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Sacrificing everything for my dog. How I became a programmer

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Re: Sacrificing everything for my dog. How I became a programmer

#91

Post by flyinRyan »

cpursley wrote: post #77
flyinRyan wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No, but it's not about helping myself, it's about having a system which I consider ethical. It's not about helping yourself. It's about consistent voting. If everyone votes for the rich person, the entire system will be skewed hopeless in their favor. You think taxes are unethical? Then how does the government pay for itself? Would you rather they just printed the money they need? That would also be a tax; a flat ta…

U.S. as libertarian paradise? HAHAHAHAHA!!

Of course. If Libertarians ever got their paradise it would quickly devolve to exactly what you have now: a Corporatocracy.

Re: Sacrificing everything for my dog. How I became a programmer

#92

Post by precisioncoder »

hga wrote: post #84
precisioncoder wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it's a huge difference with Europe. Specifically in Austria where I'm living everyone gets an education for free, there's free health care, even menial jobs are well paid. Everyone lives a pretty solid middle class life but there are much fewer people struggling to change the world. Fewer success stories but everyone is taken care of. It's an interesting situation, hell there's not even credit card debt since if…

Another thing to factor in: for whatever reasons, you aren't reproducing. Per Wikipedia, your fertility rate is 1.42 to 1.44 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_de... ), which is perilously close to the "lowest low" of 1.3 from which societies don't recover from, and certainly isn't even close to the 2.1 needed for steady state replacement. I.e. absent serious change, your society is doomed, y…

That's a strawman unless you can produce data that relates the reproduction rate to the standard of living. If you can do that then apparently what you're saying is that a country needs to enforce low standards (or at least wildly differing) standards of living in order to ensure survival. I.e. absent major changes your argument has been refuted; Many say the example your argument and other's like it provide are object lessons in what not to do.

Re: Sacrificing everything for my dog. How I became a programmer

#93

Post by flyinRyan »

drrotmos wrote: post #78
flyinRyan wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No, but it's not about helping myself, it's about having a system which I consider ethical. It's not about helping yourself. It's about consistent voting. If everyone votes for the rich person, the entire system will be skewed hopeless in their favor. You think taxes are unethical? Then how does the government pay for itself? Would you rather they just printed the money they need? That would also be a tax; a flat ta…

> You think taxes are unethical? Then how does the government pay for itself? Would you rather they just printed the money they need? That would also be a tax; a flat tax. > And if you don't believe the government should exist then that's anarchist, not libertarian. Though if you want anarchism then you can't have a barter system. Well, since I'm also an opponent of fiat currency, the government couldn't very well pr…

>Well, since I'm also an opponent of fiat currency, the government couldn't very well print any money :)

So you want the gold standard again? Hasn't being in the EU shown you the dangers of having a currency you can't adjust to respond to international conditions?

>I'd prefer a night-watchman state, with the government handling police, courts, the military and possibly other services relating to emergency rescue, the justice system or government administration.

And somehow you imagine that the megarich corporations aren't instantly going to (a) start using unregulated practices to set up all kinds of monopolies and (b) start spending money to turn the country to their favor resorting in the exact same place the US is right now?

>1. Donations, 2. Fees, 3. A small flat tax levied either as an income tax or a corporate tax.

Donations? Seriously, donations? The police, military and so on will be at the mercy of what people decide to give of their own free will? Why am I not surprised to see such a position from a self proclaimed Libertarian.

>Until such a time, I'll try to make the situation better where I happen to reside.

Turning Sweden even more over to corporations isn't going to make it better, you must be out of your mind.

Re: Sacrificing everything for my dog. How I became a programmer

#95

Post by VLM »

eshvk wrote: post #46
akiselev wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if my American history books were particularly biased (although I had a great and seemingly unbiased one in AP US History), but expressing aspiration through voting has been a long common thread through US history. For example, slaves were expensive so only a small small minority owned them. The vast majority supported it because (or at least some of the primary reasons cited by my history books) it a) e…

Yeah, I have heard of that narrative; Steinbeck did say “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”. I still find it patronizing; it is reductive. The model assumes a caricature of a poor man who votes for slavery in the hope of owning a slave one day. Maybe, he just doesn't like black people? Maybe, he worries tha…

All so close, seeing the trees, but not the forest.

HN is pretty good at programming and startups, but even the shortest expedition into history gets even the most amateur historians all wound up and LOL.

The fundamental problem was regionalism and federalism vs states rights. Not talked about for obvious political reasons now a days because that would bring up obvious difficult questions... All the issues mentioned were trees in the forest being fought over as PR fodder for the bigger issue of the south wanted to be the south and didn't want some yankee telling them anything, even if the yankee was correct. Extreme stubbornness on both sides. Then the war of northern aggression started because the southerners told the northerners to F off and leave them alone too many times.

If you could have magically removed slavery and plantations from the history of the south and reinsert another set of trees like space alien contact and medieval era 3-d printers, the forest would remain and the civil war would have been fought more or less the same way over PLA vs ABS figurines of intellectually protected property of images of space aliens or something.

The Trees Just Don't Matter (compared to the forest)

To some extent I believe this comes from the HN population consisting of many unmarried people. Trust me, once you get married you can bicker over stuff that has nothing to do with the real issue all day if you want.

Re: Sacrificing everything for my dog. How I became a programmer

#96

Post by a-priori »

michaelmior wrote: post #80
flyinRyan wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That is patronizing. There is a wide spectrum of reasons why one might say vote for lower/higher taxes between "they worked hard, so they deserve it" and "fuck you, I want mine". Since I never clarified what I meant and you came up with such a specific notion, it would appear you're projecting some defensiveness here. But I will go ahead and clarify my position: The fact of the matter is, the US is a combative syste…

While frivolous lawsuits are certainly a problem, I think everyone citing the McDonald's coffee example should watch the documentary Hot Coffee. It puts that incident in a new perspective.

For those not interesting in watching a documentary about the incident, the summary is that McDonalds served a woman, Stella Liebeck, coffee which was approximately 85C. Most coffee shops, at least at the time, served coffee about 60C. After getting the drink from the drive-through, she spilled the entire coffee on herself while adding sugar and cream to it. She was the passenger in the car, and the incident happened with the car parked. She received third-degree burns and needed a skin graft. She eventually won a substantial sum from McDonalds in a civil lawsuit.

The coffee's temperature met McDonald's policy. They set it higher than their competitors because they assumed people would keep it in a cup holder and want it to be a more drinkable temperature when they arrived at their destination. Today, McDonald's has not changed their policy and still serves coffee at 80-90C, and places like Starbucks serve it at similar or higher temperatures. They are able to do this because of better packaging that's less likely to spill the entire drink even if it's dropped on your lap like Liebeck did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald's_Restauran...

Personally, I don't think that it was a frivolous lawsuit. She did receive serious burns, more serious than I would expect someone to receive from spilled coffee.

Re: Sacrificing everything for my dog. How I became a programmer

#97

Post by flyinRyan »

cpursley wrote: post #76
flyinRyan wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In my mind, the only way to vote is to vote your conscience, not what happens to give me the greatest personal gain. Then you should abstain from voting in the present US system because that's not how it works nor how it was designed to work. It's a combative system where compromise is achieved by basically averaging the desires of the interested parties. > 'Always devise your rules as if you didn't know whether you…

Your last paragraph couldn't be more further than the truth. Comparing libertarians to KKK members in not just insane, it's insulting. Libertarianism is a political philosophy more akin to classical liberalism than any modern movement today. Don't confuse the Libertarian party with the libertarian movement. Also, there are many libertarian organizations in the US and world wide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_…

Well yes, I rather intended it to be insulting as I find the fact that in today's world of instant connections to information, the fact that people still see Libertarianism itself as legitimate as insane and insulting. Any movement that considers Ayn Rand anything other then the uninventive, unoriginal hack she was is worthy only of ridicule.

And I suspect any international "Libertarian" parties are actually american expats. The international community does have something comparable though: ancaps. I feel the same about them.

Re: Sacrificing everything for my dog. How I became a programmer

#98

Post by jpdoctor »

dsowers wrote: post #3
Falling3 wrote: post #2

I like this guy. Except for when he acted like cat owners couldn't make sacrifices too. I once had to cut a trip short because my cat missed me so much that he made himself sick.

lol. Sorry for ripping on cat people at the end. For the sake of my dog, I felt like I had to get at least one jab in there.

> lol. Sorry for ripping on cat people at the end. For the sake of my dog

Some of us forgive you, but just barely.

Regardless, thanks for the great article. I've often wondered myself how much taking care of our pets is just a displaced parenting instinct.

Re: Sacrificing everything for my dog. How I became a programmer

#99

Post by flyinRyan »

VLM wrote: post #95
eshvk wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I have heard of that narrative; Steinbeck did say “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”. I still find it patronizing; it is reductive. The model assumes a caricature of a poor man who votes for slavery in the hope of owning a slave one day. Maybe, he just doesn't like black people? Maybe, he worries tha…

All so close, seeing the trees, but not the forest. HN is pretty good at programming and startups, but even the shortest expedition into history gets even the most amateur historians all wound up and LOL. The fundamental problem was regionalism and federalism vs states rights. Not talked about for obvious political reasons now a days because that would bring up obvious difficult questions... All the issues mentioned…

I'm very aware of the reasons the North actually went to war. It was, incidentally, that southern stubbornness that lost the South the war since France would have almost certainly come in on their side (and from the Northern front where Grant couldn't have hoped to deal with them) had Robert E. Lee been half as smart as Lincoln and simply claimed they wanted to be a separate country.

But you can't ignore the slavery though. Without it, there would have been no wealth in the south worth going to war for (nor enough resources to support succession).

Re: Sacrificing everything for my dog. How I became a programmer

#100

Post by drrotmos »

flyinRyan wrote: post #93
drrotmos wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You think taxes are unethical? Then how does the government pay for itself? Would you rather they just printed the money they need? That would also be a tax; a flat tax. > And if you don't believe the government should exist then that's anarchist, not libertarian. Though if you want anarchism then you can't have a barter system. Well, since I'm also an opponent of fiat currency, the government couldn't very well pr…

>Well, since I'm also an opponent of fiat currency, the government couldn't very well print any money :) So you want the gold standard again? Hasn't being in the EU shown you the dangers of having a currency you can't adjust to respond to international conditions? >I'd prefer a night-watchman state, with the government handling police, courts, the military and possibly other services relating to emergency rescue, the…

> So you want the gold standard again? Hasn't being in the EU shown you the dangers of having a currency you can't adjust to respond to international conditions?

Being in the EU has shown me the dangers of government meddling in the market.

> Donations? Seriously, donations? The police, military and so on will be at the mercy of what people decide to give of their own free will? Why am I not surprised to see such a position from a self proclaimed Libertarian.

Yes, because it's far better to steal the money instead of it being given freely. I'm more than willing to pay a decent amount money for everyone to have access to those services. Aren't you?

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