FreqSep

> I also checked your account and it's nothing but right wing propaganda. Damn, dude

That’s odd, as I generally vote Democrat and the only post here I’ve submitted is to a math blog post I enjoy.

At any rate, let’s try to avoid having this website turn into yet another Reddit or Twitter in terms of quality of comments and obsession about anything seen as not left leaning enough.

I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree about the merits of Saddam Hussein, here. Have a good weekend.

Saddam Hussein did quite a bit more then just “challenge the bully”…

I suppose genocide of the Kurds is acceptable on the internet as long as your suitably anti-American while you do it. Those darn American imperialists!

Well that’s just not true. And a webpage of “European Alternatives” that 99.99% of Europeans have never heard of, much less come even remotely close to adopting, means nothing.

Does America “represent the world”? No.

Does America represent the national security strategy of essentially all of Europe, most non-Chinese nations in Asia, and much of South America?

Absolutely, and to pretend otherwise is to be dreaming.

If you’re not in one of those areas then you are correct that your adversary is not our adversary. But it’s pretty statistically likely you are, and in that case the two are linked.

You’re welcome to return the trillions spent on your defense, of course, and set up your own naval strategy and naval supply chains to defend your trade routes.

> If it's true, what does saying it's anti-American mean? Would you rather be in the dark about shady shit your government is doing?

Sure, as long as it’s accompanied by safe journalist practices (which it isn’t) and also calls out the shady shit of other, opposed, countries (which (which it doesn’t).

> It’s entirely possible that he just has better access to US sources than Russian ones.

That’s fine and possible, but even if that wasn’t the case - and he had access to Russian leaks but didn’t leak them - this is still exactly what he would say.

And it’s possible both are true - that he’s simply releasing what is given to him, and the Russian state saw this and took the opportunity to feed him information as a result. At that point, after he has continually irresponsibly released covert information from a hostile state, how is he any different in practice than an intentional hostile actor?

> Yes western governments are totally full of shit too, the proof of this is that Julian Assange is still being crucified for leaking information, for being a whistle blower.

That’s just not true. Many leakers and whistle blowers aren’t prosecuted every year.

Julian Assange is a pretty transparent Russian asset and has been for a number of years. There’s a reason he never leaks anything that is negative of Putin. Meanwhile if it’s anti-American he leaks it in full without taking any standard journalist precautions.

Of course he can pull the “I’m just a journalist bro” card, but the act is over and his time is up.

> we should toss out the Bill of Rights anytime it seems inconvenient to our short-term ends

We already do this. You have the right to bear arms - just not nuclear ones.

America has always had to place reasonable restrictions on rights to ensure the public good.

What makes leftist parties unviable is the majority of the population disapproving of socialism.

People online vastly overestimate the actual effect of money on political results, naturally disregarding all the donations made to candidates that lose and ignoring races where the lesser funded candidates win.

If Americans wanted a leftist government, they’d vote for it, simple as that. And yet even in the most left leaning states and cities in the nation , leftist principles have failed to gain much electoral ground.

Well, the notices were over a year.

Amazon has massive weekly turnover numbers so the real number of employees over that full year is likely well in excess of 5,000, putting it at least at 1.something per.

Then consider it’s almost certain a small number of employees rack up most of the notices, and I can see this happening.

The real question is, are there any examples of companies achieving what Amazon is achieving at its scale, *without* employing these techniques? And if so what are they doing differently?

I was going to say hopefully EU regulators back off some of the insane Taxi regulations that require you to have 100,000€ or more to…drive people around

How do you propose dispensing a limited number of drivers to a larger number of customers? There are really only two solutions: get more drivers or get fewer customers.

Surge pricing can incentivize more drivers to come online. I don’t see how you can reduce the customers in a short timeframe.

No, it’s absolutely caused by the EU. What you’re seeing, as many have seen in the past, is idealistic laws meeting reality

> and will be left behind because of it.

EU vs US GDP growth over the past 15 years, and in fact vs most countries, would strongly suggest Europe is being left behind due to overregulation during an aging crisis.

But hey, why argue in the internet. Let’s let things play out and see where the cards fall

> When it comes to technical questions like energy it should be logic, math, and real data or go home.

If those questions have real implications for human beings, you need to consider more than just the technicals.

And Juuls additionally are not “smoking” - it operates at a much lower temperature than combustion in a typical cigarette.

Well, no. You certainly could be someone who *could* pay it off but chooses not to for a variety of reasons. Many otherwise financially people I know carry some credit card debt.

Now is that a large portion of people? I have no clue, and my anecdotal evidence certainly isn’t qualified to answer the question.

> Half of U.S. adults don't have the cash to cover an unexpected $500 health care bill

I recognize that this is an important discussion to have to improve US healthcare, so I’m not outright disagreeing with you.

But I think this is a bit editorialized. Paying with cash is so rare in society. I don’t even have the cash to pay for my lunch - I just use a credit card. It shouldn’t be surprising.

Half of U.S. adults said they would pay it immediately.(30% using savings,20% using a credit card they pay off that month)

A further 21% said they would pay with a credit card and pay it off over time. (Anyone who is already in other forms of debt will probably take this option as they, by definition, don’t have the cash for other things.)

Another 5% said they would make a payment plan with a provider / pay overtime.

That’s 76% of the country that is knowledgeable about reasonable ways to pay for the services. Now, 24% using worse off options or not knowing - that’s not good at all. But it’s a far cry from the implication that “half of people can’t pay”

But still this isn’t really a metric on the U.S. healthcare system directly - that would be asking why we have unexpected $500 bills, not which payment method people are using. And alternatively, or even in tandem, why people are not saving and planning ahead.

Note that this data is from a poll, not actual investigations of medical account balances. It includes the following, very broad, categories in the original polling methodology:

“c. Any debt you owe to a bank, collection agency, or other lender that includes debt or loans used to pay medical or dental bills.

d. Any medical or dental bills that you have put on a credit card, and are paying off over time.”

Thus, by one interpretation, if you’re already in over $5,000 of credit card debt, and you charge a $10 prescription fill or $25 copay to that credit card, their methodology will now include you in the medical debt and medical debt amount statistics as having medical debt over $5,000. The specific wording of the “amount” question seemingly tries to prevent this, but considering the above was classified as medical debt prior in the polling, it’s not hard at all to imagine people answering in the affirmative.

Is this really true? I don’t know, that’s a complicated discussion. There are certainly people who are paying medical costs with credit cards. They deserve to be included. But it does seem possibly a bit too broad.

Are IoT and Smart Home actually *that* huge?

I feel like you glossed over a lot here though.

Reading? Yes, the intricacies of clause structure? No, no one uses that besides a few people.

Science? Almost no one I know uses chemistry or biology. I don’t even remember how to balance a chemical equation.

The same arguments against mathematics education can be used for almost anything.

If “Reading” is the example for English education, then “addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division” are the analogs in math, and they’re used by pretty much everyone in day to day life and in other classes. Hell, they’re even used when reading.

Why does this argument not apply to any subject that a number of students find challenging? If the education system were based on this kind of thinking we would basically have no classes.

I certainly have NEVER used biology at work, and I didn’t do well in it in high school or college.

Here’s the appeal: it’s basically a MacBook Pro when the keyboard is attached.

But you can take it off and write notes with it, pass it around, etc.

> On the other hand trying to help any of these people is quickly branded as socialism (or worse, communism)

I get your sentiment, but I personally think you’re off base here.

You seem to be demonizing the other side a bit and implying they don’t want to help these people.

Is it so hard to believe that some members of society genuinely believe that welfare programs hurt this group rather than help them in the long run?

I’m not asking you to agree with that sentiment - I’m not even saying it’s correct - I’m simply pointing out that many of the people against socialism and communism do genuinely believe that their viewpoints will help these people in the long run.

Well, roads are temporary and it becomes a bit of a ship of Theseus question there to say who actually paid for them.

> Did the government make the right decisions then? Are they making the right decisions now?

Government is allowed to occasionally make the wrong decision. Perfection is an imperfect standard.

Yes, I agree and see now that I made a bad choice of words there.

Correcting it I would rephrase it to say that massive components of society are directly facilitated by the government as one example: (roads -> shipped goods, travel experiences, etc)

Look, I am far from pro-government interference. That being said, I personally disagree with much of your argument here.

You implicitly agree to some measure when you participate in the society set up by government.

There is today a very common attitude that governments are intentionally only serving a small elite. This populist - perhaps even intuitive - rhetoric is exaggerated for most of the Western world.

If you’re living on your own out in the wilderness, I can see your argument. But this actually does exist to some degree in how uncontacted peoples[0] are generally not subject to the laws of the government whos jurisdiction they fall under. This isn’t a lifestyle most of us would choose but perhaps there is some merit to making this path easier to take for those who desire it.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples