Honestly, I find some of these points quite disturbing. And a lot of them are not a matter of technology.
13. Keep track of where everybody in my team is physically right now.
I don't want to work with you, ever. 40 hours a week are for the team, sure, but during the remaining 128 you don't have any business in my life. What you propose is creepy.
25. Be able to take a course online and get graded -- and get a diploma that means something. Education is really ripe for disruption: Coursera is OK, but we need to invent Stanford 2.0
For a diploma to mean something, what you need is not to make the courses better, or harder to pass, or whatever you're thinking; what you need is to convince your employer that you have the required skills for your job. The diploma may or may not have something to do with it, but in any case it's your employer's criterion. What you want may happen over time, but it's definitely not a matter of technology.
26. Be able to sell my advice online. It's worth something and I should have some way to monetize it.
Again, it's other people, not you, who will judge whether your advice is valuable. Aside from that, it's not like it's difficult to become some kind of consultant.
30. Get a discount from the federal government for being healthy. Fat people should pay more taxes because they cost society more. This means some approved weigh in and testing centers.
What.
31. Be able to get a $100 MRI. It can be done for this price.
There are a LOT of things that will cost you far, far, far more than what they cost [EDIT: to clarify, that I mean is: far than what they cost to your provider]. This is pretty basic economy, IMHO. Also you may get it for free when you actually need it, if you live in a place with a sane health system (i.e., not the USA).
But yeah, as jokoon said in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8648325, most of those "problems" arise from politics and economy. I suspect that a few of them have actually been tried, and either they're doing fine but in a local scale, or they failed.
Regarding 30. wasn't it recently concluded here on HN that obese people actually end up costing less to society since they tend not to survive into their 80s/90s? Not that his thought is good even if this was not true.
An obese person costs more per year but less per lifetime since he dies sooner. Correspondingly, an obese person should pay more each year but they will pay less over their lifetime.
As far as 30 is concerned, we already make smokers and drinkers pay more taxes through the various huge taxes on cigarettes and alcohol directly (at least in my country). It's not so far fetched, and if it reduces obesity then it's a net good for society.
Sit down with a social worker and try to explain the new weigh in system for a long list of reasons to abandon this concept entirely.
I don't even understand why this list is being taken seriously. The guy basically just said:
I want to have GPS for my dog, be able to buy nice art and, ya know, just live in a society governed by regulated physical fitness like some sort of Nazi.
This is only true if you have high taxes on tobacco products. Those high taxes introduce other distortions -- smuggling of tobacco and increased use of counterfeit product. Smuggling is sometimes done by criminal gangs. Counterfeit product is considerably more harmful than actual products.
The reason we want to stop people from smoking has little to do with the fact that they die earlier, but that they live for years with reduced quality of life and that they harm the health of their children.
>This is only true if you have high taxes on tobacco products. Those high taxes introduce other distortions -- smuggling of tobacco and increased use of counterfeit product.
It also introduces other "distortions", like fewer people smoking, especially kids.
But the UK spends about £8bn treating smoking related illness and gets £12bn from excise duties and we have much higher rates on tobacco products. The UK taxes on cigarettes are high. About 77% of the price of a pack of 20 is tax.
> This is, according to the Treasury, equivalent to more than 2 pence on the basic rate of income tax or over 11 pence on the top rate of income tax. On a typical pack of 20 premium cigarettes the total tax burden of £6.17 ($9.66) ccounts for 77% of the recommended retail price (RRP) of £7.98 ($12.50)
"Be able to get a $100 MRI. It can be done for this price." [...] Also you may get it for free when you actually need it, if you live in a place with a sane health system (i.e., not the USA)."
As someone who lives in Germany where people pay almost 20% of their salary for non-opt-out health insurance, I'm astonished by people that think a state-forced health insurance gets you free MRIs.
In the context of healthcare, "free" means "free at the point of use." This is perfectly sensible, because everybody is aware there is no such thing as healthcare which is literally absent of any cost. Given that, it seems like making this tedious statement every time someone references free healthcare is getting old.
I'd also point out that the insurance rate is actually 15.5%, that people with low incomes are exempt, that the total payment is capped, and that employers contribute around half of this payment.
Yes, the usual nitpick about tax-funded services applies here. It's not actually free, as in it doesn't come from the sky, but if you pay your taxes you're covered, which means that A) you WILL have the service when you need it, with zero cost at the moment of purchase (that is the key here: no headaches related to money, no loans necessary, etc), and B) average Joe pays less in taxes than what he would spend if national healthcare was provided, since when it is not, the high entry barrier allows the development of a price-raising oligopoly.
I guess that it's a matter of opinion, but personally, looking at the state of healthcare in the USA, I'm quite glad I live in Europe.
13. Keep track of where everybody in my team is physically right now. I don't want to work with you, ever. 40 hours a week are for the team, sure, but during the remaining 128 you don't have any business in my life. What you propose is creepy.
25. Be able to take a course online and get graded -- and get a diploma that means something. Education is really ripe for disruption: Coursera is OK, but we need to invent Stanford 2.0 For a diploma to mean something, what you need is not to make the courses better, or harder to pass, or whatever you're thinking; what you need is to convince your employer that you have the required skills for your job. The diploma may or may not have something to do with it, but in any case it's your employer's criterion. What you want may happen over time, but it's definitely not a matter of technology.
26. Be able to sell my advice online. It's worth something and I should have some way to monetize it. Again, it's other people, not you, who will judge whether your advice is valuable. Aside from that, it's not like it's difficult to become some kind of consultant.
30. Get a discount from the federal government for being healthy. Fat people should pay more taxes because they cost society more. This means some approved weigh in and testing centers. What.
31. Be able to get a $100 MRI. It can be done for this price. There are a LOT of things that will cost you far, far, far more than what they cost [EDIT: to clarify, that I mean is: far than what they cost to your provider]. This is pretty basic economy, IMHO. Also you may get it for free when you actually need it, if you live in a place with a sane health system (i.e., not the USA).
But yeah, as jokoon said in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8648325, most of those "problems" arise from politics and economy. I suspect that a few of them have actually been tried, and either they're doing fine but in a local scale, or they failed.