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Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

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Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#401

Post by qwytw »

qikInNdOutReply wrote: post #141
legitster wrote: post #75

This reminds me of when I learned there was no such thing as "The Children's Crusade". As my history professor put it, "going to the Holy Land was an incredibly expensive endeavour reserved for a very few. There's no way anyone was going to waste it on young, inexperienced children". Nearly every source we had saying that the crusade involved children came much later, after a few writers referred to the same source w…

? The whole of medieval europe swarms with stories of surplus children send to fend for themselves as servants and workers abroad. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwabenkinder Whole areas exported there population as soldiers, mercenaries and mining people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Guard Most of them were like the taliban in afghanistan, interlocked in eternal holy wars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirt…

> The english soldiers fighting in the independence war against the americans, were partially germans, sold by in debted aristoctrats. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junker_(Prussia)

What do Junkers in Prussia have to do with the Hessian mercenaries who fought in the war of independence?

It was Frederick II who leased the army of Hesse-Kassel to the British. He was not some random indebted aristocrat but rather the ruler of a sovereign state. The soldiers were 'professionals' who volunteered and were paid a salary. Not (as you make it sound) random peasants conscripts sold off to pay of some debts.

> This was the reality on the ground, even up until the 2nd worldwar.

> The only escape for the peasants and althose 2nd,3rd sons who were bound to the land, was to go on pilgrimages

Yes. The only escape for peasants in the 1800's to 1930s was to go on pilgrimages.

In any case middle or upperclass people were more likely to go on pilgrimages than peasants (proportionally) even during the middle ages. Any long journey was prohibitively expensive for most people to afford.

> The crusader knights surely promised the conquered lands to peasants who would follow them

Generally crusader knights, especially the nobles were not too keen about taking thousands of untrained peasants who have to be fed and supplied with other provisions by someone on Crusades without providing anything in return. Generally various unorthodox/anti-establishment religious preachers like (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_the_Hermit) were the instigators of most 'popular' crusades.

They were ussually opposed by the nobility, the clergy and the bourgeoisie. For instance Shepherds Crusades of 1251 and 1320.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#402

Post by adolph »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #341
adolph wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I see you are doubling down on belittling the work of others. In an unincorporated area (that is to say a place where erecting a domicile is not supported and yet also not forbidden) the firefighters may not have water for a "water gun," as you say.

If they had access to water, a standoff approach with "a water gun" would only control the fire from spreading more broadly than building and damage the structure through inundation. If the structure was salvable, then the work of a firefighter is to control combustion to extinction using tools to manage the movement of air and other gases so building materials stop burning and do not reignite. It is a close-in effort.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#403

Post by ejb999 »

rayiner wrote: post #394
thebradbain wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Americans spend tremendous amounts of public money on, for example, extending the life of old people a few months. Medicaid is extremely stringent when it comes to income and asset thresholds for nursing homes (and in many states receiving social security can effectively disqualify you from Medicaid, even though Medicaid would be more helpful). So in many cases that public money is only applied once hospitals and n…

Medicaid means testing is driven by the moral belief that people should support themselves before turning to the public for help. It’s driven primarily by that moral ideology, and not a desire to save money. In other respects Medicaid is extremely generous: no co-pays, no cost-benefit calculations for treatments, etc. But Americans in many cases would rather spend more money ensuring that public support only goes to…

Do we really want a system where a very elderly person, with say millions in assets, gets all their nursing home care for free in their final years, just so they can leave a bigger inheritance to their kids? I don't.

Going thru this now with my own elderly parents - I am perfectly OK with medicare ending up owning the equity left in their house, and meager other assets - to recoup money spent on their care - people should support themselves with whatever resources they have available, before taxpayers are asked to pick up the expense.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#404

Post by thegrimmest »

bombolo wrote: post #391
thegrimmest wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's about not being forced into compulsory insurance schemes in various disguises.

Can you quote the specific bit that supports your point? Because I see some bits that go in the other direction.

> Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law.

Point being that liberty itself is a value that it is reasonable to optimize over negative utilitarianism.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#405

Post by FinnKuhn »

lolinder wrote: post #128
FinnKuhn wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess they have a house wich could account for some of that credit risk?

A house that now requires tens of thousands of dollars of repairs.

the house sits on some land though, which I assume is probably worth at least enough to pay for the fire fighter though.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#406

Post by AmpsterMan »

logicchains wrote: post #376
PakG1 wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is really weird reading this, it makes me realize that motivations and rationalizations of people who joined Jan 6 and similar events are really nothing new under the sun.

The motivations of people who joined Jan 6 are very simple: they thought they had been disenfranchised because of unprecedented anomalies during vote counting on election day, which their opposition made no effort to explain.

Why is the opposition to blame on this? There were dozens of articles written to explain the effect. Contrary-wise, why didn't their leaders explain the "unprecedented anomalies" themselves?

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#407

Post by bombolo »

thegrimmest wrote: post #404
bombolo wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you quote the specific bit that supports your point? Because I see some bits that go in the other direction.

> Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law. Point being that liberty itself is a value that it is reasonable to optimize over negative utilitarianism.

> Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society.

Willfully becoming a homeless drifter is in fact hurtful to society :)

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#408

Post by mytailorisrich »

vdqtp3 wrote: post #295
mytailorisrich wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public services are not expected to be 'economically viable' on their own. Moreover, whether there are enough people to support service is also a purely administrative and political issue. You're not addressing my point, either, which is that there is a big difference between getting a crap service because you're hard to reach (which does happen including here in Europe) and having no right to call for help in the fi…

> Public services are not expected to be 'economically viable' on their own. They inherently are. If these neighborhoods have fire coverage equivalent to that of a metropolis, but they would be paid for via taxation at the rate of $50K per year per household, that's not economically viable.

Public services are socialised. This means that every single person is not expected to pay as much in tax as necessary to pay for all the services they use. The aim is only that this be the case on average.

So in general people who live is more isolated houses end up being effectively subsidised by everyone else.

In your example the 'problem' stems from a tax base that is too narrow because of administrative and political choices.

In any case, that is NOT the point of my previous comments.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#409

Post by jakear »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #396
jakear wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The claim is that the firefighters didn't know if anyone's live was in danger because they didn't show up. The evidence is that they refused to show up when called and only showed up when called by someone else. Without being prescene at the scene it is not possible for a firefigther to know if someone's life is endanger or not because the person calling isn't trained to know that. The real evidence for the very basi…

> Without being prescene at the scene it is not possible for a firefigther to know if someone's life is endanger or not because the person calling isn't trained to know that.

Yeah... that's about the weakest argument I've heard this week. Firefighters don't have magical spidey senses to tell them whether someone is trapped in a burning building. They will go based on what the homeowner says -- it doesn't take special training to verify that 3 people live at your house and all of them are on the road with you watching it burn.

Fire department certainly isn't risking life and limb to comb through an actively burning building verifying it to be empty when the homeowner themselves already said it was.

>that the firefighters didn't know if anyone's live was in danger because they didn't show up.

Person: Hello, my house is on fire come save it please.

FireDepartment: Is anyone's life in danger?

Person: No.

FireDepartment: Thank you for letting me know.

That's how easy it is, same conversation would happen whether or not they were on "the list".

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#410

Post by thegrimmest »

bombolo wrote: post #407
thegrimmest wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law. Point being that liberty itself is a value that it is reasonable to optimize over negative utilitarianism.

> Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society. Willfully becoming a homeless drifter is in fact hurtful to society :)

This is actually the main point of contention. Prior to United States v. Butler, the government's power to provide general welfare was limited/narrowly interpreted. Whether individual liberty supersedes general welfare or vice versa is the main disagreement. My point is only that reasonable people can disagree about this.
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