51–60 of 64 posts
As a Romanian person I am baffled hearing the speed and data cap woes of American people. I always saw America as superior and something to aspire to as a kid. What your ISPs are doing is pure robbery and I am surprised there's not more backlash about this.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We’re conservative because we’re rich and comfortable. Some of you are. You're only surpassed by Romania, Costa Rica, and South Africa in this chart: https://data.oecd.org/inequality/poverty-rate.htm Romania, Italy, South Africa in this one: https://data.oecd.org/inequality/poverty-gap.htm#indicator-c... Doing better in this one, in that now you're behind Bulgaria, Turkey, Chile, Costa Rica and South Africa. https:…
I’m not really disagreeing with what you’re saying. My point is that people are voting in their own interest. If you’re employed, 30+, married married, and in the top 60% of the income distribution, then in terms of quantifiable income and consumption metrics you’re probably better off than you’d be in say France. And these are the people who vote. As to housing patterns, I’m sure it’s a combination of preference, av…
Even if that would be true, The elephant in the room here is the abysmal participating rate of US elections and general voter suppression. There's no way the Republican party would ever win a fair, easy-to-vote, EU-style, election.
> Americans don’t have the same sense of solidarity Europeans have, and are much more individualistic.
But universal healthcare has been popular in polls throughout the population for a long time, even though I assume that in a class based society like the US it must feel regressive, as upper middle-class and up, to be threatened by having to wait in the same queue as the poor for healthcare.
A similarly curious case is Moldova, Romania's neighbour. I grew up there, I remember dial up and wasting a lot of my mother's money on it. Then the state run ISP rolled out ADSL and it got way better. In the span of 2-3 years, I went from 64/64 kbit/s to 6/1 Mbps. In another year, it was 24/1 Mbps, and yet another year or so they started rolling out fiber, with free upgrades for everyone as long as you renewed the c…
:(
A similarly curious case is Moldova, Romania's neighbour. I grew up there, I remember dial up and wasting a lot of my mother's money on it. Then the state run ISP rolled out ADSL and it got way better. In the span of 2-3 years, I went from 64/64 kbit/s to 6/1 Mbps. In another year, it was 24/1 Mbps, and yet another year or so they started rolling out fiber, with free upgrades for everyone as long as you renewed the c…
Sigh... I wish it were like that in my country (.de). Your ISPs seem to have done the right thing, letting go of the useless asymmetric download/upload-rate as soon as the technology allowed. Here they still do that asymmetric nonsense on fibre(with the exception of a few regional ISPs), if there is fibre available at all. Milk the cow until it's empty, I guess. :(
Looking at their offers now, you even get unlimited 4G with the gigabit fiber package for an extra $5.
People in the countryside now use unlimited 3G/4G exclusively, so fiber rollout is slower, but afaik still ongoing.
Not really sure what to make of it. Maybe they want to attract and retain people working online/remote. But that clearly isn't working, citizens leave the country at the first opportunity. Digital nomads are certainly welcome, though.
The average user doesn't care one bit, they just want to browse Facebook/VK/OK/Youtube.
Still, have to admit, it's a pretty great thing they're doing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m not really disagreeing with what you’re saying. My point is that people are voting in their own interest. If you’re employed, 30+, married married, and in the top 60% of the income distribution, then in terms of quantifiable income and consumption metrics you’re probably better off than you’d be in say France. And these are the people who vote. As to housing patterns, I’m sure it’s a combination of preference, av…
> My point is that people are voting in their own interest. Even if that would be true, The elephant in the room here is the abysmal participating rate of US elections and general voter suppression. There's no way the Republican party would ever win a fair, easy-to-vote, EU-style, election. > Americans don’t have the same sense of solidarity Europeans have, and are much more individualistic. But universal healthcare…
Voter “suppression” insofar as it exists works at the margins: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/19/suppression-issues-....
> Voter suppression issues rank low among reasons nonvoters stay home
I’ve never voted in a Presidential election, and I’m not going to vote in this one. I can walk to my nearest polling place. It just won’t change the outcome in my state and I really don’t care that much.
> There's no way the Republican party would ever win a fair, easy-to-vote, EU-style, election.
What is an “easy-to-vote, EU-style election?” The voting system in Georgia isn’t that different from say France. There is automatic registration when you get a driver’s license (which nearly everyone has). France doesn’t even have mail in voting: https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1975/11/13/pour-redu...
> But universal healthcare has been popular in polls throughout the population for a long time, even though I assume that in a class based society like the US it must feel regressive, as upper middle-class and up, to be threatened by having to wait in the same queue as the poor for healthcare.
It’s popular conceptually until it comes time to make actual trade-offs. Biden won the Democratic nomination because his competitors’ single-payer proposals eliminated private insurance, something most people didn’t like. After Obama passed the ACA along party lines, voters handed Democrats a huge loss in the midterms, giving Republicans control of Congress for the rest of Obama’s term.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> My point is that people are voting in their own interest. Even if that would be true, The elephant in the room here is the abysmal participating rate of US elections and general voter suppression. There's no way the Republican party would ever win a fair, easy-to-vote, EU-style, election. > Americans don’t have the same sense of solidarity Europeans have, and are much more individualistic. But universal healthcare…
> Even if that would be true, The elephant in the room here is the abysmal participating rate of US elections and general voter suppression. Voter “suppression” insofar as it exists works at the margins: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/19/suppression-issues-... . > Voter suppression issues rank low among reasons nonvoters stay home I’ve never voted in a Presidential election, and I’m not going to vote in this o…
So gerrymandering, 55% voter turnout, long queues, voting on a working day, having felons not being eligible, the electoral college system etc. isn't indicative of voter suppression?
> I’ve never voted in a Presidential election,
What's the point of your personal anecdote?
> What is an “easy-to-vote, EU-style election?”
That's a single state? Why did Trump say that the Republican party would never be elected again? [0] It's not exactly a secret. France had 77% voter turnout.
> It’s popular conceptually until it comes time to make actual trade-offs
What trade-offs? Skipping a foreign war?
> Biden won the Democratic nomination because his competitors’ single-payer proposals eliminated private insurance
You're always writing in authoritatively simplistic causal language. "X caused Y", when there's no such obviously direct relationship.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/30/trump-republ...
What the article does not mention is that most of those networks are now gone. They started around 2000 as ad-hoc networks (a few friends that shared files through SMB and maybe an Internet connection) but around 2002 they evolved to be real businesses, with networks spanning tens of buildings and hundreds of apartments, sharing an expensive business link and even starting to do peering across networks. Most used cop…
First they start with Ethernet to the buildings and one switch for each entrance to all occupants. And they was times when most of infrastructure was above the ground on poles. That was 20 years ago.
But like 10+ years ago they start making fiber to the buildings (FTTB) and now they're migrating to fiber to the home (FTTH).
For now most of infrastructure is underground.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do all of these cars and TVs make you happy? Rhetorical question; if they did you wouldn't need more more more . A minority is rich and comfortable. This elite uses propaganda rhetoric such as polarisation by a platform such as Fox News to manipulate people into a political candidate which, ultimately, does not serve in their benefit but in the benefit of the elite majority. Then there's the other party who are only…
Again, it’s easy to tell yourself that Americans are just irrational, harder to reconcile that with the facts. It’s not just a minority that’s richer and more comfortable: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2017/04/24/middle-class-f... A middle income household in the US has $15,000-25,000 more per year in disposable income than a middle income household in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, or the UK (comprising 70% of…
I only checked your first link, and after processing that I called it. The data is from ~1991 and 2010. The link says Western Europe. I consider the Scandinavian countries Northern Europe, and the Mediterranean Southern Europe. Southern Europe and Eastern Europe (all ex Iron Curtain) are poorer than Northern Europe, Ireland, United Kingdom, Belgium (left out -- why), Austria (idem), Switzerland (idem), Sweden (idem), Finland (idem) (though last two are also Northern Europe and Scandinavia).
Then I scrolled to the bottom and saw this linked [1]. The title being: In Western European countries studied, up to eight-in-ten adults live in middle-income households; U.S. has among the highest lower- and upper-income shares and guess what the USA's middle class is 75% the size of the mentioned non-Southern European countries.
Now, I happen to know also that apart from Southern Europe all of the mentioned countries have adequate healthcare while in the USA (before Obamacare, which the two statistic metrics are about) that isn't the case.
My conclusion is indeed that the middle class in the USA is marginalized. Though not yet as severe as in a fascist country it might be heading that way.
I would like to comment on one more thing:
> This is entirely in their interest.
No, it is not, only in their short term myopic vision. A long-term interest is that you invest in your fellow civilians. It is also selfish, because you expect something in return. But it is what I call intelligent selfishness as its long-term. Much like VC, the USA is focussed on short-term gains.
Now, surely the American people must live a happy and free life, right? Not quite. If we look at the above statistics and the data from Democracy Index, Reporters Without Borders about the freedom in all of the countries we are discussing then the Scandinavian countries, Switzerland, Tge Netherlands, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Ireland (ie. entire Western Europe) are far ahead in terms of freedom than the self-proclaimed Land Of The Free.
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2017/04/24/middle-class-f...
PS: As for your Fox News rebuttal see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24819418
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The wall outlet was an Ethernet port. Huh, never thought of this as weird. I remember using a dial-up modem in the early 2000s in Romania, but since then I've just had a normal Ethernet port coming out of the wall everywhere, including Western Europe.
In North America you get either a TV Cable (coaxial) outlet, which then needs a cable modem (DOCSIS). Or you get a phone outlet, for which you need a DSL modem. For both cases, back in the day, you still needed a router. Nowadays it’s usually a modem-router combo, and usually they are terrible. Everyone always has a rats nest of wires somewhere behind a TV or couch. :D
This was pretty much the case across Eastern Europe. In Kiev, I ordered an internet connection and to my surprise I was told that it was all done and ready to go without any visits to my apartment. I was surprised. The wall outlet was an Ethernet port. No TV cable. No phone line. Direct RJ45. Later I learned that everything is in the central wiring closet somewhere in the building. And many buildings are just connect…
A year ago the price for a 100/100 connection in Kiev (Kyiv) was $8/mo. TV (over IP) with 40+ channels included. New condo. RJ45 right in the wall.