"Preparing it in your kitchen" like the poor schmuck renting a bedroom in someone else's house has full kitchen privileges and can just cook whatever they want whenever they need to.
Like the poor schmuck living in a rented bedroom in someone else's house gets a choice of whether that house has TV or not, or could get a discount off their rent/utilities if they decided to forgo watching it.
Also, $300-$500 would cover the filing fees just to ask the judge a goddamn question pro-bono. Double that to also ask a lawyer whether he would ask the judge that for me in the proper way, to which he still might answer "no". Even if he did say yes, and (on contingency) asked the judge to order the relevant documents produced to settle the question, the judge then might say "no". Even if the judge said yes, and the documents were produced, and the question was answered, the answer might still be "no".
And nothing in a library is going to tell me the odds of that, because that outcome depends entirely on the contents of private documents. Just asking for those documents to be produced, in the afore-described way, which is a best case scenario, is several months' rent. The legal theory behind the case is sound, I'm assured, because I'm only aware of any of this happening because another lawyer brought it to my attention -- he's just not allowed to file the case. I just need someone else to look at his strongly-suggestive evidence, and ask the judge to order the production of definitive evidence. But I can't even get anyone to look at that evidence without paying them a crippling sum, and I can't even ask the judge myself without paying the court a crippling sum.
Or even more to the point, it's a matter of unavoidable expenses levied by those with the power to do so (like paying for the right to just exist somewhere) sucking up so much of whatever money someone can make.
A full time minimum wage job could fund quite a luxurious amount of actual consumption, if it weren't for things like rent sucking up so much of that money before it can even be spent on anything.
He did. I asked one of the other lawyers I went to talk to to call that first lawyer (while I was there talking to him) who said he'd send over the information and it should be open and shut and a safe bet for the other lawyer. Other lawyer nominally said "OK do that" while I was there getting my consultation, and said he'd be in touch. When I didn't hear back from the other lawyer I called to ask him if he had received the info and what he thought about the case. He said he thinks the info came in a while before but hadn't looked at it yet because I hadn't paid him yet.
Look here you little shittard, a month's rent is a devastating expense for the vast majority of Americans, who barely have enough to make it until next month. The loss of a month's rent once ruined an entire goddamn year and nearly left me homeless. I'm not in quite such dire straights myself anymore, but I still can't afford to risk that much fucking money; and more to the general point, the vast majority of Americans definitely can't.
As for false accusations, a fucking lawyer with more access to the evidence than anyone except the would-be-accused relative, and an official duty to be neutral to all parties involved, told me that it was extremely likely that my entire family had been wronged, and wanted to file suit to have a judge look at the complete evidence and decide one way or another, but because of his prior involvement couldn't. He tried, he asked the judge to order the relative to produce documents that would have settled the question one way or another, and the judge said he wasn't allowed to file that motion because of his prior involvement in the matter, and that I would have to file it myself.
All I needed was to formally ask the judge "is this apparent grievous wrongdoing against me that's been alleged true?" (because honestly, I have no idea; I barely know the relative in question, and I didn't know that money existed much was was supposed to be due to my family, until unusual circumstances brought it to the involved lawyer's attention, who brought it to mine), but that alone would have cost me a crippling amount of money just to ask that myself, must less to pay a lawyer to ask it in the proper way, and in principle the judge himself might have said "no, I won't answer that question" and that would have been that, wasted a crippling amount of money for nothing, never mind the possibility that he could have ordered the production of the relevant evidence and then found it exonerating.
All the would-be-accused relative, who is already filthy rich with a lawyer on retainer anyway, would have had to do is turn over the documents the judge requested, so he could look at them and make a decision. But because it would cost a crippling amount of money to even ask someone to make her do that, I've just got to take her word for it instead, and probably miss out on the last hope for a hand up out of poverty I'll ever get.
To me, honestly, you sound like some rich asshole who could afford to go on speculative lawsuits for profit, and has no fucking idea how most of the country lives and how inaccessible the barest semblance of justice is to them. You cuntfaced shithole.
This business looks at your case (the evidence and other factors), decides if it's a good investment (likely to win big) or not, and if so, funds it.
I couldn't get someone to so much as look at the evidence without first paying them.
Nobody said "I don't think you have a case here, so no, I won't take it on contingency". They said "pay me and I'll see whether or not you have a case here."
This business necessarily must do the "see if you have a case here" part first (rather, they have an algorithm to do that for them), in order to decide which cases to fund. So that alone would be much further than was getting. They still could have said "no" in the end, but they'd've at least considered the question first.
You've already consulted several professional lawyers on the matter. Why would the algorithm be any different?
I asked the lawyers if they would consider a contingency basis if they thought it was likely the case would be won, and they wouldn't even look to see if the case was likely to be won. This startup's entire business is looking to see which cases are likely to be won, and funding the ones that are. It's still possible that they would find my case unlikely to be won and I'd still be stuck, but (if they took individual and not only business cases) they would at least give me a "yes or no" answer rather than "show me the money first then I'll think about it".
If something like this were available to individuals, it could have been very useful to me recently. Last year it came to light that a relative may have wronged the rest of my family to the tune of a possibly very large sum of money that I hadn't even known existed, but the lawyer informing me of this likelihood could not act on it himself (on my family's behalf) because of his prior involvement in the situation, so advised me to get another lawyer and file suit about it myself. But just the filing fees, never mind attorney's fees, would be about a month's rent, and I can't risk that kind of money just to find out whether there's a lot more money due to me or not. I asked several lawyers if they would look at the facts of the matter (neatly packaged by the involved lawyer), decide whether it seemed likely that they would win the case, and take it on a contingency basis if so, but none would even consider that.
With an algorithm like this, available to individuals, they (this new startup) could have made the assessment of whether I was likely to win the case, and funded it if so. Something like that could do miracles for justice, if it were available to individuals.
Where does it say they are looking for VC funding? They are advertising their new business, which might fund you if you have a business lawsuit that they think they can profit from.
That was my thought as well, that this sounds like an awesome way of helping (at least some) people get access to the justice they deserve, until they got to the part about not helping lawsuits by individuals, only businesses.
And when they go to plug it in to their car/home sound system that only has a stereo jack input?
Also, I must be taller than the average iPhone user because if anything the problem I have with cords is not enough slack, though just barely. Wireless earbuds do sound nice for that reason (until they fall out into the dirt while I'm hiking with no cord to catch them, at least), and it would be nice to have them included with the phone. But including them doesn't necessitate eliminating the stereo jack, and all of the drawbacks that comes with that.
You are forgetting Joe Average User whose phone carrier tells them they're eligible for an upgrade to the latest new shiny, who eagerly accepts the latest new shiny without asking questions and then finds that the latest new shiny is missing an essential feature that the old shiny had always had and that Mr. Average User here would never have conceived their new improved shiny might possibly lack.
In that case the problem isn't just that black people are poorer and so lack the advantages of wealth, as your post I first replied to suggested. There's evidently some other factor (besides wealth inequality) racially biasing income mobility (which in turn leads to wealth inequality and the disadvantages that brings), and that's what needs to be addressed (in addition to wealth inequality).
When I am comfortable and without external pressures for a while, two things happen. One, I get bored and want to do something. Two, I'm full of positive energy and want to apply that to making something somewhere better. So I start to do things, like clean house, or work on neglected projects, or sometimes starting a new project. I'm not seeking out "grim" things to spoil my good mood. I'm seeking out good things, things that I want to have done, that I've finally got the emotional energy to do.
This result is like saying "study finds that when people have too much money, they seek to get rid of it by spending it on things, contradicting assumptions that people generally want to have more money". No, of course not. They've just finally got enough money that they can spend it on things they want to. They still want more money in the future, so that they can use it to buy other things.
Likewise, happy people doing "grim" tasks aren't trying to get rid of their "excess" happiness, they've just finally got the emotional energy to spend doing things. They still want more happiness, so they can spend that emotional energy doing more things.
If the real problem is that poor people need a hand (which they do) and it's just that black people are generally more poor than white people (which they are), then policies that address the disadvantage of poverty directly will, as a consequence of the existing racial bias in poverty, automatically help black people more than it does white people, to exactly the extent of that bias, and for only so long as that bias persists.
No need for policies to directly address race at all.
This basically sums up why I, currently making twice the median income, am still a gigantic ball of stress all the time. I've been homeless -- not quite as bad as you describe it, and only very briefly, but I hovered very close to it for a long time before and after, and got there after having been "quite well off" as I thought it for quite some time before. Everything is super great right now, better than it's even been, and it LOOKS like it's all up and up from here, but if the wrong shit hit the wrong fan right now, I could be sleeping in my car again within a year. For most people, that's "within a month" instead. Life is fucking scary until you OUTRIGHT OWN a home. Not mortgaging; that's still just renting from the bank.
"Data" is the plural of "datum", and you use "are" with plurals.
There is one datum. There are many data.
Recently "data" has also morphed into a mass noun, like "water", but in that case you would use "much" rather than "many" (unless, as you suggest, there's a unit that was omitted; there is much data, there are many data points, there is much water, there are many bodies of water, etc).
A basic income is easily (and ideally) self-funding. You give everyone x% of the mean income, you tax everyone x% of their income, the math automatically works out because that's what averages do, and because of the distributions of incomes we have about 75% of people see a net gain from this (the mean is about the 75th percentile), and the vast majority of even those above the mean see a very small loss overall (in increased taxes minus their own basic income they receive), because a ridiculously huge chunk of income is concentrated in the very top few percentiles, who are the only people who would see a significant increase in their taxes.
IOW when the money raised by the tax is being given right back to the people, most of the give and take cancels out. You're not actually adding an additional huge tax burden on the populace to spend on some enormous project; you're just giving it right back, slightly shuffled, and only those who really really need it get to keep anything significant, and only those who can really really afford it actually shoulder much burden.
You must live somewhere ridiculously cheap if you think that kind of income can keep anyone from homelessness.
My mother gets a disability stipend of close to $900/mo and is constantly on the verge of homelessness, barely able to afford food after paying her rent on a shitty shared bedroom in a house full of people in a similar situation.
I remember the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, and I remember lots of people checking the facts being promulgated in the mainstream news. That didn't stop them from promulgating falsehoods anyway, but anyone who actually cared about the facts could find them checked easily in plentiful other sources.
Slashdot Mirror
"Preparing it in your kitchen" like the poor schmuck renting a bedroom in someone else's house has full kitchen privileges and can just cook whatever they want whenever they need to.
Like the poor schmuck living in a rented bedroom in someone else's house gets a choice of whether that house has TV or not, or could get a discount off their rent/utilities if they decided to forgo watching it.
Also, $300-$500 would cover the filing fees just to ask the judge a goddamn question pro-bono. Double that to also ask a lawyer whether he would ask the judge that for me in the proper way, to which he still might answer "no". Even if he did say yes, and (on contingency) asked the judge to order the relevant documents produced to settle the question, the judge then might say "no". Even if the judge said yes, and the documents were produced, and the question was answered, the answer might still be "no".
And nothing in a library is going to tell me the odds of that, because that outcome depends entirely on the contents of private documents. Just asking for those documents to be produced, in the afore-described way, which is a best case scenario, is several months' rent. The legal theory behind the case is sound, I'm assured, because I'm only aware of any of this happening because another lawyer brought it to my attention -- he's just not allowed to file the case. I just need someone else to look at his strongly-suggestive evidence, and ask the judge to order the production of definitive evidence. But I can't even get anyone to look at that evidence without paying them a crippling sum, and I can't even ask the judge myself without paying the court a crippling sum.
Or even more to the point, it's a matter of unavoidable expenses levied by those with the power to do so (like paying for the right to just exist somewhere) sucking up so much of whatever money someone can make.
A full time minimum wage job could fund quite a luxurious amount of actual consumption, if it weren't for things like rent sucking up so much of that money before it can even be spent on anything.
He did. I asked one of the other lawyers I went to talk to to call that first lawyer (while I was there talking to him) who said he'd send over the information and it should be open and shut and a safe bet for the other lawyer. Other lawyer nominally said "OK do that" while I was there getting my consultation, and said he'd be in touch. When I didn't hear back from the other lawyer I called to ask him if he had received the info and what he thought about the case. He said he thinks the info came in a while before but hadn't looked at it yet because I hadn't paid him yet.
Why can't people fucking read.
"Rejected" and "wouldn't look at without payment first" are not the same thing.
Look here you little shittard, a month's rent is a devastating expense for the vast majority of Americans, who barely have enough to make it until next month. The loss of a month's rent once ruined an entire goddamn year and nearly left me homeless. I'm not in quite such dire straights myself anymore, but I still can't afford to risk that much fucking money; and more to the general point, the vast majority of Americans definitely can't.
As for false accusations, a fucking lawyer with more access to the evidence than anyone except the would-be-accused relative, and an official duty to be neutral to all parties involved, told me that it was extremely likely that my entire family had been wronged, and wanted to file suit to have a judge look at the complete evidence and decide one way or another, but because of his prior involvement couldn't. He tried, he asked the judge to order the relative to produce documents that would have settled the question one way or another, and the judge said he wasn't allowed to file that motion because of his prior involvement in the matter, and that I would have to file it myself.
All I needed was to formally ask the judge "is this apparent grievous wrongdoing against me that's been alleged true?" (because honestly, I have no idea; I barely know the relative in question, and I didn't know that money existed much was was supposed to be due to my family, until unusual circumstances brought it to the involved lawyer's attention, who brought it to mine), but that alone would have cost me a crippling amount of money just to ask that myself, must less to pay a lawyer to ask it in the proper way, and in principle the judge himself might have said "no, I won't answer that question" and that would have been that, wasted a crippling amount of money for nothing, never mind the possibility that he could have ordered the production of the relevant evidence and then found it exonerating.
All the would-be-accused relative, who is already filthy rich with a lawyer on retainer anyway, would have had to do is turn over the documents the judge requested, so he could look at them and make a decision. But because it would cost a crippling amount of money to even ask someone to make her do that, I've just got to take her word for it instead, and probably miss out on the last hope for a hand up out of poverty I'll ever get.
To me, honestly, you sound like some rich asshole who could afford to go on speculative lawsuits for profit, and has no fucking idea how most of the country lives and how inaccessible the barest semblance of justice is to them. You cuntfaced shithole.
You still seem to be missing the point.
This business looks at your case (the evidence and other factors), decides if it's a good investment (likely to win big) or not, and if so, funds it.
I couldn't get someone to so much as look at the evidence without first paying them.
Nobody said "I don't think you have a case here, so no, I won't take it on contingency". They said "pay me and I'll see whether or not you have a case here."
This business necessarily must do the "see if you have a case here" part first (rather, they have an algorithm to do that for them), in order to decide which cases to fund. So that alone would be much further than was getting. They still could have said "no" in the end, but they'd've at least considered the question first.
You've already consulted several professional lawyers on the matter. Why would the algorithm be any different?
I asked the lawyers if they would consider a contingency basis if they thought it was likely the case would be won, and they wouldn't even look to see if the case was likely to be won. This startup's entire business is looking to see which cases are likely to be won, and funding the ones that are. It's still possible that they would find my case unlikely to be won and I'd still be stuck, but (if they took individual and not only business cases) they would at least give me a "yes or no" answer rather than "show me the money first then I'll think about it".
Ok, I didn't know what that was, and the summary doesn't make it clear; I had assumed some kind of technology convention. Thanks for informing me.
If something like this were available to individuals, it could have been very useful to me recently. Last year it came to light that a relative may have wronged the rest of my family to the tune of a possibly very large sum of money that I hadn't even known existed, but the lawyer informing me of this likelihood could not act on it himself (on my family's behalf) because of his prior involvement in the situation, so advised me to get another lawyer and file suit about it myself. But just the filing fees, never mind attorney's fees, would be about a month's rent, and I can't risk that kind of money just to find out whether there's a lot more money due to me or not. I asked several lawyers if they would look at the facts of the matter (neatly packaged by the involved lawyer), decide whether it seemed likely that they would win the case, and take it on a contingency basis if so, but none would even consider that.
With an algorithm like this, available to individuals, they (this new startup) could have made the assessment of whether I was likely to win the case, and funded it if so. Something like that could do miracles for justice, if it were available to individuals.
Where does it say they are looking for VC funding? They are advertising their new business, which might fund you if you have a business lawsuit that they think they can profit from.
That was my thought as well, that this sounds like an awesome way of helping (at least some) people get access to the justice they deserve, until they got to the part about not helping lawsuits by individuals, only businesses.
And when they go to plug it in to their car/home sound system that only has a stereo jack input?
Also, I must be taller than the average iPhone user because if anything the problem I have with cords is not enough slack, though just barely. Wireless earbuds do sound nice for that reason (until they fall out into the dirt while I'm hiking with no cord to catch them, at least), and it would be nice to have them included with the phone. But including them doesn't necessitate eliminating the stereo jack, and all of the drawbacks that comes with that.
You are forgetting Joe Average User whose phone carrier tells them they're eligible for an upgrade to the latest new shiny, who eagerly accepts the latest new shiny without asking questions and then finds that the latest new shiny is missing an essential feature that the old shiny had always had and that Mr. Average User here would never have conceived their new improved shiny might possibly lack.
Affirmative action is not confined solely to racial issues; it can deal with gender and other things too.
GP's native term "positive discrimination" really captures it best, though the "positive" could still be questioned.
In that case the problem isn't just that black people are poorer and so lack the advantages of wealth, as your post I first replied to suggested. There's evidently some other factor (besides wealth inequality) racially biasing income mobility (which in turn leads to wealth inequality and the disadvantages that brings), and that's what needs to be addressed (in addition to wealth inequality).
When I am comfortable and without external pressures for a while, two things happen. One, I get bored and want to do something. Two, I'm full of positive energy and want to apply that to making something somewhere better. So I start to do things, like clean house, or work on neglected projects, or sometimes starting a new project. I'm not seeking out "grim" things to spoil my good mood. I'm seeking out good things, things that I want to have done, that I've finally got the emotional energy to do.
This result is like saying "study finds that when people have too much money, they seek to get rid of it by spending it on things, contradicting assumptions that people generally want to have more money". No, of course not. They've just finally got enough money that they can spend it on things they want to. They still want more money in the future, so that they can use it to buy other things.
Likewise, happy people doing "grim" tasks aren't trying to get rid of their "excess" happiness, they've just finally got the emotional energy to spend doing things. They still want more happiness, so they can spend that emotional energy doing more things.
FYI I think the English phrase you're looking for is "affirmative action", not "positive action".
If the real problem is that poor people need a hand (which they do) and it's just that black people are generally more poor than white people (which they are), then policies that address the disadvantage of poverty directly will, as a consequence of the existing racial bias in poverty, automatically help black people more than it does white people, to exactly the extent of that bias, and for only so long as that bias persists.
No need for policies to directly address race at all.
This basically sums up why I, currently making twice the median income, am still a gigantic ball of stress all the time. I've been homeless -- not quite as bad as you describe it, and only very briefly, but I hovered very close to it for a long time before and after, and got there after having been "quite well off" as I thought it for quite some time before. Everything is super great right now, better than it's even been, and it LOOKS like it's all up and up from here, but if the wrong shit hit the wrong fan right now, I could be sleeping in my car again within a year. For most people, that's "within a month" instead. Life is fucking scary until you OUTRIGHT OWN a home. Not mortgaging; that's still just renting from the bank.
Rent is the cause of all of this.
"Data" is the plural of "datum", and you use "are" with plurals.
There is one datum.
There are many data.
Recently "data" has also morphed into a mass noun, like "water", but in that case you would use "much" rather than "many" (unless, as you suggest, there's a unit that was omitted; there is much data, there are many data points, there is much water, there are many bodies of water, etc).
But the older sense used here is still correct.
A basic income is easily (and ideally) self-funding. You give everyone x% of the mean income, you tax everyone x% of their income, the math automatically works out because that's what averages do, and because of the distributions of incomes we have about 75% of people see a net gain from this (the mean is about the 75th percentile), and the vast majority of even those above the mean see a very small loss overall (in increased taxes minus their own basic income they receive), because a ridiculously huge chunk of income is concentrated in the very top few percentiles, who are the only people who would see a significant increase in their taxes.
IOW when the money raised by the tax is being given right back to the people, most of the give and take cancels out. You're not actually adding an additional huge tax burden on the populace to spend on some enormous project; you're just giving it right back, slightly shuffled, and only those who really really need it get to keep anything significant, and only those who can really really afford it actually shoulder much burden.
You must live somewhere ridiculously cheap if you think that kind of income can keep anyone from homelessness.
My mother gets a disability stipend of close to $900/mo and is constantly on the verge of homelessness, barely able to afford food after paying her rent on a shitty shared bedroom in a house full of people in a similar situation.
I remember the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, and I remember lots of people checking the facts being promulgated in the mainstream news. That didn't stop them from promulgating falsehoods anyway, but anyone who actually cared about the facts could find them checked easily in plentiful other sources.
The question was where should you, and all your friends, move to as Facebook falls into decline. Wherever that is, your friends aren't there yet.