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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 3rd, 2023

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  • Ok sure but if Person U from a large city comes to the city council meeting and asks for help because their neighbor, Person R, is building a new garage on Person U’s property, it’s understandable that people from around the city - no matter how far afield - might express support for Person U.

    At the same time, if Person T or Person I or Person M from far across the city don’t express support, so what? What does it matter? Maybe they’re afraid of Person R. Maybe they truly don’t care. Maybe they hate person U.



  • If this is a transition from how I live now to never needing to work again, I’m guessing the first 6 months to a year would just be disbelief and slacking. Video games, TV/YouTube, etc.

    I’d probably do more of the things I do with my limited off time: gardening, taking care of family & pets, taekwondo.

    Honestly have no idea what I’d do once I became accustomed to it. Maybe travel? Participate in local politics more? Volunteer? I would definitely have a sense that I needed to do something to make my life “worth it” that I currently get from working to provide for my family.

    It’s definitely a result of conditioning, not some fundamental truth of the universe. But nearly 50 years of that conditioning is hard to break overnight.






  • I dunno it seems like there’s a pretty solid “type” for mass shooters - young, white, male - that means something is left out of your evaluation. Economic oppression (by the owner class) and easy access to guns (enabled by the owner class!) makes it easy for these disaffected people to commit mass violence on the rest of us.

    I’m sure if people had more economic security there would be fewer shootings but I don’t expect they’d go away. But a lot of these shooters talk about feeling alienated or disrespected. In my estimation that comes from expectations not being met. Probably unrealistic expectations.

    (Yes I know “not every shooter is a young white male”)




  • First: a company should pay at a minimum a wage that can afford housing nearby (probably within 15 minutes’ drive). The company should pay everyone for work hours + that round trip nearby commute time

    If the company is paying that wage, then employees who live farther away are making a free choice to do so. They still get that round trip nearby commute time paid, but time beyond that is not paid. Or paid at some diminishing rate.

    Companies should recognize a worker’s time list for the company’s benefit. But there has to be a balance because of the temptation to game the system.




  • Unfortunately it’s an easy sentiment to promulgate. It taps into feelings of fairness and justice. Those are some very foundational emotional drivers for humans

    However, I think there’s a chance to turn that sort of reasoning around. Like if we appeal to the idea of right and wrong. If using fossil fuels is like stealing or assault or worse, then the fact that someone else is doing it doesn’t suddenly make it ok. It makes the person doing it a bad person.

    The problem with fossil fuel use currently is that so many people are using them and whole countries and ways of life have been built around using them. Getting rid of fossil fuels has the potential to be as disruptive as getting rid of slavery.


  • You’re kind of arguing against the foundation of human society. If we’re all required to “do our own research” about things, where does that requirement end? How can I buy food if I have to do my own research on what’s healthy or what’s dangerous? What about my tap water? How can I put gas in my car? Use electricity? A computer? A phone?

    Somewhere along the way you have to trust the systems that have been built by the people before us to function, and for people who work in those fields who are experts to use their expertise.

    Obviously oversight & verification is also important. It’s important that people earn trust and work to maintain that trust and get booted if they violate that trust.

    But it’s foolish to just stop trusting experts out of nowhere. It’s extra foolish to stop trusting experts specifically because they say things you don’t like to hear. As far as I can tell, that’s been the accelerating project of the Republican Party since at least the talk radio explosion following the demise of the Fairness Doctrine. Maybe longer if you go back to Moon landing deniers and their ilk.


  • It might be a big tripping hazard to go full “free trade agreement” just to get a carbon tax. The better approach is probably going to be some sort of mutual taxation/tariff/duty pledge. Something where all the countries that opt in would levy a duty of some sort on all goods that involve carbon emissions in their lifecycle outside the transportation of said goods (this is a trade agreement after all), and waive that duty on all member nations’ exports.

    When people hear “free trade” they think of a system that waives all import duties, which may or may not be what is desired here. I can think of some bad actors passing a “carbon tax” just to get all the other duties on their goods dropped.

    The alternative of course would be an actual free trade agreement but with a lot more qualifications than just “carbon tax.” Like union support, a living minimum wage, free education through age 18 (for example), environmental protections, reasonable intellectual property protections, no wars of aggression, etc etc., PLUS a carbon tax.