Why Alphabet's 'Smart City' in Toronto Failed (technologyreview.com) 111
Alphabet's "urban innovation" arm Sidewalk Labs planned to build a model "smart city" along a 12-acre patch of Toronto waterfront known as Quayside.
But they abandoned the project in 2020, points out MIT's Technology Review, "at the tail end of years of public controversy over its $900 million vision for a data-rich city within the city."
Sidewalk's big idea was flashy new tech. This unassuming section of Toronto was going to become a hub for an optimized urban experience featuring robo-taxis, heated sidewalks, autonomous garbage collection, and an extensive digital layer to monitor everything from street crossings to park bench usage. Had it succeeded, Quayside could have been a proof of concept, establishing a new development model for cities everywhere. It could have demonstrated that the sensor-Âladen smart city model embraced in China and the Persian Gulf has a place in more democratic societies. Instead, Sidewalk Labs' two-and-a-half-year struggle to build a neighborhood "from the internet up" failed to make the case for why anyone might want to live in it....
The project's tech-first approach antagonized many; its seeming lack of seriousness about the privacy concerns of Torontonians was likely the main cause of its demise. There is far less tolerance in Canada than in the U.S. for private-sector control of public streets and transportation, or for companies' collecting data on the routine activities of people living their lives. "In the U.S. it's life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," says Alex Ryan, a senior vice president of partnership solutions for the MaRS Discovery District, a Toronto nonprofit founded by a consortium of public and private funders and billed as North America's largest urban innovation hub. "In Canada it's peace, order, and good government. Canadians don't expect the private sector to come in and save us from government, because we have high trust in government."
With its very top-down approach, Sidewalk failed to comprehend Toronto's civic culture. Almost every person I spoke with about the project used the word "hubris" or "arrogance" to describe the company's attitude. Some people used both.
In February Toronto announced new plans for the area, the article points out, with "800 affordable apartments, a two-acre forest, a rooftop farm, a new arts venue focused on indigenous culture, and a pledge to be zero-carbon.... Indeed, the philosophical shift signaled by the new plan, with its emphasis on wind and rain and birds and bees rather than data and more data, seems like a pragmatic response to the demands of the present moment and the near future."
The article calls it "a conspicuous disavowal not only of the 2017 proposal but of the smart city concept itself."
But they abandoned the project in 2020, points out MIT's Technology Review, "at the tail end of years of public controversy over its $900 million vision for a data-rich city within the city."
Sidewalk's big idea was flashy new tech. This unassuming section of Toronto was going to become a hub for an optimized urban experience featuring robo-taxis, heated sidewalks, autonomous garbage collection, and an extensive digital layer to monitor everything from street crossings to park bench usage. Had it succeeded, Quayside could have been a proof of concept, establishing a new development model for cities everywhere. It could have demonstrated that the sensor-Âladen smart city model embraced in China and the Persian Gulf has a place in more democratic societies. Instead, Sidewalk Labs' two-and-a-half-year struggle to build a neighborhood "from the internet up" failed to make the case for why anyone might want to live in it....
The project's tech-first approach antagonized many; its seeming lack of seriousness about the privacy concerns of Torontonians was likely the main cause of its demise. There is far less tolerance in Canada than in the U.S. for private-sector control of public streets and transportation, or for companies' collecting data on the routine activities of people living their lives. "In the U.S. it's life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," says Alex Ryan, a senior vice president of partnership solutions for the MaRS Discovery District, a Toronto nonprofit founded by a consortium of public and private funders and billed as North America's largest urban innovation hub. "In Canada it's peace, order, and good government. Canadians don't expect the private sector to come in and save us from government, because we have high trust in government."
With its very top-down approach, Sidewalk failed to comprehend Toronto's civic culture. Almost every person I spoke with about the project used the word "hubris" or "arrogance" to describe the company's attitude. Some people used both.
In February Toronto announced new plans for the area, the article points out, with "800 affordable apartments, a two-acre forest, a rooftop farm, a new arts venue focused on indigenous culture, and a pledge to be zero-carbon.... Indeed, the philosophical shift signaled by the new plan, with its emphasis on wind and rain and birds and bees rather than data and more data, seems like a pragmatic response to the demands of the present moment and the near future."
The article calls it "a conspicuous disavowal not only of the 2017 proposal but of the smart city concept itself."
Predictable (Score:5, Insightful)
Vulture-like capitalists who seek to extract revenue out of the failing business of converting privacy and data into cash fail at convincing human beings who have been living in a well organized country for their entire lifetimes on giving up on the latter in exchange for being sucked dry from their privacy.
News at 11
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Nah, they just picked the wrong location. Americans would have been more welcoming. It is no more of a corporatocracy than Disney World. Plenty of Americans live in the DW-Resort residences, and more would like to.
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There's also the factor of "tell me 1) when I can move in, 2) what my apartment will look like, and 3) just how many and what kinds of shops/restaurants will be around me" - you know, all the stuff that people need to know to move into a neighborhood, without which, they'll never commit.
So an endless loop of catch-22's. Corporations wouldn't move in until there were people, people wouldn't commit to move in until there were businesses. And all either saw were promises and designs, but nothing real.
EPCOT (in
Re:Predictable (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this is more relevant
https://xkcd.com/1831/ [xkcd.com]
I've met so many programmers, and Google seems infested with the type who believe programmers are super duper smart and really programming is the hard thing because smart people do it and everything else is easy so we can solve it with ALGORITHMS!
Somehow magically sprinkling internet and algorithms on a city will style all the problems as opposed to doing the actually hard thing of redesigning the core infrastructure so it plays off human behavior in a way that works.
You don't need sensors and the internet you know that a bench on an ugly ass 4 lane dual carriageway stroad is completely pointless.
I'm sure the access to data is gravy for Google (though why they think it's useful is a bit mysterious), but fundamentally I think it's because they believe they are smart enough to solve human problems with code.
Also they don't believe in privacy so there's that too.
Re:Predictable (Score:5, Funny)
It is naive to believe that every problem can be solved with algorithms: Some problems need AI and deep learning as well.
Re: Predictable (Score:2)
Fundamentally, an algorithm is behind every action. Animal brains create them all the time.
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Fundamentally, an algorithm is behind every action. Animal brains create them all the time.
Not really. Calling those behaviors "algorithms" is like calling a cooking recipe an algorithm; it's not in the same class of formal processes than computers or mathematicians do.
The kind of information processing of Asynchronous Massively Parallel Cellular Automata in neural networks is not known to be reducible to algorithms; and animal brains are do continous processing, not state-based processing like automata, so they're even more complex than CAs.
A more apt computational metaphor would be the recent u
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The thing is, the answer is "sort of right". Everything that can be solved can be solved with algorithms. But this doesn't mean or imply the the right algorithm can be easy to discover or cheap to implement.
If people can do it, it can be done with an algorithm. Many algorithms involve getting your hand dirty. Only a very few are almost entirely calculation.
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If people can do it, it can be done with an algorithm.
Please, what is the algorithm for farting?
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for being sucked dry from their privacy.
And that is just phase one.
Phase two is using all that data to move money more efficiently from the wallets of the population to the wallets of the corporations. I mean, what do you think they want all that data for, right?
Oh! Oh! Call on me, teach! (Score:5, Funny)
Why Alphabet's 'Smart City' in Toronto Failed
It was a really stupid idea?
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Why Alphabet's 'Smart City' in Toronto Failed
It was a really stupid idea?
Just another in the VERY long list of stupid ideas by Alphabet Corp. If this was a movie people would say"give me a break, no company is THAT evil AND stupid."
Once again, another example of what happens when a company has too much money. They can just continually play the game of "throw shit at the wall and see if anything sticks" with no regard for the problems they cause in the process..
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I hear.. Lots.
That's just the cover story (Score:4, Funny)
The real reason it failed that Google didn't pay their protection money to the geese. Everybody in Canada knows they're the ones who really run the show.
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The real reason it failed that Google didn't pay their protection money to the geese. Everybody in Canada knows they're the ones who really run the show.
The geese threatened to retaliate by bringing down more aircraft.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
For the same reason (Score:3)
A combination of problems (Score:4, Informative)
First, people don't like it when you waltz in and tell them you know everything better than them and what they did so far is just wrong, so you are going to right it. Twice so if you're a corporation, doing it in a country where distrust of corporations is part of the culture.
And second, people in Canada love their privacy. They're very used to it. Trying to put them under total surveillance is going to make you as popular as foot fungus.
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And second, people in Canada love their privacy.
This can be seen by the phones they carry? Have you even looked, let alone read a new vehicle contract? A credit card contract? Canada's privacy laws are not worth the paper they are written on. There is nothing in those laws that can stop it. I would say it's the main reason bank fraud has been converted to identity theft. There is absolutely no way that a Canadian can keep their privacy. Too many services that collect information are intertwined with life. From schools to government services. It's all se
Egon Spengler Would Object To This (Score:2)
As someone who lives in Toronto belongs to Toronto's local Mold and Fungus Appreciation Club, I resent the aspersions you cast against foot fungus. Your comments are disgusting and racist. Foot fungus is just as worthy as any other fungus, and singling it out like that says more about you than foot fungus. No one was calling Staphylococcus Bacteria names when it turned out penicilin could be made from its mould.
And if you're wondering if you too should join your local Mold and Fungus Appeciation Club
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I wish to express my apologies to foot fungus. It was not my intention to insinuate that foot fungus was in league with Google, is affiliated with Google or has any dealings with Google whatsoever.
Because Google abandon projects (Score:3)
Google has ADHD and has a long history of abandoning projects that was no longer sexy and exciting. Starting new projects is exciting, taking feedback and slowly improving a product is boring.
Unfortunately, many new concepts and products would not succeed without someone taking the effort of slowly improving it until it works well.
Good government (Score:2, Flamebait)
"In Canada it's peace, order, and good government. Canadians don't expect the private sector to come in and save us from government, because we have high trust in government."
It's as if actually making the government work for you, instead making up bullshit about how your gun collection will allow you to overthrow the government when it goes bad, is the way to stop governments from going bad.
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New tweets of wisdom include her call to “defund the FBI” and Rand Paul is calling to abolish the espionage act.
Back the blue until it comes for you!
Re: Good government (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean the guy who fairly won an election? I see the memes and same phrases repeated again and again. What is Trudeau doing that qualifies as tyranny? The freedom convoy who was treated with kid gloves for weeks before the cops did anything? Don’t these people have jobs? How can they protest all day! They’re too dumb to realize the lockdowns were done at the provincial level. Which means Trudeau had nothing to do with it. When they arrested one of the convoy leaders she seemed very confused as to what country she was even in. Screaming about her first amendment rights.
Several "Smart" cities in U.S. never took off (Score:2)
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OTOH, Amazon's doorbell camera seems to be doing quite well.
It didn't have a graveyard (Score:2)
nor a junkyard to dump all the bad ideas.
Because it represented colossal stupidity (Score:3)
You don't take a piece of a city that has an established culture and try to change it. You go someplace that doesn't have any culture and try to create your own. In the past such efforts have failed because you couldn't find enough people who wanted to live there. In the present all you have to do is make it affordable and provide decent internet access and you'll have flocks of people lined up to relocate to wherever it is, because of the current severe housing shortage caused by fires, floods, airbnb, and investment bankers.
Sounds like Toronto had a better starting point (Score:2)
800 affordable apartments
This seems like the most bleeding obvious starting point. A quick search indicates that a 1-bedroom apartment was going for about $1,850CAD in 2019. Had Google led with 800 furnished 1B apartments for $1,000CAD/month, they may well have had some occupants, who in turn would have given those sensors some data to work with.
Nothing is wrong with automated taxis, they're just not the biggest problem being faced. Nothing is wrong with automated garbage collection, it's just not the biggest problem being faced.
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Nothing is wrong with automated taxis, they're just not the biggest problem being faced. Nothing is wrong with automated garbage collection, it's just not the biggest problem being faced.
Indeed! The problem with cities isn't that dustbin lorries have dustmen to go along with them. Automation might make existing systems a little cheaper, but it won't fix any problems.
I pine for Google Traffic Lights that can dynamically adjust to improve traffic flow (e.g. changing signal times when an intersection with 50
the same reasons as ever (Score:2)
Planned cities always fail because people who believe they are smart enough to anticipate and solve all the organic problems of a vast number of people living in a concentrated space are never as smart as they THINK they are.
Simple as that.
The solutions to such situations are the (some times painfully) evolved compromises between thousands and thousands of people. One self-nominated wunderkind or even collection of them with a few good ideas can anticipate all the issues that human beings confront daily in
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Planned cities don't always fail. But the ones that succeed have lots of slack areas penciled in with "let this part develop naturally". Washington, DC was a planned city, designed by a French city planner. It didn't work out as well as he envisioned, but it works. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Now the more complete and complex your plans, the likelier it is that your plans will fail. But there have been successes (or at least partial successes).
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The nicely sums it up. Which is why truly smart people are aware of their limitations.
Tired of centuries old creation myths to justify b (Score:2)
Quips like POGG are whatever the US claims as its founding myth is kind of irrelevant. People are people and donâ(TM)t like being sold a bad deal. Google sold hype and BS. The city and its residents saw through it.
Company Town (Score:1)
"Instead, Sidewalk Labs' two-and-a-half-year struggle to build a neighborhood 'from the internet up' failed to make the case for why anyone might want to live in it...."
"...sensor-laden smart city model embraced in China and the Persian Gulf..." Well, gosh-darn, I wonder why no one wanted to live there.
"There is far less tolerance in Canada than in the U.S. for private-sector control of public streets and transportation, or for companies' collecting data on the routine activities of people living their live
The answer is right there in the second sentence (Score:2)
This unassuming section of Toronto was going to become a hub for an optimized urban experience featuring robo-taxis, heated sidewalks, autonomous garbage collection, and an extensive digital layer to monitor everything from street crossings to park bench usage.
OK, you've just listed four things that nobody wants.
Robo-taxis are not quite safe enough yet (especially in an urban area with lots of unpredictable foot traffic). They don't suddenly become safer when you make them part of a "smart city".
No one cares about heated sidewalks.
No one cares about automated garbage collection. (Most garbage trucks are semi-automated anyway, except for the driving part, which brings us back to item #1).
No one (except for marketers and data miners) wants "extensive" digital mo
Affordable (Score:2)
The key is the "affordable" part. The thing is, the vast majority of the population do not have the productivity to support the high tech lifestyle without subsidies from the few who do.
No surprise (Score:2)
Just throwing tech at things does not work, has never worked and will never work. You actually need a clear understanding what you want to achieve and it needs to be a clear improvement over the status quo. Tech-cheerleaders never understand that and hence routinely fail.
Irony is lost on some people (Score:2)
I find it ironic that people in Toronto don't trust private sector companies who can't really do anything to you but seem to implicitly trust government that can do anything they want to you and you have no recourse.
NEOM is trying it again (Score:2)
Something similar is being built in Saudi Arabia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
It will be interesting to see how it pans out compared to Goodle's attempt. Different climate (hot instead of cold), different attitude to human rights (the Saudis don't have any human rights, unless they're rich!), and a different evil outfit backing the project (oil dollars instead of tech/advertising dollars)
I wouldn't live in Neom, but then again I wouldn't have lived in the milder Canadian version either.
FREEDOM (Score:2)
"If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking is freedom"--Eisenhower (b. 1890)
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Yeah. No. Citation needed. Preferably outside your bubble.
Re:Trust in government? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Trust in government? (Score:5, Insightful)
just look at them, they're in financial shambles and yet they have 12 socialist parties and 1 right wing party to vote for, and they keep voting for the socialist ones even when it destroys their country to the point where they're starving.
Alternatively - and I say this as an American, on the outside looking in - Canadians believe their country is in better shape than you believe is the case, and they think their country is generally headed in the direction they want it to go.
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just look at them, they're in financial shambles and yet they have 12 socialist parties and 1 right wing party to vote for, and they keep voting for the socialist ones even when it destroys their country to the point where they're starving.
Alternatively - and I say this as an American, on the outside looking in - Canadians believe their country is in better shape than you believe is the case, and they think their country is generally headed in the direction they want it to go.
The Canadians that believe this are starting to realize they have been fed a pack of lies. A lot has come out with this pandemic. Mainly that our health care system is a house of cards and it's not funded or managed to handle our population. Many are on waiting lists for years for a family doctor. We don't care when we are young but as we age the need for a family doctor becomes serious. Going to an emergency room to get a prescription is a stupid solution not to mention the lack of doctors and nurses. If I
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I love how Americans tend to make comments about other countries that are straight from a politician's campaign, where the people actually living in said country go "What? How... That falls straight under the category 'Alternative Facts', known in every country other than the US as 'Lies'."
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I love how you ignore reality just to mock someone who you disagree with (plus some good old fashion America bashing). Canada is a democracy, if their current government isnt going the direction that the people want the people have the ability to change out their government every few years. The fact that this government has been in power so long clearly indicates that quite a lot of Canadians thinks it's doing an at least alright job.
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Are you actually replying to the right post? I'm very confused, because none of what you apparently accuse me of is anything I said. lol
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Sure and the last two Republican presidents didnt win the popular vote here in the US. Despite the fact that a majority of voting Americans didnt want Trump or Bush as their president somehow I don't think that means we're living in a horribly tyrannical country.
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What it means is that we and Canada live in undemocratic countries.Demos means people.
Your claim doesnt seem to be supported by the definition of democracy https://www.merriam-webster.co... [merriam-webster.com] . In both the US and Canada the people governed still determine the government.
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I don't see how this is valid when the majority of people in Canada voted for one party but the cabinet and the PM belong to another.
Think of it this way, were we a Democracy back when we had slavery and women couldnt vote? That's over half the country that couldnt vote and yet we are still considered the first modern democracy.
Don't get me wrong, here in the US I'd prefer to ditch our electoral system but I've never seen academics or political experts in any Western country seriously suggest we arent a democracy in any significant numbers.
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You provided a definition yourself and now literally are contradicting it.
Pretty sure I havent. Feel free to show me how I have though.
Canada and USA are not true democracies by this definition, whether you like it or not. Your argumentum ad verecundiam is laughable.
You cant refute the reliably sourced definition of the word I've given you that contradicts what you're saying, meanwhile you're claiming victory. You're definitely a special sort of something...
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You're being dishonest or willfully ignorant. Here is the full definition from the link I posted https://www.merriam-webster.co... [merriam-webster.com] :
1a: government by the people
especially : rule of the majority
b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
2: a political unit that has a democratic government
3capitalized : the principles and policies of the Democratic party in the U.S.
from emancipation Republicanism to New Deal Democracy
— C. M. Roberts
4: the common people especially when constituting the source of political authority
4: the common people especially when constituting the source of political authority
Notice the "especially:" by "rule of majority". That makes it not an absolute part of the definition.
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And I mean really, scroll a bit passed the definition and you'll find this.
Frequently Asked Questions About democracy
Is the United States a democracy or a republic?
The United States is both a democracy and a republic. Democracies and republics are both forms of government in which supreme power resides in the citizens. The word republic refers specifically to a government in which those citizens elect representatives who govern according to the law. The word democracy can refer to this same kind of representational government, or it can refer instead to what is also called a direct democracy, in which the citizens themselves participate in the act of governing directly.
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So you wont believe a dictionary when it clearly states that the US is a democracy in the follow up notes for a definition?
Well here's a fun concept for you then, minority government https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] . Are you going to tell me the dozen or so countries on that list whose systems allow minority governments that they've actually had in real life are also not democracies? While there's one or two on the list that only has them during in-between periods between an election and people coming to
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More like its your ignoring / ignorance of reality that is happening in monumental proportions here. I've providing you with ample supporting citation and all you've done is gone "Duuuhhhh, no it's not!"
I mean it's really a special kind of arrogant stupidity that refutes basic definitions found in major dictionaries and multiple real life contrary examples for no other reason than they feel in their heart of hearts that they're correct.
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I think you'd need something truly catastrophic for Canada to unseat him. He's already had scandals that would have thrown him out of politics in the US, but other countries aren't nearly as balanced. Canada is more like South American governments - just look at them, they're in financial shambles and yet they have 12 socialist parties and 1 right wing party to vote for, and they keep voting for the socialist ones even when it destroys their country to the point where they're starving.
Ahhahaa.
Stop, stop making me laugh. When was the last time an American politician was thrown out of politics over a scandal? Also both poverty and food insecurity is worse in the US, so congrats on that.
Re:Trust in government? (Score:4, Informative)
>When was the last time an American politician was thrown out of politics over a scandal?
WIkipedia:
Joseph R. Biden administration (2021– )
Executive Branch
Jeffrey Siegmeister (R) State Attorney for the Third Judicial Circuit of Florida, was accused of conspiracy, extortion and bribery. He pled guilty to four counts. (2019)
Eric Lander (D) Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy a cabinet level position. Lander was accused by several of his staff of bullying, demeaning, insulting and embarrassing them. The allegations were investigated and Lander was reprimanded. On February 7, 2022, he submitted his resignation.
Tyler Joseph TJ Ducklo (D) Deputy Press Secretary. Vanity Fair reported that Ducklo threatened Politico reporter Tara Palmeri, telling her that he would "destroy her" if she published a story about his relationship with Axios reporter Alexi McCammond. On February 12, Ducklo was suspended without pay for one week, he then apologized, and resigned the next day.
Legislative Branch
Nicholas Van Campen Taylor (R-TX) US Representative and married with three children, was accused of having a nine month affair with Tania Joya who was once married to a Commander for the Islamic State and has been referred to as the “Isis Bride.” Taylor allegedly paid Joya $5,000 to keep quiet. The news was leaked during the Republican primary for his seat, causing Taylor to admit to the affair and withdraw from the campaign.(2022)
Tom Reed (R-NY) US Representative, was accused of sexual harassment on March 19, 2021 by a lobbyist for an incident at a bar. In a statement made on March 21, 2021 he apologized to her and said he would not seek re-election in 2022. On May 10, 2022 he announced his resignation on the House floor effective immediately.
Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) US Representative from Lincoln in the 1st District, was indicted for making false and misleading statements to the FBI about the source of $189,000 in campaign contributions from a Nigerian billionaire. When found guilty he resigned. He was then sentenced to two years probation, fined $25,000 and given community service. (2021)
Re:Trust in government? (Score:4, Funny)
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Yeah, all those socialist govts wrecking their economies in Germany, France, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Spain, etc.. Those poor Yurpeans with their universal healthcare, effective public transport, excellent education, low crime rates, etc.. They're being oppressed!
Found the touchy socialist who can't follow the point and immediately jumps to whataboutism in an attempt to defend the his political religion that he thinks is under attack. Save your insufferable "look at socialism in Europe" auto-reply talking points for a post where it's actually relevant, buddy, then you won't look like a mindless political reactionary.
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None of those countries are socialist countries. And considering the ignorance you've already shown, it doesn't surprise me at all that you're taking the "OMG SOCIALIST!" route.
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None of those countries are socialist countries. And considering the ignorance you've already shown, it doesn't surprise me at all that you're taking the "OMG SOCIALIST!" route.
Yet another idiot missing the point of the conversation. However if you'd like to argue about how socialist or not socialist the aforementioned South American countries are, I'll point you to Wikipedia where you can yell at an article with a laundry list of countries that you claim are not socialist on their article about socialism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Or you could have just Googled "south american socialist countries" before posting such a silly comment.
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Before you claim that socialism is responsible f
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I'm not sure why you're having an argument on fallacies with yourself, I already said "South American socialism" so it's pretty clear NTS is completely irrelevant and you're just trying to throw it in the mix to deflect from your fallacious "look at Europe" whataboutism. I realize you have no way to logically defend what's happening in South America, so maybe just keep your mouth shut rather than trying to white knight socialism on the internet to people who give no shits about your political crusade.
Which
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What weirdass definition of "universal" are you using.
Healthcare is available, more or less for free, for everyone who wants it. You can also buy it if you want. End result everyone has access to healthcare.
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Clearly you mean "same" but keep saying the wrong (Score:3)
Universal to me means everyone gets the same thing, whether they buy it or not.
"Universal" in universal healthcare applies to access [wikipedia.org] - not to the quality of said healthcare.
It is a result of people realizing the humanity of everyone having access to healthcare - not of a totalitarian impulse to control everyone's healthcare access.
And boy... if you find Canada's healthcare confusing, don't even think of going to Scotland. [wikipedia.org]
Just planning the trip would probably maim you permanently.
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IIUC, the "universal health care" systems are generally run by the government, so taxes pay for the system. Also they don't have the insurance companies demanding a huge proportion of all the money spent on health care, so in that particular way the systems are more efficient. (There are other ways in which they lapse.)
FWIW, I'm in favor of a two-tier system. Basic health care would be universal...and not unlimited. For handling emergencies you could pay for health insurance. Insurance is only a good m
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IIUC, the "universal health care" systems are generally run by the government, so taxes pay for the system.
A large part of the financing is done through institutional investment funds. What is taken through taxes or direct monthly payments (to healthcare providers) is put in these funds which multiply it so that it covers the population.
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Because it's mostly nationalised & doesn't have that predatory aspect of US healthcare, even for foreigners it's either free anyway (e.g. in Italy) or much cheaper than the USA if you have to pay out of pocket.
Additionally, for things like holiday he
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Honest question, can anyone explain how these countries keep their healthcare truly universal?
As has been explained, it is about access to healthcare. We all pay collectively (taxes or monthly payments in addition to institutionalized investment funds) for a certain base level of care. Due to the scale and central organization the costs are kept low (for instance, medicine pricing is much closer to cost of production and not 5-100x inflated like in the us).
And if you happened to not pay (which is rarely the case and usually the result of complex social problems like addiction or mental illness) you
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Eeh, no...
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You made it sound like a person with money can pay for less wait and better service.
When it comes to basic health care, sure. It's so general and generally good that you won't gain much by going private.
Just think of all the typical things that are done in a typical hospital. Those are the common things that everyone gets access to.
If you don't like that you can go to a private clinic and get better service but the medical procedures will be the same.
For special and rare conditions you may benefit from finding the best specialist in the world and paying for that.
But some of that is also co
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When did canada say this?
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But that was not what you've been claiming.
All this says is that there is a collective basic health care safety net. It doesn't mean everyone gets the same. It means everyone has the right to certain basic health care for a reasonable price. It also doesn't mean you can't pay for better care.
I'm sure you're intelligent enough to understand this premise. Why are you so hell bent to misrepresent it?
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Sure would. Maybe work on that reading comprehension a little more.
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The US is one of the few governments where the balance of power bounces back and forth between the left and the right every 4-8 years,
LOL, no, you're just bad at politics.
There is, in practical terms, no left in the US. You've got your right and you've got your far right. Democrats are right of center and pretty much the bitches of corporations (due to how your profoundly stupid lobbying works), republicans are the extreme of democrats that cater to the supercapitalists and want to destroy the middle class because they only need the low class people to clean their toilets and make their beds and don't want the rising middle class to come
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That's a trifle too extreme. It could work, of course, but it would put much of the economy in the trash can. To start with, it would get rid of credit cards, insurance companies, banks, governments, hotels, delivery services, and many others.