While We Wait: Writer's Block & Other Lame Excuses

[Amesjay]

Ah, but here again you did not prove a damned thing. Comparing expenditure vs GDP is a silly means of finding out the goals and effectiveness of social programs such as healthcare. Black Americans simply do not have any form of universal healthcare provided by the state, and if they do it is limited to children (specifically the really poor, and often times it is only subsidized and people don't pay for it anyway) or elderly, not the middle of the road poor (again, because many states have opted out of Medicaid expansion and also happen to be the states with the highest African American populations). Now, you want to compare life expectancy of these two groups without considering that life expectancy of Native Americans is pretty much on par with Indigenous Australians (but again, you want to pick a poor group to compare it to to pretend our minorities don't suffer as much as yours).

Just read this article please, Native Americans life expectancy is 2.4yrs behind American average, Indigenous Australians is ~20yrs below the Australian average life expectancy. The data is from 2009 (I think) but it still wouldn't have changed that much in the last 5 years.

http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/.../SOWIP_web.pdf

 

[Luckymoose]

Just read this article please, Native Americans life expectancy is 2.4yrs behind American average, Indigenous Australians is ~20yrs below the Australian average life expectancy. The data is from 2009 (I think) but it still wouldn't have changed that much in the last 5 years.

http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/.../SOWIP_web.pdf

Indigenous life expectancy at birth 2010-12 - males 69.1, females 73.7.

That is Masada's own data. I highly doubt the average Australian lives to be 90.

 

[Crezth]

https://www.google.com/webhp?source...&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=australian life expectancy

http://www.aihw.gov.au/indigenous-observatory-life-expectancy/

Even "just" 13 years is still a lot more than the ~2 difference for Native Americans.

 

[Thlayli]

Symph, you identified in your initial post enough stylistic similarities between cyberpunk and steampunk to at least not make steampunk a solely unique genre celebration of white privilege.

I have a more in-depth response to your genre critique but it'll have to wait until I get home from work.

I noticed that you avoided directly saying "white celebrations of white culture are bad," though that was the implication behind your post. I'd just caution against where that line of thinking leads us, since kabuki theatre and opera and a bunch of other "elitist" art forms are condemned via the same logical pathway.

 

[Luckymoose]

https://www.google.com/webhp?source...&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=australian life expectancy

http://www.aihw.gov.au/indigenous-observatory-life-expectancy/

Even "just" 13 years is still a lot more than the ~2 difference for Native Americans.

It appears they all suffer from diabetes and other issues that are widespread in the Native American population, too. Of course, we'll just ignore the similarities to fit the narrative being pushed in WWW.

 

[Amon Savag]

It was me, and it was meant to say without government intervention my family would still own other human beings. I would probably own human beings right now, if that were the case. Hell, I might even own you since there'd be no one to stand up for you in your libertarian paradise.

False. The government of the time when your family owned human beings endorsed such behavior. Just because one government outlaws something another government doesn't outlaw doesn't make government good for people. All the government has to do is make it a law that you can own slaves again and WOW SLAVERY THANKS GOVERNMENT.

And there'd be plenty of people standing up for me in my libertarian paradise, and we'd all have tanks and anti-aircraft guns in our back yards waiting for someone like you or some government to try and own us.

 

[talonschild]

Would there be? Why?

 

[Luckymoose]

False. The government of the time when your family owned human beings endorsed such behavior. Just because one government outlaws something another government doesn't outlaw doesn't make government good for people. All the government has to do is make it a law that you can own slaves again and WOW SLAVERY THANKS GOVERNMENT.

And there'd be plenty of people standing up for me in my libertarian paradise, and we'd all have tanks and anti-aircraft guns in our back yards waiting for someone like you or some government to try and own us.

I don't think Sherman burned through Georgia because his government loved what my family was doing.

How are you going to organize a resistance when you're anti-authority? You wouldn't dare put someone in charge of you, in a strict military hierarchy, would you? That is borderline government! I don't think you're too keen on this whole freedom thing. I'll tell the others.

 

[Amon Savag]

I'd voluntarily assemble with my fellow freedom fights were some baddie attack them.

You really don't sound intelligent when you talk on this subject of government and slaves. How can you be completely oblivious to the fact that slavery was an institution protected by the state. There is still modern slavery (Children, armed forces, debt slavery, phoney social contract slavery), and that all that has to be done to reenact pre-1865 version of slavery to become legal again is for a law to be passed by your government? None of this matters, of course, because the current government in your region gives food stamps to the poor and allows you to be on this forum to vehemently defend it, right?

This just in, because governments change policy on slavery they're no longer oppressive parasites. "I'll tell others."

 

[Luckymoose]

I'd voluntarily assemble with my fellow freedom fights were some baddie attack them.

You really don't sound intelligent when you talk on this subject of government and slaves. How can you be completely oblivious to the fact that slavery was an institution protected by the state. There is still modern slavery (Children, armed forces, debt slavery, phoney social contract slavery), and that all that has to be done to reenact pre-1865 version of slavery to become legal again is for a law to be passed by your government? None of this matters, of course, because the current government in your region gives food stamps to the poor and allows you to be on this forum to vehemently defend it, right?

This just in, because governments change policy on slavery they're no longer oppressive parasites. "I'll tell others."

What did you study in university? Or did you not go?

 

[talonschild]

I'd voluntarily assemble with my fellow freedom fights were some baddie attack them.

Suppose they didn't feel like it?

 

[Amon Savag]

What did you study in university? Or did you not go?

International Relations, not that it's your business, and not that it even matters.

Talonschild, that is their prerogative to not "feel like it". Their personal defense insurance would take on the fight for them using premiums paid by that person and others that didn't feel like it.

 

[ChiefDesigner]

International Relations, not that it's your business, and not that it even matters.

Talonschild, that is their prerogative to not "feel like it". Their personal defense insurance would take on the fight for them using premiums paid by that person and others that didn't feel like it.

What stops personal defense insurance from taking their money and not delivering a service?

 

[Amon Savag]

If they deliver, their brand goes up. If they don't, they stop receiving premiums. Is it so foreign to people how a market works? Defense is a commodity that government has a monopoly in most countries over. You are forced to pay for it, and the excess, through taxes.

But please don't be so naive as to think that the government provider of defense is a fail-safe method of doing things. Ask most of Europe in WW2. Ask people in Afghanistan or Iraq how far their taxes got them in their defense. If anything, having a government makes you less safe because of the collective bull crap that your government gives you a stake in regardless of whether or not you want a stake in it (like attempting to police the world?), that may actually put you more at risk of being attacked by these foreign governments.

 

[Arrow Gamer]

Yes, because heavily armed, unregulated private entities would always yield to the free market.

 

[Luckymoose]

International Relations, not that it's your business, and not that it even matters.

That explains why you have no knowledge of society, history, or anthropology. Thanks.

 

[Amon Savag]

Yes, because armed unregulated government entities always provide adequate defense.

 

[Lord of Elves]

As the descendant of actual slave-owners, slavery was a terrible, disgusting institution and everyone who lost land and property as a result of crushing slavery and the illegal treason it engendered totally had it coming.

Lucky will back me up or whatever

 

[Luckymoose]

Yes, because armed unregulated government entities always provide adequate defense.

You know the military is made up of people, right? Those people are people like you, fellow citizens, right? How are they unregulated when we have a volunteer military? You know soldiers don't typically turn on their own people, right? That's why we move soldiers around so much.

As the descendant of actual slave-owners, slavery was a terrible, disgusting institution and everyone who lost land and property as a result of crushing slavery and the illegal treason it engendered totally had it coming.

Lucky will back me up or whatever

I would and do.

 

[ChiefDesigner]

If they deliver, their brand goes up. If they don't, they stop receiving premiums.

What happens when they're the only insurance provider, having, through free and consensual transactions, purchased every other self-defense providing insurer?