I'm planning on visiting to get some dental work done in the coming months. I have a lot of issues and have never been able to afford proper work here in the US. To get the work done I need here would be in excess of $50,000 but my friend in Taiwan said it would cost at most $1,000 there.
Every time in the past I suggested something like that to my current dentist they had the same reaction, basically:
"Oh I would never do that! You're going to get an infection and/or they are going to do such bad work that no dentist here in the US will want to touch you afterwards."
Doctors in the US are so arrogant, thinking they are the best in the world because they are the most expensive. I would love to move to Taiwan, but I suffer miserably in the jungle weather (hence why I am going in winter).
Edit: As someone with chronic health issues in the US, I have a laundry list of horror stories about doctors here. They are far, far from the best in the world.
As a U.S. based software engineer, I can say that medicine is not the only sector that has over-priced professionals. I get paid a ridiculously high salary compared with my European counterparts. I've honestly always wanted to move to Europe, but the salaries here keep me from doing so. I don't understand how the U.S. gets away with it, to be honest.
With a global economy, I don't understand how we manage to stay competitive. Same goes for Silicon Valley vs the rest of the U.S. I don't understand how there can be such a price differential, and yet the most pricey places seem to win economically.
Most jobs do not function like this, to think otherwise is delusional. At every single employer I've ever worked for, if you left early or came in late despite accomplishing all your work, you would get in trouble. I have seen it happen over and over again.
Typically, they will claim that you could have accomplished more work if you were only there for the extra time, regardless of the reality of the situation. Your time outside of work is worthless to the company, and they would rather waste your time so that they can (possibly) squeeze another drop from you.
I'm curious, this article spins the whole "lower rates of ambulance usage" as a positive thing, but is there enough evidence to say that?
From the article:
_______
With demand for ambulances decreased by available Uber drivers, emergency personnel have been able reach critical patients faster while also applying necessary treatment on the way to the hospital, according to a new economic study from the University of Kansas:
"Given that even a reduction of a few minutes can drastically improve survival rates for serious conditions, this could be associated with a substantial welfare improvement."
The study investigated ambulance rates in 766 U.S. cities from 43 different states. Taking into account the timelines of when Uber entered each city, the researchers found that the app reduced per capita ambulance usage rates by around 7 percent.
_______
Okay they claim the study says "emergency personnel have been able reach critical patients faster" but decreased usage does not necessarily equal faster response time. It would have been much more solid if they actually looked at the ambulance response time, not just how many are being used. (My skeptical side leads me to think this is because that data-set didn't match their narrative.)
There is also the question of: Is this actually a good thing? Are those 7% less people using ambulances all not having serious health issues? Especially when something is wrong, you are often not a good judge of your own health.
How many people having chest pain thought it wasn't too bad so they called an Uber instead of an ambulance and died on the way to the hospital? Might not have turned out that way if they just called an ambulance in the first place..
Need more data to decide if this is an Uber propaganda piece.
I agree. 7% is a really low number, and people shouldn't be afraid to call an ambulance just to save money. That's fucked up. Especially with comments talking about strokes and heart attacks. In most western countries, this isn't even an issue.
I honestly question of the numbers are even statically significant, but even if they are, this is seriously fucked up and not something Americans should be proud of at all!
>Need more data to decide if this is an Uber propaganda piece.
Well, they could ask Uber for all the rides they made to the ER and see if - roughly - the numbers match with the claimed 7% reduction of ambulance calls.
I mean, a lot of people may have - coincidentally in the same period Uber came to the cities - become aware of the high cost of ambulance, or lost their insurance or whatever other reason and used taxis or some other means.
After all the study takes into account what happened over very roughly 3 years 2012-2015, how many people read (say):
If there was a "penetration rate" (which is not the same thing as "establishing the service") and a direct correlation with roughly the same number of UberX rides to the ER and of less ambulance calls then it would IMHO sound much more credible.
There are 8 billion humans. So we should be allowed to hunt a few hundred thousand a year without anyone having a problem with it.
The problem isn't primarily about the numbers of minke whales. It's that they are hunting what many people consider a sentient species, in an inhuman way. In most parts of the world, you aren't allowed to slaughter an animal (at least in theory) in a way that causes pain or distress. With whales there is no reasonable way of doing this due to their size.
Are you serious with this?
You are just as clueless as these idiot politicians.
More often than not people are NOT responsible for their outcome. It is a genetic lottery. Will you be born into money? Then you're set for life. Not born into money? You're going to struggle and have to work much harder just to survive, let alone get ahead. That's unlikely to happen.
So a big old FRAK YOU to the arrogant assholes who claim poor people just need to work harder and be smarter, when I promise you they work much harder than yourself. Friends with that piece of human garbage Jason Chaffetz? He tells people they need to stop wasting their money (that they don't have) while he gets everything in his entire life paid for by rich donors who control his vote. Fuck. You.
Some people get off on tomb-stoning large amounts of data. Let him have his moment. Tweets are equivalent to taking a dandelion that's seeded and blowing it into the wind.
Yup, this. And given that he states twice in his spiel that he "had no reason to suspect the package would be lost" it is almost laughable. Has any single person in history sent a package and said "Well I expect this will get lost in transit!" ?
These terms were coined before the Americas were discovered by Europeans.
Europe was the West, then you have the Middle East, then the Far East (China, Japan). That was the whole world to them pretty much. When the Americas were discovered they were known as the New World, and eventually became known as the West as well (Due to the fact that most of our culture comes from Europe, eg. Western Culture).
No one is debating the sporty performance of your VW. You dismiss all criticisms of them immediately and go on to talk about your lovely driving experience, making it seem like you either work for VW or have a vested interest in them, so your opinion instantly counts as worthless in my book. If a person had done what VW did they would be in jail, but because we as a society have determined that rich people are much more important than poor people, this will never happen.
I wasn't dismissing the criticisms; in fact I tried to disclaim that. My point was that notwithstanding the valid criticisms, they appear to be producing cars that in my mind would appeal to consumers so it doesn't surprise me if they were seeing significant sales. Whether they're capable of doing so precisely because they violate those rules is beyond my knowledge.
For the record, I absolutely do not work for VW or indeed in the automotive industry in any way, and I neither gain nor lose any value whatsoever if they flourish or go bankrupt. To repeat: I wasn't astroturfing, I was trying to express my own personal opinion on why they may see these sales in spite of their negative press about cheating emissions controls.
I agree that I could've made that more clear in the OP though, had I not just typed it as a stream of consciousness during my lunch break. I can't edit this disclaimer into the OP or reword it, though, so it will have to remain here instead.
As I said, I would've liked to reword the original to say something along the lines of "Notwithstanding the valid criticisms about their cheating of emissions requirements..." and also clarified that the above experience I had explains why to me it's not surprising that consumers are buying more VWs. Unfortunately, I can't change the post, which is why I had to say it in the reply. The criticisms of VW are valid - their cheating of the emissions requirements is something that should be punished way more than it has been.
I closed out my post with the criticism of the Vauxhall to give contrast to my experience with two contemporary cars. I drive a '98 Camry at home, so I don't have experience with cars younger than ~20 years normally. This gave me a good chance to experience them and it highlighted how different the two vehicles were, especially since they were both hired out by Europcar as the same category of vehicle.
Also please note that I was trying to praise the vehicle, not mate a statement about VW themselves. Per the above, they were wrong for cheating emissions requirements. Regardless of whether it was achieved legitimately or not though, my post was trying to put into words why I find it unsurprising that many people are buying VW vehicles if the Polo was an example of what they're producing.
I said that I'm not sure whether their cheating of emissions is the reason why they can produce a compelling car, not whether it is an 'advantage'. It's undeniably an advantage - if nothing else, cheating on that helps to illegitimately sell cars to people who want 'greener' cars. What I am saying, however, is that I don't know if that translates to their ability to produce an all-round compelling car that appeals to a large market enough to explain significant increases in sales (i.e.: because it is the differentiator between a car with rubbish/good fuel efficiency, or rubbish/good performance). I simply don't know, which is why I said that.
When I post on HN, I consider whether my input could add to the discussion. The article was about VW seeing higher sales volumes than Toyota, yet the discussion was focused purely on their cheating of emissions requirements. I felt my comment could add to the discussion by providing one anecdote about my experience with their car and how, more generally, that might translate to why consumers are buying the vehicles.
The reality is that I can't come show you in person my boarding pass for my holiday there and my booking receipt from hiring the car. I can't show you my employment history or bank accounts showing no financial incentive to say what I said. There's no way I can convince you of any of it unless you decide to convince yourself that I'm not a shill by going through my post history or something, and I suspect you have no desire to do that whatsoever so there's simply nothing I can do short of trying to explain the rationale behind my post as my defence. The reason I'm trying to do that is because, per above, I legitimately try to contribute meaningful input to HN and so being called a lying shill runs counter to that.
edit: For what little it's worth, I didn't downvote you, though I just saw you have been. I think there's a valid place for you having called me out because you've done it fairly respectfully and some level of scepticism is always warranted. Certianly you made me explain myself which helps others who read it gain a better understanding of what I was trying to say (evidently badly) in my OP.
I find it hilarious how some people here are directing vitriol at VW because of emissions while it is perfectly acceptable, particularly in the US, to drive ridiculously oversized trucks. I'm sure that a Polo with manipulated software still has still a much better environmental record than your average truck. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Every time in the past I suggested something like that to my current dentist they had the same reaction, basically: "Oh I would never do that! You're going to get an infection and/or they are going to do such bad work that no dentist here in the US will want to touch you afterwards."
Doctors in the US are so arrogant, thinking they are the best in the world because they are the most expensive. I would love to move to Taiwan, but I suffer miserably in the jungle weather (hence why I am going in winter).
Edit: As someone with chronic health issues in the US, I have a laundry list of horror stories about doctors here. They are far, far from the best in the world.