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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 3rd, 2023

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  • If this is a transition from how I live now to never needing to work again, I’m guessing the first 6 months to a year would just be disbelief and slacking. Video games, TV/YouTube, etc.

    I’d probably do more of the things I do with my limited off time: gardening, taking care of family & pets, taekwondo.

    Honestly have no idea what I’d do once I became accustomed to it. Maybe travel? Participate in local politics more? Volunteer? I would definitely have a sense that I needed to do something to make my life “worth it” that I currently get from working to provide for my family.

    It’s definitely a result of conditioning, not some fundamental truth of the universe. But nearly 50 years of that conditioning is hard to break overnight.





  • ristoril_zip@lemmy.ziptoMemes@lemmy.mlAlways has been
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    3 months ago

    I dunno I think there’s probably been one or two “honest” inflations where a vendor has seen her costs increase and has only raised her prices just enough to cover those increases.

    But yeah, I bet the majority of inflation has been rooted in avarice by shareholders and owners.



  • I dunno it seems like there’s a pretty solid “type” for mass shooters - young, white, male - that means something is left out of your evaluation. Economic oppression (by the owner class) and easy access to guns (enabled by the owner class!) makes it easy for these disaffected people to commit mass violence on the rest of us.

    I’m sure if people had more economic security there would be fewer shootings but I don’t expect they’d go away. But a lot of these shooters talk about feeling alienated or disrespected. In my estimation that comes from expectations not being met. Probably unrealistic expectations.

    (Yes I know “not every shooter is a young white male”)



  • ristoril_zip@lemmy.ziptoMemes@lemmy.mlFull power (:
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    8 months ago

    What’s frustrating to me as a person who’s generally against violence is that Israel has a pretty elite secret police force and pretty elite special forces that they (apparently) haven’t used at all to deal with the actual perpetrators of the October 7th massacre & kidnapping.

    They just started bombing thousands of civilians to kill dozens, maybe hundreds of Hamas militants.

    Like, surely they could have cut the head off the Hamas Snake with surgical strike teams infiltrating Gaza, probably the West Bank, and international locations in Qatar or wherever the leadership is.

    Reasonable people could conclude that Israel had to respond to Oct 7th, and that the best target would be Hamas. I can’t fathom how any reasonable people could conclude that bombing groups of people with 90% or more innocent civilians and the rest possible militants is a good response.

    I can imagine that UNreasonable people might conclude that all Palestinians are guilty by association (because Hamas is their Netanyahu-supported elected government) and they’re all militants (even the babies). Or those unreasonable people might believe that Palestinians aren’t people worthy of protection.

    So goddamned frustrating.




  • First: a company should pay at a minimum a wage that can afford housing nearby (probably within 15 minutes’ drive). The company should pay everyone for work hours + that round trip nearby commute time

    If the company is paying that wage, then employees who live farther away are making a free choice to do so. They still get that round trip nearby commute time paid, but time beyond that is not paid. Or paid at some diminishing rate.

    Companies should recognize a worker’s time list for the company’s benefit. But there has to be a balance because of the temptation to game the system.



  • It might be a big tripping hazard to go full “free trade agreement” just to get a carbon tax. The better approach is probably going to be some sort of mutual taxation/tariff/duty pledge. Something where all the countries that opt in would levy a duty of some sort on all goods that involve carbon emissions in their lifecycle outside the transportation of said goods (this is a trade agreement after all), and waive that duty on all member nations’ exports.

    When people hear “free trade” they think of a system that waives all import duties, which may or may not be what is desired here. I can think of some bad actors passing a “carbon tax” just to get all the other duties on their goods dropped.

    The alternative of course would be an actual free trade agreement but with a lot more qualifications than just “carbon tax.” Like union support, a living minimum wage, free education through age 18 (for example), environmental protections, reasonable intellectual property protections, no wars of aggression, etc etc., PLUS a carbon tax.