We've known for years that starting school at 08.00 is detrimental to school-aged children and teenagers, but we keep doing it.
We've known for years that WFH can be just as productive and even more so than RTO, but we keep doing it.
We've known for ages that housing homeless people helps them and society much better than criminalizing them, but we keep doing it.
We've known for ages that repressive stances on drugs are counterproductive, but we keep doing it.
We've known for ages that a 4-day workweek results in gains for everyone, including the owner class themselves, yet we keep on doing 5.
I'm starting to think that gaining knowledge and insight is completely useless if the results are never taken into account if they don't fit the currently reigning narrative.
Humans are a deeply flawed species. That alone is bad enough, but we KNOW we are, we KNOW how to solve at least some of it, yet we simply refuse.
Have you considered that those things aren’t done not because of stupidity but because a small subset of society that holds most of the political power and media benefits from those things being done?
The system isn’t flawed in the sense that it doesn’t work. It does. Extremely well. It just doesn’t work for you and me or to make everyone’s lives better.
Yeah imagine bees saying we KNOW smoking us and removing our honey leads to disorder and pointless work, so why do we keep doing it?
A little glib I admit, but I agree. There are a minority of people holding us back, and not enough political capital, or incentive, to make the necessary changes.
We've known for ages that paying for social services, healthcare and unemployment benefits increase the amount of spendable income the working class has and that this directly benefits the real economy while more income to top earners only means that that money is lost to the economy.
Most of the problems the US is facing could be fixed, or at least alleviated with social democratic programs. Better economy, better education, less crime, less partisanship, less drug abuse, less violence, less stress, less fear, better mental health, better physical health, less homelessness, more gender equality, more racial equality, more job security, better wages, better lifestyle, more happiness, less religion, etc. etc.
We've known for years that starting school at 08.00 is detrimental to school-aged children and teenagers, but we keep doing it.
Yeah, but we also know school is more about free childcare that allows both parents to go to work than it is about actual education.
We've known for years that WFH can be just as productive and even more so than RTO, but we keep doing it.
We also know that a large part of the real estate market is dependent on leasing office space.
We've known for ages that housing homeless people helps them and society much better than criminalizing them, but we keep doing it
Again, creating more homes drives down property value.
We've known for ages that repressive stances on drugs are counterproductive, but we keep doing it.
It also creates jobs for police officers, income for private prisons, and strips minorities of their rights.
We've known for ages that a 4-day workweek results in gains for everyone, including the owner class themselves, yet we keep on doing 5.
This is once again an issue with the real estate market. Cutting the work week also cuts into profits of companies dependent on demand made from people commuting to and from work.
starting to think that gaining knowledge and insight is completely useless if the results are never taken into account if they don't fit the currently reigning narrative.
It's not that we don't take account of the results, it's just that the results do not benefit the nonsensical economic system we've adapted to. Our system does not create value from the things we have, it creates value from the things we withold.
After my generation dies you might be able to move forward in some of those fronts.
I will say, about the school times, that the biggest issue is the parent schedules, not the kids. Shifting times makes it much harder on parents, unless you also push tradwife-ish values: one parent must give up their career to care for the kids. It's a sticky topic without an easy solution.
Edit the responses about the school times illustrate my point. I'm not saying there's no solution; I'm saying there's no easy solution that isn't contentious.
I used to believe the first line in your comment but the new generation is swinging further right than their parents (mostly male). So now I’m not so sure
What he was saying is that we can discover all the new things we want, but the people who have respected and established careers who don't believe the new science tend to block/slow down it's acceptance and further application until they die, then science advances...
I think that's all of society, not just science though...
I will say, about the school times, that the biggest issue is the parent schedules, not the kids.
I call bullshit on this. Most school districts have high-schoolers starting at 7:30, middle-shoolers at 8, and elementary at 8:30, or something like that.
Yet, elementary aged kids are naturally up by 6 (if the parents are lucky; often earlier), and are also the biggest contingent that gets driven (instead of bussed) to school. A working parent can drive to their kid's school and be on time for work without much issue early in the day, not so much at rush hour. And they are be up with their kids bright and early anyhow.
High-schoolers are the ones that need the most night sleep of the bunch, and with the latest sleep cycle. They are also the most independent. It's not an issue to leave a high-schooler at home and go to work while they bus/drive/bike themselves to school later.
In short, both parents and kids schedules benefit from a reversal of the timetables, but we don't do it for $REASONS.
When one of us works from home, we can do both. We’re productive enough from home that the extra time missed while walking them to school or waiting at the bus stop with them is more than made up for, especially when we save commute time and money.
outside of Elementary (kindergarden mostly) schools and suburbia there isn't really a reason parents are needed for children to catch a bus/ walk a few miles to school.
You have the understand that your culture is not predicated on logic, reason, or the scientific method. Its designed to feed the capitalist machine and perpetually increase productivity. That's the only real outcome measure.
Starting school late will make it difficult for parents to get their kids to the bus stop / school on their way to work. We can't disrupt the productivity of the parents - that's the priority.
WFH decreases the control your employer has over you and also diminishes the value of their real estate. Will someone please think of the capitalists?
Housing homeless people is socialist. We musn't disincentivize productive behavior!
Drugs and all "crime" must be allowed to happen and then stamped out by force. Only then can we use fear to control populations and define an outgroup that becomes our baseline for dehumanization.
All of this is by design in Western and many other modern cultures. It was never really a question of knowing better.
It's not that we refuse, we just can't help but put stupid arrogant people in charge of everything. They don't listen to science, just themselves, so nothing changes.
As a species, we've basically been doing this forever. Or at least since Machiavelli wrote the Prince, which is literally what's happening everywhere now.
Simply put, those with intelligence know enough to realize what they don't know. So they won't make claims they can't pursue. Politically, this will always work against them, and in favor of any loud idiot that promises everything, but can't deliver. People will always pick the loud idiot, because the loud idiot will promise more than the intelligent option could ever reasonably accomplish.
The secret to solving this is simply transparency, and regulation.
That is: don't let stupid leaders be stupid behind closed doors. Bring it into the open for scrutiny by professionals. Don't let stupid people hold positions of authority by placing requirements for those positions to be held. Military service, or public service requirements work, but so do simple tests that could prevent hostile idiots from holding positions of power they will guarantee abuse.
There's more solutions provided in the Prince as well.
So this problem certainly isn't a new one.
What's cool is they are exporting it. The cops where you are look up to the American style. When the American cops retire, they will be hired to train your cops with seminars and books. Its a fun little community. So you're an outsider, but not for long. Just a few more years of passively waiting and you will be an insider soon.
If I recall the vast majority of crime is property crime and if you remove property concerns that crime drops.
Pay attention to what we do whenever you see policy announcements as that gives a clear picture of what we want.
If you think you're altruistic ass (not necessarily yours specifically) is different, you're still a part of the machine that wants this. If you're legit disgusted by it work from within to change it.
"Be the change you want to see in the world" is contrived as shit but it's true.
I'm not disagreeing with this necessarily, but I don't like seeing a post by an account I have no idea about stating something as scientific fact, and then having that post taken as fact point blank. Once again, not trying to say what she is saying is incorrect, I just get concerned when I see bandwagoning on some random person's take.
That said, if you find the studies on this, please please please do us all a favor and comment those!
Sixteen reviews met the inclusion criteria.
The reviews were comprised of nine
peer-reviewed articles and reports from
systematic review databases, five technical
reports, and two working papers. Table 1
shows the reviews organized by objectives
and geography
There is a mountain of evidence and everything she says is common knowledge at this point to anyone who has spent even a few minutes looking it up. You can just use you favorite search engine to see for yourself.
You really just come off sounding aloof and uninformed. What evidence!? When you are swimming in a sea surrounded by it.
To address this problem, we need to fundamentally revisit the idea of the social contract.
Even the definition of crime today feels outdated almost archaic.
If you look into your country’s penal code, you’ll likely find absurd and antiquated laws that have no place in a modern society.
The deeper issue is this: most legal systems are still grounded in Victorian moralism, Puritan ideals that glorify work and wealth, and a liberal ethical framework that collapses under its own contradictions.
Trying to solve complex structural violence with these tools just makes things worse.
The problem isn’t just systemic it’s internal.
As long as we defend our comfort zones like fragile sandcastles, thinking “as long as I’m safe and untouched” (aka “I've got mine, so screw the rest”),
then we will continue to see public resources diverted—not toward justice or equality—but recycled back at us as institutional violence.
F.e. the current Dutch penal code was accept in 1881. Thats 144 years ago.
Part of the issue is that we are mostly stuck in an economic structure that cannot continue forever unless everybody partakes. Getting more wages every year, getting more revenue and profit every year, just doesn't work for eternity. In theory, if everybody got their 2%$ wage increases and interest was just 2% a year (excluding promotions or corrections for pas years etc) it would be fine.
The circular economy theory is one of those theories that attempts to fix that AND also work on helping the repair, reuse, recycle movement.
doesn't protect private property though because that money might give poor people strength and power and we can't have the rubes having that now, can we? :(
Police punish criminals, or rather, they punish those that they think are criminals, since everyone is innocent until proven guilty (also the reason you shouldn't argue, fight with, nor run from cops.... They can charge you with crimes like evading arrest, even if the arrest is unlawful, resisting arrest, or assault on a "peace officer"... Justice does not come from police action, it comes from the actions of the court)...
Police usually show up, and/or take action after crimes have been committed, not before.
If you want effective crime prevention, there are plenty of good studies that prove what works, and putting more police on the streets, and giving them better and better arsenals is not on that list.
From social programs to "handouts" for healthcare and basics like food and shelter, among so many more proven tactics, can significantly reduce crime rates.
Giving the police money under the guise of reducing crime or being tough on crime is just political spin. What they're trying to do is funnel public dollars to their friends who make the equipment that the police use. Vests, weapons, radios, vehicles, you name it. More police means that police departments need more equipment to supply everyone.
These fuckers in government are serving themselves and their fat cat friends, not the public interest. The worst part is, that many believe their shit and think that it's for the public good to give the police more money.
That's the real problem here, ignorance. But again, that's what the fat cats want. The majority to be just stupid enough to believe whatever they're told and do no further investigation.... To have faith in liars, thieves and cheats.
In a normal state of things the police doesn't decide who is a criminal, the justice system does and that should be separated from the government. Sadly there are more and more corrupt countries these days.
But yeah giving them more money for anything else than to get more/better personel doesn't help.
I don't think anyone confuses what's happening in the USA in recent years to anything that should be considered "normal".
The fact is, the Justice system relies on the investigative work of the police and other law enforcement agencies, in order to collect the evidence and reconstruct events, then accuse the likely perpetrator.
.... Except the law enforcement agencies are filled with people, and people suck. So 9 out of 10 times, people will "follow their gut" and look for evidence that supports what they think happened, and ignore any that doesn't. So only evidence that supports their conclusion is presented to the Justice system, everything else is discarded.... Even if some of those discards prove that the accused is not guilty.
The problem is that the Justice system is reading from the LEO's story book, so when law enforcement writes fiction, the Justice system has no real way to prove that it's not fact.... Not without the accused throwing literally thousands of dollars into the effort of defending themselves.
Therefore, Justice gets served for those with the means to defend themselves, for everyone else, you'll take whatever the LEO's think you deserve.
That's all great. But imagine being in the desert and knowing where an oasis is but just not telling any one about it. We all know this information on the left. We repeat it like crows cawing to each other. But we don't pass it a long. So unless we get better at sharing our views in a modern online world, all this information is not worth jack fucking shit. And sharing this information is not just reciting it verbatim in a comment in a forum among everyone that already knows this. Unless that's what we're really after. Pats on the back from people who agree with us.
The circle jerk is definitely real, and I acknowledge it. At the same time though, to go along with your comment, we need to develop ways to actually bridge the gap. A lot, and in my experience most, of right leaning ignorant types are so hard set in their bullshit they won't listen. Deep set propaganda channels on the right are so engrained they refuse to take any information outside of it. Granted I understand my area is a bit worse as I'm deep in a red state, but it's disheartening as fuck. Not trying to be absolutist, I get there's always a way, just fuck if I know what it is.
I'm not going to argue with you that discussions on left-leaning sites and forums is basically preaching to the choir, but at the same time, I would expect every person participating in the discussion to carry their viewpoint into discussions with those that are not in this echo chamber.
Your views seem overly pessimistic about what the participants here do when they're not here.
The system is fucked; people who are pro services are soft on crime, people hard on crime are soft on services.
You get a society where everything is provided and the fuckups are treated with kid gloves leaving everyone else asking if its really worth the tax hit, where the other option wants a fucked up ghetto of starving sick poor who get sent to work a life of prison labor if they steal food.
That's because our societal structure doesn't reflect reality. Here's the reality: the government is a tribe, a gang, an institution. Give Burger King guns and badges, say they dictate human behavior now, and you get the same results. You all are so caught up in this mythical "big picture", but the reality is right in front of you and under your feet. And that reality is anarchism. Nobody is coming to save you faster than someone can stab you and bounce, and if you check on your elderly neighbor who had groceries delivered a little too long ago, you'll save a life faster than any social programs. Embrace the reality that we're being picked on by these bullies we call institutions and business, check on your neighbor, pick up some litter, and punch a mofo in the mouth when you're disrespected. We've developed tools for social cohesion over billions of years far more refined than your rudimentary moral and systemic frameworks. Use them, dummy. Not you, specifically, all of humanity.