Browsing social media, it’s apparent that people are quick to point out problems in the world, but what I see less often are suggestions for how to solve them. At best, I see vague ideas that might solve one issue but introduce new ones, which are rarely addressed.
Simply stopping the bad behaviour rarely is a solution in itself. The world is not that simple. Take something like drug addiction. Telling someone to just stop taking drugs is not a solution.
Stopping the wealth accumulation at the top through taxes on property above a threshold.
And, supplementary:
Stopping tax evasion by implementing a global tax cooperative so nations can stop competing in a downward race on tax rates
Stopping tax evasion by implementing a global tax cooperative so nations can stop competing in a downward race on tax rates
You may or may not be aware that the OECD has already begun implementing something like that:
Yeah I remember reading about it. This is probably a step in the right direction without having looked at all the details
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Big corporations begging taxpayer bailouts and then using them on bonuses and dividends. It’s a humongous waste of money that does nothing but enrich the wealthy. Most of the time it doesn’t even save jobs.
If, as a large corporate, you want a bailout from the taxpayer, then the government/state will take a portion of your shares in escrow, equivalent in value to the amount of money you’re asking for or getting. Those shares (in case of publicly traded companies) are withdrawn from the stock market, become non-voting shares and are frozen at their price at that time. Within a to-be-determined time period (five years maybe) the corporation, if it gets profitable again, can buy back all or part of the shares from the government at that price per share - thus returning money to the taxpayer. Anything that’s left after five years, the government can do with as it sees fit - sell them at market price (thus recovering the spent money), or keep them use them to vote/control the company.
There probably is a lot wrong with this proposal. But something needs to be done to discourage big business from hoovering up taxpayer money like it’s going out of fashion. Most of the time the taxpayer is getting absolutely no value from that spend.
The problem with freezing them at their price is that that essentially becomes an interest-free loan to the company that partakes in the system.
The interest needs to be somewhat punitive.
I would say three points above the federal rate compounded daily, and they have to pay off all of the accumulated interest before they can start buying their stocks back.
I don’t necessarily have a problem with it being an interest-free loan, if it serves to keep a business over water and saves jobs. To me that’s an appropriate use of taxpayer funds. I’m all for taxpayer subsidies if they are balance-positive to the taxpayer, i.e. jobs are preserved and the subsidies result in meaningful economic activity.
What’s bad is when otherwise profitable businesses use threats of job cuts and closures to obtain taxpayer bailouts so they can keep paying big bonuses and shareholder dividends. A lot of that happened through COVID, and the taxpayer threw billions at big business for very little in return. So maybe restrictions on layoffs and such would need to be written into a system like that. The punitive aspects need to incentivise the intended behaviour and strongly disincentivise the wrong behaviour.
The only solution to car traffic is building viable alternatives to driving. Alternatives also bring many environmental and societal benefits.
That’s rather vague “solution”
What are the alternatives?
Fast & frequent public transport, safe cycling infrastructure, footpaths, just putting things closer together to reduce the need for transport
Is the issue here traffic or cars?
Because for traffic I can see how working public transit would atleast ease of the issue, but for the anti-car sentiment I often see here I don’t view public transit as a solution. Not to every car owner atleast.
Cars are not inherently bad, they are being utilized poorly. In dense urban areas, private cars are the worst option in terms of efficiency. However, currently in many cities it’s also the best due to city planning. This ought to change by investing into better infrastructure. In rural areas I see cars as the best option as it’s cheap and efficient there.
What’s the difference?
Anti car doesn’t mean completely banning cars. Nobody is saying to replace ambulances with bus trips. There’s obviously a need and cars would be much more effective for those things if the roads weren’t clogged with people who don’t have a need.
Mental health crisis -> housing
Anybody working in inpatient mental health right now can tell you that at any one time around 3/4 of our units are occupied by homeless people. Many of them will even fake or exaggerate symptoms of mental illness (usually psychosis or suicidal ideation) to avoid living on the street. Personally I don’t even blame them, I’d probably do the same thing. And it really highlights that housing is the primary driver of the modern mental health crisis.
Voting for people that are closest to want I think is good.
Volunteering in non-profits.
Pushing for progressive ideas at work.
Trying be an example of what I defend and explain to people around me it if they ask me, without pushing them to change, hoping that I can slowly change the culture around me without triggering mental blockers. For example when a colleague asks if I’m vegetarian, I explain that I am rather flexitarian, which means I don’t have forbidden food but I favor food with smaller ecological impact. If they seem not receptive, I’ll listen politely and not try to change their minds. If they seem receptive, I’ll show them the Poore & Nemeck studies. Sometimes just a bit of neutral information is enough to trigger a change.In short, I don’t want to be someone who just blames the governments or companies, and make no efforts otherwise. I think we need a cultural change at every stage of society.
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Being as that we have the tools now, any person who wants to run for a public office in a position of leadership, I.e mayor, vice mayor, sheriff, judge, Congress person or president, should have to undergo a psychological evaluation and if they show any of the three dark traits they should be rendered invalid and unable to participate in politics.
We don’t need any narcissistic psychopaths running the government, but narcissistic psychopaths are the ones that are the most likely to get elected because they’re the best at manipulating people into voting for them in popularity contests.
What tools are these? As someone who has frequently been evaluated, I’ve found I get different results depending on the bias of the evaluator, ranging from, functional: able to work to a danger to themselves or others, should be supervised or committed.
Now I totally agree that there is a problem with elected officials when Feinstein is still a senator when she is no longer coherent. Or when Trump’s lawyers and principal staff see he has diminished capacity (the finale of Fear: Trump In the White House by Bob Woodward) they leave him in place because he remains a useful idiot. But I know our psych assessment methods are not yet able to yield consistent results, and it would be easy for political interests to game the system to keep those they like, and flunk those who are too much of a nuisance (say, those who actually want to serve the public).
(President Wilson had a stroke, and spend the end of his tenure in bed with his wife faking his signature. The US is no stranger to staffers faking it when elected officials were to incapacitated to function. )
Sadly in 20-fucking-24, mental illness remains enough of a stigma that anyone who relies on public approval just won’t take the test if they can opt out.
There are bigger problems that I agree need to be solved but I’m not personally that verbal about them. But the one I complain about the most has got to be potholes.
In the UK farmers are responsible for maintaining the hedgerows between the road and their fields so I feel like they should also be responsible for filling in the potholes caused by their heavy machinery and the cow shit left behind when they’re moving cattle.
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I do honestly think empathy would be more common if access to psychedelic mushrooms was legal
Which is why it will never happen
There’s a lot of “billionaires shouldn’t exist” and “eat the rich” sentiment out there. I often suggest jokingly that it should be legal to murder someone once they reach a certain level of wealth. It might motivate them to limit their greed at some point, perhaps be less exploitative of those who are working to generate their wealth or share more of it. And even if they pass the threshold, they may give more concern to how they treat people and how they are perceived.
Each year, sacrifice the 5 richest billionaires and distribute their estate to the public fund. Bam, so many problems immediately solved.
Or uh, idk, tax them properly and you achieve the same outcome without any killing.
Not that it’d ever happen though.
That’s a pretty fucked up thing to say. Is that really the world you wan’t to live in?
No, it is not the world I want to live in, but I am not convinced it would be worse than the current world.
I came for the vegan comment however as it was already there, the biggest change I could see from mass adoption of the vegan ideals are that the population would have an across the world increase in empathy to not only animals but because they aren’t murdered as part of societal norms the empathy towards and the treatment of humans is likely to increase as well. This could theoretically lead to an increase in environmental action helping climate change but also help addressed a number of socialogical issues at the same time. We are a long way from this however in the uk veganism has increased 1567% in 10 years so with this rate of change it is possible.
You can’t actually solve them. Depends on which problems of course, but most of them have to do with our societies not being fair whatsoever.
If bringing food to people is so hard, why not bring people to the food? 🤷🏻♂️
Spend more public money on it and hire some more intelligent people to help.
