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“I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

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Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#71

Post by tomp »

netsharc wrote: post #49
TuringTest wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ``drumroll`` scaling back shit that nobody needs. Maybe, but what do you do with people whose livelihood depend on those superfluous bullshit jobs? Until we have a system that guarantees a right to life even if you do nothing productive , those busyworks are used to justify giving food, shelter and healthcare to those people.

The sane/benovelent governments will probably switch to universal basic income, i.e. go deep into debt and just pay everyone money to live. And no, actually going into debt is not a huge problem, ask Keynes, or what happened in WW2; it was an emergency and governments borrowed and borrowed with no fear.

I never understood this logic, and I understand it even less now. If we have the industrial / economic capacity to provide everyone with necessities of life (food, water, heat, shelter, ...), why not just provide that directly?! No need to go via the "money -> essentials" route... that way you're only indirectly making landlords and grocery store owners rich.

For this crisis, people are saying, give $1000 to everyone... that money is mostly going to find its way into the pockets of already rich people, and/or those companies that should have collapsed because of bad planning, but now won't. Instead, you could legislate things like food stamps for everyone (with the government paying grocers directly, while at the same time ensuring the money isn't spent on shit like alcohol and cigarettes), and a few months of rent amnesty for everyone (including businesses) (it's not like houses will disappear if somebody doesn't pay the rent).

Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#72

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

TuringTest wrote: post #24
black_puppydog wrote: post #15

I don't agree with the conclusion. We can scale down our economies and still maintain production of essentials by ` `drumroll` ` scaling back shit that nobody needs. Starting with an overblown healthcare admin system in the US, IMHO, but also including less inflammatory non-essential things like yet another range of plastic toys and luxury perfumes and and and. Essentially in this scenario, we should take this as an…

> ``drumroll`` scaling back shit that nobody needs. Maybe, but what do you do with people whose livelihood depend on those superfluous bullshit jobs? Until we have a system that guarantees a right to life even if you do nothing productive , those busyworks are used to justify giving food, shelter and healthcare to those people.

The Wikipedia reference OP provided claims Universal Basic Income as a solution.

Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#73

Post by tomp »

101404 wrote: post #64
netsharc wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sane/benovelent governments will probably switch to universal basic income, i.e. go deep into debt and just pay everyone money to live. And no, actually going into debt is not a huge problem, ask Keynes, or what happened in WW2; it was an emergency and governments borrowed and borrowed with no fear.

UBI could be possible in a closed society, but not if you are open for uncontrolled influx of people from outside your society. Because the offer "get free money" is just too good. There was the choice what to focus on, and we decided we wanted uncontrolled immigration. Fair choice, but the consequence is that UBI won't work anymore.

That's why I've been arguing for a while that open immigration into Europe is unfeasible... EU countries already have forms of UBI, in the sense of strong social safety net, (mostly) free medicine, etc. Open immigration might be easier on the US as it provides less unconditional benefits to its residents.

Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#74

Post by ojilles »

tsimionescu wrote: post #54
numair wrote: post #20

I am 100% in agreement with the author. It’s refreshing to see someone admit how much they don’t know — one of the most annoying things about our social media era, when combined with this current situation, is that everyone thinks they’re an expert and that their course of action is the One True Way to defeat the virus. Fact of the matter is, we’re flying blind, and governmental action is more about crowd control tha…

You are wrong on almost every count. Crowd control is a real fix for an epidemic. And while we don't know the details of the infection, we know enough to understand that we can't let it roam free. Your advice to young people is horrible, and based on nothing. One of the things we don't know is whether there is any lasting damage in recovered patients. We don't know if the virus might mutate. The only safe thing to do…

Upvoted. But, I would change this:

>> The only safe thing to do is to avoid catching it

to

>> The only safe thing to do is to avoid spreading it

(And this is why young people need to take as much note as older people)

Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#75

Post by rapsey »

redis_mlc wrote: post #53
rapsey wrote: post #3

Is covid-19 the biggest world event since WW2?

Well, I would say no, since there were multiple famines since then. 1) Post-WW2, most of the Eastern Hemisphere experienced famine and underemployment for a decade. (Britain had food ration coupons for 9 years afterwards.) 2) The Cold War was pretty scary and greatly impoverished the Eastern Bloc, Cuba, N. Vietnam and N. Korea. China had the Great Famine from 1959 - 1961, killing "tens of millions." 4) Polio was a sc…

Sounds cruel but famines are localised suffering that have little effect on the rest of the world. Of course if you measure deaths it is not anywhere close to anything. If you measure global life impact it is surpassing everything since ww2.

Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#76

Post by austhrow743 »

tasogare wrote: post #55
Majestic121 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anti-consumerism, anti-militarism and focusing on social security is not as rebel and edgy as you seem to think it is. If you get downvoted, it's probably more due to the childish tone of your comment rather than for your opinions

OP doesn't advocate anti-militarism, it's advocate to keep army at home. This is two very different things. A country can keep a top-notch army while not invading another country every decade. Japan is the best example of that, with its use of military largely restricted by the constitution.

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

"Militarism is the belief or the desire of a government or a people that a state should maintain a strong military capability and to use it aggressively to expand national interests and/or values."

If you keep your army at home you're not really using it aggressively to expand national interests.

Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#77

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

netsharc wrote: post #49
TuringTest wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ``drumroll`` scaling back shit that nobody needs. Maybe, but what do you do with people whose livelihood depend on those superfluous bullshit jobs? Until we have a system that guarantees a right to life even if you do nothing productive , those busyworks are used to justify giving food, shelter and healthcare to those people.

The sane/benovelent governments will probably switch to universal basic income, i.e. go deep into debt and just pay everyone money to live. And no, actually going into debt is not a huge problem, ask Keynes, or what happened in WW2; it was an emergency and governments borrowed and borrowed with no fear.

The real bullshit is the idea of debt in the first place.

There is no debt. There's only the use of "debt" and "lending" as a thinly disguised pretext for feudal tribute used for political advantage.

If we don't work through this it's going to kill us as a species.

Doing strategically useful stuff that generates invention and opportunity instead of making plastic toys that end up in landfill is a different but not entirely unrelated problem.

Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#78

Post by dbmueller »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #45
dbmueller wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any source/reference on the Ebola stuff you're talking about?

I think the book was called The Hot Zone. Here you go. This should be it. http://projectavalon.net/THE_HOT_ZONE_Richard_Preston.pdf

Interesting, thanks!

Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#79

Post by cyphar »

101404 wrote: post #64
netsharc wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sane/benovelent governments will probably switch to universal basic income, i.e. go deep into debt and just pay everyone money to live. And no, actually going into debt is not a huge problem, ask Keynes, or what happened in WW2; it was an emergency and governments borrowed and borrowed with no fear.

UBI could be possible in a closed society, but not if you are open for uncontrolled influx of people from outside your society. Because the offer "get free money" is just too good. There was the choice what to focus on, and we decided we wanted uncontrolled immigration. Fair choice, but the consequence is that UBI won't work anymore.

> we decided we wanted uncontrolled immigration

The US definitely has an immigration policy. Not to mention that no serious politician today (despite what some media outlets may claim) is running on a platform of open borders.

Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#80

Post by _y5hn »

QuesnayJr wrote: post #58

David Graeber is a stupid person, and the thesis of that book is stupid. There are boring jobs, and there are jobs that wouldn't exist in utopia, but he has no idea why jobs exist or what function they serve. His book is paradoxically feel-good, in that just because we can imagine a world in which nobody has to shovel shit that we can eliminate all shit-shoveling jobs today. Shit, I actually worked at the kinds of jo…

I don't know this person, but many today strike me as cynical, short-sighted and narrow-minded, when they portray a world where nobody needs you, as some kind of utopia.
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