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[Rolan7]

And competing with municipal transportation services gets really complicated because a purely profit-driven approach leads to some unfortunate "innovations".  Some routes are much more profitable than others, but essential workers rely on routes which may run at a loss.  So the local government has to step in and require (or subsidize) the routes necessary for the local economy not collapsing.

This is why the "privatization" of UK railways is such an interesting mess of the government remaining extremely involved by necessity.

Private taxis and airport shuttle-buses still eat up a lot of the juiciest fares, cutting into municipal transport's bottom line, but some of that is just the price we pay for capitalist efficiency.  Bonus, the municipal transport looks worse!  See also: the US Post Office providing flat rates to anywhere in the continental US because people HAVE to be able to receive mail for society to function, while private delivery get to upcharge for more expensive trips.  So inefficient, that US Post Office, if only it were defunded and eventually privatized.

[scriver]

Look into what they're doing to Sweden post office (and Denmark's, because the Danish post office bought our after it was privatised), soon we'll be back to 18th century standard. Oh and they're tearing out all of the old telephone landlines too since our communications were privatised, leaving only mobile phone overage (which do not cover much of the country). Soon big parts of our country will be virtually uncontactable except maybe once in one or two weeks.

[ChairmanPoo]

Are any of those unpleasant regions, though?

[Vector]

I don't think the American Dream was ever a right - it was always something you had to work toward.  Or did my socioeconomic group get a different version of the pamphlet?  I can see how you have to work differently or perhaps even harder now than decades ago, but never has the American Dream been without work.

Yeah, in my background the dream is land, animals, multigenerational housing and being left the fuck alone (we're "Of Mice and Men" American Dream types if that makes sense). It doesn't actually include that white picket fence + lawn prosperity kind of thing. We measure wealth in, basically, land with water rights and well-made cooking equipment and furniture. I grew up with my mom telling me over and over again about currency revaluation and that the goal has to be holding onto stuff that is high quality and guarantees a good quality of life, not anything about how anyone else values it or what number it says in your bank account. We just had a conversation about how "sometimes the best road to success is through bumfuck nowhere."

My mom and I have agreed on a rough amount of livestock that anyone who marries me is going to have to pay her. Kind of the bare minimum of not being a stolen bride and suggesting that any children produced by the union won't be automatically "improved" into good little suburban capitalists.

[scriver]

I have but a dog, a cat, and two square metres of flax

[Starver]

As whoever-it-is-people-care-to-say-it-is once (more or less) said, "Invest in land, because they're not making it any more".

(Except for the Dutch, obviously. )

[martinuzz]

If only we didn't keep forgetting to actually build stuff on that land.
Average waiting time to be able to rent a home in the low-income segment in my city: 12 years.
Average waiting time in Amsterdam: 17 years.
Children are forced to keep living with their parents until they are 35 if they need a home in Amsterdam.

And if just forgetting to build homes wasn't bad enough, new EU climate and nitrogen emission reduction laws have now cancelled a lot of housing projects on top of that.

[None]

Is that because the speculative value of the land is higher than any property that might get put there now?

Also, what's the deal with housing projects emitting nitrogen? I'm not sure I follow.

[scriver]

Are any of those unpleasant regions, though?

Unfortunately not, Stockholm is still the focus of every private company for some reason

[wierd]

Nitrogen (N2), is probably not the issue. (given the atmosphere is already >70% made of the stuff.)

Nitrous oxides (NO, NO2, NO3) however, are highly reactive greenhouse gasses that contaminate water, destroy concrete, and are generally bad for human health when found in the environment. They are emitted from internal combustion engines that are not equipped with a catalytic converter.

They can also be emitted, along with cyanide compounds, and chloramines, from the combustion or thermal decomposition of certain plastics, such as nylon, or PVC.  This is because amide groups are a mainstay in entire classifications of polymer chemistry, as they form very strong hydrogen bonds, and polymerize nicely. Most synthetic textiles, for instance, are either polyesther or polyamide.  Amides especially contain abundant fixed nitrogen, which can become nitrous oxides, especially under UV exposure, or through direct thermal decomposition with the atmosphere.  The manufacturing process can also produce nitrous oxides.

[None]

Sure, yes, but what's this to do with the housing projects in Amsterdam, per EU requirements?

[wierd]

Construction equipment use internal combustion engines, and usually lack a catalytic converter.  Small movers, like bobcats and forklifts, typically use propane or natural gas. While less likely to emit NOx, they still do.

The Netherlands has instituted some very strong climate impact legislation, which basically implies all electric vehicles will be used exclusively. The problem, is that their infrastructure is still predominantly petrol based.

Again, amide based plastics (which include industrial resins, like epoxy) can release nitrogenous compounds, euther from natural decomposition, heating, or combustion. Those are routinely used in home construction for a variety of applications.

[None]

That seems awfully near-sighted, if the use of conventional heavy machinery or common materials like PVC or epoxy is prohibited without alternatives, and that's enough to cancel whole projects.

[wierd]

Yes, and No.

Likely, they enacted what "actually needs to happen"-- and industry has, predictably, dragged its little feet kicking and screaming.

If they had not enacted the legislation, there would be no "need" (in the eyes of industry) to replace working equipment, and do it RIGHT NOW, like needs to happen. This then produces a chicken and egg problem, where the "need" to replace the equipment comes from the legislation, but the legislation needs the equipment replaced before it makes sense, or becomes practically doable.


As for the issue with industrial resins- I do not know of an answer to that, unless the Netherlands is also willing to start building with alternative building materials, like cob.

[Rolan7]

It doesn't matter if it has a soul or not. At all. And you're very pointedly leaving out the second half when you say things like "women and their bodies". It's "Women and their bodies and the body of the child therein" (by my own belief, mind you). I could care less whether it has some kind of divine spark or whatever, but I do care where we decide that human life begins and ends. It is NOT a question of spiritualism or religion. No matter what you believe, it is we and we alone who decide what a human being is worth. That's the crux. Kidneys do not grow up.

A woman must always have agency over their body. A woman has agency over whether they had sex in this scenario. There is no coercion here, there's the consequences to your actions, nothing more. And if you're looking for verbal shorthand, look no further than the language used in the above posts. "Host" insinuates that the fetus is a parasite. "The one" in need. The language in the arguments above against are by necessity tied to the dehumanization of the fetus/baby even when it's not intended. The entire issue is centered, 100%, around the idea that a human life is or is not lost during abortion.

The only thing you're not being allowed to do is declare a human life as irrelevant because it makes it easier to terminate the pregnancy. We're in a period of awakening right now on this very subject. Human lives do not become worthless when they are the wrong color, or on the wrong side of the border, or in a different tax bracket, or on the wrong end of the law. They DO, however, somehow cease to matter when they interfere with our sexual activity. My wife was NOT healthy enough to have a baby. Then she forgot her pill, I forgot to check even though I suspected she'd forgot, and hey, turns out she's pregnant. We got LUCKY in that it ended up not being necessary, but we had to very seriously consider an abortion. If our son or my wife had died there it would have been because we fucked irresponsibly. Hard Stop. I completely agree with Bumber in that it would have been akin to pulling the plug on a loved one.

If Biden said he was raising my taxes by 5% tomorrow to pay for better sex education and post-natal/foster care, I'd support it without thinking twice. THAT is what we need. The idea that a woman even has to think about terminating a viable pregnancy due to something like financial need or simple unavailability of health care is unconscionable in a modern society. And I fucking hate that our government cares more about using abortion as a talking point then putting resources into any sort of solution. I believe that a human life has intrinsic value. This drives me to oppose racism, it drives me to support treating migrants and immigrants like human beings, it drives me to have compassion for people less well off than me, and it drives my beliefs on abortion.

TLDR: I couldn't care less if it has a divine soul or a divine chicken sandwich. Women should always have agency as well as the final say according to what the law allows. Our nation's care for pregnant women and children is atrocious. Babies die during abortion.

Shaking my head, just another dipshit disregarding women.
Except, no- if you read what he actually said, he has the utmost respect for women.
And knowing him as little as I do, I stand by Dunam's integrity.

And yet, I haven't seen an argument against bodily autonomy.

I have seen convincing arguments that IF embryos are human, with some cutoff, they are human.

Okay!  Lets see those human embryos. - wait

I don't.... quite agree with Rolan, though the analogy certainly applies to cases of rape or medical danger.
 
I got ninja'd by Starver, but I think they've put it quite well. How the fuck do we measure something like self-awareness on a scale of morality? Human society is barely prepared to measure the worth of a grown-ass human being, let alone THAT.

My own position is that a human life is a human life, even before birth. But I have to also acknowledge that 2 cells does not a person make. Where IS that "moral event horizon"? I'm not qualified, and I think humanity isn't going to be fully qualified for... probably generations. I certainly have reasons for my own beliefs, but I don't hold pretentions to all the answers.

Because of this I heavily support as much education as possible, and the easiest access to as much and as varied contraception as possible. I also support welfare/services for parents who need it.

I agree. 
Human life is precious.
Even when they're gestating a potential life.
No life should be sacrificed for the chance of a child.
To force someone to gestate is to deny their personhood.