothing can be done, bc it's huge, end of story.

You’re giving China credit for being huge while talking about what goes on in 1/3 of its land area.

The US is populated end to end

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#347

Post by chinchilla2020 »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #196
rayiner wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's level of isolation (both in terms of distance to the next large city and hospitability of the land in between) is similar to Las Vegas. Salt Lake City isn't too far off either. America is huge. Right. The issue isn't so much that "America lets people die because they don't pay." It's that "America gives people the freedom to live in the middle of fucking nowhere, including where a state or local government can…

Quoted post unavailable.

>Every other country has communities that live so far from anyone that they're in trouble if they have a heart attack. But you know what? They still have something. House burning down? The local volunteer fire fighters will help you out.

You are revealing your lack of knowledge about the American wilderness simply by stating this. The US is so vast that there are massive swaths of land that you could not get a fire truck to the scene in half a day. It is difficult to imagine such a place if you have spent your life living in a heavily urbanized European country with no actual wilderness (I've seen what Germans and French call 'wilderness' and it is actually a medium-sized park)

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#348

Post by Spooky23 »

sethhochberg wrote: post #287
Spooky23 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, god forbid, protect the general welfare of the population of Yahoo County by having a fire service? The government has the ability to tax for such services. As a partner who own a piece of a rental property in a ex-urban town, the volunteer fire company levies a tax that amounts to $300/year (based on valuation) which covers 2-3 towns with fire, ems and paramedic services.

https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/sites.udel.edu/dist/4/10696/fi... Voters in the county in question did eventually approve "universal" fire response, either small prepaid fee or post-paid full cost after response, but it sounds as though they won't consider converting the fees into standard taxes until 70% of residents have opted in to protection. Quite a few people who live and vote there seemingly have no interest in…

The “farmers” didn’t want to deal with a 0.13% property tax increase.

A place where the people who control the place are so reactionary and regressive that a piddly increase in a tax levy requires a 70% supermajority is a place to move away from. Gross.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#349

Post by pdonis »

autoexec wrote: post #320
pdonis wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>* It will always be far less efficient to depend on a few individuals to shoulder large expenses or for disparate organizations (each with their own overhead expenses) to find and collect smaller contributions than it is for everyone to pay just a small amount and collectively cover an expense through a single origination.* On the assumption that the single organization will actually do the job, perhaps. But it won'…

Government doesn't always work as well as it should, but you have the power to change that. You can vote for changes and hold your elected officials accountable. That's the strength of government solutions. You and those around you come together to vote on what needs to be done, how it should be done, and who is responsible for overseeing that. I also have family who worked in social services and they always wished t…

> You can vote for changes and hold your elected officials accountable. That's the strength of government solutions.

No, it's the weakness of government solutions. If I want to help people, I can start a private charity and go help people. If I want to government to help people, I have to get a majority of the country to vote for politicians that will make that happen--assuming there even are any.

> You and those around you come together to vote on what needs to be done, how it should be done, and who is responsible for overseeing that.

If you believe people should be helped, you can go help them. If you and a bunch of your friends all believe that, so much the better: you can get together to help more people. This is how helping is supposed to work, and how it has worked all through human history when it has actually worked at all.

If you want the government to force everybody to pay for helping people, you are imposing your value judgments on them. That's not how freedom is supposed to work. It's also lazy on your part: you say you want to help people, but instead of actually doing the work of helping--figuring out the individual needs of individuals who need help, deciding whether they deserve to be helped, and then doing what is needed to help them--you're punting it to a government bureaucracy. Which, as I have already said, won't actually do it anyway. And it's no answer to that to say that, if only people would just vote the right way, governments would magically change. That utopian vision has never worked.

> Improving it just requires us to put in the effort.

Your efforts would be much better directed at helping people yourself, than trying to use government force to do it.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#350

Post by [deleted] »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #196
rayiner wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's level of isolation (both in terms of distance to the next large city and hospitability of the land in between) is similar to Las Vegas. Salt Lake City isn't too far off either. America is huge. Right. The issue isn't so much that "America lets people die because they don't pay." It's that "America gives people the freedom to live in the middle of fucking nowhere, including where a state or local government can…

Quoted post unavailable.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN