No kidding about the schizophrenia. I don’t understand how people can implore the government to do more such as UBI or universal healthcare yet in the same breath complain about not being able to trust the “police state.” I doubt we can have privacy and a strong effective government. A strong government will be one that’s in your life a lot. Whether it’s under the auspices of good intent or not is probably irrelevant by that point.
I want a government that trusts us and respects our rights (e.g., non police state) and that helps to provide for the poor and vulnerable (e.g., healthcare).
I don't see any conflict between these goals. Our medicare providers are not flying drones and kneeling on necks.
There is massive conflict between the goals when power and money enter the discussion.
I’m also not sure where what you describe exists and how it’s implemented. I am curious to learn if anyone has any sources on such a place: great healthcare, highly involved citizens and low government intervention in daily life. And no, I’m not being sarcastic, I am sincerely wondering about it.
I thing "government intervention" is too nuanced and expansive of a concept to meaningfully debate as if it were one thing.
It would include at least:
Police-state policies. Examples: laws against voluntary drug use, policies like stop-and-frisk, our incarceration rate, restrictions on contraception, etc., seem particularly in your face. Historically, the military draft. I'd oppose these.
Basic public-safety policies. Examples: Laws like speed limits, or driving while intoxicated, or some limits on gun ownership (e.g., folks with a history of violence shouldn't have machine guns). These will always annoy some people, but I'd support most of this.
Environmental and business regulations. These really make some folks mad. But I'm strongly in favor of clean air and water, solvent banks, safe working conditions, etc., and think regulations here are really important.
Social policies. Many people were/are violently opposed to school integration, affirmative action, gay marriage, etc. But I think we have a moral imperative to view and treat { blacks, women, gays, jews, ... } as real people, and history has shown that we won't do this on our own.
I certainly can see some cases where there are overlap between these. Example: government needed an army to enforce school integration. But, mostly mostly these are orthogonal, and lumping these into one "big government" bucket just makes it a muddy issue.
Doing a monthly direct deposit with no strings attached seems like a pretty un-invasive way for the government to support its citizens. Agree with you on universal healthcare, though.
Really MIT? This is news? You and other top business schools taught throngs of MBA students to outsource and manage costs to increase shareholder value. You and your peers taught many a business leader to indirectly leverage a pool of slave labor provided by a dictatorship to make cheaper and cheaper components. Ever thought how they could be so cheap? It’s called lax environmental regulations and not valuing life; suicide nets at Foxconn ring a bell? I don’t wish ill will towards anyone, and it sucks so many people are losing their jobs right now, but based on the “preservation of money” principle (think thermodynamics for money) it’s time large business leaders reap what they’ve sowed; the collapse of the business on their watch. Sucks, but, it’s a reality and something had to give.
Why don’t we introduce some of the same requirements for drivers as we have for private pilots (think traditional bi-annual flight reviews)? Not only would we most likely reduce fatalities, accidents and injuries but we’d probably also eliminate many unsafe drivers from the road while placing a forcing function on public transit to increase usage. We’d probably also see a knock on effect to the training market and increase employment in that field. We might also see an increase in tax/fee income for government entities to help reduce reliance on gasoline taxes. Obviously I haven’t done a rigorous analysis but it would seem like a win all around in my humble opinion.
Can't speak for the FAA but the CAA only requires me to sit with an instructor for one hour every two years to renew my SEP rating.
It's not onerous and I think you're right, a sit down with an instructor every two years to correct any minor bad habits before they get out of control is an excellent idea.
As my six year old son watched one of the videos he asked "Dad, when will the robots be able to stop working for them and be free?" To say I was blown away is an understatement... that was pure human emotion and honesty as he's never seen/read any sci-fi with such questions presented to him.
I've held several jobs where I was required to carry a pager: NEVER AGAIN!
I've yet to find a company that doesn't abuse it to save money. Unless I own the company or have a significant share I no longer agree to help the bottom line by messing with my health.
I might have had bad experiences compared to most but since you're thinking about this option, wouldn't it make sense to think about why the company hasn't just shifted an existing resource to 2nd/3rd shift to help versus trying to save money by making you do another job on top of your day job?
How is this surprising? Young people are graduating with a crushing amount of debt so now they're faced with a choice between entrepreneurship versus a steady paycheck at zombie corp. It seems most are choosing the job at zombie corp in order to pay a huge pile of bills staring them in the face.
I don't think this is a valid criticism. Most of the VC funded startups I'm aware of are founded by graduates of top US schools (Ivy or similar), where almost no one graduates with debt.
An alternative hypothesis that fits the data equally well is this:
As startups become more popular, the low hanging fruit is quickly picked over (social networks, mobile apps that require very little initial capital, etc.). Concurrently, startups have become more mainstream and seen as less risky (whether justified or not). As such, many "older" (by which I mean not in their 20s) people with narrow domain expertise have begun to start companies with the goal of addressing some narrow need that isn't addressable by the typical smart, CS-grad, startup founder with little to no real world experience outside of tech internships.
> As startups become more popular, the low hanging fruit is quickly picked over (social networks, mobile apps that require very little initial capital, etc.). Concurrently, startups have become more mainstream and seen as less risky (whether justified or not). As such, many "older" (by which I mean not in their 20s) people with narrow domain expertise have begun to start companies with the goal of addressing some narrow need that isn't addressable by the typical smart, CS-grad, startup founder with little to know real world experience outside of tech internships.
Very much so. You are at an incredible advantage when you're worked in a market and then you go build your startup vs sitting in a chair whiteboarding what problems you could possibly solve.
> Most of the VC funded startups I'm aware of are founded by graduates of top US schools (Ivy or similar), where almost no one graduates with debt.
Not true. Although not bad, students typically graduate with $15k in debt. Families with income just above the aid cutoff point or with high assets but lower income tend to get hit hard; I know some individuals that are graduating with $50-100k in debt from undergrad at Ivies.
