Comment by handrous | Hacker News Reader

Comment by handrous | Hacker News Reader

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> The US needs to stop using public facilities (schools, the military, etc) as white-collar welfare and hire more people that actually care. Ignorance is forgivable but when combined with a steadfast opposition to personal growth it becomes malicious. It'd be better for society to fire clowns like these and administer them unemployment than to have them crowd out those that actually give a shit.

Our purest white-collar welfare system is the health insurance industry, I'd say. IIRC at one point Obama explicitly stated that a reason he didn't think single-payer and similar were viable to advance, is because they'd put too many people out of work.

The military is, obviously, our main work-required blue-collar welfare system, among other kinds of wealth-shuffling it does. Why, one can get nearly-European-standard-for-all public benefits, through that program, provided one is reasonably sound of body and mind. Healthcare, pension, housing, et c. [edit] education, too!

I do remember Obama talking about losing jobs in health care. With that kind of logic, we'd never have allowed cars because the horse and carriage industries would lose jobs.

I'm not unsympathetic to those who would lose jobs from changes in the industry. Here's my thought: if government action that disrupts an industry then that action should be done piecemeal over several years to allow a softer transition.

Its not just a matter of sympathy. Government still needs support from the populous even when the populous is short sighted. Its a practical calculation to say good but unpopular policy will ultimately fail.

> With that kind of logic, we'd never have allowed cars because the horse and carriage industries would lose jobs.

Imagine not having 40,000 deaths a year, and many more seriously injured.

Did we invent crash-proof carriages when I wasn't looking?

> Reviewing British fatality rates from previous centuries, demographer P. E. H. Hair concluded in 1971 that the “supercession of the horse by the internal combustion engine was by no means the disaster in terms of travel safety it is often supposed to have been,” and suggested that between 1840 and 1900, accidents involving horses produced an average yearly mortality rate of about five per 100,000 population

> fatality rates from horse-powered transportation occurred at a rate more than 15 times greater per mile in 1775 than from motor vehicles in 2000 (even using very conservative estimates for per-mile horse-related fatalities)

> In New York in 1900, 200 persons were killed by horses and horse-drawn vehicles. This contrasts with 344 auto-related fatalities in New York in 2003; given the modern city’s greater population, this means the fatality rate per capita in the horse era was roughly 75 percent higher than today. Data from Chicago show that in 1916 there were 16.9 horse-related fatalities for each 10,000 horse-drawn vehicles; this is nearly seven times the city’s fatality rate per auto in 1997.

> Did we invent crash-proof carriages when I wasn't looking?

Only if you've been not looking through e.g. the entire history of the NHTSA. Comparing horseless carriages under modern safety regulations to horse-drawn carriages not subject to those is a huge confounder. (And 1997-2000 sounds like a cherry-picked period; motor vehicles have been redesigned to kill significantly more pedestrians since then).

> Only if you've been not looking through e.g. the entire history of the NHTSA. Comparing horseless carriages under modern safety regulations to horse-drawn carriages not subject to those is a huge confounder.

Modifiers like that don't really matter because the comment was acting like the alternative was zero deaths.

And modern safety regulations can only have so much influence on pedestrians especially.

> (And 1997-2000 sounds like a cherry-picked period; motor vehicles have been redesigned to kill significantly more pedestrians since then).

Well I'll assume if we were using carriages en masse they'd also be going through design changes to kill more people since that seems simplest and still supports my point that there would be many deaths.

> Modifiers like that don't really matter because the comment was acting like the alternative was zero deaths.

Not necessarily, they could just mean many fewer deaths.

> Well I'll assume if we were using carriages en masse they'd also be going through design changes to kill more people since that seems simplest

It's not simple, there's a lot of complexity and path dependence to how we've ended up with these car designs and there's no reason to believe it would happen in the same way and the same order for carriages. But regardless, you have to average over such variations rather than picking one unrepresentative point.

> and still supports my point that there would be many deaths.

No it doesn't; you're cherry-picking the years when motor traffic was least deadly and comparing to a random time (or perhaps even the most deadly time?) for horse traffic.

> Not necessarily, they could just mean many fewer deaths.

Maybe but "Imagine not having" sure sounds like you remove the deaths entirely.

> you're cherry-picking the years

That's a quote of an article that only compares those years. I'll thank you not to accuse me of cherry-picking here.

> It's not simple, there's a lot of complexity and path dependence to how we've ended up with these car designs and there's no reason to believe it would happen in the same way and the same order for carriages. But regardless, you have to average over such variations rather than picking one unrepresentative point.

You wanted to consider "modern safety regulations" as a confounding factor.

I see three options here.

1. Let's assume carriages would have undergone the same evolution of safety. That means modern carriages would have a lower death rate than old ones. It also makes the possible cherry-picking matter a lot less because the increasing menace of transportation over the last 20 years would be the same either way.

2. We say it's too complex and ignore those factors.

3. We invent an entire alternate history in excruciating detail.

Option 2 is bad, of course. I think option 1 is fine. If you want option 3, you're on your own.

> 1. Let's assume carriages would have undergone the same evolution of safety. That means modern carriages would have a lower death rate than old ones. It also makes the possible cherry-picking matter a lot less because the increasing menace of transportation over the last 20 years would be the same either way.

That's like saying it's fine to compare the cost of houses in New York and San Francisco by comparing the cost of a house in New York in 1998 to the cost of a house in San Francisco in 2009, because house prices change at more or less the same rate everywhere in the country. It's true that house prices tend to go up or down at a similar rate everywhere, but it's still a problem if you cherry-pick the two years you're making a comparison with!

The person you keep replying to has not cherry-picked anything. They have merely selected the most conveniently available data source to quote.

https://www.accessmagazine.org/spring-2007/horse-power-horse...

You can criticize their choice of sources, you can dig deeper and provide more comprehensive data, but going post after post admonishing them for cherry-picking data that is just gauche. They didn't pick the years!

They picked the sources, and their sources use apparently arbitrary dates that are particularly unrepresentative. Maybe that's just an unfortunate coincidence, but even if so, the net effect is the same as cherry-picking.

Well, no it's not. Because if they were cherry-picking, then your needling them repeatedly over the data could actually produce a reaction that gets you more accurate data.

But since they are just presenting you with the most commonly available data, nothing you say will make them produce different results.

It's the first result and there aren't very many results. That's not cherry-picking on my end.

I'm not disagreeing, but the advances in medicine between the periods mentioned should be kept in mind. A more precise comparison might be, how many fatalities occurred at the site of the accident, that would remove quite a few other variables. Perhaps those numbers are already showing that but if it is then it's not clear from the quote.

In the US military as an officer you have a specified amount of time to make the next grade. If you are passed over for promotion too many times career over. Unsurprisingly this gets more challenging the higher you get with only a 2% chance of moving from O6 to O7. There are also educational requirements, both military and civilian, for each grade as well.

So it’s not completely welfare. The benefits offered exist for retention. The military can offer nice benefits because it is the largest employer in the world. It’s like the healthcare and other benefits you get from a corporate employer but much better. The larger the employer the better the benefits tend to get.

> Unsurprisingly this gets more challenging the higher you get with only a 2% chance of moving from O6 to O7.

This sounds very stark, but it doesn’t tell the whole story.

1. O6 to O7 is colonel to general (or captain to admiral in the navy). Yes, 2% is a heavy cull. Then again, I think everyone involved sort of wants that cull for the top of the military. O7+ are essentially the equivalent of corporate executives. (Edit: just checked the numbers… I believe 2% is the number of generals expected out of a given class of 2lt. Promotion from colonel to general is a much higher percentage).

2. It’s fairly easy, if motivated and not socially, physically, or intellectually limited, to make it 20 years as an officer. Folks typically end up as majors (career-path bound or lower competence) or lieutenant colonels. Colonels tend to be solid all around, even if some of them have a tragic flaw. Folks capped at major usually retire at 20. Folks capped at lt col usually retire at 24-26 years.

3. Promotion from 2lt to 1lt is pretty much automatic around 2-3 years. Ditto 1lt to captain at around 4-6 years total. The first cull is from captain to major, but a big part of that cull is simply folks who don’t want to re-enlist. Most people who stay in plan on staying for 20 to get retirement. Some folks who want to stay in can’t, but this is relativity rare and is typically due to (lack of) need of the military of their skill, general lack of competence, medical issues, or legal issues (dui, etc.). I wouldn’t feel sorry for most of these people except the medical ones.

To get back to the original point, officers don’t quite look like the “welfare” that was being referred to.

That said, some of the jobs that veterans are able to get are absolutely middle class welfare.

Most vets in federal jobs are awesome and are good at what they do. That said, there is a small percentage of vets in federal jobs who are hellbent on being deadweight.

In the reserves it actually is a 2% chance to make O7. A factor less present in the active duty is old age. Vacant slots are harder to find and fill for a variety of factors.

The upper ranks of officers constitute a very small part of all people in the military, and I doubt they are the subject here.

The schools in my are pay horribly for IT staff, and it shows.

It's not a "welfare" program. Nobody good wants to work there.

That's what welfare is, provide a living to those unable to compete otherwise.

But the job does actually need to be done. They're just not paying enough to consistently attract and keep people who can do it well. What can't compete is the pay.

That doesn't make it welfare.

So all jobs that pay below market rate are "welfare"?

I don't think that makes sense.

Exactly this. The ratio of equipment to staff is usually very high, the equipment is usually very old, demands are sometimes complex, and pay is governed by a formula developed for white collar workers without better options. The good ones normally leave after one year.

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