SSJPython

Why is something so essential, so basic, like the weather forecast being privatized? Why is everything becoming so shit?

I think that is part of the reason. Japanese zoning is very liberal and loose compared to the US.

There's just something about Japan that makes its simplicity so beautiful. Yes, we all know Japan has dealt with economic problems, lost decades, declining fertility, etc.

But they still manage to keep the beautiful simplicity of life that makes their culture one of the world's richest.

There's an excellent book by economist Michael Hudson called "America's Protectionist Takeoff" that discusses how the US used tariffs to promote certain industries in order to compete on the world stage. It was part of Alexander Hamilton's American System. Friedrich List, the German economist that wrote "The National System of Political Economy", used the American System to advocate for the same policies in Germany. Germany eventually adopted these policies and became an economic powerhouse themselves. Likewise, Meiji Japan went so far as to adopt the ideas of Friedrich List's economic policies, which resulted in them becoming a great power in a generation.

Tariffs can work, but only if they are targeted towards certain industries/sectors. They can't just be slapped across the board and be expected to work properly. Furthermore, they must be attached to certain KPIs such as exports (i.e., the ability to effectively compete on the international market). Joe Studwell's "How Asia Works" argues that Japan, Korea, and Taiwan all used tariffs and subsidies to promote their own "national champions". In turn, they forced those companies export their products rather than just sell domestically in order to compete. If they didn't meet those export targets, those companies were cut off from state support. Ha Joon Chang, a Korean developmental economist, likens this to raising a child: you spend their initial formative years supporting them until they are able to support themselves without your help.

> Who in their right mind would reject an offer of unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures?

Christ Himself rejected various temptations by Satan when he was in the wilderness.

I should've said the worship of the temporal (material reality, etc.) rather than the spiritual.

> As Wilson writes in his expansive and somewhat baggily written introduction, now—amid increasingly dire ecological and political conditions—we can see our own world in Faust more clearly than ever before. For Faust, he writes, is “about a world which had taken leave of God but did not know how to live.”

Man has a natural inclination to worship something. For most of human history, that has been the divine/supernatural/metaphysical. Nowadays, rationalism and materialism have become the main objects of worship. But rationalism and materialism do not have answers to the existential questions and crises that humans face.

Similar to Christ saying that "man cannot live on bread alone", man cannot live on materialism alone - spiritual nourishment is a very real and necessary thing.

No offense, but you have to be an idiot to not even consider the possibility that your data was going to be sold. What do they think they were going to do with the data? Just keep it safe in storage?

Car payments have skyrocketed since the pandemic due to the massive increase in prices and the increase in interest rates.

The only people that do this are ones that have no understanding of marginal tax rates and progressive taxation.

Can someone tell me what the point of RTO is? These companies made insane profits during the pandemic and when everyone was WFH. Why rock the boat? Is it just corporate real estate prices? Is that all it comes down to?

What does that have to do with civil vs. common law? There isn't anything inherent in rule of law based on cases and precedent that should restrict infrastructure projects.

I am not talking about those with the lowest incomes. I am talking about a universal approach similar to most other OECD countries.

Why doesn't California actually do something productive with all its economic power? It now has the fourth largest economy in the world in terms of GDP. Why not experiment a little bit by providing public healthcare to California citizens free at the point of delivery/service? Or constructing high-speed rail to connect SoCal to the Bay Area?

> implying that any tech conferences under the Assads didn't count.

Why shouldn't it count exactly?