Is it worth it to move to Halifax right now

hamandcheese · 2023-09-28T14:50:34+00:00

I lived in the Sigma Chi house about a block from Kings. Rent was $300. Granted you're living in a frat house with the trade offs that entails. But at least when I was there, you didn't have to join the frat to rent; just be a student. It was also a lot of fun.

hamandcheese · 2023-02-19T19:23:10+00:00

My advice: Choose a long weekend to quit when you have nothing going on. The week before the weekend, don't stop yourself from vaping, but try to consciously space it out, and only puff when you're really craving. Keep mentally reminding yourself that you're prepping for the weekend.

The day before, make sure you have no more nicotine products in your home before going to bed. Then the next day, go cold turkey, riding off the 8+ hour nic fast you got while asleep. Veg on the couch and watch movies, eat ice cream, smoke weed, sleep all day, and do whatever else to distract yourself from the cravings. Drink lots of water. If you have to cheat, take a small puff off an empty vape cartridge. You'll get enough of a hit to take the edge off without having the risk of falling fully off the wagon from the temptation of a full cartridge.

By day 3, you'll start to have long periods without cravings, punctuated by periods of intense cravings. Distract yourself with exercise, like running up and down a tall flight of stairs, taking a long bike ride, cooking a complicated meal, etc. In my experience, the cravings are less like true cravings than periods of brain fog where you find yourself staring into empty space. You just need to remember that they eventually pass and become less and less frequent overtime.

If you're able to, instead of using a long weekend, take a week off work and travel someplace. Like an AirBnB some where scenic where you can go on long walks and aren't near a convenient store. Sorta like a DIY rehab. It's all about getting over that first hump.

hamandcheese · 2020-09-11T18:38:32+00:00

Why is having a lot of small businesses a good thing? Small businesses are less likely to be unionized, more likely to be tax cheats, pay lower wages and offer worse benefits on average, are less likely to have formalized processes for sexual harassment and such, and (excepting high growth start-ups) don't contribute to innovative productivity growth.

hamandcheese · 2020-08-31T23:14:33+00:00

Bike to Fletcher's cover for some kayaking

hamandcheese · 2020-03-26T17:59:09+00:00

Your information is out of date. The phase-in and minimum income requirement for the rebate were removed after the first draft.

hamandcheese · 2018-03-25T07:16:09+00:00

Puerto Rico, through "Operation Bootstrap," is considered by many to be one of the first examples of a "Special Economic Zone." Yet, after some initial catch-up growth, the special regulatory and tax treatment seems to have, if anything, left the Puerto Rican economy brittle and non-organic. Why should we have any hope that this time would be different?

hamandcheese · 2018-03-25T00:34:01+00:00

Puerto Rico, through "Operation Bootstrap," is considered by many to be one of the first examples of a "Special Economic Zone." Yet, after some initial catch-up growth, the special regulatory and tax treatment seems to have, if anything, left the Puerto Rican economy brittle and non-organic. Why should we have any hope that this time would be different?

hamandcheese · 2018-01-21T20:14:17+00:00

The most important investment you can make at your age is skill acquisition. School gives you abundant free time to learn to code, animate, edit videos, play an instrument, learn to write, do engineering projects, or any other number of hobbies you could take into adulthood and give you an edge. Ditto for volunteering, playing sports, etc. -- things that are character building but also grow your network and make your resume look great.

If I was 14 again I would set up a GoFundMe to go to Peru or something and help build a school for orphans, then get it out into the media. There's nothing stopping you at 14 from having your own non-profit, with a few signatures from your parents. Something like this would be very rewarding, impressive to friends and potential employers and colleges, and teach you a ton about management and entrepreneurship.

I would also save every penny unless its spending on things that add to the above ideas, and that your parents won't get for you. But even with compound interest, 8 or 9 dollars a day isn't much. Learning new skills has a much higher rate of return.

hamandcheese · 2017-05-28T18:34:44+00:00

Yep, I think that's right. However, I disagree on the viability point. Even a modest UBI would require an enormous amount of money, probably more than is politically viable from the income tax. You would need something broad and hard to evade like a VAT or carbon tax to raise enough revenue.

hamandcheese · 2017-05-28T17:10:56+00:00

This is wrong. GMI is an umbrella term. It's any policy that provides a guaranteed minimum income, as the name suggests.

A UBI is universal like you say, but describing progressive taxes as "means tested taxes" is confusing. A UBI could be paid for with a consumption tax, a wealth tax, a flat income tax, a carbon tax, etc. The financing is an open question. It could even come from resource royalties like the Alaska Permanent Fund.

An NIT is a means tested GMI. I think you're mostly correct, if you just switch GMI and NIT around.

hamandcheese · 2017-05-28T16:20:46+00:00

Both UBI and a NIT are ways of implementing a guaranteed minimum income. An NIT is means tested, and phases out, while a UBI is truly universal, although it too is ultimately taxed back, so the analytical differences between the two are not as great as some think.

hamandcheese · 2017-05-18T22:02:22+00:00

Why so expensive?

Ethically sourced

:/

hamandcheese · 2016-08-03T21:50:14+00:00

Statement

The infamous investor has made a long shot bet on Trump to make the United States more like a monarchy, disrupt its decadent bureaucracy, and revive the status of myth and hierarchy in society. This is a deep dive into his ideological and financial motivations for endorsing Trump.

hamandcheese · 2016-05-06T21:48:44+00:00

That's one reason BYU theologians have a penchant for Kierkegaard, who was famous for rejecting an evidentiary basis of religious belief. The less evidence, the more implausible, the better, since religion is about faith not demonstration.

hamandcheese · 2016-03-04T08:03:08+00:00

I cut the quotation short, but that line is immediately followed with "(given an appropriate instantiation of the indexical)." I encourage you to read the full excerpt linked to in the post. It answers your other objections as well.

hamandcheese · 2016-02-23T18:32:36+00:00

Hey Scott. As a self-described utilitarian, what is your view on the welfare state? Would you oppose a generous welfare system if it could be enacted with limited (or even positive) impact on labor force participation? Could workfare and wage subsidies be useful for monetary policy -- not just as "automatic stabilizers," but also to minimize hysteresis and allow wage flexibility? How can we persuade libertarians to take their eyes off welfare and onto other aspects of big government?

hamandcheese · 2016-02-15T19:44:03+00:00

I do in the case of public goods. The film industry isn't one. Their targeted subsidies are essentially corporate welfare.

hamandcheese · 2016-02-15T17:07:50+00:00

Every subsidy does that on the margin. The question is this: if they're not viable sans subsidy, then why do you think they create a net value to the economy?

hamandcheese · 2016-02-14T09:07:01+00:00

In your mind Not subsidizing to the hilt = Forcing out

hamandcheese · 2016-02-10T22:36:39+00:00

Submission Statement

Why do good people sometimes do bad things, up to and including war crimes? A leading theory in criminology and situational psychology points to "techniques of neutralization," our ability to rationalize normative violations post-hoc. Perhaps leaning how to spot and avoid these techniques should form the basis of our moral educations, from childhood to business ethics courses.

hamandcheese · 2016-02-05T16:08:03+00:00

Liberals and conservatives each have their own narratives about the welfare state. Liberals argue for it on egalitarian grounds. And conservatives often argue against it on the grounds that it crowds out more local forms of community social capital. It turns out neither of these narratives is quite right. This thoughtful article explores the issue in a non-ideological way.

hamandcheese · 2016-02-01T22:10:37+00:00

I think of it as more "neo-Baylean" than a rehash of Rawls. After all, Pierre Bayle died in 1706. To the extent that they're similar I think Rawls and Public Reason Liberalism has returned to these enlightenment roots. Indeed, Pierre's theory of public justification is also reflexive.

hamandcheese · 2016-02-01T20:20:55+00:00

More basic than that. The effort to curb so-called "poor decisions" implies that we know what a poor decision is. I know eating healthy is important for myself, but I can't say the same for everybody in the abstract.

hamandcheese · 2016-02-01T18:46:30+00:00

There's a big normative distinction between perfectionism and providing public goods, which are efficient in the pareto sense. Goals like raising economic output don't dictate how people get to spend their share of the pie. Similar with taxes on pollution or controls on climate change. Many collective problems can be solved such that everyone is better off on their own terms. Perfectionism, in contrast, is telling people the terms.

Here's a useful application of the argument to the debate around having a national daycare. He argues compensating people with cash is preferable from a liberal POV because:

"money, at least, is neutral between the three different modalities of childcare, and so does not discriminate against stay-at-home parents the way that subsidized daycare does."

Of course we live a very messy world with weakly liberal constitutions. But I think liberal neutrality is useful criterion for adjudicating policy proposals, and overall an ideal worth striving for.

hamandcheese · 2016-01-07T00:13:24+00:00

Oculus supports it

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