tdfx

> Doctors are good at giving garden-variety medical advice that's validated by studies

I've found they're more often than not ignorant of the latest studies, as well. Doctors are put on a pedestal in our society that very few of them deserve. A solid 2/3s of the ones I've seen are over-confident, dismissive, and often peddling out of date information. The rare ones that truly focus on their field and put their patients above their egos are difficult to find and even harder to get to with average US insurance.

I'm actually a bit more shocked there's not more outrage coming from mid-level public health practitioners whose jobs will now be that much harder. Through incompetence, failure to admit and clarify mistakes, and deliberate steering of the narrative away from things they didn't want to talk about, this generation of leaders has destroyed the average person's confidence in public health agencies and we will likely feel the effects of this for generations to come.

> Paul's performance in the committee looks more like what an intoxicated autistic individual edging a psychotic breakdown looks like

I thought so, too. His presentation was overly theatrical. But on the other hand, he has been vindicated on most of the points he made against Fauci. Any reasonable person would consider what they were doing gain-of-function research. I don't think Fauci has any maniacal plans or backroom pharma deals going on, he's just a corrupt bureaucrat trying to cover his ass for a series of incompetent decisions.

> So, what the fuck is going on?

It's a great question. I know a couple with a pre-tax household income of $180k that just paid $600,000 for a house with $50k down. Napkin math leads me to believe they're spending approximately 50% of their take home income just on mortgage+tax+insurance payments, assuming nothing in their house needs maintenance or repair. This house was sold for $350k in 2016. Is everyone just financially ruining themselves to check the "house" box on a middle class life checklist?

> It was clear that Trump was not in control of the surveillance state: it was working against him

The Russian collusion narrative comes to mind. There was so much momentum behind it that at the time I assumed it was true, as well. I naively believed there was a class of patriotic, more or less selfless bureaucrats in the IC and DOJ (Comey, Clapper, etc.) that was more intent on preserving the democratic system and the stated principles of their organizations than pursuing any political agenda.

The results of the Mueller investigation and subsequent disclosures have thoroughly disabused me of that notion. I didn't realize just how stacked the deck was against Trump until watching them successfully bury the Hunter Biden laptop story during the 2020 election [0] where they astonishingly managed to discredit and bury a massive news story without ever denying any of the contents were true by saying nothing more than "it seems like something Russia would do".

[0] https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/19/hunter-biden-story-... "Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say"

I think you're right and I can only assumed you've been downvoted because people didn't like your use of the word "principled" (which we usually reserve for good people) being used to describe idealogical absolutists.

This is one aspect of American culture that absolutely mystifies me. The need to "idiotproof" every potential angle of harm in society leads to a predictable outcome: a bunch of idiots that have never learned anything the hard way. It creates a feedback loop that creates a need for more stringent nannying by the government until personal agency is completely eroded.

Which states are you seeing foreigners kidnapped regularly?

This is a very misinformed comment. Mexico indeed has enormous issues with violent crime but those incidents are very unlikely to affect expats who choose to retire there.

> But if you try to force your political will through force [...] you have crossed a line and need to be reigned in

Like forcing people out of their job for refusing a vaccine?

Disclaimer: I'm vaccinated and I encourage everyone to do it. But no one should have to under threat to their livelihood, especially given the absurd logical inconsistencies of the mandate rules.

Of course, short term contractors are ideal for overflow work. My point is that I try not to rely on part time contractors over the long term because their availability can change.

Speaking as an employer, availability is important. If you're only working 15-20 hours a week for me, you've surely got other commitments that are occupying your mind and time. I've also seen many people doing part-time contracting take on more than they can handle, either moonlighting part-time from their full-time job or taking on too many simultaneous gigs. I've done this myself as a contractor, so I understand why it's happening, but as the employer I don't want to be on the receiving end.

I still hire part-time contractors for things, but for anything that's time sensitive or availability is a concern, I prefer to have a full-time employee.

I second this comment. Your chargeback request needs to color neatly within the lines of their procedures if you want a smooth process. How you phrase your request is incredibly important. Do not go crazy on details specific to the situation, use a template.

Historically low interest rates. Also, the average percentage of household income allocated towards housing has been steadily increasing.

The US passport is an enormous privilege. As well as being a native English speaker for business purposes.

People will say "well you can't just make more nurses and doctors in 6 months!" However, had we built or repurposed buildings as COVID-specific treatment centers there would be a fairly standard treatment protocol that could be applied by people without 4-8 years of medical training, allowing the highly trained nurses and doctors to supervise the process and multiply their effectiveness. Combat soldiers learn basic emergency medical techniques, with some going from knowing nothing to being able to run IVs and be fully certified EMTs in 6-9 months. Stories abound of how bad they are at hitting the vein the first time, but it's certainly preferable to dying in the waiting room.

The lack of healthcare capacity has been a conscious choice. There's been no serious effort to build it out. We've chosen to indulge this fantasy that humanity can get control of COVID and we'll just vaccinate it out of existence, despite decades of knowledge about how difficult that would be from our research into other coronaviruses. So when I hear that we need to give up another year of normal life to "keep the hospitals from being overwhelmed", it is frustrating to hear.

Yeah, that's abrasive even by the warped incorporation services standards.

They take advantage of people that have an initial negative reaction to doing anything that sounds "legal-y" but really all they are doing is submitting 2 forms (certificate of organization with the state, application for EIN with IRS), giving you some template document for an operating agreement, and then once a year filing a one-page form to keep the company in good standing. If you're paying more than $100 for this, you're being taken for a ride.

This is a much more palatable option than just wholesale debt forgiveness. I think there could be a lot of bipartisan support for a policy like this. It doesn't fix the problem entirely, but it finally frees people from the life sentence of their student loans. I would imagine the collection rates would be almost zero for any borrowers in this situation, anyway.

> I see that you're not interested in debate based on facts but are driven by your ideology

That's an awful lot of projecting. Your use of logical fallacies is dizzying.

>> "it's not hugely difficult to earn six figures in the US if you're committed, work hard, and pick a good field." > I think that's true for White and Asian folks.

So the 15 million impoverished white people are just lazy but the 8 million impoverished black people are systematically deprived of opportunity? It's so strange to me that SJWs feel the need to minimize the struggles of groups that are facing the same obstacles as the groups they are advocating for just because they have a common skin color with the majority of the affluent group.

The goal is to use numbers to inform yourself instead of emotional attachments to political narratives. The numbers show that anyone can be poor and deprived of opportunity.

Then go back and read what I replied to instead of what you wanted to think I was saying. The original poster stated "white and asian people don't have this problem" but the numbers show this clearly is not true.

> I think that's true for White and Asian folks.

Race-based generalizations almost always end up leading you in the wrong direction. There's substantially more white people living below the poverty line compared to any other group [1] and those poor white communities are trapped by the same lack of awareness of opportunities as any of the minority groups you mentioned. Whites and Asians are over-represented in the affluent groups, which leads many people to look at things through a racial lens, but on a per capita basis, whites dominate the impoverished population.

[1] https://talkpoverty.org/basics/

But shouldn't the employees that require extra subsidies (office space, commuting reimbursement, office utilities/supplies) receive the same overall compensation as those working from home with lower expense to the company? It seems to me that if being in the office is an optional preference for some, they should carry the cost of it.

As far as I can tell, Zuckerberg's true talent is being thrown into situations he has no life experience to handle and appropriately picking the right people to surround himself with and listen to.

I don't think being pulled from your car and beaten by an angry mob is the typical definition of inconvenience.

I don't blame anyone for pursuing their self interest. I would do the same thing if I was them. But it's dishonest to say their primary motivation isn't economic. If they're fleeing something in their home country, they've successfully escaped it by getting to Mexico. Continuing to the US is an economic decision.

Can you elaborate on how you feel climate change has recently affected this issue? It seems more likely to me that the recent pandemic is the major issue.

> This long-term famine is already happening in Central America and is driving more and more migrants north every year.

This is certainly a problem but not nearly a major reason that migrants are coming north. They're coming north because they can make their monthly salary from northern triangle countries in a few days in the US. These are economic migrants, regardless of what the news tells you, evidenced by the fact that almost none of them are accepting offers of asylum in Mexico and choosing to continue to the US.

In the two party system in the US, this isn't really a viable option. It's a strange place where you're not allowed to be both pro-choice and against intrusive government. It makes an even stronger case for reigning in the centralized power of federal and state bureaucrats because they're even less accountable.

And when you give a central authority permission to dictate these "inconvenient measures" to the population, what is the recourse when those authorities act in a contradictory, dishonest, or incompetent manner?