751–760 of 861 posts
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Mob with guns would be useless against the Iranian Guards which are pretty much elite commandos.
Goat herders with guns in Afghanistan kicked the U.S. army out of their country.
Then the americans tried. They were not goat herders. They failed.
The pattern is clear.
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Also on the list: Tackling the electoral college thing such that every voter contributed equally, regardless of their home state. I don’t live in the US, but US elections have quite an influence and it’s frustrating to see a system I perceive as very flawed having such an effect here, at the other end of the world in New Zealand.
In the US, states elect the president, not the people individually. This is a pretty foundational element of our constitution.
Maybe the framers can go fuck themselves.
Yet the framers quite literally told you to change what they made, so they agree.
The much much much more concerning part of this bill in my opinion is the part that applies this expectation to CNC machining equipment. This means that there will be some ugly consequences to running real industry out of New York state. Probably heavy import and cross shipping delays (lots of German machining equipment passes through the port at NY/NJ, so could theoretically be subject to this, even if eventual deli…
For every constraint I see them creating in the law, I can instantly create a simple workaround, and also see multiple ways it will impair or destroy the ability to create 100% legitimate parts/components/products.
This is an unfortunate example of a too-common political solution:
A new industry arises that unintentionally creates a new capability that some can use to create problems.
So, "let's just create a mandate on the industry that will destroy it or contort it beyond recognition, and provide no funding to support this new requirement!".
I fully understand and fundamentally support the need for government to regulate markets, pollution, product & food safety, and much more, but this simplistic approach is a net negative for society and the economy.
They need to focus on the actual act of "3D printing firearms" not on the precursors.
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> they took in $308bn in premiums and paid out $264bn in medical costs ... they're taking 14% off the top just to exist as a middle-man. In 2023, they had a 0.8% profit margin[0]. 9 billion dollars in a trillion dollar industry. Ignoring the disingenuous framing ("taking off the top" including how much they pay their employees), how does that compare to other industries? [0] https://content.naic.org/sites/default/fil…
> including how much they pay their employees Highlighting that was actually part of my point. What utility does insurance add to justify its existence as a middle man? How are we better off with a middle man taking a cut vs nationalizing the industry? And that 14% is at best , given the other externalities of the existence of insurance and its perverse incentives. You're saying "how is that worse than other industri…
The real problem with our system is that for anyone who is going to hit their deductible, or especially their out of pocket max, the costs no longer matter at all. Sure, that cancer drug can be $500,000. GLP1 drugs for $1,000 a month? Why not?
Of course, there's no free lunch on this. In a single payer system you get things like the UK not approving certain cancer treatments for people over a certain age, certain medications just aren't available, etc.
Otherwise you could make every plan a very high deductible plan, possible just not cover medications at all, etc. But then people will complain about people not being able to afford things, especially in the short term.
This is insanely stupid stuff. Even the UK with our weird panic over Incredibly Specific Knives hasn't tried to do this kind of technical restriction to prevent people printing guns. Why not? Because nobody is printing guns! It's an infeasible solution to a non-problem! Someone should dig into who this is coming from and why. The answers are usually either (a) they got paid to do it by a company selling the tech, whi…
This is demonstrably untrue: https://gnet-research.org/2025/01/08/beyond-the-fgc-9-how-th...
Why would you waste everyone's time posting such nonsense? It's not that I support this legislation, but arguing against with counterfactual statements is unhelpful noise.
My main concern is, how long is it before you can't print a replacement part for something you bought because it looks too similar to an OEM part and the manufacturer doesn't think you should be able to do that so they throw a little money to the right politician.
I remember ~10 or 15 years ago, I had concerns about drones becoming illegal due to FAA. I was assured by the internet, I was paranoid, blah blah safety... Then a few weeks ago something about Minnesota and ICE making drones illegal to fly or something... The weird part is that, in that 15 years, I've become more moderate and pro-democratic rule of law... but I was right about my previous concerns. Not that I believe…
My main concern is, how long is it before you can't print a replacement part for something you bought because it looks too similar to an OEM part and the manufacturer doesn't think you should be able to do that so they throw a little money to the right politician.
Too bad everyone jumped shipped to Bambuu Labs. If only we still had open source hardware.
You can still make an open source printer with some extrusion and stepper motors, same as always.
the irony
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it’s illegal to make a gun for personal use without a serial number in ny and ca. https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/consu...
NY and CA have the most strict gun regulations
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Yeah, and those figures are horrible . In other Western countries the turnout is closer to 80%, with some even hitting over 90%. The fact that ~20% of the population either wants to vote but is unable to do so or is disillusioned about the democratic process to the point of not voting at all is extremely worrying. This is not what a healthy democracy should look like.
If you want people to vote at over 90% you need to make it compulsory as Australia does. IMO the problem with doing this is that the people who don't care or don't believe it matters are now going to be annoyed that they have to do it. They will vote randomly, or just pick the first candidate listed, etc. just to be done with it. I saw the same behavior in school by kids who didn't care about the standardized tests t…
Stupid people already vote. Wrong people already vote. Your system has to accept that interference no matter what.