zeke5123a
28d ago
The car seat is real (we just switched to a three row SUV).
Yes vacations get a bit more expensive but there are a lot of other savings.
zeke5123a
29d ago
The cost of childbirth is basically the same (source — my wife with whom I’ve had multiple kids).
The real difference is that there is a diminishing marginal cost to each kid. Your lifestyle changes going from 0-1. Not a big change going from 1-2. Even smaller change going 2-3, etc). Also you can spread financial costs amongst a larger family more easily.
So if child birthing costs are similar and post child birth costs are lower compared to first, provided you get the same benefit out of the next you’d be inclined to have another kid.
I don’t think my wife thinks this way (and no do the other moms of multiples that I know) so I think OP doesn’t know what she is talking about.
zeke5123a
30d ago
I’ve commented before how the “transplant” society makes it really lonely and isolating for stay at home parents
zeke5123a
1mo ago
Sure. But the NY charges were bullshit. The Florida charges may have been politically motivated but they aren’t bullshit.
zeke5123a
1mo ago
To me, there needs to be a way to distill the James Taggarts of the fictional world into an image. Rand wrote outlandish heroes but compelling villains. That imagery is effective.
zeke5123a
1mo ago
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The question with consolidation is whether there are large barriers to entrance. If no, then consolidation allows some degree of economies of scale whilst preventing monopolistic pricing.
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We see that play out in the beer space. Small barriers to entrance means there are numerous craft brewery options and such beers are actually more expensive vis-à-vis the mass produced beer. You would expect if there truly was monopolistic pricing and consolidation prices to rise drastically but we don’t see that.
zeke5123a
1mo ago
The flip side to that is that the parents are dictators and the kids lack agency precisely because they are kids. The intention is not for the kids to be free loaders the rest of their lives but to grow up into fully functioning adults.
zeke5123a
1mo ago
The response to that is 1) men wouldn’t need government if they were angels and 2) animal farm seemed to happen quite often — odd that each and every commie experiment was carried out by a Napoleon.
zeke5123a
1mo ago
Isn’t the simple response “the millions upon millions dead plus the remaining in abject poverty speak for themselves.” Even if the interlocutor responds with a no true Scotsmans defense, point out it was tried a lot more than once and every time it ends in perdition.
zeke5123a
1mo ago
POWs or terrorist being held captive is not the same thing as “held hostage.” Also wonder why IDF killed hundreds of Palestinians but not Egyptians
zeke5123a
1mo ago
Or many people believe the charges for Trump are trumped up kangaroo charges—not that he is graded on a generous curve.
zeke5123a
1mo ago
He’s been living politics for so long now he assumes everyone else has a similar knowledge base.
zeke5123a
1mo ago
I was scratching my head trying to figure out how someone pronounced white sans w. Hey look that guys hite!
zeke5123a
1mo ago
Let’s see:
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He ended Jeb Bush’s political career in a debate.
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He had one of the best lines in debate history “because you’d be in jail” which just might have pushed him over the top in 2016.
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He ended Biden’s political career in a debate.
He did poorly in 2020.
Not sure id say he is a top debater but he surely isn’t bad.
zeke5123a
1mo ago
Agreed 100%. That was by far the weakest and was the most “message” episode of that series.
It is ironic because two of the strongest TNG episodes were court room episodes (The Drumhead and The Measure of the Man). These episodes dealt more with abstract principles instead of shoe horning in the latest thing.
zeke5123a
1mo ago
I think one interesting thing Trump could do is say you were against XYZ and now allegedly coming to my position. The position you labeled deplorable. The position you labeled anti American. Maybe if voters want that position, vote for the guy who didn’t try everything else until they were forced to at the last moment.
zeke5123a
1mo ago
Yeah. The Chris Christie approach re Rubio. Basically “you had that one canned just like you did for Pence—do you have anything to say that isn’t preprogrammed and focus grouped? Do you have something genuine to tell the American people?”
zeke5123a
1mo ago
It doesn’t really work as a political ploy the way it does with Joe. Trump still seems to have some vitality. See his golf outing with the PGA star.
I do think it is fair to ask “what about in three years”
zeke5123a
1mo ago
I know that’s the general consensus. But it seems to me it misses the huge point that technological change likely changes economic systems. If you move to what seems like a post scarcity, then you likely abandon capitalism. But that doesn’t mean you abandon capitalism before you move to a post scarcity economy. That is, ST’s (incoherent) communism doesn’t address today.
zeke5123a
1mo ago
Have you watched SNW? Disco I stopped watching after a few episodes. Picard was garbage for 2/3 seasons. But SNW was decent.
It also is crazy how long kids need to be in car seats these days. I understand the NHTSA data. But it does add annoyance.
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