The problem is this is only true for values of "reasonable" that are "unlikely to be viewed in a negative light by my government, job, or family; either now or at any time in the future". The chilling effect is insane. There was a time in living memory when saying "women should be able to vote" was not a popular thing.

I mean, this is _literally the only thing needed_ for the Trump admin to tie real names to people criticizing $whatever. Does anyone want that? Replace "Trump" with "Biden", "AOC", "Newsom", etc. if they're the ones you disagree with.

> Replace "Trump" with "Biden", "AOC", "Newsom", etc. if they're the ones you disagree with.

Stop trying to reason with fascists.

Everyone in the world knows that the Democrats you named are too ideologically aligned with right-wing hatred to ever leverage the repressive power of the state apparatus in the same way Republicans do.

Obama carried on where Bush left off. I think Biden was at least marginally better, at the very least I admire him for ripping off the Afghanistan bandaid, but the amount of effort he put onto rolling back executive overreach was minimum if anything.

You're saying that Biden, AOC, and Newsom are "ideologically aligned with right-wing hatred"? This is not something I've ever heard a human being say. Almost afraid to ask, but where's that coming from?

Why did AOC stop calling them "concentration camps" when Biden took office?

> if you do it in an aircraft equipped with autopilot

There's also a (stupid, imo) tendency for APs to conveniently become inop right before a checkride. It's not accurate to say that all pilots, or even all pilots that have taken an IR ride, are "pilots who understand the capabilities and limits of aviation autopilot technology."

For the PPL specifically, the focus is on basic airmanship in VFR conditions, and that means eyeballing the six pack (or digital equivalent) and looking out of the window. The instrument flying expectations is primarily for emergencies and preparation for future instrument rating.

But yes, I understand what you mean.

Why not Docusign? Not challenging, just curious why that is specifically on your list. Reputation?

Sometimes value is not in the code or the product. But the fact that leg work is done and something is generally accepted for the purpose. For me it looks like type of product where the pain is not making the software. It is getting everyone you will deal with to agree that software is acceptable.

the common factor was sort of left as an exercise to the reader to think about moats in the age of AI... but basically anything that has touchpoints to the legal and financial systems im not gonna touch with a 20 ft vibecoded pole.

In most cases, you own to the center of the earth. But you may not own the rights to extract those minerals.

Also, it’s often moot because some part of the government will require you to pull permits to kick a rock in your backyard.

I’ve sometimes wondered about getting a big plot of land, some cheap old heavy machinery, and letting people pay to play with it.

Probably liability insurance makes it impractical, which is a shame. There really is nothing like playing with a big excavator. Very fortunate that it was one of my formative experiences.

We've thrown some parties on the prop, and have often thought, "Maybe it'd be cool to let people try some of this stuff out," at which point we remember how incredibly dangerous something like an excavator is, even when closely monitored and in a safe environment, and then have nightmares about worst case scenarios. So, it's been a no-go thus far. What we have actually considered, though, is seeing about renting it out to a known-to-be safe / mature user to use on projects when we aren't. But, haven't pulled the trigger on that yet.

Are you willing to share rough numbers? Totally understand if not, just curious. Been thinking about something like this to get away from the AI force-feeding.

$100-$200 an hour on average for hand work, more if I need to use an excavator.

What does the friction look like? Insurance, licensing, that kind of thing?

Very variable depending on a combination of local/state regulations and what kinds of projects you're willing to tackle. The bottom end of the spectrum is a $50 a month general liability policy.

The wheels of justice grind very slowly - I suspect we may see such a case _started_ in 2026, but I’m skeptical anyone will be actually tried in 2026.

You probably should forget that, because it isn’t true. There’s no credible link between FAA staffing cuts and the DCA midair.

That was a long-standing set of bad routes that was going to kill someone eventually.

It was a system in a critical state and the freeze and well telegraphed upcoming layoffs led to a controller covering two roles and work done by supporting staff. This pushed the system over the edge.

Then they tried to baselessly blame DEI, then they tried to shift blame to the controller.

The collision was January 29. On Jan 20, a hiring freeze was hastily rolled out including the FAA. They were in the process of laying off staff, which was finalized in February with 400 probationary staff. These were largely rolled back that year after the impact to the civil aviation system, including substantially contributing to the deaths of these 67 people. The NIST report was produced under pressure. I stand by what I wrote. They threw an overloaded system into chaos with little care for the consequences and this was one of the results.

DOGE was working hand in hand with then new administration the entire time.

I’m a pilot. The controller handed off separation to the helicopter the moment they called traffic in sight. You could have had a dozen controllers in the tower and this still would have happened.

You list some facts, but they are not connected to the incident in a causal way.

"causal way" is the key part.

I did list facts. And I agree with your causal analysis. I simply disagree with your interpretation of the degree to which the contributing factors we responsible. This is not my words as someone on the internet, this is the NTSB report's contributing factors.

If a shipping company immediately changed policy to force drivers to work 18 hours a day and 7 days a week, then it would be a pretty poor analysis to chalk all the resulting accidents up to driver error. Driver error would be the actual cause, the negligent policy change would be a proximate cause.

I respect your expertise in the area as a pilot but I will stand by what I have said. And I respectfully have said all I have to say on the matter.

Private or commercial pilot ?

Commercial

You are delusional

45 vs. 55 is not modest; that's 5 minutes over only 20 miles. Up around 60 vs. 70 is where it becomes "modest" IMO.

So, 3 stoplights worth of time?

Or 0.1 of billable hours, which for many people here is at least enough to pay for lunch.

(Though for an insurer, it’s the same thing - whether you’re risky because you’re a bad driver or because you drive on poorly constructed roads or around other poor drivers is inconsequential to them)

Credit scores are universally hated but they make it possible to offer lower interest rates to more people. Without credit scores, fewer people would have access to credit.

Similarly, people often don't like it when insurers track and score their driving. However, this allows insurers to offer lower insurance fees to more people by _not_ offering lower insurance fees (or instead charging higher fees) to people that are driving in a risky manner. This does of course assume a competitive market for insurance but I think in most countries that's a reasonable assumption.

There's nothing fairer than user-pays, especially when users can choose to pay less by changing their behavior.

> Credit scores are universally hated but they make it possible to offer lower interest rates to more people.

That's probably true in theory, but not in practice, given how high US credit interest rates are compared to European countries for instance.

> Without credit scores, fewer people would have access to credit.

Too many people having access to credit is exactly how we got the worst financial crisis of the century, so it's not really something to brag about… People talk about US public debt a lot, but private debt is even more worrisome.

>There's nothing fairer than user-pays, especially when users can choose to pay less by changing their behavior.

If user pays is so fair why does anyone who could access credit or liquid assets in excess of their state's minimums have to pay hundreds to thousands per year for auto insurance?

Most states allow you to go without insurance by fronting the cash. It's called self-insurance. You put up some minimum amount, file a form with the state DMV, and keep the approval certificate in the vehicle like normal.

It's relatively unknown for individuals because most people have no desire to lock up tens or hundreds of thousands of spare dollars just to avoid car insurance. As far as I'm aware it's primarily used by rich collectors who need to insure large collections that don't fit more traditional insurance profiles. Much more useful for businesses.

    That's BS on it's face. Most states don't allow it or they restrict it to big business and government agencies.

It's 11 states, covering roughly a third of the US population. There's a quite few more if you own significant numbers of vehicles. You can s/most/many/ if it makes you feel better.

    Most people's money isn't making a return greater than what insurance would cost them.

You wouldn't be making money on a self-insurance bond either. It's locked up with the state or in a surety account. You can also expect to pay a significant fraction of your regular insurance costs to maintain a surety bond.

    Second, this completely ignores my point about credit.

Credit lines expire when you die (say in an accident), they're not guaranteed to pay out the full amount at any particular time, and the courts probably shouldn't go around binding third parties to pay out on your behalf.

States' interest here is in guaranteeing that there will always be a minimum amount of money to compensate victims, regardless of what other financial shenanigans you have going on in your life. That's not a standard that lines of credit and investment accounts meet. Self-insurance is simply a terrible option for most consumers, so no one does it.

That's an entirely separate issue, isn't it? In my country (New Zealand) there are no requirements to have auto insurance. If you don't have insurance and you hit a million-dollar car you're gonna be in an awkward situation, but that's a risk you're allowed to take.

Note that you _are_ legally required to pay your annual ACC levies, which fund no-fault cover for injuries. However that doesn't cover property damage.

So, what's your proposal? What should insurers be doing differently?

Operate like they did before they had access to surveillance technology that would have made Gestapo and Stasi blush

This. If you're nearly "perfectly" pricing risk on an individual level then you defeat the point of insurance which is to pool risk.

If my hypothetical cost over an N decade period is within a fraction of a percent of payouts in that time what do I gain by paying for insurance other than creating a principal-agent problem?

You’re mad the insurance companies are charging you what you owe? You do have the option to self-insure.