Random Thoughts XIII - Radioenergopithecocracy

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So in your view you'd need to set up a special way to distribute wealth to the poor, and not be able to use the added income from more taxation to the very rich through... welfare?
There is literally nothing easier, organizationally, than paying each citizen (who is below some level of income) x amount each month. And even if you are worried they won't spend it in what they need, cards could be issued for special (eg medicinal) use, with the amount going only there.
Taxing the rich and distributing the money collected are two very different things. The first does not guarantee the second. The process (in the US) involves 535 people who often disagree. It is far easier for a single rich person to benefit the lives of thousands directly and in meaningful ways. There are lots of things every government should do. So what? Changing government priorities is difficult in most western democracies. Whining about other nation's priorities is a bit silly. Philanthropy and charity work and should be praised.
 
I mean, if you didn't grasp the point (people should call for welfare for those who need it^money can be found for it from taxing those with many millions of $), but still felt like posting about something random, at least don't address it to me.
 
It's not a uniquely American problem, and I'm the last person to not bang the drum about how awesome charity can be at delivering where other systems will under-invest. This chat reminds me of this video. We all have opportunity to do awesome benefit with our charity, but we know that praying to billionaires to make us part of the 2% they donate just isn't the same as a proper system.


"I am the CEO of a popularity contest, where if you lose, you die.
 
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Imo there is no argument for leaving help to those who need it, to private initiative and charity. Now if the voters themselves don't think it is good to provide a safety net at least for saving people's eyes/similar, that is pretty stupid but if so then I doubt enough politicians will feel the urge to do it voluntarily either. The critical nature and high cost of such needed operations is the main reason why national healthcare exists.
 
A fairer system is definitely not going to happen if people don't prove it can be done enough to change how people think about it.

I realize the American education system tends to not say very much about the subject, but there is a world that exists beyond the border, and shockingly, many countries have figured this concept out already. Americans are not unique, though they would certainly like to believe they are. The systems that work for other nations can, indeed, work for you. And the idea that the solution to problems is more of that problem is nonsensical. Gobblygook. It doesn't pass the simplest of logic checks. Fetishizing wealth charity doesn't create fairer systems. It just pushes you deeper into the trap. But at least the honey will taste sweet as you sink.

I'm not the one arguing against the state doing this. I am saying if everyone is too good to do it themselves, thinking that somehow the state is gong to fix it for you... lol. No. It ain't gonna happen.

The state operating at scale for the people is the entire point of large hierarchal structures. Modern systems cannot operate from individual islands. They work because of inertia, economics of scale, and systems designed to work together. If your approach to fundamental healthcare begins on an individual level, it has already failed. This has been proven to not work—not to mention that anyone in need of that healthcare will inherently not be in a position to be their own personal deliverance. Crowdfunding in a local community to handle every crisis sounds nice in a book but it is unreliable and intolerable in reality. Only those with the right shine to them get help, and even then, the resources of the community are depleted after just one of these problems. "Do it yourself" is just words. They mean nothing. You might as well tell me to put my hat on one leg at a time. It has no relevance to healthcare that can and should be distributed and provided by the state.

Ironically, you say that a guy flashing his money to a camera and coincidentally saving a few people from blindness will help create a fairer system. How do you think it will do that? Do you think it will do that by inspiring my reaction, or by inspiring your and BJ's reaction where you just golf-clap about it and go "Yeah! Money!"? It seems to me that disgust at the state's failure will do more to change the state than being distracted by the result of the state's failures, where capitalist spectacle outshines the very real problem beneath the glamour.
 
American talks about one video of American YouTube celebrity. Suggests that people can help others in life.

"Ha! Uneducated!"

Whatever, Sparky
 
There is literally nothing easier, organizationally, than paying each citizen (who is below some level of income) x amount each month. And even if you are worried they won't spend it in what they need, cards could be issued for special (eg medicinal) use, with the amount going only there.

The thing is, who should decide what people should spend government-distributed benefits on?

Way back when, there was a premier of Alberta called Ralph Klein, who loved portraying himself as an "aw, shucks" guy who was colloquially known as "Uncle Ralph".

"Uncle Ralph" is dead now, and his attitude toward the disabled and homeless was disgusting. His love of government revenue from gambling is partly responsible for so many problems connected to gambling addiction when he insisted that putting VLTs into every bar was a great idea and reneged on his promise to the owners to let them be removed if they didn't want them. Then he and his government professed bewilderment at the upward number of individuals and families whose lives were wrecked because of gambling addiction helped along by putting video lottery terminals in places where people are drinking.

"Ralph Bucks" was a one-time payment of $400 to every adult who had filed income tax the previous year. You had to have an address to get this, so whoops, most homeless people were shut out.

A bunch of Ralph's supporters wrote in to the newspapers and said in interviews that this money wasn't necessary, because THEY didn't need it. Well, fine - they could have donated it to charity or given it to someone who did need it. But they went on to say that whatever ended up happening, "Don't give it to the poor or anyone on welfare, they'll only spend it on beer and popcorn."

I spent my $400 on 3 months' worth of utility bills. I had $10 left over and bought the first new paperback book I'd been able to in years. No beer, no popcorn, not even a bag of chips or can of pop.

Fast-forward it to now, and the current premier decided to hand out $100 for 6 months to people with children, provided they make under $180,000/year, and seniors making less than that, and people on welfare/disability. Nobody else is eligible, which has raised many eyebrows. Working poor without children are not eligible. Post-secondary students are mostly not eligible (so much for helping them with tuition or even food; campus food banks have been around for decades).

I didn't have to apply; because I'm already on record as part of the disability program, I received it automatically. Many others had to apply, and of course the government website crashed (as often does when a few hundred thousand people all try to access it at the same time). The NDP asked why they didn't just use the tax records, and the premier said it would "take too long."

Her version of "take too long" can be translated as "I might lose the next election that's coming in less than 6 months, and I don't want anyone getting money unless I get votes out of it."

Naturally there are people who keep saying they don't need it, and OMG, what will the poor spend it on? Well, do excuse me if part of mine went on pizza in the first month. Part of the second month's payment is going on cat food for Maddy. But still no beer, no popcorn, no drugs (the new assumption of what all poor people spend their money on).

There are people on one of my FB groups with this negative beer-and-popcorn attitude, so I told them off, and said, "Remember that the demographic you're insulting includes people who are part of this group."

Unfortunately those who lose their eyes cannot play. But let's act like they deserve to be blind and the state can't do anything about it.

Some people really do have this notion of those in need of health services "deserving" what happens to them. There's an ableist on my MLA's FB page who has made a point to tell me I deserve my disabilities. I asked her if her two autistic children "deserved" to be autistic. No reply so far.

Now if the voters themselves don't think it is good to provide a safety net at least for saving people's eyes/similar, that is pretty stupid but if so then I doubt enough politicians will feel the urge to do it voluntarily either. The critical nature and high cost of such needed operations is the main reason why national healthcare exists.

Politicians do whatever they think will win votes. How many blind people vote? They're allowed to and there's a procedure for it. It means a tiny bit of extra paperwork for the Deputy Returning Officer (the actual Returning Officer in my case), but you'd think from the attitude of some of them that they had been asked to move Mt. Everest. The POS at the polling station for the provincial election in 2019 did NOT want to allow me to vote early, even when I pointed out to him and his secretary that I'd spoken to both of them on the phone the previous day and had been told, "If you can get here, you can vote."

They wanted to know if I'd be out of town on voting day. I said no, but I couldn't guarantee I'd feel well enough to go anywhere that day, so I wanted to vote now. They tried to claim nothing was ready, so I pointed to the voting station in the corner and asked, "What's that for, then?"

Then they realized they had to do the paperwork. That AWFUL paperwork that meant filling out ONE PAGE to indicate that they'd had a disabled voter come along.

This was around the time that I was inbetween eye surgeries and I still couldn't read printed material very well. One eye was post-op and could see well enough to navigate, and the other still saw everything as blurry, colored shapes. The secretary asked if I needed help, but grudgingly. I had a magnifying glass with me, and said I'd try that first, and if I needed help, I'd ask (she would have had to fill out another paper if she'd had to read or mark the ballot for me, which would have meant another round of "I'm so hard done by with this woman who won't shut up and go away" attitude). Fortunately I was able to do it myself.

And all this when I'm someone who knows the procedures and my rights as a voter. So many others either don't bother or get lied to by lazy elections workers and they don't know their rights.
 
While it is (obviously) good that those people got the surgery, I am not sure about Mr. Beast (haven't watched him enough to form any view about him). I do remember seeing some older videos of his where he donated (iirc) $10.000 to tens of streamers on Twitch who had zero followers.
He might be (like I said, I have no opinion) genuinely good, then again it could be a massive and blatant marketing ploy (along with functioning as a tax reduction scheme?).
At any rate, it is a bit saddening to need random philanthropy when the state could tax such wealth more and distribute the money to those who need it=> this way you don't have heroes but a fairer system.
He's already the most popular in the world he doesn't need a marketing ploy.

Just goes to show human nature, you help 100 people and folks will hate that you didn't help 1000 or change the whole system or pay for their therapy so they can wean themselves off the hateraide.
 
Helping 100 people is what ideally one multi-millionaire can do. The actual state can help hundreds of thousands, so it's pointless to present the former as a substitute for the latter.
It's much like arguing that anyone has some chance of winning the lottery, so wages shouldn't go up.
 
I realize the American education system tends to not say very much about the subject, but there is a world that exists beyond the border, and shockingly, many countries have figured this concept out already
Cant speak for the world. Here in UK the socialized medical system is total dog ****. Theorically no cost but you might pay the ultimate cost waiting for your turn in the queue.

Helping 100 people is what ideally one multi-millionaire can do. The actual state can help hundreds of thousands, so it's pointless to present the former as a substitute for the latter.
Technically the state helps no one it incentivizes its citizens to help each other. Unfortunately we live in a world of crabs in a bucket where people envy & deride their neighbor getting nickles and dimes in state benefits while war contractors and billionaires get kickbacks that could buy their whole town
 
Cant speak for the world. Here in UK the socialized medical system is total dog ****. Theorically no cost but you might pay the ultimate cost waiting for your turn in the queue.

And that's because the right-wing vulture capitalists that have been pretending to be the government for the last 13 years have a vested interest in ensuring that it fails.
 
Helping 100 people is what ideally one multi-millionaire can do. The actual state can help hundreds of thousands, so it's pointless to present the former as a substitute for the latter.
It's much like arguing that anyone has some chance of winning the lottery, so wages shouldn't go up.
Who has presented it as such a substitute? Get off the exclusive or and onto an inclusive or.

This windmill looks more windmilly than most. It's definitely not breathing fire. Everyone present already agrees with that point, or they haven't piped up. The disagreement is over whether or not that divests us of individual responsibility(if there is any disagreement at all). I would contend that arguing it does is the very essence of the Tragedy of the Commons. At the least, it's a total absence of the drive required to change things to the point where the governments of the world, or whatever magical force is the right coalesced energy you have conceived of in your mind, will improve thier response to this form of preventable, or treatable, blindness.
 
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In an analog computer, you can divide by zero ^^
Also presents how trickle down can't work irl.

That division by zero, if it was available in computation, would lead to infinity, can also be shown by Fermat's method of getting a derivative. It directly led to Newton's, though there the division by zero part is implicit (=infinitesimals which are multiplied) and so done in a way consistent with the system.
 
Random thought: I have a few phrases that emerge when I'm actually panicky and not thinking about what words to use at all. Elden Ring got me thinking about this, but I do it when I'm driving too, and there's a moment of correction or panic.

... most sincere for me is "Whoa Nelly!" of all things. I cannot, for the life of me, think of where it would have come from except Grandpa.
 
Ha! I use "Whoa Nelly!" And I also have no idea where it could have come from; no on around me has ever used it--not even Grandpa in my case.
 
Pervasive little filly, aint she?
 
And "Whoa" might have. We use it almost only in the context of stopping a horse (or in contexts that evoke that metaphorically).

Here's the horse reference my grandfather did used to use. I'm going to print it phonetically. He was originally German-speaking, but I don't speak any German, so I don't know what I'm saying when I recite the following language sounds (maybe some German speaker here can help me): Sane dalla in da bush-kee-ack and hangst buh-lie-dict.

kee may be gee, dict may just be dic. I think it may mean something along the lines of "Six dollars in the wagon and Giddyup [German equivalent horse name for Dolly]" I say that because he would also use, pretty much interchangably, the English expression "Put it back in the wagon and Get-up, Dolly." He would use either of these expressions when he was playing cards and he rejected/discarded a particular card. It effectively means to me "I don't want that card/take that card away from me." But based on the English version, I think the German version means something like: "Let that horse carry this away in its wagon."

I mean on one level, I do know what I mean when I recite this string of nonsense syllables: I mean "Love ya, Grandpa."
 
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That's gee.
 
"Whoa Nelly" does take me back. I heard it frequently growing up from many adults. I don't use it though. Way too old fashioned for me! ;)
 
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