Who told you that? They're lying. Most of the research going on is done in Europe because it's tough to get America businesses to pay for it. The rest is done in public Universities with government grants. America is all about privatizing profits and socializing costs. I've had a few relatives lives saved by medicine, and even in the States it was by socialized medicine. They ran out of money long before they ran out of illness and the drugs that saved them were developed in Europe. One of their doctors left the States because she couldn't get her cancer research funded. It wasn't profitable enough.
because the insurance companies will fight it tooth and nail. Remember, they're literally fighting for their lives here. And there's no way a small state like Vermont could survive their onslaught. Hell, I don't think California or New York could.
I'm reminded of this. Basically, we're up against an entrenched player with resources on par with a nation state. Nothing less than another nation state stands a chance.
and yes, he wouldn't have won if the racists stayed home. But there aren't enough racists to put him in office. Not anymore. He won because he promised the people in the rust belt that the government work act to solve their problems. Meanwhile Hilary gave vague suggestions about retraining them for jobs that don't exist.
Also, as an American on/. we've all seen hundreds of thousands of tech jobs go up in smoke as H1-Bs are brought in. Besides Bernie Trump is the only candidate who addressed this. He addressed the job losses from NAFTA with something besides 'tough luck kiddo'. Of course he won. Now, he didn't do a damn thing. It's one year out and he hasn't even rescinded Obama's order allowing spouses of visa workers to work here let alone addressed the half a million H1-B holders working on expired visas. But If you're living in the rust belt you literally have nothing to lose.
This is what happens when you ignore the plight of the working class. They find themselves a strongman. Trump's incompetent and therefor relatively harmless. The next one might not be.
he moved the Dems to far right to form a coalition of left and right to get himself in office. The Republicans had to follow suit in order to maintain a distinct brand identity. Around this time money started flowing into politics like never before and a new type of 'Corporate' Democrat appeared; e.g. economically right wing but socially left wing. They used the corporate money to take over the DNC and push out the left and the old school moderate Dems. There's a movement called 'Justice Democrats' trying to take the party back with the help of Bernie Sanders.
and it does a great disservice to Americans. Trump became president for two reasons. First, he ran as a left wing populist. He promised jobs for all, medical care for all (and if rumors are to be believed he floated Single Payer to his cabinet before they shut him down), expanded infrastructure spending and His America First platform gave the impression he'd end the 7 wars we're fighting. Meanwhile Hilary stood for... well nothing. She ran a campaign almost completely without content. I'm knee deep in politics and I couldn't tell you a single policy she'd enact. She was the definition of true conservatism: Keep everything exactly as is. But for millions of Americans living paycheck to paycheck that wasn't enough...
The second reason is she got bilked out of $700 million dollars. That's the amount of money the DNC gave 5 (count 'em 5) consultants to run Hillary's campaign. By all accounts they didn't actually campaign for her. There were numerous reports of zero effort made in the rust belt. Funny thing is same thing happened to Rhomney. You'd think she'd have learned from his mistake...
Anyway, the point is Dems need economic populism if they're going to win; even if the Corporate Blue Dogs don't like it. If the Dems run another "I'm not Trump" style right wing candidate Trump will skate right into another term. Because after all, what have you got to lose?
I know it's a lot harder (there's a dirty joke in there somewhere) but still, you'd think there'd be enough demand. I worked shit jobs for a long time and I couldn't tell you how many dads weren't ready to be dads and would have killed for better / more reliable options.
private insurance was. Your premiums are going up because medical care isn't something that should be paid for by the private sector. It's too complex. You can't 'shop around' for a heart transplant like you can for a breakfast sandwich. Also, you can go without the breakfast sandwich. You can't go without the heart transplant.
The ACA was a bad law. But it was the best we could get with a Congress full of Republicans and Blue Dog Dems. We already know the solution, which is Single Payer. Bernie Sander's has a townhall meeting coming up to discuss it. Hopefully it gets some traction and we can join the rest of the civilized world (who pay 1/2 what we do for better results).
The Dems are all in favor of this as is the electorate. The trouble with the ACA repeal was that the electorate figured out it meant losing access to healthcare and billions of dollars in insurance subsidies. That's what shut it down.
The Republicans are stronger in the House making restoration unlikely there. Even then Trump will almost certainly veto it. If NN is going to come back the Dems have to take the House and Senate by a wide enough margin to overturn a veto.
a disaster at a natural gas plant is a one time thing. Absolute worst case scenario a chunk of city burns down and gets rebuilt and a few hundred folks die in the initial blast. A nuke meltdown takes the whole city out for years, maybe decades. Now, a nuke disaster is completely preventable, but it's expensive as hell to do that. That means there's lots of money to be made buying up nuke plants, cutting corners and pocketing the difference. And if you think for a second there aren't mountains of folks lined up to do just that you're being naive.
We need to fundamentally fix out political system in America before nuclear can be considered 'safe'. As usual it's a people problem, but that fact doesn't make the problem go away. .
Fossil fuels are most common in a few countries. That means odds are you have to go somewhere else to get them unless your country happens to be one of the lucky ones. There's a long history of nasty wars fought over oil. And those wars are _expensive_. The Iraq war's final bill is going to be around $7 trillion with a 'T'. Afghanistan is going to be around $3 trillion.
Then there's pollution. Even if you pretend climate change is a Chinese hoax smog isn't. Asthma, lung cancer, respiratory & heart disease are all exacerbated and in some cases outright caused by burning Fossil Fuels. And if you're using leaded gas you can add sever mental problems to that list.
Then there's the massive subsidies and tax breaks oil companies get. Yeah, yeah, renewables get them too. But it's still part of the cost of oil. Plus oil spills and their clean up. And the cost of shipping the stuff. The list goes on and on, but the first two I cited are the big ones because they're the ones that aren't part of the direct cost and therefor aren't obvious and/or counted.
when the US and the rest of the world loses collective interest in the middle east? Saudi Arabia is just now trying to figure out how to modernize their country when the price of oil collapses. They're desperately trying to get women into the economy because their current social system isn't compatible with the kinds of two income families countries want/need to maintain the growth/profit margins they're used to.
will be buried in a landslide of counter studies by various pro-industry think tanks. A while back Comcast admitted in their SEC filing what it actually cost to provide internet access. It was about $9 bucks. That includes the tech support. Of course, don't you dare suggest we nationalize it. Here in America we privatize the profits and nationalize the losses, so it all balances out.
Oh, and if you're scared of the gov't censoring you when it's nationalized just cast your eyes to China. They don't _need_ to take control of it to censor. The mega-corps are happy to play ball.
they're spending that money on people. It's mostly wars. 7 wars actually (Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya and Syria). After that it's keeping old people alive. See here. 70% of our budget is wars and keeping old folks alive. Now, I'm not opposed to the old folks (I am to the wars).
that only 5 people can understand it is usually being done at a University because it's usually so far from being turned into a product that nobody'll fund it for cash. The exception is High Frequency Trading and military applications (think missile guidance systems); both of which rely on secrecy (and in HFT's case a good 'ole boys network).
Where closed source rules is in boredom. It's hard to get folks to write office software because it's not a very interesting problem to a software dev and unlike the GNU tool chain it's not something the devs need for themselves.
How about neither? How about we stop meddling in everybody's country. We've got 7 wars going on ( Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya and Syria) and we're working on #8 and 9 (DPRK & Iran). Meanwhile I'm up to my eyeballs in debt from college and the roads I drive on are falling apart.
for that terrifying thought. I never thought about us automating our military. The US army is the world's biggest social program. The Military Industrial Complex was thought up as a way to keep the US economy going in the face of crazy wealth inequality. I knew driving jobs are going away. I suspect all but the highest level IT jobs will go some day and eventually even coding jobs. But I forgot about the army. Man, are we in for a rough time with this second (third?) industrial revolution...
How the hell would we entrust such a monumental decision to a robot.
Easy: You just don't care. We already don't care about drone strikes. Every look up the number of civilian casualties in Iraq. Just the ones the US government acknowledges are enough to blow your mind. You'd think it'd make headlines. But it barely even registers.
See in war if you're not personally getting blown to bits and your family ain't then it's easy peasy to just ignore it.
most of the folks I know who are gun-ho on bitcoin are libertarian types, not leftists. e.g. they're flocking to bitcoin because they see it as a way out using fiat currencies. The actual left are nervous about bitcoin for the same reason. Too much power in anyone's hands usually get abused.
Love the John Oliver segment, but it would be child's play to put an app on everybody's phones that relayed GPS coords during and after a 911 call. I know folks scared of gov't tracking (which is funny, since the gov't has plenty of post 9/11 laws that let them track you as much as they want). But I'm a techy and this looks like a pretty easily solvable problem. The real hold up is money. You'd have to pay for it and that means taxes. And to be blunt, the rich neighborhoods have better systems for tracking plus private security systems. This is another one of those problems that only hits the poor and middle class.
Our drug policy + criminal justice system ensures the poor stay safely in the bounds of their own distinct. All without any messy discussions about segregation. When the Rodney King riots happened we used militarized police to surround The neighborhoods and they wreaked their own stuff all without spilling over to the middle class neighborhoods let alone the rich ones.
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Who told you that? They're lying. Most of the research going on is done in Europe because it's tough to get America businesses to pay for it. The rest is done in public Universities with government grants. America is all about privatizing profits and socializing costs. I've had a few relatives lives saved by medicine, and even in the States it was by socialized medicine. They ran out of money long before they ran out of illness and the drugs that saved them were developed in Europe. One of their doctors left the States because she couldn't get her cancer research funded. It wasn't profitable enough.
because the insurance companies will fight it tooth and nail. Remember, they're literally fighting for their lives here. And there's no way a small state like Vermont could survive their onslaught. Hell, I don't think California or New York could.
I'm reminded of this. Basically, we're up against an entrenched player with resources on par with a nation state. Nothing less than another nation state stands a chance.
and yes, he wouldn't have won if the racists stayed home. But there aren't enough racists to put him in office. Not anymore. He won because he promised the people in the rust belt that the government work act to solve their problems. Meanwhile Hilary gave vague suggestions about retraining them for jobs that don't exist.
/. we've all seen hundreds of thousands of tech jobs go up in smoke as H1-Bs are brought in. Besides Bernie Trump is the only candidate who addressed this. He addressed the job losses from NAFTA with something besides 'tough luck kiddo'. Of course he won. Now, he didn't do a damn thing. It's one year out and he hasn't even rescinded Obama's order allowing spouses of visa workers to work here let alone addressed the half a million H1-B holders working on expired visas. But If you're living in the rust belt you literally have nothing to lose.
Also, as an American on
This is what happens when you ignore the plight of the working class. They find themselves a strongman. Trump's incompetent and therefor relatively harmless. The next one might not be.
he moved the Dems to far right to form a coalition of left and right to get himself in office. The Republicans had to follow suit in order to maintain a distinct brand identity. Around this time money started flowing into politics like never before and a new type of 'Corporate' Democrat appeared; e.g. economically right wing but socially left wing. They used the corporate money to take over the DNC and push out the left and the old school moderate Dems. There's a movement called 'Justice Democrats' trying to take the party back with the help of Bernie Sanders.
and it does a great disservice to Americans. Trump became president for two reasons. First, he ran as a left wing populist. He promised jobs for all, medical care for all (and if rumors are to be believed he floated Single Payer to his cabinet before they shut him down), expanded infrastructure spending and His America First platform gave the impression he'd end the 7 wars we're fighting. Meanwhile Hilary stood for... well nothing. She ran a campaign almost completely without content. I'm knee deep in politics and I couldn't tell you a single policy she'd enact. She was the definition of true conservatism: Keep everything exactly as is. But for millions of Americans living paycheck to paycheck that wasn't enough...
The second reason is she got bilked out of $700 million dollars. That's the amount of money the DNC gave 5 (count 'em 5) consultants to run Hillary's campaign. By all accounts they didn't actually campaign for her. There were numerous reports of zero effort made in the rust belt. Funny thing is same thing happened to Rhomney. You'd think she'd have learned from his mistake...
Anyway, the point is Dems need economic populism if they're going to win; even if the Corporate Blue Dogs don't like it. If the Dems run another "I'm not Trump" style right wing candidate Trump will skate right into another term. Because after all, what have you got to lose?
Seriously? After 10 hours they should be down for at least 10 to sleep. Not that it matters, they can just get another account.
I know it's a lot harder (there's a dirty joke in there somewhere) but still, you'd think there'd be enough demand. I worked shit jobs for a long time and I couldn't tell you how many dads weren't ready to be dads and would have killed for better / more reliable options.
private insurance was. Your premiums are going up because medical care isn't something that should be paid for by the private sector. It's too complex. You can't 'shop around' for a heart transplant like you can for a breakfast sandwich. Also, you can go without the breakfast sandwich. You can't go without the heart transplant.
The ACA was a bad law. But it was the best we could get with a Congress full of Republicans and Blue Dog Dems. We already know the solution, which is Single Payer. Bernie Sander's has a townhall meeting coming up to discuss it. Hopefully it gets some traction and we can join the rest of the civilized world (who pay 1/2 what we do for better results).
as per the polls. Comparing polls to policy in a Republic is how you gauge how Democratic your Republic is. Ours is pretty much an oligarchy.
The Dems are all in favor of this as is the electorate. The trouble with the ACA repeal was that the electorate figured out it meant losing access to healthcare and billions of dollars in insurance subsidies. That's what shut it down.
for a project once. Basically train the AI that would replace him. He got right on that.
The Republicans are stronger in the House making restoration unlikely there. Even then Trump will almost certainly veto it. If NN is going to come back the Dems have to take the House and Senate by a wide enough margin to overturn a veto.
a disaster at a natural gas plant is a one time thing. Absolute worst case scenario a chunk of city burns down and gets rebuilt and a few hundred folks die in the initial blast. A nuke meltdown takes the whole city out for years, maybe decades. Now, a nuke disaster is completely preventable, but it's expensive as hell to do that. That means there's lots of money to be made buying up nuke plants, cutting corners and pocketing the difference. And if you think for a second there aren't mountains of folks lined up to do just that you're being naive.
We need to fundamentally fix out political system in America before nuclear can be considered 'safe'. As usual it's a people problem, but that fact doesn't make the problem go away. .
Fossil fuels are most common in a few countries. That means odds are you have to go somewhere else to get them unless your country happens to be one of the lucky ones. There's a long history of nasty wars fought over oil. And those wars are _expensive_. The Iraq war's final bill is going to be around $7 trillion with a 'T'. Afghanistan is going to be around $3 trillion.
Then there's pollution. Even if you pretend climate change is a Chinese hoax smog isn't. Asthma, lung cancer, respiratory & heart disease are all exacerbated and in some cases outright caused by burning Fossil Fuels. And if you're using leaded gas you can add sever mental problems to that list.
Then there's the massive subsidies and tax breaks oil companies get. Yeah, yeah, renewables get them too. But it's still part of the cost of oil. Plus oil spills and their clean up. And the cost of shipping the stuff. The list goes on and on, but the first two I cited are the big ones because they're the ones that aren't part of the direct cost and therefor aren't obvious and/or counted.
when the US and the rest of the world loses collective interest in the middle east? Saudi Arabia is just now trying to figure out how to modernize their country when the price of oil collapses. They're desperately trying to get women into the economy because their current social system isn't compatible with the kinds of two income families countries want/need to maintain the growth/profit margins they're used to.
will be buried in a landslide of counter studies by various pro-industry think tanks. A while back Comcast admitted in their SEC filing what it actually cost to provide internet access. It was about $9 bucks. That includes the tech support. Of course, don't you dare suggest we nationalize it. Here in America we privatize the profits and nationalize the losses, so it all balances out.
Oh, and if you're scared of the gov't censoring you when it's nationalized just cast your eyes to China. They don't _need_ to take control of it to censor. The mega-corps are happy to play ball.
they're spending that money on people. It's mostly wars. 7 wars actually (Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya and Syria). After that it's keeping old people alive. See here. 70% of our budget is wars and keeping old folks alive. Now, I'm not opposed to the old folks (I am to the wars).
that only 5 people can understand it is usually being done at a University because it's usually so far from being turned into a product that nobody'll fund it for cash. The exception is High Frequency Trading and military applications (think missile guidance systems); both of which rely on secrecy (and in HFT's case a good 'ole boys network).
Where closed source rules is in boredom. It's hard to get folks to write office software because it's not a very interesting problem to a software dev and unlike the GNU tool chain it's not something the devs need for themselves.
How about neither? How about we stop meddling in everybody's country. We've got 7 wars going on ( Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya and Syria) and we're working on #8 and 9 (DPRK & Iran). Meanwhile I'm up to my eyeballs in debt from college and the roads I drive on are falling apart.
for that terrifying thought. I never thought about us automating our military. The US army is the world's biggest social program. The Military Industrial Complex was thought up as a way to keep the US economy going in the face of crazy wealth inequality. I knew driving jobs are going away. I suspect all but the highest level IT jobs will go some day and eventually even coding jobs. But I forgot about the army. Man, are we in for a rough time with this second (third?) industrial revolution...
Easy: You just don't care. We already don't care about drone strikes. Every look up the number of civilian casualties in Iraq. Just the ones the US government acknowledges are enough to blow your mind. You'd think it'd make headlines. But it barely even registers.
See in war if you're not personally getting blown to bits and your family ain't then it's easy peasy to just ignore it.
most of the folks I know who are gun-ho on bitcoin are libertarian types, not leftists. e.g. they're flocking to bitcoin because they see it as a way out using fiat currencies. The actual left are nervous about bitcoin for the same reason. Too much power in anyone's hands usually get abused.
Love the John Oliver segment, but it would be child's play to put an app on everybody's phones that relayed GPS coords during and after a 911 call. I know folks scared of gov't tracking (which is funny, since the gov't has plenty of post 9/11 laws that let them track you as much as they want). But I'm a techy and this looks like a pretty easily solvable problem. The real hold up is money. You'd have to pay for it and that means taxes. And to be blunt, the rich neighborhoods have better systems for tracking plus private security systems. This is another one of those problems that only hits the poor and middle class.
Our drug policy + criminal justice system ensures the poor stay safely in the bounds of their own distinct. All without any messy discussions about segregation. When the Rodney King riots happened we used militarized police to surround The neighborhoods and they wreaked their own stuff all without spilling over to the middle class neighborhoods let alone the rich ones.
On infrastructure. We just took on $1.5 trillion in debt to do a bunch of tax cuts. If we want these things we have to pay for them.