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Comment Re:Two reasons... and a non-PC comment (Score 1) 182

The system needs to support his kids so they can hopefully grow up to become productive adults instead of deadbeats. We'll eventually get a return on that investment when kids grow up safe and happy and educated.

Of course, if we punish children for being born to poor parents and they grow up with no future. Then we're not going to gain anything from them, they'll probably not improve their lot in life, and may even be anti-social, addicts, or criminals.

We reap what we sow.

Comment Re:Healthcare (Score 1) 182

Men are getting more boyish-looking and less rugged.

Spending less time outdoors and not smoking tends to keep your skin more youthful looking.

Women complain that men are less attractive than they used to be.

I could see how women wouldn't find misogynist incels and man-boy gamers with no future very attractive mates.
The manosphere has emasculated more young men than all the microplastic, hormones, and single-mothers ever could.

As for low-T in first world countries, you have to look no further than obesity. We know inactivity and body fat can send testosterone crashing. There's a very straight forward fix that doesn't involve buying any online snake oil: Shift your ass and fix your diet.

Comment Re:It kinda sounds like in the 1990s (Score 1) 90

My American high school doubled down and upgraded to Turbo Pascal 5.5 in the 90's. These days about half of US high schools offer some kind of computer science or IT class. It might be JavaScript and HTML/CSS, or it might be Java, a handful of high schools are doing Python. (there isn't much standardization in education in the US)

The brain dead thing is legislatures try to push computer science as a mandatory course in our schools. We keep running into this in California. And Silicon Valley keeps telling them that it's not necessary. Kids who are interested will take the opportunity, and ones who are not will take something else that interests them.

I'd rather live in a world where there is a mix of people from different backgrounds. Maybe some took programming. Some took creative writing. Some took visual arts (mostly painting and sculpture). And so on. In the US you can find schools that offer electives in computer animation, fashion construction (sewing - but with a flair), drama, choir, botany, etc. I took electronics and Pascal, plus some after school sports like tennis.

Comment Re:Another way to bankrupt Social Security (Score 1) 64

we should all be munching on mushrooms because it's all safe and everything

Mushrooms are one of the safer things on pizza. The pepperoni will kill you faster than almost anything. Too bad mushroom pizzas smell kind of gross, like wet cardboard.

(disclaimer: I only order from Dominos)

Comment Re:Another way to bankrupt Social Security (Score 1) 64

If you increase lifespan by XX years, you'll have to increase the social security eligibility age by the same amount.

You say that like it's a bad thing. It seems like a good problem to have.

Also, you wouldn't have to raise the eligibility age to the same proportion as the potential increase in lifespan. Because heart attack, stroke, car accidents, and cancer will still get people before they can fully collect their benefits. But let's say hypothetically, people live to 120. And we move the eligibility age to what? 95 or maybe 105? That'd be a better deal than we have now where people collect at 65 and die at 75 to 85.

Comment A bit win for capitalism (Score 3, Insightful) 31

Healthcare doesn't follow a supply-demand curve. You can't create surplus medical service and have that translate into lower cost for care.

The goal for any medical equipment manufacture is to dominate the market. To become standard practice and therefor the company gets a cut of the profits from every gallbladder surgery. Revolutionizing internal medicine by changing who gets paid.

There is a slight benefit that these devices might make it possible to treat more people even with a shortage of surgeons. But it's going to be priced according to what people will pay. It turns out, people are willing to pay quite a bit their life is on the line. That fear of dying from no medical insurance helps people justify the absurd premiums for health insurance. And keeping the employer as a middle man ensures that most of us can't afford to walk away from our jobs. Capitalism has labor firmly under their thumb.

Comment Re:The MD profession is going to hate this (Score 2) 31

Also, medical procedures won't get cheaper. The doctors will just make less on it, so will have to see more patients. The medical equipment manufactures make all the money on this stuff. Hospitals love it because there are a limited number of surgeries, and being able to push more patients though a handful of rooms looks like profit to them.

Comment Re:Wow combining two useless things I hate (Score 1) 119

Inference for computer vision doesn't guzzle electricity.

My Californian city is threatening me for not putting all food waste in the yard waste (now compost bin). But I also don't like crows and rats pulling everything out, they've already trashed two bungee cords. And I've also forgotten to remove the bungee cord and didn't get my trash picked up that week.

I put most of my vegetable waste in my own compost bins and always have, it's free fertilizer. But I don't put grease and meat in there because that just creates a whole mess of new problems

Comment Re:tremendous economic growth (Score 1) 26

It's $17-$22 an hour here in California, it's tracked inflation pretty closely. And the pay depends on what you're doing, picking strawberries pays better than tomatoes or olives. Other jobs don't need much labor, like corn and soybeans, where mechanical harvesters are the norm.

But it's baffling to me why you think that employers would continue to pay those rates in the hypothetical scenario that a bunch of inexperienced Americans, many of them straight out of the service industry, started doing serious physical labor. For the first year and youths, you almost never make that full wage. Especially if the owner senses that you are going to take a long time to get up to speed.

Comment tremendous economic growth (Score 4, Insightful) 26

We off shore all our manufacturing jobs. We turn over all our service jobs to automated computer systems (AI or simple phone trees). Luckily we chased all the immigrants out, so there is plenty of agricultural work for people to do.
6 am to 4 pm in the fields and under the sun for $7.25 an hour. Seasonal full-time agricultural work doesn't get healthcare or dental benefits, so you're on your own there.

I wonder at what point people stop making excuses for the bourgeoisie. We saw Occupy Wall Street fizzle out almost immediately, a combination of poor organization and a lack of appetite from mainstream America. Guess if you already have a job, you're not interested in rocking the boat.

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