RestlessMind

This is a case where NIMBYs seem to have a point - those who love the new promenade are not the ones paying the cost, whereas nearby homeowners are suffering the increased congestion and reduced home prices.

I was confused by the same when I first came to the US. Had spent my entire life in big cities until then. My American friends explained to me that in a suburbia, apartment buildings or public transportation is used only by poor people. Homeowners do not want them nearby because of the assumption of associated poverty with increased crime.

Which supports parent comment's thesis - disparities in outcomes are not about funding, rather about the students and more importantly their families.

> implementing that is complex and fallible ... but so is everything

not really. VAT is popular because it is straightforward to implement and hard to evade unless someone is outright cheating.

> it won't [put large landlords out of busine-]

It won't. But like any complex regulations, it will give large landlords an upper hand over smaller ones. Large ones have economies of scale to rely upon (eg. one dedicated lawyer to deal with govt for 100 properties). Will just worsen the inequality.

> That does not justify forcing everyone around you to do the same

Literally that's why I wrote: "I know some people who strictly prefer fully remote setup. Over time, I think companies and employees will self sort themselves into those who prefer office vs those who prefer remote. That should work out for most of us."

“ The benefits of sitting together, collaborating in person, and solving problems as a team are clearer than ever in our post-Covid world.”

100%. Speaking only for myself, I was fully remote for a few years and that was a miserable experience. Now everyone is mandated to be in office 3 days a week and that works better for me. Uber is going one step further and structuring teams to be colocated with their manager. That solves the problem of team members distributed across multiple offices, which is still a real pain point in the hybrid model.

I know some people who strictly prefer fully remote setup. Over time, I think companies and employees will self sort themselves into those who prefer office vs those who prefer remote. That should work out for most of us.

> And that issue is exacerbated in the U.S. with the worst parental-leave policy among developed nations.

NYC's TFR was 1.55 in 2021. London's TFR was 1.35 in 2024. Paris TFR was 1.27 in 2024. Other US cities are not really comparable to the European ones, but the broader point is that parental leave has nothing to do with TFR. Norway and Sweden have TFRs around 1.44 while the US has it 1.6-1.8

> it's more like "having a child could cost me my high-paying job so I better not"...having a child is an opportunity cost in an urban environment

At least in the US and speaking generally, people with high incomes in urban areas move to suburbs once they have kids. I would like to see a citation for your "opportunity cost" claim, because high income jobs also come with good benefits like generous parental leave policies.

> and it was far more productive than anything that happens in a 20 minute drive by car

It seems you haven't discovered podcasts yet :)

Point is that if wokism was so great and so popular, one of its most famous proponent who is eyeing a 2028 presidential run would not be running away from it. Woke 1.0 was a miserable failure and a lot of people have grasped that by now.

Why does left have to fall for that every time?

> The underlying technology enablers are from companies like Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, TSMC, Micron, all sorts of ISP/cell providers, etc

And they exist because of demand from the consumers. All those providers have no incentive to invest and upgrade their offerings if there is no demand. Said otherwise, without the likes of YouTube and Whatsapp video chat (and many other ad-funded social media apps), we would be stuck in 2010-era infrastructure.

> You don't need a centralized service for video calls.

Need is a funny word. You need a centralized effort to enhance the user experience of video calls which is very expensive. And very companies have resources to pull that off and offer a great experience for free. Only 3 I can think of - Google, Facebook, Apple (via Facetime). Only Apple is not ad-funded and they keep it to their devices only which is for rich people. Ad-funded products at least made it available to the entire populace.

> The ad companies destroy every market they infect. Because they use predatory pricing.

I gave you a counter-example to your thesis about Youtube Premium which was offered at a reasonable price. Its failure shows that predatory pricing is an excuse - real reason is that people simply prefer to not pay.