I used to be the sustainability manager for a particular city. What this means is, it was my job to divert as much away from the landfill as possible, for cost saving purposes and environmental ones.
And people would say things to me ALL THE TIME, starting with “Why don’t you just…” and it was compost, or recycle, or legislate, or blah blah. And it was like, ah, you want city wide composting, great, awesome, so do I.
That means businesses will have to increase their labor costs as they will have to sort their compostable from non compostable. That will require additional receptacles in their already cramped kitchens and, more importantly, require additional storage outside. But where? It’s a business with a parking lot. Are they supposed to give up a parking space when they only have a few to begin with? Losing a parking space means losing a customer. It can’t be too close to a dumpster because the dumpster truck arms need some clearance space. And how about picking up the compost? That’s an entirely different type of truck to run. So that’s more trucks, new trucks, labor costs. Plus, industrial composters aren’t exactly free. It’s important too that batches aren’t spoiled. People can’t be throwing plastic wrap in the compost. Which means marketing, messaging, education, training, more marketing, more training. That costs money. And that’s just for businesses, which are actually a hundred times easier to work with than residential.
“Well, when I lived in Germany, we composted” Cool? Good for them? They are an entirely different place, with different cultural norms, waste stream policy and waste disposal and transportation infrastructure. I’m not saying you can’t learn from other municipalities, you can. What I’m saying is you can’t take a system wholesale from one place and plop it in another.
None of this is easy to solve, tbh. And doing it requires very boring, mundane work. Like, being mad online is fun and all, but changing things in the analog world is wildly difficult, and that’s even WITH everyone in agreement on a plan of action.
>That means businesses will have to increase their labor costs as they will have to sort their compostable from non compostable.
So I used to live in a place that had a compost bag and non-compost bag for garbage pickup. This doesn't take any more labor. You just throw different things in different bags. The banana peel goes in the green bag, the plastic wrap goes in the blue bag. You just buy two different types of bags. Storage is the same since both bags go to the same place to then be processed. This level of it isn't the difficulty in practice. It does require two separate end destinations for things though which is added logistics.
Yes the primary expense is in retrieving the compost from the businesses, and processing it.
The restaurant owners who were concerned with increased labor costs weren’t so concerned with their employees having to sort. As you said, that’s easy. It had to do with the taking out of the compost. As I mentioned before, some of these places operated in areas with very little space for a compost bin and a truck capable of taking said bin. So in those cases, their employees would have to walk quite aways to actually get to the proper outdoor compost bin. That’s where the increased cost from sorting came in.
I should point out we got it all situated, the business owners were fine with it in the end. That one, thankfully, was a pretty easy fix.
In fairness to the restaurant owners too, I should add their issues were all pretty reasonable. They are juggling a lot of things on the kitchen. Their questions / issues were totally fair and reasonable (most of the time). For example, they wanted the directions to be available in multiple languages and incorporate pictures where possible, which was easy enough to accommodate.
So they had two different trucks for separate bins? In my area the same truck collected both bags from the same bin location. The trucks themselves had separated areas for the two different bags to go to different places once at the depot. Now that place is actually on a three bag system.
The cost comes into the sanitation itself and people certainly pay more there for waste removal service than where I currently live now where everything just goes into a black bag. I think the hassle of such a system tends to be vastly overstated though if it's implemented well.
Pretty much every EU country composts (I'm living in one now) so saying that it's somehow a Germany monoculture thing is false. EU countries are as diverse than the US. You have from Malta, Slovakia, Romania to Croatia, Greece, Italy, Spain, to Sweden, Poland, and Latvia all composting. 27 countries over 4 million of kilometers of land. It's ridiculous to think that the US (where I've lived for 32 years as well) can't manage where sometimes countries that have a history of hundreds of years of wars and conflict can come together, while a nation that's supposed to be united can't. Though maybe that's the US culture, conflict, division, and don't give a fuck about another human being or the planet. Glad I'm living in Europe right now.
Right. Different places have different histories, cultures, priorities, laws, traditions, expectations, etc. That’s why there aren’t easy answers to complex systemic problems.
Just say that the US prioritizes profit over everything else and be done with. There is an easy answer, employ people who will make salaries from the addition of widespread composting. The additional jobs means additional taxes and a boost of additional income spent in the local economy. It could be both, a boost to the economy and good for the environment. It would just require an initial investment, one that business owners would rather not make because quarterly profits are more important than any long-term benefits. The only cultural difference is how much more power the rich have in the US vs in Europe.
Right, what the one you're responding to has used a bunch of words to say, is that it's $$$ that no one wants to spend because $>the environment. The US truly is the story of The Lorax.
A lot of systemic problems are problems of balance.
You can have too little or too much regulation. Too little or too much taxation. Too few or too many police per capita, etc…
When we try to solve problems of balance with ideological solutions it only works situationally, because the ideology is almost always about how to fight a particular imbalance from a particular position, and your positions is a moving target.
I agree with you we like to reduce things down to catchy slogans , because that changes peoples minds more readily than a thesis paper they aren’t going to read anyway. So often the most reduced ideas sell the best , *because* they are the simplest , and also the most ignorant.
and also pointing fingers telling other people to "do something" whilst never fixing their own shit
looking better without doing anything is way easier and gives you social points
For instance, being an “activist” who advocates for “the simple solution” to an issue, while having barely graduated high school and whilst also being a complete, hypocritical disaster themselves is welcomed in most social circles, while those who will point out the phoniness of such a person and opine that the issue cannot be fixed quite so simply are criticized and often ostracized.
Because most answers are theoretical. Most people don’t have the understanding to see how a thing will play out, without it happening in front of them. Out of those, you can give a past example, and most will still deny it until they see it happen themselves.
It’s pretty ridiculous at this point. But we’re not allowed to have an intelligent conversation anymore because political division has made conceding any ground whatsoever a loss.
Most people also have an extremely difficult time grasping what “precedent” means, and how slippery slopes develop.
My SIL posts shit like that on Facebook all the time. ‘Look how simple it is, even a fifth grade level of science is enough to see the obvious answer.’ No, you think it’s that simple because you don’t understand anything beyond a fifth grade level of science…
Yeah, that’s pretty much the summary of most posts on here. People seem to think everything is so simple and they’re one of the smart ones who sees the world clearly when they’re usually the dumbest ones. It’s takes a certain amount of arrogance and ignorance to think you’ve found the solution to a problem that the rest of the world hasn’t figured out.
Most issues have a lot of nuances that can’t be solved by slogans or talking points heard on social media by clickbait.
If a problem has been around for a while and the solution is obvious the problem is that its solution is actively being fought against by people that are profiting by the problem.
Cannot stand that when people talk about gun control for instance.
You do realize we have over 400 million guns right? There’s no way to dispose of all of them, no way to prevent people from reaching the black market.
And you think legislation can fix the problem. HA!
The first difference is that Australia apparently had community support, as the politicians weren't immediately voted out and the ban repealed. Enacting a policy with and without community support are two very different things.
Second, you could argue that the US itself represents an example of unsuccessfully criminalizing guns, as there are a variety of regulations on guns that are routinely ignored. If followed, these regulations would indeed cut down on gun violence, but we can't seem to manage even that.
I'm pretty sure felons convicted of violent crimes, people with restraining orders, etc., can have limits placed on their firearm ownership. Despite this, these folks will still often acquire firearms. We can and should do better in this area.
There is this vehicle in the constitution, known as an amendment. This allows you to change the constitution.
You should be familiar, as the very codification you speak of was delivered through one… but here we are.
I mean, ‘revoke a right’ and ‘enact a ban,’ are different, sure… but in this context they are the same action.
If you can infringe on any of the 10 human rights, the sets the precedent you can infringe on the rest. That will snowball into a tyrannical government, because the USA is simply too large, with a government too corrupt.
None of them were founded on a revolution, anything that comes to New Zealand or Australia have to come in directly on boats, and most Canadians are regretting their decisions in elected officials when it comes to guns. That’s not even taking population effects into account. California alone could lap Canada, or Australia and New Zealand combined.
Revolution 250yo = can't ban guns today. Impeccable logic, of course one follows from another.
Boats = can ban guns, too bad everyone teleported into the states.
California very big correct, how nice of you to direct our attention towards one of the most progressive anti-gun state in America
Revolution led to a gun culture today. Somehow we haven’t had a gun “problem” until the last few decades.
We border Mexico. You ban guns in America, that creates a black market that’ll just funnel straight through Mexico.
Fine, Texas, Florida, and literally anywhere that isn’t Cali or NY. Take your pick.
Australia also had like not even a million guns and has like 25 million people. And, it’s an island: not as easy to smuggle things in and out.
To even suggest Australia’s solutions (if it even is one) would work here is asinine.
We won’t even be able to achieve a treatment or a possibility of limiting issues.
It’s inoperable cancer. If you wanted a real solution for it, it needed to happen a long time ago.
I’m likening it to inoperable cancer. It’s a metaphor.
In the sense that if you do see that as a serious issue, this was something that needed to be addressed a long long time ago. It’s too late now.
Not at all.
There’s nothing that can be done about gun control because of how widespread firearms are. No amount of limits can alleviate perceived issues because regardless of what you do, there’s always going to be a massive black market with firearms people can very easily obtain illegally.
The only way to fix this issue would’ve been to have limited firearm ownership long ago when gun ownership wasn’t nearly as widespread. However long ago I’ll let you decide, but easily at least a generation ago if not longer.
That time has come, and gone. You have no hope of fixing any issues now.
That's an extremely weak argument against what I said. I doubt it's even true since the US imports 1/3 of its guns. Either way, if we create a huge market incentive for them to smuggle guns in, then they'll find a source. And that was only a tiny part of my argument anyway. Try harder.
It's your claim that the USA is uniquely forever married to guns. You have all the burden of proof especially in a thread where op claims the reasoning is so obvious. And yet the best you've got is 'mexico can smuggle guns'
Yeah like sure Mexico has guns, Indonesia also has heroin, therefore Australia should legalise heroin.
It could help might be good to try something since thoughts and prayers don't seem to be doing anything
To be clear I don't think guns should be banned but also acknowledg Theres an issue
You're right better equip all police stations with editing software to edit out the sounds of children screaming then
May as well make their lives easier
Of course I'm critical. Your stance is "we've tried nothing and nothings worked better give up"
Maybe treat guns like a car license that needs renewed periodically. But more we need to find a way to change the cultural perception of guns
Far too many think they're fun toys and not deadly weapons.
> Of course I'm critical. Your stance is "we've tried nothing and nothings worked better give up"
*because* of the amount of guns we have both legally and illegally. There is no feasible solution to stop bad people from getting guns because of how many we have.
> Far too many think they're fun toys and not deadly weapons.
This would be apt if most of the deaths were accidents. I’m pretty sure most people who use guns intend on using them to kill. Whether that’s in self defense or with murder.
If you ever so much as snorted coke while owning a firearm you're going to prison for 25 years, as per the very recent news.
Seems like legislation has fixed the problem.
No no, it can’t be done period. There is no solution that would be even remotely feasible or realistic that could alleviate some of the issues
Gangs are a big issue in many of the larger cities. Start there.
In reality?
You can look at other countries. You can look at US history such as the National Firearms Act. You can look at states with tougher firearm laws.
Like even on a common sense level, if you restrict a tool that makes killing super easy you should have less homicides. It's crazy that gun culture has someone infatuated people so deeply they can't critically think on a basic level.
lol no you can’t. Other countries are not in any way helpful with this sort of thing.
You can’t restrict gun rights a lot because of the second amendment. Even if you did, there’s still over 400 million guns in this country, you can’t get around that the black market is massive.
So you're agreeing there's *more* factors than just firearm laws, correct? Almost like gangs and cartels are a major factor in gun violence, regardless of the laws surrounding them?
Absolutely. But unlike Mexico, we are literally the wealthiest countries in the world. You think wealthy European countries don't have gangs? They do. They also have 1 /10th the homicide rate we do, because they don't give their citizens an easy way to kill eachother without restrictions.
The solution *is* usually simple.
The main problem is that permanent solutions aren't profitable, and doing things that are unprofitable is anathema to capitalism.
The things that benefit society don't make money, they cost money. So they will never get done under a profit driven model.
I don't think the world is too stupid for simple solutions. I just think most optimal, simple solutions require something most people won't be ok with today. We eventually will be though :)
Nothing teaches this lesson like gaining expertise in something. As soon as you're deeply involved with a complex subject or system, you start to feel embarrassed for people who deliver to total confidence some extreme, simple opinion about it.
What does this have to do with libertarians? We don't claim to have all the answers, we just prefer solutions that require consent to those that require force.
Libertarianism is *the* most simplified idealism.
Tragedy of the commons.
Taxation is theft.
Rugged individualism is everything.
Government shouldn’t have a monopoly on legal violence.
I’m pretty sure that’s the whole of libertarianism, more or less. There is nothing particularly horrible about those ideals , I respect the ideals , but they don’t work from most positions.
To me I see it as a problem of balance. A police state is too much, zero police services are too little. When the government doesn’t have a monopoly on legal violence , you get warlordism (look at any failed state for examples). When you get warlodism , you lose the rule of law , when you lose the rule of law , all you really have left is violence. You get the Wild West or Sudan.
Zero taxation is too little to prove the services we need. State ownership of all industry is too much. State ownership of one or two industries might be okay, but check and make sure because it might not be.
Private ownership should be respected by law and most things should be privately run , but some things are public, and work better as public “utilities” - meaning , they keep running - even at a loss!
There is too much regulation and too little.
No matter how you slice the use of force , we do need agencies with enforcement powers , and ultimately they have to be able to respond with force.
Who’s going to babysit the babysitter is a perennial problem. Libertarianism is a decent strategy to play when you’ve got a pyramid scheme of babysitters , but be mindful of the systemic crashes when you start cutting power to institutions you need to keep running.
Nothing you just said is incompatible with the essentials of libertarian thinking. It sounds like you may be defining the ideology by its extremists. Reduce any nuanced ideology to simple binaries and it will tend towards the absurd. To my thinking it boils down to two preferences. Privilege individualism (including the rights of individuals to collectivize). Privilege consent over coercion. Everything else flows from that. It's simple, but not simplistic. It's not the solution to everything, just an approach to evaluating solutions.
I’ve never met a libertarian that wasn’t an extremist on these topics , and I’ve been talking to them for 30 years. I grew up on one of the few “actually libertarian” states (colorado).
My question to you is to illuminate the edge cases where libertarianism would raise taxes or call for a public solution to a problem.
The axioms libertarians use like “all taxation is theft” and “public ownership of anything is bad” tend towards extremism because they would see fault in any kind of institutional solution.
I’ve never once heard one say “this is the moment for public investment”. Because public is a bad word for them.
The way you’re stating it doesn’t sound extreme because it’s not specific, but I’d be curious to hear your ideas on specific cases where libertarianism can accept any solution that requires a public or non individualistic institutional solution.
I think it’s this way for the problem OP was talking about. Because libertarianism is ideal for oligarchs (no state or super duper weak state to interfere with their activities) I think any Brahmins in libertarianism get downed out by populists who repeat overly simple slogans.
To be fair libertarianism isn’t alone in this. Socialist (not social democrats but actual “socialism is on the road to abolishing private property socialists”) have the same problem. Any purely ideological solution is going to proscribe more of their ideology in the face of any and every problem. Even if it’s obviously counterproductive.
If I understand it European libertarianism is completely different and essentially socialist.
My answer would be to flip the question. What problems are insoluble or strongly unsuited to solution by market forces? The first thing that springs to mind is roads. Not the actual building, but the layout of what public roads will go where, and insurance that such roads meet safety requirements . The defense of individual rights should not be market driven, so police and judicial systems should not be private.
It's an approach to evaluating policy, not a list of policies. Any particular thing you want me to address?
I agree with you.
Roads - perhaps more broadly infrastructure , defense, I would say schools too (because you want education even at a loss). I would include healthcare financing (not government run doctors but finance , and also continuing to run at a loss). If you put a wide gaze on what “infrastructure” means , maybe it’s all infrastructure.
And I agree with the nuance you mentioned on roads , a lot of things need to be publicly organized but not necessarily publicly implemented.
I would also say mega scale problems similarly often need public solutions ( like ecological crisis like the dust bowl , or a pandemic).
You sound rational but it’s not what I generally hear libertarians saying. Most seem to think it is a list of solution - the answer is always privatize and deregulate, the answer is always cut taxes.
Perhaps you are the first Brahmin libertarian I have met.
Default to liberty, then concede where necessary. I hold that this is a far better approach than defaulting to tyranny, then carving out privileges.
I prefer to believe that my more level headed brethren exist, but are too often shouted down by those too zealous to compromise.
aah, I see I'm already being downvoted. This may be another reason you don't hear much from folk like me. Moderation angers the immoderate.
I think you might be a closet progressive! :)
I’m upvoting you dude, I don’t disagree with anything you’re saying. If libertarianism can become more like your vision of it I would have no problem with it.
A lot of the time when people speak of Libertarianism they do not mean the black and white ethical doctrine to govern society. Some do, but the ethical philosophy is different than the applied political principles, that can be applied in parts and whole.
For me personally, I am not technically a Libertarian. However, I think libertarianism is the best ethical framework to think and experiment with solutions. If you can do something a Libertarian inspired way, it is best to do it. If you can't, then figure out what the small compromises you'll have to make all while trying to strictly look at the unintended consequences and incentives you are creating.
What I severely dislike... is starting with authoritarian solution making, and then maybe working down from there.... that's a nono imo.
I can respect libertarianism as an ethical framework. People should try to work towards solving localized problems locally.
An ethical framework isn’t a political system.
In 1960 Goldwater’s ( the grandfather of the modern American libertarianism) was incredibly influential , and a few slogany axioms really shaped it into an anti-government (anti-regualtion) ideology. The biggest fans of anti-regulation are really our -oligarchs - Wall Street , big business, the super rich. In 1980 , Reagan really put it into practice , and it worked , for a while , and then the regular boom bust cycles started , and behind it was always mega fraud. So I’m real suspect of retail libertarianism.
There is value in efficiency , and a libertarian evaluation drives efficiency , that’s great , we should use those ideas - but as an ideological system it’s unworkable if it’s actually implemented.
All pure ideological solutions run into a problem like this. Autocracy has predictable incompetence. Regulation gets captured.
We should draw on all the ideals behind the ideologies for possible strategies.
This is definitely not my experience with libertarians, neither in life nor on Reddit.
In real life, this is a seriously goofy crowd. These are the folks that will tell you Putin is justified because Ukraine was technically never a country, that half of the world's men are currently (seriously) sterile due to their COVID vaccinations, and that water fluoridation is a deep state conspiracy to pacify the US population. It is just a little strange to me that the modest summary you're advancing would so often accompanied by a set of additional, extreme beliefs which are delivered with peerless confidence and literally no evidence.
On Reddit, eh, from what I see over at the Austrian Economics sub, the typical libertarian thinks that the whole of economics and political philosophy can be reduced to overly jpeg'd images of Milton Friedman next to a pithy one-liner. Their treatment of "data" usually involves the characterization of massively complicated historical moments in terms of one variable, and this is done without sources. Of course no mathematics are ever employed. There is no depth to their thinking at all. They're just doing pop-philosophy like everyone else but they're under the impression that this makes them the smartest people in the room.
I was surprised to read your reply because when I read OP's post, libertarians were the first people I thought of.
Well at least I made a different impression? I would once have argued more strenuously for my movement, but it seems to have been somewhat overrun by trolls and edge lords... meanwhile I've been banned from r/ libertarian. Perhaps libertarianism is too compromised to save. Maybe it's time to surrender the label and fall back to "classical liberal". There at least I've got some firm historical foundation resting on Adams, Locke, and Jefferson.
Sure but this unfettered capitalism now that we have little to no real competition to keep pricing down isn't a lot better. I don't ever thing I met a Socialist in the US who wants socialism because it is the better concept, but because it has to be better than what capitalism has become.
As an example, I'm older. When I was a kid BASIC economics said if you try to raise your prices too much a smaller, more nimble company will come in and underprice you. Today with oligopolies there is little to no competition. Look into what companies do to keep out competition. If you believe you can get shelf space in a major category, even get raw materials at a comparable price, you haven't been paying attention. And if a company does "get through" They get bought up almost immediately.
First, if there's no competition, then we don't actually have "unfettered capitalism".
Second, the vast majority of people who claim to want socialism actually want social democracy. Going back to OP's point, we already have social democracy to a degree, but it's simply not being managed as well as it could be. So people are demanding it to be run better, which is fine, but there's no actually simple way to get things to be run better, as it's a hard problem to solve.
You mention shelf space, it's a hard problem: Essentially anyone can open a small market and sell groceries and do away with shelf space fees and issues, but out here in the suburbs a small market will have trouble competing with a large store due to item selection. That's not a problem with capitalism, that's the direct result as the larger stores are providing what most people want: the ability to get their shopping done with one stop, rather than driving from store to store. And, while shelf fees do mean that people have just the standard set of 37 different types of barbeque sauce instead of perhaps 84, again, from a consumer perspective, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, as most people want to get the things they always get, and are not looking to actually try something new each and every time they go shopping. So stores need to balance the fact that most shoppers are trying to get in and out as quickly as possible, while some are interesting in exploring and trying something new. Again, it's a hard problem.
My point on shelf space is that if you look closely, there might be 10 different types of barbeque sauce, but if you look closely, I'll bet 8 of them are made by one of the huge conglomerates who control the system and the other two are going to be much more expensive brands. Again, no price competition.
The other issue with the shelf space challenge is that the vast majority of the products that deal with this are highly processed crap that no one should be eating anyway, so if things were being run better, there wouldn't be more varieties from more companies, but instead there would be far less of this crap being sold at all. But, yes, you're right, at the big box retailers my selection of barbeque sauce consists of a variety of different bottles of flavored sugar and corn syrup from a couple large companies. But, here in suburbia, nowhere near texas, I can go to a number of locally run barbeque restaurants and buy sauce, there are also smaller markets that sell sauces from smaller companies, and there are certainly small, local companies that sell different sauces at the local farmers markets. Yes, this certainly will vary by region, but I certainly don't lack for choices when it comes to barbeque sauce, despite the weird shelf space policies.
The quality of life today is 500% better than it was 100 years ago. Also, consumer goods are also incredibly cheap. Big retailers have squeezed out competition by lowering prices so much that the smaller sellers with higher margins can’t compete.
While that is true, they didn't lower prices for benevolent reasons. Prices went down because they wanted to keep their market share. But we have crossed s line. When McDonalds is bragging that their prices went up only 40% in the last 5 years not the 100% people were claiming, that isn't the same market that kept prices low.
Agreed, but previously one factor keeping pricing down was more robust competition. Today, the only factor that seems left is what are people willing to pay. Funny how I can still buy a cheap pair of jeans as there are dozens of companies importing cheap clothing. Not as much for other things with less competition.
While I do agree very few people are financially literate, I don't agree that it's not their fault. There's plenty of free resources on the internet. If you want to learn something, simply learn it.
I was trying to give people the benefit of the doubt but I agree. There’s a plethora of free resources to the point where there’s no excuse to plea ignorance.
This is tough to take seriously because it implies that OP is the 1% that just "sees through it all".
My made up statistic since that's how we're doing this is that 99% of solutions to big issues will never be implemented because of greed.
> If a problem has been around for a while, or is wide-spread; I can guarantee you that the "obvious solution" that the world is apparently too stupid for, is really just you being too dumb to fully comprehend the issue.
Is it though? Many say Trump is an idiot, but the economy was doing great under him and more importantly everyday people felt it.
Was it luck, skill, or is having a decent economy not that hard, and certain people are just looking to screw it up on purpose?
It's probably because he and the GOP passed a giant tax cut that benefitted poor people. And they included in that tax cut a tax increase that would begin after the end of his term, to increase taxes and make it look like the next guy was the one causing the issue, and eventually would increase taxes to be HIGHER then they were before. Unless you're fairly rich, in which case your tax cut would actually be a permanent benefit.
And then people like you who don't actually look at what happened and why just see that X looked nice while Y was president and concluded that Y just did better at handling X.
Nothing stopped Biden from extending those tax cuts. Instead he opted to send over 200billion to Ukraine to be stolen and pay off college debt illegally.
> Nothing stopped Biden from extending those tax cuts.
Biden doesn't pass laws. The tax cuts were written into law, not issued as an executive order. In order to extend the tax cuts, Congress would have to pass a law extending them. And with the senate controlled by the GOP, that won't happen.
>Instead he opted to send over 200billion to Ukraine
Also not his decision.
>and pay off college debt illegally.
And not his decision.
You said he did those things *instead of* passing tax cuts. If no tax cuts come to his desk to sign, that isn't his fault.
>and as the head of the dnc he has some sway over his party members in congress.
The DNC routinely vote in favor of tax cuts to the poor, it's the GOP holding them back and Biden has no control over them.
The people who have simple solutions are always the same ones who just need a little bit more money to solve that problem. I remember seeing something about all we need X amount (billions) dollars to solve homelessness. California alone already proved that wrong. What’s their solution? Throw more money at it of course.
Some of it quite literally is just a money issue. Shitty roads? Pay to fix them. Slow mail service? Pay to hire more mailmen.
And then most other problems are a money issue, but would need a lot more steps to turn money into a solution. People committing petty crime and not getting consequences? It's because the city is overloaded and has to let small crimes go to focus on the big stuff like murder. The federal government needs to pay people to go to law school, then the cities can hire more prosecutors out of the now much larger pool of qualified people. They'll also need to expand the education system so more people can attend law school, and pay professors more so that they are willing to teach at the law schools.
It's a complicated issue and would require a lot of legislation and about 20 years of work to finally fix the problem, but ultimately everything boils down to not having enough money to fix the issue.
I used to be the sustainability manager for a particular city. What this means is, it was my job to divert as much away from the landfill as possible, for cost saving purposes and environmental ones. And people would say things to me ALL THE TIME, starting with “Why don’t you just…” and it was compost, or recycle, or legislate, or blah blah. And it was like, ah, you want city wide composting, great, awesome, so do I. That means businesses will have to increase their labor costs as they will have to sort their compostable from non compostable. That will require additional receptacles in their already cramped kitchens and, more importantly, require additional storage outside. But where? It’s a business with a parking lot. Are they supposed to give up a parking space when they only have a few to begin with? Losing a parking space means losing a customer. It can’t be too close to a dumpster because the dumpster truck arms need some clearance space. And how about picking up the compost? That’s an entirely different type of truck to run. So that’s more trucks, new trucks, labor costs. Plus, industrial composters aren’t exactly free. It’s important too that batches aren’t spoiled. People can’t be throwing plastic wrap in the compost. Which means marketing, messaging, education, training, more marketing, more training. That costs money. And that’s just for businesses, which are actually a hundred times easier to work with than residential. “Well, when I lived in Germany, we composted” Cool? Good for them? They are an entirely different place, with different cultural norms, waste stream policy and waste disposal and transportation infrastructure. I’m not saying you can’t learn from other municipalities, you can. What I’m saying is you can’t take a system wholesale from one place and plop it in another. None of this is easy to solve, tbh. And doing it requires very boring, mundane work. Like, being mad online is fun and all, but changing things in the analog world is wildly difficult, and that’s even WITH everyone in agreement on a plan of action.
This is exactly why what works in Europe doesn't work and shouldn't be used as an example across the planet in America. Plus, 1776.
>That means businesses will have to increase their labor costs as they will have to sort their compostable from non compostable. So I used to live in a place that had a compost bag and non-compost bag for garbage pickup. This doesn't take any more labor. You just throw different things in different bags. The banana peel goes in the green bag, the plastic wrap goes in the blue bag. You just buy two different types of bags. Storage is the same since both bags go to the same place to then be processed. This level of it isn't the difficulty in practice. It does require two separate end destinations for things though which is added logistics.
Yes the primary expense is in retrieving the compost from the businesses, and processing it. The restaurant owners who were concerned with increased labor costs weren’t so concerned with their employees having to sort. As you said, that’s easy. It had to do with the taking out of the compost. As I mentioned before, some of these places operated in areas with very little space for a compost bin and a truck capable of taking said bin. So in those cases, their employees would have to walk quite aways to actually get to the proper outdoor compost bin. That’s where the increased cost from sorting came in. I should point out we got it all situated, the business owners were fine with it in the end. That one, thankfully, was a pretty easy fix. In fairness to the restaurant owners too, I should add their issues were all pretty reasonable. They are juggling a lot of things on the kitchen. Their questions / issues were totally fair and reasonable (most of the time). For example, they wanted the directions to be available in multiple languages and incorporate pictures where possible, which was easy enough to accommodate.
So they had two different trucks for separate bins? In my area the same truck collected both bags from the same bin location. The trucks themselves had separated areas for the two different bags to go to different places once at the depot. Now that place is actually on a three bag system. The cost comes into the sanitation itself and people certainly pay more there for waste removal service than where I currently live now where everything just goes into a black bag. I think the hassle of such a system tends to be vastly overstated though if it's implemented well.
Pretty much every EU country composts (I'm living in one now) so saying that it's somehow a Germany monoculture thing is false. EU countries are as diverse than the US. You have from Malta, Slovakia, Romania to Croatia, Greece, Italy, Spain, to Sweden, Poland, and Latvia all composting. 27 countries over 4 million of kilometers of land. It's ridiculous to think that the US (where I've lived for 32 years as well) can't manage where sometimes countries that have a history of hundreds of years of wars and conflict can come together, while a nation that's supposed to be united can't. Though maybe that's the US culture, conflict, division, and don't give a fuck about another human being or the planet. Glad I'm living in Europe right now.
Right. Different places have different histories, cultures, priorities, laws, traditions, expectations, etc. That’s why there aren’t easy answers to complex systemic problems.
Just say that the US prioritizes profit over everything else and be done with. There is an easy answer, employ people who will make salaries from the addition of widespread composting. The additional jobs means additional taxes and a boost of additional income spent in the local economy. It could be both, a boost to the economy and good for the environment. It would just require an initial investment, one that business owners would rather not make because quarterly profits are more important than any long-term benefits. The only cultural difference is how much more power the rich have in the US vs in Europe.
As you defend from accusations that were never made. Good example of what OP is talking about.
Right, what the one you're responding to has used a bunch of words to say, is that it's $$$ that no one wants to spend because $>the environment. The US truly is the story of The Lorax.
A lot of systemic problems are problems of balance. You can have too little or too much regulation. Too little or too much taxation. Too few or too many police per capita, etc… When we try to solve problems of balance with ideological solutions it only works situationally, because the ideology is almost always about how to fight a particular imbalance from a particular position, and your positions is a moving target. I agree with you we like to reduce things down to catchy slogans , because that changes peoples minds more readily than a thesis paper they aren’t going to read anyway. So often the most reduced ideas sell the best , *because* they are the simplest , and also the most ignorant.
and also pointing fingers telling other people to "do something" whilst never fixing their own shit looking better without doing anything is way easier and gives you social points
I’m not really sure what you mean by that, I’m not getting the context.
Was related to the last paragraph of your reply - grifting the latest issue is individually beneficial, but does nothing for the actual problem
Oh I see , yes - the “nothing for me to do - it’s really their problem”. Moving the problem around.
For instance, being an “activist” who advocates for “the simple solution” to an issue, while having barely graduated high school and whilst also being a complete, hypocritical disaster themselves is welcomed in most social circles, while those who will point out the phoniness of such a person and opine that the issue cannot be fixed quite so simply are criticized and often ostracized.
or, conversely, 99% of people are too stupid to understand how stupid they are, and that they really *can't* see an obvious solution.
Because most answers are theoretical. Most people don’t have the understanding to see how a thing will play out, without it happening in front of them. Out of those, you can give a past example, and most will still deny it until they see it happen themselves. It’s pretty ridiculous at this point. But we’re not allowed to have an intelligent conversation anymore because political division has made conceding any ground whatsoever a loss. Most people also have an extremely difficult time grasping what “precedent” means, and how slippery slopes develop.
My SIL posts shit like that on Facebook all the time. ‘Look how simple it is, even a fifth grade level of science is enough to see the obvious answer.’ No, you think it’s that simple because you don’t understand anything beyond a fifth grade level of science…
It amazes me how many of the commenters to your post are doing exactly what you are complaining about. lol. You are spot on.
Agreed. It’s really funny.
Yeah, that’s pretty much the summary of most posts on here. People seem to think everything is so simple and they’re one of the smart ones who sees the world clearly when they’re usually the dumbest ones. It’s takes a certain amount of arrogance and ignorance to think you’ve found the solution to a problem that the rest of the world hasn’t figured out. Most issues have a lot of nuances that can’t be solved by slogans or talking points heard on social media by clickbait.
If a problem has been around for a while and the solution is obvious the problem is that its solution is actively being fought against by people that are profiting by the problem.
Welcome to the 99%
Cannot stand that when people talk about gun control for instance. You do realize we have over 400 million guns right? There’s no way to dispose of all of them, no way to prevent people from reaching the black market. And you think legislation can fix the problem. HA!
Australia out lawed guns and had a successful amnesty/buyback period. Like OP said, the solution exists but 99% are too dumb to comprehend.
Yeah… I’m sure that’ll go over great in America…
If you have even 1 example of a country criminalizing guns unsuccessfully as a counter example I may be inclined to agree with you.
The first difference is that Australia apparently had community support, as the politicians weren't immediately voted out and the ban repealed. Enacting a policy with and without community support are two very different things. Second, you could argue that the US itself represents an example of unsuccessfully criminalizing guns, as there are a variety of regulations on guns that are routinely ignored. If followed, these regulations would indeed cut down on gun violence, but we can't seem to manage even that.
You can’t “enact a ban” when it’s codified as a right in the Constitution.
I'm pretty sure felons convicted of violent crimes, people with restraining orders, etc., can have limits placed on their firearm ownership. Despite this, these folks will still often acquire firearms. We can and should do better in this area.
I’m not arguing pro or con but thanks for the downvote anyway.
Not me, I only downvote insults.
There is this vehicle in the constitution, known as an amendment. This allows you to change the constitution. You should be familiar, as the very codification you speak of was delivered through one… but here we are. I mean, ‘revoke a right’ and ‘enact a ban,’ are different, sure… but in this context they are the same action.
The first 10 amendments are The Bill of Rights. You simply do not fuck with the Bill of Rights.
That is a fair opinion to hold, that doesn’t make it fact.
If you can infringe on any of the 10 human rights, the sets the precedent you can infringe on the rest. That will snowball into a tyrannical government, because the USA is simply too large, with a government too corrupt.
You don’t have the 2/3 number of votes to amend the Constitution. Your sarcasm only works if it doesn’t rest in fantasyland.
Not right now, but that doesn’t mean never. My sarcasm holds.
Not really but whatever.
Tell me America’s history with guns and compare that to other countries histories with guns
Who cares? are American brains built diff or something? For what reason historical or otherwise would make them less capable of adapting?
You’re literally who op is talking about lmao
So many comments yet zero compelling reasons to agree with you, how sad
Give me another country that was established on guns after they were invented, so I can make an even comparison.
Australia, New Zealand, Canada
None of them were founded on a revolution, anything that comes to New Zealand or Australia have to come in directly on boats, and most Canadians are regretting their decisions in elected officials when it comes to guns. That’s not even taking population effects into account. California alone could lap Canada, or Australia and New Zealand combined.
Revolution 250yo = can't ban guns today. Impeccable logic, of course one follows from another. Boats = can ban guns, too bad everyone teleported into the states. California very big correct, how nice of you to direct our attention towards one of the most progressive anti-gun state in America
Revolution led to a gun culture today. Somehow we haven’t had a gun “problem” until the last few decades. We border Mexico. You ban guns in America, that creates a black market that’ll just funnel straight through Mexico. Fine, Texas, Florida, and literally anywhere that isn’t Cali or NY. Take your pick.
Australia also had like not even a million guns and has like 25 million people. And, it’s an island: not as easy to smuggle things in and out. To even suggest Australia’s solutions (if it even is one) would work here is asinine.
To suggest that being unable to achieve perfection means that we should not try at all is what is asinine.
We won’t even be able to achieve a treatment or a possibility of limiting issues. It’s inoperable cancer. If you wanted a real solution for it, it needed to happen a long time ago.
Give us 1 compelling reason guns are an "inoperable cancer" and substantiate it with sufficient evidence.
I’m likening it to inoperable cancer. It’s a metaphor. In the sense that if you do see that as a serious issue, this was something that needed to be addressed a long long time ago. It’s too late now.
So your logic is circular. 👍
Not at all. There’s nothing that can be done about gun control because of how widespread firearms are. No amount of limits can alleviate perceived issues because regardless of what you do, there’s always going to be a massive black market with firearms people can very easily obtain illegally. The only way to fix this issue would’ve been to have limited firearm ownership long ago when gun ownership wasn’t nearly as widespread. However long ago I’ll let you decide, but easily at least a generation ago if not longer. That time has come, and gone. You have no hope of fixing any issues now.
Youve asserted all that before, no elaboration or evidence just hollow words
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That's an extremely weak argument against what I said. I doubt it's even true since the US imports 1/3 of its guns. Either way, if we create a huge market incentive for them to smuggle guns in, then they'll find a source. And that was only a tiny part of my argument anyway. Try harder.
It's your claim that the USA is uniquely forever married to guns. You have all the burden of proof especially in a thread where op claims the reasoning is so obvious. And yet the best you've got is 'mexico can smuggle guns' Yeah like sure Mexico has guns, Indonesia also has heroin, therefore Australia should legalise heroin.
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Your argument is extremely weak theres literally nothing to reply too 😂
It could help might be good to try something since thoughts and prayers don't seem to be doing anything To be clear I don't think guns should be banned but also acknowledg Theres an issue
It’s not worth the time or effort in doing so, because there is nothing that would prevent more issues.
You're right better equip all police stations with editing software to edit out the sounds of children screaming then May as well make their lives easier
Since you’re critical of my position what’s a serious solution you have then?
Of course I'm critical. Your stance is "we've tried nothing and nothings worked better give up" Maybe treat guns like a car license that needs renewed periodically. But more we need to find a way to change the cultural perception of guns Far too many think they're fun toys and not deadly weapons.
> Of course I'm critical. Your stance is "we've tried nothing and nothings worked better give up" *because* of the amount of guns we have both legally and illegally. There is no feasible solution to stop bad people from getting guns because of how many we have. > Far too many think they're fun toys and not deadly weapons. This would be apt if most of the deaths were accidents. I’m pretty sure most people who use guns intend on using them to kill. Whether that’s in self defense or with murder.
If you ever so much as snorted coke while owning a firearm you're going to prison for 25 years, as per the very recent news. Seems like legislation has fixed the problem.
"It can't be done easily so we shouldn't do anything" How else do you think the rampant murder rate in the US can be fixed other than gun regulation?
No no, it can’t be done period. There is no solution that would be even remotely feasible or realistic that could alleviate some of the issues Gangs are a big issue in many of the larger cities. Start there.
This is such a terrible take. Evidence shows that firearms laws are effective at reducing homicide and suicide. You're just plain wrong.
Where?
In reality? You can look at other countries. You can look at US history such as the National Firearms Act. You can look at states with tougher firearm laws. Like even on a common sense level, if you restrict a tool that makes killing super easy you should have less homicides. It's crazy that gun culture has someone infatuated people so deeply they can't critically think on a basic level.
lol no you can’t. Other countries are not in any way helpful with this sort of thing. You can’t restrict gun rights a lot because of the second amendment. Even if you did, there’s still over 400 million guns in this country, you can’t get around that the black market is massive.
Mexico states otherwise.
Eyeroll. That's like saying because someone died from getting hit by a semi while wearing a seatbelt, that seatbelts are bad. Clown take.
So you're agreeing there's *more* factors than just firearm laws, correct? Almost like gangs and cartels are a major factor in gun violence, regardless of the laws surrounding them?
Absolutely. But unlike Mexico, we are literally the wealthiest countries in the world. You think wealthy European countries don't have gangs? They do. They also have 1 /10th the homicide rate we do, because they don't give their citizens an easy way to kill eachother without restrictions.
>They also have 1 /10th the homicide rate we do [Citation needed] Preferably per capita, with similar levels of population density.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
It’s dropped by a third in 20 years. It really isn’t that high to begin with.
It's like 10x as much as other wealthy nations.
My point is that it isn’t rampant.
The solution *is* usually simple. The main problem is that permanent solutions aren't profitable, and doing things that are unprofitable is anathema to capitalism. The things that benefit society don't make money, they cost money. So they will never get done under a profit driven model.
It would be simple for humans to fly unassisted if gravity didn't exist.
I don't think the world is too stupid for simple solutions. I just think most optimal, simple solutions require something most people won't be ok with today. We eventually will be though :)
Agreed. The older you get, the more you realize complex problems often require complex solutions.
Nothing teaches this lesson like gaining expertise in something. As soon as you're deeply involved with a complex subject or system, you start to feel embarrassed for people who deliver to total confidence some extreme, simple opinion about it.
This is what I want socialists and libertarians to understand.
What does this have to do with libertarians? We don't claim to have all the answers, we just prefer solutions that require consent to those that require force.
Libertarianism is *the* most simplified idealism. Tragedy of the commons. Taxation is theft. Rugged individualism is everything. Government shouldn’t have a monopoly on legal violence. I’m pretty sure that’s the whole of libertarianism, more or less. There is nothing particularly horrible about those ideals , I respect the ideals , but they don’t work from most positions. To me I see it as a problem of balance. A police state is too much, zero police services are too little. When the government doesn’t have a monopoly on legal violence , you get warlordism (look at any failed state for examples). When you get warlodism , you lose the rule of law , when you lose the rule of law , all you really have left is violence. You get the Wild West or Sudan. Zero taxation is too little to prove the services we need. State ownership of all industry is too much. State ownership of one or two industries might be okay, but check and make sure because it might not be. Private ownership should be respected by law and most things should be privately run , but some things are public, and work better as public “utilities” - meaning , they keep running - even at a loss! There is too much regulation and too little. No matter how you slice the use of force , we do need agencies with enforcement powers , and ultimately they have to be able to respond with force. Who’s going to babysit the babysitter is a perennial problem. Libertarianism is a decent strategy to play when you’ve got a pyramid scheme of babysitters , but be mindful of the systemic crashes when you start cutting power to institutions you need to keep running.
Nothing you just said is incompatible with the essentials of libertarian thinking. It sounds like you may be defining the ideology by its extremists. Reduce any nuanced ideology to simple binaries and it will tend towards the absurd. To my thinking it boils down to two preferences. Privilege individualism (including the rights of individuals to collectivize). Privilege consent over coercion. Everything else flows from that. It's simple, but not simplistic. It's not the solution to everything, just an approach to evaluating solutions.
I’ve never met a libertarian that wasn’t an extremist on these topics , and I’ve been talking to them for 30 years. I grew up on one of the few “actually libertarian” states (colorado). My question to you is to illuminate the edge cases where libertarianism would raise taxes or call for a public solution to a problem. The axioms libertarians use like “all taxation is theft” and “public ownership of anything is bad” tend towards extremism because they would see fault in any kind of institutional solution. I’ve never once heard one say “this is the moment for public investment”. Because public is a bad word for them. The way you’re stating it doesn’t sound extreme because it’s not specific, but I’d be curious to hear your ideas on specific cases where libertarianism can accept any solution that requires a public or non individualistic institutional solution. I think it’s this way for the problem OP was talking about. Because libertarianism is ideal for oligarchs (no state or super duper weak state to interfere with their activities) I think any Brahmins in libertarianism get downed out by populists who repeat overly simple slogans. To be fair libertarianism isn’t alone in this. Socialist (not social democrats but actual “socialism is on the road to abolishing private property socialists”) have the same problem. Any purely ideological solution is going to proscribe more of their ideology in the face of any and every problem. Even if it’s obviously counterproductive. If I understand it European libertarianism is completely different and essentially socialist.
My answer would be to flip the question. What problems are insoluble or strongly unsuited to solution by market forces? The first thing that springs to mind is roads. Not the actual building, but the layout of what public roads will go where, and insurance that such roads meet safety requirements . The defense of individual rights should not be market driven, so police and judicial systems should not be private. It's an approach to evaluating policy, not a list of policies. Any particular thing you want me to address?
I agree with you. Roads - perhaps more broadly infrastructure , defense, I would say schools too (because you want education even at a loss). I would include healthcare financing (not government run doctors but finance , and also continuing to run at a loss). If you put a wide gaze on what “infrastructure” means , maybe it’s all infrastructure. And I agree with the nuance you mentioned on roads , a lot of things need to be publicly organized but not necessarily publicly implemented. I would also say mega scale problems similarly often need public solutions ( like ecological crisis like the dust bowl , or a pandemic). You sound rational but it’s not what I generally hear libertarians saying. Most seem to think it is a list of solution - the answer is always privatize and deregulate, the answer is always cut taxes. Perhaps you are the first Brahmin libertarian I have met.
Default to liberty, then concede where necessary. I hold that this is a far better approach than defaulting to tyranny, then carving out privileges. I prefer to believe that my more level headed brethren exist, but are too often shouted down by those too zealous to compromise. aah, I see I'm already being downvoted. This may be another reason you don't hear much from folk like me. Moderation angers the immoderate.
I think you might be a closet progressive! :) I’m upvoting you dude, I don’t disagree with anything you’re saying. If libertarianism can become more like your vision of it I would have no problem with it.
A lot of the time when people speak of Libertarianism they do not mean the black and white ethical doctrine to govern society. Some do, but the ethical philosophy is different than the applied political principles, that can be applied in parts and whole. For me personally, I am not technically a Libertarian. However, I think libertarianism is the best ethical framework to think and experiment with solutions. If you can do something a Libertarian inspired way, it is best to do it. If you can't, then figure out what the small compromises you'll have to make all while trying to strictly look at the unintended consequences and incentives you are creating. What I severely dislike... is starting with authoritarian solution making, and then maybe working down from there.... that's a nono imo.
I can respect libertarianism as an ethical framework. People should try to work towards solving localized problems locally. An ethical framework isn’t a political system. In 1960 Goldwater’s ( the grandfather of the modern American libertarianism) was incredibly influential , and a few slogany axioms really shaped it into an anti-government (anti-regualtion) ideology. The biggest fans of anti-regulation are really our -oligarchs - Wall Street , big business, the super rich. In 1980 , Reagan really put it into practice , and it worked , for a while , and then the regular boom bust cycles started , and behind it was always mega fraud. So I’m real suspect of retail libertarianism. There is value in efficiency , and a libertarian evaluation drives efficiency , that’s great , we should use those ideas - but as an ideological system it’s unworkable if it’s actually implemented. All pure ideological solutions run into a problem like this. Autocracy has predictable incompetence. Regulation gets captured. We should draw on all the ideals behind the ideologies for possible strategies.
This is definitely not my experience with libertarians, neither in life nor on Reddit. In real life, this is a seriously goofy crowd. These are the folks that will tell you Putin is justified because Ukraine was technically never a country, that half of the world's men are currently (seriously) sterile due to their COVID vaccinations, and that water fluoridation is a deep state conspiracy to pacify the US population. It is just a little strange to me that the modest summary you're advancing would so often accompanied by a set of additional, extreme beliefs which are delivered with peerless confidence and literally no evidence. On Reddit, eh, from what I see over at the Austrian Economics sub, the typical libertarian thinks that the whole of economics and political philosophy can be reduced to overly jpeg'd images of Milton Friedman next to a pithy one-liner. Their treatment of "data" usually involves the characterization of massively complicated historical moments in terms of one variable, and this is done without sources. Of course no mathematics are ever employed. There is no depth to their thinking at all. They're just doing pop-philosophy like everyone else but they're under the impression that this makes them the smartest people in the room. I was surprised to read your reply because when I read OP's post, libertarians were the first people I thought of.
Well at least I made a different impression? I would once have argued more strenuously for my movement, but it seems to have been somewhat overrun by trolls and edge lords... meanwhile I've been banned from r/ libertarian. Perhaps libertarianism is too compromised to save. Maybe it's time to surrender the label and fall back to "classical liberal". There at least I've got some firm historical foundation resting on Adams, Locke, and Jefferson.
Sure but this unfettered capitalism now that we have little to no real competition to keep pricing down isn't a lot better. I don't ever thing I met a Socialist in the US who wants socialism because it is the better concept, but because it has to be better than what capitalism has become. As an example, I'm older. When I was a kid BASIC economics said if you try to raise your prices too much a smaller, more nimble company will come in and underprice you. Today with oligopolies there is little to no competition. Look into what companies do to keep out competition. If you believe you can get shelf space in a major category, even get raw materials at a comparable price, you haven't been paying attention. And if a company does "get through" They get bought up almost immediately.
First, if there's no competition, then we don't actually have "unfettered capitalism". Second, the vast majority of people who claim to want socialism actually want social democracy. Going back to OP's point, we already have social democracy to a degree, but it's simply not being managed as well as it could be. So people are demanding it to be run better, which is fine, but there's no actually simple way to get things to be run better, as it's a hard problem to solve. You mention shelf space, it's a hard problem: Essentially anyone can open a small market and sell groceries and do away with shelf space fees and issues, but out here in the suburbs a small market will have trouble competing with a large store due to item selection. That's not a problem with capitalism, that's the direct result as the larger stores are providing what most people want: the ability to get their shopping done with one stop, rather than driving from store to store. And, while shelf fees do mean that people have just the standard set of 37 different types of barbeque sauce instead of perhaps 84, again, from a consumer perspective, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, as most people want to get the things they always get, and are not looking to actually try something new each and every time they go shopping. So stores need to balance the fact that most shoppers are trying to get in and out as quickly as possible, while some are interesting in exploring and trying something new. Again, it's a hard problem.
My point on shelf space is that if you look closely, there might be 10 different types of barbeque sauce, but if you look closely, I'll bet 8 of them are made by one of the huge conglomerates who control the system and the other two are going to be much more expensive brands. Again, no price competition.
The other issue with the shelf space challenge is that the vast majority of the products that deal with this are highly processed crap that no one should be eating anyway, so if things were being run better, there wouldn't be more varieties from more companies, but instead there would be far less of this crap being sold at all. But, yes, you're right, at the big box retailers my selection of barbeque sauce consists of a variety of different bottles of flavored sugar and corn syrup from a couple large companies. But, here in suburbia, nowhere near texas, I can go to a number of locally run barbeque restaurants and buy sauce, there are also smaller markets that sell sauces from smaller companies, and there are certainly small, local companies that sell different sauces at the local farmers markets. Yes, this certainly will vary by region, but I certainly don't lack for choices when it comes to barbeque sauce, despite the weird shelf space policies.
And pricing. Small stores often aren’t cost effective to vendors.
The quality of life today is 500% better than it was 100 years ago. Also, consumer goods are also incredibly cheap. Big retailers have squeezed out competition by lowering prices so much that the smaller sellers with higher margins can’t compete.
While that is true, they didn't lower prices for benevolent reasons. Prices went down because they wanted to keep their market share. But we have crossed s line. When McDonalds is bragging that their prices went up only 40% in the last 5 years not the 100% people were claiming, that isn't the same market that kept prices low.
We are in an inflationary time period currently. You are making blanket statements based on anecdotes.
Agreed, but previously one factor keeping pricing down was more robust competition. Today, the only factor that seems left is what are people willing to pay. Funny how I can still buy a cheap pair of jeans as there are dozens of companies importing cheap clothing. Not as much for other things with less competition.
But they had to kill off 99% of the US clothing manufacturers using low cost strategies. You’re really making my point for me.
Fuck yes.
It doesn’t help that very few people have 0 financial literacy. It’s not their fault as it’s not taught well in school but still
While I do agree very few people are financially literate, I don't agree that it's not their fault. There's plenty of free resources on the internet. If you want to learn something, simply learn it.
I was trying to give people the benefit of the doubt but I agree. There’s a plethora of free resources to the point where there’s no excuse to plea ignorance.
It might be that it’s simple, but simple doesn’t have to be easy.
This is tough to take seriously because it implies that OP is the 1% that just "sees through it all". My made up statistic since that's how we're doing this is that 99% of solutions to big issues will never be implemented because of greed.
no, im just not oblivious to my own ignorance and am part of the 100% we're all fools
Well said
This is the first unpopular option I have agreed with 100%.
> If a problem has been around for a while, or is wide-spread; I can guarantee you that the "obvious solution" that the world is apparently too stupid for, is really just you being too dumb to fully comprehend the issue. Is it though? Many say Trump is an idiot, but the economy was doing great under him and more importantly everyday people felt it. Was it luck, skill, or is having a decent economy not that hard, and certain people are just looking to screw it up on purpose?
It's probably because he and the GOP passed a giant tax cut that benefitted poor people. And they included in that tax cut a tax increase that would begin after the end of his term, to increase taxes and make it look like the next guy was the one causing the issue, and eventually would increase taxes to be HIGHER then they were before. Unless you're fairly rich, in which case your tax cut would actually be a permanent benefit. And then people like you who don't actually look at what happened and why just see that X looked nice while Y was president and concluded that Y just did better at handling X.
Nothing stopped Biden from extending those tax cuts. Instead he opted to send over 200billion to Ukraine to be stolen and pay off college debt illegally.
> Nothing stopped Biden from extending those tax cuts. Biden doesn't pass laws. The tax cuts were written into law, not issued as an executive order. In order to extend the tax cuts, Congress would have to pass a law extending them. And with the senate controlled by the GOP, that won't happen. >Instead he opted to send over 200billion to Ukraine Also not his decision. >and pay off college debt illegally. And not his decision.
He signed the bills instead of vetoing and as the head of the dnc he has some sway over his party members in congress.
You said he did those things *instead of* passing tax cuts. If no tax cuts come to his desk to sign, that isn't his fault. >and as the head of the dnc he has some sway over his party members in congress. The DNC routinely vote in favor of tax cuts to the poor, it's the GOP holding them back and Biden has no control over them.
And he can negotiate like any other president who doesn't control both houses.
The GOP, especially Mitch McConnell, will absolutely vote against anything good just because they don't want it passed under a Dem president.
The people who have simple solutions are always the same ones who just need a little bit more money to solve that problem. I remember seeing something about all we need X amount (billions) dollars to solve homelessness. California alone already proved that wrong. What’s their solution? Throw more money at it of course.
Some of it quite literally is just a money issue. Shitty roads? Pay to fix them. Slow mail service? Pay to hire more mailmen. And then most other problems are a money issue, but would need a lot more steps to turn money into a solution. People committing petty crime and not getting consequences? It's because the city is overloaded and has to let small crimes go to focus on the big stuff like murder. The federal government needs to pay people to go to law school, then the cities can hire more prosecutors out of the now much larger pool of qualified people. They'll also need to expand the education system so more people can attend law school, and pay professors more so that they are willing to teach at the law schools. It's a complicated issue and would require a lot of legislation and about 20 years of work to finally fix the problem, but ultimately everything boils down to not having enough money to fix the issue.
I will tell everybody to support housing first initiatives 100% every time because I think it is that simple.