a_tractor

>where solidly 1/3... believe that healthcare is a product not a right

And I guess the opposing 1/3 just don't understand the difference between positive and negative rights?

Healthcare, as a matter of fact, does represent a collection of products and services, and access to those products and services represent a positive right because it requires somebody else to provide something for you.

It is only negative rights, those which define what other people can not do to you, that should be considered inalienable. The right to free spreech doesn't require somebody else to go to school for 20 years so that you can express yourself, they just aren't allowed to prevent you from doing so.

Intentionally or not, people like you confuse the issue by treating both positive and negative rights as the same, and actually do not seem to understand, or are avoiding acknowledgment of the fact, that treating a positive right as some kind of natural right carries the high potential that you will be demanding access to another human being's labor or resources against their will, and in America, 1/3 of use are against the enslavement of others.

The argument could (and should more often) be made that recessions are sometimes healthy and that propping up failed or stagnant businesses or industries usually only prolongs the suffering. It also locks up resources that could be invested elsewhere in less entrenched but more promising new growth areas. So I would argue that it is likely to cause the stagnation

To use an analogy from botany, its like how certain types of plants need periods of dormancy, but its actually possible to create or install a given plant into specific environmental conditions where the inducement of dormancy is prevented, for a time... But overtime, without the time to rest and regenerate, the plant will become incredibly weak. It will stop flowering or producing delicious fruit. It will grow frail and live to only a fraction of its potential age limit. Similar to this are how efforts to reduce the spread of wildfires only ends up with a far more dangerous and uncontrollable situation down the road and the 'debt' of uncleared deadwood piles up.

Just a thought.

In the modern world its also about incentivizing/disincentivizing debt.

There is no argument that cannot or does not have long-term effects, and no we would not all be incredibly rich, as it absolutely costs something to increase to money supply.

When you increase the money supply you devalue each and every current piece of money in existence. Money (fiat) can be infinite but what you buy with it is not.

>Every underdeveloped nation would simply increase their money supply and poverty would end for ever.

No, it wouldn't. Have you heard of hyperinflation? A gallong of milk would simply cost $1000 dollars. Kind of like how milk used to cost 5 cents a gallon 50 years ago. The countries that do try what you are talking about, and there are plenty of examples, amazingly, all end up incredibly poor and economically devastated.

The argument that monetary policy cannot affect the real world economy is more about its limitations, where it cannot really make up for something like a months long interruption to international trade because the world's leading manufacturing nation has quarantined half its population.

The best it could to benefit the long term, I would think, is to make credit more available and cheaper to make it easier for companies and governments to weather the storm with minimal damage.

You mean with tax-payer dollars? Through a federal government which is currently $21+ Trillion in debt running deficits of around a trillion dollars annually? Would this funding involve new taxes or borrowing since it is new spending, requiring either current or future taxpayers to finance the program?

Meanwhile, small donor fundraising has become much easier and much more successful than in the past, and imho, the entire problem revolves completely around the amount of power that has been centralized and expanded to the Federal Government. Part of the whole idea behind, you know, the principle of limited government... is to limit the amount of power that could be bought in the first place and therefore limit the incentive to corrupt the process, but obviously that ship has sailed a long time ago...

I would think that in a free society, people are not forced to give their money to support political activity they would otherwise not support. For me, it’s that simple. As Thomas Jefferson put it, “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical.”

You call that a "hatchet job" after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, through an independent forensics review, found[0] the videos to be "authentic and not deceptively edited?"

The case involved the Texas Health and Human Services Commission decision to terminate the state’s Medicaid provider agreements with PP affiliates across the state, based in large part on those very videos.

The Fifth Circuit affirmed that decision in January of this year, which directly refutes your "hatchet job" claim against the video footage in which Planned Parenthood executives admitted to illegally altering abortion procedures to obtain intact fetuses whose organs could be sold to medical research firms for greater profit, and how they found ways to circumvent the federal ban on partial-birth abortion?

If that is what this reminds you of, well...

[0] https://drive.google.com/file/d/1D8GgSTArPinJ6SH8ITRgjkYqNq6...

I don't think anybody is saying there is an easy way to be objective. Objectivity being difficult to achieve is still a far cry from impossible, not an excuse, and nothing new. Since ancient Greece, philosophers have been devoted to building logical processes and ethics in order to make it more possible to get close to the objective truth, such as the Aristotelian processes of observation, abstraction, definition, induction, syllogism, the definition of archai (first principles), etc.. Objective truth has always been elusive, but its pursuit is something that historically has allowed civilization to advance (especially true for western civilization).

Now we are hearing excuses (including in this thread) which are nothing more than cheap cop-outs, they are rationalizing their own acquiescence or surrender to intellectual laziness, logical fallacy, ignorance, and social irresponsibility. The fact is this lowering of standards is very useful for some people, and provides wiggle room to dishonest liars and frauds who would otherwise not be trusted, should be obvious.

Yes, one's senses are limited, one's knowledge is limited, and while investigating a story you are likely going to hear different versions from every witness to whom you speak. But what do you say to those who refuse to listen to contradicting yet valid information and/or viewpoints?

There is a large gap between those who are engaged in the pursuit of objective truth who nonetheless fail, and those who have their excuses loaded up while they tirelessly work to build consensus around what has become a narrative for a completely false reality. We are starting to see a bias against objective truth, a prevalence of defense mechanisms against logic and reason, and more and more demands for "allegiance" or "belief" in a given agenda-based narrative.

With more differing points of view intermingling than ever before, giving in to bias has never been more dangerous.

tldr: Just because its hard doesn't mean its not an important pursuit, much less take it as an excuse to accept the defeat of lowered standards or actual fraud for our perception of reality.

I actually have no idea what is informing your thinking here, on both counts, its like you are just making stuff up as you go along.

>Not when it's artificially restricting supply

Wrong. You are neglecting the very non-artificial fact that bedrock depth has always been the main limiting factor for that part of Manhattan between Midtown and FiDi, or more so that its only because of the uniquely solid and deep bedrock under FiDi and Midtown that skyscrapers exist here at all. If they could have built skyscrapers there, they would have. As building technology permits, gradually, they are. Regardless, the housing that does exist is simply not as you describe. When was the last time you spent any time in New York?

>It's good density for a mid-size city, terrible for a city as large (and growing) as New York.

The area we are talking about, between FiDi and Midtown, holds over 250k housing units for close to half a million people. 75% of those units feature 20 or more units. That's a range of about 100-150 people per acre. Manhattan overall contains 70k residents per square mile, across all boroughs its 27k per sq. mile, the highest density in America. That's not including office space, or the daily working and visiting population which is easily double that. Even Brooklyn has over 3x the density of Chicago and almost as many people. Its not Tokyo, but it sure as heck isn't Indianapolis, not even close...

Btw, we aren't ants. Quality of life is a thing and building density not to mention aesthetics and history are huge factors to the desirability and livability of the city. Go to Hong Kong if you want to live in a cage with 20 other people to a room in some modern-industrial neo-commie-block. You are basically picking on the only parts of the city with any actual character or beauty that anybody with a clue would want to live or visit and saying they should be destroyed because you ignorantly think that the most densely populated city in the country needs more housing density? Talk about artificial factors.

Promise, in this case, is a nicer version of the word debt. The government that made the promise is just an abstraction or buffer for the people making the promises, the people voting for them, and the people benefiting from those decisions. Note how current stakeholders (me and you) had no say on a decision that they would be (potentially) responsible for.

Thomas Jefferson's view of deficit finance was that one generation has no right to impose its debts on the next. He would have refused deficit spending that would not be completely paid back within 19 years (roughly, a generation).

I don't think many people listened to him on that. Here we are.

I think we do have the right to ask this question. We should have the option of denying that the previous generation ever had the right to impose this upon us.

At the very least, we should learn from this, recognize these types of short-sighted promises for what they are, and reject them when we see them. This is one big way we can be better than our forefathers.

Ive lived in NYC for 10 years, and have never personally used Uber/Lyft. Its surprising to a lot of people, which is funny to me in a place with so many other options. So, besides taking friend's Ubers, maybe I dont know what I'm missing completely, but I always have enjoyed and preferred the experience of walking out into the streets and hailing a cab. It is one of the reasons this city was so appealing in the first place.

It is a simple act, requiring only your eyes and a working arm, and you can go anywhere in the city. It can also be challenging, but over time you start figuring out and mapping to memory the best places to hail cabs going in your direction, you start learning the fastest routes through different areas at various times of day. Mastering the cab experience is part of what makes living here fun, while adding some meaning to the "achievement" of NYC "experience."

How you describe the situation seems quite exaggerated, to say the least. I'm reserved to say that you are intentionally presenting a biased or agenda-driven description here, as you may very well have had a horrible run of luck, or you may just have higher personal standard, so I'm just going to throw in my experience as a counter-point.

-I've never had a cabbie that was any ruder than what you are likely to experience from any person living and working in this city at any time. Part of living in NYC is "learning to deal" with lots of different people of every type of temperament and attitude. I could also care less that I "can't rate them." I think this obsession with rating people for basic services is an alienating force in society. They are a driver to get me to point B. Go on reddit and downvote somebody or finish writing that really vicious Yelp review you've been mulling over if you need your need to get your fix "rating" someone.

- I can't remember the last time I had a cabbie refuse service to Brooklyn, or anywhere for that matter. 8 years ago? The green cabs that came around ~4-5 years ago were a godsend for the borroughs. I have had hailed (green) cabs tell me to get out as soon as I got in because they got booked by a friggin Uber fair with surge pricing as I was opening the door...

- The only reason I struggle with cabs now is because they are disappearing, which is a result of Uber/Lyft domination. Everything changed for the worse following the arrival of Uber/Lyft, for cab drivers and non-Uber users/cab lovers. Dramatically so, the last couple of years.

-I've definitely had problems with smelly drivers once or twice, but not so much garbage. I certainly can't think of even a single instance where I have been presented by what I would describe as "horrors."

If I were describing the situation realistically rather than with hypercritically, it seems, for the most part, basic human decency keeps people from leaving trash in the cars in the first place, with the driver's self-respect and the desire for a better tip covering the rest. The experience is adequately clean and professional.

I know from talking to cabbies, who generally seem to be more social and socialable in a NY kind of way than Uber/Lyft automatons, that things have been pretty rough for them, and I remember one convo in particular with a cabbie who was not optimistic about my ability to hail cabs a year or two from now, at all.

NYC cabs are a cultural institution, especially the analog aspect of hailing a cab using physical gestures is what I am saying, and it seems people are quite over-eager to basically throw that away.

It is likely Uber would have thrived on the merits of its premium features and conveniences, but it should have had to do it on a level playing field, some way or another. I have no sympathy for Uber or Lyft if the rug gets pulled out from under them. I also have no sympathy for NYC bureaucracy and the situation they have created. I do feel bad for the people who got screwed for playing by well-established, long-standing rules.

Overall, I could care less what happens to Uber or medallion owners, but I would like to preserve the iconic experience that is the ability to walk out into the dark streets, scan the roads for a vehicle with a small white light on top, wave my arm in the air for a bit, tell my new driver friend my destination, and go.

>seem

So, subjectively. In your opinion.

As I continue to learn about the broader cryptocurrency scene and the emerging ecosystem, I have been looking at Bitcoin more and more as the Model T of crypto and less like the BMW i8...

Seriously, silicon valley playing the role of "poor ole me" content provider that's "with the people" trying to defeat the big bad telecoms was completely absurd. I mean good lord, I am supposed to believe GOOG and APPL and FB and AMZN couldn't match lobbying efforts? Please.

The other absurd thing is people worried about Netflix, which as far back as I could remember is a big reason why this whole debate started in the first place. How about, if you want to watch TV, get TV. Leave the internet to information that doesn't have an alternative.

They were fine with Uber operating in an unregulated manner while dominating highly regulated competition. Soon I wont be able to hail a cab in Manhattan and we will all be crying about muh monopolies again.

All you needed to know about GOOG was the fact that it ever crossed their minds to make their motto "Don't be evil."

Hopefully there is opportunity to return to decentralization with the blockchain and projects like Substratum.

>The price of bitcoin disagrees with your assessment.

What does the price of bitcoin have to do with an objective assessment of how well the Bitcoin network is currently functioning?

Good problems to solve in this space.

I moved $1800 worth of LTC (Litecoin, one of the subjects of this thread) last night. The Tx fee was $0.01 and the funds were received in less than 1 minute. No more processing, no waiting for the next business day (or 3)... For 1 cent and 1 minute later the receiver can do whatever they want with it immediately.

That is cheaper than CC, faster than Venmo, or whatever.