syops

11 ms·

61.
by syops 5y ago
Consider the possibility that life in the U.S is abnormal by the standards of the rest of the world and that our view of what it means to be free is distorted.
62.
by syops 5y ago
Some refer to the U.S. as a managed democracy and view the U.S. in totalitarian terms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
63.
by syops 5y ago
I’ve lived in or visited over 20 countries and one striking thing about the U.S. is how little we walk. In almost every city in the U.S. relatively few people are out and about outside. In some sense we have criminalized walking. It is
64.
by syops 5y ago
In a properly functioning society the government tends to look out for the best interests of its citizens. People are local optimization machines and they tend to make bad long term decisions. In order to prevent exploitation of labor it
65.
by syops 5y ago
Your knowledge regarding union membership is outdated. No one can be forced to join a Union and no one can be forced to even pay for collective bargaining that they benefit from.
66.
by syops 5y ago
I suppose you don’t think constitutionally protected free speech rights apply to unions. Are you at least consistent and want to ban lobbying efforts by corporations? The leaders of corporations can join a political organization. Are you
67.
by syops 5y ago
Here’s an interesting Twitter thread that claims cops commit orders of magnitude more physical assaults than arrests for serious crimes. There is a possibility that having fewer police leads to less violence in the community. https:/
68.
by syops 5y ago
Pertaining to your last paragraph. I very much agree with what you wrote. I think a better way to state my point is this. I try to read academic papers with skepticism and when I think of an obvious potential objection I think it highly
69.
by syops 5y ago
I don’t understand your response. A union’s primary purpose is for advocating for the rights, working conditions, and pay for it’s members. That teachers’ unions often times advocate for making things better for their students in the form
70.
by syops 5y ago
I haven’t read the paper and by your admission you haven’t either. You skimmed it. Do you find it reasonable to believe that you could come up with potential objections to the paper that the authors didn’t also think about? You made a cla
71.
by syops 5y ago
As with all sufficiently large organizations of people there are leaders of the organization. The leaders represent the members and sometimes some members disagree with the leadership. Are you suggesting that no organization of people oug
72.
by syops 5y ago
The administration of the governmental organization negotiates the interest of the public. They sometimes do a great job and sometimes they don’t. My union’s contract must be approved by the state legislature. One party is actively oppos
73.
by syops 5y ago
A union’s job is to look out for it’s members. If the members of a teacher’s union decide to champion political issues then that is their right.
74.
by syops 5y ago
This is what happens when a country morphs into Ferenginar. In the U.S. one ought to have very little trust whenever money is involved.
75.
by syops 5y ago
One can define an order relation using cardinality. Cardinality does capture a notion of size of sets that corresponds to intuition for finite sets and captures the idea of one infinite set being “smaller” or the same size as another. In g
76.
by syops 5y ago
Are you suggesting that people who don’t take horse or cow medications are sheep? Does this mean you have taken horse/cow medications? Someone who has taken horse medications over the Covid vaccine is much more akin to a proverbial s
77.
by syops 5y ago
I agree very much with your last paragraph. I believe this to be true for pretty much most things in the U.S. The incentives in the system are mostly misaligned. A collapse is the most likely thing to occur before positive change happens
78.
by syops 5y ago
I don’t understand your response. Getting vaccinated for Covid has orders of magnitude less risk than not getting vaccinated. Desiring to live where there are no vaccination requirements has nothing to do with wanting to be free. That yo
79.
by syops 5y ago
What facts am I disregarding? As global poverty declines consumption correspondingly goes up. Globalization ensures that the message of consumption wins out. Profits need to be had. Humans are local optimization machines. The only real
80.
by syops 5y ago
Poverty is on the decline globally and this means consumption correspondingly increases. People in Benin and elsewhere have the same desires as everyone else and they too want to consume at a greater rate. They want things too. Americans
81.
by syops 5y ago
Thank you for the clarification on what you meant by “myth”. The rate of population growth has been declining but not the growth of the population. There are far more people now than 60 years ago. There are around 8 billion people and gl
82.
by syops 5y ago
Far fewer people means far less environmental destruction.
83.
by syops 5y ago
What is a myth? If there were far fewer people less carbon would be used/extracted. Less trees and natural space would be destroyed. Less plastic would be around. Etc. There are not enough resources for everyone to live like we Ame
84.
by syops 5y ago
Why does it give you pause for thought? Isn’t the mostly likely conclusion is that the reason more data is leading to more gloom and doom is because we are in a gloom and doom situation?
85.
by syops 5y ago
As I see things the only solution is that humans need to stop reproducing so much. There are far too many people for the resources of the planet given current technology.
86.
by syops 5y ago
A livable city means a city that is not car centric. Such is my opinion. Far too much land and resources are used for parking spaces and those spaces are largely unused. Our cities are hostile to pedestrians as well as our law enforcemen
87.
by syops 5y ago
As I see it people in the U.S. can live in spread out cities because of cars. If cars were somehow to be made undesirable then we’d want to live in more compact spaces.
88.
by syops 5y ago
Isn’t this a property of autocracy? It’s true that pretty much every implemented communist society became autocratic but there are systems - like the one in Iran - that similarly care only about the success of the party in power. The prob
89.
by syops 5y ago
If the U.S. could shift from a car centric culture then population density would go up. Of course having bus routes to every national park is not feasible in the U.S. but we can have a robust public transportation system beyond urban cente
90.
by syops 5y ago
I lived in Germany for a while and used a car twice. Both times it was a rental. Was able to take public transportation to almost every place including national parks. The U.S. needs to make investments in public transportation. It woul

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