I love paying for schools, because I hate being surrounded by dumb people.
God I hate boomers
The rich and powerful are making us hate each other to distract us of the real problems of the world
Yes, of course you are. That’s why taxes are mandatory and you go to jail if you don’t pay.
I attended a very rural school district and in 7th grade a bunch of retired people got their friends to elect them to the school board and at their first meeting they closed my school.
But hey, it’s OK. They’re all dead now.
opinion: individualism is a plague and the generational war is a distraction
There can be more than one issue, of which both of these are a problem.
The boomers and the rediculously wealthy have the same mindset: fuck you, I’ve got mine
Yep, the real war is the class war and the billionaires are winning.
Exactly. Class is the biggest thing that divides us, the rest is a distraction.
Amen, brother. No war but the class war.
Jesus Christ you said the exact words I was going to. Am I robot?
Na brother, we’re all just equally burnt out from this capitalist hellscape the billionaires created, and with a collapsing global ecology, we want justice for the future that has been stripped away from us and our children.
Most billionaires are also boomers. The class war and the war against gerontocracy are one and the same.
There are shitty people in every generation.
Neither of those are billionaires.
Gerontocracy is fundamentally an issue of the few holding more than their fair share of wealth and power at the expense of others and pulling the ladder up behind them. It is a class issue same as everything else.
We’ve got Sam Altman and Taylor Swift in the millennial category off the top of my head. Elon Musk is Gen x, not a boomer. So boomers have Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia at the moment, but soon they’ll go to gen X and the problems will perpetuate. Oh, Googles Ceo is Gen X as well
Yes, and once boomers start dropping dead, gen Xers will be fighting tooth and nail to hold on to their slice of the state pension ponzi at the cost of everyone below them on the ladder the same as boomers did. That does not change my point at all.
There is no fair and equitable world in which state pensions can continue working the way they work now. The system was built on the expectation of infinite growth with every generation being larger than the last.
Yeah, if we saw something like an unavoidable 25% tax on all wealth over $300 million, we would see around $2.5 trillion in taxes that could be distributed as a universal base income that would place $17,857 per average household (2.5) in the U.S.
If we actually combated housing prices, that could potentially cover housing everyone in the U.S. from that alone, then retirements would only need to cover food costs. There are a lot of changes that would need to be made, they just won’t come until the last second when people are dying in large enough numbers to make people do something.
opinion: individualism is a plague and the generational war is a distraction
people should be able to have their own sense of choice and identity.
people should also realise that together we can make it so that everyone can reach their full potential, making society better.
pay your fucking taxes
I love taxes, I would gladly pay even more taxes if that meant everyone would be provided for.
Except at the moment our taxes here in Belgium are already quite high, and our tax system is a complete cluster fuck with plenty of loopholes for the strongest shoulders to not have to carry their weight. Some part of that is even fraudulent, and they’re trying to get a law through right now to find those cases of fraud more efficiently… But it is being opposed by parts of the govt with privacy as the excuse (which I’d normally agree with, except what they’re trying to change is not that egregious afaik and the ratio of found vs investigated fraud is insane)
I wasn’t calling out your tax Stance, more of a general statement to go with the “pro individualism” statement I have.
I wasn’t calling you out at all just going on a bit of a tangent :)
So many people don’t understand why we live in a society, and apparently have no capacity for empathy.
They’re free to go live in the wilderness, with no roads, no fire department, no water or electricity, no services whatever, and find out how much they’re actually benefiting from our collective.
They won’t, because though they like to complain, they’re pussies who can’t be bothered to think for 5 minutes that the fact they can read and write their snarky bullshit is because they benefitted from free education, else they’d be illiterate.
But gods forbid they pay back the overwhelming amount they benefit from society in a small way. It’s fucking infuriating.
They’re free to go live in the wilderness, with no roads, no fire department, no water or electricity, no services whatever, and find out how much they’re actually benefiting from our collective.
That’s the neat part. They do try, repeatedly, and it always fails. A classic one is Grafton. It’s also known as A Libertarian Walks into a Bear because their little paradise got overrun by aggressive bears. Lack of public services will do that.
As someone who works on private wells and water systems, its always baffling to me when someone with a “hunt camp” more luxurious than any house I’ll ever afford is complaining about the cost of our services. Like dude your “camp” is 2000 sqft and 200 kms from the nearest city. Yea its gonna cost a bit to make your well water clean, clear, and safe to drink while running on a solar system.
They’ll even start to question my wage and why the bill costs so much (as if i have any say) completely tone death to the struggles of people outside their class. They imply if i was paid less their bill would be much cheaper despite me barely making enough to own my own tiny home and my wages really aren’t a major cost on the bill.
if you guys don’t have much competition, you should start treating those customers fairly
and by fairly I mean treat them how they treat you
we live in a society, while rich people live in an economy
They’re free to go live in the wilderness, with no roads, no fire department, no water or electricity, no services whatever, and find out how much they’re actually benefiting from our collective.
Where?
This is what I want to do, but I can’t afford to buy land on which to do it (and not just any land is useful for this either, it needs to be capable of supporting people before you can count it). Land enough to support a small homestead isn’t cheap, and zoning/local laws often restricts what you can do on it. So for example you may buy land, but not be allowed to drill a well, even if you have the means and knowledge to do so. Or if you buy land you can afford, you may not be allowed to build a permanent structure on it at all.
You’ll get kicked out (and possibly fined) of both state and national parks in the US if they find you “permanently camping”, which they are likely to do since there are frequently people out there. The only other option is squatting on private property. If you get caught before whatever time passes for squatters laws to take effect, you lose everything you’ve built up.
I mean don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind paying for things I’ll never use because it makes society as a whole better. All I’m saying is opting out of living in a society is nearly impossible for most people even if they are ok with not having all the stuff society funds like roads and fire control.
Search off-grid properties. They exist.
For the downvoters, here are some in the US:
https://www.landsearch.com/off-grid/united-states
Plenty of gorgeous listings.
And in Australia:
https://www.realestate.com.au/news/for-sale-australias-best-offgrid-properties/
Some very beautiful places, and also some very cheap.
Or Iceland:
https://www.bluehomes.com/buy-secluded-Iceland/ISL/10AL/AL/en/theme3.html
Or Siberia?
Yes I know, I’ve looked at them. That’s how I know they are quite expensive.
But you never have to pay for utilities, rent, taxes for schools or roads or services … obviously it wouldn’t be completely free to purchase the land.
Ok, but if your plan is to live solo forever and not interact with society, you’d basically need to pay for it upfront. That means you need a lot of money all at once, otherwise you’ll still need income, which limits the ability you have to be separate from society.
It’s almost as if we all rely on each other to exist. If only there was a word for that.
Yes, that would need to be the plan. One upfront payment then never paying for utilities or other things forever. That’s the only way this works. You don’t need income, because you live on rabbits and fish and your garden. If your house burns, you put it out with buckets from your stream. You build your house yourself by cutting down trees.
If you get sick, you either die or you don’t.
I think this is madness, but that’s how you do this.
Right, and you get why this is impossible for most people? That was my original point. Most people, even if they want to do this, can’t. It’s unaffordable.
The point is that your suggestion that someone is free to do this is just very much not the case.
You are not free to do any of those things as the land is owned and you would be squatting. These people are removed by force. There is no choice except engage with society as there are no other options.
You’d have to buy your own land, of course.
But you could buy a tiny plot in the middle of nowhere, not hook up any utilities or have roads, and just live off your land if you wanted.
There are small parcels in the middle of noplace that nobody wants because there are no roads, utilities, or other services.
Small parcels? Australia and many other places are pretty much empty. And yes, nobody wants to be there for a reason.
Yeah, but ‘nobody wants to be there for a reason’ is my whole point.
It will absolutely suck for you. That’s why civilisation is better, and also why we have to make some concessions to be in a society.
There’s no utopia where everything is perfect. There never was.
If you want societal amenities, you have to pay for them in some small way, and if you don’t, your life will be very hard. Those have always been the choices.
I know. I just wanted to point out that the are huge swaths of land that are empty, not buy tiny patches.
“A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit”
90 and not happy paying taxes? Save us all some trouble and move on to the graveyard
Social security is the kind of thing that everyone should be glad to pay, and crosses their fingers they’ll never need it.
I’d rather have a part of my income goes there and have the ability to bounce back if life gives me lemons, instead of ending up in a bottomless spiral of poverty I have no hope to get out of.
This guy is not actually saying he doesn’t want to pay into social security he is pointing out how dumb of an argument it is “I don’t use it therefore I shouldn’t have to pay into it”. Although even if he is complaining about it it’s valid because until now it’s been something that you could pretty much count on for getting after you retire. But now for my generation we are probably all fucked
I am happy to pay it so long as I have any sort of expectation that I will see a return from it.
It is becoming increasingly clear to working Americans that we will never see a dollar back out of the Social Security program when it comes time for us to need it.
That’s a really dumb argument. A person complains about paying for something that they’ll never get, and the IndyStar’s response is to complain about paying for something that they’ve already benefited from, and that was paid for by others. I would further add, paying for schools is a great thing even if you don’t have and will never have kids. Without good schools, everyone else’s kids will probably grow up to be conservatives or editors at the IndyStar.
Twitters UI sucks, indystars statement came first, then the outer comment.
Ah, oops. I should pay closer attention. I’ll leave the post and take my beatings.
test
test
Lol, 19 day old account with only 4 comments saying “test,” idk what kind of bot you’re going to turn into but it’s an instant block for me
Naming the account “sysadmin” is another massive red flag.
Random interjection bot.
