I think the gastropod is basically on point. The democrats aren't beacons of virtue or rationality by any stretch of the imagination, but its a strange kind of self-imposed blindness to pretend the two political parties are playing the same game here.
We can simultaneously see that partisan politics isn't completely rational and also observe that one side, for various reasons, is working that irrationality harder than the other.
The question isn't whether they're playing the same game. Indeed, it'd be surprising if they were, since the goals and principles of the two parties are often quite different. The question is whether "aha, that other party has decided to do the wrong thing rather than the right thing" is a helpful way to conceptualize the difference.
As another reply to you has shown, it's very easy to find specific differences and elevate them to an all-encompassing explanation, if that's how you decide you want to look at things.
A study at Dartmouth found that 45 percent of Democrats say they would be uncomfortable rooming with a Republican. Comparatively, only 12 percent of Republicans said rooming with a Democrat would make them uncomfortable.
My anecdotal evidence bears this out. Progressives tend to be far more intolerant of opposing viewpoints than conservatives.
Historically, the "conservatives" (if you're referring to the Republican party) was actually more tolerant. The abolitionist movement to end slavery, for one, and republicans supported the civil rights act more than the democrats did:
Yes, in all votes, by percentage, more democrats opposed the civil rights act than did republicans.
Earlier, the progressive movement was founded on, among other things, eugenics (sterilization and abortion) of undesirable people, such as minorities and disabled. The progressive movement has since changed its tune.
Minority groups clearly aren't using history to pick roommates they would feel comfortable with.
In fact, it is the same party, but different people.
I was responding to the idea that minorities were using history to choose their roommates, and how if that were the case, it would not be so clear cut.
That is certainly not true in many regards. See for example my sibling comment on progressivism and eugenics.
The Progressive party had followers in its own right, as well as those in both the Democratic and Republican party, at least until Theodore Roosevelt left the Republican party in 1912.
Among the progressive movements goals were getting women the right to vote, and disenfranchising black voters. The philosophies of eugenics, and obsession with purity, were in fact an inspiration for those people who would eventually attempt to purify Germany during the Nazi reign.
Although much has changed in the progressive movement in the years since, the application of eugenics through abortion to eliminate undesirables has not (from my other comment, see Iceland).
Also a part of history, and a disappointing one at that. It does not, however, change my point about history being a poor way to choose one's roommates.
I specifically stated “conservative” because that’s more meaningful across large periods of time than referring to political parties. Yes, the Republican Party was once the more progressive party. That changed, and for ~50 years, Republicans have been the more conservative party.
> As a philosophy, it is based on the idea of progress, which asserts that advancements in science, technology, economic development and social organization are vital to the improvement of the human condition.
That is pretty much the antithesis of conservative, to be sure. However, keep in mind that none of that could have described the Republican party of old. The abolitionist movement and civil rights movement had a lot of support from conservatives for religious reasons. Martin Luther King Jr's message of unity was heard on multiple levels.
That definition of progressivism does still tie fairly closely to what a lot of Democrats would identify with, I think. Unfortunately, eugenics is still alive and well within the progressive movement- consider, for example, Iceland's attempt at eradicating Down's Syndrom by aborting babies. If you were to ask most people with Down's syndrom whether their condition would have been improved had they been aborted, they would disagree.
Maybe I'm older than you but Democrats have held many of those positions for a good portion of my life. They just generally don't hold them now though a sizable minority still do have at least a couple of those views.
Yes, even Barack Obama was against gay marriage. We've come a long way. But since ~1968, the Democratic party has consistently lead the Republican party on social issues.
Except there is still a double standard. For example, approximately the same number of black people are opposed to gay marriage as Republicans (52% vs 49%)[1], and yet only one of those groups gets consistently portrayed as homophobic and detestable.
If you're curious, there are lots of people who've written at length about why they hang out with and indeed support Republicans despite being in those categories. Peter Thiel and Marco Rubio would be two prominent examples if you're looking for recommendations.
I would find it uncomfortable being a roomate with an outspoken holocaust denier. A holocaust denier probably wouldn't find it uncomfortable being my roommate. I would wager this generalizes pretty well to holocaust accepters and deniers as a whole.
Is the takeaway from this that holocaust deniers are more accepting people?
Seriously, if people keep calling everyone a Nazi, the term and horror of what they did and the crimes they perpetrated will be lost to a fairy tale, if it hasn't been already. Stop it. Choose your words more carefully and pick a different School yard insult to call people. That's shameful. The actuality of what Nazis did is horrific. Don't cheapen it in less than a century.
I don't think I called anyone a Nazi. Why don't you stop making up things that people didn't say. Let me know when you're ready to get there and we'll try this again.
Also, instead of whining, consider critiquing the substance of anything I said.
I'd be interested to see stats on how often people skip over the ads during a podcast. I admit I do occasionally, but most of the time when I'm listening to a podcast I'm simultaneously doing something - like driving, exercising, mowing the lawn - that makes it inconvenient open my phone, navigate to to the app, and press the skip button a few times. Coupled with the fact that the adds are generally not too long, I don't find it to be too intrusive to the episode.
It’s probably one of the best features having an Apple Watch: flick of the wrist, couple of taps, bye bye ad. If I had to pick up my phone, I probably wouldn’t skip the ads, either.
Oops, sorry; yeah, I forgot to specify the app being Overcast. Though without firing up the machinery to confirm, I believe on the watch it's just using Apple's Now Playing? Or maybe not. Anyway, to be specific, on the Apple watch there are buttons on either side of play/pause; one goes back 30 seconds, one goes forward.
Overcast is an interesting case study on optimizing for listeners vs. creators.
The app developer, Marco Arment, is also co-host of Accidental Tech Podcast. One cool feature in Overcast is chapter markers: You can embed ID3v2 chapter frames in your RSS feed's MP3 files indicating when different segments start. This lets the listener jump between segments, it's a pretty slick experience.
Unsurprisingly, ATP uses this functionality. Advertising chapters are labelled as such, but the timecodes are always deliberately skewed so that skipping to the next chapter after an ad still gives you the last 15 seconds or so of the ad read.
I suppose this is a slightly better user experience than disabling the Skip Next button altogether on an ad segment, but it still irks me to be on the losing end of a conflict of interest.
...says the guy (me) complaining about a free podcast being played in a free podcast app.
Even as I typed my follow-up, I was thinking, "ya know, I wouldn't put it past Arment to just replicate the Now Playing UI and then season to taste." So, yeah, bad example.
a free podcast app
Arment's attention to little details is one of the reasons I <cough> paid whatever trivial amount he wants for an app I use daily. ;-)
Should always have access to the volume or mute/unmute button. Then give yourself 15 seconds of silence. Check if ad is still going and if so give yourself another 15 seconds of silence. Recollect your thoughs during the silence.
I think their statement about Dawkins’ apparently having never opened a Bible was in regard to his theological understanding, not historical.
Having read Dawkins, my primary critique of him overall is that he regularly demonstrates a willful ignorance as to what religious people actually believe. He’s content to attack straw men and not the propositional truth claims at the heart of religious belief.
Author advises business person not to make others the butt of a joke, then makes fun of all business persons for not being funny and not understanding what a good metaphor is.
Mark Bittman was the second biggest influencer of the way I prepare food. The first was a college roommate, who literally improvised everything he cooked, as far as ingredients and proportions go, and it tasted amazing every time. It opened my eyes to how subjective cooking can be.
I broker professional liability insurance for design professionals (architects and engineers), which means I don't much fit in on HN, but I enjoy the content anyway.
Most would call what I do boring, and some of it is. I do enjoy working with our clients, most of whom are easy going, like to shoot the shit and talk about the interesting designs and projects they are working on. Some of them have worked on some incredibly large projects in Houston and Dallas. I also enjoy digging into their contracts and offering non-legal advise to help them mitigate their risk.
Is it fulfilling? A little bit, but I realized that if I allow work to be my biggest defining factor, I'd probably be frustrated most of the time. I like my team, and others in my office, and I get paid very well for my market. I'm not overworked and have time to do other things that interest me. I spend a ton of time with my wife, and have a great community of friends.
My life as a whole is fulfilled. My job contributes to that, but I count it a small factor.
That's very interesting. I am a design professional at an MEP firm in Houston who also reads HN because I enjoy the content and it pertains to my hobbies.
> Driving is a choice, and provided that drivers pay all the costs associated with making that choice, there’s little reason to object to that.
I mean, kind of. I'm not sure where the author lives, but in Houston, I don't have much of a choice. I already pay tolls and taxes, gas prices and my car note. I live as close to work as is affordable, and still have to drive. There's no bus route from my apartment and I'm not about to ride my bike on I-10. I ask this next question in seriousness, because I'd love to change my habits without moving to a more expensive city with good public transportation: what are my options here? I'd rather not be "disinsentivized" from doing something I have no choice but to do.
A good question, but in other situations, we don't object to middle-class people being required to pay the full cost of things they pretty much must buy. Food and water are mandatory to live, and in the 21st century US, electricity, phone, and Internet are all but mandatory to live a normal life. Yet nobody objects to ordinary citizens having to pay water or power or phone bills, rather than the bulk of the cost being subsidized from tax revenues.
We do subsidize those things to an extent though. Farmers get a lot of subsidies and the infrastructure (roads, rail) to deliver the food is part subsidized. Water, electricy and internet infrastructure are often built by government or with government funds (and that's not a bad thing). Are there any private dams?
> Yet nobody objects to ordinary citizens having to pay water or power or phone bills, rather than the bulk of the cost being subsidized from tax revenues.
All of those things are also subsidized, to some extent. Water is the classic example, but the government subsidizes both fossil-fuel and clean energy, as well as the companies proving phone/cable/internet. The difference here is that you're paying your taxes on your vehicle and the gas, the latter of which is essentially a use tax on driving.
Roads are required for the 'last mile' delivery of food and other goods to shops. There is a clear benefit to the smooth running of society if government subsidises roads.
I live about 10 or so miles from work. I live in a hot state. If I rode a bike or walked to work, I would stink and everyone near me would forget about the planet while experiencing their olfactory assault. I'd probably get out of meetings, but I wouldn't make any friends.
Very likely, the major reason you live so far from work is that it's illegal to build densely, and it's illegal to build houses, stores, and offices within reasonable walking distance of each other. Of course, most people don't realize that - they just look for houses near their work and don't find any, or the handful they do find are super-expensive, so they live far away and commute. But the underlying reason why these houses are super-expensive or nonexistent is that it's illegal to build more of them.
My town is very spread out, I don't even work in the city. Companies commonly rent office space in the suburbs. Also, I consider 10 miles to be a very short commute and a huge perk. They've been trying to revitalize our downtown area for decades with moderate success.
If you don't live in a hot state, you don't won't know what that's like. It's funny though, shortly after rush hour, our area has packs of people riding bicycles for recreation. I'm pretty sure most of them shower before dinner.
"Also, I consider 10 miles to be a very short commute "
There's no arguing on opinions, but this shows the sheer distortion of perspective you get living in the US as opposed to most of the world.
10 miles is a ridiculously long commute if your job doesn't necessitate massive amounts of space (airport worker, etc.)
How much of that 10 miles is just asphalt? Parking, roads, garages, gas stations, slip roads, onramps, offramps, shoulders? How much of it is actual good stuff?
For what it's worth I used to live in hot places and I rode to work all the time. I changed at work when I didn't have a shower, and showered at work when I did. A few times it was over 110 F. Fortunately, my employer was supportive.
It's the usual stuff: gas stations, grocery stores, restaurants, office parks.
When you had to drop your kids off to school, did you just throw them on the handlebars? What happened when you switched jobs? Did you restrict your prospective employers to a 2 mile radius, or did you just buy a new house and have two mortgages until your old house sold?
What you are saying is fine, but it only works for a select group of people (read: single). Trying to force everyone to do the same thing through punitive taxes is short sighted. There are much better ways to reduce the carbon footprint of vehicles than the just tax people who need them to get to work every day.
This could also be phrased as "parking lots for gas stations, parking lots for grocery stores, parking lots for restaurants, parking lots for office parks". Most of those businesses, in the US, are a huge lot with one building in the middle of a sea of asphalt.
Children can walk, or can indeed ride on bikes with parents (I see this now and then where I live, and much more in more cycle-friendly places). They can ride their own bikes, even, in places where drivers aren't allowed to run over cyclists and walkers with something near impunity (which sadly is most of the world). The idea that children have to be ferried around in a car has the billions of people who raise families without a car as a counterexample.
I restrict prospective employers to those within about a 5-10 mile radius of my home, or a 20 minute walk or cycle from rail, but I also am a more competent cyclist than most. At one point my employer was 12 miles away, but that was fine because there was a surprisingly good bike route (shockingly, in LA of all places). I rode down the beach from Santa Monica to El Segundo - the only thing that really made that distance worthwhile. This does contradict what I said about ten mile commutes, I realize, but then most people think ten miles is an absurd distance to cycle.
I was also fortunate enough to be at an employer affected by California's Parking Cashout law, meaning I got the cost of the parking I wasn't using in my paycheck. Not wasting my life on 405 was another big incentive.
>Children can walk, or can indeed ride on bikes with parents
So children should walk to school on the highway or a busy road in LA? I don't think that's a very good solution. I think you are trying too hard to justify your idea rather than considering a better solution other than "everyone ride bikes."
LA is a very unique city. Look, if you want to wrap your life around riding your bike to work, more power to you, just don't try force your lifestyle on the entirety of the US population through punitive taxation. Also, if you don't like parking lots, don't live in a huge city. There is plenty of land in the US to live other than a big city.
I would love to buy some acreage in the middle of nowhere and remote work all day. That would solve a bunch of problems.
"So children should walk to school on the highway or a busy road in LA?"
This is a straw man argument. The whole point is that children SHOULDN'T do that, because it's horribly dangerous. However, that is exactly what any child in places with terrible infrastructure, who aren't driven or bussed, must do right now. Your argument is in favour of continuing this.
"Look, if you want to wrap your life around riding your bike to work, more power to you"
I did. It's why I don't live in the US anymore. However, most people don't have that option.
"Also, if you don't like parking lots, don't live in a huge city"
I'm not sure we agree on what a "city" is. Good ones don't have huge parking lots.
Anyway, I think it's pretty clear we've reached an impasse. Regardless, know that your car-dependent lifestyle is subsidized.
>The whole point is that children SHOULDN'T do that, because it's horribly dangerous. However, that is exactly what any child in places with terrible infrastructure, who aren't driven or bussed, must do right now. Your argument is in favour of continuing this.
So here's where I think we're differing. You are looking at the end result: no or very few cars, no need for massive infrastructure, redesigned cities for this new post automobile reality, much safer walking and riding, etc. I think that's a wonderful vision, but getting from here to there quickly without something amazing happening (like ultra cheap, ultra range, ultra subsidized electrics paired with massive economic growth to offset the lost jobs of the industry and all dependent companies, etc) would be too painful for the economy.
Some of that vision will happen naturally, but like anything that useful, road vehicles won't go away completely.
Herein lies the tragedy, this dream exists in many places in the world! But even though we're in the wealthiest country on the planet, investing in our cities has become a seemingly unattainable dream. The problems are far more political than they are technological, but the nature of American politics and society has drained us of vision and hope.
> Look, if you want to wrap your life around riding your bike to work, more power to you, just don't try force your lifestyle on the entirety of the US population through punitive taxation.
No one is talking about "punitive taxation," we are talking about eliminating subsides for driving.
This is not a stick, it's a reduction of your free monthly carrot delivery.
It's as if the government were giving massive subsidies to Angular developers. After 50 years of this the small community of React developers says "hey, um, can we eliminate those Angular subsidies someday?" and the response is "oh my god--stop this horrible social engineering! Don't try to force your lifestyle on the entirety of the US population through punitive taxation!"
Not to mention the Angular developers are killing thousands of React developers every year, forcing React developers to pay for their infrastructure, and polluting the ecosystem to the point where everyone's health is imperiled.
I mean, c'mon, I might enjoy flying a helicopter to work every day but I don't force every new apartment to have a helipad, or demand that we only have one home per acre because otherwise air traffic might get too congested. Nor do I complain when I can't park my helicopter for free at the store.
Sorry, it was another thread where someone was talking about taxation.
>FastTrak is a nightmare. The answer is gasoline/carbon taxes, since you are "consuming against the environment" on a per gallon basis, not a per mile/per toll road basis
Either way, if you are talking about removing subsidies that directly affect individuals, it might as well be a stick because it's a net negative. You should consider of something that is less directly harmful to people. Subsidizing electric cars is a much better idea because it injects capital into the market and saves people money on something they need to work.
If the government spent tens of billions of dollars annually to construct housing, and allowed people to live in it for free, I would describe that as a "housing subsidy" even if no one living in those buildings was actually receiving money from the government. Likewise, when the government spends general tax money on infrastructure that can only be used by drivers, I consider that a subsidy for drivers.
Surely you realize that drivers are not the only people who benefit from driving infrastructure. This seems about as fair as calling the post office a subsidy to the paper industry.
I'm not sure I understand your argument. Yes, subsidies have many beneficiaries; some are direct and some are indirect. You imply that it's ridiculous to call a policy a subsidy to its indirect beneficiaries--even if the paper industry indirectly benefits from the existence of the post office, it's silly to call the post office a subsidy to the paper industry.
I completely agree. And...
Drivers are the direct beneficiaries of driving infrastructure. Yes, driving infrastructure benefits other people too, e.g. through cheaper shipping, but the sole mechanism by which those benefits are realized is by making driving cheaper. Drivers are the direct beneficiaries, anyone else who benefits does so indirectly.
It's entirely reasonable to support subsidizing driving because you think it will have economic benefits in the form of, e.g., faster shipping (and I think some level of this has been absolutely necessary historically). But it's entirely unreasonable to claim that because your preferred subsidy has benefits, it shouldn't really be called a subsidy.
The fact is not everyone can live on a half acre. The tax revenue isn't dense enough to support the infrastructure people expect (ignoring the awful environmental and land use effects that would have).
The US is seeing fiscal and infrastructure problems across the country from municipalities who spread themselves too thin the past 60 years. They don't have the funds to maintain, much less improve, their infrastructure. We need to make it easier to build denser and start thinking about how to develop more sustainably going forward.
Exactly! People don't take into account how expensive it is to maintain long roads, electrical lines, water pipes, and much more to remote places; higher cost of maintenance on said infrastructure; and how most of that area doesn't produce any revenue to fund itself. Like it or not, you're receiving enormous subsidies to live that way, and if you had to pay the true costs of your lifestyle, you might reconsider how idyllic it really is.
Buying my first house gave me a high similar to some pain killers. Well, not literally, but it was so awesome having more space, more privacy, generally better neighbors and the ability to play music as loud as I want. I can also customize the interior any way I see fit. The thought of moving back into an apartment or condo is very depressing indeed.
In the end, people will keep trying to sell others on their own preferences, which is very much a nurture thing. If you grew up in the city, you're going to prefer the city. If you didn't, you probably won't enjoy living in the middle of downtown without a car. In fact, that prospect is extremely depressing and I'd honestly rather be dead myself than not have a car.
> If you grew up in the city, you're going to prefer the city. If you didn't, you probably won't enjoy living in the middle of downtown without a car.
I agree with you on everything except this one. Going by this thread, the trend seems to be opposite - a lot of HNers who grew up in "boring" suburbs and enjoy the city life, and a few (like me) who grew up in cities and now prefer more open spaces.
Great, fine, you can have that if you want it. But no one's trying to make that illegal. On the flip side, dense housing and tight residential-commercial zoning is illegal in most places.
Also, it would be nice if those half-acre folks were forced to pay the true cost of their decadence. Right now there's a tendency that denser areas get extra-punished with taxes, even though services are theoretically cheaper to provide.
I think "living on top of one another" is a fair, if crude, description of life in multi-family apartment buildings. It's my current situation and I wouldn't trade it for a house, but it does have downsides.
"Decadence", on the other hand, really seems like name-calling. Let's not do that.
As for the tax situation, that seems interesting. Could you provide more detail? I'm in Brazil, here there's the rural area, that's taxed much more lightly but has less services, and everything in the urban area gets taxed the same percentage of assumed property value, regardless of density. How's it like where you live, and what would you propose to change?
I commute daily 5-10mi each way in a climate that has hot and humid summers. You could probably make a bike commute work if you really wanted to. Humans are ingenious creatures. I bet you could find a way. Maybe it's not important to you or it's too much trouble but those are very different things than not possible.
Whenever I'm asked why I do something, I find that I often spontaneously make up a reason for why I do that thing, even when the real reason is because that's just they way it's always been done.
It's a chicken and egg problem. People drive because they have to. And because they have to drive, they support policies that favor driving at the expense of other modes, even in major urban areas where that makes no sense.
The problem is not in how most people make their individual transportation choices; people are generally pretty rational and predictable there, with good policy you can alter behavior. The problem is that our policies and regulations generally favor cars, and there's so much cultural momentum there that it's very hard to change.
Yes, exactly. Which is probably part of why Americans are so overweight, on average. It's a lot easier to get people to exercise if they just do it as part of their normal daily errands; relatively few people have the self-discipline to go to the gym consistently all their lives.
Weight is lost in the kitchen rather than the gym. It takes nearly an hour on a bike to burn off one big mac, so it's very easy to overeat so much that you can't make up for it.
Carpool? Drive a smaller, more fuel efficient vehicle? I grew up in Houston so I know it is one of the tougher places to survive without a car, but this is part of the author's point. If it's too expensive for the common man to use cars then city organizers or your employer might be forced to take steps to make it possible not to drive.
I wonder if a building over a given size (e.g, 8 apartments) couldn't include one or two "pooled" cars as part of the provided services.
Cars will be parked inside the building when not in use, people living in the building will get an app to book car usage and to open it, landlord will take care of car maintenance, collective insurance, etc.
The app could also assist in sharing the "renting" cost if, for example, I take it to drive to my office but I also make a little detour to drop a fellow tenant to his or her workplace (and maybe take them back, too).
Sort like the corporate car pool offered by alphabet but restricted to tenants.
Would this work out economically? How low should the hourly/rate be to make this convenient for the landlord and the tenants?
I like the idea of carpooling and would be happy to if / when I find someone who works near me. We moved recently and I don't know the neighbors well enough yet to ask.
I drive a fairly fuel efficient car. Only fill up every week and a half. That's pretty good I think in my situation.
I'd be happy if Houston made it easier not to drive! Maybe I'll try to find activists working toward that end.
I'm curious about your situation. There's almost no place you can work in Houston where there isn't a $1000 or less 2br rental within a couple of miles. This is just from checking zillow.
You may be correct.If we felt that renting was the best option for us we would rent. But it's not necessarily the best option when you are trying to start a family. Also in our situation we are currently paying less on a house note than we were when we rented.
I would guess the issue is more about how much living space you want than the desire to rent or buy. Buying is almost never more expensive than renting the equivalent dwelling, so if I can find $1000/mo rentals in an area, I can almost certainly find condos that could be bought for an equivalent monthly cost. Unless you plan to move about frequently, but then that would also argue for renting.
There are some theories, such as those laid out by Francis Fukuyama in the Origins of Political Order, which postulate that homo sapiens are optimized to form functioning societies of about 120 units. However, certain features have evolved in our species, such as the ability to speak AND write, and form mythologies and stories, which allows our ability to form political societies to exponentially increase. Who's to say we won't keep evolving to find ways to cooperate in ways that were impossible before?
