michael_vo

Buying tickets is a pain. You have to buy two tickets, and physically stack them together at the same time and feed into the machine at the gate.

Some trains and buses in remote areas only take cash. Some only take EXACT fare and the driver does not have change and will refuse you. I asked my hotel for exact fare by exchanging my foreign 10$ USD bill. The staff informed me it was illegal for them to exchange money. Lo and behold I looked it up and it is indeed illegal as you need a foreign exchange license.

You're missing the point. This has nothing to do with politics. I'm demonstrating how economic incentives could be used to change the outcome.

And car companies DO get fined. Kia was fined (lawsuit) $200MM in USA for not using modern standard anti-theft tech in order to save money.

Insurance companies DO give you a discount if you use the chubb or install other anti theft devices.

Economic incentives work!

In Canada the towing truck companies stealing cars are all part of the Mafia or gangs. It got so bad that sometime recently the government only certified a few tow truck companies. When you get into an accident you can't call a tow truck company. The police will call the reputable tow truck for you.

This happened to my next door neighbor. I saw them loading up his car at night, my dad went outside and yelled at them. They soon drove off.

"Show me the incentive, and I'll show you the outcome" - Charlie Munger. Car companies don't need to care, if your car gets stolen the insurance company buys you a new one. You do lose some customers who won't buy your car if it's in the top ten most stolen list.

We could implement a law that fines car companies who are in the top ten list, and pays out to the car companies who are at the bottom.

What do you propose for reducing car fatalities and accidents?

"You cannot see the wood for trees"

I'd argue there is so much good that the tradeoff of trees killing a few humans is worth it.

The biological diversity that returns - birds, carbon soil. The air quality. Less chance that the heat will kill our senior citizens. Trees prevent floods.

From NotJustBikes channel, trees and bushes can be used to obscure road visibility, which naturally forces drivers to slow down at a curve, which makes streets safer for pedestrians (43k deaths a year in USA from cars)

24 hours post operation is fine. But giving them for weeks after an operation seems unnecessary. I've also heard that oxycontin in the USA is given to pregnant women to deal with pain.

Yeah totally agree. Every form of payment comes with pros and cons.

Maybe one idea is to come up with many alternative payment methods. In Africa I've read everyone pays with a phone number.

In USA government gives food bank cards loaded with money. Maybe a system where anyone can load cash onto a card easily through any ATM machine.

Exactly! Opioids increase suffering and ruin the quality of life for hundreds of thousands of Americans. 80k+ yearly overdose deaths, plus a percentage of those using opioids for recovery become addicted to it.

Is that a worthy tradeoff? I presume (could be wrong) but we did fine recovering with surgical operations 80 years ago without opioids.

Could you have recovered without pain killers? Or maybe used a pain killer that is much weaker that doesn't kill all the pain but is much safer like marijuana?

Are there scientific studies that shows that opioids help patients recover quicker?

I would disagree with the leech characterization. In an interview I watched, she talked about how she chose the property based on astrological alignment and her feelings when she was on this plot. She may be irrational but I think that's a perfectly valid reason to want to keep your own plot of land.

Well a lot of discussions due lead to some actions that I wouldn't have done on my own like reducing animal proteins, or shopping local for everything.

I don't see why caring about plastic bags is mutual exclusive from caring about automobile free cities. I'm 40 and have never owned a car. I'm a big NotJustBikes and StrongTowns proponent. We can for sure debate car dependence and what policies we should advocate for. But this was an article about biodegradable plastics.

Montreal is shutting down a ton of streets every summer to make them walkable, and we've built out an extensive bike infrastructure. All great things! We could make public transportation free.

costco has been doing this since the beginning!

I've heard this argument before and totally agree that single use plastics are a tiny fraction of the total problem. But as a Canadian I like that the law forced me to think about my consumption habits, as well as it helped create conversation topics with other people.

Same in Canada. The reusable bags that the stores sell are 5-20$. You get hit once with that and you'll start bringing your own bags.

It's actually really simple to influence human behavior with pricing!