perl4ever

Should we be surprised someone who perhaps retired in 2017 is computer savvy?

An 80 year old grandmother was 65 in 2007. She could be a retired tech company CEO.

A "truck" on a railway car is apparently a "bogie" in the UK.

A bogie in India seems to be a railway car in the US.

Then there are intermodal containers, smaller than boxcars, I think they are hauled by truck (lorry) after being unloaded from a flatcar.

I honest-to-God don't know how you live, and what it is you get away from in Cuba.

I've been to NYC a couple of times.

Things I got there (in more than one trip):

   a terrible pretzel from a street vendor (cold and *wet*)
   a *fantastic* cup of coffee at a cafe where I was meeting someone
   a bowl of lentil soup (surprisingly very cheap)
   some chicken lo mein, about the same price and exactly the same generic dish as anywhere I've been in the US, except perfectly executed, really fresh and hot
   a chicken souvlaki pita, one of the best, although the place (in Queens) smelled kinda like urine

As you can see, everything that was memorable consumer-wise was cheap food. I didn't have any expensive meals or buy any "consumer goods" that I recall.

>Medication that causes type-2 diabetes is news to me.

I believe in the ballpark of 5 to 6 million patients take this kind of medication in the US. If they all eventually got diabetes, it might be up to 15% of cases. However, not everybody lives long enough.

>Index funds don't do anything to help this - just cause it's a bigger group of strangers stealing the products of the worker's labor doesn't make it any less exploitative.

I had a hard time understanding this, but I think I got it.

You are saying that if I work for, say, Xerox, I should own a portion of Xerox, because their capital belongs to me, because I use it to create value.

This is better, you are saying, than me owning an index fund that has a little of every company. Because if I do that, then I am exploiting all the workers in all the other companies.

As a self-contained system of belief, I guess it has a certain logic to it.

But if Xerox goes down the tubes then I don't want to lose my job and all my retirement savings!

I also think I see an inconsistency. If owning part of another company is exploiting their workers, then I should also be concerned that any form of ownership by workers at my company could involve exploitation.

Simply because we do different jobs using different amounts and types of capital. Averaging things out must be exploitation of workers by workers in the same way as owning mutual funds and such.

It appears to be a study about Wuhan, in China.

Where is the factual data about Cuba in this study?

Assuming you've read it, and you know where it is, please give people a hint.

If nobody even cares in the first place which country's statistics they are talking about...what is "faking the statistics"?

People. Don't. Click. On. Links.

And if they do, they sure don't read them.

I can't be bothered to read a study promoted by someone who has shown no evidence at all of reading it yet.

Have you read it? Or did you take the word of other people on HN who told you your link was a study about China and not Cuba?

>If you develop type-2 diabetes, you may be able to cure it by not eating any sugar for a few weeks.

Developing type-2 diabetes will be a process that happens over several decades. So which few weeks is it that I need to stop eating sugar? I need to know because I was going to make cookies.

>there is never a good reason to give yourself type-2 diabetes

I've taken medication that progressively leads to type 2 diabetes for about 17 years. You don't think I have a good reason? Or you just never imagined one?

>Probably few Cubans have type-2 diabetes. It is a 1st-world problem; another name is Processed Food disease.

Being able to get medication that causes type 2 diabetes as a side effect might be a first world thing too. I would be concerned about that.

>Type 1 diabetes is much bigger trouble: you need to inject insulin

People inject insulin for type 2 diabetes; I'm not sure what you are referring to.

Yes, but since I have never been to London, I am curious about this western consumerist lifestyle.

You're being coy, in not describing the things you find so tiresome.

Before Brexit, I worked for a company that opened a branch near London, in order to access the European market. I didn't make it my overriding goal to go there, but I probably could've, and a co-worker went there and subsequently got married and stayed.

What is the connection between Cuba and "Excess mortality in Wuhan city and other parts of China during the three months of the covid-19 outbreak: findings from nationwide mortality registries"?

Are you saying that since we know that Chinese statistics are accurate, Cuban statistics must also be?

That appears to be about China. What am I missing?

Also, assuming we have perfect faith in Chinese government statistics and Cuban government statistics...

Nevertheless, the wild variations in Covid experiences between countries and controversy over why it happened, make me think it is a useless yardstick.

>the accumulation of capital is what's truly exploitative

When I think of "accumulation of capital" in modern society, semiconductor fabs are the ultimate example.

I can't imagine disagreeing that the building of such factories encompasses most of the world via supply chains and most of the exploitation in it.

But I feel like there's an ambiguity and I don't understand what is to be our goal.

Should we not have "accumulations of capital"? That is, should we tear down (and hopefully recycle) all of the incredibly expensive factories?

Or should we have accumulations of capital that are not owned by specific people? What is ownership?

I don't know about the real Mafia, but in fiction, there is the trope of the wealthy mob boss who owns nothing on paper, in order to avoid the law, but relies on relationships to define what he has.

On the other hand, many large companies are presently not majority owned by any human being, but mainly by collective entities like index funds. Is that good enough? Or is that irrelevant to an economic system because some people own more index funds than others?

>Every country does good things and bad things. You just choose to ignore the bad things one country does and solely focus on them for another one.

I agree. Comparing two countries in an unbiased way is very difficult.

>people are dying because they can't afford life-saving insulin

If I develop type 2 diabetes, do you think my life expectancy would be longer in Cuba? Who can I trust for relevant statistics and information?