Eat the rich.
We don’t really have castes in the US. But yes, being poor sucks anywhere in the world.
I was speaking more in terms of infrastructure and public assistance. For example, I was able to get a student loan and an education in the States. I have clean, potable tap water. Dependable utilities. Those sorts of things.
despite the downsides which we should be doing a better job of mitigating.
This is the part where I lose faith. We have failed to mitigate the downsides. In fact, we have encouraged the monetization of the downsides.
Seems to me that this is a great argument for getting rid of the death penalty. It’s a win-win. No more pardons for the guilty, no more executions for the innocent.
It seems a LOT easier to just take away pardons entirely. They are abused more often than not.
Yeah, it sucks for innocent folks. But their sentence can still be commuted.
https://youtu.be/tsAZ0RweVxk?t=22
O Brother Where Art Thou, a movie like none other
It never ends. The injustices pile up faster than they can be addressed. This is a feature, not a flaw of the system, because the system isn’t designed for you and me. It’s designed to make the wealthy comfortable and stable.
The best thing you can do for yourself is to disconnect. Focus on the things in life that propel you forward. Spend time with loved ones. Cultivate a sense of appreciation and gratitude for the things that go right. Exercise and take care of yourself. Don’t let the bastards steal your happiness.
Is it? Why is China “bad”?
Let’s review:
AND yet…it all led to the Civil War. Which was necessary to stop the selling human beings for profit.
So, yes, if you look at the relationship between the two political entities involved, a compromise was reached. But that compromise was worthless in preventing violence.
Violence was always inevitable. It started with violence toward Africans - kidnapping and slavery. The only way to end it was more violence - a bloody, vicious civil war. This is the human condition.
If you don’t want to hear other people’s opinions, then you will never get your way. You will always be unhappy. Nothing will ever be good enough. People want to be heard. They like validation. And they definitely follow emotion before logic. But you can’t change the system without the help of other people, even people you don’t 100% agree with.
I speak from the heart and I speak with empathy. I FEEL YOU. I’m frustrated, too. I’m fed up.
Through the last few years, I’ve been thinking about moving out of the country. In terms of places that I can make a better life for myself, the pickings are slim. The USA isn’t the best country out there, but it’s not the worst by far. I’m openly LGBTQ, which automatically limits my options. I don’t have a lot of money, so Western Europe is too pricey. Etc, etc…but, yeah, eventually I’ll pull the trigger and just leave.
You want to convince people how wonderful things would be if only we do it your way? Then run for office. Seriously. If you are this passionate about changing the status quo, if you are 100% sure that your way is the right way, that’s what you should be doing. Change the world for the better, my friend, even for a brief moment. It’s more than I’ve been able to accomplish in a lifetime.
There is no final victory. Ever. Not even an imaginary moral victory.
There is only and has only ever been the fight.
It’s human nature.
Case in point: The tone of your comment above is combative and accusatory, rather than friendly or neutral. Why?
What is the “right” side, in your opinion? What if both sides are wrong? What if there are more than 2 sides?
Human beings have been outputting incorrect information for years. Get a high school textbook in literally any subject (except possibly math) from the 1970s. You’ll be amazed at how much of it is oversimplified or politicized or just plain wrong.
I do agree that AI has compounded the problem. There’s a limit to how much inaccuracy/incompetence a given system can tolerate. An organization that relies on AI for critical processes better have a way to monitor and intervene.
It’s not ready for commercial use by the general public.
We see this ALL the time in America - a new disruptive technology emerges. We jump all over the benefits and the profits without regard to consequences or expense. We suffer.
New cheap pesticide? Hell yeah, spray that DDT everywhere, it’s super effective! (Insert other endless examples here, from microplastics to asbestos.)
AI (and information technology in general) has shown itself to be a danger to human beings. Its effects are not felt so much in the short term (5 or 10 years) but generationally. We’ve seen that information technology has already impacted quality of life. It’s used as spyware, as a tool to collect and correlate massive amounts of data. It’s used to shape our media experience, our purchasing, our social circles. There are great things, like online banking. But they seem more and more to be outweighed by a loss of humanity. So much misinformation that I question my own reality some days.
What we call “AI” is the evolution of these obtrusive, coercive practices. It exists purely to replace human thinking skills. I’ve spent a bit of time in r/teachers over the last 15 years, and the stories keep getting worse. The rise of AI means that detecting plagiarism/cheating is exponentially more difficult. But, more importantly, the kids don’t have any stress when it comes to cheating. They don’t have to find a friend or know the bare minimum. They can just…cheat. And they never learn to problem solve or overcome adversity.
None of this matters, though. Ready or not, here we are. A new kind of slavery for a new world order.
If you want to fight, you have to be prepared to lose.
It was no accident that Rosa Parks chose that particular seat on that particular day. Everyone that came before her had lost that same battle. Black folks (and the white folks who supported them) were thrown in jail for violating segregationist laws. But with each battle, knowledge and support was gained.
There’s a line in the recent Fallout series that really sticks out to me. A “do good” congresswoman is trying to get an audience with the president. She is roughly shoved aside by security. Our hero helps her up and she says to him, “Fighting the good fight is mostly a series of humiliations”.
I think about that a lot. It’s exactly like that, because fighting the good fight mostly happens when you are alone and outnumbered. Otherwise, you’re just in an echo chamber.
(with the one notable exception of physicians)
Not an important job to a functioning society. As evidenced that most Americans can’t afford to see a physician except on rare occasions, yet we are still alive.
Please don’t misunderstand - I think access to healthcare should be emphasized more, and healthcare workers should be fairly compensated. But all the physicians in the world could disappear today and the effect would be minimal compared to all the truck drivers disappearing or all the nurses disappearing.
It hasn’t been for some time.
“Education” is indoctrination. That’s why kids are forced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. It’s why I was taught about Columbus. It’s why I believed that “Honest Abe” fought for the rights of slaves.
All bullshit, but each was a small building block to believing that somehow the US was a special place, a blessed nation, where personal expression and equality and opportunity were valued and hard work meant success.
And the sad thing - even at its worst, the US is still a better place to live than 80% of the world.
The answer is always greed.
Teachers tend to like teaching. It’s a rewarding, “feel good” career. You know that you are helping kids, you get to watch them at their best. And, yes, sometimes at their worst, too, but that’s part of the deal - like watching your puppy chew up your couch and shit on the floor. Still worth it.
Since teachers tend to be passionate, they put up with a lot of bullshit admin/management. Moreso than you might at a soulless corporate job. This isn’t limited to teachers, either. Consider other careers where people put up with bullshit, and you’ll see a lot of parallels.
Art is a great parallel example. Everyone loves great art, artists love making art - but many people don’t want to pay for art. That’s why there’s so many passionate actors and musicians, but so few of them manage to eke out a living as a true professional. The passion is there, they are driven by their love of art, not by the material rewards.
The business world loves to take advantage of passion.
I mean…the census can define whatever it wants to define, but the rest of us still have to live in the real world.
Sure, you can call my satellite suburban neighborhood “urban”. But it’s 3 miles of twisting, turning roads just to reach the nearest convenience store. The nearest bus stop would be at least 7 miles away.
Maybe we shouldn’t rely solely on the Census Bureau in this regard? Perhaps a transportation authority of some sort would be able to provide better measuring stick for this particular discussion?
I think there’s some nuance missing here.
I’ve lived in suburbs where the nearest public transit was 4 or 5 miles away.
Holy fuck, that needs to be repeated ad infinitum.
And, yeah, I agree. My first thought upon seeing this meme was “Who’s gonna make the solar panels?”