Man, that -8, that sounds really tough. Stay safe out there UK frens.

People talk about the US healthcare system as if it's a choice between capitalism and socialism.

It's a false dichotomy. The Americans already spend as much public money on healthcare per capita as single payer systems like Canada or the UK.

In a sense, the insurance industry exists in part because the state solution is a failed one.

Some people claim that the United States hasn't tried a state solution and that's why things are so bad. That's a lie. If they chose not to pursue a state solution then they wouldn't be spending as much public money as they are. They have a state based solution that's incompetent.

Then people find it ironic that in spite of their poor system now they don't trust the government to implement a healthcare system for everyone. The fact that the state based system is so broken doesn't seem to be at all ironic that people don't trust the state to do the thing they're currently failing to do.

People might argue that government involvement in healthcare isn't axiomatically inefficient and just is by how the US government has chosen to do it, which is self-evidently true based on the fact that I'm not comparing the United States to a perfect system I am comparing the United States to other countries in the anglosphere which have single-payer healthcare for comparable or even lower amounts of money than the United States gets virtually nothing for. However, the proof in the pudding is in the eating, the reason that the US government is incompetent at healthcare is immaterial next to the fact that they are in fact incompetent at healthcare.

Some people might say that it's because of political partisanship, but the last major piece of healthcare legislation occurred when the Democrats had a supermajority in Congress and thus could pass any piece of legislation they wanted. What they chose to pass was more spending and no improvement to healthcare accessibility.

The idea that partisanship might block reforms even during super majorities? The answer is that it doesn't. At that point, one party is fully in charge. Now it's true that poorly implemented or unpopular reforms could be easily moved back in the next political session where the other party was in charge, but that assumes that they will be poorly implemented or unpopular. As an example, in spite of the issues with healthcare in canada, it is considered a third rail that no political party, even the far right populist party The People's party of Canada, is remotely willing to discuss ending it. If a political party with a supermajority and majorities and the presidency and the supreme Court where to implement something that immediately had a tangible improvement on outcomes for people, it would just become the way things are done.

I think that if anything, the government really does a great job of avoiding all blame. They they act with extreme incompetence, and extreme corruption, and they are the ones who ultimately make the decision about what happens but they get to blame lobbyists as if congressman and senators don't have any agency of their own, they just do whatever they're told by lobbyists.

People want to pretend lobbyists only exist in the United States, and they want to act like fragmentation only exists in the United States. Neither of these are true of course, but they provide easy scapegoats to incompetent lawmakers. For people who claim that it isn't possible to have the federal government fund a program that is managed by the states, they once again only need look to Canada, whose public healthcare program is funded by the federal government and implemented by the provinces, and although imperfect provides universal health Care in every province and territory.

Medicare, Medicaid, and VA are limited in scope which is why not everyone gets access to them. However, if Medicare was so great then it could achieve its mission with a fraction of its budget and people would go "oh, we have all this money left over we could implement single-payer healthcare" but instead these extremely limited programs are constantly complaining that they're underfunded. Notably, the Swiss hybrid system actually results in record low public expenditure on healthcare across Europe.

All of these realities based on comparative analysis with other countries act as a tactical nuke, more or less destroying every argument that lets the US government avoid blame for the current situation in healthcare.

It's also a kill shot to arguments saying the problem with the US healthcare is but they aren't willing to pay for something that is socialism. The failures of private insurance are in fact a direct result of the failures of government to implement effective public health Care with the money that they already have.

So we are perfectly clear here, if the government legalizes something, and they make something tax deductible, and massively funds something, then it is responsible for that thing. If instead of healthcare we were talking about crack cocaine, we wouldn't be talking about the individual people selling crack cocaine we would be asking why the government has set up a system like that.

The US has a system that protects tens of millions at a cost that should protect hundreds of millions. What is the human cost of leaving hundreds of millions of people without healthcare so we can give tens of millions of people healthcare? Clearly the real issue is that the government needs to fix their shit.

For just over 100 you can get an hp t740 on eBay.

https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/hp/t740/

I was giving it the side eye but I don't do fans.

Next upgrade for the FBXL network is ordered, a couple machines with embedded Ryzen APUs, totally fanless (I'm not about to start having fans now).

In general, I have come to believe that what we call "wokeness" can be viewed instead as "ultra-orthodox progressivism".

Other authors have called wokeness "performative diversity", and I think that's true to an extent, but the performative aspects are a symptom, not the actual problem. It is performative because the ultra-orthodox are engaged in rituals and following laws that must not be broken no matter what.

When I was younger, and we'd make racist jokes. The point wasn't that we believe in racism, it's that racism itself was the joke, a thing we were mocking by using it so impotently. The ultra-orthodox progressives couldn't see that, because they can't get past the fact that a rule was broken.

Many people like myself say that we used to be "default liberals", because 20 years ago we did agree with progressive thought. I think the reality is that we still do. Progress is something the left and the right agree on to a large extent. The only question is what progress looks like. The people who say "the left left me" are often progressives who intend to stay progressive, but are not ultra-orthodox.

For those who knee-jerk say they aren't progressive, tread carefully -- Christianity itself is a fundamentally progressive religion. Unlike something like Daoism or Buddhism which views the world as cyclical and thus will never progress but instead you need to learn to stop worrying about the physical world and focus on trying to cultivate your inner world by letting go of worldly concerns, Christianity sees the world as saved from a purely cyclical future through God's grace and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We are progressing towards the kingdom of heaven spiritually, but by following natural law we are aligning with Gods plan for us and so our time on Earth becomes more like the Kingdom of God over time. In some ways, the woke resemble the Pharisees, focused on following rules of God while denying His son and ultimately crucifying the Son of God.

The recent election of Donald Trump helps show this in full effect. Donald Trump didn't just win because the ultra-orthodox's hated "STRAIGHT WHITE MEN" voted for him, he voted from a coalition that included many women, more blacks than any Republican president in a century, and a growing contingent of latinos. More Jews than normal voted for Trump. The ultra-orthodox progressives can only see this through their narrow lenses, and so they call women who voted for Trump misogynistic, and latinos and blacks who voted for Trump racist. They're doing everyone a favor having their hypocrisy on full display.

I believe the reason for the success of ultra-orthodox progressivism is multi-faceted.

1. As I investigated in another post, there are two forms of idiocracy: One populist and anti-intellectual, one elitist and pseudo-intellectual. By taking on the trappings of ultra-orthodox progressivism, an individual who is intellectually lazy can take on the trappings of class and intellect without putting in work besides regurgitating someone else's ideas.

2. Large organizations are extremely compatible with ultra-orthodoxy. They like that there are defined, relatively unchanging rules that they just need to comply with. Contrast with a purer progressivism, which constantly questions even itself and its own axioms and can change its mind on what progress is. It's easier to hammer a zero tolerance policy out than to go through an intellectual journey of finding answers.

3. Ultra-progressive progressivism is militant and seeks to destroy opposition. In the short term, this is like a wasp who stings anyone who comes close to their nest. In the short term, people will stay away from the nest. In the longer term, eventually someone will shoot some bug spray or hire an exterminator.

Only one of the three reasons can be sustainable. The first fails once people stop seeing your jargon filled pseudo-intellectual gobbledygook as intelligent, the third fails once everyone realizes nobody actually likes you. The second will only last as long as the organizations think there's a benefit to your ideology, and if it seems to cost too much youll lose institutional support regardless of your digestibility.

https://news.sky.com/story/the-x-exodus-could-bluesky-spike-spark-end-of-elon-musks-social-media-platform-13254722

No. Jesus you're retarded sky news.

I just realized that it's entirely possible that this time next year my country could have cheap gas and plastic straws.

I'd vote for someone just for those two things alone!

I still don't understand why they have a person doing sign language on TV next to government officials.

Closed captioning is a thing, and it's useful for people who don't know asl... So why take screen real estate doing this thing when they could just be showing closed captioning?

There's far right loonies who want to ban books from elementary school libraries just because they're inappropriate.

Nay, I say. A pox on thee.

Obviously every book in the world should be in kindergartener's libraries. Elementary school libraries should be like the library of Alexandria except not burned to the ground, and filled with books that are no doubt totally acceptable.

Penthouse? If it's good enough for truck stop magazine racks it's good enough for a kindergartener.

Hustler? They should hustle on those printing presses because kindergarteners should have every back issue!

Mein Kampf? More like "mein kindergartener should read that"! After all, you know who wouldn't let a kindergartener read mein kampf? Hitler. Since he loved censorship.

Forget the versions of Mark Twain's books that remove racial slurs, we need to publish versions that are nothing but racial slurs or the bigots have already won!

The idea that young children should have what they see regulated in any way, why it's unAmerican. What's that, you say? I'm Canadian? Well of course, I don't want any of this in *my* kids libraries. But you, you should definitely get on that. It's a very principled stance for you to take.

Hey guys, I figured it out. The Chinese are telling their investors they need to "work harder" but these American companies aren't good with accents so they hear "woke harder".

Seen it a million times, could happen to any of us.

[admin mode] restarted everything and changed IP addresses about an hour ago. It helped, but I think there's some regional connectivity issues going on.

On the topic of the recent supreme court decision, it should be noted that just because the president has absolute immunity from criminal prosecution doesn't immediately mean he wins the particular case he's in. They'll have to figure out whether his actions count as official or unofficial for the purpose of presidential immunity.

Is holding a rally outside of a government building an official act? I think that's debatable, but I'd lean towards it not being such a thing.

Have you considered fighting other lobsters to establish your place on the lobster dominance hierarchy? I've heard this helps.

You're having too much fun. :p

I was just reading an article about how because mozilla's federation experiment failed, federation obviously can't work.

Considering that Firefox is something like 4% of global market share, I don't think that the Mozilla foundation failing at something is really an indication of anything other than the fact that the Mozilla foundation isn't the same organization it once was. I wouldn't be surprised to find that they struggle with free ice cream.

Once again proving that websites like these lack any sort of wisdom...

Ironically, I was finding the me who has spent 3 more years deep diving into history was debating the me who wrote that. It's not totally wrong, especially in context, but it could probably be phrased more accurately.

Looks like WWIII is back on the menu.

Good thing we're all too fat and retarded to be conscripted!

New business model: nothing as a service NaaS

Here's the way it works: you don't pay any companies rent for anything you do on your computers.

You might ask: "how are other companies supposed to make money that way?" The answer is simple: not your problem.

Tbf there's lots of civilian branches. Pharma, food, a lot of domestic manufacturing is just idled military capacity... The world wars got America into total war mode and it never wanted to leave. As empire declines it'll have to or it won't be a United States much longer. Ask the Spanish empire how great being overloaded with debt and military obligation is.