I’m not from the US and hadn’t heard of this. But are we arguing it WAS socialism?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Acts

From my very cursory reading of the above, seems like imperialism handing out indigenous land to settlers, no?

In conclusion, I’m saying this definitely does not look like socialism to me. Socialism is democratic control over society by the workers, and the Homestead Acts (from my cursoru understanding) don’t seem to be that. Just maybe the tiniest bit better than having massive slave operated holdings by oligarchs.

I like this, but partially because the maths makes it even worse than you stated:

20,000 h / (365.25 d * 4) ≈ 13.7 hrs/day

Sounds fair to me.

Tiny dog breeds are animal cruelty. So much inbreeding, it’s most certainly is not cute, I agree.

Aight, healthcare for everyone (even if it is not equitable, and doesn’t cover a bunch of stuff) can be your definition.

TL;DR for you: Medicare isn’t nearly as good as it should and can be, and it’s kinda sad people call it a “universal healthcare” system.

Also no one forced you to reply. Am I supposed to feel bad for writing out my reasoning in a medium length comment? Just seems like you want to say someone is wrong without actually justifying your position.

Healthcare is whatever medical professionals deem medically necessary, that’s where I would draw the line.

I’m no doctor, but dentistry and optometry is most certainly medically necessary (at least, this is my understanding of what medical professionals say!), and those are largely NOT covered under Medicare.

“Universal” is a superlative. It makes sense that it should mean everything, yes.

Universal is a synonym of all. I’m dying on this hill.

Even if people think it’s just it ‘covers’ everyone, how much it covers is relevant. My hyperbolic example is that just because it covers everyone doesn’t mean we should call it universal if it doesn’t cover everything (or extremely little in the case of the US). I’m saying, if we want to call it universal, it should actually cover you for everything you might actually need for your healthcare.

That is objectively not the case. Medicare does not cover you for a bunch of things, and as discussed in a previous comment, makes you wait months and months for medically necessary but you-won’t-die-today surgery, when we have more than enough wealth in this country to pay for it all.

Universal healthcare should cover all medically necessary healthcare in a timely fashion, private health should receive no subsidy, and you should be ineligible for public healthcare when on private, to make it compete (it won’t, it’ll immediately be a bad deal, which it is).

This isn’t pie-in-the-sky requests, it’s possible, it would just hurt the profits of private insurance companies, and private clinic owners who charge way above the rebate and make you pay out of pocket costs. We can and absolutely should create a fully public system, where people are employees of the health service.

Just pay medical staff properly so we don’t lose anyone to overseas, and let’s make it universal.

Medicare isn’t that good, is the point I was trying to originally make.

Rant over 😅

Thank you for somewhat restoring my head cannon haha

We shall have to agree to disagree then. Calling a healthcare system that doesn’t cover all available healthcare universal just doesn’t make sense.

I can accept that’s what people call it, but that’s about it.

I think they’re wrong.

By this logic the USA has universal healthcare, because a hospital must treat you for emergency, life-saving care, even if you’re unable to pay.

So, the definition is absurd if it’s just that a system covers everyone.

The suffering of a pizza lover food prescriptivist

FTFY

It’s probably just memes and hopefully no one actually feels this way, people getting mad about “proper” Italian food not being made “properly” need to open a history book about how every culture ever has borrowed and remixed ingredients and recipes from other cultures time and time and time again.

(OP I know it’s just a joke and I’m not having a go at you)

TIL then I guess. If I imagine someone saying this in a US accent, I just can’t picture it haha

Universal healthcare means it covers all healthcare. If you’re needing pay pay out of pocket to private providers, and it doesn’t even cover a bunch of things, I refuse to call that universal - and so should you.

Universal means nothing, otherwise.

Medicare defenders really need to dream bigger, damn.

Have you heard of democracy? Why is society so allergic to bringing it to the workplace? You damn well should get to vote on positions that are necessarily hierarchical.

The CEO should be appointed/fired either by a board that’s voted on by the workers (and recallable), or the workers should get to vote for a CEO directly (who should also be recallable).

Some may call this socialism, which yes, it’s a part of it.

telcos

Are we Australians rubbing off on the international English lexicon? I don’t know how to feel about this haha

Yes, but the first one is not true.

Tired of calling what countries like Australia and Germany have as “universal healthcare”.

It isn’t. Simply isn’t.

In the case of Australia most familiar with. It’s a weird mix of public and private, with most medical costs covered under a private subsidy model, where your health service can change whatever, and you have to pay the gap between the Medicare rebate and what the services charges.

Doesn’t cover dental, has a small rebate for physio and other allied health (again, private providers, public rebate) and covers a basic check up for eyes every 3 years only, but doesn’t cover most optical.

The hospital system is also an absolute mess of a two-tiered system I won’t get into here.

It’s not fucking universal and I’m sick of people pretending like it is. It’s just kilometres better than the USA, which is the lowest bar ever.

Good to know :)

Excellent, well that’ll be good when I finally get around to setting up a server!

Is immich stable these days? Looked into it a number of years ago and it wasn’t yet

I think perhaps there has been a misunderstanding because I’m saying none of the above are socialist?

It’s not having it both ways?

The Nordics are not socialism light. The capitalist class are alive and well there. The workers do not have democratic control over the workplaces (unless they happen to be part of a coop), and you’re still able to amass large amounts of wealth on the backs of the working class (there are billionaires from all those countries).

I’m not disagreeing that it’s working better than the “hardcore types” (who I’ve just said aren’t socialist). I’d rather live on the Nordics over China, Vietnam, Cuba etc any day…

I feel like you haven’t actually read my comment :(

On the other hand, the terrible object lesson examples for socialism litter the history books. I’ll take a soft socialism 5/5 times before gambling with Pol Pot, Stalin, Xi, Kim etc., you do you.

In name only. In my opinion, if it’s not democratic, it’s not socialism. But I’m kinda annoyed that you’re implying I think those “examples” are something worthwhile…

There are non-tankies (me) who just wouldn’t call those countries socialist.

When asked if there are current examples of socialism working well. Pretty much no, you get couped by the CIA for that haha

No, I don’t count Cuba, Vietnam, china etc. as socialist.

You can’t have socialism without democracy, because of, ya know, the whole “worker control” thing…

I’m most familiar with China, and there they just have an extra aspect of the ruling class which also includes party position, in addition to wealth…

In conclusion, accurately pointing out that Norway, Sweden and Denmark aren’t socialist, doesn’t mean you’re a tankie.

They’re just more regulated capitalist countries with better social safety nets than the USA.

The thing people forget is that the bowl is part of the cutlery.

It’s why the bowl is so small. You pick it up!

Shovel that rice into your mouth like a pro chopstick user my friend. Stupid western table manners be damned!

(I’m from a western country, I also dislike the silly rule that you can’t bring your face down to your plate/bowl if you’re eating something hard to pick up)

kWh/BTUs or kJ (though usually MJ for gas usage where I’m from)

Ahhh I can rest easy now.

BTUs might be the funniest US Customary unit for the name. The absolute worst US Customary unit for power is tons of refrigeration, I feel violated knowing that’s used at all.