That's my bet. Some time in the coming fifty years we will lose the first city to rising water. There will be attempts at mitigation, but they will fail either for lack of money or know-how. And after that we will think differently about this problem.
It could be Miami. It's certainly low-lying enough, and big enough to count. But it's also in the United States, which has a lot of money to throw at problems. Some city in a poorer country would be a better bet.
Galveston would have disappeared decades ago, until they lifted it and built a seawall. We throw a lot of money at the problem of the ocean. The issue is, sea level rise or not, the ocean will always win unless a constant stream of money is continually pumped into defense.
I guess all the class action law suits are the free market way or regulating this? Not sure how efficient that is but at least there's some kind of pain for lying on ingredient lists.
Legal scholars have many solutions for this kind of stuff. Libertarians have actually spend a lot of time and effort studying this stuff, because its so relevant for free market systems.
Consider this easy idea, you can sell your claims. In a case (non harmful wrong labeling) such as this, you sell your claim for 10$ and then you don't have to care anymore.
Some bigger buyer of this stuff can buy the claims and fight the lawsuit. This is simple and effective.
Also, this is not a new idea, its very old idea that has been done in many places. It performs quite well historically.
The folks you really have to pity are those in Africa and South America and other areas of planet Earth that receive those products where their citizens can't sue these companies.
They might not even be aware of a product-recall, if any.
I don't understand your point. How does 'most countries' have any relevancy for what 'the free market way' of doing something is? Most countries are not and don't claim to be 'free market' countries.
Those that advocate free markets usually also advocate changes in the legal system.
Great article, it pinpoints the issues that leads devs to complain about "politics" and "bureaucracy" in a company. I think the lack of introspection can really wear engineers down.
Now that AirBnb and Uber are no longer novelties, it seems like supply and demand is simply working to bring the price to its natural level. The nice thing about flexible rates (as opposed to traditional taxis) is that Uber can quickly respond to changes in supply vs. demand.
Uber has a 'perfect capitalist' system internally, but drivers and clients don't get to participate.
I've noticed at times, that the driver doesn't get a receipt till I'm out of the car... Maybe this is so that we can't discuss the difference in what I pay and what they get?
Travelling is such an important way for people to grow, but it's so hard to appreciate its value without actually doing it. It's shocking how many people have only left their state to visit Disney Land.
Travel is great, but it's an expensive luxury especially for families with multiple children. Sometimes that one trip to Disneyland is all they can afford.
Even poor families with multiple children can manage to travel on a limited budget, if they really want to.
The bigger impediment is profound lack of interest/curiosity about other places. Take George W. Bush as an example; he certainly didn’t lack for resources. http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/102900a.html
> Even poor families with multiple children can manage to travel on a limited budget, if they really want to.
You mean with all that paid vacation time they don't have, after using all 5-10 days of it (if there's any at all) to stay home with sick kids, or holding it in reserve to do same later in the year? Hell, that's a problem for most families period, poor or not. Vacation time is very scarce for most people and will continue to be until some significant minimum is required by law.
Sorry, that was inelegantly stated. Obviously there are folks having a hard time just getting by, and taking long vacations to jet around the world for months at a time is infeasible.
I’m not suggesting that anyone struggling to survive should prioritize travel over eating.
But I know plenty of people who grew up in dirt poor families who managed to take occasional long road trips in their childhood. And I know people who grew up in extremely wealthy families who barely ever left their hometown.
My point was just that means aren’t everything; attitude is also important.
OK, cool, point makes sense. Just wanted to make sure no one was blaming a large portion of the country for having effectively zero actual vacation time, whatever their attitude toward travel might be.
My SO and I visited Thailand way before we met each other. I went to a Muay Thai camp and stayed in a nearby town. SO went with a tour guide, slept and ate in hotels, visited some temples and rode cute elephants.
My impression of the country is totally different from SO's. I could say the same about India and Morocco.
I definitely grew, but not in the way I expected.
Westerners often fall into the trap of multiculturalism and this romantic idea of travelling which feels more like a product. We simply cannot grasp how easy we have it.
Travel is a luxury. My mother taught in a school district in Maine once, where occasionally, her students would talk about "taking a trip down to the big city". They were talking about Skowhegan, a place with about 8500 people and a WalMart.
It makes sense to reduce the effect of "cottage industries" getting paid to misrepresent the popularity of certain topics. I wouldn't call that censorship.
It seems to me that there's many people in America who don't realize they're in poverty. The vast majority of Americans would consider themselves middle class, while the Federal Reserve found that over 40% of households don't have $400 in cash available in case of an emergency.
