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Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

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Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

#371

Post by arethuza »

berntb wrote: post #369
arethuza wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about anywhere else but in the UK there was a very large "socialist" party in Labour and tiny "communist" parties that never really had much power.

I thought Labor was ~ Social Democrat? Maybe shocking to right wing crazies, but hardly _Socialist_ in a modern use of the language? (But OK, even I know that Labor have changed a lot over the last 50-60 years.)

I guess it depends what you mean by "socialist" - Labour created the NHS and nationalised some of the key heavy industries of the time (coal, steel, electricity):

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/labour_party_nationalis...

Turns out that the NHS was a good idea and the nationalising of industries was a bad idea!

Of course, when Labour re-invented itself in the 1990s as "New Labour" they pretty much became "Conservative-Lite" - I'm still not sure what values they actually have.

Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

#372

Post by dragonwriter »

dominostars wrote: post #230

San Francisco homelessness is not a question about rich vs. poor. It's a question about what to do with people who are mentally handicapped and/or drug abusers. This is partially a money problem, but it's largely a social problem. A lot of other countries deal with this better because they have stronger family support structures. Programming can help, but this isn't a programming problem. And there's no money in it,…

> San Francisco homelessness is not a question about rich vs. poor.

Yes, it is.

> It's a question about what to do with people who are mentally handicapped and/or drug abusers.

Drug addicts and the mentally ill and/or handicapped who are not also poor have support systems and treatment options available, and are not part of the homelessness problem. So, yes, its about mental illness and drug addiction -- but also very much about rich vs. poor.

> This is partially a money problem, but it's largely a social problem.

Its a resource distribution problem; its not "partially a money problem" or "largely a social problem", its is completely both (money problems are equivalent to resource distribution problems and are a subset of social problems.)

> A lot of other countries deal with this better because they have stronger family support structures.

There may be some cases where countries do this better because of family support structures, but I can't think of any clear examples -- perhaps you could provide some. Most modern developed nations do it better because they have stronger public social support structures.

> Programming can help, but this isn't a programming problem.

This much is true. Its a policy (and, at a more fundamental level, values) problem, not a technical problem.

> Everyone here who's arguing about their superior European social programs are really preaching to the quire,

"Choir" is probably the word you are looking for; preaching to sheets of paper isn't exactly a sensible metaphor.

> because most Americans on Hacker News would kill to have these social programs.

I don't see much evidence for that "most Americans on Hacker news" would be willing to give up America's bias toward largely privatized health care financing, and income tax system that's heavily favorable to capital, and policy of financing a major part of the existing social support system via additional taxes that fall exclusively on labor for a stronger social support systems, much less that they would be willing to "kill" for such systems.

Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

#373

Post by LekkoscPiwa »

just_hobbyst wrote: post #290
LekkoscPiwa wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's why socialism is exported by Russia. You see: normally people would vote for security/military spending and not social care. But that's exactly what Russians, i.e. KGB do. They export socialism to the elites of countries they want to weaken. If you study Russian expansionism since its inception hundreds of years ago, their strategy has always been the same. Russia strategy for centuries has been always t…

Man, you really are confused! If a country is serious about national defence then it really needs universal health care, because it needs lots of healthy soldiers. Soviet Russia did a lot to make sure there was at least basic medical care available to everyone for exactly this reason - they needed millions of soldiers! Finland is doing the right thing when it takes care for it's citizens. Also, news flash for you: so…

so, watching a lot of KGB-TV, ops sorry RussiaTV lately? I know plenty of Americans watch only this for news.

Don't tell me it's not genius, please. Russia banned recently all outside world financed NWOs from their country, but they air their propaganda in the US day and night. You don't see that? First divide the country. Find original dividing factor. Whatever it is as long as ti exists. I.e. Tea Party in the US which in fact has been a genuine effort to make the Republic better. Then invest millions, hundreds of millions in them. In their NWOs, show them on your TV, support their papers, bloggers, activists. See how much trouble you're creating in the country without even firing a single bullet? They can and do pull it off all the time.

You think Finland is any different? The whole of Russia belongs to KGB and is governed by it. And don't take my word for this, these are almost exact words of the US Ambassador in Moscow that leaked via wikileaks.

Western Europeans are somehow always so naive in the face of threat. Whether it was Hitler or Stalin, they voted, they believed in it. Stop being so blatantly naive, ok?

Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

#374

Post by LekkoscPiwa »

just_hobbyst wrote: post #293
LekkoscPiwa wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never heard that there are for example over 50,000 US soldiers in Germany operating military equipment worth billions of USD courtesy of the US tax-payer? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Europe So, any attack on the German soil must result in dead American soldiers. Now, who sane would risk doing so? Yeah, very convenient preaching universal healthcare and welfare for the poor when somebody else pays…

Russia has other reasons not to attack Germany - it makes money by exporting oil and natural gas. Germany is a prime consumer. What does Arab Spring have to do with it? It is dangerous mostly to some of African dictators and European armed forces in fact supported insurgents in Libya... Besides, you never addressed my earlier argument that healthy population is vital for national defence.

Russia doesn't use too much logic, their history is all about power not wealth.

Arab Spring beneficiaries are Muslim extremists like Muslim Brotherhood. You know, usual pattern, women are treated like slaves, kids at school study Koran and Koran only, etc. They hate, they loathe, Europe as much as the USA. No, it turns out, they don't like your idea of freedom. They want you to be a Muslim or die. As simple as that.

Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

#375

Post by aidenn0 »

run4yourlives wrote: post #137
aidenn0 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

correction: Nearly all chronic homeless have mental illness and/or substance abuse; the chronic homeless make up only about 1/8 of the homeless at any given time.

Unless you have a citation that says otherwise, anything I've seen seems to suggest that there is little difference in the high percentage of mentally ill/substance abusers between chronic/non-chronic homeless.

Just about every article I can find talking about substance abuse and mental illness in homeless specifically focuses on the chronic homeless so I inferred from that. A bit of googling turned up this non-scholarly article though that compares the overall rate of mental illness among homeless to that of the chronically homeless and found ~3x difference

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07...

Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

#376

Post by aidenn0 »

pessimizer wrote: post #166
aidenn0 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing intrinsically morally wrong with high levels of wealth inequality. If wealth distribution were to stay as unequal as they are now, but total per-capita wealth increased at a steady rate, that would be a wonderful outcome for everyone. The issue is that the high levels of wealth inequality are used to capture nearly all of the wealth that is created, thus increasing the wealth inequality even more. Th…

>There is nothing intrinsically morally wrong with high levels of wealth inequality. That would depend on your moral system, wouldn't it?

Only if meta-ethical moral relativism is correct.

Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

#377

Post by pessimizer »

aidenn0 wrote: post #376
pessimizer wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is nothing intrinsically morally wrong with high levels of wealth inequality. That would depend on your moral system, wouldn't it?

Only if meta-ethical moral relativism is correct.

Only if 'relativism' is reduced to 'different relative to my own' due to solipsism. There remains the possibility that there's an absolute morality intrinsic to the universe that your own personal models fail to describe accurately.

i.e. just because you cover up your eyes doesn't mean that I can't see you.

Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

#378

Post by aidenn0 »

pessimizer wrote: post #377
aidenn0 wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if meta-ethical moral relativism is correct.

Only if 'relativism' is reduced to 'different relative to my own' due to solipsism. There remains the possibility that there's an absolute morality intrinsic to the universe that your own personal models fail to describe accurately. i.e. just because you cover up your eyes doesn't mean that I can't see you.

You said it depended on "your" (which I took to mean "ones own" rather than specifically referring to "me") ethical system. If there is an absolute morality, then the morality of any given action is not dependent upon the morality subscribed to by the actor.

[edit] Furthermore any statement about an action being moral or immoral that doesn't explicitly reference a moral system is implicitly assuming a moral system. I find "It is my belief that X is moral" to be stylistically inferior to "X is moral" and clearly the former is a factual statement, while the later is a statement of opinion. HN is a discussion forum in which stating opinions is acceptable, so I use the terser, stronger statement of opinion preferably to the more verbose factual statement.

Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

#379

Post by just_hobbyst »

LekkoscPiwa wrote: post #374
just_hobbyst wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia has other reasons not to attack Germany - it makes money by exporting oil and natural gas. Germany is a prime consumer. What does Arab Spring have to do with it? It is dangerous mostly to some of African dictators and European armed forces in fact supported insurgents in Libya... Besides, you never addressed my earlier argument that healthy population is vital for national defence.

Russia doesn't use too much logic, their history is all about power not wealth. Arab Spring beneficiaries are Muslim extremists like Muslim Brotherhood. You know, usual pattern, women are treated like slaves, kids at school study Koran and Koran only, etc. They hate, they loathe, Europe as much as the USA. No, it turns out, they don't like your idea of freedom . They want you to be a Muslim or die. As simple as that.

So, in your comments above you claim that Russia has masterminded a plan to divide and conquer USA using clever propaganda tactics. Here you say Russia doesn't use logic.

So which way do you think it is? Russia is governed by highly intelligent leaders or stupid brutes?

Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

#380

Post by bmmayer1 »

redbad wrote: post #365
bmmayer1 wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, most of my European friends are socialists, but that's not the point. We live in a global economy, and people want to go where the opportunities are, and there are still a lot of opportunities here, especially for upwardly mobile young Europeans who are having trouble finding employment what with a near 50% youth unemployment rate in some countries.

> with a near 50% youth unemployment rate in some > countries. Can you name one besides Spain?

Greece: 64%. Portugal: 40%. Italy: 38%. Slovakia: 35%. Hungary: 28%.
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