darq @ darq @kbin.social

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2 yr. ago

What’s your plan for systemic change?

Tax the rich, redistribute wealth, stop treating basic human needs such as shelter and healthcare as profit generators.

If you have none

I did. Stop making stupid assumptions.

why not try systemic individual charity?

Please learn what words mean. There is no "systemic individual" anything.

The average citizen will have to pay for UBI with taxes. Why not do it voluntarily?

Because it doesn't work, you walnut.

Don't be absurd. Systemic change is needed. Not individual charity.

Remember that politics can be changed with votes. Tax them to finance change.

I agree the wealthy need to pay a lot more in tax than they currently do.

They also have disproportionate control over the electoral process in many countries, and most political parties are not even considering taxing them to the extent that they need to be taxed. Nor are most political parties challenging our capitalist society in any significant sense.

Voting is important, but don't expect voting alone to solve our problems.

It’s difficult, but blaming billionaires takes away our agency.

No it does not. Sod off with that. Correctly identifying a major contributor to an issue does not take away agency.

Who is "us"? Unless you're politically well connected or have nine figures in the bank, you aren't wielding significant power to make systemic changes.

Except that's just false. I actually cannot fathom where you pulled that estimate from.

Remember, we know how to address many of the world's problems, including poverty, homelessness, and climate change.

But those with capital in society choose not to.

It Is Journalism’s Sacred Duty To Endanger The Lives Of As Many Trans People As Possible

We need to subsidise train travel. Train travel has the disadvantage that it's slower, but over medium distances not that much slower if one includes getting to and from airports and getting through security and such.

Trains have the advantage of being far more pleasant an experience, leaving from and arriving at more convenient locations, fewer restrictions on luggage, just generally less hassle.

But then trains are crazy expensive for some reason.

(?) No… It makes no difference to me if there was labour involved or not, what matters to me is the value.

Then you should be opposed to landlords. Because rent-seeking extracts profit without producing value.

About the public housing thing, how would that help? Isnt that just everybody (the public) paying for everybody else’s housing? How would that make any difference?

Then housing is built for people to live in, not as an investment vehicle that is expected to generate profit. That brings down the price for everybody.

It also solves other social ills by drastically reducing homelessness.

Exactly, as is the case with any investment.

So you are admitting that comparing it to farming was a stupid thing of you to say. Good. Glad we agree.

So should nobody be able to own any land OR should one not be allowed to rent out one’s land?

Sure. Those are options. Or limited ownership where one may own land they live on, but not additional land. Or make rates and taxes on additional land ownership higher potential rental profits. And then direct public funds into public housing, as well as fixing zoning laws to allow for denser housing.

Im asking for the reason why not having a choice (according to you) would mean, if that was the case, that they dont deserve money.

That's not my argument.

I don't thing parasitism is healthy for society. That's why landlords shouldn't exist.

The fact that we don't have a choice was in response to your assertion that people choose to pay landlords.

That isn't comparable, and you know it.

The farmer produces food. I am paying for the labour involved in creating the food I consume. The farmer works.

The landlord collects my rent because he owns the house. Not because of any labour they do. And you admit that.

I have the impression that with landlords, people are just envious because they dont have to actively do labour even though that doesnt change anything for you…

Extracting profit without working to create value is parasitism.

It does change things for me. It makes living expenses higher.

And I'm not envious of landlords, I don't think they should exist.

… and because you dont really have a choice, you shouldnt have to give them any money?

In your previous comment you said "You choose to give them money".

So you know what you are saying is utter horsecrap, and you are deliberately being a disingenuous dickhead.

Yes, people are hating the game. That's the entire point.

Except there really isn't a choice. You pay rent or... What? Sleep on the street or in a car? Which is illegal in many places already.

"Just find a cheaper house" isn't actually an option available to people who you know... Want to have a job. It's just a glib thought-terminating cliche that doesn't engage with the actual issue.

It literally is no problem if you already have assets to use as collateral. The problem is that most people don't.

This is a misunderstanding though. People aren't complaining about individuals who happen to be landlords being nasty. They're making a systemic complaint about rent-seeking.

A landlord can be a perfectly polite and pleasant person. They're still engaging in rent-seeking. And that's the complaint.

Except nobody is saying that.

They're saying landlording shouldn't be possible. That the provision of shelter should be done by some other means.

I've had bedbugs before, they got into my luggage on an extended trip. And I just have to say screw bedbugs. They're absolutely miserable little things and difficult to get rid of.

At first it's not so bad. Just some itchy bites, nothing serious and they aren't a major disease vector. But they interfere with your sleep. And they mess with your mind after a while. Eventually it feels like they're crawling all over you whenever you're in bed, wherever your skin touches the linen, even if they aren't actually there.

So yeah they aren't the end of the world. But I'd do a lot to avoid them.

More people are intolerant of dairy than soy...

Eyyy

Every political opinion has a reasoning and differences in political opinions are usually based on differences in the morals or ideals of people.

That is very vague. Because sometimes those "differences in the morals or ideals of people" are that certain demographics of people are inferior, dangerous, or otherwise shouldn't exist in society. That isn't something we should pretend is reasonable.

It's also not true that every political opinion has strong reasoning behind it. Some people just do not live in the same reality that we do.

Refusing to debate a topic (aka refusing to hear the other side’s arguments) just leads no narrower-minded people. You cant have a reasonable opinion if you have only heard one side’s (your own) arguments.

But we HAVE heard them. We have heard them for decades. We have heard them over and over and over again until our ancestors had to fight multiple wars against them.

We have heard the racism and the sexism and the homophobia and the transphobia and every other little bigotry. Stop pretending we haven't heard them out. We have.

And after decades of listening and trying to have these conversations people eventually say "enough". That's not being narrow-minded. It's the opposite.

The more room you make for bigotry, the less room you make for people affected by that bigotry. And if one wants to hear diverse views, then one should listen to diverse people. Bigotry leads to echo chambers.