thrden

Development agencies actually hire lots of local people. for USAID/State Department, they're called FSNs, and its pretty easy to find stories about them and the work that they do. According to one Document I found around 55k/75k state department employees were Foreign Nationals (aka local hires). [1] Foreign nationals don't run these agencies because these agencies are responsible to their respective governments and have missions and goals that extend beyond simple development. This post seems incredibly uninformed given that the extent of their research seems to be looking at the citation of the photographs/videos.

[1] https://diplopundit.net/2017/05/08/statedeptusaid-staffing-c...

Even if we set aside any potential spiritual, or child-rearing value. Marriage is a very important institution in helping people achieve economic mobility, it increases your household income significantly, as well as seriously reducing your cost of living. Anecdotally, my cost of living was drastically reduced when my girlfriend and I moved in together (thereby splitting a 1BR), however given that we aren't married we individually have to save a good amount of money in cash accounts in case of a breakup. If we were married, we could reduce our cash savings by 50% and instead invest that money into the open market. Moreover, we would be far more likely to take care of the other financially if one went to school if we were married. Marriage, and the commitment it entails changes the attitudes of individuals towards each other by ensuring that we can plan for a combined future. all that exists outside of societally constructed benefits like joint taxation and healthcare.

digging into this, it doesn't seem to adjust for CoL but competitiveness of the market. Seattle and NYC have the same salary bracket, but NYC is by far more expensive. Nerd Wallet claims the city is between 37% to -6% more expensive depending on where you live (Manhattan vs Queens)

Rent Control in NYC actually disproportionately benefits wealthier New Yorkers.[1]

https://ny.curbed.com/2019/6/12/18662844/rent-regulation-stu...

If this is a lander what will they use to deliver the lander to lunar orbit? I'll admit I don't follow this sort of news very closely, but it seems quite exciting.

do you have any public writing? I'd be interested in reading what you've written.

[deleted]

its the 4 most recent decades covered by census data. Although you're right to point out that suburbia had its primacy in this time period, the researcher can't be faulted for looking for the highest quality, most recent data.

Socialized Medicine and Education are often discussed in this context. However, if we look at Europe where student debt is minimal, and medicine is provided by the state fertility rates are even lower.

I'm not quite sure how to parse that particular piece of data. It seems as though it may be nominal if we consider that the Household Debt-to GDP ratio is substantially decreased from 2008. Further, household debt service ratios have also decreased substantially (by roughly 30%).

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HDTGPDUSQ163N

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TDSP

I know this has already been down voted, but I want to point out that this exact dialog was invented by the soviet union to distract from their abysmal human rights records[1]. Moreover, it doesn't even make sense as a deflection given that the Soviet Union had institutional racism at a very high level, ranging from antisemitism [2] to ethnic cleansing[3] to outright genocide[3]. America is certainly guilty of racism, and we should discuss these issues. However, it should not be used as a weapon to defend evil regimes.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin_and_antisemitism

[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_the_Soviet_Union#Kor...

[4]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

I believe this is because poverty rate is determined on a national scale, whereas this factors in California's particularly high cost of living.

not that its not smart enough, just that it has to listen to alternative groups. Nuclear power would be one way current technology could drastically reduce C02 Emissions, yet well intentioned, intelligent actors oppose the proliferation of such plants. While China could simply ignore those groups, the US is required to give them a voice in the political process.

That doesn't seem like splitting the difference as much as putting the costs on men...

its part of the gawker family so its not surprising that it uses non-professional language

Even in the least developed countries on earth life expectancy is nearly double the 26 years quoted in the article. This article feels less like serious analysis, and instead the product of over-problematizing

I don't find this particularly compelling as given the author's fundamental assumptions regarding inequity and sexism as natural outcroppings of agrarian society. For example the mongols were a largely non-agrarian society that was highly stratified, and deeply sexist that committed human rights violations on the global scale.

I would argue against the informal power dynamics as they tend to be far less transparent. Informal systems can be coopted by individuals far more easily, and with far less limitations on their power. Moreover, individuals who do take control of these systems have a for more vested interest in maintaining and expanding their power as they can become very wealthy by doing so. Moreover, when they give up power even well intentioned, good rulers run the risk of reprisal for non-work related reasons. I believe that formal structures emerged as a means to prevent corruption, and ease the integration of new comers.

While I'm not saying they should have banned one, and not the other it would have been entirely possible to say ban an opioids sales subreddit, but not the bb-gun subreddit. It would have been trivial to simply make the rule such that only illicit sales/transactions were banned. They decided to create these rules and if the rules make reddit look foolish than maybe thats because they are.

its hard to see that its anything but censorship when these platforms hold a pure monopoly on the space. If Gutenberg prevented anything displeasing to him from being printed, we would rightly see that as censorship. Further, censorship takes place in many ways only a small number are the result of state actors. In Mexico reporting on the cartels will cause them to target and perhaps kill you.

Unfortunately we've had a very poor week for internet freedom. However much of it has been the result of corporate overreach.

This week: Reddit bans Cigar, beer and Alchohol trading subreddits, toy bb gun sales, and gun related coupon clippers

Youtube (and facebook?) banned Channels featuring guns they deem inappropriate. Including videos regarding proper safety and maintenance.

It has become clear to be that the internet is naturally monopolistic in a way physical institutions are not. One simply cannot move their gun channel, or the cigar trading forum to other sites and have a decent chance of maintaining even 10% of their customers. What happens if google also decides that they don't want these things to show up in search results. We need regulation to ensure that these platforms remain open for all types of users, not regulation that forces more content off these platforms.

I disagree, I happen to love capitalism though I'm just a student. Its brought about incredible changes, and raised the standard of living for billions across the world. I've lived in post-soviet countries, and I've lived in the west and I'd much rather live within a capitalist system. Socialism and its derivatives do little to replace inequality as they merely replace trackable, earn-able financial capital with an amorphous social capital. One gets jobs based on who they know, who their parents are or perhaps what tribe they come from. No one can reasonably aspire to the the child of the nomenclatura. One can reasonably push toward the middle class, or upper middle class. Further within a racially stratified country, it seems likely that ethnic class-difference would be reinforced rather than alleviated.

I dislike comments like this because they play on the ignorance of people in regards to China. You say America has issues with race, but at the same time ignore that China holds 120,000 Uighur in "Political Reeducation Camps". A city of ~500,000 has tens of thousands in these camps. [1] . What was the offence of these minorities? expressing their culture or religion.

You talk about issues of immigration, but China has a system that maintains internal passports, where citizens need permission of the government to move, and should they do so unofficially they face serious discrimination, and a denial of basic services. [2]

None of this of course, discusses the labor camp system, the imprisionment of political activists, or the murder and organ harvesting of religious minorities.

Just because you may not have heard of an issue doesn't mean that they don't exist, particularly when dealing with a country whose Human Rights records is one of the worst in the world.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/25/at-least-12000...

[2] https://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21600798-china...

While that's generally been true on a global level, the olympics have generally been profitable endeavors for American host cities. the 1984, '96 and '02 all turned a profit for host cities.[1] Further, if olympic upgrades are done responsibly the games can act as a subsidy for local improvements to mass transit, universities and other civic spaces even if the city doesn't turn a profit.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_the_Olympic_Games

California has aspects of it that do well economically, overall its situation is quite dismal. It boasts the COLA adjusted highest poverty rate in the country. Worse than Mississippi, West Virginia or Alabama.

[1]http://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2017/jan/20/...

Interestingly that seems to be a result of the CDC's own political leanings. They seemed to pursue the research with an explicit political goal, rather than research the effects of gun violence, and then find a goal[1]. Further, the Dickey amendment doesn't actually force the CDC to avoid researching the issue but rather preventing it from using federal money . to promote gun control:

"none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may be used to advocate or promote gun control"[2]

[1]https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2015/12/why-we-cant-tr... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dickey_Amendment_(1996)

well thats clearly untrue, because when adjusted for cost of living, California has a higher poverty rate[1]

[1]http://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2017/jan/20/...

One thing that people aren't considering is that we have legalization experiments within the United States, and we have seen an uptick in marijuana usage[1]. This uptick has been benign because its been limited to Marijuana. I think that given our culture (one that I believe is potentially universal, but I can not speak to universality) has a tendency toward over consumption, its not clear to me that legalization of drugs would lead to decreased usage. I'm not advocating continuing our failed drug war, just caution when considering legalization, it may still be the best way forward.

[1] http://www.rmhidta.org/html/FINAL%20NSDUH%20Results-%20Jan%2...

While you are absolutely correct that the presidency was won by the minority of voters, its not really correct to say the same for congress. Within the house of reps where everyone is up for election every 2 years, the republicans won the popular vote. The senate is trickier as only a 3rd of senators have an election at any given time, thus the differentials are skewed based on which states are voting at a given time.

in 2016: democrats won 53% of the vote, republicans 43%

in 2014: democrats won 43% of the vote, republicans 52%

in 2012: democrats won 53% of the vote, republicans 43%

Part of the problem when comparing popular votes nationally is that you often have situations in CA where the two candidates running for office in the general election are both democrats. when the sum total of those votes is 10m, or the differential between the number of votes the republicans received nationally and the number democrats received nationally, is it fair to complain about a lack of representation? Other times within house races there wont even be a challenger.

gerrymandering actually only comes into play within the house. if the vote for the house was done by a purely popular basis without regards to districting and state boundaries, the republicans would still control the house. However, their majority would be far slimmer[1].

overall these comparisons are complicated as you often have situations where candidates from the same party compete against each other, or face no challenger

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Represe...