#these are the things i think about

[idontevenremember5minutesago]

[weaselle]

@biggyb I wanted to answer you and then it became so much that i felt it needed to be it's own post.

So, if it was enacted on a large or ubiquitous scale, that is absolutely a concern, that if everybody had more money prices would just increase, rendering the UBI useless.

what would we do about that?

One the one hand that is basically already what happens anyway, which is why cost of living increases etc are a thing. And on the other hand there are a few mechanisms that can curb that, things like rent control laws.

But ultimately, personally, i believe the real answer is to remove the money aspect and provide the basic necessities directly.

When we say UBI we’re basically talking about the government giving us money (which has to come from somewhere, and that probably means some kind of progressive wealth tax, which is really just wealth redistribution at that point but whatever)

Anyway I believe it would be more effective for the government to provide those things directly (but not exclusively). I believe the baseline for society is everybody has free access to:

HEALTHCARE

All forms of healthcare (this is an important one, the very best we can do should be available to anyone who needs it, with no conditions, no barriers to entry like complicated paperwork, if you need health care you should get it, period.

INFORMATION

This means a free press, and education, true, but i also mean internet access, which at this point in our society i think is necessary for equality

NUTRITION

So, not just food, but a complete diet. This can still be very basic, little more than rice and beans, with medical exemption options of course, but it can be enough that it is the bare minimum food types, maybe rice beans and a couple types of dark green veggie and a couple types of vitamin C fruit. Possibly eggs or peanuts or something. Nothing fancy, just good quality ingredients that contain enough nutrition to keep you not only alive but fully healthy. And i think this should be provided in both raw ingredient form and cooked form.

CLOTHING

This one gets overlooked a lot, but kids need shoes, and struggling people need blankets and jackets, and everybody needs access to clothes, actually. Again, can be very basic, maybe government issued overalls, socks, jackets, blankets, and some kind of cheap tennis shoes would be most of it, but everybody needs access to clothes.

And finally HOUSING

So for example, the government would build apartment complexes that were just freely available to the public, first come first serve, you sign for it and the apartment is yours until you give it up or take another apartment.

We already have our government building and running public schools and libraries, we just need to upgrade those a bit. We already have governments building and running hospitals, we just need to do a lot more of that a lot better and get these private insurance companies to fuck off.

And then we just need to provide the clothes, open the Food Distribution Centers and build the housing.

Because then it won’t be money, so you don’t have to worry about the prices of everything going up because everybody has more income, which you are correct, is a concern. So just provide those things directly.

This is much less like taking money from the super wealthy and putting it into the bank accounts of everyone else, and much more the way taxes are supposed to work taking money from those that can spare it and using it to build a society that is better for everyone - even improving things for those super wealthy people (who now at the very least get to walk around safer from the sick and the homeless and the desperate - i mean violent crime alone would probably do whatever the opposite of sky-rocket is. Ground-dive.)

And people will still get jobs and spend money! Like, just because you provide government overalls, doesn’t mean people will stop wanting fashion brands. But now nobody will die of exposure from not having clothes. Same with everything, for example, the government school system is extremely developed, but there are still private schools, right?

That would be true of all this. If you gave everyone access to basic nutrition, there would still be steak houses and sushi restaurants and stuff. But now you could actually have the public boycott foods they felt were sourced unethically, or you could, say, regulate the fishing industry into sustainability even if that meant fish became so expensive that the average person could only eat fish once a year or whatever. Businesses might die from it, but no people would. Not even the people who used to own those businesses.

For my money, no money is where it’s at. But UBI would be a nice stepping stone.

What UBI experiments show us is that when you give people money and they DON’T get a job, but just exist at the minimum level, they are usually only doing so to accomplish something like go back to school for a degree or take care of a disabled or elderly loved one.

And the same would be true if we just provided everyone with the basics (except healthcare, everybody must get the best we have when it comes to healthcare, anything else is a moral failing that doesn’t bear contemplating)

but yeah, there would be people who would only wear government issued overalls, only live in government barracks, and only eat government rice and beans… but UBI experiments show us that it would be a small percentage of the population, and they'd only be doing it either to accomplish something worthy, or because they were in some way impaired. 90% of everyone else would still be out there getting jobs so they could move into a nice house and eat fish, but now with the security to quit if those jobs didn’t treat them well!

imo, THAT’s how you fix the economic issues surrounding UBI, you take the “income” out of the equation and you just straight up provide the Universal Basics themselves.

"but how would we build all these apartments and run these food distribution centers?"

well, this dovetails into my other favorite solution for the united states.

See, we spend a FUCKTON on the military, and we're just never going to make that stop happening, apparently.

So I say, we INCREASE the military. I say double it even.

And then we use them here, keeping them sharp and employed and trained etc by doing public works.

The military is already full of engineers and cooks and doctors and electricians and forklift operators and everything else.

So get them building apartments and running food distribution and supplementing hospital staffs etc.

All that stuff involves, logistics, and teamwork, and knowing how to run projects and accomplish missions, it's all good training even for the combat personnel, which is only 15% of the people in the military btw.

The rest are those other jobs i mentioned. So hire and train even more of them, and then deploy them here, repairing bridges and building hospitals and managing clothing warehouses and stuff.

anyway. Food for thought.

[missmitchieg]

You know, if I was in the Bridgerton universe and didn't know Pen was Lady Whistledown, I think I'd always try to be on my very best behavior and say very nice things about everyone all the time because I don't know which one of you is Whistledown and imagine if she overheard you talking shit and exposed you, breaking up, like, three friendships or you weren't careful enough to make sure no one saw you in the garden right outside the ball and Whistledown saw or heard about it and you were forced to marry your one night stand but you don't even really like him that much, he's just good with his hands, or you talked shit about Whistledown and she basically called you a bitch and made sure you had no suitors, forcing you to accept life as a spinster.

That universe sounds rough to me.

[meepsthemiqo]

I realize that, out of all the races we help in the tribal quests (outside of ShB, Loporrits and the Omicron), the Namazu are the only ones who don't get tricked into summoning a primal.

This must mean one of a few things:

The Big One is too OP

Fandaniel did actually manage it with his towers and Doma was dealing with a giant primal fish flopping around Yanxia.

The Namazu are too smart to be tricked

The Ascians got fed up trying to talk to them and gave up.

[epblogs]

Toying with the idea that life is just a collection of scars on one’s body.

[hallahart]

MASQUERADE ~~~

[ishipthis]

Hang on! Can we do the math here!

Freddie thinks there is a possibility Carly is pregnant as of yesterdays episode which means they had to have been realistically having the sexy times for about a month AT THE LEAST. We've had 9 episodes, the first three of which essentially take place back to back. Sooo let's do a poll.

[quality-on-a-patch-of-awesome]

So here's the thing, if I ever write a Call of Duty fic with Ghost being into football, I am going to have to make him a Manchester City fan because I would never be able to write him as a Manchester United fan and feel good about it

[kiddokori]

eunyung baek would use all the cunty girl pokemon. i know it i know it in my heart to be true. he has shiny lopunny on his team and that thing kicks ass

[jayselegy]

Everyone talks about Ford finding out about 9/11, but what about him finding out Pluto got demoted to a dwarf planet?

[totallyredacted]

ok so “God” in Latin is “Deus”, pronounced “Dey-us”

and the king/leader of the Greek gods is named Zeus, which is just Deus with a Z

so that begs the question, was Zeus originally pronounced “Zey-us”,

and additionally, was that name originally penned in a similar vein to the modern slang term “zaddy”

[extrabrainrotten]

What if Joe and Cherry are like that because they both just have massive degradation k*nks.

[missmitchieg]

I wonder if any of the characters ever feel claustrophobic when there's three of them on one side of the carriage. I mean, look at them.

They barely have space to move their arms. I feel bad for them.

[bioluminescent-fungus]

while the gaang is hiding out in the western air temple (western air temple, firebending masters, boiling rock, southern raiders) where are they getting food from?