171–179 of 179 posts
I went from Hamburg to London via Antwerp by blablacar.
I so far stayed at two places through couchsurfing.
and I'm now heading towards my third Airbnb place.
sharing economy is certainly not a scam.
Speaking as a professional engine mechanic for a chain of Midwest shops, you have no idea how big a ripoff uber and lyft are until you're in the shop. The rates you make do not cover fleet style usage of your personal vehicle. Cabbies love the crown Vic because its intercooler let's it idle for hours on end with no worries. And they love the Prius because the idle uses no fuel. But your car? Get ready for more oil ch…
No intercooler on a crown vic unless you've turbocharged it. They are reliable because they are simple.
My guess here is oil cooler.
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Because the price you offer for your time influences the perception of the value of time for everyone around you. Its why minimum wage exists at all. Without it, the most desperate depress wages to the absolute edge of starvation and destitution. It is not, and has never been, and never will be an answer to poverty, but it is a promise by the government that your time can never be valued at less than an absolute floo…
Why cant we just give everyone a social dividend and then be done with it? We already create enough in taxation and economic deadloss in market inefficiencies to finance nearly 10k/year to every citizen.
Even if you solved the money in politics problem (which is hard) you still have the issue of a substantial portion of the US congress being elected in uncontested lifelong seats where the citizens have been thoroughly indoctrinated enough into either major parties ideology that they never consider voting for anyone but their incumbent. As long as politicians can feel their seat is guaranteed representing their own interests rather than those of their electors becomes the norm.
So to even begin having a conversation about social dividends you need to radically revamp American elections to incentivize the legislature to represent their constituents. Which requires competitive, representative elections (which means you cannot be using first past the post everywhere) and substantially diluted power and influence so that buying influence over the legislature is less trivial (which almost always means substantially more seats in US congress to make buying a majority of seats more difficult).
Which is by nature a constitutional amendment, which the congress itself would never ratify because it would end their gravy train of private influence and wealth so many currently enjoy. So you need it to come from the states, but the state governments are often just as corrupt and out of the control of the citizenry, if not moreso for their lack of publicity and presence in conversation, so you would need to figure out how to fix them first.
Its a crazy massive expansive problem Larry Lessig was campaigning on in 2016, and Andrew Yang could learn a thing or two from before having pie in the sky conceptions of being able to institute UBI given the structure of the present US federal government.
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Does that make a meaningful mileage difference or is it just a marketing trick because it’s so obvious to the user when the engine shuts off that “it must be saving fuel”. During a normal 15 minute drive, the engine auto shutdown shaves maybe 20 seconds of runtime for me (smaller city without long lights) and it’s at the lowest engine consumption level (idle). Given that an engine can idle for approx an hour on a gal…
Read the person you are replying to. It doesn't matter if it is useless in real world. What matters is if it beats the tests created by govt bureaucrats. >stop/start is estimated to boost fuel economy by 4 to 5 percent using the EPA test cycle https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a19561461/automakers-incre...
Regardless, fuel efficiency standards have driven a significant amount of innovation even if this specific rule seems absurd from the outside.
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For heaven's sake, who the hell are you, to tell other people what to do? I'm a voting tax-payer: thats how government of the people, by the people works. We pay the taxes so that our representatives stop this kind of "shitting in the commons" nonsense. The ubers and airbnb are avoiding paying community costs, avoiding compliance with safety laws, avoiding all kinds of things, while simultaneously exporting the profi…
"Other people must to do this. Other people must do that." Forcing other people is a form of spam, which naturally leads to anti-spam measures. Your form of spam will work until it doesn't anymore. Seriously, I do not care about your voting circus. There will always come a point at which you will have to prove that you are willing to risk your life and die for what you believe in.
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Sure, but why assume that Uber and Lyft drivers all fall into that category? That's what seems patronizing to me. They'd have to be dumb to take that gig for very long if it wasn't economic for them, and many of the ones I've talked to have stuck with it for a long time now. To me it seems disrespectful to assume that they don't know their own interests, and it fits with a meme of poorer people being dumber, which I…
Personally I don't read the parents comment as referring to all Uber drivers, but that's just me. "it fits with a meme of poorer people being dumber " I agree that that's the meme, the parent doesn't actually refer to Uber driver's wealth, rich or poor. I'm guessing theres an unspoken assumption that Uber drivers are poorer, because it isn't that well paid? People don't seem to be giving up careers to do it.
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There’s a middle ground, and it’s called regulation. Of course, the ridesharing companies will holler and cry uncle about even the most basic regulations (see: Austin and fingerprinting.) New York recently made moves to, among other things, establish a floor wage for rideshare drivers similar to how there is a minimum wage for tipped workers.
How about letting people opt out? Ban things that we have good reasons to believe are harmful for people (or sign them up by default for things we believe are beneficial for them), but allow people to opt out by submitting some document that basically says "I know what I am doing is likely bad for me but I accept the risks"? This way you both protect people from their own irrationality and maximize liberty.
The vast majority of people do not read lengthy forms; GDPR updated notification requirements to reflect that. Restricting irrational behavior to limit damage to society is not new; that’s why we regulate things like usurious payday loans.
One person being irrational is not dangerous, but many people being irrational is. The Great Depression started from the fallout of everyday people mortgaging their house and their car because the stock market was advertised as guranteed returns.
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Yeah, how dare we insist that people be paid a living wage! And health insurance is only for employees, not employees-in-everything-but-name!
> Yeah, how dare we insist that people be paid a living wage! And health insurance is only for employees, not employees-in-everything-but-name! You're doing no such thing. You're actually preaching that people with less opportunities than you should be left with even less options because your paternalist view of them makes you feel you're entitled to tell others how they can and cannot do to earn a living.
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Read the person you are replying to. It doesn't matter if it is useless in real world. What matters is if it beats the tests created by govt bureaucrats. >stop/start is estimated to boost fuel economy by 4 to 5 percent using the EPA test cycle https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a19561461/automakers-incre...
It's not useless : a reduction in 4-5% of emissions in urban stop and go traffic would be huge for air quality and health. It likely won't do much if anything for total CO2 output but offloading the emissions to manufacturing of parts needed for extra maintenance (aka a far more efficient power plant in a less densely populated area) instead of driving can still be a net win. Regardless, fuel efficiency standards hav…