I got a shabby and scuffed up 10 year old leather jacket cleaned recently. It cost me less than £50 and came out great. Buying a new one would have cost £250+
I wonder where the biggest opportunities are to get people reusing and repairing their things rather than buying new ones.
It's satisfying, usually functionally-equivalent and cheaper once you know where or how to get it done.
> I wonder where the biggest opportunities are to get people reusing and repairing their things rather than buying new ones.
Back in the day you repaired things because a really well made thing would last a lifetime with proper care. But Amazon and Walmart made it their mission to get people to keep buying clothes, so now clothes are cheaper and more disposable.
I think the best thing we could do is encourage people to buy fewer things that are better quality. Maybe encourage manufacturers to have a warranty program that works with independent repair shops. You spend more with the intention of keeping it longer, and can get it repaired if needed.
Well I think we can change that. There's no constitutional proclamation that says we have to be a consumer society. gen Z are much more conscious of these issues, we could help guide them towards more responsible purchases and intentional living, and the market should slowly follow
Only the American economy depends on the constant consumption, and we can clearly see how that ended: with riots and looting in the streets, a true beacon, pinnacle of success.
Other economies are much more content to pay for reuse and repair.
> I think the best thing we could do is encourage people to buy fewer things that are better quality.
I would LOVE to do this, but I have absolutely no idea how to identify quality. Is the $50 t-shirt at Macy's actually going to last me longer than the $10 that looks identical at The Gap?
Since I don't even know, I usually end up taking the $10 safer choice.
> I think the best thing we could do is encourage people to buy fewer things that are better quality.
I’m unsure whether this would be good for the environment. What are the risks of not using it, or damaging it? Systematically, I believe our environmental footprint is approximately how much we earn, so deciding if the environment is better off for that choice is not obvious.
I just buy good second-hand clothes since that is more likely to be good for my pocket (and perhaps with luck, the environment).
It really feels like it should be positive, but I am very unsure it is.
1. Systematically, I believe our environmental footprint is approximately how much we earn. I spend less money buying second hand clothes, but I spend those savings elsewhere in the economy.
2. The revenue of a second-hand clothes dealer is spent in the economy, likely causing the average environmental impact of the economy where the store is located.
3. My marginal increase in second-hand clothing usage might cause a marginal increase in new clothes purchases. More likely for expensive “vintage” clothes since they have a limited supply, and vintage goods more likely cause a substitute goods effect for new clothes. Less likely for very low demand undesirable clothes (cheap thrift store clothes that would otherwise just be recycled).
Generally I think that most things make little difference. To make a positive environmental impact I suspect requires one to do something that has a fairly direct effect (plant some trees, change legislation), or reduces societies total impact (war, death, reducing reproduction). Reducing your use of something that is very clearly 100% petrochemical-based (gas, plane flights) makes some difference, but mostly your money goes into the economy: even 100% “green” goods are actually only as green as your country’s economy. There is massive amounts of green-washing going on, so most green goods are actually no better than whatever they replace (and from what I can tell, most green goods are worse for the environment).
Just because you spend $5 doesn't mean it has a negative environmental impact. Give me $5 to spend and I can either kill all the fish in a river with it, or clean up said river. It depends on what you spend your money on.
Small things do have a big impact. Even just voicing our opinions makes a big impact. Why do you think eco-friendly products are so in vogue? Organic products, fair trade, rainforest alliance, products made with 50% recycled content, lower energy use devices, cars with higher gas mileage, electric cars. None of this stuff existed a few decades ago, but it has all been steadily increasing and having more of an impact. It's a slow pace, but small things do add up to big change over time.
This question has led me away from big box stores and more to online clothes retailers. Certain brands give a really comprehensive breakdown of what their clothes are made of and how they're constructed. Right now I'm thinking of a pair of Outlier pants that I've had for about 4 years or more by now, probably have 500 wears in them. They have some minor fading and a couple of burn holes from standing too close to campfires, but are otherwise unscathed. They were something like $150 when I bought them but I was sold on the textile they used (very durable high-nylon synth blend), and in this case it paid off -- I would have blown holes in the knees of jeans 5 times over in the same period.
Pay attention to the seams and stitching. Rows double or triple-stiching in parallel, and compare with he cheap ones.
Fabric quality is another big one, but that’s difficult to tell. But at least for cotton it’s generally a bit thicker and heavier.
Some well crafted garments also have thicker fabric near high-wear areas (jeans), or as a “patch”.
We don’t need a consumer society to thrive, but we need skilled artisans+quality goods to make it work (which we outsourced away generations ago, sigh).
It’d also help answer the more awkward issues of hidden-away slave labor that we rely on today.
I have a 12 year old all-season jacket from LL Bean that is full of holes. It has survived a decade of winters in NYC and upstate NY. It has a removable lining so the coat also works in Spring and Fall. In the summer I can use it as a small backyard picnic blanket.
I love it so much and it is so functional that I refuse to replace it.
I wish I could just mail it to a service that would fix all the holes, clean it, and mail it back.
I'm sure I could find a local tailor, but local tailors aren't always easy to find, and the whole process is such a hassle.
I have a similarly aged jacket from Orvis. Even in Southern California, I probably wear it 300 days a year. The inner, fabric lining has some holes in it, and I just took it to the local cleaner. They managed to stitch it all up and make it...umm...whole.
Are they pretty? No. Only so much you can do, I guess. But it's functional, and it's inside, so, no worries.
It's too bad that scumbags took advantage of LLBean's lifetime warranty so they ended it. You may still be able to send it back to them to repair, but a few years ago it wouldn't have cost you anything. Maybe worth a shot if you really love it!
Aahaha, my parents used to abuse that service (finding old jackets abandoned by students at the end of the school year) and I told them to stop because it was taking advantage.
So, I looked into doing that back when LLBean had the lifetime warranty, but they offered to send me a new jacket. They wouldn't repair the old one. And I wanted to keep my old jacket.
Might be able to go to the local tailor. Definitely depends on the place, but a tailor is likely to do that kind of work for you. A lot of tailors I know also have professional cleaning equipment, so that might be the double whammy.
It's satisfying, usually functionally-equivalent and cheaper once you know where or how to get it done.
It sure is (currently wearing pants which are probably 20 years old - as such their style is also back in fashion if I see what youth is wearing these days), but only if you were raised or self-thaught to hold that in high regard. Or I could even say 'if you have common sense' but that's perhaps just bias from my part.
I wonder where the biggest opportunities are
I'm tempted to say 'education' and 'have politics push for it' but I honestly don't know at this point. Seeing what it takes to even get a slight notion of something being fixed for other global problems (climate, biodiversity) I'm not exactly optimistic about that.
This is an option for a £250 jacket but not for a £50 jacket, so I guess the place to start is buying higher quality products that are worth repairing.
I agree with you that I probably wouldn't want to pay to repair an inexpensive item of clothing, but I can't articulate why. If an item is poorly made, it may not be worth repairing, but price doesn't always correlate to quality.
I've been thinking about this lately with a wristwatch. I have a 10 year old Seiko mechanical watch that cost me $50. To get it serviced will cost more than I paid for the watch, however there's nothing about the watch that makes it less worthy of servicing than a watch that would have cost 10 or 100x more.
It's sentimental attachment for some objects - the daughter figured out how to repair T-shirts and sweatshirts (she learned the trade from her self taught father but he could not do these repairs prior to her breakthrough).
Same story. I got a Ferragamo leather jacket 15 years ago that I've worn often. It has all been scratched up and tainted in places. Went to a local shop to have it shampooed and reconditioned. It's all fixed up and shines like new. I can definitely wear it for another 20 years. It only costed $80.
This. I started with a BB Storm and stayed through several BB10 handsets up to the Passport. There was no second guessing the UX with Blackberry. The menu was always in the same place and Hub was great when you have so many accounts.
I found the UX in iPhone apps so irritating. Settings could be virtually anywhere and were commonly scattered across multiple places.
That said, I now use my iPhone very differently to how I use my Blackberry and I wonder if I would still appreciate Blackerry features if I go back.
By this I mean I get virtually no notifications. I don't have work emails on my iPhone and only the red badge icon turned on for personal email accounts. Whatsapp only fetches new messages when I open the app. The only app notification I get is from screen time every Sunday.
One of the best things about Blackberry was the subtlety of notifications but I've just chosen to go low-notification with iPhone and I don't think I'll ever revert that.
It can be built on by applying the economics concept of "externalities" - i.e. side effects (positive or negative) from a particular action such as the exercising of a right or freedom.
To get us closer to a perfect world, we need to start measuring the value of externalities (arguably not always easy to get right but possible to estimate) and to whom this gain or loss in value occurs so that they can be compensated by the externality creator(s).
I agree with the author that most people do not consider the negative externalities of a particular freedom being exercised.
We should require our legislators to more clearly articulate and value externalities from a given policy and identify groups it creates negative externalities for, and how they should be compensated (or why they do not deserve to be compensated).
> We should require our legislators to more clearly articulate and value externalities from a given policy and identify groups it creates negative externalities for, and how they should be compensated (or why they do not deserve to be compensated).
That would be identity politics 2.0 and the end of nation states. Not only lawmakers targeting different groups of society to pass legislation, but also identifying (highly subjectively) other groups to be compensated for 2nd and 3rd-order effects introduced by that legislation.
I realize the practical difficulties here, but the actual concept (identifying who's going to be impacted, and offering targeted solutions) sounds like a pretty good idea in theory. Calling it 'identity politics 2.0' is an easy way to dismiss it, but it doesn't respond to the actual argument.
Consider the following situation with parties A, B and C involved. "A" wants to do something that negatively affects B, while C is unaffected. The legislator would decide to compensate B, but who is taxed for that? In case of taxing A and C, C's freedom as a group would be compromised. In case of taxing only A, the cost would be prohibitive and could discourage A from wanting to do its thing in the first place.
> That would be identity politics 2.0 and the end of nation states
Still seems like a massive leap in rhetoric. The truth is that this sort of compensation already exists in the united states. For example: eminent domain, which requires a just compensation for government acquisition of private land. Another example, many cities require some form of compensation from a real estate developer to the surrounding community in exchange for a permit to undergo a big construction; for example, funding a public park or some such.
Neither of these examples seem like "identity politics 2.0" much less the end of nation states. You can argue it's ineffective public policy, but again its a massive leap in rhetoric you took with your earlier post.
> In case of taxing A and C, C's freedom as a group would be compromised.
True. That's why targeted taxes (eg carbon taxing) are often a good idea. However, if we as a society vote to do things that seriously harm a subset of society, then we as a society are partially responsible for that harm.
> In case of taxing only A, the cost would be prohibitive and could discourage A from wanting to do its thing in the first place.
I think it's entirely reasonable to price externalities into the cost of an action.
Inventing the car hurt horse breeders and kicked off global climate change, I don’t think people would argue that their life would be better without the invention of the vehicle.
It's the application of Coase's theorem at the level of the legislature. Nothing "identity" about it; if others are unduly negatively affected by a measure then they deserve compensation.
> We should require our legislators to more clearly articulate and value externalities from a given policy and identify groups it creates negative externalities for, and how they should be compensated (or why they do not deserve to be compensated).
I wonder if this could be a potential remedy for the issue of modern legislation paralysis:
We have lots of modern problems, we often know what are some effective solutions to these problems, and are unable to implement any of them because every solution imposes some kind of externality upon a group with sufficient political power to lobby against it.
For example: building dense housing and public transit in a boom town. It's generally agreed that this is the only sustainable end state (more housing with public transit to offset traffic) and yet we end up with total paralysis on every front: In the rich neighborhoods, nobody wants development to disturb their idyllic suburban life. In the poor neighborhoods, nobody wants a flurry of investment dollars to drive up prices and push out renters. Nobody who drives wants tax dollars on transit, and nobody who uses transit wants tax dollars building more highways. The cycle continues.
To the example: You wouldn't have the necessary democratic legitimization to implement it and I think that is excellent since declaring it the only sustainable end state is very likely wrong. Similar problems within the educational system exist and it is not a completely independent problem to that example.
> You wouldn't have the necessary democratic legitimization to implement it
That's kind of the point of this thread, that perhaps by offsetting externalities at a legislative level, we can help build democratic legitimization to problems that are widely recognized but lacking even incremental solutions.
Obviously you disagree we should even be trying to build more housing or transit, and that's great for you but not really relevant. My post is approaching the issue that there are very large factions of interest groups that collectively do believe we need more housing and transit, but individually cannot agree on where (or should i say, in whose backyard), by whom, and how, it gets built.
I am not against building more housing, on the contrary.
I think the general consideration for this approach is far too narrow. Cities are the least sustainable places humans live in. So the premise is already restricted on properties of the labor market, the main draw for people moving towards cities in the first place. Here the assumption is true, since there are certain requirements for proximity and infrastructure. But I doubt housing policies should be based on that perspective alone.
Especially now, since we noticed that huge parts of the labor force in administrative roles can just as well work remotely. So I believe the perspective to be too narrow. Problems like pollution, congestion, food production, noise and yes, satisfaction are factors that already got externalized before any discussion even began.
I think any housing policies should be mindful of demand, but also examine why the demand exists and if the might be better alternatives. I think many people like "greener pastures" if they weren't forced to compromise with their need for infrastructure.
The founders of the US acknowledged that in a democracy it's possible for the people to be completely wrong about something. That was their entire reasoning for creating an electoral college and for having a senate and house of representatives. They wanted to make sure the electors, senators, and representatives represented the people who elected them, but they acknowledged that sometimes our best interests are only apparent to a sufficiently well-educated body with ample time to become educated on the issue at hand. They recognized that this could be difficult for most people.
Not at all applicable here because these mechanisms are still valid for suggestions like this. The "cities of the future" is a theme that is as old as I can remember and as I said, very likely wrong.
You have these institutions to evaluate the will of voters and implement it as best as they can after careful evaluation.
The paralysis occurs because the political debate revolves around satisfying group interests of affected parties, instead of articulating a "grand vision" which would advance society to a better state, at the cost of temporarily negliging the pure economical interest of more vocal parts of society.
So, after thinking about this over night, I've decided to share something that happened at the WORLD SCIENCE FESTIVAL yesterday afternoon in NYC that changed me. Or rather made me step into who I am in a larger way.
As some on my feed have seen, I was live-feeding the beginning of the panel discussion on FB. That panel was made up of some of the greatest and most famous minds in the world in Inflationary Cosmology, String Theory, Cosmology and Physics based Philosophy. The panel was made up of 5 men and 1 woman. And the moderator was a science writer and journalist for The New Yorker.
In the first hour of the panel discussion you can see clearly, if watching the video, that Veronika Hubeny, the only woman on the panel is barely given any opportunity to speak. And the Moderator, Jim Holt even acknowledges this.
In the last 20-30 minutes of the 90 minute discussion Jim Holt finally pushes the conversation to Hubeny's field of expertise, string theory, and this is what ensued:
He asked her to describe her two theories of string theory that seem to contradict one another.
And THEN, without letting her answer, proceeded to answer for her and describe HER theories in detail without letting her speak for herself.
We could clearly see that she was trying to speak up. But he continued to talk over her and dominate the space for several minutes.
I should say that this panel was taking place in a large auditorium as it is an extremely high-profile and always sold-out event. And the panel discussion was being live-streamed across the world and they say that millions of people watch these videos after they are made public. (Which they already are).
So at this point, after seeing very clearly that she was not going to be given space to speak and in fact having her own theories described to the audience by the moderator, I am in full outrage. My body is actually beginning to shake. The sexism is beyond blatant. It is happening on stage and NO ONE, not a single other physicist or panelist is stepping in to say anything about it. And I can hear other audience members around me, both men and women becoming more and more agitated with what is happening. Jim Holt, even at one point, asks Veronica a question and she laughs because he has been answering his own questions about her work...and he makes fun of her for 'giggling'.
So at some point while he is Still talking about Her theories, I just can't handle it any longer.
With my hands shaking,
I finally say from my seat in the 2nd row of the audience, as clearly, directly and loudly as possible;
"Let. Her. Speak. Please!"
The moderator stops.
They all stop.
The auditorium drops into silence.
You could hear a pin drop.
And then the audience explodes with applause and screams.
Jim Holt eventually sat back, only after saying I was heckling him
And he let her speak.
And of course, she was brilliant.
-----------------------
So, the panel discussion ends.
My hands are still shaking. I'm still upset by the incredible sexism that has been demonstrated this afternoon. But I also realize that I just spoke up in an auditorium full of people that are listening to people that are considered gods in the international science world. I was just overwhelmed by it all
We get up to leave.
And then it happens.
Person after person come up to me. Both men and women.
The first woman, right behind me, reaches over and embraces me and says, "Oh my god. what you said was the most important thing that was said all day. Thank you. Thank you."
And then people start filing out of their aisles and wind their way over to me:
"Was that you? Thank you so much for speaking up. Thank you."
"Was that you? Oh god, what he was doing was horrific. Thank you. I wanted to do something but didn't know how"
"Was that you? I wish I had the courage to say something, thank you! Thank you so much"
"Was that you? You said what everyone here was thinking. Look I had even been writing in my notebook what you eventually said (shows me his notebook with 'let her speak' written over and over.) But you said it. You said it. Thank you."
"Was that you? Thank you! I felt so powerless to do anything."
And on.
So we were all thinking this.
----
So I walked out. And my friend who was sitting about 8 rows behind me, came up to me with a huge grin and said
"That was you, wasn't it? Of course it was. YES!!!!! I will be telling this story for years."
And the whole time, my hands are still shaking. And I'm felling light-headed. And I just want to scream out into the lobby "WHY IS THIS SEXISM STILL HAPPENING? WHY, does someone like me, with No status in that room, have to be so extraordinarily bold and speak up? And why was it so frightening to do so?"
And I'm thinking. "God, please god let this be an opening for those that were here today and the tens of thousands that watched the live-streaming of the panel yesterday and the hundreds of thousands that will watch the video this year- to speak up when we see this happening. And please let me not be afraid to do this again
> WHY, does someone like me, with No status in that room, have to be so extraordinarily bold and speak up? And why was it so frightening to do so?
Audience members do have some status, she actually exercised the precise limit of that status. Audience members aren't meant to have equal status, because that's just called a bunch of people in a studio / anarchy.
Surprised more app developers are not creating solutions to this kind of thing - e.g. some form of multisig authorisation to access certain files or 2FA that relies on the second factor only being available at times access is genuinely needed.
If the governments claim they have authority to search your phone, then the only solution is not to store things on your phone during those border activities. Any system for denial of access will simply be considered obstruction.
So technical solutions would simply be to have a backup somewhere, with no trace of the backup software on the device itself. Get to where you're going, go to the website, or download the app, or plug it into another computer, and restore your data from the internet via access codes you have memorized. Or simply travel with a device dedicated for travel, and not your personal goings on.
But obviously, technical solutions don't solve the root poison, which is government destruction of rights and social health in the name of "protecting our rights and society from terrorists".
What I don't understand about the "create a backup" approach is that the government could simply ask you to surrender the backup. You shouldn't lie about having one, since that's (probably) a felony!
Also, what's to stop them from asking for your email or other account passwords?
Depending on the jurisdiction, the government agent may not be able to ask for the backup.
I only know US border control considerations and they can only legally ask for access to what you have on you when you cross the border. If you are an American citizen (or permanent resident) you can decline, and they may well seize your device(s) but cannot deny you entrance. If you are a visitor to the US they can legally deny you entry if you do not comply with their vague and ever changing requests.
But in neither scenario could they legally demand access to a backup copy: they can only ask for access to items in your possession while crossing the border, otherwise they would need to get a warrant.
Use two factor authentication for your email and whatnot and leave the authenticator at home. Use a different email for travel that is only password protected.
I'm not a lawyer, but I very strongly doubt deliberately making yourself unavailable to give the password on demand is going to be perceived by a court as as cute a way around this law as you believe it to be.
There's no technological solutions to things like this, only political ones.
There are no political solutions to things like this either - not that any of us talking about it here have any meaningful hope of accomplishing, anyway. We might as well try whatever technical fixes we can come up with, since it's better than the nothing we'll get if we wait for the politicians to deal with it.
Political/legal solutions also take a generation or more to accomplish. What are we supposed to do in the meantime, just put up with governmental abuse?
Here's a business/service idea off the top of my head.
As a traveller, just before going through security you wipe your device and "sell" it to a vendor in exchange for a voucher that will allow you to exchange it back when you land and go through the security at your destination. You take the new device, provision it with your cloud data, and go on your visit; when you go back, you go through this process again, in the other direction.
Lots of problems to be solved with that idea, not the least of which is the business model, but it would allow you to travel without any electronics on your person.
I toyed with building an application like this, except that you just carry your device with you. The application basically tarballs your entire environment up, offsites it, and then wipes and factory-resets your device (incidentally I got lost in the rabbit hole of trying to wipe an SSD heh). It's completely clean, you can surrender your device for inspection, give passwords, etc. And then after you're through, you download the application which acts like a dropper, and it explodes your environment and data onto the device again. Docker was really useful here.
It would have been configurable. The important thing is that your blob of data (e.g. VeraCrypt volume) is offsited and wiped. You could leave your laptop otherwise completely lived-in, just not containing your data anymore. Otherwise, I've worked for companies that gave out loaner phones for overseas travel. A factory-reset phone is much less suspicious than a threadbare "factory-reset" laptop.
On a laptop, it shouldn't be too hard to have a dual-boot system where OS 1 has nothing of interest, and OS 2 is temporarily hidden from the boot loader.
Alternatively keep the main OS on a USB or hard drive, and get that in/out of the country by other means.
There are other options. Generally, carrying obviously visible sensitive files with you in person is not a necessity.
The tech solution might be giving partial keys to someone in another legal jurisdiction.
e.g. I send a partial key to my cousin and grandmother which live in another country. When crossing borders I then logout and cannot log back in without their part of the key. A local judge will not be able to compel someone in another country to cooperate - and my grandmother's local judge will not be able to compel her since the request is being made in another country.
Are we expecting a government that violates their own rules to not violate their own rules in a different area? Let's see how fast your grandma will give up the password when it is the only way to get you out of lockup at a torture center (using my definition of torture, not any of the horrible biased ones different governments use).
If your mom overseas has the password, you do have the ability to comply. Ask you mom for the password. She gives it to you. You comply.
Here's another example that might make this more clear. Let's say I embezzle a million dollars from my employer, and they sue me to get it back. (Let's just pretend that I avoid criminal charges for simplicity.) When they win and I tell them, "I can't comply, I gave it to my cousin in France to hold on to," what do you think the judge does? I'll tell you what the judge does: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Beatty_Chadwick (This only applies to the U.S.. I suppose in the U.K. you would do two years and then be released.)
In the case you linked, the contention was that the judge thought the defendant had access to the money, whereas he said he didn't. If you give the money to another, autonomous, person, and the judge believes that you did, then you should be in the clear. Naturally, you could ask the person for the money, much as you would a bank teller. However, if you had previously instructed the person to ignore such a request, then you would be incapable of retrieving the money. Holding you beyond then would have the goal of using your incarceration to coerce another person, which I'm sure the courts would frown at.
Jonathan Zidarski (now at Apple) had a really good post on the approaches to handle security checkpoints [1]. It's enlightening and at the same time depressing.
There is a technological solution: plausible deniability. Devices/apps need two passwords: one unlocks your normal and secret files, and the other only unlocks your normal files. Agents asking for your passwords would see evidence of normal use only. Sort of a "can't prove a negative" defense.
The problem is that HN-types want to assert cryptographic power over agents of governments, ie I won't show you my files and you can't make me so I win.
This is a terrible attitude to have. Basically what your suggesting is that the government should be all powerful and then dole out rights to people as it sees fit. This is a completely unacceptable way for a free society to function.
I agree. In addition, if you pull a stunt like that, expect to have the book thrown at you to make an example of you. Part of the reason Ross Ulbricht's sentence was so harsh was to send a message.
I guess the challenge is one of UX; if you're hiding features behind specific sign-in patterns (to avoid security services) then you're also hiding them from a proportion of your users
This will only get worse if Theresa May actually wins the vote / public approval to be PM. As Home Secretary she came up with fantastic ideas such as:
* Let us monitor every single call, email, text and website to catch terrorists and peadophiles (1)
* Let us ban apps like Whatsapp and iMessage because terrorists might use them (2)
* Let us use tax payer money for a fleet of vans to drive around areas with a high % of non Brits telling them to "go home". Which to be fair did result in 11 people leaving the country. (3)
It's scary. People will vote for her in their millions, despite current Tory policy being much to the right of, and even less pleasant than, UKIP's 2015 manifesto. Right wing nationalism has arrived.
I wouldn't rush to call right-wing nationalism "has arrived". The reason she will win a landslide is because she's the only credible-seeming candidate. As such, it's hard to equate her winning with an extreme shift in public attitudes. She would likely win without many of the stances we consider extreme, given the current political landscape.
While I won't vote for her, I have to concede that the alternatives do not instil any greater confidence despite being vastly more ethically aligned with my views.
i.e., she just happens to be a horrible person; she isn't winning because of it
This is an important distinction, as we are (in my opinion) still a far cry from the abyss of divisiveness currently entrenched in American politics, and the best way to keep out of that abyss is not to demonise a majority of the country for this coming election's outcome.
"still a far cry from the abyss of divisiveness currently entrenched in American politics"
I think we're in a worse position. Trump will, all being well, go away in 4 years. The results of Brexit will last for decades.
Corbyn is dreadful in many ways, but ultimately I wonder who I could defend voting for to my future grandchildren. An inept and eccentric beardy socialist or a sly operator stoking up right wing nationalism? That choice is easier.
May's "credibility" is hard to pin down. She changes her opinion often and shows herself to be a sly and shrewd political chameleon than someone with real convictions (other than for damaging civil liberties). Even where Corbyn's convictions get kooky, at least he seems to stick with and believe in them.
Note, I did not say that this government will cause less long-term harm than Trump. Only that our political landscape is not as divisive (although it may during Brexit be nearly as divided).
However I think we are on the same road to irreconcilable divisions, just a little less far along. But we should be doing all we can to not get there, and any such efforts are probably harmed by attributing "right-wing nationalism" as the motivation to half the voting populace.
While it may be that there are "right-wing" and "nationalist" tendencies in certain segments of society right now, the composite phrase "right-wing nationalism" is pejorative and evokes Nazism, or neo-Nazism, which clearly isn't going to encourage a rapprochement between voters for Theresa May and those who may otherwise convince them of the problems with some of her policies and politics.
When the public consider all of the competition a joke - however reasonably or not - it's probably good to remember that (especially since most people are not policy wonks, or even readers of much news, let alone unbiased news) this does not mean they strongly endorse any of Theresa May's policies, only that they prefer her over the alternatives.
So it may be better to prepare to convince them to join you in a few years time than label them the enemy today.
> Even where Corbyn's convictions get kooky, at least he seems to stick with and believe in them.
You mean except where he (poorly) pretends to follow Labour policy and claims he will support things against his own beliefs... :p
Brexit is a God Damned mess, but it won't get any better by allowing negotiations to be managed by a weak Government. I can see two likely scenarios right now:
- Non-Tory coalition government, high levels of capitulation and a deal that is worse in every way that our pre brexit relationship.
- Strong Tory government leads to a game of brinksmanship with the EU and eventual no deal hard crash out.
The strategy of repeating "Strong and stable" at every single opportunity actually works.
Theresa may constantly u-turns and contradicts herself, but hey, she's strong and stable so we'll have a strong and stable brexit and become the greatest britain there ever was.
If we somehow manage to get a non-tory coalition, we will very likely negotiation for remaining in the EEA (aka soft brexit) which will be much better than any kind of hard brexit, not to mention much cheaper
Strong refers to strength of majority, I'm making no comment on her quality as a leader (but arguably I'm happy to posit that she's got better credentials at it than the opposition).
>If we somehow manage to get a non-tory coalition, we will very likely negotiation for remaining in the EEA (aka soft brexit) which will be much better than any kind of hard brexit, not to mention much cheaper
Right, I'm not arguing against that - just that it's far far worse than no brexit at all would have been. We will be paying more and getting less on every useful metric. It would also ignore basically all of the core rationales for those who voted Brexit (which Labour has asserted it wishes to respect).
It sounds like you agree with me on the likely outcome of the election results though, so cool?
It's not scary, just look at the opposition. Corbyn is making up numbers to try and get a win with his completely false 'take from the rich, give to the poor' strategy, and then there's the Lib Dems who had their shot at power, and immediately went back on their promises and raised student loans through the roof.
> then there's the Lib Dems who had their shot at power, and immediately went back on their promises and raised student loans through the roof.
Does anybody (who can critically think) actually care about this? All political parties have made u-turns (for example, the current government changed their mind pretty damn quickly about the NI increase) and, at the end of the day, the Conservatives won a majority so it's their call.
I swear the whole "Lib Dem" == "Tuition fee liers" is just a meme created by journalists to sell papers and distract people from real issues.
Oh God, writing that out made me realise I sound like a bit of a conspiracy theorist...
> Also the tuition thing was if they won outright not formed a coalition, so they literally didn't go back on their word.
Hate to disagree here, but it wasn't the manifesto plan of free tuition (which is what they'd do in power) that was the problem, they also signed a pledge to vote against any increase in fees which half of them didn't follow through with (being part of government): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote_for_Students_pledge
> Does anybody (who can critically think) actually care about this? All political parties have made u-turns (for example, the current government changed their mind pretty damn quickly about the NI increase) and, at the end of the day, the Conservatives won a majority so it's their call.
I care about it (and I barely read any newspapers, FWIW). Lib Dems MPs went above and beyond their manifesto and made direct, personal pledges not to vote to raise tuition fees. The coalition agreement did not require them to vote to raise tuition fees. Nevertheless, many did. This was an egregious deceit even by the standards of politicians. It absolutely deserved a massive electoral punishment, which thankfully seems to have been delivered.
(FWIW the NI U-turn was precisely because increasing it would have violated a manifesto promise, so not really comparable)
Both of these, and the strange discrepancy between them, can in some part be explained by the archaic first-past-the-post election system.
Apparently many of their loses to the conservative party were caused by a last minute rush of voters to labour. In a three-way contest that had the perverse effect of sending things in the opposite political direction.
Because people thought they were "Tory enablers" and the tuition fee thing was the perfect example of that. But comparing the coalition with the current Conservative government, I think it's clear they were actually beneficial to the country. Will be interesting to see how that attitude changes with time...
Yet. She's called a General Election while the only other party with a genuine chance of gaining seats are on its knees. Her party will win by a landslide this June.
I would rather be slaughtered than vote for Conservative, but I have to say, the NHS is already dead.
1. My nephew is 15 months old, sick and has to take tablet form which is almost impossible. The liquid one is beyond the budget.
2. My mum is having big problems with her knee due to arthritis, it has been going on for 4 years, and all they do is treat the pain. So now she is on boxes of Tramadol, and this is creating all kinds of new problems.
3. My father in law has a poor heart and he has medication but what they have given him creates a list of side effects so long that he visits the GP atleast once a week. If he cuts himself, he is in Hospital. However, there are alternatives, but beyond the budget to be prescribed to him.
This is my only experiences with the NHS and I don't think it is fit for purpose.
The desire of the common person to scream "PROTECT OUR NHS" is feeding into the problems. Now they are even paying Recruitment Agencies huge sums of money to find people remotely qualified, and they are absolutely raking in the cash (I know someone off to Miami with work in August as a perk holiday for working the NHS account).
> Now they are even paying Recruitment Agencies huge sums of money to find people remotely qualified, and they are absolutely raking in the cash
Now you know why the elite invested their own money into Brexit - Brexit is not just a pet ideology, it is an opportunity to make boatloads of money through privatization. While promoting a nationalist agenda, these well-heeled globalist gentleman will relocate to Monaco, Bahamas or some other sunny island at the first signs of Brexit failing. They will probably do so anyway even if it is a success.
This is the "starve the beast" strategy of the right. Defund a service until it's bad, then use the fact that it's bad to justify reductions in funding. Rinse and repeat.
This is my only experiences with the NHS and I don't think it is fit for purpose.
The answer to all your gripes above is to stop starving the NHS of funds in a climate where it has to take care of more and more elderly people, and simply increase funding - we spend significantly less on healthcare than other developed nations.
The gameplan is this:
1. Starve the NHS of funds for years
2. Create false crises by continually setting unrealistic budgets, putting hospitals in 'special measures', cutting GP funding etc.
3. Enforce longer waiting times, poorer service, and low morale by funding management and private partnerships but cutting front line pay.
4. Ditch the NHS, since it clearly isn't fit for purpose (nice sound-byte)
5. Make people pay for insurance to pay the private providers - and we get Trumpcare
Astoundingly, this seems to work, as evidenced by your post.
The NHS wasn't in this state in 2010 before Andrew Lansley got his hands on it. Maybe the problem lies with those who are managing it (somehow currently the imbecile fall-guy Jeremy Hunt...)
On top of that, stats like your first one are easily skewed because people in the US don't even get necessary surgeries because they can't afford it, so of course the NHS is going to have a higher rate of death afterwards!
You mean the ex culture secretary? With no experience of healthcare, finance, or anything else that the job entails? Crazy. The only thing more ridiculous is having a Chancellor with no real world business or financial experience who is known to dodge tax... oh... and now Editors a Newspaper.
I'll bite: across the population as a whole, the UK has much better health outcomes than the US despite spending a lot less money on healthcare. Of course, we should be spending more money, and then I expect we'd equal or even beat the US at the top too, because too much healthcare is also a bad thing, and with private healthcare that's what rich people get.
I don't know about that. May is socially conservative, not economically conservative. She believes in society - specifically, something resembling the society of the 50s.
The country is in a strange place, and getting stranger by the day.
The thing is we have a bigger problem: Brexit. Despite the fatigue of it, we now need strong leadership to exit the EU. If the vote is split, that'll weaken our country in a much more substantial way than any internet monitoring.
The UK's weakness isn't rooted in a belief that May's majority in parliament is too narrow. It's pretty clear that, given the referendum, even Labour would have a hard time voting against Brexit.
The weakness is that Brexit is simply 5x worse for the UK than it is for the EU, at least economically. The UK does around 50% of its foreign trade with the EU, while for the EU, which is much larger, this represents only around 10% of trade.
The result of failed negotiations is, for the UK, widespread economic depression. For EU countries, it's a slight economic road bump. It's the same mechanism that makes it a much bigger deal for you to get hired by Google than it does for Google.
There's no amount of nationalism, tough talk, bluffing, or posturing Britain can do to change the fact that, at the end of the day, Europe can walk away from these negotiations at any time. Indeed, given the wish to clearly show, once and for all, the benefits of EU membership, failure may already be close to break-even. And even bureaucratic monsters have feelings–the Daily Mail may end up creating true European unity as a parting gift.
All this was obviously known before the referendum, which is why it's baffling to still not even see it being addressed in conservative circles, which instead continue to be rewarded for lying and riling up a nationalistic furore.
Have you seen the economic state of some of the countries currently in the EU? The UK props the EU up in a big way, we are a massive contributor to it (hence why the EU is currently getting so defensive about us leaving). Also trade deals are something that will be sorted out, and both sides will want to keep costs low for import/export. At least, once the EU is done with it's posturing that is.
The UK's net contribution is less than 4 Billion Euro, which is like 5 or 6 Euro per citizen/yr. I think they'll manage.
But you're not addressing my point, which wasn't that Brexit isn't going to cost Europe anything. It will. The point is that, because of the size difference, it will cost Britain much more, and that such facts have an effect on negotiations.
It does, because it means once the conservatives agree on something they have more sway to vote it in. And at this point in time I am tired of listening to Westminster fighting with itself, and making us as a whole look like a joke to the rest of the EU.
> and making us as a whole look like a joke to the rest of the EU.
Have you read the leaked details of the meeting between May and Juncker? [0] [1]
A lot of people on the continent already think May is a joke. What good does taking a "tough" stance do in negotiating with the EU? Sure, it looks good for the local electorate (especially as she's just called an election), but negotiations aren't about being "tough" they're about getting a good outcome for UK/EU citizens living in the respective countries (and a trade deal, if they ever get around to that).
Comments like "bloody difficult" [2] also don't help things. To those of us on the continent, it seems that the UK has decided to go with the "bull in a china shop" strategy with May.
The amount of animosity toward the EU coming from the UK is just stunning. We get it, you dislike the EU, hence why you voted to leave. But it seems like the UK government is intent to burn every last bridge with the EU through their rhetoric...
Admittedly I was unsure about Brexit to begin with, but ever since we said we are going to leave, the EU has been up in arms telling us we will be punished, and we have to pay €100 billion to even be allowed. Despite us being in the top 3 biggest contributors to the EU budget to begin with. I can firmly say since that this is not a group I want to be associated with.
> Despite us being in the biggest top 3 contributors to the EU budget
I've heard this argument given a lot in discussions about Brexit.
I don't agree with it, and here's why:
Yes, the UK is a top contributor to the EU budget. But view the EU as a marriage. When the UK joined, they agreed to pay their share of the living expenses (so to say).
When a human couple get a divorce, you don't get to go back and say "well I paid more than half of the living expenses, therefore they owe me X for all the excess contributions I made while we were married."
Nope, sorry. That's not how marriage works, and you can't go and say "well now that we're on worse terms, actually you owe me all that money back"
So, on to your next point:
> the EU has been up in arms telling us we will be punished, and we have to pay €100 billion to even be allowed.
Yeah, because the UK has made commitments before Brexit to fund EU programs. This is like a married couple buying a house together. When you split up, you either sell the house and split the proceeds, or someone buys the other one out. Since the EU isn't for sale, this is the UK buying out their portion of the commitment.
I just read today that the EMA faces $400 million in rent till 2039 on a London building they will be moving out of. [0]
So, please make up your mind. Either the UK has no responsibility to pay for its previous agreements, or the EU should also be allowed to break their previous agreements with the UK.
> spoiled ballot papers counts are not announced at all
That's not true. Returning officers announce the number of rejected ballot papers, and explain why they were rejected, at the same time as this winner is announced.
The difference is that we're a fully regulated insurance company (as opposed to brokers like Guevara or other p2p insurance startups). It means that we can control the experience end to end and build an insurance company with a different business model than how traditional insurance companies do business. This is why we can give unclaimed money back to charity.
Hey, this is Maya from Lemonade, we believe people are inherently good and when faced with the option of embellishing their claim and pocketing more money or claiming what they deserve and make sure their cause receives the extra money left- most people (we hope) will choose the latter.
Hey, It's not necessarily more a deterrent than giving cash back. 1. we are not yet legally allowed to give money back to our users (but we're working on it) 2. some behavioral economic theories actually suggest that cash is less an incentive than other more altruistic incentives. Once our give back to consumers will be active- I'll guess we'll be able to put our theories to the test- hope this answers your question
Mutual insurance companies exist in New York. Are you not legally allowed to give money back solely because you decided to incorporate as a benefit corporation?
I wonder where the biggest opportunities are to get people reusing and repairing their things rather than buying new ones.
It's satisfying, usually functionally-equivalent and cheaper once you know where or how to get it done.