Driverless cars and AI in general. AI is capable in the very near future of kicking off a revolution to rival the industrial one we all learned about. Huge increase in productivity and a reduction in expenditure for large corporations that currently rely on human labour. And AI that can fix and monitor the robot workers.

Which also means unemployment without a new job to go for. But if 50% of people don't have an income, who is going to buy the stuff the robots produce? That's where universal basic income comes in. Tax AI to fund UBI which would allow people to pursue their own goals in life. Fully automated luxury communism ala star trek! Credit to Aaron Bastani for that idea.

I await someone mocking the idea of UBI, calling me a lazy idiot, saying people will turn to drugs and crime, without providing a single alternative solution to the certainty of automation and what it will do to the economy. If boardroom jockeys find out that they can get robots to do the work of 1/2 of their staff for 1/100th of the cost, 1/100th of the errors, none of the stress, illness, holiday or sleep time, do you honestly think they won't? This IS going to happen.

Meanwhile RE: housing prices - if roast chickens had increased in price at the same rate houses have, each would be £50 - it would be unacceptable. Having a place to live is equally necessary for life, so why is it acceptable and even encouraged, celebrated by some?

That really reads as pretty condescending.

Not everyone has the luxury of home-schooling their kids. Some people simply can't afford to give up the income.

Not to mention the fact that teachers are people who've actually studied how to teach. Most parents don't have a degree in child education, but most of the teachers I know do.

And finally, there's the social aspect of having kids interact with other kids.

I'm not saying you shouldn't homeschool your kids. There are definite advantages to it (assuming the parent is reasonably well educated themselves), like being able to give more attention and tailor the curriculum to the abilities of the child.

But accusing people who send their kids to school of "delegating the sacred honor of teaching one's own child" is frankly just a dickish thing to say.

This is the 2nd video where the author got the Concorde story wrong... It became profitable 8 years into service (1984), largely due to BA raising ticket prices and making it more of a luxury. And the Concorde division remained profitable until the crash in France, when they grounded all Concordes while they investigated the root cause. After they started flying again, people were still wary to buy Concorde tickets, and airlines could get more profit out of 1st class tickets on larger, slower planes. So both BA and AF phased them out ~2003.

Once again I'll ask, since you have failed to give an answer, what did they report that was not true?

Owned up to it by first outright denying it, then calling it meaningless boastful "locker room talk" as if he has ever been in a locker room, and as if that characterization somehow excuses bragging about sexual assault and magically makes it moral and proves his respect for women, the most luxurious respect anyone on earth has for women.

I have an hour long commute by car to get to work, and again to get back home. But I chose the commute to, as said in the video, own my own home and be able to get a bigger home than I would have had I bought closer to work.

Here's why I don't consider it stressful...

I work 12 hours four days a week, so that's one less day I need to commute. I also have the luxury of being able to work from home two of those days.

On the days I do have to go in, half of the drive is back country roads which I often get to myself. I find a nice country road quite soothing to drive on. And the half of the commute spent on city motorways I reduced the stress on by upgrading to a car that does a lot of the driving for me. I set the top speed I want to go and the car takes care of the accelerating and braking and keeping in the lanes.

I load up the car stereo with audio books and have a nice relaxing drive to and from the office. Now the most stressful part of the journey is having to get up at 5am. Which really does suck.

*ban
The Luxury Homes & LifeStyle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AwJxz3PRnc

Trump as president will be the same as Trump as presidential candidate. There won't be policies and solutions, he wants to be a demagogue, giving speeches and basking in the adulation. He will delegate the hard work of running the country to other people and stoke his ego presiding over ridiculous meetings where he gives directions and derides his cabinet for failing. "You're fired!"

President Trump will get nothing done and when he pushes the wrong buttons he'll be impeached. The Trump presidency will not be 4 years.

But this guy's video is full of shit. He blissfully ignores the fact that a president must compromise and sometimes even make the best choice from a list of undesireable options. No President can, or should be able to, get everything they want. You can never judge a politician based on every naive expectation you have, because you have the luxury of idealism while they're dealing with reality. The best you can do is support someone who's agenda best matches your own and applaud them when they succeed.

It's like pinball. You can use what control you have to push the ball where you want it but you cannot ultimately control where it goes.

This video starts out be denigrating the idea that game theory should influence our choices in politics. Well that's one of the stupidest things he could say. You cannot refuse to throw the dice in monopoly, claim all the properties and believe you're winning. You have to develop the best strategy you can for the best outcome you can manage with the rules that are in place. If you don't like the rules...change them before the next game begins. Of course, that would require you to make an effort in between games. You don't get YouTube views for that.

I think you missed Drachen Jaeger's point - Uber drivers shouldn't be treated as taxi drivers; Uber should be legislated as though they were providing a taxi service. Until that's the case, you can either lower your expectations, or refuse on principle to use Uber.

As for your other rebuttal, Newt already covered it. You don't get to mix up "staying in the car as protest" with "staying in the car because you don't know where you are". The first scenario is unacceptable and shitty; the second could be excused except in this case it obviously isn't. She's at the right hospital, and the Emergency Admission is just a walk away from the car - and she's clearly not in a hurry. She's not in an 'unfamiliar place' and you know it - the driver references the hospital sign, and she readily accepts the hospital personnel saying that it's just a short walk away. That's the specific case we're dealing with - I wouldn't judge her half as harshly if she really was in an unfamiliar place... but why are you bringing it up, when it's not the case here?

She didn't stay in his car because she was legitimately confused about where she was, she stayed in his car to hold him hostage while she lodged her complaint about the service she received. That's not ok, regardless of whether it's Uber, McDonald's, or some super-friendly mom and pop store. You disengage (which he didn't have the luxury of doing) and you figure out how to get justice later.

@transmorpher

It's a little difficult to 'debate' your comment, because the points that you address to me are numbered but don't reference to specific parts of my post. That's probably my fault as i was releasing frustration haphazardly and sarcastically, and that sarcasm wasn't aimed at you. All i can do is try and sum up whether i think we agree or disagree overall.

Essentially everything is a question of 'taste', even for you. There's no escaping our nature, most of us don't drink our own piss, many of us won't swallow our own blood, almost all of us have a flavour that we can't abide because we were fed it as a child. So yes, our decisions are defined by taste. But taste is decided by the food that is available to people, within reasonable distance of their house, at a price they find affordable according to the society around them, from a range of food that is decided by society around them. Your average person does not have the luxury to walk around a high street supermarket selecting the most humane and delicious foods. People get what they can afford, what they understand, what they can prepare and what is available. Our ancestors ate chicken because of necessity of their own kind, their children are exposed to chicken through no fault of their own, fast forward a few generations, and thus chicken becomes an affordable, accessible staple. Can we reach a compromise here? It may not be necessary for chickens to die to feed the human race, but it may be necessary for some people to eat chicken today because of their particular life.

I don't like the use of the phrase 'if i can do it, i know anyone can'. I think it's a mistake to deal in certainties, especially pertaining to lifestyles that you can't possibly know about without having lived them. Are you one of the many homeless people accepting chicken soup from a stranger because it's nourishing, cheap and easy for a stranger to buy, and keeps you warm on the streets? Are you a single mother with coeliac disease, a grumpy teenager and picky toddler who has 20 minutes to get to the supermarket and get something cooking? Or one of the millions using foodbanks in the UK (to our shame) now? I don't think you're willfully turning a blind eye to those people, i'm not tugging heart strings to do you a disservice. Maybe you're just fortunate you not only have the choice, but you have such choice that you can't imagine a life without it. I won't budge an inch on this one, you can't know what people have to do, and we have to accept life is not ideal.

And within that idealism and choice problem we can include illnesses that once again in IDEAL situations could survive without dead animals, nevertheless find it necessary to eat what they can identify and feel safe with.

Yes, those damn gluten hipsters drive me round the bend but only because they make people think that a LITTLE gluten is ok, it makes people take the problem less seriously (see Tumblr feminism... JOKE).

I agree that we must look at what action we can take now - and that is why i keep reminding you that we are not in an ideal world. If the veganism argument is to succeed then you must suggest a reasonable pathway to go from how we are now to whatever situation you would prefer. My "ideal farm" description was just me demonstrating the problem - that you need to show us your blueprint for how we start again without killing animals and feeding everyone we have.

And on that subject, your suggestions need to be backed by real research, otherwise you don't have any real plan. "It's fair to say there is very little risk" is a nice bit of illustrative language but it is not backed by any fact or figure and so i'm compelled to do my Penn and Teller impression and call bullshit. As of right now, the life expectancy of humans is better than it has ever been. It is up to you to prove that changing the diet of 7 billion people will result in neutrality or improvement of health and longevity. That proof must come in the form of large statistical analyses and thorough science. I don't want to sound like i'm being a dick, but any time you state something like that as a fact or with certainty, it needs to be backed up by something. I'm not nit picking and asking for common knowledge to have a citation, but things like this do:

-- 70% of farmland claim
-- 'fair to say very little risk' claim
-- meat gives you cancer claim - i accept it may have a carcinogenic effect but i'll remind you so does breathing, joss-sticks, broccoli, apples and water
-- 'the impact to the planet would be immense' claim - in what way, and what would be the downsides in terms of economy, productivity, health, animal welfare (where are all the animals going to be sent to retire as of day 1?)
-- etc. etc.

Oh, and a cow might get its protein from plants, but it walks around a field all day eating grass, chewing the cud and having sloppy shits with 4 stomachs and enzymes that i don't have................. I'm a bit puzzled by this one... I probably can't survive on what an alligator or a goldfish eats, but i can survive on parts of an alligator or fish. I can't eat enough krill in a day to keep me going, but i can let a whale do it for me...?

Good bit of poetry, i enjoyed it. I don't agree with the sentiment though.

Firstly and most convincingly for me, animals have been eating other animals since there existed anything that might be called an animal. Essentially we evolved as we are because we ate meat.

Secondly, food intolerances/allergies/etc. never seem to be acknowledged by crusading vegans or vegetarians, and i have a real bee in my bonnet about that. I'd love to have the luxury of choice but if i eat something that has been near to something that had gluten in it, i'm going to be bed ridden for days. Depending on where you live, buying ONLY food labelled "gluten free" can go from easy and cheap to near impossible and extortionate. Some people have it even worse than that and have to exclude more. When you aren't making the food yourself, (travelling, visiting friends, all kinds of stuff) sometimes the only thing that you can feel safe eating is meat. No one in that position wants a guilt trip from someone with the freedom to opt in and out of their limitations.

OMG...I was SOOOO hoping you would make that argument.
The 'blanket' minimum wage is the minimum we have decided that those living in the cheapest places to live should be paid. I agree, it should be based on cost of living...but the $15 an hour standard is what we've said should be the minimum in back woods Appalachia, and in larger cities it should be well over $20. Reduce the pay at the top to a reasonably high level and that won't cost most businesses another penny.

OK, bay area....you said ""those who choose to live there need to consider their income" ....ignoring the majority of people who are 'stuck' there without sufficient income; those who've lost financial stability, or those born there to poor parents who have never made any choice, and usually their parents who no longer have a choice to make at this point. They simply can't afford to move. The same goes for most low income people anywhere, they don't "choose" to live there, they don't have the luxury of a 'choice'. ...or are you lobbying for free moving and relocation services for the poor?

10 years ago, $15 an hour was not a living wage in many places, the bay area for one. I left there 20 years ago, and $15 an hour was pretty hard to live on as a single man sharing an apartment THEN, I can't imagine how it is now, especially for those with children.

No, you didn't say ONLY kids living at home have minimum wage jobs, but you did mention them as if they are a large percentage of minimum wage workers, and the group we should focus on, and implied that wages should be determined (at least in part) by THEIR needs. They are in fact the smallest group of minimum wage workers, and even they need more money to eventually move out.

Really? " those unwilling to put in the effort and gain the skill required to actually do a decent service to society." If you really believe a large percentage of people working for minimum wage are "unwilling to put in effort" to better themselves, I just don't know what to say. That's completely batshit insane, they work insanely hard for little compensation, with little respite, and absolutely no respect. Most are putting out more than a reasonable maximum effort just to go deeper into debt constantly, there is no amount of effort that makes more time to make more money to pay for training, or an amount of effort that makes tuition free. Also, who do you think will take over for them if they all put in the effort and gain the skill required to actually do a decent service to society"...(whatever the hell that insulting statement is supposed to mean besides implying they aren't decent or serving society today...by choice)?
What are you talking about "Complacency shouldn't be allowed to make life more difficult for all of us"? WHAT?!? OK, yes, so stop being so complacent about the horrendous way we treat those at the bottom of the financial system because that makes life more difficult for all of us by forcing those with 'more' (but not enough 'more' to avoid taxes) to pay higher taxes for welfare, prisons, policing, housing, etc....by making the nation more crime ridden because it's the only way to make a living for so many...by overtaxing our medical system because so many can't afford to be preemptive with their health and only accept medical help when it's at emergency stage...etc.

If the funds to raise the lowest wages don't come from the extravagant pay that goes to the top and are instead being transferred directly to consumers, yes, it's a vicious cycle. That's why you have to ALSO lower top compensation by law, like maybe tie it to the lowest paid worker in the company. That would stop inflation from being a feedback loop with wages.

What insulting ignorance you display with that first statement.
Let's discuss the bay area, where a studio apartment might cost you $1500 a month + utilities. There, even at $15 an hour, you are working 2 1/2 weeks just to put a roof over your head, then there's utilities, food, gas and insurance because you can't live where you work and don't have 4 hours a day to take public transportation, medical expenses, well, you're already FAR over what you make, and living like a monk. Now think about trying to raise a family of 4, even with 2 incomes it can't be done on $15 an hour...it really is an unwinnable struggle even if both parents have 2 full time jobs each.

You make the typical mistake of thinking that minimum wage jobs are all held by people who don't even really need jobs. That's simply 100% wrong. Most are held by adults that can not support themselves, much less have a family on $15 an hour. The amount of minimum wage jobs held by teenagers is only 20%...and that includes those not living at home. The group you describe as the norm is likely far less than 10% of the minimum wage work force.
http://www.raisetheminimumwage.com/pages/demographics
Also, you ignore the idea that teens that work and live at home should be able to save money to move out, or for school...but even living at home isn't free (just cheaper, usually) and paying them a wage that leaves nothing for the bank means they can NEVER move out and are only going backwards financially. That's a terrible financial trap to design for our youth, and is a direct cause of people turning to crime as a last resort. EDIT:You also ignore the fact that many if not most teens living at home and working work to support the family, not for their own money, and their income is imperative in keeping the family financially viable.

Yes, it wasn't 'that long ago' that $15 an hour was a decent wage...but it was even more recent when <$.79 gas was the norm, or even high, $.99 cigarettes were expensive, $200 a month rent was average or even high, $25 a month water bill was considered excessive, milk was <$1 a gallon at 7/11, health insurance was well under $100 per month (often <$50 per month)....etc. Inflation has raised the price of most 'necessities' by at least a factor of 5 in the last 25 years, but not wages. Luxury items are just out of the picture for those living on minimum wage, so there's no point mentioning their costs.
Those making $15 an hour ARE ALREADY AT THE BOTTOM TODAY. [ EDIT: As I mentioned above, anyone making less than $22 an hour is making less (in purchase power) than minimum wage as it was originally set, they are all at the 'bottom'.] Yes, they should all get a 'boost' as well if life was fair. Clearly it's not, so it's good to prioritize and focus on those below the bottom first, then work upwards. It's also imperative to work from the top down at the same time, as the outrageous compensation at the top is a big part of how/why companies pay those at the bottom so poorly and claim it's all they can afford. If the CEOs keep taking 95% of the profits, the employees can never be paid 'fairly' or even humanely.

So, vegans don't believe homo sapien erectus is part of nature?

Ever see how terrifying every day is for your typical herbivore in the wild?
I'm not saying the factory farms aren't cruel, they are, and they should be abolished, but your typical small-farm animal lives in the lap of luxury before the axe falls (and quickly).

Nature (and corporations) are cruel, man typically isn't.