Gross inequality and freedom are also incompatible -- it means that a few people hold a disproportionate amount of political and economic power over everyone else.
In many ways, France is more free than the US. Protest is sort of a national pastime in France, and this acts as an addition check on government. In the US, people can be fired for any reason -- who's got time for demonstrations and general strikes.
Go to much of Europe outside the UK, and it's like a breath of fresh air. (1) No warning signs everywhere, and no attempt to protect people from themselves. 10 year olds walk or take transit to school. Train windows open -- if you stick a hand out, it's your own problem (2) Fewer nannying restrictions on alcohol (3) Widely ignored and/or lax drug laws in many countries (4) Fewer sexual taboos. Nudity/toplessness are much more accepted (5) Stricter privacy laws. More restrictions on employers -- employers aren't allowed to meddle in private lives outside of work as much.
Compare medical costs for common procedures between the US and the rest of the world, and you'll be singing a different tune. Yeah, yeah, it's tax-supported in many places. What do WE get for our tax dollars? Expensive healthcare, bad schools, mass incarceration, and a military juggernaut that hasn't truly won a war in decades.
Enough to protect themselves without breaking the bank and worshiping their militaries like some kind of false idols. (While quietly mistreating their veterans.)
If the US truly wanted to merely "defend" itself, it wouldn't be expensive -- a few ICBM silos and missile subs are an ample deterrent against invasion. The problem is US bullying of other countries to support obsolete industries like Saudi oil, their pet theocracies in the Middle East, and an unwinnable war on (some) drugs.
This is also shit -- not everyone wants to be tagged with a GPS tracker like some weird migratory bird experiment. The sooner the private insurers are kicked to the curb and replaced with a fair system of public insurance, paid for by a per-cent tax on income, the better. And by kicked to the curb, I mean expropriated and ideally jailed for a few years in general prison population.
True. But not only for privacy reasons. Most European countries have either public or heavily regulated private insurance markets. Paying through the nose for insurance with sky-high deductibles, like many Americans do, would be unheard of.
In the US, having a child costs thousands to tens of thousands. In most of Europe, it's covered, and out-of-pocket is equivalent to a few hundred dollars, if not less.
No. America in the 1950s and 70s also treated its citizens like rubbish, just in different ways. If you were Black in the South, you could essentially be disappeared for looking or speaking to a White woman in an incorrect manner.
Not to mention nonsense like McCarthyism, blacklists, Rockefeller-era drug laws, etc. The US has always made a mockery of the term "land of the free."
Funny -- people in civilized countries pay LESS for insurance, yet have better outcomes than in the good 'ol US of A. I.e. longer life expectancy. Are you jealous?
Not every country subscribes to the Puritan idiocy that people's lives need to be micromanaged and every transgression against purity needs to be fined and/or punished.
Get rid of the idiotic 1500 hour rule, keep the rules as far as crew rest hours. Both of the pilots in the 2008 crash that precipitated the 1500 hour rule had more than 1500 hours in the cockpit. Most of the world does fine with co-pilots starting with 250 to 500 hours -- this allows them to be trained on the job.
Yawn! Just another portless wonderbook with the reliability of a sheet of wet cardboard. Call me when Apple makes a real computer, not a prop for hipsters who want to look good.
You can pretend to be rich and show off your wealth. It's apparently a form of social/wealth signaling when dating, for people who want vacuous brand loyalists.
Score one for crappy, non-modular design -- engineering by artistes, not engineers.
I'll stick with my 12" Thinkpad, where swapping a keyboard is one connector and a few screws. Swollen battery? Press two latches, pull out the old battery. Click! Clack! New battery! So easy. More RAM? You get the idea. It can even run MacOS/OS X...
The only downside is that it's a few mm thicker, but at least it won't bend like cardboard at the slightest provocation.
That's sort of bigoted to assume that everyone in a Catholic country will vote the how "the local padre" tells them to. Also, Catholicism and American GOP conservatism don't really align, other than perhaps on abortion.
The prosperity gospel is not a Catholic idea. The Catholic Church abhors the death penalty. The current Pope is very left-liberal as far as wealth concentration and the environment.
Throw in a healthy dose of anti-Hispanic racism from the GOP, and good luck getting the majority of Puerto Ricans to vote Republican.
Could be that: (1) Buying the "book" actually gets you drugs or some other illegal item. It's not money laundering in the sense of cash -- it's giving people the ability to pay for illegal items using electronic payments that appear legit. (2) The "book" is being bought with stolen credit card numbers and the seller is pocketing the money.
Really depends how the money is disbursed... Dumping a lot of money into an economy at once would create this kind of result, but creating some sort of fund that also makes money from investment would work better.
$5900 just for the battery pack isn't cheaper than a $2000 emergency system. And the emergency system may actually be more modular, since it's just a few solar panels overcharging a lead-acid battery array. The parts don't need to communicate or be very well matched.
I'd "buy" residency in a small island country (say 100,000 people) and use philantropic foundations to make it into a utopia. $1.5 million per person should assure a good level of healthcare, education, and environmental care to all residents for the next 50 years or so. Make it a shining beacon against austerity.
Mod parent up -- buying from Amazon is a vote for the destruction of local business and privacy (considering their entry into the mass surveillance market).
Slashdot Mirror
Gross inequality and freedom are also incompatible -- it means that a few people hold a disproportionate amount of political and economic power over everyone else.
In many ways, France is more free than the US. Protest is sort of a national pastime in France, and this acts as an addition check on government. In the US, people can be fired for any reason -- who's got time for demonstrations and general strikes.
The US system is enforced apathy.
Ah. "Love it or leave it." The last refuge of those with no other arguments.
Go to much of Europe outside the UK, and it's like a breath of fresh air.
(1) No warning signs everywhere, and no attempt to protect people from themselves. 10 year olds walk or take transit to school. Train windows open -- if you stick a hand out, it's your own problem
(2) Fewer nannying restrictions on alcohol
(3) Widely ignored and/or lax drug laws in many countries
(4) Fewer sexual taboos. Nudity/toplessness are much more accepted
(5) Stricter privacy laws. More restrictions on employers -- employers aren't allowed to meddle in private lives outside of work as much.
Compare medical costs for common procedures between the US and the rest of the world, and you'll be singing a different tune. Yeah, yeah, it's tax-supported in many places. What do WE get for our tax dollars? Expensive healthcare, bad schools, mass incarceration, and a military juggernaut that hasn't truly won a war in decades.
Enough to protect themselves without breaking the bank and worshiping their militaries like some kind of false idols. (While quietly mistreating their veterans.)
If the US truly wanted to merely "defend" itself, it wouldn't be expensive -- a few ICBM silos and missile subs are an ample deterrent against invasion. The problem is US bullying of other countries to support obsolete industries like Saudi oil, their pet theocracies in the Middle East, and an unwinnable war on (some) drugs.
This is also shit -- not everyone wants to be tagged with a GPS tracker like some weird migratory bird experiment. The sooner the private insurers are kicked to the curb and replaced with a fair system of public insurance, paid for by a per-cent tax on income, the better. And by kicked to the curb, I mean expropriated and ideally jailed for a few years in general prison population.
"Such questions would be moot in Europe..."
True. But not only for privacy reasons. Most European countries have either public or heavily regulated private insurance markets. Paying through the nose for insurance with sky-high deductibles, like many Americans do, would be unheard of.
In the US, having a child costs thousands to tens of thousands. In most of Europe, it's covered, and out-of-pocket is equivalent to a few hundred dollars, if not less.
No. America in the 1950s and 70s also treated its citizens like rubbish, just in different ways. If you were Black in the South, you could essentially be disappeared for looking or speaking to a White woman in an incorrect manner.
Not to mention nonsense like McCarthyism, blacklists, Rockefeller-era drug laws, etc. The US has always made a mockery of the term "land of the free."
Funny -- people in civilized countries pay LESS for insurance, yet have better outcomes than in the good 'ol US of A. I.e. longer life expectancy. Are you jealous?
Not every country subscribes to the Puritan idiocy that people's lives need to be micromanaged and every transgression against purity needs to be fined and/or punished.
Get rid of the idiotic 1500 hour rule, keep the rules as far as crew rest hours. Both of the pilots in the 2008 crash that precipitated the 1500 hour rule had more than 1500 hours in the cockpit. Most of the world does fine with co-pilots starting with 250 to 500 hours -- this allows them to be trained on the job.
Yawn! Just another portless wonderbook with the reliability of a sheet of wet cardboard. Call me when Apple makes a real computer, not a prop for hipsters who want to look good.
You can pretend to be rich and show off your wealth. It's apparently a form of social/wealth signaling when dating, for people who want vacuous brand loyalists.
Score one for crappy, non-modular design -- engineering by artistes, not engineers. I'll stick with my 12" Thinkpad, where swapping a keyboard is one connector and a few screws. Swollen battery? Press two latches, pull out the old battery. Click! Clack! New battery! So easy. More RAM? You get the idea. It can even run MacOS/OS X... The only downside is that it's a few mm thicker, but at least it won't bend like cardboard at the slightest provocation.
Lower rents -- if landlords can't rent ground-floor commercial space, guess how they make up the difference...
That's sort of bigoted to assume that everyone in a Catholic country will vote the how "the local padre" tells them to. Also, Catholicism and American GOP conservatism don't really align, other than perhaps on abortion.
The prosperity gospel is not a Catholic idea.
The Catholic Church abhors the death penalty.
The current Pope is very left-liberal as far as wealth concentration and the environment.
Throw in a healthy dose of anti-Hispanic racism from the GOP, and good luck getting the majority of Puerto Ricans to vote Republican.
OTOH, it's the perfect revenge on Japan -- take their money, build your country up, then default one fine morning.
Could be that:
(1) Buying the "book" actually gets you drugs or some other illegal item. It's not money laundering in the sense of cash -- it's giving people the ability to pay for illegal items using electronic payments that appear legit.
(2) The "book" is being bought with stolen credit card numbers and the seller is pocketing the money.
Really depends how the money is disbursed... Dumping a lot of money into an economy at once would create this kind of result, but creating some sort of fund that also makes money from investment would work better.
Not all islands are flat and/or sandy. I'd be looking for rocky/mountainous geography.
$5900 just for the battery pack isn't cheaper than a $2000 emergency system. And the emergency system may actually be more modular, since it's just a few solar panels overcharging a lead-acid battery array. The parts don't need to communicate or be very well matched.
Free "sheeping?" :D
Wrecking authoritarian conservatism by example would actually be fun...
That's still 100% too much. Or more than 100%, since Scamazon should be paying YOU :D
I'd "buy" residency in a small island country (say 100,000 people) and use philantropic foundations to make it into a utopia. $1.5 million per person should assure a good level of healthcare, education, and environmental care to all residents for the next 50 years or so. Make it a shining beacon against austerity.
Mod parent up -- buying from Amazon is a vote for the destruction of local business and privacy (considering their entry into the mass surveillance market).