If Irony were an actual element or compound, you would now have cornered the market.
I do not know what else to say except that I am glad things turned out better and that your sarcastic wit is unimpaired. Looking forward to further writings. May bad events and ill luck stay far from your door.
Glad the problems were resolved. Milton Friedman did think that government could address actual fraud, and most libertarians or libertarian-ish people agree. Ayn Rand agreed, but of course she had a convoluted explanation as to why fraud is a species of force.
I think one problem is that cell phone providers compete on price but not anything else. I’d pay a little more if I were promised that the call centers would be staffed by actual Americans who speak English and can understand an actual sentence.
You can try Patriot Mobile, PureTalk, or even Consumer Cellular, who I know (or have at least been told) have US based call service.
You can also try chatting on social media to get resolution, as I have a cable provider that I can get positive responses from in a few minutes by using things like X platform.
When people, corporations, governments, who-or-whatever escape accountability for their actions, the system breaks down.
And as much as we all want to believe ‘the arc of the moral universe … bends towards justice,’ it often doesn’t feel that way in our everyday lives.
So occasionally finding the right leverage to bend that arc a little faster can prove very satisfying. Glad you happened across the right lever to pull.
Wow! Excellent. Holly wins (well at least survives intact and potentially in even better shape). One item I can change from my petition prayer list to my thank you prayer list. Now all I have to do is pray for your peace of mind in organizing your new place to your satisfaction <end sarcasm>. Yes, government is force, and sometimes force is necessary to solve the problems created by others as those suffering under the "end the police" madmen are finding out.
I have always understood "free market" to mean (1) low barriers to entry, and (2) free flow of information. When there is a monopoly, or near monopoly, requirement (1) is violated. As Lily Tomlin used to say in her role as Ernestine the telephone operator on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (long before your time), "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company"
Similarly, I rather suspect that most of your landlord's tenants and peers don't know about his escapades with auto accidents, and therefore he suffers no reputational risk that would cost him friendship or rent money. That violates requirement (2).
Free markets do work, mostly - but many people think "free market" means the unfettered market, where businesses are not obligated to disclose relevant information, and can block competition. The only way to fix that is indeed the government, when it is not wholly bought by businesses.
Either one works; whether government helps a business kneecap its competitors or conceal relevant information because of corrupt payments or because it is easy, it diminishes the free market.
Years ago we were trying to set up cable in a new condo. Ours was the last unit to be occupied and the whole building was pre-wired; no doubt every other unit had been accessing cable TV for months/years. However, since our unit had never had an account associated with it, the unit Did. Not. Exist. Even though A and B units and D and E units had accounts, unit C would require someone to prove the unit's existence (with accompanying paperwork and permissions). After several attempts at logic meeting illogic failed to produce results, my husband stated he would be contacting the Public Service Commission. And the next day we got a call to schedule the set-up in our (suddenly existing!) condo. Sigh.
It really is nice to know that there are some competent and helpful government employees willing to tackle your problems head on. I have been there myself. Don't even get me started on the IRS--except for the last IRS supervisor who was really, really helpful and ended a 2 year plus journey of "the check is in the mail"--or on the overseas "help" teams (especially since many of them don't speak English as well as the average 12 month old).
Good luck getting settled in! Glad you're back and had a great conference!
I don't know what the telecoms market is like in the US, but here in the UK, it's a hugely inefficient oligopoly with resultant poor customer service and has been for years. It's hard to have real competition because the barriers to entry are very high.
I'm pleased for the good news and looking forward to the George Washington and social media posts.
Gosh. If someone made me paranoid that every corner of my eye movement was a mouse, I might need to scream and have a man come over and check. Regularly. Daily. 😝
Good to know you're back to winning again, and if you feel it appropiate, I would love to hear about your time at the retreat, and how it differs from the therapy sessions that you sometimes write about.
>Translation: the only reason anything got fixed is because the government made them do it.
I've been thinking a lot about this and I feel the same annoyance. I think the truth of the matter is that any institution, be it a company like Verizon or the government, can get sclerotic and bureaucratic. Once they get too big, they just suck.
In machine learning there is this fundamental concept called back propagation which is how you adjust weights in a multi-layer network when you are training it on data. Basically it is a way to assign blame proportionally and without this we'd never have trained neural networks effectively. I have a suspicion that when any organization gets too big, the assignment of blame fails to work and that's why they get unresponsive and stupid.
And once that organization is bricked, there isn't much you can do with it. Sometimes you can find a "bigger bully" like you did, to whack it into working. I suspect that's one way how people on the left and right are different. People on the believe think companies get big, dumb, and greedy and you need government to be the bigger bully, while people on the right think government gets big, dumb, and lazy and you need free market to be the bigger bully.
“Some of you want to argue with me, but you’re wrong” Evergreen comment
Ha ha, IKR?
It’s early in the morning for so much truth.
If Irony were an actual element or compound, you would now have cornered the market.
I do not know what else to say except that I am glad things turned out better and that your sarcastic wit is unimpaired. Looking forward to further writings. May bad events and ill luck stay far from your door.
Glad the problems were resolved. Milton Friedman did think that government could address actual fraud, and most libertarians or libertarian-ish people agree. Ayn Rand agreed, but of course she had a convoluted explanation as to why fraud is a species of force.
I think one problem is that cell phone providers compete on price but not anything else. I’d pay a little more if I were promised that the call centers would be staffed by actual Americans who speak English and can understand an actual sentence.
You can try Patriot Mobile, PureTalk, or even Consumer Cellular, who I know (or have at least been told) have US based call service.
You can also try chatting on social media to get resolution, as I have a cable provider that I can get positive responses from in a few minutes by using things like X platform.
I have had a really good experience with Puretalk. I only called them once or twice for help but they were always Americans and easy to understand.
It boils down to accountability.
When people, corporations, governments, who-or-whatever escape accountability for their actions, the system breaks down.
And as much as we all want to believe ‘the arc of the moral universe … bends towards justice,’ it often doesn’t feel that way in our everyday lives.
So occasionally finding the right leverage to bend that arc a little faster can prove very satisfying. Glad you happened across the right lever to pull.
Wow! Excellent. Holly wins (well at least survives intact and potentially in even better shape). One item I can change from my petition prayer list to my thank you prayer list. Now all I have to do is pray for your peace of mind in organizing your new place to your satisfaction <end sarcasm>. Yes, government is force, and sometimes force is necessary to solve the problems created by others as those suffering under the "end the police" madmen are finding out.
We have very few free markets, these days.
I have always understood "free market" to mean (1) low barriers to entry, and (2) free flow of information. When there is a monopoly, or near monopoly, requirement (1) is violated. As Lily Tomlin used to say in her role as Ernestine the telephone operator on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (long before your time), "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company"
Similarly, I rather suspect that most of your landlord's tenants and peers don't know about his escapades with auto accidents, and therefore he suffers no reputational risk that would cost him friendship or rent money. That violates requirement (2).
Free markets do work, mostly - but many people think "free market" means the unfettered market, where businesses are not obligated to disclose relevant information, and can block competition. The only way to fix that is indeed the government, when it is not wholly bought by businesses.
One ringy-dinghy!
when it is not wholly bought by businesses
or did you mean not wholly in bed with businesses?
Either one works; whether government helps a business kneecap its competitors or conceal relevant information because of corrupt payments or because it is easy, it diminishes the free market.
Years ago we were trying to set up cable in a new condo. Ours was the last unit to be occupied and the whole building was pre-wired; no doubt every other unit had been accessing cable TV for months/years. However, since our unit had never had an account associated with it, the unit Did. Not. Exist. Even though A and B units and D and E units had accounts, unit C would require someone to prove the unit's existence (with accompanying paperwork and permissions). After several attempts at logic meeting illogic failed to produce results, my husband stated he would be contacting the Public Service Commission. And the next day we got a call to schedule the set-up in our (suddenly existing!) condo. Sigh.
I know the thing about the alphabet Christmas carol (No L) but I don't think I know the joke that includes No C (unless it has to do with no see)!
Here's hoping your new home stays safe and enjoyable.
It really is nice to know that there are some competent and helpful government employees willing to tackle your problems head on. I have been there myself. Don't even get me started on the IRS--except for the last IRS supervisor who was really, really helpful and ended a 2 year plus journey of "the check is in the mail"--or on the overseas "help" teams (especially since many of them don't speak English as well as the average 12 month old).
Good luck getting settled in! Glad you're back and had a great conference!
I don't know what the telecoms market is like in the US, but here in the UK, it's a hugely inefficient oligopoly with resultant poor customer service and has been for years. It's hard to have real competition because the barriers to entry are very high.
I'm pleased for the good news and looking forward to the George Washington and social media posts.
So happy you got a new apartment and the Verizon issue was resolved! That's awesome.
Lemme know when you're feeling settled and I'll bring some housewarming mice from the country!
Gosh. If someone made me paranoid that every corner of my eye movement was a mouse, I might need to scream and have a man come over and check. Regularly. Daily. 😝
Good to know you're back to winning again, and if you feel it appropiate, I would love to hear about your time at the retreat, and how it differs from the therapy sessions that you sometimes write about.
I don’t know what a private enterprise consumer protection service might look like, but government has probably preempted the role.
well, regardless of the how, I'm grateful the what turned out in your favor.
>Translation: the only reason anything got fixed is because the government made them do it.
I've been thinking a lot about this and I feel the same annoyance. I think the truth of the matter is that any institution, be it a company like Verizon or the government, can get sclerotic and bureaucratic. Once they get too big, they just suck.
In machine learning there is this fundamental concept called back propagation which is how you adjust weights in a multi-layer network when you are training it on data. Basically it is a way to assign blame proportionally and without this we'd never have trained neural networks effectively. I have a suspicion that when any organization gets too big, the assignment of blame fails to work and that's why they get unresponsive and stupid.
And once that organization is bricked, there isn't much you can do with it. Sometimes you can find a "bigger bully" like you did, to whack it into working. I suspect that's one way how people on the left and right are different. People on the believe think companies get big, dumb, and greedy and you need government to be the bigger bully, while people on the right think government gets big, dumb, and lazy and you need free market to be the bigger bully.