BREAKING: US District Court Strikes Down New York’s Ban on TASERs and Stun Guns
As Judge Hurd wrote . . .
New York’s sweeping prohibition on the possession and use of tasers and stun guns by all citizens for all purposes, even for self-defense in one’s own home, must be declared unconstitutional in light of Heller. To be clear, this conclusion does not foreclose the possibility that some restriction(s) on the possession and/or use of tasers and stun guns would be permissible under the Second Amendment. Other states have already done this. See, e.g., WIS. STAT . § 941.295(2g)(b) (permitting possession of “electric weapon” in home or place of business). New York might consider doing so as well.
Therefore, it is
ORDERED that
1. Plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment is GRANTED;
2. Defendant’s cross-motion for summary judgment is DENIED;
3. New York Penal Law § 265.01(1), as applied to “electronic dart guns” and “electronic stun guns,” is an unconstitutional restriction on the right to bear arms; and
4. Defendant, his officers, agents, servants, employees, and all persons in active concert or participation with the New York State Police are hereby ENJOINED from enforcing New York Penal Law § 265.01(1) as applied to “electronic dart guns” and “electronic stun guns.”
Actual ruling here: https://www.scribd.com/document/402776387/NY-Stun-Gun-Decision (warning, expect javascript to screw with your ability to read the article)
Commentary: Amid the controversy over owning lethal weapons, why wouldn't we want people to have access to non-lethal weapons? Aren't a lot of people likely to purchase a non-lethal weapon, in preference to a lethal weapon? In a high population area, aren't non-lethal weapons preferable?
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @12:53PM (6 children)
There is no excuse for a non-criminal to have anything that could be used as a weapon. Guns, tasers, bombs, etc should all be banned.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 24 2019, @01:07PM (3 children)
Your sarcasm is noted but you're dead on the money. Authoritarians don't want the populace able to resist their authority in any way. Removing the things that differentiate a citizen from a subject (the potential ability to overthrow their government) is always one of the first things tyrants and would be tyrants do.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @01:18PM (2 children)
The thing is I'm not that concerned by these bans. Where I'm from you aren't supposed to have a gun in your car but everyone who goes to certain areas does in case of a carjacking, the police will even tell you to have one because once they have a cop car parked on every block all day what more can they do?
These bans are largely to make idiots feel good about themselves, like banning pot.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday March 24 2019, @03:14PM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by urza9814 on Monday March 25 2019, @06:20PM
Are they willing to give you that statement in writing?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @01:24PM
Government, terrorists and criminals. Three large organisms that do not care what is and isn't banned and happily acquire common household items and construction materials to build everything you have just banned.
Volunteering to live in a prison doesn't mean you don't get shanked or violated. It only means you live in a prison and can't effectively and legally equalize violence used against you.
I used to be fairly pro gun control. But then I realized I live in a country where they're highly controlled and effectively banned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @07:52PM
Okay, I will give up all of those and start carrying a brick and/or rocks.
(Score: 4, Informative) by helel on Sunday March 24 2019, @12:55PM (88 children)
Tasers are not non-lethal [aclu.org] weapons. In fact they've caused a little over one thousand deaths [reuters.com] in the US in the last 20 years.
That said, they are definitely less-lethal than many alternatives. I'd definitely rather see a mugger coming at me with a taser then a pistol.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @01:53PM (84 children)
I'd rather a mugger didn't come at me. This is what we have to do:
- Fund single payer healthcare, including mental health care.
- Fund programs like SNAP and food stamps. Ensure that every person is able to eat three square meals per day.
- Fund subsidized housing. Ensure that every person has somewhere to live.
- End work requirements on these programs.
The working class produces more than enough excess wealth (profit) to do this. "There is no money" is a flat-out lie.
Disarming the working class cannot possibly reduce violent crime. The root causes of violent crime such as a poverty and mental illness must be addressed.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @01:57PM (5 children)
Mental "health care" is what? And three "square meals" means what? This is what you get if you leave it up to the government to define this stuff: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutraloaf [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Sunday March 24 2019, @05:54PM (3 children)
You mean when you leave it up to privatized prisons.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 24 2019, @11:37PM (2 children)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Monday March 25 2019, @12:21AM (1 child)
So let's not repeat that mistake by leaving meeting basic needs to the private sector. Perhaps we should even vote out the faction of government that likes privatizing things.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @03:24PM
He has no idea what party you're talking about because he's from russia.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 25 2019, @04:43PM
A "square meal" is a cube of Spam, cut about 1 silly milly meter on a side.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 3, Disagree) by khallow on Sunday March 24 2019, @03:16PM (29 children)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Sunday March 24 2019, @05:56PM (28 children)
When seconds count, help is only minutes away. Better to reduce desperation so that seconds are less likely to count.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Sunday March 24 2019, @09:10PM (26 children)
People are less desperate, when they know they'll go to jail, if they do X.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Sunday March 24 2019, @10:26PM (25 children)
No, that makes them MORE desperate , and anxious to leave no witnesses.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 24 2019, @11:04PM (24 children)
Only if they avoid jail or death - the point of better enforcement is to insure that they're more likely to survive and end up in jail. I have a huge lack of confidence in the effectiveness of the AC's original outline:
Even if we ignore that we don't have a clue where the money will come from for these programs (protip: rich people aren't that rich), we still have that they aren't effective for the above purpose of reducing crime. When these things were introduced on a massive scale in the US in the 1960s and 70s, it led to an increase in crime, not a decrease.
(Score: 5, Informative) by sjames on Monday March 25 2019, @12:28AM (19 children)
Rich people are plenty rich. The top rich people could pursue a middle class lifestyle for several generations without a single family member ever holding a job even if they pulled out all of their money and stuffed it in the basement rather than collecting interest.
But never minding that, how would a single payer system manage to cost more than what we already deal with now? At worst, it's be the same thing minus the profit for the insurance companies. But of course, countries that do have single payer in some form all manage to pay half what we pay here.
We already manage SNAP, we just need to keep going.
There's a lot of unskilled and semi-skilled labor involved in building homes. We could hire some of the people who otherwise need SNAP to build the housing for people who don't have it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 25 2019, @03:55AM (18 children)
Because it already does. Public spending per capita for the US is already more than for most developed world countries. None of these health care moves towards greater payment by others have ever reduced per capita health care costs for the US.
Where? The primary reason real estate is so expensive in the first place is because one doesn't have the space for such things to be built.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 25 2019, @03:56AM (1 child)
Link. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 4, Informative) by sjames on Monday March 25 2019, @05:38PM
OECD health spending [oecd.org] includes all of public and private spending on health care. That means medicare, medicaid, VA, private health insurance, employer provided healthcare, co-pays, deductibles, and out of pocket. You're proving my point again, countries that have an actual single payer system spend half of what the U.S. spends and get better results.
That is, if we go single payer, deductions from your paycheck and premiums you pay will go down more than your taxes will go up. Net result, more money in your pocket and better health care.
If you just like high bills and poor outcome, by all means donate all your money and poison yourself, but leave the rest of us out of it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Monday March 25 2019, @04:54AM (15 children)
Yes, we pay more than any other country for healthcare and we do not have a single payer system. Perhaps we should have a single payer system. You are now making my argument for me.
What the U.S. has is a crazy hodge-podge of private health care and a mix of public and (mandated) private insurance. Complete with a dizzying list of in-network vs. out of network that nobody can seem to map. It isn't working. It wasn't working when there was no individual mandate either. Private HMOs only made it worse. Perhaps we should follow any one of the many examples that work better for less money.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 25 2019, @01:08PM (14 children)
So that we can spend even more than we already do? Recall that a good portion of that US spending is already for single payer systems. Maybe you should think about what the phrase "making my argument for me" means?
And that will magically fix itself when we stick our penis into it again.
Like the US system of the 1960s?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @03:27PM (1 child)
Extremely bad argument. Could be applied to anything we've done badly. Especially dumb since we have a special breed of public servant who likes to sabotage public services. With enough guys like you they'll be able to complete this mission with even less effort.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 26 2019, @02:58AM
I lump you in with that public servant.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday March 25 2019, @05:07PM (11 children)
We do not have a single payer system, therefor we cannot be spending ANY money on one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @11:59PM
Wow! That was like fourteen khallows! Khallow loses yet another argument! I especially enjoyed the "The rich are not that Rich" ploy! That was Rich, khallow! But it did make me wonder why you suck up to them so much, if they are not that rich, really. Taze the rich, I always say!
Signed,
Tazerface
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 26 2019, @02:32AM (9 children)
VA and Medicaid.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday March 26 2019, @03:56AM (8 children)
Nope. That's already TWO payers and we haven't even gotten to medicare and all of the various private payers yet.
Even within the subset eligible for the VA, there are co-pays, sharing with medicare/medicaid, etc (here we go again with the hodge-podge). Likewise for Medicaid and those eligible for it.
Medicare has co-pays and donut holes and such in abundance (which is why we have so many commercials for supplemental medicare coverage).
Single payer means there ios ONE and only ONE payer in the United States. That condition does not exist.
But you knew that.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:23AM (2 children)
VA and Medicare are each single payer. Else Canada and the UK wouldn't be single payer for the same reason.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:42AM (1 child)
I'm pretty sure Canada and the U.K. are different countries. Perhaps you should bother to learn what is meant by 'single-payer' before railing on about it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 26 2019, @01:01PM
Since when was that relevant?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:26AM (4 children)
Sorry, that's not ruled out by single payer either. After all, all those single payer systems in the developed world are increasing in cost. Having the patient bear a portion of their health care is a way to cut costs.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:39AM (3 children)
You skipped over the parts about co-insurance and about none of them being actual single-payer because they are one of several payers. Did you skip it because it was inconvenient to your argument or were you just clutching at straws so hard that's all you could see?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 26 2019, @01:04PM (2 children)
Except of course, when there isn't several payers which is a common situation with the two programs I named. And need I point out that in other single payer systems one can buy supplemental private insurance? They're still single payer even if you have health insurance on the side.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:50PM (1 child)
Yet, when I only have employer provided private health insurance, you would claim it is single payer, knowing that is certainly not what was meant by single payer. What next, are you going to start replying exclusively in Esperanto?
You're not moving the goalposts now, you're trying to move the entire damned field out from under the goalposts. Sorry, you don't get to re-define common terms underneath the conversation.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 27 2019, @01:52AM
VA and Medicaid aren't employer provided private health insurance.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by urza9814 on Monday March 25 2019, @07:16PM (3 children)
So we can't implement better social security programs, because we don't know where to get the money, and you say that the solution is to improve enforcement. You realize that cops don't work for free, right? Where do we get the enforcement money from, and why can't we allocate that money towards trying to make peoples' lives better instead of worse?
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:27AM (2 children)
I think we can - by lowering the benefits received.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday March 26 2019, @01:24PM (1 child)
OK, fair enough since I also think we can implement better enforcement by reducing the number of cops on the payroll. Or at least taking away
somemost of their equipment...these fuckers don't need anti-landmine vehicles...(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 26 2019, @01:30PM
Better there would be reducing what is considered a crime. Getting rid of drug-related crimes alone would greatly reduce the load on existing law enforcement and prison sentences for the public.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @03:07PM
I was in this situation. It's no joking matter.
In hindsight I now realised I should have:
- purchased a tactical umbrella (legal to carry)
- practiced short stick fighting
- purchased a heavy duty torch (not a weapon so legal to carry)
- Purchased super hot burn you ass sauce, put it into a small 60ml sprayer and made a clip on for the belt to carry it
- Purchased a bomber style jacket maybe something with padding or armour in it
- Always wear heavy jeans
- Wear work style metal reinforced boots
- Wear leather gloves
- Find headgear that can be worn in public with good durability
- Cruise through a sporting store for armor that can go under clothes
This is where gun control gets me. One night I spent hours pinned down while this guy drove around hunting me.
The police are not effective.
Or just spend the money to buy a gun illegally.
The guy was trying to kill me. This is my life. The cops don't take stalking calls from males seriously. The courts require proof which is hard to get without putting yourself in harms way.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday March 24 2019, @03:23PM (40 children)
Don't believe in this one: everyone should have to do SOMETHING for what they receive. Doing SOMETHING is always better than sitting around doing nothing but watch the Young and the Restless.
Community gardening, helping at seniors homes/daycare/massage parlors (lol).
No one should be able to sit at home doing nothing and get something for it. Anyone can do something, and should.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @04:12PM
Some people just create an obstacle to the progress of others though. EG, I think that if we took the NIH budget of $30 billion per year and instead paid all the people producing non-reproducible in-principle research, the p-hackers, etc to do nothing instead of pollute the literature with noise then progress on stuff like figuring out Alzheimer's or cancer would skyrocket.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @05:22PM (15 children)
That is the dumb perspective that causes a lot of wasted work and unnecessary human suffering. With the advent of technology there is less productive work available to humans and society hasn't evolved to a point that makes it easy for the poor to be useful. Also, requiring work for benefits could easily result in slavery conditions, for reference check out many prison workers.
The best solution for your "people must do SOMETHING" would be a work lottery so that people rotate in and out of the schedule.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday March 24 2019, @06:21PM (13 children)
The problem is some work still NEEDS to be done, and it isn't all nice. So how do we motivate people to, say, clean sewers?
I'm basically in favor of basic income, but it's a real problem. (Of course, another problem is how to avoid the prices being raised just because people can now afford to buy food or rent an apartment.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Sunday March 24 2019, @08:01PM (6 children)
The absolute best answer to this is technological: Robotics.
We're certainly not there yet, but it's coming, presuming we don't annihilate ourselves or suffer an environmental culling (e.g. comet, super volcano(s), etc.)
Once broad, highly capable automation really lands, that whole "you're only worth something if you work" toxin needs to go right down the shitter.
--
If I could have saved all the money I've
spent on pizza, I'd spend it on pizza.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday March 24 2019, @10:42PM
While the best answer is robots, as you admit, we aren't there yet. Any system to be implemented now should handle the current state as well as being able to adapt to a more advanced state. I don't think I've every run across a proposal that I thought both good and workable.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 25 2019, @01:13PM (4 children)
Unless, of course, it is not the absolute best answer.
Unless, of course, that doesn't happen because the value of peoples' labor continues to go up as it has for centuries.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Monday March 25 2019, @03:47PM (3 children)
It will be, presuming only it comes about, primarily an issue of technological progress.
Just as a robotic vacuum cleaner is better than a manual one, as a manual one is better than an artificial fiber broom, an artificial fiber broom is better than a straw broom, and a straw broom is better than picking up debris from the floor with your fingertips.
Oh yes, the "it's always been this way" rationale. I guess I forgot about that.
That's why we must travel to the US from Europe on sailing ships; that's why we will never fly; that's why computers are little wood constructs with beads one slides to and fro; that's why the height of timekeeping is a pocket-watch; that's why we can only communicate with people outside of our local area with letters carried by draft animals. That's why we can only look inside people's bodies with knives. That's why we wash our clothes in buckets, and why we heat with firewood, and thank gawd for those who ship ice to our lands, for otherwise we could never, ever, refrigerate anything. That's why we walk or ride animals everywhere we go, and why all modern agriculture is performed by our slaves, Manuel and Amalie Trabaho. And of course, that's why we live in caves!
I'm totally with you here. The value of people's labor will never, ever be impacted by technology. What a crazy idea I had that technology could ease our lives, even to the crazy extent of eliminating jobs, providing for and freeing people to follow their own interests, instead of those of an employer. I should never have thunk of it, much less spoke out. I roundly apologize. CrAzY!1! I must have been at the fermented goat's milk again last night. I must now get back to my quill and paper and revise my thinking before I must return to my day job of picking horse dung up from our unpaved streets.
😊
--
PMS jokes aren't funny. Period.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 26 2019, @02:41AM (2 children)
Unless, of course, it doesn't.
Which it is usually not at present, BTW.
Not always the case here either. Vacuums aren't that great on smooth surfaces and they cost and mass more than a cheap broom.
Straw brooms are actually really good. You ought to try using one sometime. They're just more expensive and higher quality than the typical plastic broom (which tends to stand out more on cost and weight).
Except of course, when you only have to pick up a couple of things off the floor. It's lower overhead to just pick it up than to obtain a broom and use that.
Technology improvements are not absolutely better. And as I noted earlier, technology increases the value of our work. So said robots and such of the future are competing against enhanced humans of the future.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:28PM (1 child)
We have two (one on each floor... still waiting for one that can climb between floors as needed.) They run automatically, and the only thing we have to do is dump the various bits of fuzz and so forth that they collect once they let us know it's time to do that. They're great. So we don't manually vacuum at all any more, and maintenance of these devices costs us only seconds instead of long stretches of pushing something around. We happily use the resulting freed-up time for things more pleasing to us. Which is just about anything.
Certainly there are various use cases, and yours might not at all be like ours but the point remains: this is a significant advance which knocks the manual task right out of our lives. Technology in general can be a great enabler of freedom from drudgery. As technology continues to bring further automation into play, the need for spending one's time at drudgery can drop accordingly. If it doesn't (barring disaster as noted previously), it'll be because something was done to artificially limit the benefits.
Otherwise, instead of working to survive, we will do what we want — and survive because that's no longer a matter of spending time doing things you don't want to because you have to.
It's a form of investment. Today, we push technology along; tomorrow, we expect that to result in more freedom.
I see technology reducing labor happening in venues large and small. Motors move cars and boats and trains and aircraft so feet and oars don't have to be used, and entirely new means of travel can be accomplished. McDonald's fills drink orders with a robotic cup-dropping, belt carrying, soda-dispensing thingamajig in response to my having clicked what I want in their app. Robotic vacuums. Gas and electric furnaces. Power plants. GPS satellites. Telephones. Computers. Robotic combines. All of this is labor-reducing and hands us more free time, some of it very significantly. And of course there is a great deal more.
But I think you're simply trolling at this point, so I'll let it go.
Cheers. 😊
--
I have neither the time or the crayons to explain.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 27 2019, @02:18AM
That robot can't exist in most business environments. It's a trip hazard and it doesn't do that good a job for areas of a business that relies on appearance or high levels of cleanliness/sanitation.
That's the thing. I grant that robotics as well as older forms of automation has already eliminated a fair number of human jobs and most likely will eliminate more. What gets missed here is that use cases change as the technology changes. What was impractical or unprofitable can become otherwise when the technology improves enough. And one doesn't need to overthink hiring for odd menial labor. With robotics, it currently requires very specialized knowledge to know how to fit robotics into various niches. If you have a small business, it usually is not even worth looking at robotics (unless the robotics happens to greatly improve a core function of your business). The effort just to look can be more expensive than the benefit gained.
(Score: 5, Informative) by sjames on Sunday March 24 2019, @09:03PM (5 children)
According to the principles of capitalism, the answer is clear, offer enough money that someone finds it an equitable trade for cleaning a sewer. Once we remove the factor of bending people over a barrel to take the job, the market will correctly value it and we can decide if we need to mechanize the process or find some way to make the job less nasty.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 25 2019, @01:17PM (4 children)
Let us note, an alternate phrase for this negative euphemism is "allow people to better themselves". But then we wouldn't have a case for UBI, if we took First World problems at face value.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Monday March 25 2019, @04:46PM (3 children)
Where are we not "allowing people to better themselves" under UBI?
Do you also consider kidnapping a "free trip"?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 26 2019, @02:43AM (2 children)
Because it takes money from other people who are worse off. Meanwhile almost everyone except for a very small fraction can get the benefits of a UBI while generating useful work for others.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:04AM (1 child)
Yet you are always better off if you earn more. So you continue to be able to better yourself.
This is a contrast to the current means tested programs where there is a point where you can't afford to earn more because you won't be able to make ends meet if you do and lose your benefits.
This is especially problematic for people who have a disabling condition that remits and relapses (such as many with MS). They can't afford to work when they can because it will disqualify them for assistance when they can't.
Similarly, people on assistance can't afford to take a temporary job or seasonal work.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 26 2019, @01:00PM
And the converse of that is that you're worse off, if you earn less.
Which can be solved for a lot less cost to society than a universal program.
A means which can be tested.
Unless, of course, they happen to be on assistance between seasons, a common thing in the US tourism sector, I might add.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 24 2019, @11:09PM
At least that "dumb perspective" has a basis in reality. How can you completely ignore 50+ years of globalization and the resulting increase in productive work?
OR society could just get out of the way of the job creators?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Sunday March 24 2019, @06:06PM (17 children)
The problem with the work requirement is that it's self perpetuating. Employers then offer jobs that only people facing the work requirement would take and so they continue to need the dole and have the work requirement.
If you truly believe that there are enough jobs out there for everybody, the compensation offered will quickly rise to a level sufficient to entice people to go to work if they have to option to sit it out until that happens.
Arguably, anyone willing to sit at the minimum standard of living and do nothing useful to anybody is likely in need of mental health care. Mentally healthy people tend to prefer doing something useful.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday March 25 2019, @01:59AM (16 children)
Tending (and learning about) a community garden takes away no jobs, and has no shite employers. Volunteering at a home; similar.
There's lots of things people can do that will get them out of the house, learn skills and feel better about themselves that will help the community and earn them their cheques.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday March 25 2019, @02:12AM (15 children)
Except that someone presumably gets to decide what constitutes acceptable work. What do you suppose the odds are that nobody with a hundred pound chip on his shoulder who hates the whole idea will find his way to that decision making position? We do, after all have a political party in the U.S. that is PROUD of their monkey-wrenching of social programs even when it wastes far more money than they ever claimed that the programs did.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday March 25 2019, @02:37AM (1 child)
So anyone should get paid to do nothing.
Give me $500 right now. Because.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday March 25 2019, @04:38AM
Unless you have some way to prevent the guy with the hundred pound chip.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 25 2019, @03:57AM (12 children)
So somehow it is better to create a generation of parasites? Not feeling it here.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Monday March 25 2019, @04:26AM (11 children)
What makes you think non-mentally ill people would tend to be content with the bare minimum? Is that what you would do?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 25 2019, @11:24AM (8 children)
What makes you think people will be mentally healthy in this situation? And "not being content" doesn't mean one has the ability or knowledge to do anything about it.
Can't say. But if I were raised up from birth to be just another useless mouth to feed, I think it would be very hard to move past that. It's a trap IMHO.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @03:41PM (1 child)
You've either never been poor or you're working lower middle class still stuck in your poverty mentality.
The majority of working stiffs in america are totally brainwashed to stay where they're at. Does it really matter whose teat they waste their lives suckling? At least one has incentive to get you off the teat, while another has incentive to just barely give you enough to survive so you can't think about letting go to chase bigger tits.
I used to work at a shitty IT job. It kept us busy and was extra inflexible with hours, the pay way low, the time off was just enough for a year's worth of colds and hangovers.
Last I checked everyone who worked there when I left still works there if they weren't fired. The only two who got away are myself and another former military guy. Why? Because the additional government services available to us allowed us to leave. Being able to quit and go to college, get healthcare, get help on a month of tight bills, and get easy access to loans.
Now we both make extremely good money while wages back at our old job have stayed the same. It's conceivable that either of us could go back to a place like that and move into the IT management over our old bosses, less than 10 years later. Though we never would.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 26 2019, @02:32AM
Neither is true, so I guess I should ignore the rest of your post, right?
Funny how I think you got those two reversed.
And? Sounds like they want to be where they are.
You already mentioned people who were "fired". They got away too.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Monday March 25 2019, @04:58PM (5 children)
So, is it your fond wish to become a useless blob and raise children to be useless blobs? I guess you'll need to homeschool if you want to make sure your kids don't accidentally catch any values from school, but alas, that would be too much like doing something useful, so I guess useless blobbiness will die with your generation. It shouldn't take more than a few years, people who do nothing tend to go downhill fast. Evolution in action.
I'm going to guess that you have decided to troll again since I find it hard to believe anyone could be sufficiently brain damaged to believe anyone is proposing to ban working as part of UBI.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 26 2019, @03:00AM (4 children)
You asked me to imagine what would happen in a world where I didn't have to do anything. It's not my fond wish. Instead, I don't believe I am somehow magically better than anyone else in the same situation. We have already a population which already fails so hard to better itself that a majority don't even bother to save money. At that point, what's UBI going to do? They already refuse to better themselves in the way that UBI is supposed to address. I notice most of the rationalizations for UBI, such as the people who won't quit bad jobs [soylentnews.org], work against UBI as well.
We could in the above situation, just not have a UBI and these people could keep doing whatever it is that they're doing without a need for a UBI. The pretense that some modest additional income would encourage them to get off their butts and do something, is silly. They haven't so far.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Tuesday March 26 2019, @03:43AM (3 children)
Your arguments are steadily making less sense. That is to be expected when you choose the conclusion first, then look for an excuse for it rather than analyzing the evidence and then reaching a logical conclusion. Is that what you did?
If I have this right, everyone but you is a wanna be useless blob. Or perhaps you believe you are also a wanna be useless blob (how unfortunate) saved only by the whip cracking at your back. If I recall, 19th century plantation owners were fond of claiming that regular whippings made slaves contented and productive, so it was a SERVICE to them. Especially when it cured them of drapetomania (the 'irrational' desire to flee slavery) Gee weren't they ever so considerate "employers"!
Your second argument takes the opposite stance, but but some people might have such a powerful and misguided work ethic that they don't take advantage of their newfound freedom to find something better to do. Gotta say, that's pretty desperate.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:18AM (2 children)
I'm not surprised, after your last post, that things make less sense. A rational person wouldn't ask "So, is it your fond wish to become a useless blob and raise children to be useless blobs?" They would instead know from reading my earlier post that I feel the opposite about that. There's some sort of cognitive degradation going on there.
You don't have this right. Cavemen might have wanted to know more about the world, but they didn't have the means both intellectually and infrastructurally to do so. Same goes for the people who don't want to be useless blobs - or rather who probably wouldn't want to be useless blobs, if they knew better. Jobs do more than just keep us busy or alive. It's a means for us to learn useful skills that you won't get from education and expose you to the ambitions of the world. I see UBI as a trap that will create a lesser class of people who don't have the life skills or experiences to achieve ever their crippled dreams.
I disagree. I'm pointing out that the narrative that UBI will encourage people to do interesting things is already contradicted by their lack of doing interesting things now. The problem isn't money, it's already lack of interest. That's not going to get better when there are more apathetic people out there.
For a classic example of that increased apathy, consider pensions which are very similar to UBIs. Many pensions in the world are threatened by insolvency. I've run into a number of people who are pulling a pension out of a system that is under threat, but don't care as long as the pension doesn't run out before they die. It's a peculiar selfishness since they often are quite concerned about other problems we face (such as climate change or improving technology and knowledge). What's going to happen when you mix that apathy with a generation that doesn't have a lifetime of challenges to learn from? It's not going to be pretty.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:37AM (1 child)
The argument is quite simple. I can';t understand it for you, especially when you clearly don't want to understand.
Employers these days are generally more interested in skills you already have than they are in teaching you skills. For the latter, you need time you can take without having to scratch for a living. UBI would also make "training pay" a thing you could actually survive on again, making employers more open to on the job training.
That actually provides a good example. Effectively, teens HAVE UBI now. But they seem quite willing to go out and get summer jobs to better their situation. That has become more difficult lately since many traditional teen jobs are being occupied by adults who are having a hard time finding better jobs.
Nothing about UBI precludes seeking a job or learning a skill. To even imagine otherwise you'd have to be daft. I suspect instead, this is just you with your predetermined conclusion clutching at straws again.
We seem to have reached that point in any attempt at conversation with you where you start spewing talking points you don't understand yourself.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 26 2019, @01:36PM
Indeed. But I think you can understand it for you.
Maybe you should think about why that's the case.
But minimum wage gets in the way of that. For example, at my workplace, we routinely get 20+ year olds (some graduating from college even) who are working for the first time.
Actually, yes it does. The effects are secondary, such as reducing the incentive to learn those valuable skills or reducing the pool of people with the skills to be effective employers.
Based on what? It's certainly not evidence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @03:29PM (1 child)
Because the mentally ill are often happy to find any situation that's relatively peaceful. Even if that's getting high on smack and sleeping behind a dumpster.
If you say that's a hard fate. Well they don't have to accept it. Once their lives are stable many people's conditions will improve and they can pursue a more meaningful existence.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:20AM
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @11:53PM (1 child)
You overlook what these work requirements are used for in practice: Harassing poor people and leaving them with nothing and no options. Sure, whine about the poorest and most powerless in societyi while the mega-rich get tax cuts and hoard more and more of the wealth.
Not to mention, even for the few people who are genuinely lazy, that shouldn't be a death sentence. Are you seriously saying they shouldn't receive medical care because they are lazy?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday March 25 2019, @02:14AM
So you're saying that everyone who wants free EVERYTHING should be able to get it without contributing anything?
Free EVERYTHING, EVERYONE! Go see AC. Free pizza and beer at AC's house! I LOVE THIS FUCKER! He's giving blowjobs to homeless people, too!
What. a. dick. you are.
Contributing SOMETHING SHOULD be a requirement: contribute to your community, or why should the community contribute to you.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2) by VanessaE on Monday March 25 2019, @01:24AM (2 children)
The vast majority of "entitlement" recipients DID do something to earn their benefits: they worked and paid taxes (some 85% of current recipients still do).
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday March 25 2019, @02:25AM
I've seen welfare recipients raising welfare recipients raising welfare recipients: NOT paying taxes and contributing nothing. When MADE to contribute (Workfare, under the Mike Harris government), they stopped sitting around drinking and cleaned themselves up, cleaned their surroundings and felt better about their lives.
Doing NOTHING and getting paid to do it makes a lot of people decide to continue doing so.
Contributing SOMETHING ALWAYS makes people feel better, more worthwhile, and they can learn new skills that they can use to make their lives better.
Win/win...I don't see the problem!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 25 2019, @04:06AM
Let us note for a current example, that recipients of US Social Security and Medicare receive benefits well in excess of what they contribute on average (sure, you can find people who die before receiving significant Social Security benefits or who die cheap and aren't a burden on Medicare, but on average people receive considerably more than they ever put in, adjusted for both inflation and time value, particularly given how the incoming revenue got squandered in past decades). That results in a huge transfer of wealth from the young to old which can't last.
That's the sort of conflict of interest that basic incomes and similar entitlement schemes bring.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @09:13PM (2 children)
Single Payer Healthcare means giving up the protections of Roe v. Wade.
How, you say? Doesn't Roe v. Wade protect abortion rights?
Not really. Read the actual judgement, not parroted media accounts. All it says is that there's a line beyond which the government's interests do not override the private interests.
When the government is the one footing the bill, that no longer applies.
When the pendulum swings, and people who are in charge don't want taxpayers funding abortions/sex changes/whatever, suddenly they have a Roe v. Wade loophole: they ain't payin' shit.
Given that the single payer proposals that they've come out with effectively outlaw private care in all but a few very narrow cases, that means you're fresh out of options.
Unless you like medical tourism. Oops, only rich people can afford that, better criminalise it...
Single payer in the US of A comes under a banner that reads:
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR. YOU MAY GET IT, REAL HARD.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @10:47PM (1 child)
Yet, that didn't happen under other countries that have single payer healthcare.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @02:28AM
Other countries don't have the same regime.
In fact, very few other countries went the whole hog and wanted to outlaw private medicine. The UK didn't. Germany didn't. Canada did for a while - but then a canadian judge found that to be bullcrap, so in principle Canada could have private healthcare (although by then the market was essentially moribund).
However, what other countries most certainly have found was that the government would limit the procedures and formulary. In the US the sticking points might be abortions, but in Canada for example a noted problem has been using low cost treatments, known to be ineffective on certain patients, with negative health results - but that's what happens when individuals aren't even afforded a choice.
So, go right ahead. Give a bureaucracy the right to decide. Can't see any way that will go wrong, amirite?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @10:45PM
How about we put the crazies in the oven?
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Sunday March 24 2019, @10:57PM (1 child)
> three square meals per day
So no pizzas then?
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday March 25 2019, @06:45PM
Yes, there will be pizza. Sicilian pizza [wikipedia.org]
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 25 2019, @04:46PM
I love all these socialist ideas for saving lives. We need to emulate Stalin and Mao!!
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by ledow on Sunday March 24 2019, @02:10PM (1 child)
And that's in the hands of "trained professionals".
Just wait until some kid zaps his elderly neighbour with a pacemaker for a laugh because "I didn't think it would kill him".
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday March 24 2019, @03:17PM
And then goes to jail for twenty years. These problems will sort themselves out, particularly if the elderly neighbor shoots first.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by RandomFactor on Sunday March 24 2019, @02:17PM
If you trust your attacker that submitting to incapacitation is better than being killed.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 4, Interesting) by BsAtHome on Sunday March 24 2019, @01:02PM (11 children)
The law would, in principle, ban all electronics with high voltage that can be carried and "used as a stun device". It is exceptionally easy to create a high-voltage generator that would zap and stun anybody. Otherwise, the law would not make any sense.
Now, not that I am in favor of carrying guns, but the restrictions, as specified, are simply unworkable. It would actually ban some of my standard equipment. The problem, having lethal or non-lethal weapons, is not one of technological art. It is a cultural phenomenon and problem, where the USA has very (extreme) contrasting views among its citizens. Rest of the world seems to be somewhat less controversial.
Maybe, instead of making laws, you could work on a balanced perspective on the culture of guns and violence?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 24 2019, @01:25PM (10 children)
Huh, I suppose they'd have to ban large capacitors too under that definition.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @01:34PM (1 child)
High capacitor magazines are already banned, thank God.
(Score: 3, Funny) by fyngyrz on Sunday March 24 2019, @08:04PM
I found this shocking.
--
Do I know any jokes about sodium?
Na
(Score: 2) by BsAtHome on Sunday March 24 2019, @02:27PM (5 children)
I'd rather have small capacitors at higher voltages. Much more efficient and effective! Energy content scales linear with capacitance and quadratic with voltage.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Pino P on Sunday March 24 2019, @02:49PM (4 children)
A capacitor has not only a capacitance but a maximum working voltage before the capacitor breaks down. Running two capacitors in series provides twice the working voltage but half the capacitance. To get the capacitance back up, you also have to run capacitors in parallel.
For capacitors with a given working voltage, the size of such a configuration is quadratic with voltage.
(Score: 5, Informative) by VLM on Sunday March 24 2019, @03:41PM
Everything old in EE is new again, there's nothing really new under the sun. Much like putting supercaps in series, low voltage rectifiers in series, putting caps in series you have to be careful when doing spice simulations or whatevs because in practice one might be 10% high cap and one might be 10% low and a little heat accelerated aging and suddenly two poorly matched series caps might only be "safe" to 170% of rated voltage not the theoretical 200%.
In the old days when a solid state 100V rectifier was magic, diode stacks had all kinds of capacitive and resistive equalization strings along the diodes (which could also fail spectacularly) and supercaps have all kinds of madness ranging from resistors increasing leakage current to 50x the expected individual variation to swamp variations, or lithium batteries with active mosfet compensators across each battery (seen those for supercaps too). Diode stacks with capacitors across each diode also change from DC diodes and mains-AC diodes to being essentially transparent to RF which can have hilarious effects on large high power RF transmitters under weird failure conditions, so there's funny side effects. Oh another funny situation at the other extreme of power is a rectifier stack for a microphone pre-amp can be hilarious if there's RF band noise on the AC mains. Of course a 60s microphone pre-amp usually wasn't operated on the same AC mains as a 2010s dirty unfiltered chinese switching power supply for generic appliances, so it wasn't a problem at the time...
LED stacks fed with raw AC can be funny this way too.
Another funny is in the old days of carbon comp resistors the voltage ratings were like a zillion volts so people got sloppy that resistors are near perfect components but them newfangled laser etched inductor thin film thingies have a very small gap across the etched film meaning sometimes a lower voltage rating than the diodes they were "protecting". Hilarious to watch someone replace a carbon comp balancing resistor in a bridge stack with a thin film resistor and power it up and the resistor shorts under massive over voltage and "boom" need a new , new resistor. And of course carbon comp resistors vary slightly in resistance with the voltage across them ha ha fun.
Making high voltages out of series stacked nicad batteries and drawing a large current so as to reverse polarity a cell causing failure was fun in ye-olden-days. I remember a cordless soldering iron as a 70s/80s kid with two cells drawing an incredible current (for that time) that essentially never worked for long without OEM matched pack, you couldn't just install two rando COTS cells and expect it to work. Sometimes with the technology of the time you can't just stack random stuff and get it to work, gotta match carefully.
EE stuff has its own "design patterns" just like programming, but more exciting when something blows up. Stacking things in series to get a higher voltage rating goes back decades across numerous component families with the same/similar problems. EE stuff is infinitely entertaining in its onion layers of complexity., which is why its fun.
(Score: 3, Informative) by BsAtHome on Sunday March 24 2019, @04:13PM (2 children)
A classical design for failure.
The capacitor series (series/parallel) circuit only works if you can _guarantee_ that all the capacitors have equal leakage characteristics over the entire lifespan and environmental parameters. If not, then you will distribute the voltage unequally and blow-out a capacitor anyway. If you need to increase the voltage-rating by using series-capacitors, then you must include an equalizing parallel resistor-network. However, this gives you problems with large voltages because the resistors have to be rated for these high voltages too. Secondly, it is a significant loss-factor to have a resistor network attached.
It is often better to just bite the sour apple and buy capacitors for the higher voltage rating.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Monday March 25 2019, @11:09AM
How does the price of high-voltage capacitors scale with voltage? Linear? Quadratic?
(Score: 2) by exaeta on Monday March 25 2019, @10:00PM
Actually no. For many things, e.g. supercapacitors, you habe no option but to put them in series.
One solution is to use zener diodes, so e.g. using a 2.5V zener diode for 2.7V supercapacitors, along with a 1M resistor. This prevents overcharge by causing any overcharge to short to ground.
You can use precision zener diodes and transistors to make something that safely balances them without leaking too much when not overcharged. All you need is 1 npn/pnp, 1 resistor, and one high precision zener regulator for each capacitor.
Yay for the BJT.
The Government is a Bird
(Score: 2) by DavePolaschek on Monday March 25 2019, @02:38PM (1 child)
I'm reminded of how we thought it great fun to load up Really Big Capacitors with a hundred or so volts at whatever they'd hold and then toss them to someone. "Catch!"
Among other things, it was very instructive as to the importance of respecting the polarity of electrolytic capacitors.
Sadly, power supplies have gotten smaller, so it's much harder to find the coke-can sized capacitors nowadays. One less thing for kids to learn.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 25 2019, @03:34PM
We popped pinholes in our plastic desk chairs, poked the leads through, and bent them over. It made for much hilarity.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.