Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn? • Hacker News Board

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#261

Post by WarChortle » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 9:15 PM UTC

ejb999 wrote: post #251

WarChortle wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US has the highest preventable death rate in the developed world. >> They also have by far the highest obesity rate in the developed world. So... I am sure that is one reason of the highest preventable death rate. doesn't invalidate GP point. > I'm supportive of universal healthcare, but this is a huge exaggeration. Sadly in a way its not an exaggeration at all, will doctors and nurses literally watch you die o…

>> But the hospital won't/can't allow it for bullshit reasons. Bullshit reasons like they don't want to go bankrupt and not be able to serve anyone at all?

No post body was provided.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#262

Post by pitaj » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 9:16 PM UTC

autoexec wrote: post #239

pdonis wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you have this backwards. Acting like a grownup means taking responsibility for your own actions and not expecting the government, or any institution, to magically make sure nothing bad ever happens to you. Paying for services like firefighting is fine; but being forced to pay for things because some government bureaucrat decrees it is not. And acting like a grownup also means letting people take the consequences…

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Coercion is not cooperation.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#263

Post by twblalock » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 9:16 PM UTC

that_guy_iain wrote: post #204

pdonis wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are egregiously misinformed about the US.

How so? Do they have a public healthcare system? Nope. What sort of society doesn't look after it's own? Do they have police who have a duty to save you? Nope. That alone is just an absolute shit show. What sort of country says the police have no obligation to protect you? Only to show up and solve the crime once it's happened? What sort of society doesn't look after it's own? I could carry on but it's a bit pointles…

By your definition, no "society" existed in the entire world until the 20th century.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#264

Post by pessimizer » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 9:20 PM UTC

cafard wrote: post #215

vlovich123 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. I’m not sure where this certainty is coming from considering how youngsters couldn’t be part of the crusades considering they’ve historically always been involved in conflict: > In 1814, for example, Napoleon conscripted many teenagers for his armies.[28] Thousands of children participated on all sides of the First World War and the Second World War.[29][30][31][32] Children continued to be used throughout the…

As far as I know, the draft in the US has always had a minimum age of 18, and one could volunteer at 17, but only with a parent's consent. Most young men grow considerably between 13 and 17.

Why is that relevant? There are also child soldiers even younger than 13, today. Just not in the US. Additionally, before the 21c US surveillance state, it was very easy to lie about your age in a way that would take a long time to verify. An enormous number of underage boys lied their way into WWII. If you were born at home, you may not have even had a birth certificate.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#265

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 9:21 PM UTC

that_guy_iain wrote: post #196

rayiner wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's level of isolation (both in terms of distance to the next large city and hospitability of the land in between) is similar to Las Vegas. Salt Lake City isn't too far off either. America is huge. Right. The issue isn't so much that "America lets people die because they don't pay." It's that "America gives people the freedom to live in the middle of fucking nowhere, including where a state or local government can…

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[deleted]

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#266

Post by systems_glitch » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 9:22 PM UTC

alex028502 wrote: post #56

alex028502 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> South Fulton's mayor said that the fire department can't let homeowners pay the fee on the spot, because the only people who would pay would be those whose homes are on fire.

There must be a price that the fire department could theoretically charge if they were gonna always charge on the spot, and still make a profit, as long as there is some minimum number of fires. Also it says that this TN guy had insurance. I wonder if it would have been worth his insurance company's while to make sure that $75 was always paid, either by paying it themselves, or making him pay it, or paying it and sen…

Don't know how it works there, but the bank through which we have our home loan requires insurance, payment of property taxes, etc. and to ensure all that actually happens it's done through an escrow account. We pay one bill to the bank every month, they handle the rest. Seems like a solid way to make sure these kinda things don't happen, and then we can't forget something like the property tax, which happens every six months.

Back on the farm, which is 30 minutes from the nearest fire brigade, one does have to pay to opt-in for fire service. They still answer the phone if you're not on the list. You're also strongly encouraged to have a pond or cistern near anything you want saved. I don't know if the farm's mortgage required payment of that fee, but I do know we were given insurance discounts for having ponds near the houses and barn.

I do know of one case of a particularly belligerent property owner who refused to pay, had fires, still wouldn't pay, etc. who did eventually wind up with firefighters watching his property burn. Hard to really feel bad about something like that.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#267

Post by relaxing » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 9:24 PM UTC

legitster wrote: post #75

This reminds me of when I learned there was no such thing as "The Children's Crusade". As my history professor put it, "going to the Holy Land was an incredibly expensive endeavour reserved for a very few. There's no way anyone was going to waste it on young, inexperienced children". Nearly every source we had saying that the crusade involved children came much later, after a few writers referred to the same source w…

Wikipedia is right there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children's_Crusade

It's pretty big jump from "it never happened" to "some things happened, just not the way the stories told us."

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#268

Post by P5fRxh5kUvp2th » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 9:24 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #131

P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

calling insurance a tax is about as strong an indication of regulatory capture as I can think of. It should have never been a tax specifically because it's an unconstitutional act. Calling it a tax is the letter vs the spirit of the constitution. If you and others like yourself want to ensure everyone has health insurance then __make it mandatory for the state to pay for it__. Anything else and you're just taxing the…

> it's an unconstitutional act. That is an interesting opinion, but at this point, both a conservative, and then a super-conservative, packed-with-federalist-society SCOTUS has disagreed with you twice on this issue (5-4) and then (7-2). It's about as written-in-stone as you can get in the United States. The courts think this is above-board, the executive thinks this is above-board, most of the public thinks its abov…

Slavery was also considered above-board at one point, so...

lets not use that as justification, shall we?

carrying private service X is required for you to exist in the united states. If you don't pay for X, you get fined Y as a punishment.

yep, I'm sure the powers-that-be considering that above-board should be the only justification we need!

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#269

Post by veb » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 9:26 PM UTC

that_guy_iain wrote: post #237

interroboink wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to apologize for some of the awful things that go on in the United States, but your comment seems to come from the point of view of someone whose understanding of the country is built on popular media and clickbait headlines, rather than first-hand experience, if I may be so bold. Keep in mind that what gets reported on and popularized is what sells clicks/views/etc, and is not very representative of "no…

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Here in NZ, when the Christchurch Mosque shootings happened, the Police just rammed the offender off the road and cuffed him... without firing a single shot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christchurch_mosque_shootings

Wee video here: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-shooting/11195...

Honestly I think our Police do a lot of good. There's some bad apples, there's complaints - but that is normal. Overall, they tend to make good judgement calls (most of the time).

To the defence of the US, sometimes their system does work: https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/11/24/us-jury-charge-police-off... honestly though, shooting a guy in a car that wasn't in immediate danger to anyone else around him (he rung the police originally because he was having a mental health crisis - in NZ you do call the cops if you can) so they shoot him with beanbag rounds, tase him then shoot him six times fatally. A bit over the top...

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#270

Post by RC_ITR » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 9:26 PM UTC

Animatronio wrote: post #235

RC_ITR wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

"America is HUUUGE" comes up everytime someone says anything at all. Too many guns? America is huge. Urban sprawl? America is huge. No trains? America is huge. The US is #4 in terms of total area, behind russia, canada and china, and closely followed by brazil and australia. If the others manage at least some of this stuff, one would imagine that the US can do it at least as well.

Do you have any familiarity with those countries and where people live?

Do you really think that metrics on quality of life in Krasnoyarsk Krai or Northwest Territories are drastically better than Wyoming?

I wont even get started on what life is like in Xinjiang.

EDIT: Also, you're saying that Australia, Canada, Russia and Brazil have good train infrastructure? And getting even more pedantic, you're a fan of the trains west of Chengdu?