> We only have complile to JS languages now. Those that still writes in vanilla JS are like those who still build apps in assembly langauge.
I strongly disagree, it's never been easier and more pleasant to write modern JS without transpilers. I've only rarely had to reach for a framework or transpiler in the last few years.
The point is, in most of Europe it’s the richer folks that foot the bill for the poorer ones. That’s a system based on solidarity - you contribute to our collective ability to treat our sick and injured, according to your financial means.
EDIT: at least that’s how it’s supposed to work in theory. Of course the richest people don’t foot the bill for anyone but themselves.
In Germany we have a two-prong system of public and private health insurance, so the richer folks actually remove themselves from the solidarity system, leaving the middle class with good jobs to pay for most of the expenses.
In neighboring Nederland, all healthcare is privately insured and administered but the costs are capped by the government with small increases for inflation every year. Having insurance is also mandatory so nobody is left out. If you can’t afford it, the welfare system also picks up your monthly premium.
For people who use more resources, there is an annual deductible of around €500 per person that resets with the new year. After you pay the deductible, the rest of your care and medication is free.
Personally, now living here 2 years, I think it’s a good system that compromises in many of the right areas. My biggest complaint is that your GP is the gatekeeper to all other care, so if you are certain you need to see a specialist, you’ll need to convince your GP first. That all fine and dandy when we’re talking about an ENT doctor for example, but hella annoying when you need to get a referral for a therapist that is covered by insurance. The Dutch drug prices are also ridiculous (allergy meds and other specialized OTC drugs are insanely expensive) but luckily I can order them online from Germany for much more reasonable tariffs! ;)
The German system is interestingly (but not surprisingly fucked up). In Switzerland there is a mandatory health insurance (which provides for most healthcare needs), but insurances are private companies which charge different prices for the same service (because of course they would), which vary greatly according to which village you live in (because our “states” negotiate the prices with the health providers and then insurances, through a very transparent and understandable system; I am kidding of course, probably the people designing it don’t even understand it fully, citizens and politicians damn sure don’t). Prices have been steadily rising for my whole adult life with no end in sight. There have been some tries to get rid of that in favor of universal healthcare managed by the state, but the people said “no” because they fully understood and weighed the issue (I am kidding, the people defending the current system just bought more ads than the people pushing for change).
But hey, at least getting run over by an ambulance won’t bankrupt you! Silver linings, eh?
Absolutely, but OP made it sound that he was baffled that people had to pay for an ambulance. But then again maybe there is an European country I don’t know of where ambulances are provided for free by some car company, fueled through the generous donation of an energy company, supplied by a good-hearted medical supplies company and manned and driven by unpaid interns and/or students?
The solidarity system most European countries have is without a doubt superior than the mess that is the US healthcare system, but it sure as fuck isn’t free.
Right, what these people don't understand is the US already has a socialized medical care system, it's just shit. Insurance also turns a profit, and they also have the highest incentive to not pay for care AND make healthcare provider's jobs as difficult as possible.
It's a socialized system but with inefficiency baked in and guaranteed. That's why the US pays significantly more for healthcare while also having worse quality care.
Very well said. I think what you speak of sounds a lot like degrowth and/or idealised socialism. Unfortunately, I don't see either of those ever becoming viable policy in our world. The only times we've managed to even remotely approach such policy is after terrible, long wars. Other than that, the big man promising you shiny stuff has always won.
I agree that they are unlikely to become viable policy, but environmentally imposed degrowth will become increasingly real. Natural physical constraints are tightening and are already imposing into manufactured reality. Hitting the physical bounds hard and having to deal with that is looking more likely since human ecological footprint (population x resource intensiveness) is unlikely to drop fast enough to avoid them.
> The only times we've managed to even remotely approach such policy is after terrible, long wars
Or during/after natural disasters. Any time things get real tough, we tend to default to helping each other out mutual aid style - even in America [0]. Seems worth keeping in mind.
The world has changed drastically over the past few decades. Maybe the lessons we've learned historically about socioeconomic systems don't apply so much any more.
this is neat! Diorama-based games are really underrated IMO. I'm currently attempting to do something related, building a game on top of Google Street View, with 3D audio and objects embedded in the panorama.
Private property is whatever we collectively decide it is. We can only build infrastructure such as railways and highways because we collectively decided those are okay to build on private property. We can do the same with anything we consider essential for the common good.
Yes, we can decide it collectively, through the political process. But individuals should not be allowed to just do whatever they want in violation of other individuals. If I think your tree isn’t great, is it okay if I were to come chop it down? Where does that line of thinking end?
Since you are not a fan of private property, maybe we should collectively decide that your property is no longer yours but a public botanical garden and ofcourse you don't get to live there (for the greater good)
>We can only build infrastructure such as railways and highways because we collectively decided...
Therefore a landowner cannot build without collective approval? I disagree. Obviously a single individual can improve land and create value independently of a collective.
Another popular claim is that property only exists because of state enforcement. Again, a single individual can enter a frontier and improve land. This is often accompanied by the claim that the state exists to enforce property ownership. Clearly one must preclude the other. If property ownership does not exist, there is no motive for creation of the state.
If we go back to basics we find that academics have already covered this territory. Improvement of unutilized land is often cited as the origin of ownership. While many will make arguments about the virtues of collectivism, that is beyond the scope of the specific origins of land ownership. These are generally arguments premised on, "The ends justify the means".
> once I made that connection, I started to see summarizing everywhere
One of the most powerful (and dangerous) aspects of dogma is the tendency of its followers to promote it to a universal pattern.
I, for one, am horrified at the prospect of a future where any kind of non-managerial labour is viewed as "summarising" and automated out of our collective skillset. GPT output may often be equivalent to human writing/thinking as a commodity, but human writing & thinking is not a commodity in its essence.
To me this is not the end of knowledge economy. This is a metastasis of the same capitalist disease that attacked the traditional crafts sector more than 100 years ago, attempting to replace it with a mix of industrially exploited labour in the Global North, colonial/slave labour in the Global South, and eventually mechanisation + automation. This brought about fantastic levels of productivity and wealth, along with insane amounts of pollution, the climate crisis and growing inequality. In sectors such as fashion the market is flooded with low-quality goods with a lifetime of a few months, which has led to astronomical amounts of waste.
The difference with AI is, now the Western creative middle class is affected, and due to the shadowy nature of the industry, it is not yet completely clear who is getting exploited (though we are starting to find out[1]). The good thing is, traditional crafts have not disappeared, in fact, their products are increasingly more prized and appreciated. I firmly believe generative AI's onslaught can also be withstood, and a better world is still possible - one where artisan labour, attention and connectedness prevail over whatever hellish future generative AI would create.
(side note: IMO high-quality code is much, much more than a StackOverflow summary)
Here here. All of this I think is slowly blowing up the Toffler-esque fantasy that many people in the "information worker" class tier had, that the "information age" was unique in creating a set of workers and industries immune to the ugliness and exploitation of industrial capitalism.
For periods of time we've been paid well to do craftsman-like work, without (on the whole) industrial automation and intense labour discipline.
Capitalism finds a way to route around that kind of blockage. And this is what Sundar and Musk and crew are up to now. And why there's such intense investment in "AI."
consumers most of the time dont care about craftmanship, even if the end product is far superior & lasitng than the cheaper shoddier alternative, and when they do its mostly for status. As european i remember how discounts had to remarket themselves hardly and show consumers they arent anymore the places where "poors" shop
I made the mistake of organizing a meetup through reddit once. The people that showed up were weird and socially awkward. Not saying that to hate on the site, it's just something I'll definitely never do again. Meetup is slightly better because it's more of a mixed bag but you still regularly get creepy or annoying people.
The problem with all these sites for using them to meet people imo is that they're too open. If you spent the time to get to know everyone you want to meet it would probably be fine but at that point you'd have spent hours upon hours forming virtual friendship, which to me defeats the purpose of casual meetups.
I'd love a site that lets you set strict and sophisticated filters. Maybe with the option to quiz users and sort out those who can't give interesting answers to certain questions. Not sure why no one's attempted to make that yet, the obvious advantage of the digital world is that we can go through large numbers of individuals, filter the noise and match exactly the ones that are suitable for each other based on shared interests. Yet the best we got is swiping left or right based on someone's photoshopped profile picture?
Wouldn't this strongly select for only desperately (for lack of a better word) lonely people? For everyone else, simply talking to strangers in real life is less friction than tackling some online quiz.
My thinking is talking to random people is... random. We can do this outside the internet, don't really need an app for that. Being able to prescreen is less friction than spending time meeting uninteresting people. And having no barriers seems to be a recipe for that in my experience, it attracts those who're desperate because they can't meet people any other way. So if I want a way to remove those people, I'd want to have a higher barrier, not lower. Is the idea flawed?
I don't know if it's a flaw per se, but you're not only removing uninteresting people, but also interesting people who aren't interested in taking online quizzes.
> Being able to prescreen is less friction than spending time meeting uninteresting people.
This is probably true for some individuals (e.g. those with social anxiety, or those who work 16 hours a day or something), but certainly not all. Even uninteresting people are often moderately entertaining for a short while, which is much more than I can say for taking an online quiz.
Additionally, there's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem regarding the reputation of the group itself. If I can be pretty sure ahead of time that being admitted to the group will be worth it, then I will probably suck it up and take the quiz. This pretty much requires someone who is already a member convincing me. Otherwise it might well turn out to be a ghost town, or full of holier-than-thou nerds, or just not a fit for whatever other reason. I wouldn't want to go through a prescreening process just to find that out -- easier and more fun to just stick with meeting randos.
I strongly disagree, it's never been easier and more pleasant to write modern JS without transpilers. I've only rarely had to reach for a framework or transpiler in the last few years.