phd514

8 ms·

31.
by phd514 7y ago
>>I can reasonably guess that you are the owner of some business for whom labor is just a cost and taxation to support public goods is going to cost you more than it benefits you. That includes everyone from corporate interests down t
32.
by phd514 7y ago
Eh, not necessarily. In my field (tech-related), I make substantially more than I would in the Netherlands and my tax burden is also substantially lower. I get 4 weeks of PTO plus 10 holidays every year and I never use it all. That is certa
33.
by phd514 7y ago
That Wikipedia article is horrible and incorrectly states the common misconceptions about the Protestant work ethic. Worse still, it cites Leland Ryken in its second reference who makes precisely the same point about the common misunderstan
34.
by phd514 7y ago
From an economic perspective, the "Puritan work ethic" as coined by Max Weber and described as the impetus for economic development in post-Reformation cultures has been largely abandoned by economists. From a theological perspect
35.
by phd514 7y ago
As a semi-related aside, Cornelius Van Til developed a lot of similar ideas about the logical necessity of the supernatural in the area of theological apologetics.
36.
by phd514 8y ago
Admittedly, the American Red Cross has problems distributing humanitarian aid effectively, but the ICRC creates a separate set of problems for itself by departing from its founding mission as an impartial and neutral distributor of humanita
37.
by phd514 8y ago
Thomas Kuhn would disagree.
38.
by phd514 8y ago
The opening paragraphs of this article are just another example of what appears to be an ongoing attempt to manufacture conflict between "religion" and "science". The books that were burned at Ephesus were explicitly ide
39.
by phd514 8y ago
Canada did. It's not that far-fetched.
40.
by phd514 8y ago
This is disappointing, but not as much as Warren vs. District of Columbia.
41.
by phd514 8y ago
It's a complicated topic and tough to do it justice in a brief post, but a couple brief thoughts anyway. I believe that I as an individual have a moral obligation to provide aid to the poor. I do not believe that government has that re
42.
by phd514 8y ago
Pasadena is beautiful, but affordable houses? I have family there and the 7-figure prices they paid for their nondescript houses are eye-watering.
43.
by phd514 8y ago
I'm not the GP, but I don't think that paying more taxes is the best way to improve society. I'm not rich, but as someone making above median wages and living in a low-COL area with no state income taxes, I put my money where
44.
by phd514 8y ago
I work remotely in a flyover state near family which is important with kids. The low cost of living doesn't hurt either. I lived in NYC and the Bay Area before kids, so I know they are like, but I prefer where I am now for my current s
45.
by phd514 8y ago
I don't think it's fair to say that people who defaulted during the 2008 mortgage-backed securities crisis did so because they lacked sufficient macroeconomic knowledge to make prudent financial decisions. Some were offered loans
46.
by phd514 8y ago
Largely agree with your second two paragraphs, but even as someone who couldn't care less about football, I think it's hard to make the case that a predatory loan collector provides more benefit to society than a football coach.
47.
by phd514 8y ago
According to recent studies, neither of those are really happening. "Secularization theory" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secularization#Current_issues_... ) is the current sociological term for (a) and it is
48.
by phd514 8y ago
Frankly, whatever "elite" was characterized by the MIT of the 20th century is the kind of elite that's good. There were far more kids with middle-class backgrounds at MIT than at your typical Ivy and they were there because t
49.
by phd514 8y ago
> study after study shows that humans very much define happiness in relative terms Whether or not the gap is widening, that definition of happiness is very problematic. There's something wrong when, as an example, someone is happy w
50.
by phd514 8y ago
From a Christian perspective, the Parable of the Talents (or Minas from Luke's gospel) describes future reward based not on net worth but on one's faithfulness with the resources entrusted to one. No harp-playing or lamb-petting n
51.
by phd514 8y ago
Much of what you say is true about Dallas proper, but it's a small part of the very large (4th largest MSA in the US) DFW metroplex. The large outer suburbs of DFW are still very conservative though perhaps not in all the ways you woul
52.
by phd514 8y ago
The article ( https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323689604578220... ) said nothing of the sort. It said that while the bulk of the tax increases were at the high end of the income spectrum, many individuals and
53.
by phd514 8y ago
I added my comp at one of the listed companies a couple weeks back and it never showed up in your list. I'm not sure if there are bugs in your front end or lots of false negatives in your spam filtering or what. I'm happy to contr
54.
by phd514 8y ago
The former of your suggestions is already required for most political advertising: https://transition.fec.gov/pages/brochures/spec_notice_broch...
55.
by phd514 8y ago
This video parody of those kinds of productions both pokes fun at them and raises some of the same kinds of questions about them that you do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ys4Nx0rNlAM
56.
by phd514 8y ago
Hank Hill had another great set of lines at the end of that episode (S08E02, I believe) where he gets out a box of Bobby's old toys that he's lost interest in. Hank tells him that he doesn't want Jesus to become like one of t
57.
by phd514 8y ago
I don't think you can make the historical case that the past was uniformly more brutal or unjust than the present. I think it would be more accurate to say that in our current place and time, our current evolution of moral standards an
58.
by phd514 8y ago
There's some impressive engineering involved in JRuby and some interesting possibilities with the Graal JIT. That said, I've had a net negative experience working on a product with a mix of Java and JRuby code. The JRuby LOC was i
59.
by phd514 8y ago
It doesn't make a lot of sense that Switzerland is the EU's version of MA or NY or that Zurich is the EU version of NYC or SF given that Switzerland is not in the EU and quite happy that way, too.
60.
by phd514 8y ago
This is not surprising to me as I expect that the average pair of theology majors has more in common from the perspective of worldview and values, important things to share with a spouse, than the average pair of business majors.

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