Like many things in the present day, a mechanical watch of the quality or provenance being discussed in this article is not something that can be built in one’s spare time as a hobby, which means consumption is the only option for some truly interesting wrist baubles. And even though I refuse to call watch collecting a hobby, doing so doesn’t preclude one from having other hobbies or interests where one may take on a more active role. The reality is some people can afford to have nice (or stupid) things while also having balanced fulfilling lives.
Not the person you're insulting, but (1) I don't think there's anything creepy about reading articles that someone publishes and (2) there are four articles total.
There’s nothing “bizarre” about comparing one part of a city to another, especially when the author themself describes NW DC as a bubble for the elite. They could have backed those claims up by walking through those neighborhoods as well, but they jump over to Virginia instead.
I’m sorry to tell you the author’s “usual fare” does not impress me as nuanced or insightful.
You misinterpret what I wrote. I appreciated the author’s walk through SE DC and wish they had covered more of the city the following day, especially since they write the following about NW DC: “DC is the go-to stereotype for a city of highly educated elites removed from the country they govern. That DC exists, but it is confined to parts roughly in the north western half.” Instead of exploring that stereotype they use their walk through NOVA to reinforce their claim that the DC “elite” and Democrats are out of touch with everything.
I think the author wants to read too much into a city having poor areas, wealthy areas, and suburbs. I also can’t help but think, based off the story they seem eager to tell, that they purposefully avoided taking a route that would have offered a better reflection of DC proper on the second day (such as starting from the NW), rather than walking past Reagan airport and pretending like they saw NOVA for what it is.
I don’t think their claim is bizarre at all. Almost every other sentence insults Scientific American or McLemore. A lesson for others wanting to get a rebuttal published: You can embarrass someone with facts, but you can’t say they "demonstrate a baffling ignorance of one of the most basic concepts."
The Economist does this as well. Very frustrating to have to explain multiple times over chat that I just want to cancel and that no I don’t want any deals and that yes I understand the terms of the offer being made and that no I still don’t want the deal even though I understand you are telling me that this deal really is in my best interest.
And yet I didn’t need to talk to any employees at all before giving them my money.
I appreciate the article as a list of ways Django could better align with the author’s personal preferences, but nothing here is a case for Django’s “decline.”
In this particular case, the presenter is talking about the US middle class, and not worldwide trends, where I would otherwise agree with your sentiment.
So I really do think it's missing the point to say that the middle class isn't actually shrinking because we've got all these great new gadgets and services instead of traditional middle class trappings like housing. Compared to prior years, the difference in housing affordability relative to median income is equal to hundreds of maxed-out iPhones. [1],[2] Avoiding a new iPhone purchase or canceling a Blue Apron subscription won't make up the difference. These things aren't priced equivalently, and frugality doesn't work if one is completely priced out of the market.
I think you make a valid point. I also think boiling the middle class down to some percentile range of income leaves us without any reason for the term itself. So maybe the percentile ranges alone aren't actually saying the same thing as "middle class."
But if someone wants to stand in front of a slide deck and explain why people who think the middle class is shrinking for the worse are wrong, I think they should either explain why that definition of the middle class is wrong, or explain why that particular definition of the middle class is not shrinking for the worse. Otherwise they're just talking past each other.
Besides the convenient mischaracterization of claims that the middle class is shrinking, I assume a "Milton Friedman Distinguished Fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education," with a Ph.D. in Economics, would be aware of everything I wrote above and focus on those more important aspects.
You can't just define the middle class according to arbitrary income bands, as the presenter in your link does. The middle class is an ideal: a single family home, yearly vacations, pensions, etc. The presenter is pretending like we're complaining about the cost of Netflix subscriptions when we're actually complaining about major expenses like housing and education being less affordable relative to wages over time. I stopped watching after the presenter started comparing silent films to the MCU to prove how great our quality of life is today. It's a wildly disingenuous take and misses the entire point.
The parent comment spoke directly of nationalization. I was indulging their scenario, not seeking to argue with the original Tweet’s author or anyone in particular.
Also the author cites Palestinians and Israelis both relying on WhatsApp as justification for breaking down and regulating Facebook. Pray tell, if nationalized, how many nations would be impartial enough to let both sides continue to use such an (apparently) essential communication platform?
"...relative to non-essential workers, medical support staff had the highest risk of severe COVID-19 (RR 8.70, 95% CI 4.87 to 15.55), followed by health associate professionals (RR 7.53, 95% CI 5.44 to 10.43) and healthcare professionals (RR 6.19, 95% CI 3.68 to 10.43)."
https://oem.bmj.com/content/78/5/307#T3
"Frontline HCWs had a significantly increased risk of COVID-19 infection, highest among HCWs who reused PPE or had inadequate access to PPE. However, adequate supplies of PPE did not completely mitigate high-risk exposures."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7273299/
"Healthcare workers are currently at a much higher risk of being infected by COVID-19...frontline healthcare workers are facing up a nearly 12 times greater risk of a positive COVID-19 test, and those with inadequate access to PPE are at an additional 23% higher risk. Furthermore, we found that if they were directly caring for COVID-19 positive patients, healthcare workers were experiencing a 5 times greater risk of developing the disease, 6 times if they did not have access to proper PPE."
https://covid.joinzoe.com/us-post/covid-risk-healthcare-work...
If we're going to invent new human rights, what about an employer's right to hire and fire individuals based off their suitability for a job? And if you don't think employers have that right, then do I not have the right to be a nurse as well, regardless of my qualifications?
Since you seem to be concerned about nurses in particular, you should know that the majority of nurses are vaccinated and support vaccine mandates [1]. Also note that this article does not specify whether any nurses were fired.
There have been numerous studies demonstrating our inability to rationally assess terrorism relative to other threats. Acknowledging our psychological shortcomings is the first step toward self-improvement.
For the most part I agree with you. I think the popular watch companies (Omega, Rolex, etc.) are resting on their laurels, but perhaps in part because that's what their consumers want. I credit Zenith and Seiko with making their more recent advances accessible to wider audiences. However, most innovation in mechanical watches, unfortunately, is currently too expensive or niche for wide diffusion. Check out companies like MB&F, Urwerk, HYT, and Ressence to see what's being done.
I use a VPN and Firefox with NoScript installed. You might think I would be on board with Mozilla's privacy zealotry, but this page rubs me the wrong way. Dunking on IoT and wearables as "Super Creepy!" just seems out of touch with consumer preferences. My Amazon Halo is the first piece of technology I've been excited to use in a long time. I guess Mozilla thinks I'm creepy by association.
Yet those reasons are circumstantial and unverified claims, whereas we know that Morocco spied on France. If, and that is an if, Israel received intelligence as a result, Morocco is still the country that crossed that line. The framing makes no sense. Why is a third party, Israel, limiting fallout instead of Morocco?
I don’t know why the ethics for this is clear cut or what priors that statement is built on. Technical interviews are a relatively new social development. People are saying x or y are unethical, but it would be nice to see some actual justification one way or the other.
My sense of community would have to be severely damaged or underdeveloped to be content with municipal policies possibly helping individuals who live thousands of miles away while passing by people living in tents on a daily basis.
Surely you can’t simultaneously support cultural relativism (misplaced as it may be for an American author being discussed by mostly Americans) and also speak for an entire group of people who existed thousands of years ago. The only thing we have empirical proof of is that the deceased don’t complain about the treatment of their remains or estates.
Well in the meantime I derive enjoyment from the animals and plants around me and believe this finding helps explain why similarly present-minded folks should be concerned about the survival of what remains.
I have read similar accounts of the passenger pigeon and trust them to be mostly truthful, at least relative to what we can hope to see in the present day. However, as you suggest, the 50b number represents bird populations under crisis and does not represent their pre-Industrial levels, or even last Century’s.
Sadly this isn’t true either. Some species that coexist with humans may be doing better, but they can be counted on one hand. North America’s bird population is 30% less than it was in the 70s.