maporita @ maporita @unilem.org

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184

Joined

2 yr. ago

Abolishing land ownership sounds like an attractive idea, the problem is that it doesn't work well in practice. Ownership of land, and a legal system to protect it, brings remarkable economic benefits. It allows owners to raise capital using the land as collateral and then to develop the land. A free market ensures that land is correctly valued. When values are as by government they tend to be incorrect or, worse, deliberately distorted by corruption. A quick look around the world shows that the richest countries all allow private ownership of land. China is the notable exception. It's true that productivity in China has increased dramatically over the past few decades but this has been driven by urban centers and manufacturing.. rural areas, where land remains under state control remain poor and impoverished.

If the owner of the land is selling it then they obviously don't mind. Or do you believe that no-one should own land?

57 million users a day

Shows that the $60 oil cap is working. The Russian central bank will likely raise interest rates to halt the slide. Unless Russia can boost it's exports or reduce it's imports there are no other options. Putin is unlikely to reduce spending on the war so in the end it is ordinary Russians who will bear the brunt of this.

The study concluded that favela residents should expose themselves to fewer shootings in order to improve their mental health. It also recommended a further study to determine whether grinding poverty, lack of sanitation and contaminated air and water might impact residents negatively.

Bukele, the president of El Salvador, the guy who wants to lock up 5% of young men in his country and turn it into a fortified police state, that guy has an approval rating of 80% .. by far the highest in Latin America. If we liberals want to prevent the rise of autocrats we need to come up with policies to keep our citizens safe, instead of conducting inane studies that invite ridicule.

Buying as an investment, whether by foreigners, corporations or whatever, is a symptom not a cause of the housing shortage. The cause of the housing shortage is that we're not building enough houses. That's it. Supply and demand, same as it's always been. The solution is to reduce demand or increase supply.

Bestiality (not beastiality by the way) is legal in some states in the same way that sex with extraterrestrial aliens is legal .. a specific prohibition has not been signed into law. Abortion on the other hand is legal because a statute was explicitly crafted to make it so, a statute deliberately written with no gestational limit and which no Democratic politician could now change (in our polarized political climate) without incurring the wrath of their party. It would be political suicide, just as it would for a Republican politician to vote in favor of background checks in a red state. This is where we are, a zero sum game in which winner takes all and compromise goes out the window. The replies in this thread, to a proposal that is considered mainstream in most other developed nations, just prove my point.

I can do better than that. I can name six states where on-demand abortion is allowed with no gestational limit. While it may not be a majority view among Democrats it's still a sizeable minority.

Not for breaking news perhaps, but for in-depth analysis and critical commentary the Economist is in a class of it's own. It's the only news magazine I subscribe to. They don't dumb down stories, they treat their readers as adults and they scrupulously avoid sensationalism. The standard of written English is exceptional, (something for which it is renowned). And I love the humor in some of the regular columns. The whole magazine is a joy to read from Letters to Obituaries. 10/10

Most countries that have gestational limits use 12 weeks .. the same as what RFK proposes. In the US where everything tends to extremes one group wants abortion banned under any circumstances while the other wants unrestricted abortion up to birth. I feel 12 weeks is too short, especially in a country where so many young girls lack access to decent pre-natal care and support to be able to make a decision like this in time. However I'd be willing to accept 12 weeks if it were signed into law as a national limit.

“If acid reflux is not controlled well, it can cause a variety of complications, including cancer at a later stage,” said Desai. So people should not be ditching their heartburn medications en masse based on alarming headlines.

While that's true, it's also apparent that Doctors in the US massively overprescrbe medicines for conditions that are often better addressed through lifestyle changes. Acid reflux is one.

There are two main reasons to conscript citizens. The first, to fight wars, has largely faded into irrelevance (barring exceptions for those waging war, like Russia, or those defending their country, like Ukraine). For the most part wars are better fought by paid professionals.

It's the second type of conscription that I will discuss. Many governments promote a system of national service for reasons of social cohesion, (the so-called Scandinavian model). It has much to recommend it. It creates a shared experience in otherwise fragmented societies, breaking down barriers of class, race and gender. It can be used to instil the values of a country in its population. It builds respect for the armed forces, teaching civilians that their freedom ultimately depends on others’ willingness to kill and be killed. And it subjects a pampered population to a bracing dose of spartan clean living, away from iPads and alcopops.

The problem is in the implementation. Social service should not be confined to the young. One of the biggest divides in society is generational, and national service only for the young would not change that. Moreover it would do many older folks a lot of good to learn the value of inclusion and diversity.

On the contrary, a volunteer army allows the ruling class to prosecute wars without risk to their own families. Volunteer armies are primarily recruited from poorer and disadvantaged families, and the "volunteers" are serving because they see no other option to support themselves.

If a war arrives that is necessary, justified, and also has broad support among the population there will still be those who avoid fighting because they know that others will do so for them. They will unjustly reap the benefits of victory without making any sacrifices.

You can make a similar argument about taxation. By your logic payment should be optional, since a society that genuinely wants to be just and fair should also voluntarily want to give money to achieve that.

I'm pretty sure that he does know what it is. As I said I don't agree with many of his arguments, but they are nonetheless cogent and reasoned arguments.

He claims for example that CRT proponents are mostly white liberal elites who just want to demonstrate their anti-racist credentials. He also makes the point that CRT ultimately harms blacks and people of color by implicitly lowering standards for those groups. The "soft racism of low expectations". These are valid criticisms.

Instead of dismissing him as ignorant, (as so many of us liberals often do), it's better to engage and try to refute what he claims.

I can't speak for the the person you replied to but I get my information from a variety of sources. One is the Economist magazine, (hardly a right wing tabloid). In a recent op-ed John McWhorter, who is a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University, and the author of more than a dozen books, and who also happens to be black, Mr McWhorter laments that CRT has "painted black Americans as hypersensitive children, immune to reason and indifferent to nuance". He goes on to say that "Whites insist this is progress in order to feel unracist. Black people (although hardly in the lockstep many suppose) insist this is progress because it lends them a useful “noble victim” status. The result is a chronic, pervasive mendacity, dehumanising black people as thoroughly as outright bigotry did, despite being presented as respect and even worship.".

You may disagree with Mr McWhorter. I certainly do. But for you to so casually dismiss another person as an gnorant, fox news dummy simply because they have different views tells us more about you than about them.

I can appreciate opposing views, including conservative ones, if they are grounded in reason. In fact I welcome them .. they sharpen my own arguments and make me question my beliefs which is seldom a bad thing.

What I cannot accept is any argument based on a supernatural entity. If you want to make laws because your holy book tells you to then I'll do everything in my power to block you. You have the absolute right to follow your own beliefs but you have no right to force those beliefs on others.

A lot of the things mentioned here are enjoyable, (caffeine, sugar, social media and yes, masturbation), but most people are not addicted to them. They simply do a cost-benefit analysis. Take smoking. I used to smoke 3 packs a day and it was very enjoyable, but the risk of getting a serious illness (or giving one to someone else) outweighed the attraction, so I stopped. Across the US smoking rates declined massively over the last few decades, so it seems many others had the same idea as me. I would do the same if anything I really enjoyed turned out likely to do me great harm.

Now I drink coffee every single day. I eat lots of sugar, (but I also do bucketloads of exercise.. I run 50 miles a week for instance). So the probability of harm is small. I also drink a beer or two most days. Sometimes for work I have to travel to remote camps and spend a couple of weeks without a drink. Doesn't bother me. But I do enjoy the first beer when I return home just that little bit more.

For a long time I was in the "Non alcoholic beer can never replace real beer" camp. But in the last few years they've come a long way .. and now you can buy low or no alcohol craft beers that are actually quite good.

Trump and Biden both avoided the draft with "1-Y" (medical) exemption. Keep in mind that more than half the 27 million eligible males were exempted or disqualified for some reason, so it's not as if this was something only politicians did.

There are some who believe the West can do no wrong .. that it is a beacon of freedom and liberal values in an increasingly illiberal world. Then there are those who believe it is the devil incarnate .. a vicious bloodsucking beast that seeks only enrichment for itself.

As is so often the case, the truth lies somewhere in between. To start, "the West" (whatever we take that to mean - is Japan part of "the West"?), does not try to impoverish other nations. On the contrary, rich people are good for business since they can buy more Western goods. They also tend to stay where they are rather than flee as economic migrants. At the same time Western nations (as well as China and Russia) would like to gain access to mineral resources as cheaply as they can. And there's the thing - in many parts of Africa corruption is so endemic that the leaders are quite happy to sell out their mineral wealth for a bargain basement price if they can line their own pockets by doing so.

Success stories in Africa are few and far between but they do exist and it's instructive to examine them in this context. Botswana is a landlocked country in southern Africa. Like Niger it comprises mostly semi-desert and, also like Niger, it has extensive mineral wealth, (copper, nickel, gold and diamonds - in fact 3 of the 4 largest diamond mines in the world are in Botswana). Unlike Niger, Botswana is relatively successful. It's GDP per capita is ten times that of Niger. Interestingly, at independence in the 1960's Niger was richer than Botswana. This begs the question: If Western "parasites" have reduced Niger to penury why did they not do so in Botswana? The answer is to be found in corruption index rankings. Botswana is rated the least corrupt country in Africa. Western firms operate there, but they are allowed to do so for the benefit of the Batswana people. In Niger on the other hand the leaders care only about enriching themselves.

The West has certainly been no saint when it comes to dealing with post-independence Africa, but the West cannot fix the problems in Niger. Kicking them out - swapping one group of landlords for another - won't fix the problem either. Western firms have operated in Botswana for 60 years, but they operate under the constraints of a fair and rules-based system imposed by the government. Only when African leaders decide to put their people before the interests of themselves and their families can things hope to improve.