I was thinking the same thing 10 years ago, but people are still buying houses, the stock market keeps going up. It doesn't make sense. But I lost a lot of money not being more heavily invested and buying a house I could easily afford. I also feel like we're a zombie economy that doesn't know it's dead yet, but all I know is somehow I'm going to be screwed and I won't see it coming.
> In 2013 you couldn't say that prices have nearly doubled since 2013 under ZIRP, which is the argument that buying now would be buying high.
But in 2013 you could say they've nearly doubled since 1998 under ZIRP, and then everything you say applies.
It's also an option on continuing to live in your same COL but a different city, with a nice large house. Worse case, prices fall enough you can afford a new mortgage even if your investment is wiped out. Worst case of renting is you can never buy because houses appreciate faster than you can save. You said
> then you'd still have the entire $380k plus whatever interest it earned.
And it's not enough to buy a house if prices continue up, and you've lived in a cheap (so probably small and undesirable) apartment for years while your friends are building up their household.
Nothing you said is wrong, but you could say that in 2013 too, and in that time apparently prices have nearly doubled and you missed out if you didn't take advantage.
Mortgages are "heads I win, tails you lose" in non-recourse states like California. You're not down more than your down payment, but the upside is huge, and for the past fifty years it has been more financially advantageous to use that leverage to buy the most expensive home they will allow you to.
First, cough syrup ID checking is not about deaths, as nearly none are associated with dextromethorphan abuse (17 from 2000-2010, and most not from OTC). But an estimated 980 deaths/year from acetaminophen abuse: https://www.propublica.org/article/tylenol-mcneil-fda-behind...
So that's a great example: harm adults because young people have access to something which is hardly dangerous, but set them free with multi-ton killing machines once they turn 16 years old and let them buy an actually-deadly medicine with no restrictions.
Regulation which says "adults should easily be able to enable client-side child protection settings on retail devices" would be fine. It's not okay for government to make it necessary for LLM providers to verify my identity.
Essentially no one in the USA fails to get a license if they try for one. There's no ongoing competence testing. Washington State recently failed to advance legislation to make the fourth DUI have a jail sentence because it would be too expensive imprisoning that many people.
> Cars are dangerous.
You can kill yourself with a kitchen knife in your own kitchen. Should be "heavily regulate" that too? How about we have remotely-locked drawers and medicine bottles and you have to talk with a government shrink before opening?
> Comparing anything to a car ... means it should be tightly regulated and controlled
Popsicles come in many colors, just like cars! Regulate the popsicles!
AI is, so far, like having a bottle of acetaminophen. Deadly if used incorrectly. It should be easy to lock away from children. It is not for the government to get in the way of how adults want to use it.
> This is tobacco-industry rhetoric. The relevant facts are frequency, magnitude and novelty
Cars are literally the number one killer of children 0-14 in the United States. More than cancer, more than guns, more than the next 7 reasons combined.
> But AI companies are uniquely defensive, dismissive and negligent when it comes to harming kids.
You should see how people feel if you ask them to give up some street parking to make streets safer for kids and everybody else! Jesus Christ himself gave them the spot in front of their house and fuck you for suggesting they park across the street or on their own property!
China's coal use alone is more than all energy sources in the USA combined. Something like 70% of all energy, then oil, then about 10% renewable. USA is also near 90% fossil fuel but morally natural gas and oil, coal on the way out while China still opening gigawatts of plants yearly.
You mean boomers have been voting against any and every infrastructure investment besides more roads while they lived off the investments of their parents and grandparents? Worse generation in American history.
> because we have an almost infinite number of examples in the US of it doing it.
... before the 1970s. Nothing this millennium, or even the last quarter of the 20th century. It's been, at minimum, 50 years since we've cost-effectively built anything at scale.
Our public transportation infrastructure literally cost 10x per mile than France or Hong Kong. That's not waste to you? For what California has spent/is spending on high-speed rail from nowhere to nowhere, China blanketed their country?
Notice you also left out police. How's our spending working there?
Yes, cancer should be number one. Automobiles should be number 8 or lower, both because we can so something about it and because it's unnecessary. Cancer is a product of living and we're already devoting many resources to it.
cory dot cross at gmail