tn135

I am not sure why everyone should feel comfortable with everyone else's choices. Do people think everyone should like the movie that most people are going for ?

I think we should always pay attention to the other side of the story before we buy into the allegations.

I am not playing down the possible harassment of any employee but let us not be blinded by the allegations alone either.

While I appreciate SO, I think it is only a glorified ExpertsExchange or some other BB that were popular before SO.

Honestly. I despise clicking on Forbes.com for this ad spam.

from a donations pool where everybody has access to

If the donation pool is limited and a sick person is not allowed to use his wealth to save himself, it is violence on the sick person.

While it might sound bad to you for millions of Indians and Chinese it is totally worth a Kidney. As long as they are making that choice themselves I do not see the problem.

Thanks for that response, I think I will use "allegedly questionable data on planetary climate and surrounding public discourse by friends on the western side of the globe". That ought to be less "provocative" while meaning the same.

Free speech? Free speech doesn't exist so that people can make ridiculous comments like 'taking comments from the public into account when making policy is mob rule'. Free speech exists so that people can make those comments on policy and have them heard.

You are flat out WRONG.

Free speech exists for all sort of speech including mocking, ridiculing and being outright stupid and retarded too.

Free speech exists so that people can make those comments on policy and have them heard.

Free speech has nothing to do with policy, government, state or laws. It is an independent right that exists for no specific purpose other than itself.

And in this case it appears to be "free speech for you as long as you voice your support for me".

I am the OP. I don't even bother to look at downvotes and the fact that an opinion is unpopular does not really say anything about the merits of the argument.

I am pretty sure HN crowd will hound anyone who claims to agree with FCC on this point which I do.

Voting.

What is inflammatory about the comment ? It surely brings a new perspective into things. Your warning seems ill motivated.

Sorry. I do not think people commenting on some document has anything to do with democracy that might be mob or troll rule but it isn't democracy (not that I am a fan of democracy either).

Personally I agree with FCC's stand and keeping governments and elites who want everyone else to pay more for their "fair use" out of the equation looks like a good thing for me. I don't have time to comment on that document because I agree with administration.

Richest nations are the happiest nations as long as they don't run out of their money. That is the proper conclusion.

I am pretty sure 10 years ago Greece would have featured as a happiest nation and Venezuela not as much as a miserable nation that it is today.

Contrary to all this India WAS super miserable 10 years and go and much more happier today though comparatively might not be as happy as the Italian.

What's wrong is that life and health should be a right to everybody, not just to those who can buy it out.

I am unable to see how life and health can be right without justifying force and violence. If someone needs a Kidney and if it is a right then it must be forcibly taken from someone else without that you can not call it a right.

interests of a system that is an aspect of the very thing that keeps you poor int he first place.

Seems other way round to me. It is the restrictions on organ trade that is keeping poor.

being ruthless, luck, connections, and inheritance.

All those are important but then risk is also one way to get rich faster.

That is a very valid concern. But your concern also has an answer.

Fast-forward 20+ years, and it'll become expected part of life,

Yes. I think people will probably have a reverse mortgage like thing where they will be able to borrow (but lot less) money today with a promise that they will have to donate their kidney when the time comes. People with certain ethnicity, blood group, genetic makeup etc. will become more valuable and hence will be able to derive more value and hence "rare type" will stop being rare type. This is a great outcome.

At the moment rich people from developed countries hunt for organ donors in Mexico, China, India and Africa bringing a lot of misery to those countries and money for the politicians and smugglers. Do you really like little Indian kids kept in a basement forever only to be killed like chickens later for their organs ? Or would you like to see the American justice system being applied to maximise individual freedom with full protection of law ?

What if you could get $10K today just to donate your dead body to a medical college ?

How about harvesting organs so the kids could use that money to create their next Javascript based startup ? Should the society then also fund their Startup ?

College education is an example. People will spend resources on whatever they think is useful. Who are we to judge ?

I am an Indian citizen I am not American. Indians (and Hindus specifically) see death as merely one transition.

I find it weird that we are denying poor people an excellent opportunity to pull their family out of poverty instantly even after an unfortunate event. Here we are using nature's forces to force the "rich leeches" (as one person wrote above) to part with their wealth and help the poor family.

At the moment rich Americans fly to India and China where gangs (and government) illegally harvest organs for the benefit of world rich. If USA regulates the organ trade within USA we can avoid all that misery for poor Indians.

I suggest you want the Indian movie Ship of Theseus which dwelves on this topic.

In the end, is it truly that much different than the prevailing economic structure disproportionately forcing the poor into high-risk or hard-labor occupations that result in significantly degraded lifespan and/or quality of life?

You are right but I am unable to see why might think it is bad. Poor people taking more risks to come out of poverty is very natural and should be encouraged. Why do you think I left my homeland, left my parents, friends and Gods to come to Silicon Valley ?

If you are not going to allow poor people to take risks and make hard choices you are keeping them in perpetual poverty.

rich leeches to force poor people into "voluntary" deaths

What is wrong in rich people parting their wealth to help poor people while benefiting their family members ?

The voluntary part however is very important and in a country like USA that part can generally be achieved much better than say India or China. Give instant green-cards to the family members of organ donors from India and China instantly and USA will not have a problem of organ donation queue while helping millions of Chinese and Indian people live a better life.

One thing that can ease the pain of death is by probably discussing the benefits of it.

I wish people could sell their organs after their death. Putting grandkids through college or paying for the mortgage etc. could make it easier for people to talk about death.

Moving power away from local bodies to State is a bad idea. This is a recipe for corruption.

A well funded, and well run public education system actually works pretty well.

Not it does not. Public schools by definition will be run by government which will always be incompetent and provide worse education. A typical public school in India spends 5x the money to achieve lower learning outcomes that private schools.

If you have only private schools that are not affordable to a significant portion of the population,

Unless government creates regulations that prevents people from starting schools for poor people there will be more and better private schools for poor people as they are now.

would be allocated to schools that need it - I.e. schools with poor students

That will serve an incentive for the school to actually ensure students get bad grades.

It at least provides an opportunity for poor kids to complete schooling.

It is other way round actually. What I can see is that in areas like Palo Alto where Asian parents figuratively hold Principal's feet to fire the good teachers get transferred there. The South of San Jose on other hand gets all the worse teachers where the poor parents don't have much time to wonder about the quality of teachers.

Those kids are perpetually into poverty because of the lousy education. Give them a check of $500 month for schooling and they will chose better schools.

Private schools were expensive and public schools in India are a joke.

The quality of education in private schools is higher and the expensive part is related to that. However in terms of "cost to society" private schools are way cheaper than public schools.

To give you concrete numbers. Goa spends 40K per student per year but a private school that spends 8k per student per year delivers better result. Goa could afford to educate 5 kids with better education only if the money was given to the kid or the private school.

An education system purely relying on private schooling will be a complete disaster like India's, where poor students simply giving up on education, creating generational poor.

It conflicts with what you are saying. Private schools have better retention and better outcomes. Public schools are where students drop out. Don't you think if we have more students going to public schools more students will give up on education ?

I think you missed my line > I went to a private school that catered to poor kids.

I did not go to a public school. No one I knew went to a public school because they suck everywhere like in every socialist society. India is indeed a constitutionally socialist country.

You're saying abolish public schools.

I do not see why government should run schools. People can run better schools than government. Government must also abolish most of the regulations that require schools to have playgrounds or toilets or some other things that are not the focus of education.

The school I went to ran in an abandoned building and did not have electricity. That is how the costs were low and I could afford to go there. The teachers however were good.

Thankfully he went to GaTech and stayed in an environment with good public schools.

That is a sad choice every American parent has to make today. I don't see why your father could not get a check of $X every month and let him send you to whatever school you wanted to go.

Was it Bill Nye ?

How is this a US problem?

One word: Mobility.

I lived in a slum in India and went to a private school that catered to poor kids. Got scholarship and worked my way up to start living into a high-rise. The private school had a big role to play in it.

That is not possible for low income neighbourhoods for USA anymore. The mindless regulations make private schools expensive. It is not possible for a retired school teacher to run a class-room in a garage at night and call it a school. That teacher will end up in jail and sex offenders registry. The poor hispanic neighbourhoods of south San Jose will have to rely on the pathetic public schools and those schools will ensure their students flip burgers. Those kids will find it hard to move to Palo Alto.

Public schools not only distort the housing markets but they feed into that evil spiral of poverty. I would love to see department of education dismantled completely and money given to kids to chose their schools of choice and let entrepreneurs make money by catering to the needs of all kids.