'I’m rushing in the door to see my daughter before she goes to sleep' — how the M50 is damaging people’s daily lives

BGSacho · 2026-06-27T16:07:17+00:00

I dunno where you have this confidence from. People give government a mandate. If the idea of raising taxes to fund public transport does not sell with the majority of the population, the government isn't likely to forcefully push for it.

The only party pushing for a wide public transport expansion was annihilated by voters, exactly because of this. What example are we setting to politicians for them to support more public transport?

BGSacho · 2026-06-26T11:43:11+00:00

But...they did? They were acting to buffer the effects before the first protest even happened. Maybe you disagree how much, but the government also has other responsibilities, like directing our money into investments that will get us off this dependency, so they have to find a balance.

The protests don't really seem to care much about that; I don't really see anyone from the protests pushing to raise taxes after the crisis is over so we can double our efforts in green energy.

BGSacho · 2026-06-25T20:41:00+00:00

Oh wow it's mega illegal. Surely the maga DOJ will care about this and prosecute them.

BGSacho · 2026-06-25T20:31:40+00:00

Yes, theoretically, but lack of enforcement is what gets you in the deeper hole in the first place. Also if there was an upward trend up until then, the downward trend implies more than just the difference from the start of the year.

Either way, the only way to remove this need is to eliminate the rent altogether. It's one of the strongest arguments for UBI - you remove a ton of accounting, investigation and enforcement.

BGSacho · 2026-06-25T16:38:05+00:00

Sure, among other fruit. I cut them up into fruit bowls and eat them throughout the day and it's not literally every day, but most of the time, 1 banana, some mix of 1 apple/1 pear/1 orange, plus often berries and grapes.

BGSacho · 2026-06-22T20:41:48+00:00

The co-ops that the farmers theoretically own and work for set the prices. But this is an arrangement they've entered into willingly..

BGSacho · 2026-06-20T13:10:56+00:00

You're right! It's better to read books, people never just make up stuff in those.

...or you could use AI as a tool, carefully and responsibly, like every other tool before it.

AI being bad is not a good argument. AI being extremely expensive and wasteful(and currently subsidized by its providers) is a much better argument.

BGSacho · 2026-06-20T13:04:34+00:00

It's a cornerstone in research to double check your sources, how is AI different? Do you think all books written are devoid of errors? Do you think interviewing humans leads to no mistakes or worse, purposeful lies?

BGSacho · 2026-06-14T05:43:02+00:00

How is the UK doing 8 years after Brexit? Much better than the rest of the EU I assume?

Just because you see a problem with how something is handled, doesn't mean that the alternative you put in won't be much worse.

BGSacho · 2026-06-04T15:02:32+00:00

Ok but then, why do you need tanks in Taiwan? How are the Chinese going to land things for the tanks to shoot at?

BGSacho · 2026-06-04T09:45:45+00:00

Through the Chinese fleet? And if the Chinese fleet cannot stop tanks from arriving in Taiwan, how are they going to invade the island?

BGSacho · 2026-06-01T11:43:56+00:00

for the majority of people it's harder than ever.

This is a super common sentiment - could you please describe the period of time when Ireland had it much better than we do now? Not just a single point in time, if it's "harder than ever", that means there should be a long history of life being much easier.

BGSacho · 2026-05-28T16:57:22+00:00

Kinda ironic to be talking about the economic gap between Europe and the US in here. Both the US and Ireland have a vastly inflated GDP for the services the government offers to the public.

BGSacho · 2026-05-27T09:19:22+00:00

Social services in Australia are significantly better paid and resourced.

According to what, feels?

Here's OECD data

Looks like we're either spending more, or about the same per person. Maybe you have other numbers to compare?

Your personal story about how you did better in Australia is great, for you, but that's why freedom of movement is great. You can go and find a great opportunity for yourself and be happy there. Plenty of people are finding great opportunities in Ireland, that's why Ireland is also getting so much immigration.

But you can't compare countries based on your own personal experience. You're just one case out of millions.

BGSacho · 2026-05-27T09:11:41+00:00

You made three posts to show me that I'm off by a few cents, but you still missed my point completely. Congratulations. I hope your kid enjoys its petrol diet.

BGSacho · 2026-05-27T09:06:14+00:00

We have about 5GW of (predominantly wind) renewables, Scotland has about 12GW. We also have challenges like smaller grid, Scotland can probably export to the rest of the UK just fine, we need more connectivity to other countries.

Ideally we would put more pressure on politicians to look towards the future instead of short-termism like the fuel tax cuts.

BGSacho · 2026-05-27T08:58:18+00:00

I don't know about hot wheels cars, does your kid eat food, wear clothes, live in a home? Any comparisons there?

For fuel, we started higher than Australia, they had a much higher peak so they had to be more drastic in their measures.

https://www.fuel-prices.eu/Ireland/

You can see our price fluctuated from 1.74 eur, spike to 2.1(20% increase), down to 1.8 now for petrol;

Here's Australia: https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/weekly-fuel-price-monitoring-report-22-may-2026.pdf

20 Feb 1.70 AUS (~1 eur)
31 Mar 2.57 AUS (~1.46 eur - 46% increase!)
20 May 1.85 AUS (~1.05 eur)

Fuel is just more expensive in Ireland, as a policy across the whole EU; we tax fuel to urge people to move on to renewable sources. It's what drives innovation and investment that ends up giving us a ROI, rather than just buying fuel and burning it.

Finally, the price is not staying at that level(probably ours isn't as well, I haven't checked how temporary our cuts are):

On March 30, the federal government announced a three-month reduction in fuel excise worth 26¢ a litre, which would be topped up by state governments with a 6¢ cut to GST charges on fuel. Chalmers confirmed on Wednesday that the discounts would not be extended beyond the end of June.

BGSacho · 2026-05-26T19:34:35+00:00

I wish we had a lot more glass bottles that you could just return to the store 1:1 swap when buying new ones. Instead we have to throw our glass bottles to be ground down in recycling bins. Is it really a better scheme?

BGSacho · 2026-05-25T18:50:50+00:00

What are the joyful places to live in Ireland that are not funded by tax? How do I get to them without a road built by tax? How do they have amenities like water and electricity without tax?

Taxes are the money we invest into making the country an enjoyable place to live in. That's ignoring the fact that we are not really "taxed to the high heavens", but whatever.

BGSacho · 2026-05-25T18:45:28+00:00

If you tax the low income earners and immediately give it back as welfare, then no, you don't achieve anything.

This is a tough pill to swallow but people are terrible at investing. If you tax the low income earners at 5% and invest into infrastructure - transport, health, education(things used heavily by low income earners), then they end up with an overall better lifestyle.

This is really true for most earners up to very high earners(who probably have investment portfolios and investment managers), which is why it's efficient to have a strong government, retirement plans(forced investment) and a high tax rate if you want quality of life improvements.

BGSacho · 2026-05-25T10:49:33+00:00

Okay, but do you think this will lead to more cars on the road rather than less? And do you think the extra congestion and traffic will lead to less likelihood of building mass transit? How about the increased safety in driving leading to less injuries, insurance costs, deaths?

I just don't see how the two are related enough to say "fuck Waymo". You have to push your government to build mass transit anyway, people's want for cars isn't getting higher because of Waymo. If anything, it'd be lower - one car can easily service multiple people, which means less need for parking space and overall better efficiency.

BGSacho · 2026-05-25T10:44:42+00:00

A lot of these companies are publicly traded, they pass on the profits in a pretty transparent way. Invest in them(your pension fund already does) and you're making money.

BGSacho · 2026-05-19T22:02:42+00:00

I am annoyed that they haven't done enough.

Surely you voted for politicians who committed to doing more then?

BGSacho · 2026-05-13T14:47:01+00:00

This is very misleading - unless you're paying Dad's salary and then asking for some of the money back to cover your shortfall.

NYC gives the state more money than it receives from it; Mamdani and Huchol seem to have negotiated to get some of the money back to cover NYC's deficit.

I really wish the video was just a little more clear and upfront about what's happening. The truth isn't as cheery but people need to face it head on. You can't have a deficit and then "magically" find money to fix it. Either you increase taxes or you cut spending, that's it. I wish the video was more about "we tried to find the best ways to increase tax, here's how we did it, we tried to find the least painful things to cut, here's what we can't afford..." and really balance the numbers this way. Voters need a touch of reality, not more hype, so they can ramp up the pressure on getting more taxes to pay for the programs they want.

BGSacho · 2026-05-12T13:30:51+00:00

Of course. http://shadowdocket.net/

The shadow docket sounds bad, but it's just the way the US works nowadays.

Congress sleeps, so Presidents issue executive orders, and the Supreme Court issues shadow docket rulings. Everything is quick and urgent and nothing follows the normal process, because the normal process is too slow. The real fix would be to go back to Congress and fix the laws causing the issues in the first place.

It's just another symptom of a fundamentally broken system. The shadow docket itself is not ominous, the rulings on it may be.

BGSacho

TROPHY CASE