thesagan

I'll buy one after they remove that touchbar. Please remove the touchbar.

I’ve heard variants of your story from so many people here in the midwest. There’s an entire nation of people in the US hurting, and many who could return as first class citizens if we had some more empathy paired with grit.

Godspeed.

My Senator, Stabenow, a dem, replied to my letter about a year ago that she’s “studying” that proposal.

A year later, she said she’s still studying the proposal.

She’s happy about voting for those expanded pentagon budgets though!

And I'm still skeptical either were that effective. Domestic efforts go into the billions of dollars and involve entire sectors of the domestic economy.

People shouldn't be swayed by that, and in my opinion, Delta shouldn't put it out there, either. Delta is in a much stronger position than most of its employees.

The fact Delta makes an appeal on that level is disappointing to me.

There's a common sentiment that fools should be taken as such. I don't subscribe to it, for the most part. I think that's brutish business.

I sense that awareness of U.S. corruption has been increasing.

One watchdog group has been tracking it's position, as mentioned in this WSJ article: https://blogs.wsj.com/riskandcompliance/2019/01/29/u-s-seen-...

And then there's that now-infamous Princeton study, which has been cited many times: https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi...

And i’ve worked with self taught professionals that outcompete formally educated ones. It’s not so simple, and one of our great sins is writing off people’s potential before they’re even given a chance to try.

They're not the same. For example, it's the U.S. that has the world's largest prison population and the world's most expensive healthcare, etc. China has different issues.

Last thing my grandpa said to me was, "I'll see you soon."

It's actually comforting.

If there's an authority which can deem an election decision as "uneducated" and "harmful" then why have voting at all?

Why not just leave major decisions to a committee, if we're going to pick and choose which elections are decided "correctly."

I struggle with confirmation bias, myself.

Even reputations are hotly debated in this climate. I think a good habit is to read from as many sources as possible, including controversial ones, and making a private determination as to how to weight reporting.

I wonder if—as a culture—we're limiting ourselves by habitually thinking in terms of public government and private enterprise; as if we need to find new concepts for grouping together people trying to solve problems.

I know I'm not adding much to the discussion with such vague notions, but I'd like to crack this vagueness a little beyond binary options that I, too, seem to habitually trap myself within.

I think of riding ferris wheels or a sinking/falling feeling of approaching Earth in a space capsule coming back from the moon.

Well... being transparent makes leaks ok.

Otherwise the discussion is private and/or not transparent. (Or at least not intended to be transparent.) Private discussions are usually not be transparent, otherwise the public court will judge.

If Google wants to discuss sensitive issues at an "all hands meeting" then it better be prepared for leaks, otherwise they should stick to smoke filled rooms.

I find it disconcerting.

Marx wasn't the first, and he wasn't the last to argue for a community/worker owned and operated economic system. He's just the best known. He might have co-written written a manifesto, but had he not another would very likely have. It was a long time coming. But that's really besides my point.

Importantly, Marx did not advocate for a totalitarian political regime. That's a big deal, because that's a defining element of Stalinism. Marx didn't cause that aspect; the aspect that people actually detest. Stalin did. His military underlings did.

I'll say it again, because it's very misunderstood, generally speaking: Marx did not advocate totalitarianism.

Another underlying point is that violent men come from many places, and given the conditions of early 20th century Russia, I would argue the Russians would have had their violent revolution and totalitarian regime, Marxism or not. Like the French had happen to them. Violence begets violence, and Russia, under their monarchy, was an ugly place and had been for a very long time.

So, Stalin was probably coming no matter what, I hate to say. And he was a totalitarian, unlike Marx.

Interesting side note: Stalin was a darling in the U.S. before we demonized him after we were done with the War. Kind of like Saddam Hussein.

A lot of them are Marxists because they’ve studied it.

I’m not exactly Marxist but I’m more terrified by those who judge his works without having legitimately studied it critically and in depth under supervision.

He’s a lightning rig for prejudice and too many people equate Marx with Stalin, or believe him to have caused Stalin.

I think these articles speak with the ambition of these cities themselves despite the loss of their industrial base; to my mind this ambitiousness is correlated with boosterism. And it does makes people feel good, and it might work, too, at supporting ambition. Just like how folks in NYC and SF often speak highly (as well as ill) of their homes. It feels good!

I'm not sure of how some cities are more expensive correlates with overall ambition so much as it does class. People from all classes can be very ambitious even if they're unequal in wealth.

In this specific sense I’m not sure that the insurance itself is considered speculative, but merely a way to minimize/manage the possibility of potential damages in a reasonable way.

If I’m not mistaken, her write up addresses speculation as potential damages as estimated before they could be realized in an uninsured situation, or otherwise taken up by insurers themselves.

The insurance is another thing altogether—a tool to mitigate that real and known risk right now.

(I’m on mobile so I only glanced at her post.)

That said, IANAL or an actuary.

“We are living longer and better lives compared to generations past”

I appreciate all your writing, but statistics show lifespans in the U.S. are declining and housing is out of reach for increasing populations. On a mass society level that means something is very wrong and has been for some time. (Lots of folks like to also blame drug use but those have been around for ages.)

I think you’re missing the big picture.

“No, the basic quality of life has risen to perfectly match your income.”

What? That sounds ideological.

Many people today live in misery, but with TVs. The important things—quality of life, for one—is something different than material things.

Also, the article take care to use the word “necessities.” If those are out of reach those people are not rich.

In a nation of declining life expectancy this is something that needs to be taken seriously.

Some consider it an ideology called “Economism”

Agreed. That he even said that at all really got my attention. Doesn't inspire confidence.

You know... I'm a "Rand" fan, but I never cared for the NeXT logo either. It's just so cheap-looking (at least to me) and jarring compared to his other work. But then again it never had a presence in my day-to-life either, unlike IBM.

More likely because they can't sell like Paul Rand did. It usually comes down to the pitch.

This is mainly true in competitive markets. Markets aren’t always competitive. We could argue we live in an oligarchy which isn’t as competitive as we are taught.

I don't see why not. Seems nuclear weapons and war are still a thing. So much so they moved the hands of the Doomsday clock again to these heights.

We can start by treating this as an important problem and tasking ourselves with looking for and finding alternatives and putting political/financial pressure on these institutions to consider them.

Just asking "but what are the alternatives" isn't productive in itself, and doesn't really carry the conversation forward. It more likely shuts it down as a hopeless problem. We can do better. It's not hopeless and we're not powerless as a collective.

I'm sure there are alternatives but we're not looking for them very well. We could start there. I'm doing my part by bringing this up in conversation whenever it's relevant and getting to know my state representative and state senator. I also make noise towards the hospital's admins in the meanwhile.

---------------

Also, the article discusses possible alternatives. Here are a couple of paragraphs from it:

"This begins with our own training. Certainly doctors must understand disease, but medical education is overly skewed toward the biomedical sciences and minutiae about esoteric and rare disease processes. Doctors also need time to engage with the humanities, because they are the gateway to the human experience."

"To restore balance between the art and the science of medicine, we should curtail initial coursework in topics like genetics, developmental biology and biochemistry, making room for training in communication, interpersonal dynamics and leadership."

That's being a bit obtuse. Of course it matters how it feels, however you look at it! Such as if a loading bar makes something feel better as it loads - then good!