This is fun. This is the moment in history when the fire department stops being an example of successful socialism.
The government made a situation in which there's no water available. That's the problem with socialism: it's a monopoly without an incentive structure to continue providing services. It's great until the government fucks up the service so badly that nobody can get access to it. Then the socialized thing becomes a nothing.
Are you saying privatizing systems makes them better prepared for extreme circumstances? The energy infrastructure in Texas is an example where they aren't incentives to invest in rare occurrences and therefore people die when it snows in Texas.
Fire fighting is a category that has tried privatized model and thoroughly thoroughly shown to not work at all as a privatized endeavor.
Key problem in that is that requires the firefighters to protect only properties that have paid for their services. So a wildfire breaks out in the middle of nowhere, and you see it, but no one pays to protect "middle of nowhere", so business wise it doesn't make sense to fight a fire without a customer. Nevertheless, that's your only hope to control it, so you end up protecting a whole lot of non-subscribers to try to protect your subscribers. What if your customer is surrounded by non-customers? You shouldn't fight fires back, but unless you push back on the neighbor properties your customer gets burned. If you know your neighbors have protection, you might opt out knowing that, practically speaking, their coverage means you get covered.
Another problem is that privatized suggests competition. Which means coordinated response is severely limited. Also, they can't run parallel fire hydrant infrastructure in any reasonable way, so water on the truck or from the customer direct are all you can get. This is a recipe for being highly ineffective.
This is putting aside how private industry loves to optimize around the normal day to day demand. Being prepared at all times for the worst case is expensive, so private industry tends to shit the bed when faced with a catastrophe because they only have the modest capacity to keep expenses under control. When this is something like a shortage of smartphones, no big deal people just have to wait for the scenario to subside and get by as-is, it's worth it to have affordable smartphones 99% of the time. But for a wildfire that would cause multiple gigantic catastrophes a year. What we see in LA now would be a routine disaster in the privatized scenario.
This was a case of not being prepared for climate change. There was four times the normal demand for 15 hours straight. The water ran out because nobody anticipated needing the amount they did. That wasn't because of socialism.
Yes, let's scrap the whole thing because of this one fire. /s
There are 50 wildfires burning in the US right now, and that's a very low number, only because it's winter.
Do you realize just even 20 years ago how many kids used to die in fires? We're doing fantastic. 50 years ago, I'd wager everyone knew a kid that died in a fire.
Get fucked Keith, Crassus and his shitty private firemen haven't been around for a fat minute. But hey you should celebrate, this is your free market paradise right here. Meteorological markets shorted the value of your home's existence.
He's gonna get an insurance payout like almost everyone there. I wouldn't be surprised if state legislature takes tax money from the masses to make the rich who live there 'whole' on top of it.
Then there's FEMA/Federal tax dollars that they'll get even if the state government doesn't hand them piles of cash.
They always get their payday. They never actually risk anything, they just steal from the middle class taxpayers.
People need to realize the rich are not smart. And when they fuck things up, we all suffer.
It’s nice to see them fuck around and find out, but we cannot afford to keep watching them find out on climate change. They’re going to get us all killed.
Crazy thing is that there are people who genuinely think he is very smart, because he uses bots on social media to promote that image and it works as we can see.
"The rich" created an environment for this to happen by making sure the government could not regulate anythingand be effective in addressing any issues such as climate change, insurance, public utilities. You name it they fucked with it.
I know! But I always bog myself down with moralistic, philosophical questions like "is that how they got started?" and "does that make me as loathsome as them?"
Questions they I doubt they ever felt the weight of.
Just send them official looking bills with obtuse language describing the billed work. Many will just pay them without looking further into things. I once did a landscaping delivery to some nouveau riche looking a-hole who bragged about being so busy and rich, that he just payed whatever bills came in. He also wasn't that rich, but liked to look the part. Probably swimming in debt right now.
Welcome to the days before professional police and fire. Where only the wealthy could afford to pay for their homes to be protected or crimes against them to be pursued. The poor had to hope for community to come to their aid.
Calling it: Trump will privatize those services to ensure rich people never have to watch their houses burn because the firefighters were busy saving poors
I feel really bad for the lungs of all the Angelinos who don't deserve this, but I can't say I haven't enjoyed the fact that this fire is centered around an area where a bunch of rich fucks have their mansions.
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me.
Anybody who claims crypto is useful for buying drugs is a fed. The blockchain contains the transaction history, you can trace a coin back to every wallet it's ever been in. Buy your drugs with cash, but make sure the cash has been places: cash from an ATM might have no history aside from you withdrawing it.
I'm unsure about the drug trade, but isn't Monero preferred for ransomware because it's harder to track than Bitcoin and other crypto? I would assume if it's good enough for ransomware hostage, it'd be sufficient for illicit purchases.
Ancient Rome had privatized fire department. Caesar's friend Crassus got the job and used it to extort people to sell their homes in a neighborhood when a fire broke out. As a result he became one of the richest people in history.
He was also killed by the Persians who poured liquid gold (or silver, depending on source) on his decapitated head and sent it back to Rome.
America's original firefighters were private industry as well. They were known to loot peoples property and allow fires to spread in order to charge more for putting out multiple buildings. So it sounds like we have about 2000 years of history telling us private firefighters aren't a great idea.
Unfortunately, if his house does burn down, he's just going to blame public services for their failure to protect his home, and then claim that privatized fire services would have been better.
The irony may be lost in him, but if he had advocated for his neighbors to have the resources they needed to prevent their house from burning, the imminent risk he's now facing to his house would not be a threat. The individualistic mindset of fire prevention, disease spread, etc is so flawed. The best way to protect yourself is to make sure your neighbors are protected, and for them to do the same to you.
(supposed to be Crassus according to wikipedia, who was a roman that was infamous for, among other things, having a private fire brigade that would take financial advantage of people whose homes were burning)
Well, he’s a founding member and CEO of a company that is basically a corporate landlord and specifically profits off of car culture (apartment buildings and self-storage.) So he’s a leech on the working class, moreso than the typical member of the capital class.
FYI, in The United States ALL FIREFIGHTERS were private, and would demand to be paid BEFORE putting out a fire on private property or a business. Private Fire Brigades were the only "proffessional" firefighting available and if you didn't have the case your shit burned. Private Fire Brigades would often go to war with each other with fists, knives, and firearms over the right to collect duty and fight a particular fire.
While it's broadly accurate that private fire brigades were highly competitive and staunchly capitalist (and exploitative in nature), the idea that any of them would refuse to put out a fire without first being paid has been debunked.
It's not impossible that it happened on some occasion, but in general this would have been a horrifyingly terrible business decision: not only would they be lambasted by their competitors, but they usually covered at least some of the neighbors of any given burning property. It would have made their jobs infinitely more difficult when it came time to make good on protecting their clients if they let nearby fires grow (and grow they would, very quickly).
See here for a retraction of a previous piece by Tom Scott on this topic as it relates to the UK, where these stories originated, including reference to a correction of his original source, the London Fire Brigade Museum's webpage. https://youtu.be/Wif1EAgEQKI?si=vgjotkm19mrJGjyU All of the points made in that video about the UK apply the same to the US, as far as I'm aware
What DID actually happen was that brigades would send someone to prevent their competitors from putting out the fire before they could arrive (e.g. by blocking access to a hydrant/water main) in an effort to guarantee they would get the payout for putting it out. Similarly shitty, for sure, but not quite the same
Posts like these are why the next regime in both LA and California will be more conservative, even if that just means centrist.
The way these fires have unfolded indicate a pretty big failure of state and local government. It's not the first time both entities have been caught unprepared for stuff like this.
Instead of having an honest conversation, the liberal world is just going "Drunpf bad". Eventually most people are just gonna vote for someone who promises to fix things.
Don’t wanna be that person, I don’t think it’s okay to make fun of someone else’s misery. I can’t speak to the ethics and morality of this tweet dude, but not everyone who’s rich is an immoral or unethical person, and not everyone who’s working class has morals or ethics. People should aim to do better for each other. Maybe I am just naive to want something like that.
I feel like it was the Trump supporting Republicans that really ignited the us-vs-them mentality though. So here we are playing their game, and people are upset that we won't have compassion toward the people who are trying to beat us down? I'm just speaking in general--I don't know who the guy was, how rich he is, or if he actually is a Trump supporter tbh.
No that’s fair, which is why I said that I don’t know whether this tweet person is someone anti-social or sociopathic. A person doesn’t have to extend compassion or empathy to anyone who wants to harm them, or is some sociopath or psychopath (unless the sociopath/psychopath is going through some kind of psychological treatment for a disorder).
I know, that’s why the face eating leopard memes are funny too. People say a lot of thoughtless things out of biases and indoctrination. Some people will never learn, only thing which makes sense is to tax the wealthy so they stop corrupting democracy.
There are thousands of other people in LA who don't have "any amount of money" to pay to save their burning homes. I have sympathy for all of them and I'm sure they would all wish the same, but someone thinking they deserve better than everyone else just because they have wealth is immoral just on the face of it, no matter how "good" of a person they are otherwise.
In fact, I would argue the poorer people's homes should be a priority because they would have a higher portion of their net worth tied up in their home and losing it could ruin them financially. By his own admission, this guy has "any amount of money" to rebuild his home too.
I agree with you in principle. But I don’t think this tweet guy is saying everyone else’s house should be ignored in favor of his, instead it was more like “can I hire someone quickly to prevent damage to me and my neighbors”. I know people can make a lot of snap judgments about others on race, class, gender etc. I just don’t think it’s fair or just to do that.