161–170 of 250 posts
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There are points in history where the productivity increases were more equitably spread, and we still got lasers, microwaves, MRI, mRNA, microchips, the internet, etc, etc, from national funding no less.
People are paid according to the value they produce - equity has nothing to do with it.
This is likely the worst issue humanity will be facing over the next 50 years, even more than climate change. An increasingly old demographic will sabatoge the future of humanity as they drain enormous resources and abuse democratic processes to reroute resources to their preservation of life over young people and familes. Young people and families will choke to death under the strain of elders who demand unlimited s…
Tangent, I know, but the climate change horizon is very long, much longer than 50 years. For example, a common projection is that the sea level will rise by almost one meter by 2100. This is already an unpleasant forecast. But it will continue to rise: under a 2 C warming scenario, sea levels reach (median prediction) 2.7 meters above the 2000 levels in 2300, which would be catastrophic. 2300 may seem far away, but it will come.
The current estimate is that we need to eliminate emissions this century and we will thereafter still need to do mitigation and removal to undo the damage, or extant coastal settlements will be destroyed. It is a very long process. See e.g.:
While I mostly agree... Venice was run by very old men. It was common for the Doge to be in their 80s. Meanwhile, many of their neighbors had kings who were very young, sometimes teenage boys. Venice was the longest lasting, most stable state in Europe.
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Term limits encourage the development of robust laws, systems and institutions which provide a far more stable basis for running a society than having power structures that rely on the brilliance of an individual or individuals. Without terms limits or the like (and there are countless examples not just in history but currently around the world), individuals in power are motivated mostly to preserve that power and ha…
With term limits individuals in power are motivated to pass laws that help them find their next job.
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With term limits individuals in power are motivated to pass laws that help them find their next job.
There are just too many examples of political leaders who achieved beneficial results initially but as their reign extended into decades, things went sour. Putin, Mugabe, Erdogan, Ferdinand Marcos, Mubarak, Hugo Chavez, Castro and even the likes of Gaddafi are commonly viewed as having improved conditions for the citizens initially but eventually left a legacy of degraded legal systems, weak civil services, rotten in…
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> Term limits would fix it This is really obviously not true. The Democrats' preferred candidate for Maine's US Senate seat, Janet Mills, was 78 years old. She had never served in congress. (she dropped out of the primary when her impending loss became obvious)
> she dropped out of the primary when her impending loss became obvious That is how voting and elections is supposed to work, not by saying people of a certain age, color, race or creed can't hold office because young people today are bigoted and feel they deserve more than all generations that ever preceded them throughout all of history.
> young people today are bigoted and feel they deserve more than all generations that ever preceded them throughout all of history.
Each generation doing materially better than the previous one used to be a widely agreed upon goal in the United States. Perhaps not really relevant to this comment thread.
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Go look at the demographics of the last election and then tell me which groups shouldn't be allowed to vote.
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This is likely the worst issue humanity will be facing over the next 50 years, even more than climate change. An increasingly old demographic will sabatoge the future of humanity as they drain enormous resources and abuse democratic processes to reroute resources to their preservation of life over young people and familes. Young people and families will choke to death under the strain of elders who demand unlimited s…
>This is likely the worst issue humanity will be facing over the next 50 years, even more than climate change. Tangent, I know, but the climate change horizon is very long, much longer than 50 years. For example, a common projection is that the sea level will rise by almost one meter by 2100. This is already an unpleasant forecast. But it will continue to rise: under a 2 C warming scenario, sea levels reach (median p…
While I mostly agree... Venice was run by very old men. It was common for the Doge to be in their 80s. Meanwhile, many of their neighbors had kings who were very young, sometimes teenage boys. Venice was the longest lasting, most stable state in Europe.
They took the full council, selected a random subset, had that group choose another group from the full council by voting, then repeat that random selection followed by voting another few times ending with a final group who voted to select a Doge.
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Well the problem is much more pronounced as people live longer and longer. I think this will all come to a head soon. Social security, for one, is going to exceedingly get strained as people draw on it for longer. Being alive also doesn’t mean you’re competent.
Problem is, Social Security will be solvent until 2037 at current prediction which means it goes insolvent when youngest boomer is 73. So basically most of them will get all their Social Security, die and leave Gen X to get fucked.
Closing that budget gap is a problem that will need to be dealt with, but it's not impossible to fix and it's a fairly long way away. There are a lot of proposals going around for how to fix it and those will become more politically palatable as it gets closer.