The person who introduced the law offeret to get it repealed if the NRA would drop it's opposition to the development of smart runs. The NRA refused.
Interesting how interpretations differ. The NRA didn't refuse, it didn't respond. Loretta Weinberg also made a very wishy-washy offer. She didn't promise repeal it, she offered to 'introduce a bill'. She didn't promise to not subsequently veto said bill. Basically, it was a deliberate offer that she knew the NRA wouldn't be willing to take in order to look like she was compromising - rather than actually doing so.
This is complicated by the fact that there's really no 'opposition' by the NRA itself to smart gun technology. Any 'opposition' has only been to the prospect of being FORCED to use such firearms. Basically, if the NJ law goes away, clauses activate in most NRA statements that make them go away, and the NRA's stated position of 'let the market decide' goes into effect. Beyond that, NRA associated publications rate such firearms on their merits. Such as a technical review of the latest offering, where they noted that it took over 10 minutes to pair the gun with a watch, that it took 7 button presses to get the gun ready to fire once paired, and that the firearm couldn't even get through a single 10 round magazine without jamming, even through multiple changes of ammunition types.
The problem is that many people are vehemently against researching the technology or offering current technology for sale. Due to that the reliability/availability issue will never be solved.
Because of the law. I'm ineligible for getting rid of New Jersey's law because I'm not a citizen of New Jersey. But I don't want them to succeed, because I don't want the laws to spread.
Just how large of a problem is this scenario, to mandate introduction of extra points of failure into guns? Do you really think it's going to outweigh the situation parent is talking about?
Magna-trigger, an absolutely ancient implementation of 'smart gun' technology which uses a magnetic ring to make the gun ready to fire, has around a dozen 'saves' credited to it. Sadly, in half a dozen of them the 'save' was other officers, as the criminal killed the officer carrying the protected gun to get it, then tried to kill other officers, but was stopped by the system.
Magna-trigger, not needing fancy electronics, is a much more reliable system, and works through gloves. Since it's not RFID on a watch, it even works if the criminal takes the gun and remains close to you - if your hand isn't in the proper position, it won't fire. It's also substantially cheaper - $400 to modify the gun, rather than a ~$1k price penalty, and $60 for a ring, vs $400 for a watch.
Downsides are that there's only a couple models of firearms they can install it in - primarily revolvers(though I've heard a 1911 solution exists), and the magnetic rings are universal - which isn't actually that bad for a police department because it means that one officer can use the other's if necessary. Downside is that if you tried to spread the technology too widely through civilian arms, the 'protection' would most likely be lost because the criminals would start wearing the rings as well.
States like NJ who already have laws on the books mandating all guns sold in the state must use smart tech once it becomes widely available
NJ's law isn't even "widely available". It's "30 months after ONE model is available for sale". Police are completely exempted, of course. So let's say that I create a system that works, sort of. It's $2k for a.22lr pistol, and the pistol can't be anything stronger because the shock from firing calibers.380 and up is enough to destroy the electronics.
30 months after that, even if NOBODY else has released such a pistol, legally speaking, my firearm would be the only one legal to sell in NJ. Restricting everybody to a $2k.22.
Magazine does not unload by itself, that requires a trigger press or manually removing the cartridges. Unless the LEO is at the firing range or in an active shooting situation that magazine will be loaded today, tomorrow, next year, 50 years from now.
Don't forget that the average cop goes out with at least 3 magazines, and if he's practiced it's a 2 second fix to replace the magazine.
You also don't have a functioning firearm without a magazine, they haven't found a superior solution yet. The solution to stopping failures to fire from a battery dying? Don't put a system requiring a battery in there!
I can inspect and replace mechanical parts if they look fatigued or damaged. They're also essential to the operation of the firearm. A 'smart gun' is a lot of extra parts that *can* fail, and they're NOT essential for a gun doing it's core task - setting off a bullet and sending it down the barrel. Inspecting electronics is not something that a standard user can do. Also, if you make the electronics easy to swap out, you're also making them easy to bypass.
I'm not going to say that it can't be done, but it's a change I'd be hell-cautious about. I'm not actually against a 'smart gun', but I don't want to be the test case - give me a call when police departments are *voluntarily* adopting smart guns.
That being said, what makes me oppose them at the moment is New Jersey - which passed a law saying that 30 months after the first smart gun is available for sale in the USA, that ALL firearms sold in the state must be smart.
What do you think car enthusists would say about self-driving cars if a state had a law that said that 3 years after the first self-driving car is available for sale that ALL new cars sold must be self-driving?
I think some of the thinking can be fixed if you don't compare a gun to a car, but a gun to a plane. For example, the standard car engine has one spark plug per cylinder. Your typical plane uses TWO spark plugs and a spark generation system that's not dependent upon the battery to work. Dynamos.
Another thing is that a car has a lot of mass and volume to play with. I'm sure it's electronics wouldn't work as well if you restricted the system to being the size of a deck of cards and mandate that it be mounted directly to the hot engine.
So incomes - wages - and employment are moral issues. Because being unemployed and dependent on a subsistence stipend from the Government, is no way to go through life, son.
I agree with this in principle, but reality is sadly a touch more complex. Fact is nearly everybody needs help sometime in their life, and a few need it nearly continuously.
unless the person she’s working for is selling the product of her labour as if she weren’t disabled, in which case it’s exploitation.
How does that factor if the employer is simply adding the output of her production into the standard supply stream? She assembled sprinkler components. Purchasers wouldn't know that disabled labor was involved at all unless they really dug deep into the certifications and such.
The best way I could describe it was that it was work where she could come close to the production capability of a non-disabled person, but a non-disabled person wouldn't be willing to do the highly repetitive work without much higher compensation. She liked the consistency, a normal person would be bored. The higher compensation for a 'normal' worker would be above the cost of just automating the process. You're correct that it was essentially part of her treatment - she enjoyed the extra money and feeling of contributing something, they enjoyed that it took up time that she didn't have to be as highly supervised.
Huh ? Of course it does. A BIG calibrated for somewhere with very low living costs is all but useless in somewhere with very high living costs (which is to say, would need to be supplemented by additional assistance so people can survive).
Ah, so you're actually rewriting my proposal to fit in with your concepts. No wonder things seem off in your replies.
This is where it becomes a touch more complex. If a person has become dependent upon the BIG and they're living in a high cost area, my answer isn't to pay them a larger BIG, it's for them to move. That being said, if NYC wants to suppliment the BIG for it's residents, that's it's thing.
I may care for increasing the average quality of life for people, but I can be quite mean at the individual level. With great freedom comes great responsibility...
Making broad regional adjustments isn’t “micromanaging”. Dictating to people they’re allowed to buy vegetables but not candy is “micromanaging”.
'Management level' is actually a spectrum, but broadly speaking you're correct there. That being said, I think 'broad regional adjustments' should be the states/cities supplimenting the BIG if they wish to do so, not the feds varying it themselves. As I said earlier, if NYC wants to suppliment it, they can. People in NYC would just get 2 deposits instead of one, or however NYC decides to administer things.
Something a JG addresses but a BIG does not
Sure it does. Like I said earlier, it acts like a form of unemployment insurance, which makes moving between jobs easier by reducing the transition risk.
Yes. The point you have not addressed is how that is any different to the situation today, hence how it will improve unemployment, income gaps, etc, over today.
No, you've just ignored them. Unemployment - By eliminating welfare cliffs, it eliminates the penalties those on welfare face when seeking employment. Ergo, they're more likely to actually find jobs, because a job actually improves their situation. Income gaps - I don't actually give much of a shit about this.
Speaking of fallacies, that sounds like a Scotsman.
I'm not saying that we don't have idiots. Hell, in a recent survey something like 30% of those who ID as 'libertarian' couldn't ID that we're supposed to be 'small government'.
Okay, I don't normally pay attention to ACs, but I think this guy needs modding up. It's hilarious!
To paraphrase the late Steve Wright:
Have you ever wondered about the BATF? Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Does that even make sense? I called them and asked them what kind of wine goes with an AK-47.
They responded by asking me "What have you been smoking?"
The other part of the problem is that the average range trip in the USA is a couple hundred rounds. The average criminal shooting is 2-3 rounds.
The tax is a non-factor for a criminal user, but it's huge for a recreational shooter. This makes such proposals a classic gun prohibition of targeting legitimate users more than criminals.
I'd love for that to be the case, unfortunately New Jersey made that impossible.
Basically, 30 months after a smart gun is available for sale ANYWHERE in the USA, ALL firearms sold in New Jersey MUST be smart.
Imagine what developers of self-driving cars would face from professional and recreational drivers if there was a similar law stating that ALL cars sold must be self-driving less than 3 years after the first one hits the market, no matter how lousy it is. BTW, the police are exempt from the mandate.
The thing with that business model is that the laws against slavery made that business practice illegal, and it was the cab companies, and others that got the laws against slavery repealed or modified to allow debt working.
True.
I just bring it up because people are like "Oh, Uber is taking advantage of it's drivers by having them be 'contractors'!" When in reality, it's still better than most cab drivers are treated.
At least with Uber, the drivers are actually providing their own tools and setting their own hours, which makes them a step more like a subcontractor for a construction job.
Ah. I normally take those when I'm going from a hotel to the airport, but from my house to the airport is more difficult. It'd be easier if I was actually in a city to take a bus there, I think.
Last time I flew I took the bus - but I was parked at a remote lot at work in order to do so, and end up taking a taxi back because the buses don't run that early/late.
They're invariably not covered with you in the car.
100% false, this issue was quickly fixed by Uber purchasing a policy to cover their drivers while they were working.
The remaining issue is who's insurance is responsible when the driver doesn't have passengers, but is seeking clients. In between was which insurance covered when the driver was going towards pickup.
What's wrong with it? It encourages conservation and more drivers coming out and working. I've heard people talk about people who only ever drive for Uber DURING surge pricing.
The alternative is likely more people NOT getting rides.
If you don't take a taxi to the airport, how do you get there? Just curious. I know my family normally tries to have somebody drop them off, but if that isn't available, a taxi seems to be a good backup.
And it's a lot easier to get set up with an account on a ride-sharing service than it is to move all your auctions to a different online auction service.
Even there there's some competitions. Because Ebay decided some legal items weren't worth the hassle, they've banned quite a few items. Thus, auction sites selling said items* sprung up, and it provides a wedge that if Ebay ever gets too bad, there are experienced businesses that would be able to expand and take on more business.
*My personal example is firearms** and firearm accessories, though there's more than that. **No, you can't legally just buy a firearm off an auction site and have it mailed to you. It has to be shipped to an FFL, where you will pick it up in person with a background check.
One thing to realize is that the situation is different in every area. $1M medallions is NYC and a few other spots. For example, I understand Uber is operating more or less completely legally as a black car service in NYC, while it's breaking the law(at least technically) in others. In a number of cases, insurance for example, Uber has adjusted to become compliant with laws.
I'll admit that I use NYC a lot in my Uber examples myself, because it's the most research I've done.
One thing to realize about the taxi companies complaining about rules and regulations - they lobbied for a lot of them themselves to better help keep the market to themselves. See 'regulatory capture'.
In the end, an easy to use rating system(where you're dropped if you go below ~4.3/5) seems to do more to ensure driver 'quality' and performance than all the rules and regulations Taxis face.
It's not the paradigm itself, it's that there's a lot of shady employers out there who want to call their employees "contractors" simply to shift all the risk - and none of the benefits - to them.
Thing is, at least in the USA 'most' cabbies are also considered contractors by the taxi companies. They actually have to rent the vehicle, pay a fee to the dispatcher to get fares, and rent the medallion in areas that require them.
That might help... On the other hand, I have a theory. You know how violence has really dropped off in the USA? Have you heard of the correlation and suspected causation via leaded gasoline?
Basically, the most lead-damaged generation has aged out of the criminal zone and entered the politician zone...
I'm not looking forward to this presidency. The politician I match up to the most is still only a 40% match, which means I still disagree with his choices more than half the time...
So you believe the main objective of society should be simply to produce as much as possible ?
I'm getting the idea our thought processes are very different. No, the objective of society shouldn't be to produce as much as possible. It should be to maximize the life and freedoms of it's citizens.
However, in the exchange of work for pay, productivity matters.
No, it's independent of a BIG. Was your aunt working a full-time, productive job, or was she doing "make-work" to keep her busy and reduce load on the care system ?
Don't know about full time. The work was productive, though, as I said, it wasn't enough to cover her load on the care system, it only helped. She was paid something like $1-2/hour.
Per what person ? Old ? Young ? Healthy ? Unhealthy ? Living in the middle of NYC or in a cheap country town ?
Per person. The rest doesn't matter other than maybe 'young'. There is disagreement on how to handle that. The intent of the BIG is to be a universal income guarantee, and to reduce overhead. You can't do that if you go micromanaging again.
Huh ? This makes no sense at all. They get off the guaranteed job the same way they get off any other job - by finding a better one.
I've never had a guaranteed job lined up when I left my last one. Finding another job is, in itself, a full time job today. At least in the USA.
Cato, et al, support the idea of a BIG because they see it as formally absolving their ubermensch superheroes from having any responsibilities back to the society that created and supports them. It's just another aspect of their broken, selfish, hyper-individualistic philosophy. "Privatise the profits, socialise the losses".
And you're misrepresenting them so you have a nice strawman to attack.
A BIG does nothing to fix unemployment because it does nothing to try and fix unemployment. It assumes unemployment will be fixed by benevolent capitalists employing people and paying them well out of the goodness of their hearts.
ROFL. Dude, I always assume that capitalists are heartless bastards motivated only by the prospect of more money in their wallets. You need to actually read what I write. Services will be provided to people surviving on the BIG for the same reason as everything - they have money to spend, however little. Said services will require people to provide them. Thus employment. That being said, I'll repeat that I don't believe that there's any one solution to employment problems we face.
Mmmm. Freedom from responsibility in my experience.
You can't have freedom without laws and enforcement. You can't have laws and enforcement without Government. Government is - in a proper democratic system - the administering of the People's will.
Then either you haven't met any real libertarians or you're constructing more straw men. Libertarians believe that with liberty comes responsibility.
No you don't. You tie them to the BIG for survival.
You free people by making them self-sufficient.
Yep. You just can't seem to realize that a BIG is just one brick in the pile to do just that.
Why do we need more people to do this ? In a generation, two at the most, robots will be performing almost all low-skill jobs. You talk as if we won't have enough people to do the necessary work to support non-workers, but the more realistic scenario is that we will struggle to find things for the workers to do.
Sigh... It's because the population is dropping too quickly, as I said and you apparently didn't understand. We're only automating at a certain rate, and said rate is slowing. Meanwhile, short of robots out of Asimov's works we need more and more healthcare workers, because automation there isn't progressing very rapidly at all.
Sure. That's because you're probably usually arguing with loony right-wing religious nuts who fundamentally think we're all lazy sinners looking for a free ride, or loony right-wing supply-siders who think the only people who can't find work are the lazy and incompetent.
True. As a libertarian who supports having a BIG(instead of current welfare), my views are 'interesting'. Of course, I'm also a *moderate* libertarian. For example, I often point out that Ayn Rand a: wasn't a libertarian, b: an idiot.
You say that any job should pay enough to live on. I say that not every worker is worth a 'living' wage.
And I say that is a horrifyingly immoral position.
Wierd. I don't view it as a moral position at all. It's a productivity statement.
To deconstruct, you are basically saying that there is some work where you believe the people who do it literally do not deserve to live. That they should be sucked of whatever they can deliver, then left to die.
Only if you ignore the whole BIG proposal. As an example, I have an aunt who is mentally retarded. She has worked in the past. Should she have been paid a 'living' wage? While she enjoyed the work and was paid some for it, by no means was her productivity enough to pay for her to live on, even discounting the additional medical and supervision requirements.
You turn that into a bell curve of productivity, there are indeed people out there who aren't productive enough to support themselves. Thus the BIG. And probably single-payer healthcare because we've managed to create a system that combines the worst aspects of socialism and capitalism, rather than the best.
Probably firstly in the office toilets.
Our janitors? Unlikely.
Firstly, I'll point out that exactly this same "problem"/argument applies to a BIG.
Not really, since a BIG is per person.
Secondly, my personal measure is a liveable wage for a typical family of two adults and 2-3 children. Because anything smaller is below species survival level.
2 working adults? 1? Grandparents? In my family it's 'traditional' to live close enough to them that they provide like half the child care.
No, it's due to the systematic undermining of workers of which outsourcing is but a part. This has been going on for the better part of forty years.
There are other factors, yes, but I'm not trying to pretend that a BIG is a solution to all of them either.
Firstly, you say you're dealing with current reality, yet supporting a BIG is a *massive* change from current methods and mentalities around welfare. You can't really dismiss a jobs guarantee in that context (arguably less of a change than a BIG).
I'm not dismissing it. I even said that a job guarantee could be part of the system. Other than that, I was addressing your assertations about how a BIG would work out that I felt was incorrect.
Secondly, you say you're a libertarian opposed to "government meddling", yet a BIG is about as "government meddling" as you can get since it's effectively making a huge swathe of the population fundamentally reliant on "government" for surviva.
In my apartment, I paid $52-$68. My apartment was 3 times the size of the living space I propose, had 4-inch walls, and did not have any insulation; one entire long wall and one short wall (50% of my wall space), as well as the entire ceiling, was uninsulated and facing directly outside.
Were you paying a significant amount to heat/cool it by electricity? How long ago was this? I'm trying to figure out the source of your numbers.
I was a little wrong, my electric bill's service charge is $17.50. To make this clear, even if I flipped the main breaker for a whole billing period and used 0 kwh, I'd be charged $17.50+taxes, which consumes *MOST* of your figuring for the utility bill.
The fallacy I see you using is using a pure linear estimation on a electric bill for an apartment 3X the size of what you propose. MY point is that electricity costs aren't linear with apartment size.
The difference in electricity use between a ~750 sqft apartment and a 250 one is likely to be negligible. In most cases you're still looking at about the same time with the same lighting, the same computer or TV on the same amount of time, the same electricity demands for cooking, etc...
The poverty line is a relative poverty measure. It's a delineation at which we say people are poor because they look poor. It's distinct from absolute poverty, which is the delineation at which a person cannot afford the basic needs for living. The term "decent life", as you put it, is distinct from "subsistence".
It's still not a bullshit metric. You have to put the line somewhere, and putting the line at 'absolute abject poverty' isn't a good one, and actually varies too much, I think. The poverty line itself includes enough extras that while being on the line isn't the nicest of lives, there's enough extra built into the metric to help cover variances.
That's actually a function of risk control, and not cost. A larger apartment holds a higher-income tenant with less of a flight risk;
Not necessarily. Remember what I mentioned about static costs? There's a basic minimum cost for a functional bathroom or kitchen. Bathrooms/kitchens effectively cost more per square foot, and this price increases as they shrink. As the apartment itself shrinks, the proportion of the apartment that is bathroom/kitchen increases.
Bedroom/living room space is cheap in comparison.
I've seen as low as $0.62/sqft for a 900sqft area; I've seen some apartments as low as $330, but don't like the amount of risk in treating that as the norm.
Cheap apartments are likely to be old apartments. 900 square feet can be cheaper per sqft than 244. Think about it. For a 900 sqft apartment, you still only need to supply 1 each of: refridgerator, stove, sink, bathroom sink, toilet, bathtub or shower, etc... That 900 feet will be more expensive subdivided into 4 tiny apartments because there's more walls involved, and 4 times the appliances/equipment.
we're going to have a multi-year transition period where we've still got people on HUD because the landlords are figuring out what units to build *and* trying to manage finances and logistics in hiring construction to build them.
Don't forget that you'll have to address zoning and building codes. For example, Manhattan has a requirement that the smallest legal apartment is 400 sqft. Bloomberg wanted to reduce it to 300, you'd need to reduce it even more. Chicago stipulates that in any given development must average at least 500. It also has rules about how many apartments can be on the land, how many can be 'efficiency', how many parking spots must be provided, etc... Even
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The person who introduced the law offeret to get it repealed if the NRA would drop it's opposition to the development of smart runs. The NRA refused.
Interesting how interpretations differ. The NRA didn't refuse, it didn't respond. Loretta Weinberg also made a very wishy-washy offer. She didn't promise repeal it, she offered to 'introduce a bill'. She didn't promise to not subsequently veto said bill. Basically, it was a deliberate offer that she knew the NRA wouldn't be willing to take in order to look like she was compromising - rather than actually doing so.
This is complicated by the fact that there's really no 'opposition' by the NRA itself to smart gun technology. Any 'opposition' has only been to the prospect of being FORCED to use such firearms. Basically, if the NJ law goes away, clauses activate in most NRA statements that make them go away, and the NRA's stated position of 'let the market decide' goes into effect. Beyond that, NRA associated publications rate such firearms on their merits. Such as a technical review of the latest offering, where they noted that it took over 10 minutes to pair the gun with a watch, that it took 7 button presses to get the gun ready to fire once paired, and that the firearm couldn't even get through a single 10 round magazine without jamming, even through multiple changes of ammunition types.
The problem is that many people are vehemently against researching the technology or offering current technology for sale. Due to that the reliability/availability issue will never be solved.
Because of the law. I'm ineligible for getting rid of New Jersey's law because I'm not a citizen of New Jersey. But I don't want them to succeed, because I don't want the laws to spread.
Just how large of a problem is this scenario, to mandate introduction of extra points of failure into guns? Do you really think it's going to outweigh the situation parent is talking about?
Magna-trigger, an absolutely ancient implementation of 'smart gun' technology which uses a magnetic ring to make the gun ready to fire, has around a dozen 'saves' credited to it. Sadly, in half a dozen of them the 'save' was other officers, as the criminal killed the officer carrying the protected gun to get it, then tried to kill other officers, but was stopped by the system.
Magna-trigger, not needing fancy electronics, is a much more reliable system, and works through gloves. Since it's not RFID on a watch, it even works if the criminal takes the gun and remains close to you - if your hand isn't in the proper position, it won't fire. It's also substantially cheaper - $400 to modify the gun, rather than a ~$1k price penalty, and $60 for a ring, vs $400 for a watch.
Downsides are that there's only a couple models of firearms they can install it in - primarily revolvers(though I've heard a 1911 solution exists), and the magnetic rings are universal - which isn't actually that bad for a police department because it means that one officer can use the other's if necessary. Downside is that if you tried to spread the technology too widely through civilian arms, the 'protection' would most likely be lost because the criminals would start wearing the rings as well.
States like NJ who already have laws on the books mandating all guns sold in the state must use smart tech once it becomes widely available
NJ's law isn't even "widely available". It's "30 months after ONE model is available for sale". Police are completely exempted, of course. So let's say that I create a system that works, sort of. It's $2k for a .22lr pistol, and the pistol can't be anything stronger because the shock from firing calibers .380 and up is enough to destroy the electronics.
30 months after that, even if NOBODY else has released such a pistol, legally speaking, my firearm would be the only one legal to sell in NJ. Restricting everybody to a $2k .22.
You'd be subject to years in jail just like if you made it full-auto
You think somebody intending mass murder is going to care about a few extra years in jail on top of the 'life in prison w/o parole" for each murder?
Magazine does not unload by itself, that requires a trigger press or manually removing the cartridges. Unless the LEO is at the firing range or in an active shooting situation that magazine will be loaded today, tomorrow, next year, 50 years from now.
Don't forget that the average cop goes out with at least 3 magazines, and if he's practiced it's a 2 second fix to replace the magazine.
You also don't have a functioning firearm without a magazine, they haven't found a superior solution yet. The solution to stopping failures to fire from a battery dying? Don't put a system requiring a battery in there!
I can inspect and replace mechanical parts if they look fatigued or damaged. They're also essential to the operation of the firearm. A 'smart gun' is a lot of extra parts that *can* fail, and they're NOT essential for a gun doing it's core task - setting off a bullet and sending it down the barrel. Inspecting electronics is not something that a standard user can do. Also, if you make the electronics easy to swap out, you're also making them easy to bypass.
I'm not going to say that it can't be done, but it's a change I'd be hell-cautious about. I'm not actually against a 'smart gun', but I don't want to be the test case - give me a call when police departments are *voluntarily* adopting smart guns.
That being said, what makes me oppose them at the moment is New Jersey - which passed a law saying that 30 months after the first smart gun is available for sale in the USA, that ALL firearms sold in the state must be smart.
What do you think car enthusists would say about self-driving cars if a state had a law that said that 3 years after the first self-driving car is available for sale that ALL new cars sold must be self-driving?
I think some of the thinking can be fixed if you don't compare a gun to a car, but a gun to a plane. For example, the standard car engine has one spark plug per cylinder. Your typical plane uses TWO spark plugs and a spark generation system that's not dependent upon the battery to work. Dynamos.
Another thing is that a car has a lot of mass and volume to play with. I'm sure it's electronics wouldn't work as well if you restricted the system to being the size of a deck of cards and mandate that it be mounted directly to the hot engine.
So incomes - wages - and employment are moral issues. Because being unemployed and dependent on a subsistence stipend from the Government, is no way to go through life, son.
I agree with this in principle, but reality is sadly a touch more complex. Fact is nearly everybody needs help sometime in their life, and a few need it nearly continuously.
unless the person she’s working for is selling the product of her labour as if she weren’t disabled, in which case it’s exploitation.
How does that factor if the employer is simply adding the output of her production into the standard supply stream? She assembled sprinkler components. Purchasers wouldn't know that disabled labor was involved at all unless they really dug deep into the certifications and such.
The best way I could describe it was that it was work where she could come close to the production capability of a non-disabled person, but a non-disabled person wouldn't be willing to do the highly repetitive work without much higher compensation. She liked the consistency, a normal person would be bored. The higher compensation for a 'normal' worker would be above the cost of just automating the process. You're correct that it was essentially part of her treatment - she enjoyed the extra money and feeling of contributing something, they enjoyed that it took up time that she didn't have to be as highly supervised.
Huh ? Of course it does. A BIG calibrated for somewhere with very low living costs is all but useless in somewhere with very high living costs (which is to say, would need to be supplemented by additional assistance so people can survive).
Ah, so you're actually rewriting my proposal to fit in with your concepts. No wonder things seem off in your replies.
This is where it becomes a touch more complex. If a person has become
dependent upon the BIG and they're living in a high cost area, my answer
isn't to pay them a larger BIG, it's for them to move. That being said, if NYC wants to suppliment the BIG for it's residents, that's it's thing.
I may care for increasing the average quality of life for people, but I can be quite mean at the individual level. With great freedom comes great responsibility...
Making broad regional adjustments isn’t “micromanaging”. Dictating to people they’re allowed to buy vegetables but not candy is “micromanaging”.
'Management level' is actually a spectrum, but broadly speaking you're correct there. That being said, I think 'broad regional adjustments' should be the states/cities supplimenting the BIG if they wish to do so, not the feds varying it themselves. As I said earlier, if NYC wants to suppliment it, they can. People in NYC would just get 2 deposits instead of one, or however NYC decides to administer things.
Something a JG addresses but a BIG does not
Sure it does. Like I said earlier, it acts like a form of unemployment insurance, which makes moving between jobs easier by reducing the transition risk.
Yes. The point you have not addressed is how that is any different to the situation today, hence how it will improve unemployment, income gaps, etc, over today.
No, you've just ignored them.
Unemployment - By eliminating welfare cliffs, it eliminates the penalties those on welfare face when seeking employment. Ergo, they're more likely to actually find jobs, because a job actually improves their situation.
Income gaps - I don't actually give much of a shit about this.
Speaking of fallacies, that sounds like a Scotsman.
I'm not saying that we don't have idiots. Hell, in a recent survey something like 30% of those who ID as 'libertarian' couldn't ID that we're supposed to be 'small government'.
A belief in social support/welfare/assist
Okay, I don't normally pay attention to ACs, but I think this guy needs modding up. It's hilarious!
To paraphrase the late Steve Wright:
Have you ever wondered about the BATF? Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Does that even make sense? I called them and asked them what kind of wine goes with an AK-47.
They responded by asking me "What have you been smoking?"
The other part of the problem is that the average range trip in the USA is a couple hundred rounds. The average criminal shooting is 2-3 rounds.
The tax is a non-factor for a criminal user, but it's huge for a recreational shooter. This makes such proposals a classic gun prohibition of targeting legitimate users more than criminals.
I'd love for that to be the case, unfortunately New Jersey made that impossible.
Basically, 30 months after a smart gun is available for sale ANYWHERE in the USA, ALL firearms sold in New Jersey MUST be smart.
Imagine what developers of self-driving cars would face from professional and recreational drivers if there was a similar law stating that ALL cars sold must be self-driving less than 3 years after the first one hits the market, no matter how lousy it is. BTW, the police are exempt from the mandate.
The thing with that business model is that the laws against slavery made that business practice illegal, and it was the cab companies, and others that got the laws against slavery repealed or modified to allow debt working.
True.
I just bring it up because people are like "Oh, Uber is taking advantage of it's drivers by having them be 'contractors'!" When in reality, it's still better than most cab drivers are treated.
At least with Uber, the drivers are actually providing their own tools and setting their own hours, which makes them a step more like a subcontractor for a construction job.
Ah. I normally take those when I'm going from a hotel to the airport, but from my house to the airport is more difficult. It'd be easier if I was actually in a city to take a bus there, I think.
Last time I flew I took the bus - but I was parked at a remote lot at work in order to do so, and end up taking a taxi back because the buses don't run that early/late.
They're invariably not covered with you in the car.
100% false, this issue was quickly fixed by Uber purchasing a policy to cover their drivers while they were working.
The remaining issue is who's insurance is responsible when the driver doesn't have passengers, but is seeking clients. In between was which insurance covered when the driver was going towards pickup.
What's wrong with it? It encourages conservation and more drivers coming out and working. I've heard people talk about people who only ever drive for Uber DURING surge pricing.
The alternative is likely more people NOT getting rides.
If you don't take a taxi to the airport, how do you get there? Just curious. I know my family normally tries to have somebody drop them off, but if that isn't available, a taxi seems to be a good backup.
And it's a lot easier to get set up with an account on a ride-sharing service than it is to move all your auctions to a different online auction service.
Even there there's some competitions. Because Ebay decided some legal items weren't worth the hassle, they've banned quite a few items. Thus, auction sites selling said items* sprung up, and it provides a wedge that if Ebay ever gets too bad, there are experienced businesses that would be able to expand and take on more business.
*My personal example is firearms** and firearm accessories, though there's more than that.
**No, you can't legally just buy a firearm off an auction site and have it mailed to you. It has to be shipped to an FFL, where you will pick it up in person with a background check.
One thing to realize is that the situation is different in every area. $1M medallions is NYC and a few other spots. For example, I understand Uber is operating more or less completely legally as a black car service in NYC, while it's breaking the law(at least technically) in others. In a number of cases, insurance for example, Uber has adjusted to become compliant with laws.
I'll admit that I use NYC a lot in my Uber examples myself, because it's the most research I've done.
One thing to realize about the taxi companies complaining about rules and regulations - they lobbied for a lot of them themselves to better help keep the market to themselves. See 'regulatory capture'.
In the end, an easy to use rating system(where you're dropped if you go below ~4.3/5) seems to do more to ensure driver 'quality' and performance than all the rules and regulations Taxis face.
It's not the paradigm itself, it's that there's a lot of shady employers out there who want to call their employees "contractors" simply to shift all the risk - and none of the benefits - to them.
Thing is, at least in the USA 'most' cabbies are also considered contractors by the taxi companies. They actually have to rent the vehicle, pay a fee to the dispatcher to get fares, and rent the medallion in areas that require them.
If they get through my safe lock, I don't think any locks on the individual guns are going to slow them down.
That might help... On the other hand, I have a theory. You know how violence has really dropped off in the USA? Have you heard of the correlation and suspected causation via leaded gasoline?
Basically, the most lead-damaged generation has aged out of the criminal zone and entered the politician zone...
I'm not looking forward to this presidency. The politician I match up to the most is still only a 40% match, which means I still disagree with his choices more than half the time...
So you believe the main objective of society should be simply to produce as much as possible ?
I'm getting the idea our thought processes are very different. No, the objective of society shouldn't be to produce as much as possible. It should be to maximize the life and freedoms of it's citizens.
However, in the exchange of work for pay, productivity matters.
No, it's independent of a BIG. Was your aunt working a full-time, productive job, or was she doing "make-work" to keep her busy and reduce load on the care system ?
Don't know about full time. The work was productive, though, as I said, it wasn't enough to cover her load on the care system, it only helped. She was paid something like $1-2/hour.
Per what person ? Old ? Young ? Healthy ? Unhealthy ? Living in the middle of NYC or in a cheap country town ?
Per person. The rest doesn't matter other than maybe 'young'. There is disagreement on how to handle that. The intent of the BIG is to be a universal income guarantee, and to reduce overhead. You can't do that if you go micromanaging again.
Huh ? This makes no sense at all. They get off the guaranteed job the same way they get off any other job - by finding a better one.
I've never had a guaranteed job lined up when I left my last one. Finding another job is, in itself, a full time job today. At least in the USA.
Cato, et al, support the idea of a BIG because they see it as formally absolving their ubermensch superheroes from having any responsibilities back to the society that created and supports them. It's just another aspect of their broken, selfish, hyper-individualistic philosophy. "Privatise the profits, socialise the losses".
And you're misrepresenting them so you have a nice strawman to attack.
A BIG does nothing to fix unemployment because it does nothing to try and fix unemployment. It assumes unemployment will be fixed by benevolent capitalists employing people and paying them well out of the goodness of their hearts.
ROFL. Dude, I always assume that capitalists are heartless bastards motivated only by the prospect of more money in their wallets. You need to actually read what I write. Services will be provided to people surviving on the BIG for the same reason as everything - they have money to spend, however little. Said services will require people to provide them. Thus employment. That being said, I'll repeat that I don't believe that there's any one solution to employment problems we face.
Mmmm. Freedom from responsibility in my experience.
You can't have freedom without laws and enforcement. You can't have laws and enforcement without Government. Government is - in a proper democratic system - the administering of the People's will.
Then either you haven't met any real libertarians or you're constructing more straw men. Libertarians believe that with liberty comes responsibility.
No you don't. You tie them to the BIG for survival.
You free people by making them self-sufficient.
Yep. You just can't seem to realize that a BIG is just one brick in the pile to do just that.
Why do we need more people to do this ? In a generation, two at the most, robots will be performing almost all low-skill jobs. You talk as if we won't have enough people to do the necessary work to support non-workers, but the more realistic scenario is that we will struggle to find things for the workers to do.
Sigh... It's because the population is dropping too quickly, as I said and you apparently didn't understand. We're only automating at a certain rate, and said rate is slowing. Meanwhile, short of robots out of Asimov's works we need more and more healthcare workers, because automation there isn't progressing very rapidly at all.
Als
Sure. That's because you're probably usually arguing with loony right-wing religious nuts who fundamentally think we're all lazy sinners looking for a free ride, or loony right-wing supply-siders who think the only people who can't find work are the lazy and incompetent.
True. As a libertarian who supports having a BIG(instead of current welfare), my views are 'interesting'. Of course, I'm also a *moderate* libertarian. For example, I often point out that Ayn Rand a: wasn't a libertarian, b: an idiot.
You say that any job should pay enough to live on. I say that not every worker is worth a 'living' wage.
And I say that is a horrifyingly immoral position.
Wierd. I don't view it as a moral position at all. It's a productivity statement.
To deconstruct, you are basically saying that there is some work where you believe the people who do it literally do not deserve to live. That they should be sucked of whatever they can deliver, then left to die.
Only if you ignore the whole BIG proposal. As an example, I have an aunt who is mentally retarded. She has worked in the past. Should she have been paid a 'living' wage? While she enjoyed the work and was paid some for it, by no means was her productivity enough to pay for her to live on, even discounting the additional medical and supervision requirements.
You turn that into a bell curve of productivity, there are indeed people out there who aren't productive enough to support themselves. Thus the BIG. And probably single-payer healthcare because we've managed to create a system that combines the worst aspects of socialism and capitalism, rather than the best.
Probably firstly in the office toilets.
Our janitors? Unlikely.
Firstly, I'll point out that exactly this same "problem"/argument applies to a BIG.
Not really, since a BIG is per person.
Secondly, my personal measure is a liveable wage for a typical family of two adults and 2-3 children. Because anything smaller is below species survival level.
2 working adults? 1? Grandparents? In my family it's 'traditional' to live close enough to them that they provide like half the child care.
No, it's due to the systematic undermining of workers of which outsourcing is but a part. This has been going on for the better part of forty years.
There are other factors, yes, but I'm not trying to pretend that a BIG is a solution to all of them either.
Firstly, you say you're dealing with current reality, yet supporting a BIG is a *massive* change from current methods and mentalities around welfare. You can't really dismiss a jobs guarantee in that context (arguably less of a change than a BIG).
I'm not dismissing it. I even said that a job guarantee could be part of the system. Other than that, I was addressing your assertations about how a BIG would work out that I felt was incorrect.
Secondly, you say you're a libertarian opposed to "government meddling", yet a BIG is about as "government meddling" as you can get since it's effectively making a huge swathe of the population fundamentally reliant on "government" for surviva.
I'm a very wierd libertarian. Still, I'm far from unique:
The Pragmatic Libertarian Case for a Basic Income Guarantee
The Libertarian Case for a Basic Income
Why Did Hayek Support a Basic Income?
I'll point out that libertarians are about freedom. There are many kinds of freedom. Do I increase the freedom of the poor more by taxing the rich?
There's also the matter of the
In my apartment, I paid $52-$68. My apartment was 3 times the size of the living space I propose, had 4-inch walls, and did not have any insulation; one entire long wall and one short wall (50% of my wall space), as well as the entire ceiling, was uninsulated and facing directly outside.
Were you paying a significant amount to heat/cool it by electricity? How long ago was this? I'm trying to figure out the source of your numbers.
I was a little wrong, my electric bill's service charge is $17.50. To make this clear, even if I flipped the main breaker for a whole billing period and used 0 kwh, I'd be charged $17.50+taxes, which consumes *MOST* of your figuring for the utility bill.
The fallacy I see you using is using a pure linear estimation on a electric bill for an apartment 3X the size of what you propose. MY point is that electricity costs aren't linear with apartment size.
The difference in electricity use between a ~750 sqft apartment and a 250 one is likely to be negligible. In most cases you're still looking at about the same time with the same lighting, the same computer or TV on the same amount of time, the same electricity demands for cooking, etc...
The poverty line is a relative poverty measure. It's a delineation at which we say people are poor because they look poor. It's distinct from absolute poverty, which is the delineation at which a person cannot afford the basic needs for living. The term "decent life", as you put it, is distinct from "subsistence".
It's still not a bullshit metric. You have to put the line somewhere, and putting the line at 'absolute abject poverty' isn't a good one, and actually varies too much, I think. The poverty line itself includes enough extras that while being on the line isn't the nicest of lives, there's enough extra built into the metric to help cover variances.
That's actually a function of risk control, and not cost. A larger apartment holds a higher-income tenant with less of a flight risk;
Not necessarily. Remember what I mentioned about static costs? There's a basic minimum cost for a functional bathroom or kitchen. Bathrooms/kitchens effectively cost more per square foot, and this price increases as they shrink. As the apartment itself shrinks, the proportion of the apartment that is bathroom/kitchen increases.
Bedroom/living room space is cheap in comparison.
I've seen as low as $0.62/sqft for a 900sqft area; I've seen some apartments as low as $330, but don't like the amount of risk in treating that as the norm.
Cheap apartments are likely to be old apartments. 900 square feet can be cheaper per sqft than 244. Think about it. For a 900 sqft apartment, you still only need to supply 1 each of: refridgerator, stove, sink, bathroom sink, toilet, bathtub or shower, etc... That 900 feet will be more expensive subdivided into 4 tiny apartments because there's more walls involved, and 4 times the appliances/equipment.
we're going to have a multi-year transition period where we've still got people on HUD because the landlords are figuring out what units to build *and* trying to manage finances and logistics in hiring construction to build them.
Don't forget that you'll have to address zoning and building codes. For example, Manhattan has a requirement that the smallest legal apartment is 400 sqft. Bloomberg wanted to reduce it to 300, you'd need to reduce it even more. Chicago stipulates that in any given development must average at least 500. It also has rules about how many apartments can be on the land, how many can be 'efficiency', how many parking spots must be provided, etc... Even