This explains so freaking much about how everyone is always terrified of Canadian health care when it works decently well. (Perfect? No!) But so many of their problems in accessing specialists are identical to ours. (Most common argument I hear.)
And it was just so much easier getting on antidepressants and switching up my birth control methods while I was in Canada than if I had tried the same in the US.
A two party system was one of George Washington’s fear. It breeds division while both sides occupy themselves making us emotional about how much the other side does wrong. Then they get more donations and more power. They don’t care if they aren’t effective because they know we won’t ever go to the other side.
… There’s a great Freakonomics episode on the duopoly formed by the Democratic and Republican parties and how they both benefit while stifling the competition from other parties that could provide more varied perspective.
My takeaway - support rank choices voting and elimination of closed primaries (which encourage extremism in candidates).
Nurses deal with criminals, mentally ill, homeless, and people resisting their help for 12 hours a shift on weekdays, weekends, and nights. They don’t go crazy on people.
… my phone is always dying so I think I’d like living in a desert otherworld where my phone mysteriously never dies
Agreed.
If anyone wants to further argue, note the issue is that we’ve built a country where cars are necessary. (And yet not so necessary that someone’s license can’t be suspended!) However, there is no reason why this can’t be changed. Saying it can’t is limiting our future to also think cars are necessary. They aren’t. They are useful in many places. But you could do without them if as a society we decided to do that. Dream bigger everyone! Have a world where you DON’T need to sit in traffic every day. Where you DON’T wait at red light after red light. Where you DON’T need to be a designated driver for your friends. Where you DON’T fear the day your vision gets so bad you lose your independence. Where you DON’T need to spend hundreds on insurance and car purchases and parking tickets and everything else. If we don’t dream it, we can’t ask for it. And if we don’t ask for it, what we have now will be what we’re stuck with.
(And if you want to have a car and have fun - sure! But then it’ll be extra fun when it’s not a requirement and fewer cars are on the road!)
Cars are not technically necessary. But we regulate them heavily - through licensing, safety tests, and policing. And your license can be pulled or suspended so that you cannot drive.
Why? Because they are deadly. Just because something isn’t created to kill (say… To protect your family? To get you to your job?) doesn’t mean it can’t kill.
Sadly, we live in a country where freedom and rights are valued more than community and respect.
But as the welcome to nightvale NRA says: “Guns don’t kill people. We’re all invincible and it’s a miracle.” (Podcast.)
Which is why we need ranked choice voting so we steal power away from this bipartisan system that robs us of our actual choice.
So I was thinking this same thing until I watched a Kurz Gesagt video on YouTube about the effects of unbalanced populations. They pointed out that by the time our population naturally starts decreasing we’ll already be dealing with the worst consequences made worse by an aging population that cares more about maintaining the status quo than the innovation that a younger population would encourage. Grain of salt obviously… But now I’m trying to rethink how I see the issue of maintaining stability for ourselves and descendants while decreasing our strain on the system.
I don’t know where I was going with this.
Wait - can you explain this further?
Why depreciating asset?
Also, they probably aren’t selling it right? Just using as a rent-free option after paying mortgage to lower cost of living?
What am I missing?