Norwegian here. Healthcare isn’t entirely free here, but it sure is affordable. I’m not sure if entirely free is a thing to strive for. A minor cost helps upper the bar slightly, so people don’t annoy the doctors office with stupid minor stuff (which is already happening).
Higher education is also not entirely free, just really cheap. But as long as you get a stipend (everbody that finish their study does), the state end up giving you more money than you spend. So yes, free higher education is great, I feel sorry for americans.
Affordable housing: should that be free? I agree it should be affordable though, but how can that be achieved? It’s basically the free market deciding
While the current state of capitalism is sort of broken (doing all kinds of evil stuff in the name of shareholder profit), doesn’t make all elements of it broken.
I’m pretty happy to be able to own personal stuff for example. Like a house. Or smaller stuff, like a phone. There also needs to be some kind of mechanism actually encouraging people to contribute to society.
Capitalism isn’t broken, you’re right. The misery of 90-95% if society is expected under capitalism. It’s not a sign of capitalism being broken but for it working as intended.
Personal property and private property are important distinctions. Personal property is established and maintained autonomously through social connections, while private property is maintained thru coercive systems and institutions (an invention from capitalism).
The threat of starvation and coercive violence are the main factors incentivizing people to work under capitalism.
For more - read ANARCHY WORKS by Peter Gelderloos. Chapter: Economy, “Without wages, what is the incentive to work?” (pg. 61)
Okay, but unless healthcare workers, teachers, First Responders, construction workers, you, me, and everyone else is willing to work for free, it still has a cost, even if the government pays it. I agree that it should be a basic human right though…
EDIT:
Clarification: OP is asking for these things to be “free”. Free is if I start handing out hamburgers on the street, no strings attached. We already pay for these services, we pay the most of any country in the world, and we get worse results.
Taxes which… pay for all of those. Not sure why you have to jump to condescension, I’m not being obtuse. Things cost money, and we pay for it either way, that’s my only point.
But… Maybe I’m the one being obtuse here. What was your point? Even though you pay for it either way, the difference for how that works out with taxes or direct expenses is the whole point of taxes
When someone says “college is free in most of Europe”. It’s wouldn’t be a counter argument to say “well, it’s not free is it, because its paid for with taxes”. The people who would (without it being “free”), need to pay for college themselves, are not in the position to possibly cover that cost (college funds are irrelevant). But, since a skilled labour force is important and a value to society, it should be covered by everyone.
Why? What does the one thing have to do with the other? There’s always money for war, for bailing out banks, for lobbying… Thus there’s enough money for basic human needs to be met without me working for nothing. It’s a choice whom to give the money to.
But I agree to a certain point: if I don’t need to pay rent, healthcare and education, I don’t need to slave away in jobs that I don’t want.
My wife and I (both Xers) have started frequently trolling our son with “stop the cap!” when he’s being… economical with the truth. Somehow that level of low-grade, passive-aggressive sarcasm seems very fitting to our generation.
I’d like to upset some niblings with “fr fr, ong”… Does anyone know if “fr” is pronounced as one word like in “from”, or if I’m supposed to just say “eff arr”? Same for “ong,” please.
USA spreading freedom and democracy by couping various democratic countries and replacing the democratically elected leaders with fascists and warlords
The best way to avoid scam emails is just to change your email account’s password to a random string, not save it, then log out. I’ve also shredded my SIM card so I can’t receive scam texts.
“Let’s also make our users follow really complex password requirements but have our password creation/change page be different from the actual login screen so they have a really hard time using a password manager”-dumbass IT department
My current employer actually just changed our password policy to greatly extend the password expiration date. We have cranked up the password requirements a tad, every login has 2FA and permissions are locked down to the size of a gnats asshole. Users seem to like it better since they don’t have to come up with a new password as often and we are telling ourselves it’s harder to brute force.
15 character minimum passwords that expire every 90 days and require MFA to remote in from home with 3 separate login sessions just to get to your PC, along with stripped down rights for everyone, even IS. The rights are so strict that if you wanted to, for instance, update a trusted application like Notepad++ because a recent exploit was found which would be a security concern, you can't use the auto-update feature of the application; you have to download it manually from their repository, and run it using a special admin account created for you that doesn't have an associated email address but also has a 90 day password requirement. But you wouldn't been able to use their repository 6 months ago because we block any IP address outside the US and their previous service was located in UK, so if you wanted to keep that piece of software up-to-date with security and vulnerability patches (which they've harped on a number of times before) you'd have to find alternative download services located in the US regardless of how shady.
This is kind of my family. My brother and I have not fathered any children, he’s a step dad, with no intention to have any of his own, I’m happily in a childfree relationship.
The only (sort of) exception is that my eldest brother (of three), had four kids… All girls.
So our biological lineage will continue, but our family name ends here, since once my niece’s get married, our family name will be dead.
The closest continuance of our family name is through my one male cousin on my dad’s side. I don’t keep in touch with him enough to know if he has kids or he’s planning to have kids, or to even be informed as to whether or not those children would be boys or girls, etc.
After that, you would have to go back about 3 generations to find someone of the same lineage that’s actually continuing the family name. Second or third cousins… I believe. I’m unaware if my grandfather had any siblings, or cousins… So that part of my family tree is a complete unknown.
For my brother, he wasn’t in a stable relationship long enough to get married and have kids (though, he’s on his second marriage, the first did not last very long… It’s a long story as to why)… And since his second wife (his current wife) already had children from a previous marriage, he has no interest. For me, I never cared either way, and stuck to the philosophy of “I’ll let my wife decide”. My current, and longest, relationship, under which we’ve been together for nearly a decade now, is with a beautiful woman who has been very childfree for a long time, and I support her in that. I also wouldn’t be able to financially support children, which is why I kept waiting for marriage before kids. I at least wanted the illusion that someone was going to stick around before making that commitment.
My oldest brother got married pretty young and to his credit, they’re still together. I’m mostly estranged from him, but I’m aware of some of the details of his life. His children are at the age where they can start having kids of their own now (which should give some indication of how old I am… I’m “great uncle” age). I don’t have any pressure to have kids at this point because my SO doesn’t want them, my breeder brother is estranged, my father is dead, and I’m estranged from my mom. The only time I even hear about kids is either from my sister-in-law taking about her (now post-teen) children, and from my SO’s family, who we see online only a few times a year at most.
Yeah it pretty much feels like a miracle. I’m down 55lbs in 6 months, ends up at like 2-3lbs per week which is considered a healthy loss. I’ve done literally nothing different with eating, I just… eat less.
It was slow for me. I was on .25mg/week of Ozempic at the start and now am on 1mg/week. It is the right amount for me. I’ve been losing 8-10lbs each month and doing nothing else but eat less. If I were to incorporate more exercise, I could lose it at a higher rate.
There’s also the bow shock you experience as your habits change. When I started, I still had the bad habit of overeating, but Ozempic won’t allow it. I eventually learned to eat less or regret it. How long have you been on it and how much have you lost so far?
Not on it, but Primary Care clinical staff. Lots of people feel underwhelmed at the start. Some are more “slow and steady” than others. I would try not to judge the clinical results until after some time at 2.4mg.
Thanks very much for this reply. I’ve been seeing a dietician whose advise is that I’ve been eating too little to lose weight and that feels absolutely stupid.
I’ll admit since I increased my intake I’ve been feeling better, and I haven’t gained any weight, but I’m impatient. I wish I could just stop eating and lose it that way…
I’m down 65 lbs! Ozempic/semaglutide has muzzled my out of control eating. I’ve been on different weight loss meds and none have targeted the cause: bored eating when I’m not hungry. I still eat pretty much whatever I want, but I can’t handle any overeating. I made it through the holidays and didn’t gain any weight! I enjoyed the holiday goodies and was good to have a small amount. Going back for seconds sort of disgusts me. Went to the doctor today and my A1C is 5.8! It’s not been that low in 15 years!
I was on sumaglutide for a month. Made me ravenously hungry and gave me nonstop stomach cramps that only went away when eating. Fuckin’ sucked, as it raised my fasting blood sugar by a lot, too.
I was on Ozempic for about two years due to Type 2 and a bad A1C. I lost about 10lbs but gained it back as soon as I switched medication. Everyone is praising these drugs as miracles, and they are… But only if you’re able to keep the habit they help you build. I’m now on Mounjaro, and I tried Trulicity. Both have done better good for me than Ozempic ever did. My A1C is almost normal, and my energy is so much better. I’ve also lost about 10lbs and am exercising more/eating less and building the good habits. It definitely changes your metabolism, and makes you feel fuller faster. So it can be a huge blessing if you need it.
I’m a fat guy currently going to a gym where nearly everyone is fit and built, and everyone has been nothing but kind and supportive. I’ve even had people come up to me and say they’ve noticed my progress and congratulated me (I’ve just hit 10% body weight weightloss if anyone’s interested).
Always love hearing people found supportive gyms! Congrats on the progress and keep at it dude, soon enough you’ll be on the other side supporting those in your shoes now!
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