akira2501

There are games designed to be addicting. Some even have gambling built in. Technology is just a tool.

Insurance premiums are different for different people and are decided by underwriters based on expected risk. What subsidy are they receiving on those premiums? They were previously paying a special property tax to cover the additional fire services required for the area. This is not a particularly high income area.

Meanwhile everyone in Sacramento can buy federally subsidized flood insurance. The federal government also built the levees surrounding the county. The entire downtown core had to be jacked up several feet due to persistent flooding. Should everyone in Sacramento move too? Should we end the insurance subsidy?

Those have been known to start smaller fires before. Management strategies for them and recognition of the conditions that give rise to them were implemented. This fire burned worse than before because of poor maintenance on and around the line and because they did not shut it off quickly enough to prevent additional damage. The line was in a remote location and access to it was severely degraded.

Fundamentally the problem can be solved with management and engineering. It's entirely PG&E's fault. This was adjudicated and settled.

> simply nobody knew how bad

It was a 100 year old C hook that caused the fire. Which failed in high winds. Which drove the fire. It was PG&E's responsibility to know "how bad" this was. They literally lost track of their own transmission lines.

You've apparently never had power run out to a new property that's not had it before. You pay for that. The poles, the lines, the installation. The power company doesn't just run power to you because you ask. They subsidize themselves.

Then PG&E takes the money, leaves 100 year old equipment in place, which inevitably breaks, and burns down an entire forest along with their homes.

You genuinely think these people are being "subsidized" by all this? That it's their fault the PG&E top brass didn't earn a bonus that year?

> where consumers are incentivized to vary their consumption to help grid stability.

If the grid is not stable then it needs upgrades. Automated austerity to cover a backlog of undone work is madness.

There are no median families. There are a lot of very high wage earners in CA. You should really be looking for the mode here.

They're on track to build 12 _new_ coal plants this year.

Why do people believe they're operating in good faith?

Give it a dark theme and I'd say the modern Westworld TV series.

> The government protects intellectual property rights and they protect physical property rights.

Intellectual property laws are in the constitution and are structured to allow the government to preemptively act on potential violations. For example seizing shipments that would violate patents or trademarks before any actual sale occurs. They can also create registration offices to certify claims publicly for the holders.

At the same time you were, and often still are, expected to physically protect your own property and the government largely can not preemptively act on potential issues. You must be a victim to receive service. To a large extent most property dispute /resolutions/ are handled through the civil courts. A criminal prosecution for theft may or may not be perused by a district attourney or certified by a grand jury, and even if it is, it does not make your injury whole.

You would still need a civil judgement to reclaim your property or it's claimed and adjudicated value. Once you have this judgement you are again personally responsible for enforcing it. You can file paperwork with the sheriff to audit their property and sell it or garnish their wages but you take all responsibility for this. Including finding their property or identifying their employer. None of this will happen on it's own simply because you were a victim of an actual property crime.

> and if you have a bunch of third parties running bad software, consumers would lose faith in the platform altogether.

Famously the reason no one ever used Microsoft Windows.

> How are they ok with cat litter full of feces just lying around for hours inside their home

It's a furry animal that uses it's own mouth to clean itself afterwards. It's not just in the litter box, I promise you. Meanwhile people have flush toilets that function as a water powered waste dispersion gun so their own waste gets arbitrarily distributed equally well.