We could choose to work on the ego control, tribalism and start using healthy policies, look at things that help the common good like infrastructure and schools that we pay for with taxes, then include healthcare and paid leave as common goods that reduce poverty and most importantly improves lives. Less stress from artificial scarcity. These healthy policies help improve life satisfaction, less stress and improve productivity, and spread the risk and cost the most, and use proven results in other places and states that expanded Medicare people did better.
Okay, this is going to get me down voted to oblivion but when I think “basic needs” I think prison (without the lockup and slavery).
You should have a place to sleep, three meals a day, heat in winter, a/c in summer. Access to education to better yourself, medical/dental and basic employment and a minimum level of clothing.
Everything else is on you.
Braces for incoming hate
I may have some bad news for you about conditions inside many prisons…
Everybody wants universal basic income. Nobody wants to answer where to get the money from.
No, we’ve already answered this but barely literate dense dipshits like to pretend otherwise.
Tax the shit out of very wealthy individuals and companies and use that incredible wealth to provide basic safety nets and programs for everyone. The most quality of life improvements generation over generation and massive public infrastructure projects we did here in the US was when we taxed wealth aggressively and used that money to invest in people.
The major reason for why everything is getting shittier in the US is because we’re catering to billionaire parasites and their companies and not to the other 99.9% of people. You may disagree but that is what it is.
Tax the rich.
It’d be nice if they just disagreed but instead they hate you for reasons made up by those who enjoy get richer off of people not having their needs met.
There aren’t a lot of people who get richer when economic output is lower. Sure, there are some in some specific scenarios, but for the most part rich assholes support pro-poverty policies not because they stand to benefit, but because they are assholes, or more likely simply because they are ignorant. They aren’t very different from the lumpen proletariat demanding policies against their own interests in that regard.
Conservatives are so hateful, I’ve actually heard them try to use as a gotcha “what if someone you hate is transgender, would you still affirm their gender identity?”
Yes. Why wouldn’t I? Even people I hate get to identify as whatever gender they want. Why is that such a hard thing for them to wrap their heads around?
They’re so filled with hate, it doesn’t even occur to them that other people might not be. It’s just projection all the way for them.
“What if someone you hate is alive and not hurting anyone, would you want to impact their lives negatively?” Some people are rough.
Yeah, we still use Caitlyn Jenner’s preferred name and pronouns in spite of her being a raging Trump supporter. Same with Blaire White.
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I bet they would be nicer individuals if they didn’t have to worry about having their basic needs met
They might be nicer, but they won’t change their political views. Voters in Germany generally have their basic needs met (thanks to Art. 1 GG). Around 80% of them are still explicitly supporting right-wing political parties on the federal level, whose policies will leave most Germans poorer than they were before.
The unfortunate reality is that a lot of people - even when they don’t want to say it - have an underlying belief in a hierarchy of “betters” and “others” that they want to uphold. And sadly, no amount of education has proven suitable to fix that.
I want to believe. Deep down I’m scared that some people’s nastiness comes from having too many of their needs met too quickly. And it deprives them of ever developing any empathy for others whose needs are not met.
Oh, yeah, other peoples nastiness. Not your own, of course.
What no theory does to a mfer.
Mmmm I was looking forward to some nasty things with you. I’m glad you showed up again
It’s just about the basic needs here. Its actively damaging to develop without those being met. And even if it does make a few more assholes, this is still the point - here are some stupid assholes that deserve to be given the guarantee of survival
This is what I don’t understand about anybody who disagrees with you. What is the point of the entire concept of society, of civilization, of government, of organizing people into any sort of group if not to raise the basic quality of living? If you don’t believe in the concept of a society, then fuck off and stop influencing and benefitting from the very thing that you’re trying to dismantle.
Furthermore, not only is it the moral and ethical thing to do to take care of all of us, but it’s an investment that pays dividends because healthy and safe people become productive people who will in turn raise a generation of productive people and so on and so forth. So even if you’re a ghoul who lacks empathy and only looks at the bottom line, it still just makes sense to feed and educate and clothe and house the people. And even if you’re able to easily provide those basics for yourself and your family, that just means more expendable income to juice the economy when you buy the goods and services that you want instead of just spending it on needs.
“Oh no, but then we’d get a ton of immigrants!” Okay? And what, we get a population boom of productive people just in time for boomers to retire and die? And that’s supposed to be bad? Kinda seems like an ideal solution.
The only explanation that I can find is that these people are either too dumb to think that far ahead or they’re too cruel to want to end suffering for anybody that isn’t them. In both cases, I don’t know what the solution is, but they’re so plentiful that it’s hard to imagine a Star Trek utopian society ever coming to fruition. It’s hard to have hope for the future with so many bastards insisting that humanity has already peaked and we need to regress to improve.
That’s not the only explanation. Our current era is dominated by a complete lack of political imagination, probably because most of the ruling class benefits from how things are (I guess that’s true by definition). And some of them can benefit even more if they redirect all the blame on an outgroup. It’s not stupidity when they are doing what is in their personal best interest and it’s not cruelty because Im not sure they think in the slightest about those they are hurting.
you see the immigrants have scary values that differ from the nice white folk of america. they have a strong work ethic, prioritize family, speak english, and most importantly, have a slightly different skin tone which assaults the delicate anglo sensibilities upon which this great eugenicist experiment was founded
I really hope so, chief. That would feel like the Curb effect but for people on the spectrum of prosocial/antisocial.
I think an uncomfortable percentage would gladly sacrifice their own needs being met to prevent certain others’ needs being met.
That’s probably a factor. But we can deal with that in ways that don’t need their needs to be unfulfilled.
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They’d take everything you give them
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They’d insult you for being stupid enough to give shit away for nothing
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they’d fight and steal amongst themselves for whatever they can get from each other
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they’d do everything they can to stop you
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they’d complain and demonize you for stopping.
but MAYBE the kids they have that you’re feeding will grow up to be slightly less shitty.
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Those are the people who have their needs met.
*Offer does not apply to anyone who committed war crimes or billionaires
They can still have all that confined to a building they’ll spend the rest of their lives in.
It does actually. That’s the radical part, it has to.
Probably best to leave this discussion for after they are removed from power. After all, it’s easy to give in to desire of retribution when one is powerless.
Certainly. Universal care doesn’t mean acquiescence.
Not if they stand in the way of liberation. Revolution is never bloodless.
My friend, universal care is the revolution. The revolution is continuous, it is something that must be forever performed and upkept. A bloody struggle is just one possible step toward the revolution.
What’s the balance between what the government should provide towards our basic needs vs what the individual is responsible for?
All needs by the government. Personal responsibility for leisure.
All basic needs should be provided for. Anything beyond basic needs should be your own responsibility. So food, shelter, health and wellbeing, education, security, defense, and access to infrastructure should all be provided as a part of the public good.
And before you say it, people will still want more than just their basic needs met, so almost all will still find work to do. They just no longer have to accept the jobs that require people to be threatened with death to take them.
You balance it against wealth equality, aim for the most wealthy people to have enough to own 1 yact but the least wealthy still have at least a studio apartment to live in. Everyone gets firsts before anyone gets seconds.
Don’t be pedantic. Doing nothing while people are dying on the street means the system needs to change. Tweak it until until (ideally) no one is dying on the street. That doesn’t mean we wipe everyone’s ass for them and it doesn’t mean we won’t have homeless people (I used to know a dude that wanted to be homeless and proudly proclaimed himself a “street person” to anyone who asked). It means everyone has their basic needs met. Food, water, a safe place to sleep, education, and a wage that covers the basic costs of living. If someone needs help we help them because we are a community and communities take care of each other.
Our PROBLEM is the current system is catered to the top tier of the ultra rich and “pretends” any scraps thrown our way are us being irresponsible leaches. But we pay a ungodly percentage of our income in taxes (not just income taxs, but every sale, every regressive tax) to a government that gives almost nothing back while calling us freeloaders and then we get bogged down in conversations about “individual responsibility.” We can have conversations about individual responsibilities after congress works full time, the pentagon can pass an audit, military generals don’t retire and go to work for defence contractors, and billionaires get their goddamn fingers out of the white house (and it wasn’t just under trump they had their fingers in the government pie).
This is not a call to violence in any way but unfortunately probably won’t happen until the right kind of people start dying on the streets. Look at how shook up CEOs got over one healthcare parasite CEO getting what he got. Look at how the chud white nationalist conservatives got shook up over one gummy racist rat “paying the cost of freedom” or however he put it when talking about children being gunned down schools.
Things will have to get a lot worse before they get better.
Perhaps you’ve heard the statement “the devil is in the details”.
Food, shelter, health care, education are provided for all, regardless of contribution or ability to contribute.
I’m not sure how to pay for that, how to deal with metric gaming, or people who dont want the above. Also how to deal with externalities like climate change or conflicts… But I can dream!
The balance is that a full time job should enable you to provide the basic needs for yourself.
Abelist. People unable to work should also be okay and allowed to get married without losing support
We will fight for their right to be stupid… goddammit.
I think we should give individuals the option to opt out of social services. They need to be allowed to make mistakes or else they will never learn
I’d say most people get cross when they are not allowed to make their own mistakes, so something like that would make sense.
If I understand right, this was the original meaning of the term “outlaw”. You don’t abide by the law, but you’re also not protected by it.
Someone stole your TV? Good luck getting it back!
Wouldn’t you also be able to go take it back though
Yes, but if anybody saw you (on your way to get the TV), they could kill you without impunity. It might not be worth the risk.
With impunity.
I feel like that wouldn’t translate to modern day so well, no one would know who you are so no idea if you are an outlaw.
What really sucks is when the people who claim to be unhappy with conservatism defend conservatives as if they are the victims of their own evil nature or idiocy.
Conservatives are not the victims of conservatism. They are the perpetrators of conservatism and should be treated as such.
It’s important to continue to want the best for even those who disagree with us on that matter, lest we become another one of them.
For everyone on Earth minus a slight statistical anomoly, I agree!
Like, you know how cleaning wipes say they kill 99.99% of germs? Well I want the needs of 99.99% of the population met.
who do you think doesnt deserve to have their needs met?
Billionaires knowingly perpetuating a harmful economic system for their own gain. Politicians and high-level government officials knowingly perpetuating a harmful political and legal system for their own gain.
How I define harmful in this context: neglecting the needs of the many for the benefit of the few.
Knowingly: repeating an action despite clear evidence or representation from the majority under their control. Or restricting public access to something that is harming them with the intent to continue the harmful behaviour.
Obviously its a little more nuanced than that, but that’s the jist.
are you talking about these people’s access to food being restricted or about murder? if it’s the former, then i think that removing their power to harm would be more effective. if it’s the latter i think that’s kind of different from what the post is talking about.
Any method that permanently stops them from continuing the harm.
I will be 100% aligned with this post when that’s achieved.
i agree, but i don’t think that that contradicts the post. the path to a better world from this one is necessarily messy and in this situation nothing can be achieved cleanly. in this context i feel like you’d have to add a caveat to every single universal human right we’re working towards because there are people in the way. you aren’t arguing that they should denied food and shelter, youre arguing that they should be stopped from hurting people. i think you belong fully in the ‘everyone deserves to have their basic needs met’ camp
You make a compelling point.
And they call you a leftists radical for this
I think people should have what they wish on others.
I get the impression you think you’re being clever but you’re just saying “I don’t” in a different font
I want to say yes, but it’s hard to reconcile with people who not only want to have their security, but wish for others to suffer. What’s the line for republicans? “I don’t care what happens to you until it happens to me!” Especially for the well-off and powerful who have several lifetimes worth of their needs met and actively work against societal needs.
In a nutshell, it kinda boils down to the same aspect as the tolerance paradox.
I mean if your express goal is to violate the social contract I don’t believe you should be covered by it.
Hungry desperate people tend to cause problems. If someone decides to violate the social contract and ends up destitute they will become even more disruptive. These folk need educated, not starved
