The world needs at least 600M new jobs in the next decade for young people

So here is the question for you, if you were an elected representative of your country would you give your vote or influence to bankers and oil companies? If so, and you clearly seem to despise that, why would you do that?

   > There is no meaningful difference between a process I
   > cannot influence and a process which could
   > theoretically be influenced if I could put more
   > time and money into it than I actually have.

The problem with that position is 'I', 'I', and 'I'. Is there no one else in your peer group that feels as you do? Maybe just one or two? Is there someone who is willing to be the person in office if you will help them get elected? Someone you can trust to behave in a way that you can respect and one which is free of external influence? Nobody took your ability to change the world away from you, you gave it away! Now take it back, if only in a very small arena. See if you and your friends can get one of you elected to a seat on the city council (or what ever the city's governing body is.) Have you ever tried? If not, why not? Sure being a city council person isn't going to change the world over night but it will show people what you are made of and it will show others what you stand for, if you aren't alone in that (and I don't think you are) they will come to your aide. You can inspire them to do that. All it needs is a willingness to day "I'm tired of the way this is run, I'm going to see if we can change it."

That is what I love about the Tea Party (not their politics but that they decided to do something about what they felt). In just under 10 years they have become a strong voice in national politics. Many of their members were brought into office by people just like you, passionate about what is wrong (in their opinion) with the way things are done.

Tell all your friends you are running for city council. I dare you. Tell them what you stand for and why you should be a city council member instead of the people who are currently elected. Listen to what they want in their city and try to visualize a better world. If not you, who?

I'm struck by the fact that, if 600M people were living together in one area, they'd spontaneously create jobs around the fact that 600M people will have to figure out ways to interact with each other in an civil way.

I tend to believe that the reason we don't have enough jobs right now are because of market distortions that place unequal value on certain, expensive things, like college educations, personal vehicles of far greater passenger capacity than strictly necessary, private dwellings of extremely large size, and the latest and greatest smartphones ever two years. Our "betters" have successfully created a scenario where people willingly enter into debt slavery to acquire what they believe is their entitlement.

Because, sans weird pricing, there is real need for work to be done, that is not getting done, in our current environments. There are roads that are falling apart. There is food that is not getting to hungry people. There are children who are not learning what they need to learn to be successful. There are hydrocarbons that are continuing to be burnt. There are routine medical physical exams that aren't being performed.

There are things that people want, but can't acquire at a price that is reasonable. This could be a function of the constituent inputs being too expensive, but I doubt this. Arbitrage is a powerful force for innovation. I suspect there is a much stronger force at work that is preventing the goods and services that people need from being created: mega-corporate-backed government regulation.

There are people in 1st world countries who are going hungry, who don't have heat, who don't have doors on their house. I have seen this with my own damn eyes. Yes, they are poor, but is their poverty their fault? And even if, in some extremely twisted way, it is their fault, does it justify forcing them to live in squalor? Should the laziest of lazy people be forced to live in literal shit-holes?

As long as there are people willing to work but incapable of moving, I think a little "undeserved" compassion is a good enough reason to create a job. Just because some vanishingly few poor people are slovenly doesn't justify completely writing off the entire class.

Eh, i've personally affected local elections with both money and door knocking. But in that case, i'm one voice in thousands. At the national level, i'm one voice in 320 million.

You can change local stuff pretty easily. If you want to scale up to state level, you need to be state level worthy. The guy who owns 100 hotels controls tens of thousands of jobs, and his voice should carry more weight, about some issues at least, than mine alone. It's up to me to get a few thousand friends to counter his voice.

Yes. The feds are heavily influenced by oil and finance people. but every person's life is heavily influenced by oil and finance. Are they unethical? At some level, sure. Do they understand the national system better than anyone else? yeah. yeah they do.

There is no magical oracle we can consult for the right answer. we stumble along in the dark trying out different stuff. an 80% right solution is better than nothing. Given the size, the system is pretty nimble. If something sucks, we change it. Sometimes it takes a while for the million voices to come into harmony and say things like everybody deserves equal rights.

I get where you're coming from. You feel like you have no say and no influence. That's largely true. You're a nobody. but your influence is not zero. You can affect local stuff greatly today. You can join with others for larger scale political change. Realistically, it's a pain in the ass and you probably have better things to do with your free time like laundry or coding or whatever. But people do it. you can to, if that's what floats your boat.

Start local. You absolutely can get into office if you've got some good ideas and you get people around you interested in what you have to say. Get in at the smallest local unit of government you can, whether it's the town council or water board or whatever.

You'll discover how much relationship-building goes on, and how that leads to bigger and better opportunities to make a change in the world.

Guess what, it isn't easy, but it's absolutely doable. (Not for those who call it all a myth, of course.)

> That is what I love about the Tea Party (not their politics but that they decided to do something about what they felt). In just under 10 years they have become a strong voice in national politics. Many of their members were brought into office by people just like you, passionate about what is wrong (in their opinion) with the way things are done.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brendan-demelle/study-confirms...

> A new academic study confirms that front groups with longstanding ties to the tobacco industry and the billionaire Koch brothers planned the formation of the Tea Party movement more than a decade before it exploded onto the U.S. political scene.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/25/1189761/-Big-Tobacc...

> That a tea party themed PR campaign was proposed by Burson Marsteller back in 1992 is somewhat interesting, but certainly not surprising. And it in no way proves an operative connection between anyone.

> The other big find of the study is that the PR group Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE), which back then, did work for big tobacco, split off and became Americans for Prosperity and Freedomworks, which is now behind the Tea Party. But the fact is, CSE wasn't just funded by big tobacco. Like all these groups, they were funded by a whole host of big, right wing corporations. Here's just a partial list of CSE's corporate clients/supporters:

> The Tea Party idea may have been the brainchild of right wing corporate PR groups. But it was only possible with the help of the corporate television media. And not just Fox. Whoever pulled the trigger on Operation Tea Party has powerful friends. If Occupy Wall Street had had such friends, we'd probably be living in a different country by now.

One argues it was the brainchild of a PR group, the other argues the first group is wrong but powered by Right Wing Media.

Either way, the Tea Party but was astroturfed into existence by rich people.

"I" do not have access to billionaires who back my interests.

The problem is not getting elected but rather how the elections are structured. Pretending otherwise is simply perpetuating the system.