alexanderwept

It's not a free enough country that PGE customers can get their electricity and gas from other vendors.

Tossing this out - lost the comment this was a reply to:

I'm not sure about that - my N=1

I went to a State school and got an economics degree, I started my career as a SQL-lackey for a B.I department in declining midwestern retailer, but I treated my career like graduate school insofar that I worked hard at it.

About 4 years after my first day of professional work, I started as a data scientist at a FANG. My team of 9 had 3 Ph.Ds (all science Ph. Ds). As I understood it, the Ph.Ds do receive higher compensation but it's not that much more (~18% higher base) and if I really kick butt, I can out earn them with bonuses.

But I think my path was much easier and lucrative. I was able to save ~$100k, I had a standard of living above that of a regular graduate student and I had flexibility that they would dream of. I made 4 years worth of contacts of my profession, I

I'm sure some Ph.Ds are worth it as investments, but if you're interested in renumeration, get working.

I'm not sure about that - my N=1

I went to a State school and got an economics degree, I started my career as a SQL-lackey for a B.I department in declining midwestern retailer, but I treated my career like graduate school insofar that I worked hard at it.

About 4 years after my first day of professional work, I started as a data scientist at a FANG. My team of 9 had 3 Ph.Ds (all science Ph. Ds). As I understood it, the Ph.Ds do receive higher compensation but it's not that much more (~18% higher base) and if I really kick butt, I can out earn them with bonuses.

But I think my path was much easier and lucrative. I was able to save ~$100k, I had a standard of living above that of a regular graduate student and I had flexibility that they would dream of. I made 4 years worth of contacts of my profession, I

I'm sure some Ph.Ds are worth it as investments, but if you're interested in renumeration, get working.

But trucks aren't that much 'bigger' on the inside than sedans. Go sit in a Toyota Avalon and a Tahoe and tell me where you have more room.

The Avalon probably has 80% as much noise on the freeway and if you set the cruise control to 80, the sedan is going to get 2x-3x better MPG and the Avalon costs half as much as the Tahoe.

What's the adage about a fool and their money?

Yes, every perspective renter/buyer should consider that and choose what works for them.

That feedback mechanism is called a market and it coordinates via price signals and a desire to achieve equilibrium.

Fair point.

Let me try to steel man the parent comment and maybe you can respond:

These people are fleeing the very predictable consequences of progressive governance, they should make an attempt to understand what made their origin so bad they wanted to leave and what made their destination so good that they decided to move there. If they vote for the policies that led them to flee, they might start the cycle over again.

Why do you feel libraries which don't "accomodate" you, personally, also don't deserve to serve the rest of the community?

My general view is that People can do what they want as long as they don't involve me. I have no problem with libraries, I just don't like them enough to want to pay for them and whenever the issue comes up, I'm going to vote to free myself from the burden of supporting things I don't want to support. If libraries become a place that's interesting to me, my personal feelings might change.

Also, I'm sympathetic to kids having access to books. Whenever I'm done with my books, I bring them to my neighborhood park's lending library. It's supported by people in the neighborhood and people can exchange books. It's a practical, low cost solution. Though sometimes my books upset my neighbors, but I don't see how "The Concept of the Political" is any more controversial than say "the Life and Narrative of Frederick Douglass"

I didn't ask for this. If society collapsed and I became a sustenance farmer or hunter gatherer, that'd be alright by me.

I agree with the rule of law and I'll do what I'm legally obligated to do, however, every chance I get I'm going to vote in favor of returning to the pre-history status quo of all-against-all.

We codify against pointless discrimination against protected classes of people for a reason. Some things are no longer worth debating and serve no purpose but to actively harm people. So no, they shouldn't be allowed to do that.

But where do we draw a bright line? Sure, maybe we want religious people baking cakes for gay weddings. But should Muslim bakers be forced to draw likenesses of the Prophet Muhammad if a customer requests it? Should a bikini wax establishment that only works on women be forced to wax the intimate areas of a pre-op transwoman?

If Carl Schmitt and Julius Evola lost, why did Barack Obama get away with using drones to execute American citizens? Why did the CIA and the Bush administration get away with using torture?

Since it seems you counted every book in every library in your county and classified them according to left/right political ideology

I didn't. I just queried the search engine.

Or for that matter, the books which fall into neither category?

Because I don't really care about those books. I'm only interested in books about conservative / right wing political philosophy and/or Abrahamic theology. My library doesn't have many of those, however, it has a lot of books of ideologies that are hostile to the ones I'm sympathetic to.

When I'm not accommodated in a public place, I tend to look around to see who is. I can see why leftists love libraries, they're welcome to that opinion. I'm just going to vote in a way that's contrary to continuing financial support for those libraries that don't accommodate myself or my interests.

No one is saying that we should vote down all services that aren't used by <50% of the population. My only point is that decisions are democratically valid if they're ratified by the majority.

The majority of people deciding to have libraries is just as democratically legitimate as the majority deciding not the have libraries.

Personally I believe society as a whole is better when we offer opportunities for education and self-improvement to those who can't otherwise afford it.

And you're welcome to do that with your own money. Why is the cause so moral that others get to decide I have to support it with my money?

Anti-tax fervor seems like a scapegoat. The library wasn't producing enough value for the residents to care about continuing it and I don't blame them. This is how a democratic government is supposed to work - eventually things will converge to the median view.

I've been voting against my libraries for as long as I've been able to vote. They're just not super valuable to me - they're not keeping kids out of trouble, in fact, it seems like kids go to the library to get into trouble - junkies routinely overdose in them.

In the past 3 years, I've purchased at least 70 books. Each time I purchased a book, I checked to see whether I could get it from the library and they didn't have it. My county library system has 2,038 books of and about feminism and ~300 books of and about LGBT issues, but it has scarcely anything about conservative / right wing political philosophy or Abrahamic theology. It doesn't have a single book by Machiavelli, Hobbes, Evola, or Carl Schmitt. The library doesn't seem like a service that's open to everyone, it seems like a subsidiary for a specific viewpoint and agenda.