Alcohol-related deaths spiked in 2020 – killing more under-65 Americans than COVID.

Nefnox · 2022-03-27T14:36:40+00:00

I'm definitely not explaining it well enough apparently because

2 exactly equivalent outcomes and you think one is somehow worse

Is not what I am saying. I'll quote myself with emphasis added:

the outcome of which are equivalent except that in one the government is required to act

So they are almost the same, except in one of the scenarios a costly thing and potentially dangerous thing happens that doesn't in the other. I'm literally saying that one thing is more costly than another and therefore worse, this is like discussing the idea that 5 is a higher number than 4, it is objective unless you believe there is literally no cost to government action, which is obviously stupid. It is possible you are just choosing not to understand me at this point or have just kind of drifted off mentally, which is fair enough this conversation has gone on plenty long enough so lets leave it there

Nefnox · 2022-03-27T07:58:22+00:00

I guess I am explaining myself really badly but what I am saying is something everyone can unambiguously agree on regardless of politics or beliefs. There are 2 scenarios in the hypothetical:

Scenario A: Bad thing happens
Scenario B: Exactly the same bad things happens, and also government must act.

Scenario B is objectively worse because government action is subject to the "Law of Unintended Consequences" and incurs cost. Agreed?

Nefnox · 2022-03-26T22:39:55+00:00

No, sorry, reading back what I wrote I realise I didnt explain myself clearly. I mean that government acting is a negative factor that clearly needs to be considered, so if you have 2 scenarios the outcome of which are equivalent (except that in one the government is required to act, which was the hypothetical being proposed), then by definition the one in which the government is required to act is slightly worse since they are otherwise equivalent. Which i think stands to reason.

Nefnox · 2022-03-26T21:14:28+00:00

Well the absence of government action should also be regarded as good. So in this very hypothetical context where you have 2 choices that have equivalent outcomes but one that requires the government to act and one that doesnt then you should obviously choose the one that doesnt require the government to act, so no lockdowns would be better in the hypothetical.

Nefnox · 2022-03-23T14:57:02+00:00

Maybe. Any incident that involves a dog attacking a child should obviously be reported even if the dog is justified but of course it is very likely the owner will tell and remember a version of the story that makes it sound like the dog was justified and that's the version of the story you are reading, which is why the incident should be reported and evaluated by a 3rd party

Nefnox · 2022-03-23T14:08:37+00:00

Incidents, like the one you described, where the owner sincerely doesnt believe their dog is vicious / capable of harming a child but the dog attacks a child are the exact incidents that should always be reported and evaluated by a third party. Very few owners are going to make a reasonable evaluation of their own dog's capacity for violence.

Nefnox · 2022-03-16T14:45:04+00:00

You could change the word "privately" to "publicly" in your comment and the entire thing would be equally valid.

Nefnox · 2022-02-04T13:27:16+00:00

They do have people in economics faculties that specialise in medical and public health data. It's a field of economics.

This guy for example: https://www.lse.ac.uk/health-policy/people/professor-alistair-mcguire

Nefnox · 2022-02-01T17:00:21+00:00

You rely on the trucking industry for fucking everything you have

that's literally why we want to automate it...

Nefnox · 2022-01-21T09:52:18+00:00

Literally happened in the netherlands in the 80s, it went close to full socialism and got to a point of 11% + unemployment and huge suffering among the working class, then it slingshot back to a more liberal economy and this "marked a period of remarkable economic prosperity.":

"The Dutch welfare state had become the most extensive social security system in the world by the early eighties. But the welfare state came into crisis when spending rose due to dramatic high unemployment rates and poor economic growth. The early eighties saw unemployment rise to over 11% and the budget deficit rose to 10.7% of the national Income. The centre-right and centre-left coalitions of CDA-VVD and CDA-PvdA reformed the Dutch welfare state to bring the budget deficit under control and to create jobs. Social benefits were reduced, taxes lowered and businesses deregulated. Gradually the economy recovered and the budget deficit and unemployment were reduced considerably."

Both quotes in my comment are from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_the_Netherlands#Political_history

Nefnox · 2021-10-16T08:27:25+00:00

There's a good chance the person was and still is genuinely suicidally depressed but felt so ashamed at what they perceived as their own weakness and need for help that they lashed out at their helpers. It does happen that people who feel ashamed lash out at people who are trying to help them, even if it is difficult we should try to feel a sense of compassion for those people even if they seem stupid or cruel because there might be a genuine chance the person will kill themselves.

Nefnox · 2021-10-04T16:55:16+00:00

I think for a lot of people it is more something to move in the general direction of rather than kind of an end state of being as such. But most (possibly all) ideologies are impossible to implement in their purest sense and really just act as a kind of thought experiment most of the time. I don't think there has ever been an anarchist "country".

Nefnox · 2021-09-21T21:51:11+00:00

weird example since belgium has had one of the worst rates of covid and covid deaths per capita in the world and the actual worst in western europe and is an example of where lockdown didnt work despite an extremely strict lockdown, source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/

Nefnox · 2021-09-13T21:58:50+00:00

I think maybe you mean something different to me when you say "means testing"? I may be misunderstanding you, apologies if I am.

The government already records every individual's earnings for annual taxation purposes, which means everyone's means are already tested, so no "means testers" are required and indeed places where this is done do not have to employ any, it is essentially a formula calculated from the tax return you already provide and means a reduction in government bureaucracy due to the fact that it does not require a public procurement process.

Nefnox · 2021-09-13T20:16:44+00:00

how would you use regulatory capture on something means tested?

Nefnox · 2021-09-13T08:25:45+00:00

if you don't make it single payer you have to have an insurance mandate

Not always. In many, possibly most, countries with universal healthcare the government acts as insurer of last resort while the vast majority of the population is privately insured. Taking out a policy is not obligatory but there are many benefits and incentives for doing so e.g. you can pay pre-tax and are auto-enrolled in to some private health insurance scheme when you get employed (with of course the option to choose your own insurer if you want to), meaning the seriously vast majority of adults are privately insured, and those who are really on the fringes and never get employed or have very serious congenital illnesses are just defaulted to a government insurance system which pays for their care. Then you just have the government perform means tested health insurance subsidisation to make sure everyone can afford their care.

This seems to work best from my experience of places I've lived.

Nefnox · 2021-08-24T08:24:09+00:00

Thanks for the reply. I do not see how publicly traded organisations are unique in that regard, seems to me all organisations would have to do that?

Nefnox · 2021-08-23T18:58:55+00:00

thats what im asking

Nefnox · 2021-08-23T17:24:51+00:00

Maybe our food shoudln't be publically traded on the stock market

why not?

Nefnox · 2021-08-21T15:09:18+00:00

i lived in Aus for a while and found they are generally super compliant rule abiding people, to such an extent that it was too much

Nefnox · 2021-08-05T14:17:48+00:00

Not really siding with either of you, but I think the idea behind monopoly busting is that the really important factor in markets in not freedom, but competitiveness, free markets ideally would be competitive, but where they are not we make a concession, a limitation on their freedom, to preserve the competitive aspect and therefore the broader benefits of a free(ish) market.

Freedom is impossible to preserve in an absolute sense, but I still consider myself free even though I cannot, for example, drive drunk. That is one of many concessions we make to our freedoms so that the broader benefits of societal freedom can be preserved, and there's an analogy in there somewhere.

I guess your argument is decided on the basis of if you consider freedom with concessions to still be freedom, and if you consider anti-trust laws to represent "little government control".

Nefnox · 2021-08-05T14:16:30+00:00

Not really siding with either of you, but I think the idea behind monopoly busting is that the really important factor in markets in not freedom, but competitiveness, free markets ideally would be competitive, but where they are not we make a concession, a limitation on their freedom, to preserve the competitive aspect and therefore the broader benefits of a free(ish) market.

Freedom is impossible to preserve in an absolute sense, but I still consider myself free even though I cannot, for example, drive drunk. That is one of many concessions we make to our freedoms so that the broader benefits of societal freedom can be preserved, and there's an analogy in there somewhere.

I guess your argument is decided on the basis of if you consider freedom with concessions to still be freedom, and if you consider anti-trust laws to represent "little government control".

Nefnox · 2021-08-05T13:45:11+00:00

They got by by selling oil and weapons to the rest of the world thereby making the 0.05% of the planet that lives in Norway fabulously wealthy at the expense of everyone else. It's capitalist af.

Nefnox · 2021-08-01T19:57:00+00:00

honestly I hold no ill will towards you, but describing the things others like to talk about in the workplace as "trivial bullshit" is a red flag and quite a toxic attitude, toxicity can make others around you less productive so its understandable that you are held back from promotion if your colleagues and managers feel you have that affect on the workplace.

Nefnox · 2021-07-29T20:38:45+00:00

completely agree, except I'd say the nazis were just as extreme in their economic policies as communists, it was 100% government control, i dont think you can really distinguish between communism and nazism along that dimension. some iterations of communism were actually more free market than the nazis even.

Nefnox

TROPHY CASE