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from the maybe-someone-doesn't-like-the-color dept.
5 shuttle buses chartered by Google, Apple apparently vandalized on I-280, possibly with pellet gun
Shuttle buses carrying Apple and Google employees were apparently vandalized Tuesday while traveling to and from the South Bay, officials said. No injuries were reported.
Five buses driving in the northbound and southbound directions of Interstate 280 between Highway 84 and Highway 85 were damaged during the Tuesday morning and evening commute, said California Highway Patrol Officer Art Montiel. Four buses were chartered by Apple and one by Google, the officer said. The Apple campus is located off I-280 in Cupertino. Google headquarters is in Mountain View off Highway 101.
According to Montiel, several bus windows were damaged and cracked, possibly by pellet guns, BB guns or rocks.
According to an article on TechCrunch
In response, we've learned that Apple has rerouted the bus routes for employees living in San Francisco, adding 30-45 minutes of commute time each way, as the company works with authorities to see what exactly is going on.
Also at The Guardian.
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Friday January 19 2018, @12:38AM (6 children)
However that changes nothing about the fact that I would rather help those who will take the help, the existence of people who won't take the help is hardly an argument against it.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday January 19 2018, @03:31PM (5 children)
I guess I was a little unclear, so I apologize, but I'm not trying to argue against giving help to those in need. I'm just questioning what you do about people who stupidly refuse help, and to what lengths we should go to for such people. For the people who are in need and happy to accept assistance, I have no problem giving it to them.
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Friday January 19 2018, @04:43PM (4 children)
I understood you, but given you were advocating for the devil, I responded to your point as if it was the most severe version thereof. I can't force people to take help. I am all about personal liberty, I just have the seemingly contradictory point of view that everyones liberties are potentially at stake if we have a population without support. Not taking the support offered is their right, but I won't lose sleep over them either. Though I think UBI is a better way of distributing that help, not only is it less likely to be denied by individuals, but it requires less bureaucracy when you don't have to figure out who the needy are.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday January 19 2018, @06:24PM (3 children)
I am all about personal liberty, I just have the seemingly contradictory point of view that everyones liberties are potentially at stake if we have a population without support.
That's not really contradictory. Lots of stupid American liberatarians of the Randian persuasion think it is of course, but there's a good number of libertarians who are actually big supporters of the UBI for pretty much the same reasoning you have: that people don't really have true liberty if they're "enslaved" by their financial conditions, so keeping people from being in such dire straits is necessary for maximizing liberty overall even if that comes at a small cost to richer people.
Not taking the support offered is their right, but I won't lose sleep over them either.
Well that's what I was getting at: other people *will* lose sleep over them, and want to come up with ways of fixing the problem. That's the point I'm bringing up: should that problem be fixed? And how much effort should there be to fix these people who are too proud or too stupid to take help? Is the help offered even sufficient, or is it just a joke? Accepting (or not) free health insurance is one thing, but accepting (or not) free job training is another. There's no real downside with the first, just sign up for it and now you have insurance at no cost. The other costs a lot of your time, and may not actually be useful. Is training for computer programming useful for a 50yo coal miner? I'm guessing they won't see it that way, even if they were really to pack up and GTFO of coal country. If someone offered me free (but time-consuming) job training to be a politician but absolutely no guarantee of a job or of being elected, that wouldn't be too useful to me; it's unlikely I'd ever get elected with my personality; I'm just not very outgoing or gregarious, though people do seem to like me IRL, but that doesn't equate to wanting to vote for me for anything besides maybe school board (probably wouldn't get that either, I don't have kids). I went into engineering and computers for a reason.
UBI is something we could have a big discussion on, it's not a simple topic. It does promise to render a lot of bureaucracy unnecessary, but not all; it won't solve problems with child abuse, or of people (esp. parents) misusing their UBI and blowing it on booze instead of rent and food. IMO it'd be a lot better, and the problem cases could be dealt with using the remaining social services like CPS that will surely still be needed, but there's other arguments. The main problem, as I see it, is getting society to accept it in the first place; it's just like an alternative voting system like Condorcet. Basically, unless you can force it on everyone for a while until they get used to it, people are just too stupid to understand why it's better. Talk to the average American voter about first-past-the-post and what's mathematically wrong with it and how it prevents 3rd parties from succeeding, and they just won't get it. It's the same with UBI: they'll either complain about "giving money to lazy people" (while not understanding the current welfare system and how much it costs to administer) or they'll complain about millionaires getting a paycheck (while not understanding that over a certain income threshold, the income tax will be raised so that it'll be a wash at least, so the rich people will be paying their UBI right back in the form of income taxes, and then some probably).
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Friday January 19 2018, @07:21PM (2 children)
Forcing services will always be a worse choice as far as I can see. Medical care is an easy example, If we force them to take medical care, do we force them to follow doctors orders? Do we open back up all the asylums we closed in the last 50 years, and fill them full of people who didn't get the advantage of a fair trial before we remove their liberties for something we can't even necessarily prove? I would be much happier letting the proverbial Christian Scientist die of appendicitis than round up all the Mennonites and force them to get a physical.
You have a lot of focus on moving people and job training, while education and training are great, I can't see any example of forcing that on somebody that doesn't resemble the worst aspects of communism. Forcing people to move directly is a clear constitutional issue. If they would rather live on the bare minimum and spend your days bitching about all the coal mines closing, I can't see taking that away from them being ethical. They won't get ahead that way though, and hopefully their kids will see sense and chose some of the things you propose.
You are 100% correct, UBI is a bigger conversation than this venue makes tenable, and there are more devils in the details of its implementation than I would care to imagine. That said, the addict that blows his load on booze or other drugs is an adult, entitled to fuck up his own life, he had his opportunity, he flubbed it of his own free will. If he has kids, then you are correct, this would be that case where I agree with CPS being the best available solution.
I agree first past the post is a huge problem, but similar to my concerns with forcing services above, I don't accept that the only way it can change is by forcing people to accept a change because we say so. Turn the tables on that and it isn't pretty. We have to educate the public, and it will be exactly those disenfranchised masses, be they black, white, blue or red, who we can't afford to write off as stupid, but must try and bring them around to our point of view.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday January 19 2018, @07:37PM (1 child)
Medical care is an easy example, If we force them to take medical care, do we force them to follow doctors orders? Do we open back up all the asylums we closed in the last 50 years, and fill them full of people who didn't get the advantage of a fair trial before we remove their liberties for something we can't even necessarily prove? I would be much happier letting the proverbial Christian Scientist die of appendicitis than round up all the Mennonites and force them to get a physical.
The huge number of homeless people seems to suggest that maybe we should bring back asylums. As for the Christian Scientists, what about their children? Do they have the right to force their kids to die of treatable illnesses, which amounts to negligent homicide?
You have a lot of focus on moving people and job training, while education and training are great, I can't see any example of forcing that on somebody that doesn't resemble the worst aspects of communism. Forcing people to move directly is a clear constitutional issue. If they would rather live on the bare minimum and spend your days bitching about all the coal mines closing, I can't see taking that away from them being ethical.
If they refuse to move to where work is, even when relocation assistance is offered, then what? What other assistance should be offered since they just want to sit and complain? And what about other voters who think that's not enough, that we need to bring the jobs back to them? A bunch of those voters just gave us the current President.
We have to educate the public, and it will be exactly those disenfranchised masses, be they black, white, blue or red, who we can't afford to write off as stupid, but must try and bring them around to our point of view.
What if we can't? I guess it just proves that we have the government we deserve.
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Friday January 19 2018, @10:24PM
I think religious preferences vs medical care of children is an issue that is already an acknowledged problem, making that care available to all doesn't change the ethics of it. I am inclined to side with parental rights as a default, but I don't deny that there are situations where that is a bad call. The have been some highly publicized instances that would make great examples here.
I think I already made it clear that if they want to languish on the minimal existence that UBI could provide, I am happy to let them. The idea that there will be a percentage of real or perceived bad actors I am willing to accept, because I don't want to throw the good out with the bad. I can't see any other solution that doesn't amount to what I would consider a horror story, like the government forcing you to move or deciding what you will do for a living. That said, if there really is such a popular demand for those services, perhaps those will be viable jobs again. Brewing was a dead profession 100 years ago, it has been booming for decades now. Perhaps some lateral transition that they will accept will arise, but that is a private concern. Frankly I do not understand how you haven't quibbled over other perceived bad actors but are really stuck on this example. My straight answer in case it isn't clear is no other assistance is necessary, give them survival and the opportunity to create more for themselves and their children if they desire. That is a fairer shake than we have ever seen on a wide scale, and I would be beyond proud to see it in my lifetime.
If you think you can identify any single group of voters as having given us Trump, you are mistaken. The whole damn country participates in this farce, not just coal country or the rust belt.