Even though we suffer from problems like militarization of the police force and a conservative government passing sometimes draconian law, I generally think Canada would fare well in this category.
And it has nothing to do with legislation or government, it's simply a resources issue. Canada has quite a small population, spread over a huge area, and some things I'm quite aware we just don't have the resources for. Our country is small enough (economy, population) wise you couldn't hide something like that in the budget.
So? Isn't that the exact quality of a great leader, that they are able to bring people together in agreement? So the problem is pretty clear that the US just hasn't been electing good leaders. I think the Scott Adams piece above is insightful - Americans have been electing followers of the current establishment.
Oh please. This is more of the same, someone deflecting blame for their own poor behaviour. "dangerous to the human body"? Give me a break - it's sugar. Of course overconsuming anything is bad for you. Hell drinking enough water will kill you.
If you sat in front of a monitor all day, why on earth would you expect to lose weight from 1200-1500 calories? Your metabolism will slow to a grind and it's not surprising at all you gained weight.
"poisoning myself" and "addicted to it" - get over yourself. Your own poor diet and exercise choices, nothing more.
Where your argument is wrong, and typical with many who support minimum wage increases, is that you are talking of social problems with fixes much more suited to different ways than a tool like minimum wage.
We all want to help the destitute folks supporting families on low-end jobs, a higher minimum wage is just not the appropriate way to do it. Even worse, it generally allows people like yourself to ignore the problem as you feel you are "doing something". Let me ask, have all the previous min wage increases lifted that segment of the population out of poverty?
Go to hell - my ability to get up and move freely anywhere I want in the country on a whim is not archaic. If I don't own the vehicle, I'm not in control, period.
That part wasn't even the most disturbing for me, it was the last paragraph..
We live in a dangerous world. We continue to face grave security threats like terrorism, cyber-attacks, and nuclear proliferation that our intelligence community must have all the lawful tools it needs to address.
This basically saying "life is dangerous, you NEED us to protect you". Sadly, the average person these days seems fully willing to submit to law enforcement in the name of safety. I really think people have forgotten what freedom actually is, in that it implies some level or risk or danger, as you don't have anyone in control of you. I think that is too much for people and the cozy modern lives we have afforded them.
The only explanation I can think of is that it's good business for them.
How about the majority of doctors are people, and would feel very uncomfortable sitting in front of the family and telling them to go home and die. I've been in the same situation and have family in health care - there's always the possibility additional chemo rounds can extend lifespan, and while it's the doctors job to present the choices, to most stopping treatment feels like "giving up".
Well, this goes back a *lot* of years now so I have no problem posting the story online:
Back when I was 17 I got charged with possession for being caught smoking a joint, and ended up going to court about 7 or 8 times for it. The reason it was so many times, is that the prosecutor kept asking for a "continuance" when my case came up, which I quickly learned was jargon for "just reschedule for later". Now, I was always a pretty smart kid, so in all those hours I sat there in court waiting for my name to be called, I made some interesting observations..
One was how many people were being charged for minor shoplifting offences - seriously, I saw a lot of people being charged with stealing items that cost LESS THAN A DOLLAR. Small and big store owners alike seem to have zero tolerance when it comes to shoplifting, I guess. Lots of people trying to grab chocolate bars or whatever, but I wouldn't have been surprised to see a kid hauled up for eating a penny candy and running from the store without paying.
I figure you probably need a court to deal with these problems - with the huge caveat they are sensible. If only to provide an objective judgment on what often are heated situations between victims, police, accused, etc. If you run it efficiently it's a part of the cost of justice we probably want to keep.
If you want to know what happened to me, eventually prosecutor talked to judge and they offered to drop the charge in exchange for some number of community service hours, and this is how most of the cases were dealt with. At the time I was really pissed off at receiving any "punishment" at all (and perhaps still to some degree not thinking what I did should be illegal), but looking back they had the right idea. 95% of people moving through this court were not criminals, and the court can usually ascertain that pretty quickly. Just the experience is enough to scare those 95% into never reoffending, including possibility of charges, and if they do come back they rightfully start escalating repercussions. But they should still legalize pot;-)
Hey man, never say never. History has consistently found a way to make fools of people proclaiming X will *never* happen.
I know the point you are trying to make, and yes indeed cancer is a huge family of diseases, but all cancers do share a number of things in common: uncontrolled cell growth, lack of programmed cell death, etc., and advancements in fighting these common attributes have led to many of the "cures" you refer to. It's also why some cancer drugs work for many, many types of cancers, because disrupt cell behaviour (say, cell reproduction) in a way that would harm any cancer cell (unfortunately any healthy cell too).
Maybe we need to better define what a cure is.. is it a cure if it rids you of the disease, but destroys your body so bad you can barely walk?
You two are comparing apples to oranges here. SiriusXM is a satellite based service. Most people drive places without cellular access and would be pretty upset when the radio cuts out each time the cell signal is lost.
"No, really, we both know that is a low-ball value, try again"
You extol the values of learning to negotiate, but your example is one of poor negotiation. Anyone well trained in negotiation knows all the power is in first offer. See Anchoring. Amazingly, if most people just learned the cognitive power of first offer and how to craft an effective one, there's few other skills needed to become a good negotiator.
I'll add to this and say that negotiation is NOT always the smart thing to do. Sometimes, people get so caught up in the idea if they just know how to negotiate, they fail to assess the offer on the table and say whether it's reasonable.
As someone who started as a programmer out of university, and has grown a quite successful career, my number one piece of advice is to now work on your social skills as much as your technical ones. Learn to build and sustain relationships - projects and work will come and go, though it's far more likely the people you meet will stay in your network for a long time.
Always remember: the law is 100% logic, 0% common sense.
I totally disagree. There are many, many places where common sense shows up in law, perhaps more than any other profession (esp. the sciences). You have something like jury nullification, or even just read any court decision. The judge will look to apply a common sense reading of the law to the actions. When laws are written and read down to the letter, what they are looking for is clarity and a lack of ambiguity, so we can say for sure those specific actions are what we intended to prohibit. Sure, laws are passed which dictate certain ranges of responses from judges, but that's just codifying justice and I don't see how that makes it "100% logic".
Another concept you're probably confusing with that of logic is strict liability.
enacting laws to protect businesses that donate to Elected Politician
Isn't that a sign the US political system is worked as designed and intended?
Pardon me as I wasn't raised there and maybe we were taught incorrectly about the founding principles of the US, but I thought it was along the lines of "individual freedom first, the almighty dollar rules all"...
Slightly offtopic, but I got caught thinking about the above statement. I agree with the rest of your post/examples, but on further thought this just sounds like a catchy slogan.
Aren't (American) corporations just citizens trying to maximize their business and profits? Why wouldn't you want your top business leaders handling trade negotiations? Similarly wouldn't you want health care legislation crafted by health care professionals? Not really sure what your point is.
And your solution is to buy a Telsa? Have you even been to their website?
They have just as many configuration and "extra" options as any other manufacturer, perhaps even more, and the interface is very similar (Tesla bundles multiple extras into packages). Really, how are they any different in that regard?
is now an institution to protect property and economic interests
Are you sure about that? Like, have you done a poll?
Because most people seem like scared chicken shits these days, who would gladly hand over these freedoms they don't think they need any more for protection from turrists.
Hahahaha. Your words are the cry of lenders who are about to be stiffed. Don't be fooled - debt is the new gold of the 21st century, and the moment there's a (potential) nickel to be made (with someone else's money) the lenders will be piling back into Greece. All they need, if anything, is a semi-credible plan forward once they've defaulted on their debt, and new lenders will move in.
Heck, I bet you could find some people across your office willing to put some dough down on those flashy, high yield junk bonds from the "new" Greece next year. For every example of a country that stiffed foreign investors and handled it poorly I can name one that came out better (Iceland).
Another important point is that demand for holding one's assets in treasuries as a relatively safe investment is in high demand, and thus the government has no problem "rolling over" treasury notes into new ones when due. Thus the only real money cost for all that debt is the interest payment every year, which are pretty cheap right now.
Stocks like that are little more than trading cards
It only seems this way because you're a tiny player in the market. Believe me, those common shares come with significant legal rights, and if you collect enough of them (usually 10% will do) you can elect the board of governors to be you and your friends and run the company.
Perhaps I'm just becoming more cynical in my older age, but I just don't think the majority of people care anymore about how the police act. I think there's two human aspects working against us, in the police and general public:
1. A large majority of the population (at least <50%) when placed in a position of power, will feel superior and disrespectful towards those they have power over. Thus they become corrupt. Pretty much most of human social history is an attempt to prevent and eventually overthrow the inevitable corruption that comes with power, and we are nowhere near a foolproof system yet.
2. I would bet that, most people if asked, would secretly think the police should do these things "yeah against other people..but not me". People will always support this crap because they are selfish and see this as being control they can place on other people. All the establishment has to do is make sure they target a subset of the population, then it's always "someone else's problem" to voters.
Another Canadian here. Both of my parents were diagnosed with different forms of cancer in the last decade. Both received state of the art care, and the timeframe is what I would describe as "immediate". One had two separate stem cell transplants and lengthy hospital stays.
I dunno, from what I've seen here - you get sick, go to a doctor and everyone involved just focuses on your health and making you better. Hospitals and health care people simply tend to try and efficiently help people when you take money out of the conversation. Anyone who thinks both doctor and patient should be concerned about paying bills at that point is ludicrous, and frankly to me, simply a sign of someone who's never personally witnessed it done the better way.
And yet investors all over the world are falling over themselves to loan money to Uncle Sam
There was a time in very recent history when this wasn't true, and all that happened is the Fed stepped in and bought "assets" on the open market instead. This is one of the primary reasons for such low interest rates since 2008 - the Fed is paying top dollar for those debt notes. Remember yield and price move in opposite directions, and as the Fed started buying up trillions of dollars worth of debt, prices went up and yields went down.
Slashdot Mirror
Even though we suffer from problems like militarization of the police force and a conservative government passing sometimes draconian law, I generally think Canada would fare well in this category.
And it has nothing to do with legislation or government, it's simply a resources issue. Canada has quite a small population, spread over a huge area, and some things I'm quite aware we just don't have the resources for. Our country is small enough (economy, population) wise you couldn't hide something like that in the budget.
So? Isn't that the exact quality of a great leader, that they are able to bring people together in agreement? So the problem is pretty clear that the US just hasn't been electing good leaders. I think the Scott Adams piece above is insightful - Americans have been electing followers of the current establishment.
Oh please. This is more of the same, someone deflecting blame for their own poor behaviour. "dangerous to the human body"? Give me a break - it's sugar. Of course overconsuming anything is bad for you. Hell drinking enough water will kill you.
If you sat in front of a monitor all day, why on earth would you expect to lose weight from 1200-1500 calories? Your metabolism will slow to a grind and it's not surprising at all you gained weight.
"poisoning myself" and "addicted to it" - get over yourself. Your own poor diet and exercise choices, nothing more.
Where your argument is wrong, and typical with many who support minimum wage increases, is that you are talking of social problems with fixes much more suited to different ways than a tool like minimum wage.
We all want to help the destitute folks supporting families on low-end jobs, a higher minimum wage is just not the appropriate way to do it. Even worse, it generally allows people like yourself to ignore the problem as you feel you are "doing something". Let me ask, have all the previous min wage increases lifted that segment of the population out of poverty?
Go to hell - my ability to get up and move freely anywhere I want in the country on a whim is not archaic. If I don't own the vehicle, I'm not in control, period.
We live in a dangerous world. We continue to face grave security threats like terrorism, cyber-attacks, and nuclear proliferation that our intelligence community must have all the lawful tools it needs to address.
This basically saying "life is dangerous, you NEED us to protect you". Sadly, the average person these days seems fully willing to submit to law enforcement in the name of safety. I really think people have forgotten what freedom actually is, in that it implies some level or risk or danger, as you don't have anyone in control of you. I think that is too much for people and the cozy modern lives we have afforded them.
The only explanation I can think of is that it's good business for them.
How about the majority of doctors are people, and would feel very uncomfortable sitting in front of the family and telling them to go home and die. I've been in the same situation and have family in health care - there's always the possibility additional chemo rounds can extend lifespan, and while it's the doctors job to present the choices, to most stopping treatment feels like "giving up".
Well, this goes back a *lot* of years now so I have no problem posting the story online:
;-)
Back when I was 17 I got charged with possession for being caught smoking a joint, and ended up going to court about 7 or 8 times for it. The reason it was so many times, is that the prosecutor kept asking for a "continuance" when my case came up, which I quickly learned was jargon for "just reschedule for later". Now, I was always a pretty smart kid, so in all those hours I sat there in court waiting for my name to be called, I made some interesting observations..
One was how many people were being charged for minor shoplifting offences - seriously, I saw a lot of people being charged with stealing items that cost LESS THAN A DOLLAR. Small and big store owners alike seem to have zero tolerance when it comes to shoplifting, I guess. Lots of people trying to grab chocolate bars or whatever, but I wouldn't have been surprised to see a kid hauled up for eating a penny candy and running from the store without paying.
I figure you probably need a court to deal with these problems - with the huge caveat they are sensible. If only to provide an objective judgment on what often are heated situations between victims, police, accused, etc. If you run it efficiently it's a part of the cost of justice we probably want to keep.
If you want to know what happened to me, eventually prosecutor talked to judge and they offered to drop the charge in exchange for some number of community service hours, and this is how most of the cases were dealt with. At the time I was really pissed off at receiving any "punishment" at all (and perhaps still to some degree not thinking what I did should be illegal), but looking back they had the right idea. 95% of people moving through this court were not criminals, and the court can usually ascertain that pretty quickly. Just the experience is enough to scare those 95% into never reoffending, including possibility of charges, and if they do come back they rightfully start escalating repercussions. But they should still legalize pot
Hey man, never say never. History has consistently found a way to make fools of people proclaiming X will *never* happen.
I know the point you are trying to make, and yes indeed cancer is a huge family of diseases, but all cancers do share a number of things in common: uncontrolled cell growth, lack of programmed cell death, etc., and advancements in fighting these common attributes have led to many of the "cures" you refer to. It's also why some cancer drugs work for many, many types of cancers, because disrupt cell behaviour (say, cell reproduction) in a way that would harm any cancer cell (unfortunately any healthy cell too).
Maybe we need to better define what a cure is.. is it a cure if it rids you of the disease, but destroys your body so bad you can barely walk?
You two are comparing apples to oranges here. SiriusXM is a satellite based service. Most people drive places without cellular access and would be pretty upset when the radio cuts out each time the cell signal is lost.
"No, really, we both know that is a low-ball value, try again"
You extol the values of learning to negotiate, but your example is one of poor negotiation. Anyone well trained in negotiation knows all the power is in first offer. See Anchoring. Amazingly, if most people just learned the cognitive power of first offer and how to craft an effective one, there's few other skills needed to become a good negotiator.
I'll add to this and say that negotiation is NOT always the smart thing to do. Sometimes, people get so caught up in the idea if they just know how to negotiate, they fail to assess the offer on the table and say whether it's reasonable.
As someone who started as a programmer out of university, and has grown a quite successful career, my number one piece of advice is to now work on your social skills as much as your technical ones. Learn to build and sustain relationships - projects and work will come and go, though it's far more likely the people you meet will stay in your network for a long time.
But as a hedge, index all incomes to inflation to eliminate any inflation tax. Indexation guarantees purchasing power does not decrease.
You say that as if the government can easily step in and control the economy like that, even if we wanted it to.
Always remember: the law is 100% logic, 0% common sense.
I totally disagree. There are many, many places where common sense shows up in law, perhaps more than any other profession (esp. the sciences). You have something like jury nullification, or even just read any court decision. The judge will look to apply a common sense reading of the law to the actions. When laws are written and read down to the letter, what they are looking for is clarity and a lack of ambiguity, so we can say for sure those specific actions are what we intended to prohibit. Sure, laws are passed which dictate certain ranges of responses from judges, but that's just codifying justice and I don't see how that makes it "100% logic".
Another concept you're probably confusing with that of logic is strict liability.
enacting laws to protect businesses that donate to Elected Politician
Isn't that a sign the US political system is worked as designed and intended?
Pardon me as I wasn't raised there and maybe we were taught incorrectly about the founding principles of the US, but I thought it was along the lines of "individual freedom first, the almighty dollar rules all"...
corporate-crafted trade agreements
Slightly offtopic, but I got caught thinking about the above statement. I agree with the rest of your post/examples, but on further thought this just sounds like a catchy slogan.
Aren't (American) corporations just citizens trying to maximize their business and profits? Why wouldn't you want your top business leaders handling trade negotiations? Similarly wouldn't you want health care legislation crafted by health care professionals? Not really sure what your point is.
And your solution is to buy a Telsa? Have you even been to their website?
They have just as many configuration and "extra" options as any other manufacturer, perhaps even more, and the interface is very similar (Tesla bundles multiple extras into packages). Really, how are they any different in that regard?
is now an institution to protect property and economic interests
Are you sure about that? Like, have you done a poll?
Because most people seem like scared chicken shits these days, who would gladly hand over these freedoms they don't think they need any more for protection from turrists.
Hahahaha. Your words are the cry of lenders who are about to be stiffed. Don't be fooled - debt is the new gold of the 21st century, and the moment there's a (potential) nickel to be made (with someone else's money) the lenders will be piling back into Greece. All they need, if anything, is a semi-credible plan forward once they've defaulted on their debt, and new lenders will move in.
Heck, I bet you could find some people across your office willing to put some dough down on those flashy, high yield junk bonds from the "new" Greece next year. For every example of a country that stiffed foreign investors and handled it poorly I can name one that came out better (Iceland).
Another important point is that demand for holding one's assets in treasuries as a relatively safe investment is in high demand, and thus the government has no problem "rolling over" treasury notes into new ones when due. Thus the only real money cost for all that debt is the interest payment every year, which are pretty cheap right now.
Stocks like that are little more than trading cards
It only seems this way because you're a tiny player in the market. Believe me, those common shares come with significant legal rights, and if you collect enough of them (usually 10% will do) you can elect the board of governors to be you and your friends and run the company.
Perhaps I'm just becoming more cynical in my older age, but I just don't think the majority of people care anymore about how the police act. I think there's two human aspects working against us, in the police and general public:
1. A large majority of the population (at least <50%) when placed in a position of power, will feel superior and disrespectful towards those they have power over. Thus they become corrupt. Pretty much most of human social history is an attempt to prevent and eventually overthrow the inevitable corruption that comes with power, and we are nowhere near a foolproof system yet.
2. I would bet that, most people if asked, would secretly think the police should do these things "yeah against other people..but not me". People will always support this crap because they are selfish and see this as being control they can place on other people. All the establishment has to do is make sure they target a subset of the population, then it's always "someone else's problem" to voters.
Another Canadian here. Both of my parents were diagnosed with different forms of cancer in the last decade. Both received state of the art care, and the timeframe is what I would describe as "immediate". One had two separate stem cell transplants and lengthy hospital stays.
I dunno, from what I've seen here - you get sick, go to a doctor and everyone involved just focuses on your health and making you better. Hospitals and health care people simply tend to try and efficiently help people when you take money out of the conversation. Anyone who thinks both doctor and patient should be concerned about paying bills at that point is ludicrous, and frankly to me, simply a sign of someone who's never personally witnessed it done the better way.
And yet investors all over the world are falling over themselves to loan money to Uncle Sam
There was a time in very recent history when this wasn't true, and all that happened is the Fed stepped in and bought "assets" on the open market instead. This is one of the primary reasons for such low interest rates since 2008 - the Fed is paying top dollar for those debt notes. Remember yield and price move in opposite directions, and as the Fed started buying up trillions of dollars worth of debt, prices went up and yields went down.