things you're secretly kinda libertariany about

it's less privitizing and more 'our system for sending packages already is privitized, our reasons for sending paper stopped existing'

I actively avoid UPS and FedEx tbh

so do I, because they're more expensive. but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

merits asking, definitely

UPS works awesomely in my area, the postal service does a reasonable job with the exception of their delivery of some other guy's mail to me, occasionally. I like postal mail for magazine delivery but I'm pretty sure iatee will tell me that magazines should be read at the library because the use of paper and transportation to get them to me is destroying the world.

well iatee's vision of the future is locking everyone into densely-packed urban gulag camps where only billionaires can afford to do anything more than 20 blocks away from their residence, including work, so I think we can pretty much ignore anything he says

I guess my main point is from an environmental pov if anything instead of subsidizing the transportation of 'unnecessary' parcels we should be taxing it. making the decision to go for the physical magazine should be more expensive. and ups/fedex have proven to be reliable. xp

ups/fedex have proven to be reliable in concert with an exising postal service.

yep, they use the USPS for the "final mile" delivery of packages where they don't maintain routes, because it isn't profitable for them to do so.

basically, without USPS I would never be able to send anything to my parents, ever

it isn't profitable for the usps to do it either, and that's why it's having a huge crisis. and the usps model isn't gonna 'get better' - people are only going to pay more bills online in the future etc.

But maybe we should consider dissolving this constitutionally mandadted service that is still used heavily and helps to guaruntee social and economic cohesion because computers and invisible hand?

you can't see it, but you can feel it

The question here is "Shouldn't public services have other metrics than profitability?"

I mean, how profitable are roads?

(not v libertariany, I'm aware)

xp AP has it!

roads shouldn't be subsidized either, duh

But maybe we should consider dissolving this constitutionally mandadted service that is still used heavily and helps to guaruntee social and economic cohesion because computers and invisible hand?

lol the invisible hand called global warming

iatee is like the unrestrained capitalist libertarian of doom

btw there are countries where all of these things are not subsidized and people pay for that shit, but I do not think any of us would like it there

haha I'm like the least libertarian person on ilx

you're kind of the least and the most

I think if we want to credibly incorporate long-term environmental costs into our policy making - which I think is more important than the short-term 'economic and social cohesion' you get from masking the costs of living in the middle of nowhere - you have to accept that certain things are going to be worse off for certain people.

well iatee's vision of the future is locking everyone into densely-packed urban gulag camps where only billionaires can afford to do anything more than 20 blocks away from their residence, including work, so I think we can pretty much ignore anything he says

― (thinks and smiles) (DJP), Tuesday, February 21, 2012 10:31 AM (44 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh come on this is silly - all billionaires will be executed in this fantasy world

'how do we stop global warming and ps also change literally nothing about the way we live'

iatee otm

iatee still otm, 'lol only billionaires could afford to do whatever' once long-term environmental costs are fully factored in only reinforces the urgency for change

maybe this is another one of my secret libertarianisms but I think transparency is essential for good gov't and included under the umbrella of government transparency is cost transparency. even ignoring the environmental pov - problem with flat-rate postage is that it allows people to not see the costs. whether or not people in nyc should keep subsidizing mail service for people in rural idaho it wouldn't hurt to include "the total cost for sending this letter was $4?" on the stamp.

then do the same thing w/ rural freeways.

red state lobbyists snuck that question mark in my post

iatee, should we make most of the country a national park? would we allow visitors to this park? how would they travel to it?

"Fuck everybody who doesn't already live in New York" is kind of the least useful political ideology ever.

my political ideology is 'I want everyone to be able to afford to live in new york' and iirc you are someone who has mentioned he would enjoy living in new york but cannot

so your scheme to making it affordable to live in New York is to... make it more expensive to live everywhere else?

yeah thats kind of how it works!

Not New York, San Francisco. If I'm going to live in a shoebox and survive on ramen, I at least want weather I enjoy.

Not sure how Queens is getting its veggies when gas costs $23 a gallon.

also: fuck the Yankees, Mets, Giants, Jets, Knicks and Nets, at least in SF I'd have rooting interests to listen to on the radio while I build my hobo fire

Not sure how Queens is getting its veggies when gas costs $23 a gallon.

― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Tuesday, February 21, 2012 2:19 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

queens will basically be the only place getting veggies when gas costs $23 a gallon!

at least in SF I'd have rooting interests

I only read this part of the sentence at first and it's more entertaining if I use the non-american version of "rooting"

xp Staten Island sol

in europe gas costs multiple times as much as it does here in and yet, they manage to eat vegetables, somehow

I live in a state that's larger than France. I can't imagine that has anything at all to do with differences in transportation.

queens is much smaller than both your state and france

And has no arable farm land.

are you a farmer, milo?

its true. how will queens get vegetables? if only there were farms in new york, connecticut, or new jersey.

See, I like the idea that the crazy growth of the 20th century was on the back of exploitation of the natural resources of the americas and the access to cheap energy, but it seems too reductive to think that the system's ills sprout from that as well.

fwiw I think a medium-sized country is going to end up following in the wake of China, not the US, and the patterns of use and models we'll end up with will reflect that

Whether western industry and the scientific innovation of the US/China has a part in it, that's a good question.

I have a vegetable garden.

All of this is to say that your forcing everyone into urban gulags idea is wicked-awesome Stalinism, but aside from being completely unrealistic: NYC is pretty much the definition of not-self sustaining. You can feel good about riding the bus and subway and living blocks from work, but your food and material goods are getting trucked in just like everyone else's.

Farms in NY, Connecticut and NJ = industrial ag producing and trucking food into the glorious metropolis

i dont get what your alternative is here

what rankles isn't concern for the environment, it's the blindingly smug sense of superiority that you know something all the yokels in the rest of the country don't and the unwillingness to entertain the idea that adapting the rest of America (which is lolhuge if you haven't noticed) to a more sustainable model rather than trying to make Blade Runner happen.

trucking in food is expensive, will continue to be expensive. population density offsets that expense.