171–180 of 190 posts
Something I’ve always noticed across the US political landscape: people really don’t like spending money to directly help people (mental health care, institutions, public housing, addiction recovery programs) but are fine with wasting money in weird ways like having this non profit travel the world to learn how to put up a sun shade. It’s like the thing Americans dislike isn’t spending the money but the idea of helpi…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The pharma-hospital-insurance complex. The same non-profit hospitals in which at least one person you're seen by will be out of your insurance network because it makes more money for the hospital. The same pharma companies which evergreen and lobby for drugs to be ruled unsafe once patent rights run out. The same AMA that limits the number of doctors and ensures they are paid more than any other country while patient…
You’re taking about really different things. In general: * Insurers try very hard to keep costs down. * Unions try very hard to keep labor costs up. * Drug makers try very hard to keep drug costs up. * Hospitals just try to survive. * Medical provider try to keep a decent work life balance while paying off their student loans.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Too close to the border?
constantinople was occupied by the allies after WWI, causing the turkish resistance to set up headquarters in angora which was later renamed to ankara. after the war of independence they decided to make ankara the capital of the new republic
Earlier quoted context omitted.
First, I agree regularly capture is highly incentivized in capitalistic systems but I am going to argue regularly capture is in fact anti capitalist. Anyway there’s a common argument for IP as being capitalist, but there’s also many arguments that limitations on IP are also capitalist. Many musicians only want to outlaw the most blatant forms of copyright infringement as they feel imitation drives things forward. The…
I am trying to tease out what the term "capitalism" objectively means, because otherwise it's all too easily to do motte-and-bailey - where supporters of an -ism claim things that seem good while disowning things that seem not good. Perhaps it's ridiculous to think this is even possible in a world where a term can mean something different to each person. But if discourse is ever going to get past one camp asserting t…
Songwriting etc seems like a very capitalistic enterprise to me. You evaluate the market then invest X hours making something that is then judged on the open market. This is very different from most people simply work for someone else.
The parts of the music industry that’s IP maximalists on the other hand tend to simply buy existing IP rather than create it. They essentially face zero risk from infringing on others copyright because they aren’t creating anything. While that’s a form of investing there is several forms of investment in feudal society like making loans etc. Investing on it’s own doesn’t necessarily mean capitalist.
> a society that abolishes private property
I was suggesting it as a prerequisite rather than the only need. Obviously a communist society can enforce it’s laws without being capitalist.
That said there are many online communities which promote creativity etc based on acknowledgement and social credit rather than ownership. I don’t know how you could end up with a stable capitalist post scarcity society without any form of private ownership, but it’s one of those things we don’t have any direct evidence for either way.
Academia may actually be relevant model here. Mathematics isn’t owned by the individual who discovers it, but they still control and can invest in the means of production Aka themselves. Calling that capitalist doesn’t seem to fit, but it seems closer than the other options like socialism, anarchy, etc.
Hopefully that’s taken as food for thought rather than just being a ridiculous argument.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I posted elsewhere in this thread, not a good diagnosis of homelessness. https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything-you-think-you-know-...
Houses per capita: https://imgur.com/oS9d2kf from https://www.oecd.org/els/family/HM1-1-Housing-stock-and-cons... Homeless per 10k: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_ho... Notice that USA has more houses per capita than countries with homeless populations that are significantly smaller. People can move between American states easily. If there's a state where living as a homeless person is easi…
The truth is there already is cheap shelter available .. just not near downtown LA.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here is the top 10 states with their estimated homeless population: California (171,521), New York (74,178), Florida (25,959), Washington (25,211), Texas (24,432), Oregon (17,959), Massachusetts (15,507), Arizona (13,553), Pennsylvania (12,691), Georgia (10,689) In 2022, the U.S. homeless population was estimated to be over 577,000, according to the annual point-in-time count. It looks extremely illogical to me that…
> There is only 171K in all of CA (out of 12 million people). California’s population is ~40 million.
The claim of greatness is obviously false; the failing of public infrastructure, healthcare and education is a common denominator of third world countries in my opinion, not of:
> Especially not when compared to the rest of the world, which is all poorer than us. Often much poorer.
Ever been to Switzerland? I wouldn't state it is poorer than the US. Not even the average EU country is.
I’m sure some aspect of this is the North American culture of high credentialism. Everything must be done by “properly trained” “experts” and whatnot. During the pandemic people on Han were talking about how N95 masks need you to be trained by professionals in a fit test. It’s a 15 min video on the 3M site… Here’s the facts: I can do almost any job well without needing extensive training. But credentialism gets in th…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yea, I’d rather be “intellectually lazy” and grounded in reality. These people aren’t using “data” to solve problems. What a joke. Here’s what’s going to happen - voting citizens will eventually get tired of the drugs, property crime, and homeless and they’ll elect a mayor who is “tough on crime”. There will be a crack down and the public spaces will improve however eventually regress back. Then the cycle repeats. An…
Why are you outright denying that the data exists? And you're calling it being "grounded in reality"? Seriously? That's lunacy. The data I provided demonstrates you are wrong about your theory of homelessness. I can't do anything else for you.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. The US could be importing a lot more ideas than it does. When living in other countries than the US, it has always been notable to me how often conversations about almost anything involved considering how other countries did things. But after drawing on the world for better ideas, you would expect better results.
Maybe if they had a little more to show for it I could be more understanding. Money has a lot of good uses; I feel certain the $300k spent on this POS design could have a far greater impact elsewhere. Travel is great, but in a pinch you can find most of the world’s great ideas are written down in books or on the internet. The difference in cost is quite substantial.
There are clearly decision makers somewhere in the situation who just shouldn’t be involved.
But travel is cheap education and research when compared to a city wide problem.
Traveling isn’t just about exposing yourself to ideas. It’s about exposing yourself to how they actually work in practice, pros, cons, unexpected dependencies, etc. while carrying your own situations needs around with you.
You can’t get all that coupled perspective second hand. That’s a false economy.
It would be negligent and unprofessional to not travel, for a problem on this scale.