What I observe with the majority of people: they are fully capable of being free-thinking individuals, but the main way they use this capability is to follow the crowd.

With herd animals that are prey creatures (i.e. cattle, sheep) this makes sense in terms of survival. There is safety in numbers. Stray from the herd, and you get targeted by ever-present predators.

With humans, who are at the top of the food chain and generally have no natural predators, it's just a form of cowardice. I'm not sure the DNA of fruit flies is going to provide a satisfying explanation here, at least not one that can be extrapolated to include people, fascinating though it may be.

Specifically, I am referring to a return to federalism, with the vast majority of citizens' government coming from the state and local levels. You know, the way this system was intended to work.

Or any soy product that has not been fermented...

Most of the time that's correct, but I see it with surprising frequency on level terrain. I think most of them are simply not paying full attention to the road; perhaps they're fiddling with a cell phone.

It's the same reason people sometimes fail to notice that the light has turned green. I mean, why should they pay attention, it's not like they're *driving* or anything...

Apparently this is confusing some of you. So I'll explain how it works in the USA.

Hypothetically, let's say you cause a car accident, as in this imaginary accident is 100% your fault. As a result of this accident, another person is injured and requires medical care. Your own car insurance policy has a line item called Bodily Injury Coverage. That coverage would pay for the injured person's medical expenses.

The injured person would not file a claim with their health insurance company (assuming they have one) because you, as the person who caused the accident, are held responsible for any expenses you caused to the injured person.

I was simply asking if car insurance works that way overseas. Instead of a private insurance company that you may or may not have, you have NHS. While the NHS is provided as a public service, the care they provide does have a cost. I wanted to know if NHS bears that cost even when there is an at-fault party who caused the problem, or whether in those specific cases, the at-fault party (via their car insurance liability policy) was expected to cover it.

You could ask me that, yes. Or you could put just a slight bit of thought into it and consider that there is a more reasonable alternative, which is that the drunk driver's insurance would cover this as part of liability coverage. Perhaps NHS could kick in if that's unavailable?

There's loads of ways this could be done, and since I am not knowledgable about the nuances of laws governing nations across the Atlantic, I ask questions instead of making assumptions. That's all.

I don't like replying to my own post, but I thought of something that was worth adding. What is happening now to the word "libertarian" is just like what happened to the word "hacker".

If you say "that guy's a hacker" the average person will imagine something nefarious, probably criminal, perhaps something involving identity theft. They aren't likely to picture a hobbyist and technology enthusiast who, by means of skill, manages to get devices (that they legitimately own) to perform creative and useful functions (which harm no one) that were never envisioned by their original makers.

The difference is, "hackers" have gotten so much negative attention in the mass media that the original term is gone and it isn't coming back. The only rational response is to accept this and move on. I don't believe "libertarian" is at that point yet, though it's heading there fast. Is reclaiming a word so important to me? In and of itself, no, not really. What's important to me is for people like you to wake up and realize how easy it is to manipulate you, to prevent you from ever entertaining entire categories of thought and philosophy and thereby to steer your thinking, merely by toying with words. I think that deserves some importance.

I'm a little-'l' libertarian and I think simple, reasonable, easily-understood regulations like this are not only perfectly acceptable, but highly desirable. As a libertarian I want minimal government. A government that does not provide reasonable regulations is less than minimal and therefore a failure. Minimal is "greater than nothing", you see, and something greater than nothing but still less than minimal is ... still a failure. I can't break it down any more simply than that.

I've never actually met or corresponded with an anarcho-capitalist who called themselves a "libertarian" (which is what you and so many others are ignorantly assuming to be representative of libertarian thought), though I have corresponded with multiple anarcho-capitalists who called themselves "anarchists" or "anarcho-capitalists". Their ideas were interesting to be sure, but just like communism, seemed designed for a species other than our own. That's why I don't count myself among them.

The problem here is that your standard "progressive" and "conservative" political schools of thought have millions of members and powerful parties backing them. That means they have great PR. Both would be quite threatened if reasonable libertarian thought really caught on. It's not exactly shocking that reasonable libertarian thought is seldom portrayed, except by individuals like me. Of course it will be distorted, misrepresented, and shown in only its most extreme and unworkable forms, until the average person finds it distasteful like an automatic reflex. Like I said, it's called PR, and it's quite common in politics. It only works because it depends on your ignorance.

Do you self-report the km driven per year, or do they have some type of system in place to track this?

Perhaps, but I really doubt so many people are attempting to hypermile in SUVs, large pick-up trucks, and other vehicles unlikely to be chosen for such a purpose. I also doubt hypermiling is so popular that I would see it every day I drive, though I admit I haven't surveyed a representative sample so I don't know that.

Observing the same drivers, they tend to accelerate v.e.r.y s.l.o.w.l.y and will randomly speed up or slow down for no apparent reason. I would expect a hypermiler to know that accelerating more quickly and then maintaining a steady speed is more fuel-efficient. Finally, to hypermile one must put continuous effort into a conscious awareness of one's driving habits, which (as explained in my lengthy post above) is inconsistent with other behaviors I see that cannot have a constructive purpose.

Can you explain further, please? Does NHS pay for medical treatement no matter what? Or is there such a concept as, "your negligence or malice directly caused this medical expense that otherwise would not have happened, so yes you are liable?".

At least in my mind, there's a huge difference between "this person has an infection, or cancer, or heart disease" versus "this person was hurt because a drunk driver ran straight through a stop sign and crashed into them". Does your law make such a distinction?

They need to sprinkle a few of those onto the front page every now and then, to break up all of the "Google did something!", "Apple did something too!", and "Microsoft hasn't done much lately!" stories. At least the systemd stories tend to cause some interesting and amusing debates (incidentally, Gentoo with OpenRC here).

The day I read such a biased Slashdot story and don't see at least one comment like this will be the day I stop visiting this site, for on that day it will have lost all value to me. If all you want is a news aggregator there are better ones available. Some of them even have proper editors who copy-edit, attempt to vet stories, and post direct links to good articles instead of kicking traffic over to someone's shitty blog that comments on a good article.

At least I use an effective ad blocker, so said shitty blogs with their dishonest methods of gaining traffic earned nothing from me the few times I gave them a chance prior to deciding never to click on one.

It's really not that simple. You may want to look into the kind of cash reserves insurance companies are required to have on hand at any given time (this is public information, regulated by your state). They're huge at the same time they're smaller than what most insurers think is more realistic.

If they could do it, this would definitely hurt Uber's cashflow. Then they'd have to have their own underwriting standards, eligibility requirements, etc. because Uber would be batshit insane to offer indemnity to ANYONE who signs up regardless of driving record. All of this costs money and requires in-house expertise to implement. They would have to fully be a "ride-sharing company" and partially be a commercial insurance company, simultaneously. Oh and that's also ignoring a crucial difference: maybe Uber could somehow overcome all of these problems and "self-insure" ... if all of their drivers are employees. If their drivers are contractors, then they are not "self" insuring at all and would in fact be a full-fledged insurance company, complete with having to follow all of the (numerous and complex) regulations attached to that.

There is a reason that even very large multinational corporations purchase commercial insurance policies for their drivers (who are typically employees) instead of self-insuring. If Uber were going to do anything like this at all, they would require their drivers to obtain commercial insurance policies and subsidize the extra cost. By far, that would be the most sensible thing to do.

The problems Uber is having boil down to this: they want to look like a taxi company, act like a taxi company, and operate in the same market as a taxi company, but they don't want to be a taxi company. I wish them good luck because I have always believed that consenting adults should be able to do what they want so long as they alone bear the consequences, but none of this is even slightly surprising.

What follows is my personal opinion only - if you want real advice talk to an insurance agent or lawyer. Anyway, as a matter of fact, by requiring them to obtain commercial insurance, Kansas is only repeating what's already in the agreement these drivers have made with their insurance companies. If any Uber driver has an accident and files a claim under a personal-lines policy, and the insurance company finds out they were a driver-for-hire, they're likely to lose their insurance anyway. When you signed your policy you gave the insurer all kinds of investigatory powers, so they probably will find out. They will do everything possible to cancel the personal-lines policy at that point. Whether they can also deny the claim and leave you 100% on the hook for the full liability depends on your state's regulations, but if they can, I'm sure they would.

Do most Uber drivers fully understand this? If so, are they just counting on nothing going wrong, or not getting caught if something does go wrong?