I would just like to point out that Michael Reeves (the poster, no relation to youtuber) is a high schooler who has also found numerous high impact vulnerabilities in Apple software. Immensely talented.
The moment ACA happened I started several successful businesses.
Honestly we already should have contribution/impact based merit threshold UBI with a much lower barrier than research grants or even just time limited UBI systems for youth and adults that meet a contribution threshold.
VC allocation is too biased towards group think, profit motivation, predatory contracts and hold on to top many class and cultural artifacts.
Yes of course it would be difficult to implement but difficult isn't impossible and gradiated rollouts can help catch unintended side effects. We need to push more money into the hands of the intrinsically motivated. Society already is catering to the whims of consumers and feed zombies.
Maybe 20 years ago but there is too much empirical data across multiple countries and environments now.
Assuming our cost for care drops commiserate to what's been seen in other countries we could use the saving to increase merit scholarships for the contributing young as a introductory form of UBI.
Single payer / universal healthcare ≠ doctors/nurses are government employees (necessarily).
You go to your local health care provider, show your card, and received treatment. The single payer (government) then gets billed and money is transferred to the providers account.
If the government is shutdown, there could be a delay in payment in outstanding bills, but that does not mean health care providers shutdown. Medicare ran during the last shutdown:
* https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/government-shutdo...
* Telehealth was: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/medicare-patients-go-wit...
Social Security cheques went out too:
* https://www.cbsnews.com/news/social-security-government-shut...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_United_States_federal_gov...
Lots of stuff can potentially be automated, and so continue to run.
There might be a few top-down emergency provisions to ensure checks go out to keep the system from toppling, but I wouldn't work if my pay is frozen and neither would my plumber, electrician, lawyer, etc. The last few shutdowns have run over a month - that can easily exceed the cash reserves of most businesses (that would be providers) and large businesses would shutter or have layoffs before burning that much cash.
We can't be so confident in how a $5T/year system would react if its primary cash flow valve is turned off, is all. Handwaving away the scope and complexity doesn't help anything.
How about fixing the government so it can’t be shut down because a few hundred politicians can’t agree on the next budget?
"Thanks I'm cured" material. You're not the first person to think of that, and the fact that it hasn't been done yet probably means it can't be done very easily.
It depends on how it’s structured.
When you grab em by their Amygdala, the naked monkeys will do what you want. Even to their own detriment.
As soon as they are in fight-or-flight-mode, (most) people cannot be reasoned with.
Sad but true
Even to their own death (and the death of friends/family):
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_of_Whiteness
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40697553-dying-of-whiten...
Mandatory disclaimer that I don't like our health insurance or healthcare prices any more than anybody else does, and in a perfect world I'd love to have universal healthcare instead.
How can the problem be fixed if we don't even talk about it? How do you even negotiate with, "Yeah but you're going to need a doctor some day, so you better not be critical of them in any regard." ?
The trick is that Franco hid the social security tax in the company side so normal people don't see it, but it is there.
Over that there is IBI for your house, there is IVA on anything you buy, and there are central bank inflation taxing anything you own in absolute terms.
I am forever thankful for the Socialism that allowed me to get a degree for $3k, though.
The downside is of course over-enrollment but at least the bartenders didn't come out $50k into debt. I hear it is different now.
But we have at least the option of additional private coverage and it is not crazy expensive like in the US.
Healthcare is not corrupt. Insurance companies are corrupt.
And regulation is lacking in Health Insurance and enforcement is lacking in healthcare. (So many doctors that have committed malpractice just switch hospitals.
> U.S. healthcare is doomed by its vast spiraling costs even after controlling for its supposedly higher quality.
Healthcare costs are high because of insurance companies and private equity, not doctors and hospitals.
So please stop with these right wing baby bird food regurgitation.
¿Por qué no los dos? Guess what, it's a lot more likely that insurance companies will go corrupt if what they interact with - healthcare - is corrupt.
> private equity, not doctors and hospitals.
Guess what is limiting private equity's ability to compete amongst themselves in expanding the effective provision of healthcare and driving costs lower for the ultimate stakeholders i.e. patients? That's right: doctors, hospitals (including those that are nominally not-for-profit, but where the profits just turn into salary for those who can control that flow of money) and government regulation throughout the sector.
It is actually the opposite.
UnitedHealth, one of the 'worst' insurers in terms of denials, has a profit margin of ~5% [0]. It is mainly the providers that overcharge, under the guise of "the less and lower we bill, the less and lower insurance pays us".
Insurance only works if there is at least as much going into the pot as is going out. What do you think would happen if insurances weren't denial hawks?
Get angry at your doctor for overcharging you whilst using insurance companies as the heel.
[0] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/UNH/unitedhealth-g...
If the government were the insurer, it would not have the same incentives to commit this fraud.
There’s a crazy amount of corruption in the healthcare space. Some of the medical fraud busts that come out every year have staggeringly large sums attached. In some areas there are still schemes that openly recruit poor people to use their information to bill for medical care that is not actually necessary or provided. It’s wild.
> Healthcare costs are high because of insurance companies and private equity, not doctors and hospitals.
Sorry, the world isn’t so simple that you can pick your villains (insurance companies and private equity) and declare everyone else to be free from blame. There’s a lot of bad behavior in these systems at every level. Yes, including some doctors.
If we removed insurance overhead entirely, your healthcare costs wouldn’t change more than a few percent. It’s amazing that everyone united against insurance companies as the cause of high healthcare costs when they barely take a few percent of the overall spend.
coughs in Ukrainian
No, they could not have, based on the voting records of the previous 30 years of the federal US Congress. Even what they have passed only by the skin on their teeth.
The only federal wealth redistribution policy in the US in my lifetime of almost 4 decades only had a 6 month window of passing in 2009. And half the population still hates it, and has worked and succeeded at gutting major parts of it.
Along similar lines it isn't clear that having the federal government controlling healthcare at a more fundamental level is a good idea. Many (most?) would shudder at the thought of this administration controlling healthcare.
(I think it's a thing that introducing money changes intrinsic motivation into money-driven motivation and can ruin it. And that might also happen for children for other rewards - praise, sweets, dessert, etc.)
If you have talents, use them to achieve financial freedom and then do what you want. Sometimes it is through 9 to 5 unfortunately. Never make a mistake of "climbing corporate ladder". Earn money, invest, don't try to leave beyond your means.
You might have great salary, but don't get tempted by renting a nice pad or getting a nice car. It's a trap to keep you enslaved in 9 to 5 forever.
The Millionaire Next Door is a great book, and gives a good perspective on money.
If anyone here is interested, Google the FIRE movement (Financial Independence, Retire Early). Even just doing the first 2 letters, Financial Independence, would be huge, and give you way more flexibility.
When/if you retire early, keep doing things to keep your mind and body active. Most people who retire stop doing the things that kept them healthy, and there body deteriorates quickly (with xyz illnesses).
The sad true is that, for many, work forces them to do the basics to keep your body running ok.
This is great advice anyway, even if you were born poor/working class. With the added proviso that you should be paying down your debt, highest interest rate first, since that will have far higher returns than your average investment. Also make sure that you have enough liquid cash set aside that you'll be able to deal quickly and completely with any issues that might come up; this makes a significant difference to your ability to live and work stress-free.
Why do I want to have a million in the bank by age 70 if I'm going to kill myself by age 30-35?
That punk-ish no future mentality usually dampen past 30-35!
He focused on the present but hated work, it was utterly boring to him, even if objectively the work benefited humanity. One day he quit and never came back. He spent his time learning to dance salsa. He was in his mid to late twenties.
Of course he was an extreme case. But his zen is important to take and balance together with future planning.
I think you can do both, aim for fuck off money but put aside a little bit for the future.
Edit: if youre wondering what happend to him - he's studying electrical engineering because I suspect he's aiming to not be behind a desk.
Maybe you will. But probably whatever stopped you from doing it today and made you push it away for years will feel the same tomorrow, the same next year and at age 30 and 35, saying "if I'm going to kill myself by 40-45" and then "by 50-55".
Not always and not everyone, people do suicide, but consider there's 37 million people in poverty in the USA, 18 million with cancer, and a lot more with shit lives in various ways - chronic diseases, disabilities, lost loves, hopeless futures, victims of horrors - and out of that vast amount of misery the USA has "only" 50,000 suicides annually. Much less than I might guess from the numbers. Bodies are 4 billion years of survival machines and they don't quit easily and that includes mental trickery as well as physical resilience[1].
I thought I would commit suicide as a teen. I planned it and tried in my teens and twenties. I thought I would force it in my thirties. Did "it get better"? No not really, mildly worse in several ways. Is the world better for me staying around? No, not really. Did I discover a hope for a brighter future? Maybe[2] but not a strong one. Maybe I'm discovering a bit more selfishness and less obligation to do what other people demand.
The years are going by faster now and "the rest of my life" doesn't seem so long. Interesting ideas are still interesting, books are still readable, work is still available, death is coming whether we hurry it or fight it.
> "What's the point of having a bit of money when I'm old, can barely leave the house"
Pay for your healthcare so you can still leave the house, or pay for home help if you can't.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q1dgn_C0AU - TED talk - The surprising science of happiness | Prof. Dan Gilbert, 2004
[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
i despise stock markets, investments etc., so i just kind of have accepted that i'll probably never grow my money passively. from time to time i stumble across advice like yours, talking about ETFs, and feel a bit left out again.
money just sits in my bank account with close to 0% interest. i know that ETFs would slowly generate more money, but i also know that my money would then be invested in a ton of companies i absolutely don't want to be a part of, even when considering that my sums would be a drop in an ocean.
E.g. https://www.ubs.com/uk/en/assetmanagement/funds/etf/lu062945...
but you're right, i forgot that my socially responsible bank claims to have socially responsible ETFs. i just hope that they are actually socially responsible, and not "socially responsible".
lots of things claim to be socially, ecologically or otherwise responsible, but that's exactly my issue. they're claims, most of the time just [insert color]washing.
Figured I had my whole life to have a job, so didn't really wanna do a startup or anything like that. Watched all the Macworld et. al. keynotes and knew all the specs of all the devices, until I got tired of being pigeonholed as "the computer kid."
"because it was socially uncomfortable to have people's perceptions of me be tied to the things I excelled in."
I think usually it's the other way around, or I'm not understanding this correctly. I was best at math in my class from grades 5 through 12 but never felt "awkward" because of it, rather I felt proud. Which is also wrong but I digress
I made big money in my 20s, I can retire. Now I just play and gamble on my company to go from ~2M to 100M.
People like this are truly extraordinary. You could give a lot of engineers infinite financial runway and no corporate job ever and they’d still never reach this level of performance.
Some people really are next level.
Then my mom goes, you can live with me for another year, after that you're on your own.
Asked my dad, a software engineer, if he could teach me how to do what he does. He recommended a boot camp and I learned enough to get an entry level role, and still here I am, ten years later.
People get satisfaction from solving challenging problems.
Having been one of those kids, I kind of expect a high schooler to be able to have such skills, when deeply interested into a specific subject.
I also participated in demoscene coding activities, using 68000 Assembly on the Amiga.
Since we are reaching for credentials, instead the point I was making.