When You Dial 911 and Wall Street Answers • Hacker News Board

Re: When You Dial 911 and Wall Street Answers

#131

Post by dexterdog » Tue, Jun 28, 2016, 1:26 AM UTC

hangsi wrote: post #104

dexterdog wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But does the public version cost less than the private one. I would be shocked if it did.

Cost? Probably very similar. However, should the private fire service be around when your house is on fire, you are in no position to refuse whatever price they ask for (and they will happily pocket the difference).

You are always in a position to refuse and I would assume that in most places if the price is astronomical you would have a pretty good case in court after the fact.

Re: When You Dial 911 and Wall Street Answers

#132

Post by ubernostrum » Tue, Jun 28, 2016, 2:19 AM UTC

pravda wrote: post #129

ubernostrum wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think executives of a private-sector corporation can't vote to give themselves high salaries or huge bonuses? Most of the time they don't even have to -- it's so ingrained in the culture now that it's just considered a cost of doing business to be robbed blind by the executive team. And if you think a private corporation can't deploy violence, you probably have never in your life read anything about why we had a…

>it's just considered a cost of doing business to be robbed blind by the executive team. Who are they robbing? Shareholders! But shareholders choose to be shareholders. You don't like what the executives are up to, you can sell your shares. > private armies to put down, via deadly force, anyone perceived as a threat to the company's profits. Ok, now you are being inconsistent. You think it's wrong for executives to b…

Ok, now you are being inconsistent. You think it's wrong for executives to be paid above-market wages, but you think it acceptable for employees to be paid above-market wages.

Nope, perfectly consistent. If one group gets to vote themselves a raise, all groups should get to.

Or, more rigorously: if we're going to introduce artificial legally-blessed structures to allow people to pool their resources in order to accomplish things, or wield power in the market, that they couldn't when acting alone, then... I think we should be consistent about it. The corporation exists as an artificial legally-blessed structure for pooling of capital, and the union exists as an artificial legally-blessed structure for pooling of labor. I don't see a way to argue, from a consistent moral/ethical position, for allowing one to exist while forbidding the other. And similarly, the fewer regulations we place on one of these types of entities, the fewer we should place on the other.

Re: When You Dial 911 and Wall Street Answers

#133

Post by limeyx » Fri, Jul 01, 2016, 4:02 PM UTC

honkhonkpants wrote: post #101

bluejekyll wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In San Francisco, if you dial 911 on a cell phone you get the CHP, not San Francisco police. Adds delay to the help getting there. There is real number you can dial instead, which I've stored in my phone and allows me to dial the SF 911 center directly. Luckily I haven't needed it for more than a brush fire. This might be true in other states as well.

In SF when you dial 911 it is a good solid five minutes before anyone picks up because there is first the TTY modem handshake and then a recorded message in English, Spanish, more than one kind of Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Tagalog, and on and on.

Kind of amazing you can't make an account on 911.com, register your cell phone and home phone #s and put in your preferred language, allergies to medicines, serious illnesses etc and have all that come up to the dispatcher when you call....

But I also worked in that industry for a while and thats not going to happen anytime soon by the looks of it