like they are more expensive and they prob should be cause 'sending shit far away' shouldn't be an activity we encourage when there are alternatives
― iatee, Tuesday, 14 February 2012 17:00 (twelve years ago) link
I like the smoking ban.
― homosexual II, Tuesday, 14 February 2012 17:04 (twelve years ago) link
Prostitution, drugs, sex. Let people do what they want.
― homosexual II, Tuesday, 14 February 2012 17:06 (twelve years ago) link
human sacrifice
― Cruller, Cobbler, Poffert, Pie (latebloomer), Tuesday, 14 February 2012 17:10 (twelve years ago) link
sorry, the sun god needs to be fed sometimes
i do like going outside you get conversations starting and it makes a pleasant break from being bombarded by loud shitty music
I've noticed for a while that more socializing goes on among smokers outside than among drinkers inside. Sidewalks are the new bars. This could lead to smokers reproducing more than the general population.
― Josefa, Tuesday, 14 February 2012 17:18 (twelve years ago) link
reproducing infants with low birth weight and cleft palates
― kate78, Tuesday, 14 February 2012 17:28 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.zillow.com/blog/files/2011/12/Lagasse_Photo.jpg
― The Large Hardon Collider (Phil D.), Tuesday, 14 February 2012 17:35 (twelve years ago) link
This actually swayed me a little towards privatizing the Canadian postal service: http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/06/17/rain-or-shine-the-monopoly-must-end/
― EveningStar (Sund4r), Tuesday, 14 February 2012 17:48 (twelve years ago) link
It's a pretty dumb article.
― Unleash the Chang (he did what!) (Austerity Ponies), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 14:41 (twelve years ago) link
I think 'is mail service something that should be subsidized in 2012?' is an question worth asking tho.
― iatee, Tuesday, 21 February 2012 15:16 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n09/james-meek/in-the-sorting-office
― max, Tuesday, 21 February 2012 15:20 (twelve years ago) link
privatizing the postal service doesnt seem to have worked out v well for the netherlands
― max, Tuesday, 21 February 2012 15:22 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/sunday-review/the-junking-of-the-postal-service.html
The fact is that the primary beneficiary of the United States Postal Service today is arguably the advertisers whose leaflets and catalogs flood our mailboxes. First-class mail — items like bills and letters that require a 44-cent stamp — fell 6.6 percent in 2010 alone, continuing a five-year-long plunge. Last year was the first time that fewer than 50 percent of bills in the United States were paid by mail. There were 9.3 billion pounds of “standard mail” — the low-cost postage category available to mass advertisers — but only 3.7 billion of first-class mail.
― iatee, Tuesday, 21 February 2012 15:23 (twelve years ago) link
it's less privitizing and more 'our system for sending packages already is privitized, our reasons for sending paper stopped existing'
― iatee, Tuesday, 21 February 2012 15:24 (twelve years ago) link
I actively avoid UPS and FedEx tbh
― (thinks and smiles) (DJP), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 15:25 (twelve years ago) link
so do I, because they're more expensive. but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
― iatee, Tuesday, 21 February 2012 15:26 (twelve years ago) link
merits asking, definitely
― beware of greek bearer bonds (darraghmac), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 15:26 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― valleys of your mind (mh), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 15:27 (twelve years ago) link
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, 21 February 2012 15:31 (twelve years ago) link
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
― iatee, Tuesday, 21 February 2012 15:32 (twelve years ago) link
ups/fedex have proven to be reliable in concert with an exising postal service.
― Unleash the Chang (he did what!) (Austerity Ponies), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 15:54 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― A Full Torgo Apparition (Phil D.), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 15:56 (twelve years ago) link
basically, without USPS I would never be able to send anything to my parents, ever
― (thinks and smiles) (DJP), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 15:58 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― iatee, Tuesday, 21 February 2012 16:00 (twelve years ago) link
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?
― Unleash the Chang (he did what!) (Austerity Ponies), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 16:03 (twelve years ago) link
you can't see it, but you can feel it
― (thinks and smiles) (DJP), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 16:04 (twelve years ago) link
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!
― Andrew Farrell, Tuesday, 21 February 2012 16:04 (twelve years ago) link
roads shouldn't be subsidized either, duh
― iatee, Tuesday, 21 February 2012 16:05 (twelve years ago) link
lol the invisible hand called global warming
― iatee, Tuesday, 21 February 2012 16:06 (twelve years ago) link
iatee is like the unrestrained capitalist libertarian of doom
― valleys of your mind (mh), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 16:11 (twelve years ago) link
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
― iatee, Tuesday, 21 February 2012 16:12 (twelve years ago) link
you're kind of the least and the most
― valleys of your mind (mh), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 16:12 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― iatee, Tuesday, 21 February 2012 16:17 (twelve years ago) link
― (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
― ploppawheelie V (k3vin k.), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 16:19 (twelve years ago) link
'how do we stop global warming and ps also change literally nothing about the way we live'
― iatee, Tuesday, 21 February 2012 16:20 (twelve years ago) link
iatee otm
― ploppawheelie V (k3vin k.), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 16:27 (twelve years ago) link
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
― beware of greek bearer bonds (darraghmac), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 16:31 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― iatee, Tuesday, 21 February 2012 19:10 (twelve years ago) link
red state lobbyists snuck that question mark in my post
― iatee, Tuesday, 21 February 2012 19:11 (twelve years ago) link
iatee, should we make most of the country a national park? would we allow visitors to this park? how would they travel to it?
― valleys of your mind (mh), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 19:12 (twelve years ago) link
"Fuck everybody who doesn't already live in New York" is kind of the least useful political ideology ever.
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 19:14 (twelve years ago) link
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
― iatee, Tuesday, 21 February 2012 19:16 (twelve years ago) link
so your scheme to making it affordable to live in New York is to... make it more expensive to live everywhere else?
― (thinks and smiles) (DJP), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 19:17 (twelve years ago) link
yeah thats kind of how it works!
― max, Tuesday, 21 February 2012 19:18 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 19:18 (twelve years ago) link
Not sure how Queens is getting its veggies when gas costs $23 a gallon.
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 19:19 (twelve years ago) link
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
― 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!
― max, Tuesday, 21 February 2012 19:20 (twelve years ago) link