Just Sad, "Chicago sees deadliest Memorial Day weekend in four years"

[AshyLarrysDiaper]

Is that a yes or no on whether there should be any disincentive to have children? What I'm getting at is that if you take two people doing minimum value work, should the person without children make that much less money? Or should the minimum living wage assume that one has children? Seems like someone is getting screwed either way. FWIW MIT has a living wage calculator and they have tiers for single, one kid, two kids etc.

I’m not sure I understand the ‘disincentive to have children’ question, but I believe that you should make enough to raise two children assuming your co-parent makes as much as you do.

It’s somewhat arbitrary, I admit. Who’s to say how many children is enough? But I think every person working full time should be able to raise a family.

What I mean is: should a single person who makes the minimum but an doesn't feel it's responsible for them to have children, and therefore chooses not to, receive a higher per person adjusted amount than a similar minimum value worker who decides to have kids? Nature has always provided a disincentive to have kids - they cost money and resources. I'm concerned about taking that away completely, especially for the least productive.

Ah. I gotcha. I’m inclined to say the single person should make enough to support a family if he were to partner with someone who earns the same. But I acknowledge that it’s complicated and there’s plenty of room for disagreement there.

[2018C3]

I have said this before, I believe human population growth is out of control and doing much damage to this planet we are all stuck on. It will have to be addressed at some point, and sooner is better than too late.

I still think the governments of the world should offer both a one time financial insensitive, and the option for a free vasectomy after a man has his first child, (At this point not required, just offered). Of-coarse this is a different way of thinking than society's governments have always been run. Increased population has always been seen historically as beneficial, but that primitive way of thinking needs to come to a end soon.

At some point active measures will need to be taken, it just depends on if its going to be this generation that is going to pro-active, or if it will pushed off to our grandchildren out of a necessity.

https://earthsky.org/upl/2019/10/Human_population_growth_from_1800_to_2000-1-e1570793729448.png

Look what has happened in the last 100 years, and imagine what life will be like 50 years from now if this growth continues.

Were also currently depleting ground water at a high rate, and once its gone much of the land used to irrigate crops will no longer be able to be exploited.

"Growing at a slower pace, world population is expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050 and could peak its current max projected potential at nearly 11 billion around 2100"

https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/world-population-prospects-2019.html

In 1900 we were at 1.6 billion people, today we have 7.8 Billion. In the future competition for resources is going to become fierce and deadly, It already has! The effects of this are felt most by the poor.

We now have almost three times as many people looking for homes than we did in 1950, and almost twice as many than we did in 1970. This is currently affecting the housing market greatly, and its not going to get any better going forward.

If you try and pack humans into a sardine can, and allow them to compete for resources, violence and anarchy will ultimately be the result.

Until population growth is addressed world wide, all other solutions are just temporary band-aid's to push off the real problem to a future generation.

As we speak, China is currently developing and moving portions off its overgrown population into Africa. What do you think the end result of this will be? Basically a repeat of the unfortunate European colonization's that devastated, and had long term consequences for entire continents, and all there native people.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think the first time I ever noticed national race based discrepancies in this world I grew up in, is several years back on Columbus day. The company I worked for needed volunteers to work. At the time I worked with a US born Mexican heritage co-worker, we both volunteered, and he told me. "I do not honor this holiday". He then said, "How did Columbus discover the America's, when people were already here". I agreed and to this day believe the holiday needs to be abolished completely.

[musiqsoulchild]

It's really not that hard for a first world country to pull off:

1) Universal Health Care
2) UBI
3) 4 year Community College
4) Mass Rapid Transport systems revamped completely

That's all you need.

[dice]

It's really not that hard for a first world country to pull off:

1) Universal Health Care
2) UBI
3) 4 year Community College
4) Mass Rapid Transport systems revamped completely

That's all you need.

depends on the size of the UBI, of course

[dougthonus]

I don't consider a living wage a subsidy. It's a societal value. If the replacement value of labor were the only consideration, we wouldn't have a minimum wage and some employers would pay starvation wages.

Subsidy's exist because they are believed to have societal value, so those things aren't contradictory. You don't need to call it a subsidy, but if people are willing to work for less than minimum wage, then the value of the work is less than minimum wage, and the minimum wage is artificially rising the cost above what it would be otherwise, and you are asking corporations to pay that artificially inflated difference.

What I do consider subsidies are the favorable tax laws and tax abatements that we extend to profitable companies. Studies have shown these investments do not circulate back to the public good. The power of lobbying is the only reason they exist.

I think most of our tax structure is set up to benefit the rich and not look like it benefits the rich.

It's an interesting question about which is more efficient -- corporate-funded social programs (like UBI) or a living wage. That's beyond my expertise. Unionization had been the path to high standard of living, but modern labor laws have all but killed it.

There are two things at play. The first is the decision of how you want distribution of wealth to look, how wide a gap you want between different classes, mobility between classes, behaviors you want to reward and what you want your society to look like.

The second is how you craft policy to drive society towards that goal. I think we are mostly just screwed either way. We'll never agree on what we want, and all the people responsible for driving it are motivated to drive it away from what is best for the country and to continue to steer it towards taking from the poor and giving to the rich.

IMO, we are basically seeing that both democracy and capitalism are failing in our lifetimes, but we also don't have any better ideas to replace them with.

[Dresden]

I think most of our tax structure is set up to benefit the rich and not look like it benefits the rich.

There are two things at play. The first is the decision of how you want distribution of wealth to look, how wide a gap you want between different classes, mobility between classes, behaviors you want to reward and what you want your society to look like.

The second is how you craft policy to drive society towards that goal. I think we are mostly just screwed either way. We'll never agree on what we want, and all the people responsible for driving it are motivated to drive it away from what is best for the country and to continue to steer it towards taking from the poor and giving to the rich.

IMO, we are basically seeing that both democracy and capitalism are failing in our lifetimes, but we also don't have any better ideas to replace them with.

I think democracy can be made much better with a few key reforms: campaign finance reform to limit the amount of money that goes into running for office, stop gerrymandering, so that we have a more representative legislature, and reform the electoral college, for the same reason.

If you look at opinion polls, Americans really are in favor of a more equal society, with things like universal health care and less of an income gap. What's holding us back is the corrupt political system which allows the minority (the rich), to have an outsized voice.

[Dresden]

And by the way, many of these things like a different way of electing officials is being done in European countries, where campaign seasons are much shorter, and involve much less spending. Again, I think the Scandinavian model of a social democracy works very well, and is something we should be looking to emulate.

[dougthonus]

I think democracy can be made much better with a few key reforms: campaign finance reform to limit the amount of money that goes into running for office, stop gerrymandering, so that we have a more representative legislature, and reform the electoral college, for the same reason.

If you look at opinion polls, Americans really are in favor of a more equal society, with things like universal health care and less of an income gap. What's holding us back is the corrupt political system which allows the minority (the rich), to have an outsized voice.

Individuals favor all kinds of positive things, but they don't vote people in who vote or create those things and for the most part have no option to vote in people who would vote in their interests. I don't know how you change that. Politicians for years have enacted policy that is against the interests of the people who voted for them and instead in the interest of those who gave them money to run for office.

The idea of democracy is good, but our current implementation means that politician best interests are not in line with the voters and populace but instead inline with the donors and special interests. You have to fix that problem and while things you mentioned might help if you could actually get them passed without loopholes, I'm not sure if it does enough.

It's certainly a start. Of course the problem is politicians themselves aren't in favor of fixing the system either, because its also against their best interest. That really is a big part of the problem is that everyone involved in fixing this would need to act directly against their self interest to do so.

[Dresden]

I think democracy can be made much better with a few key reforms: campaign finance reform to limit the amount of money that goes into running for office, stop gerrymandering, so that we have a more representative legislature, and reform the electoral college, for the same reason.

If you look at opinion polls, Americans really are in favor of a more equal society, with things like universal health care and less of an income gap. What's holding us back is the corrupt political system which allows the minority (the rich), to have an outsized voice.

Individuals favor all kinds of positive things, but they don't vote people in who vote or create those things and for the most part have no option to vote in people who would vote in their interests. I don't know how you change that. Politicians for years have enacted policy that is against the interests of the people who voted for them and instead in the interest of those who gave them money to run for office.

The idea of democracy is good, but our current implementation means that politician best interests are not in line with the voters and populace but instead inline with the donors and special interests. You have to fix that problem and while things you mentioned might help if you could actually get them passed without loopholes, I'm not sure if it does enough.

It's certainly a start. Of course the problem is politicians themselves aren't in favor of fixing the system either, because its also against their best interest. That really is a big part of the problem is that everyone involved in fixing this would need to act directly against their self interest to do so.

I disagree to some extent that politicians aren't interested in fixing some of these things. Take a look at Citizen's United ruling, which opened the flood gates to more spending by big corporations on elections. It was passed by a 5-4 vote in the SC, along partisan lines. So the democratic appointed justices were all in favor of limiting corporate power in this instance. And I think that is true in many other instances, when it comes to passing campaign finance legislation.

If gerrymandering had been outlawed, the balance of congress would be much different than it is now. If the electoral college were reformed, we wouldn't have had Trump as president, and possibly not Bush either.

I think the first big step to take is to stop the many ways that the GOP is over-represented in government, which they do through money in elections, through gerrymandering, and through the electoral college. Then let's see what happens. I think you'd see a lot of good reforms, staring with universal health care and campaign finance reform, and a more equal distribution of income. I'd like to see those common sense reforms passed before I say democracy is broken beyond repair.

[Dresden]

And by the way, the strength of the Warren and Sander's campaigns this year indicate the number of people who are ready for change, and also that we can elect politicians who will spearhead those changes. They aren't all corrupt.

[League Circles]

I think democracy can be made much better with a few key reforms: campaign finance reform to limit the amount of money that goes into running for office, stop gerrymandering, so that we have a more representative legislature, and reform the electoral college, for the same reason.

If you look at opinion polls, Americans really are in favor of a more equal society, with things like universal health care and less of an income gap. What's holding us back is the corrupt political system which allows the minority (the rich), to have an outsized voice.

Individuals favor all kinds of positive things, but they don't vote people in who vote or create those things and for the most part have no option to vote in people who would vote in their interests. I don't know how you change that. Politicians for years have enacted policy that is against the interests of the people who voted for them and instead in the interest of those who gave them money to run for office.

The idea of democracy is good, but our current implementation means that politician best interests are not in line with the voters and populace but instead inline with the donors and special interests. You have to fix that problem and while things you mentioned might help if you could actually get them passed without loopholes, I'm not sure if it does enough.

It's certainly a start. Of course the problem is politicians themselves aren't in favor of fixing the system either, because its also against their best interest. That really is a big part of the problem is that everyone involved in fixing this would need to act directly against their self interest to do so.

Yes, which is why I've been arguing for years that you need massive, massive pay increases for elected officials. IMO, every congressperson, president, cabinet member should be "set for life" upon leaving office even after one term.

[League Circles]

Gerrymandering is such a stupid issue IMO. Districts should be established by computer algorithms. Probably both parties are afraid of that though. The "downside" is that you'd have short term discontinuity in who represents certain people, but IMO that a cost well worth paying in the long run.

[dougthonus]

Yes, which is why I've been arguing for years that you need massive, massive pay increases for elected officials. IMO, every congressperson, president, cabinet member should be "set for life" upon leaving office even after one term.

I understand why you would say that, but I don't know that it would work the way you think it would. There is now massive incentive to get elected at any cost and no incentive to operate in such a way that keeps you in office.

I think in the end, technology allows us to be much more democratic. You could set up a system to have people vote on issues directly without representatives voting and instead have representatives only crafting what gets voted on.

[Dresden]

Yes, which is why I've been arguing for years that you need massive, massive pay increases for elected officials. IMO, every congressperson, president, cabinet member should be "set for life" upon leaving office even after one term.

I understand why you would say that, but I don't know that it would work the way you think it would. There is now massive incentive to get elected at any cost and no incentive to operate in such a way that keeps you in office.

I think in the end, technology allows us to be much more democratic. You could set up a system to have people vote on issues directly without representatives voting and instead have representatives only crafting what gets voted on.

I don't understand why we need to pay elected officials enough to be set for life. It would cause people to run for all the wrong reasons. It shouldn't be a financial sweepstakes. It should be fairly paid, so people won't shy away from it, but not overpaid either.

As for direct democracy, that works on some issues, but other issues are too complex for people to decide. Like I wouldn't want people voting on whether to go to war or not. Or a lot of the complex policy decisions/legislation that gets made. It also gives too much influence to PR people, and that would just introduce money into the equation again. For instance, you can imagine how much would be spent on trying to persuade people whether or not to vote for a national health care system by the people who now stand to lose should that be put in place.

[Dresden]

Good article on what needs to change in police forces:

The LAPD won't stop traumatizing black Angelenos until it abandons its 'warrior culture'

Connie Rice
Los Angeles Times OpinionJune 8, 2020, 12:53 PM PDT

https://www.yahoo.com/news/connie-rice-lapd-wont-police-195333061.html

[musiqsoulchild]

I have said this before, I believe human population growth is out of control and doing much damage to this planet we are all stuck on. It will have to be addressed at some point, and sooner is better than too late.

I still think the governments of the world should offer both a one time financial insensitive, and the option for a free vasectomy after a man has his first child, (At this point not required, just offered). Of-coarse this is a different way of thinking than society's governments have always been run. Increased population has always been seen historically as beneficial, but that primitive way of thinking needs to come to a end soon.

At some point active measures will need to be taken, it just depends on if its going to be this generation that is going to pro-active, or if it will pushed off to our grandchildren out of a necessity.

https://earthsky.org/upl/2019/10/Human_population_growth_from_1800_to_2000-1-e1570793729448.png

Look what has happened in the last 100 years, and imagine what life will be like 50 years from now if this growth continues.

Were also currently depleting ground water at a high rate, and once its gone much of the land used to irrigate crops will no longer be able to be exploited.

"Growing at a slower pace, world population is expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050 and could peak its current max projected potential at nearly 11 billion around 2100"

https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/world-population-prospects-2019.html

In 1900 we were at 1.6 billion people, today we have 7.8 Billion. In the future competition for resources is going to become fierce and deadly, It already has! The effects of this are felt most by the poor.

We now have almost three times as many people looking for homes than we did in 1950, and almost twice as many than we did in 1970. This is currently affecting the housing market greatly, and its not going to get any better going forward.

If you try and pack humans into a sardine can, and allow them to compete for resources, violence and anarchy will ultimately be the result.

Until population growth is addressed world wide, all other solutions are just temporary band-aid's to push off the real problem to a future generation.

As we speak, China is currently developing and moving portions off its overgrown population into Africa. What do you think the end result of this will be? Basically a repeat of the unfortunate European colonization's that devastated, and had long term consequences for entire continents, and all there native people.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think the first time I ever noticed national race based discrepancies in this world I grew up in, is several years back on Columbus day. The company I worked for needed volunteers to work. At the time I worked with a US born Mexican heritage co-worker, we both volunteered, and he told me. "I do not honor this holiday". He then said, "How did Columbus discover the America's, when people were already here". I agreed and to this day believe the holiday needs to be abolished completely.

I somwehat agree.

I think the bigger issue is population distribtion (with an unholy percentage living within 10 miles of a coast line or large lake).

This to me reads as people are depending more and more on urban planning systems and less and less on how to fend for themselves. I spent a stint in rural America for a couple of years (and it was HARDLY rural). I realized how if I knew how to fish, hunt and grow vegetables, I would hardly need any money to spend.

My reliance on the system could be near zero.

And of course, I didnt have those skills - so I needed a car, I needed 2 trips a week to Walmart and deliveries from Amazon.

This is why I think Mass Rapid Transport is the key to creating more balance in our urban systems. If I could travel from Ft. Wayne, Indiana to Chicago in 1 hour or less - then I would be able to have a home there for cheap and still work in a city like Chicago where the jobs are.

This would make the balance of urban planning VS. overcrowded populations a little bit less skewed.

We basically need to figure out how to use MORE of the Planet instead of figuring out how to use the Planet more.

[Michael Jackson]

I have said this before, I believe human population growth is out of control and doing much damage to this planet we are all stuck on. It will have to be addressed at some point, and sooner is better than too late.

I still think the governments of the world should offer both a one time financial insensitive, and the option for a free vasectomy after a man has his first child, (At this point not required, just offered). Of-coarse this is a different way of thinking than society's governments have always been run. Increased population has always been seen historically as beneficial, but that primitive way of thinking needs to come to a end soon.

At some point active measures will need to be taken, it just depends on if its going to be this generation that is going to pro-active, or if it will pushed off to our grandchildren out of a necessity.

https://earthsky.org/upl/2019/10/Human_population_growth_from_1800_to_2000-1-e1570793729448.png

Look what has happened in the last 100 years, and imagine what life will be like 50 years from now if this growth continues.

Were also currently depleting ground water at a high rate, and once its gone much of the land used to irrigate crops will no longer be able to be exploited.

"Growing at a slower pace, world population is expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050 and could peak its current max projected potential at nearly 11 billion around 2100"

https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/world-population-prospects-2019.html

In 1900 we were at 1.6 billion people, today we have 7.8 Billion. In the future competition for resources is going to become fierce and deadly, It already has! The effects of this are felt most by the poor.

We now have almost three times as many people looking for homes than we did in 1950, and almost twice as many than we did in 1970. This is currently affecting the housing market greatly, and its not going to get any better going forward.

If you try and pack humans into a sardine can, and allow them to compete for resources, violence and anarchy will ultimately be the result.

Until population growth is addressed world wide, all other solutions are just temporary band-aid's to push off the real problem to a future generation.

As we speak, China is currently developing and moving portions off its overgrown population into Africa. What do you think the end result of this will be? Basically a repeat of the unfortunate European colonization's that devastated, and had long term consequences for entire continents, and all there native people.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think the first time I ever noticed national race based discrepancies in this world I grew up in, is several years back on Columbus day. The company I worked for needed volunteers to work. At the time I worked with a US born Mexican heritage co-worker, we both volunteered, and he told me. "I do not honor this holiday". He then said, "How did Columbus discover the America's, when people were already here". I agreed and to this day believe the holiday needs to be abolished completely.

I somwehat agree.

I think the bigger issue is population distribtion (with an unholy percentage living within 10 miles of a coast line or large lake).

This to me reads as people are depending more and more on urban planning systems and less and less on how to fend for themselves. I spent a stint in rural America for a couple of years (and it was HARDLY rural). I realized how if I knew how to fish, hunt and grow vegetables, I would hardly need any money to spend.

My reliance on the system could be near zero.

And of course, I didnt have those skills - so I needed a car, I needed 2 trips a week to Walmart and deliveries from Amazon.

This is why I think Mass Rapid Transport is the key to creating more balance in our urban systems. If I could travel from Ft. Wayne, Indiana to Chicago in 1 hour or less - then I would be able to have a home there for cheap and still work in a city like Chicago where the jobs are.

This would make the balance of urban planning VS. overcrowded populations a little bit less skewed.

We basically need to figure out how to use MORE of the Planet instead of figuring out how to use the Planet more.

Exactly, yet the limited natural resources are still an issue, but say we taught people instead of just giving a man a fish.... we don’t invest in that though. I have a garden for the past three years and it is small as I don’t have much space... my grandma who was born in the late 1800’s had her moderate suburban land but had plentiful gardens and I hated it as a kid but now I love it. If we had more of that and less dependence on Walmart the whole world gets better. Economically, personal health and psychologically benefits alone would ease up some of the burden of population. That is also really easy to talk about and very hard to implement but would be a nice start for my children and their children.

[Ccwatercraft]

18 murders in 24 hours?

85 shot in one weekend?

https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2020/6/8/21281998/chicago-violence-murder-history-homicide-police-crime

Not sure what to say.

[dice]

IMO, we are basically seeing that both democracy and capitalism are failing in our lifetimes, but we also don't have any better ideas to replace them with.

democracy requires a civically engaged populace, which we do not have. and broadly beneficial capitalism requires governmental oversight/restrictions in the name of fair competition, which we do not have in sufficient measure

there was a successful company called diapers.com that amazon tried to buy out. when they refused, amazon cut THEIR diaper prices to unprofitable levels, forcing diapers.com to throw in the towel and sell the company. these are the kinds of practices that should not be permitted

[dice]

trump pushes conspiracy theory that elderly buffalo protester martin gugino could be involved with antifa:

https://thefulcrum.us/martin-gugino

still hospitalized, gugino's classy response: "no comment other than black lives matter. just out of the ICU. should recover eventually. thx"

Watch on YouTube