I actually made two errors. The other was insinuating that the British did not have the best navy in the world before the war, which of course they did.
I'd argue that debt or no, that wealth was transferred. To the US businesses, it was cash - the money was essentially printed, as sovereign debt is as good as cash - like treasuries are today. The Brits then had to service the debt, which reduced the amount that they had available to spend. The war effectively made the UK a whole lot poorer and the US a whole lot richer.
I have done a poor job of communicating, because that is not what I meant to claim at all. The British Navy was pretty much supreme for a long time. WWI marked the rise of the American navy and sparked (or accelerated) a battleship arms race that the Brits could ill afford to keep pace with, nor lose. The American population mostly wanted nothing to do with it, either - thus the arms control treaties.
Using the word "ally" here insinuates that the British-US relationship was as close as it is today. In fact, the WWI relationship was not nearly as cozy. The US provided the UK with massive amounts of war material, but at great cost. It's not absurd to say that a century or so of accrued wealth flowed from London to NYC. As a result of the UK's near-suffocation at the hands of German U-boats, they developed a healthy new respect for having a top-notch navy. Their problem was that the now very wealthy US also learned how important a top-notch navy was, and proceeded to get into an arms race with their ally. There was a very real fear that the new power would necessarily get into a conflict with the old power - kind of the same fears you hear about Sino-US relations today, though the analogy is not perfect. This tension was diffused quite a bit by the Washington Naval Treaty and follow-on treaties, but hopefully this illustrates that the relationship was not the same as it is today.
I've used it with CallCentric. It works, but as others have stated it really sucks down your battery life. Instead I now just have an Obi device plugged into regular cordless phones, and I have the unit ring my cell and work desk phone as well. The result is that I get away with using T-Mobile's $30/mo prepay plan that only includes 100 minutes, but has 5GB high speed/ unlimited Edge and unlimited texts.
Looked at from another direction, justice requires that if government shields the manufacturer from liability, it must stand in and accept the liability itself.
The problem is that most of those "severe vaccine reactions" are hard to prove. They are so infrequent that they could statistically have happened by chance after a person was vaccinated. Are you aware of one where my statement isn't true? I don't want to be coming from a position of ignorance.
That situation CAN come up even if your vaccinations are in order.
Right, but it is extremely unlikely to come up if everyone is vaccinated - thus my claim that a societal solution is needed.
I'm not so sure about making the vaccination absolutely mandatory
I don't think it should be mandatory, either. But I think that employers should be able to discriminate based on vaccination status. I think that, when there is an outbreak of the disease, non-vaccinated children should not be allowed in school.
And make sure that the very rare but existent harmful reaction is very well compensated. After all, it happened in service to society.
Perhaps. Or perhaps it should just be recognized that, on balance, public health efforts such as the measles vaccination program are a big part of why your life expectancy is 80 and not 45.
The line is difficult to draw. We could consider the seriousness of the harm that might be expected. We know someone with the flu may miss work and be financially damaged. We know some people who get the flu die of it (mostly the infirm). We know measles is more likely to be fatal but we also know most people are vaccinated against it. We know further that whatever we might be sick with, measles is unlikely, vaccinated or not (though that may change).
There is one more element to consider: measles is easily wiped out with a universal vaccine program. I have never heard anyone seriously claim that the flu could be wiped out with existing technology. In my opinion, there is a moral distinction between someone who, by their inaction, thwarts the eradication of a disease and someone who simply makes the pragmatic choice of going to work with a flu/cold because of societal pressures.
But in any event, epidemic disease cannot be fought within the framework of individuals. It has to be a collective effort, so libertarian arguments are mostly academic. By the time Disney responded to negative publicity and whatnot, the disease had already spread. The Libertarian argument that the financial incentive not to kill customers will save the day is not very convincing - Disneyland could close today and the disease has already spread... their future behavior is largely irrelevant. Other businesses cannot simply become scared and require vaccines because other financial concerns (of being sued, etc.) pull in the other direction.
I was at work when I typed that or I would have run a test. I just ran the Ookla test and got 23 down / 6 up. Technically I pay something like $53 for the internet, but that includes a $10 discount for having cable, which costs about $10 for limited basic. Without cable, it would be $63 - so I get it for "free" I guess. Taxes and fees and a $2 box rental bring me up to $69.95.
Really, really pricey - but it's good to have a monopoly.
I pay around $70 for Comcast, after all of the taxes and whatnot, for "Performance Internet" only. As far as I can tell, that's 25Mbps down and they don't advertise the up but it is nowhere near symmetric. I think you have a slightly better (though still crappy) deal.
Whatever the battery life, the idea of a $60 computer that can run full-blown windows still kind of blows my mind. I remember when my co-workers and I would come back from Asia with Librettos because we thought they were so mind-blowingly small.:)
I'm not sure why anyone would mourn the worthless abortion that was Windows RT.
Most of MS's initial attempts are "worthless abortions". I was hoping that they would stick with it in the boneheaded way that they always do to provide another competitive option. You see iOS and Android borrow from MS and from each other. I mourn the loss of competition, not the product itself.
And no, I don't consider the full-blown Surface to be real competition for most Android tablets. It's in the price range of the iPads, but has half the battery life. You have to actually need Windows in order for it to be an attractive option. Interface design is subjective, but the necessity to flip between tablet-land and the traditional desktop seriously hurts usability IMHO. Both Android and iOS are simpler.
That's sad. "Competition" in this space is now between iOS and Android. It's reminding me of the early 90s in the PC realm, and Commodore just bit the dust.
(I apologize to fans of the Amiga for comparing the Amiga to RT. Don't take the analogy too far...)
Your smoking outside does not infringe on my rights. Your obesity does not infringe on my rights. Sure, it makes our group health coverage more expensive, but I'm not ready to call cheaper mutual insurance a natural right.
In the past, we've gotten by with having most people get vaccinated, and the fringe weirdos could slide along with herd immunity. The problem now is that we have too many fringe weirdos - to the point where they don't even consider themselves weird. This is at least in part thanks to the self-reinforcing nature of the internet and celebrities.
We just need to get back to the "fringe weirdos" stage, not get 100% compliance. It would be a shame to abandon too much of our country's libertarian ideals for this one problem - but I'll grant you that sometimes you have to cave to reality. A good example is war - people go in with all sorts of ideals about how wars should be fought, but an enemy without those ideals can force you to play their game instead. Measles does not respect individual liberty, and we need to be cognizant of that in our response.
By knowingly making themselves an incubator for a communicable disease.
By their very nature, epidemics need to be managed at the society level. I think libertarianism is a fantastic base ideology, but communicable disease tends to not care much for individual-based thinking.
Really you're saying "you are going to have too many sick days, i can just tell it!" is justification for dismissal.
No, I'm saying, "You are going to make other people here, or their non-vaccinated dependents, sick."
I mean, this story is a perfect example that it isn't just a matter of sick days. Disneyland has a real nightmare on their hands.
but if vaccinations actually worked, Darwin would take over and ONLY THOSE WHO REFUSED VACCINATIONS DIE.
I reject your assertion that "worked" is binary. Vaccination effectiveness is measured in percentages, not with a simple "true" or "false". You have a small percentage chance of being infected even if you were vaccinated.
Then throw in that a small portion of the population cannot be vaccinated. We were all part of this cohort at one time as newborns. Combine the percentage of people who cannot be vaccinated and the number with ineffective vaccines and there isn't a whole lot of headroom for ignorance. This is why Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria are the last places on earth with polio.
because I am not anti vax, but i am pro choice. in that people should be free to do as they wish with their own bodies
That is my baseline as well. But while I lean libertarian, the measles virus has no such ideology. As such, I am pragmatic and realize that this probably crosses the line of "your rights end where mine begin". You are infringing on other people's rights by knowingly and voluntarily making yourself vulnerable to deadly disease. I suppose that just like the right to free speech, people should have a right to not be vaccinated - but they do not have a right to be free from the consequences. Long and short - employers should be able to discriminate against people who voluntarily refuse vaccinations.
EOL doesn't really have any practical effect on a 10-year-old system, though. I mean, unless you have it hooked directly to the internet or use IE. I don't think even a totally unpatched XP would be a problem if you stuck to an alternative browser and surfed behind a NAT. Pehaps in a few more years when even software stops supporting XP.... that's what made me leave 98SE, and then later 2000. I only dumped XP because once the hard drive went, I couldn't really justify putting money into such an old system when I could get all-new guts for under $200. And once you have new guts you really need to reinstall Windows. And once you are doing that, why not use 7? Now I'm good for the next 10 years:)
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, but as a friend put it - no one is impressed when Boston gets snow.
I actually made two errors. The other was insinuating that the British did not have the best navy in the world before the war, which of course they did.
I'd argue that debt or no, that wealth was transferred. To the US businesses, it was cash - the money was essentially printed, as sovereign debt is as good as cash - like treasuries are today. The Brits then had to service the debt, which reduced the amount that they had available to spend. The war effectively made the UK a whole lot poorer and the US a whole lot richer.
I have done a poor job of communicating, because that is not what I meant to claim at all. The British Navy was pretty much supreme for a long time. WWI marked the rise of the American navy and sparked (or accelerated) a battleship arms race that the Brits could ill afford to keep pace with, nor lose. The American population mostly wanted nothing to do with it, either - thus the arms control treaties.
an ally
Using the word "ally" here insinuates that the British-US relationship was as close as it is today. In fact, the WWI relationship was not nearly as cozy. The US provided the UK with massive amounts of war material, but at great cost. It's not absurd to say that a century or so of accrued wealth flowed from London to NYC. As a result of the UK's near-suffocation at the hands of German U-boats, they developed a healthy new respect for having a top-notch navy. Their problem was that the now very wealthy US also learned how important a top-notch navy was, and proceeded to get into an arms race with their ally. There was a very real fear that the new power would necessarily get into a conflict with the old power - kind of the same fears you hear about Sino-US relations today, though the analogy is not perfect. This tension was diffused quite a bit by the Washington Naval Treaty and follow-on treaties, but hopefully this illustrates that the relationship was not the same as it is today.
I've used it with CallCentric. It works, but as others have stated it really sucks down your battery life. Instead I now just have an Obi device plugged into regular cordless phones, and I have the unit ring my cell and work desk phone as well. The result is that I get away with using T-Mobile's $30/mo prepay plan that only includes 100 minutes, but has 5GB high speed/ unlimited Edge and unlimited texts.
I got both of my kids vaccinated, because I'm not an ignorant asshole.
Looked at from another direction, justice requires that if government shields the manufacturer from liability, it must stand in and accept the liability itself.
Yes, I agree.
The problem is that most of those "severe vaccine reactions" are hard to prove. They are so infrequent that they could statistically have happened by chance after a person was vaccinated. Are you aware of one where my statement isn't true? I don't want to be coming from a position of ignorance.
Completely agree. For a brief time, Chrome had vertical tabs built-in as a beta feature. They killed it, and so too they killed my use of Chrome.
That situation CAN come up even if your vaccinations are in order.
Right, but it is extremely unlikely to come up if everyone is vaccinated - thus my claim that a societal solution is needed.
I'm not so sure about making the vaccination absolutely mandatory
I don't think it should be mandatory, either. But I think that employers should be able to discriminate based on vaccination status. I think that, when there is an outbreak of the disease, non-vaccinated children should not be allowed in school.
And make sure that the very rare but existent harmful reaction is very well compensated. After all, it happened in service to society.
Perhaps. Or perhaps it should just be recognized that, on balance, public health efforts such as the measles vaccination program are a big part of why your life expectancy is 80 and not 45.
You guys in Seattle, whether you know it or not, are actually known for your incredibly poor broadband options.
The line is difficult to draw. We could consider the seriousness of the harm that might be expected. We know someone with the flu may miss work and be financially damaged. We know some people who get the flu die of it (mostly the infirm). We know measles is more likely to be fatal but we also know most people are vaccinated against it. We know further that whatever we might be sick with, measles is unlikely, vaccinated or not (though that may change).
There is one more element to consider: measles is easily wiped out with a universal vaccine program. I have never heard anyone seriously claim that the flu could be wiped out with existing technology. In my opinion, there is a moral distinction between someone who, by their inaction, thwarts the eradication of a disease and someone who simply makes the pragmatic choice of going to work with a flu/cold because of societal pressures.
But in any event, epidemic disease cannot be fought within the framework of individuals. It has to be a collective effort, so libertarian arguments are mostly academic. By the time Disney responded to negative publicity and whatnot, the disease had already spread. The Libertarian argument that the financial incentive not to kill customers will save the day is not very convincing - Disneyland could close today and the disease has already spread... their future behavior is largely irrelevant. Other businesses cannot simply become scared and require vaccines because other financial concerns (of being sued, etc.) pull in the other direction.
I was at work when I typed that or I would have run a test. I just ran the Ookla test and got 23 down / 6 up. Technically I pay something like $53 for the internet, but that includes a $10 discount for having cable, which costs about $10 for limited basic. Without cable, it would be $63 - so I get it for "free" I guess. Taxes and fees and a $2 box rental bring me up to $69.95.
Really, really pricey - but it's good to have a monopoly.
I pay around $70 for Comcast, after all of the taxes and whatnot, for "Performance Internet" only. As far as I can tell, that's 25Mbps down and they don't advertise the up but it is nowhere near symmetric. I think you have a slightly better (though still crappy) deal.
Whatever the battery life, the idea of a $60 computer that can run full-blown windows still kind of blows my mind. I remember when my co-workers and I would come back from Asia with Librettos because we thought they were so mind-blowingly small. :)
Is that the iView? My understanding is that there is a battery life penalty. 2/3 to 1/2 that of a comparable ARM system.
I'm not sure why anyone would mourn the worthless abortion that was Windows RT.
Most of MS's initial attempts are "worthless abortions". I was hoping that they would stick with it in the boneheaded way that they always do to provide another competitive option. You see iOS and Android borrow from MS and from each other. I mourn the loss of competition, not the product itself.
And no, I don't consider the full-blown Surface to be real competition for most Android tablets. It's in the price range of the iPads, but has half the battery life. You have to actually need Windows in order for it to be an attractive option. Interface design is subjective, but the necessity to flip between tablet-land and the traditional desktop seriously hurts usability IMHO. Both Android and iOS are simpler.
That's sad. "Competition" in this space is now between iOS and Android. It's reminding me of the early 90s in the PC realm, and Commodore just bit the dust.
(I apologize to fans of the Amiga for comparing the Amiga to RT. Don't take the analogy too far...)
Your smoking outside does not infringe on my rights. Your obesity does not infringe on my rights. Sure, it makes our group health coverage more expensive, but I'm not ready to call cheaper mutual insurance a natural right.
In the past, we've gotten by with having most people get vaccinated, and the fringe weirdos could slide along with herd immunity. The problem now is that we have too many fringe weirdos - to the point where they don't even consider themselves weird. This is at least in part thanks to the self-reinforcing nature of the internet and celebrities.
We just need to get back to the "fringe weirdos" stage, not get 100% compliance. It would be a shame to abandon too much of our country's libertarian ideals for this one problem - but I'll grant you that sometimes you have to cave to reality. A good example is war - people go in with all sorts of ideals about how wars should be fought, but an enemy without those ideals can force you to play their game instead. Measles does not respect individual liberty, and we need to be cognizant of that in our response.
How are they infringing on others rights?
By knowingly making themselves an incubator for a communicable disease.
By their very nature, epidemics need to be managed at the society level. I think libertarianism is a fantastic base ideology, but communicable disease tends to not care much for individual-based thinking.
Really you're saying "you are going to have too many sick days, i can just tell it!" is justification for dismissal.
No, I'm saying, "You are going to make other people here, or their non-vaccinated dependents, sick."
I mean, this story is a perfect example that it isn't just a matter of sick days. Disneyland has a real nightmare on their hands.
but if vaccinations actually worked, Darwin would take over and ONLY THOSE WHO REFUSED VACCINATIONS DIE.
I reject your assertion that "worked" is binary. Vaccination effectiveness is measured in percentages, not with a simple "true" or "false". You have a small percentage chance of being infected even if you were vaccinated.
Then throw in that a small portion of the population cannot be vaccinated. We were all part of this cohort at one time as newborns. Combine the percentage of people who cannot be vaccinated and the number with ineffective vaccines and there isn't a whole lot of headroom for ignorance. This is why Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria are the last places on earth with polio.
because I am not anti vax, but i am pro choice. in that people should be free to do as they wish with their own bodies
That is my baseline as well. But while I lean libertarian, the measles virus has no such ideology. As such, I am pragmatic and realize that this probably crosses the line of "your rights end where mine begin". You are infringing on other people's rights by knowingly and voluntarily making yourself vulnerable to deadly disease. I suppose that just like the right to free speech, people should have a right to not be vaccinated - but they do not have a right to be free from the consequences. Long and short - employers should be able to discriminate against people who voluntarily refuse vaccinations.
EOL doesn't really have any practical effect on a 10-year-old system, though. I mean, unless you have it hooked directly to the internet or use IE. I don't think even a totally unpatched XP would be a problem if you stuck to an alternative browser and surfed behind a NAT. Pehaps in a few more years when even software stops supporting XP.... that's what made me leave 98SE, and then later 2000. I only dumped XP because once the hard drive went, I couldn't really justify putting money into such an old system when I could get all-new guts for under $200. And once you have new guts you really need to reinstall Windows. And once you are doing that, why not use 7? Now I'm good for the next 10 years :)
Didn't your momma teach you not to pick scabs?