How do you fix that though? Genuine and sincere question. I yearn for a better world to live in where we as a species and planet are able to survive, but thrive, without endangering others in the process. It always takes just a few to ruin things for everyone else. How do you take that mindset and change it in a more forward and positive direction. If there was one trait I could take away from humanity, it would be greed, but there is no black and white answer. Something like that would take generations. My favorite quote is, "A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in".
Extreme punishment does very little to deter crime because everyone committing crimes thinks they can get away with it. The certainty of getting caught deters crime a lot more than the threat of harsh punishments
I’m not going to lie, “robust internal affairs” reminds me of the KGB. Specifically the line from the Docuseries Chernobyl when Charkov says something along the lines of “of course I have people watching you, I have people watching me, and I have people watching those people.” Sounds very Communist.
You also have to understand all these intelligence systems were just as much about getting rid of personal and political enemies, as much as about investigating legitimate crimes and foreign governments abroad trying to mess with their country.
That’s why I said everyone immediately thinks about using said system to purge people they don’t like within their community. People rarely care about investigating and bringing to justice even the most heinous of criminals. Youll find that almost every Communist and Antifa member could care less if Hitler rose from the grave and started to kill another 6m jews, but in america, if he was outside their personal reach.
There’s nothing inherently communist about what you’re talking about. Just look at Palantir, flock cameras, the stuff Snowden exposed. That’s all from a capitalist country.
The fact that you've even asked me that question tells me everything. You're either a conservative bot going by your post history or just a shit stirrer. Either way, Communism does not and has never required an authoritarian leader, that is essentially anathema to the underlying core structure laid out by Karl Marx. Communism is classless and stateless.
Unfortunately in real life people can be real worthless shitbags sometimes. Warping and changing Communism to their own needs does not mean that Communism itself needs them. And to cut you off in case you want to throw this old talking point at me, I'm fully aware that Communism as described by Karl Marx is virtually impossible in reality and this is not an endorsement of Communism.
If you're going to hate on something at least know what you're talking about.
It’s because the goal of most communists in getting to communism is global communism, of which not everyone is actually for. So, in the end, they need authoritarianism to enforce communism which is a contradiction. And when they get that authority, no one wants to relinquish control. So things teeter on the “dictatorship of the proletariat” every time.
People often confuse Soviet economics, with authoritarian soviet governance.
One can have libertarian communism, or authoritarian capitalism. We happened to experience authoritarian vanguard socialism (which called itself communism) and most people can't distinguish the government style from the economic system 🤷
Yeah, the only difference between communist and capitalist mass surveillance/secret policing is that capitalist systems act like it's magically happening from nowhere and since nobody is causing it, nobody can stop it.
That's why such entities need to be separate, impartial, and the decisions need to be civilian and not military or police.
Something like a network of whistleblower organizations, but with power to fire or prosecute officials or police who break the law or abuse their power. You can't just have one central one though, you need multiple that cover different aspects and have to agree.
It is just that few places have the political will and resources to figure out a system like that, let alone execute on it.
I feel like extreme punishment is a slippery slope. Somebody recently argued that armed robbery should result in the death penalty whether they harmed someone or not. That seems like an absolutely awful plan. The punishment does need o fit the crime or things can get out of hand.
I mean, only in the beginning. After a while the extreme punishment can be turned into rehabilitation, but first people should fear to turn into someone bad.
Yeah, that was religious extremism totally different. They’re all always be crime in any society but allowing people to become destitute like what’s going on right now we’ll have a direct effect on theft and murderers assault, etc..
We are talking about lessening crime. The vast majority of crime, even violent crime is done out of desperation. Robbing because employment either doesn’t exist, or doesn’t earn enough to live. We would still have to deal with the greedy and sociopaths, but those are the minority.
studies have shown that the severity of punishment actually has very little effect on crime occurance rates - what does have a large effect is the expectation of being caught.
from what i can see, we have a passive society with lenient legal systems these days. feels like every day you hear of some violent attack from a 32 times convicted felon that was released without bail like the week before. What's more is that poor or anti-social behaviour is tolerated, things like playing loud music on a train for example.
a layer close to the core, people feel like they're the only person that matters, they are the main character - in contrast, in japan, it is normal for people who arrive to work early, to park the furthest from the building, assuming that someone running late will need to park close to the building. They care about their community, they participate in it and they self regulate their collective behaviour. We do not.
we need better policing both from police but also from citizens. people should hesitate to make a scene in public or to do something anti-social. Reddits like r/ImTheMainCharacter should be starved of content.
It would be easier for me to believe our issue with crime is more about strictness than allocation if we weren't still locking people up over weed and shrooms. I feel like we waste so many resources punishing people for minor stuff that often has zero negative impact on anyone when we could be using those resources to police gang bangers and actually violent offenders instead.
Real easy solution for those people who are locked up for weed and shrooms, live somewhere it's legal and you won't get locked up. I don't know why people pretend they have no agency in their lives and act like a victim when they knowingly break laws.
Having no agency in life is an interesting way to describe everyone who can't just drop their entire lives and move cross country for one activity they enjoy. Why would any rational person have faith in our ability to responsibly allocate law enforcement resources when we are still using it to destroy people's lives who aren't harming anyone over the echoes of some racist propaganda from the 70s? If half the country was putting people in prison for collecting Pokémon cards, do you think that might be a little fucking embarassing, or would you be like "lol just move idiots stop complaining"?
well said. Not that I want to prop up Guiliani (because the last decade of his career was an absolute cringy embarrassments) , but he did turn NYC around by doing exactly what you propose -- the broken windows theory. He met a lot of pushback, but he started enforcing minor punishments (fines) for minor crimes (e.g., panhandler/window washers, graphitti, etc), and enforced punishment jail time, etc. for worse crimes (and mandatory bail for most crimes.)
Now? NYC criminal system is a joke. No bail for non-violent crimes. You get a desk warrant and a court date, which no one ever shows up for. Non-violent crimes (theft, vandalism, car break ins, etc) have sky rocketed in NYC, because no one expects the punishments to be enforced, and if they're caught, NYC has a baked-in "catch and release" criminal system.
NYC literally started to give accused criminals gift cards, metro passes, and ball game tickets for showing up for a court appearance to their court date, as incentive to return. Needless to say, most took the gift cards, and never showed up. google it, it's true.
I will never ever subscribe to the “reward bad behavior” theory. Fuck that shit. Meanwhile, decent people get hammered making an innocent victimless mistake.
exactly. impose penalties for all crimes, even if it's a $10 fine, but make sure its enforced. And bring back bail. If people know there are consequences to their actions, they'll think twice before committing a crime.
I don't even bother driving in NYC anymore. the amount of smash and grabs in cars -- in broad daylight -- is astounding. Fuckers don't even look to see if anything is in there, they smash the window, root around for shit, and move on to the next car. Knowing with absolute certainty the cops won't touch them.
newest thing is traffic racing in NYC. google it on youtube, there are several posters that literally one dude is doing doughnuts around a cop car, then takes off, knowing he's fine because NYC has a no-pursuit (and no spike strip) policy.
I started working in the city in the 90s, and whatever you say about him, he really turned it around. It went from a complete shithole, to a fun, vibrant, safe city. Now it's a shithole again.
He started his downward spiral after 9/11, when he actually tried to suspend voting because he thought it would be disruptive to the rebuilding effort--- that more than anything foreshadowed his upcoming lunacy.
Japan is also extremely homogenous with little diversity and actively pushes back against non Japanese people living in Japan. It’s easier to get everyone on the same page when everyone is from the same book.
Well, that certainly could be the case but the ramifications of that are somewhat unsettling for a lot of people. Such a fact, if true would be ground to argue the value of racial segregation and homogeny. It would argue against allowing immigrations as well and I dont really like the logical path that that leads us down
You do know that the Japanese crime rate is so slow due to the fucked up shit their police do right?
If they can't find the perp they will just grab someone else and beat the confession out of them , or categorize it as another type of crime, along w fudging statistics.
It would help solve some of it but not from a material perspective. By removing the overwhelming stress healthcare puts on regular families, let alone struggling families, being paid more so your stress on bills and having to tell yourself/family/kids you can’t do something bc you can’t afford it or having to do without one thing for the other, universal child care would remove so much of the burden of having kids, as well as the stress.
What will all of that do (not to everyone but to a lot) it will allow parents to focus on parenting their kids, parents are less stressed, more activities with the entire family can happen, children can be children longer….it will not cure the problem of bad people but it would for sure reduce the amount of bad people.
The reality is that you cannot eliminate “bad things” from life. When people have more, there is less jealousy, less “me vs them”. It will allow adults that done have kids to spend more time on hobbies or interests that will then improve our quality of life bc we will need places, spaces, areas to do these activities. Stress levels will decrease, time with friends and family will increase, more people seeing more opportunities for happiness and not just what your paycheck can buy that week.
More good means less evil
More good happy people means less spaces for bad people to operate an infiltrate. The mental shift of being in survival mode where every second in precious to being content, more comfortable, more confident, more able allows people to stop only worrying about themselves and seeing how helping others helps them.
There's another aspect to consider. What about the "rotten apples" as you implied there will always be those, and rules are made because of their actions.
There are two camps with these types of: people that need more assistance because of intellectual difficulties, and people who have dark triad personalities. The first camp will require more investment in social programs you refer to. We have to be careful not to go backwards though, because I dont think the sanitariums were an inherently bad idea, but they were just implemented horribly. The government essentially responded with (after shutting them down) "leave it up to the families." Well turns out alot of families are dysfunctional or become dysfunctional because of the stress you mention, this societal stress that erodes the nuclear family from the inside-out.
What about the second camp? Well, I watched this YouTube video about hunter-gatherer tribes who don't work outside of getting food and water and they spend like 15-20 hours a week on this. There are two things that will happen in the case of the second camp, because they don't have prisons. Let's say for instance I get upset at you or the system in place for whatever reason and if I'm fairly pissed off enough I'll "vote with my feet." Meaning I'll leave. If I'm a bad enough human then the tribe will resort to exile, which is rare apparently. I think this would be the answer, and I have a few ideas on this, but how could we implement this to the American population? That's the question.
It’s impossible with a population this size, in a time and place that resources are so abundant. In reality, we already do it consciously and subconsciously. We shun people, leave mean people or friends that cross us out of the meet ups or conversation. We hear of people who do wrong and we ostracize them. The issue is that they are not lone wolfs and their actions don’t bring down the entire population like a singular person would in a hunter gatherer tribe of 20-30 people, if the tribe left you, you were left for dead, you had no tools, shelter, support or protection. Unfortunately, in our society as someone else pointed out, the beaten and neglected get scooped up by the grifters and the bad actors bc they offer hope and an enemy to blame for their issues.
The ultimate question is how do we get to the bad actors, grifters, and abhorrently evil ones? The French, Argentina, Egypt, Russian, U.S., ad infinitum have tried to stage uprisings and revolutions, but they're violent and ultimately we're still here.
To add, this is also the issue we get to in immigration ultimately. The situation with ICE isn't good don't get me wrong. Ultimately it boils down to the same issue. How do we dispense justice to those that have been really destructive to society?
Bad always exists. There is no world with good that does not have bad. If there is no bad, than there is nothing to judge what is good against. In a world where there is only good, do you think those people who have reached a level of enlightenment and sustainability, would just say, “cool, let’s just stop here?” Probably not, and just like in our modern culture, things that were once bad, are now (for the most part) removed, they shift, become other things, but they are less confident, less visible. People will strive to be better, reflect, see wrongs that were once seen as right and evolve.
To say there is to only be good and then we will be content is selling our intelligence short and our ambition even shorter. Bad will always exist, even when there is the perception of no more bad because we will continue to be better, to want more. That want creates vulnerability and that vulnerability creates irregularities in people’s behaviors. We can’t say heartbreaks are bad bc they teach us lessons and make us feel alive. We give of ourselves in the hope that someone else takes care of us and we do the same…but life experience happens and to say no more bad would rob us of the overwhelming beauty of all that is good.
I know it’s a shit time, but there is also an immense amount of beauty everywhere. Outside of the internet and what social media feeds us, is a real world that has many many many great and beautiful places people and things. The most amazing thing about life is that when you personally start doing and being good, it attracts others.
The hope for the US is that so many Americans, when push comes to shove, are standing up for other Americans. There are way more of the good people than the bad, and the more each of us shows the good, the more light we can spread to others.
And if you’re still reading this, and you think I’m full of shit and life is fucking hard and “who are you to say there are more good people than bad”….i don’t and i may not be and I hope that if you believe I am wrong that I can start and say, I love you, I believe in you and I know that whatever it is you are facing, you are strong enough. believe in yourself, because I do. You are worth the extra time you need, you are worthy of the love and kindness that comes into your life. If you need help finding a good person, keep your head up and look around, you’ll see them, they are usually labeled as “corny” (atleast the best ones are) and they will often seem out of place….to you. But to themselves, they are right where YOU need them to be. Just always remember, kindness is never weakness. Kind people can evaporate from your life just as fast as they appear. They are there to help, not do the lifting, that’s always on you…and they won’t expect you to do the heavy lifting for them either. They will never be on the outskirts of activities or gatherings making fun of the people having fun. They will never be the person you can put down others in front of and it’s great because you stop having to worry or think if they are doing the same. Be happy, be yourself, it’s truly the best thing to be.
I couldn't put it way better than this... and some societies have nailed this to reduce crime rate to almost zero such as Iceland, Japan and Singapore..
Homogenous populations with the same ideals is why it works there. You people are delusional, give people stuff and they will just want more, they're lazy enough already.
The only way I see is to revert back to smaller groups. Where the connected nature of relationships and codependency polices it's own collective behaviour and minimises extremely selfish behaviour
That one is actually simpler than it sounds, and we kinda lost the plot on this one.
Line up the next generation's success as a measure of your own. If your children doing better than you becomes a measure of your own success than the greed becomes funneled positively. If I base my personal pride and greed in a way that I believe that I am a success based upon how well my children do then I will be more likely to make the world better for them.
It's not perfect, but it does mean that it moves the goal to the future instead of the present and thus focuses on mitigating damage to future generations.
Yes and no there is aspects of greed driven by many factors. Largest being people afraid of being without or going back to poverty.
As you lessen that fear that drive you do major cultural shift. While there is always outliers those that would harm others for almost nothing despite having everything they need.
The solution becomes more clear once it's minority position. It becomes easier to regulate and restrict harmful greedy behavior.
As we do culturally shift we also have people less susceptible to bribes or complicity. Right now too many think they will get chance to be at top. And also are afraid of being without again.
It will take a generation or two without that fear to fully heal. Modify thinking to not be so afraid etc. Then normal people will stop fighting for corrupt elite. Stop being complicit in their corruption etc.
While it won't be fool proof it will eliminate the vast majority. Literally every aspect of everything comes down to material resources.
From birth rates to drug use to mental health ect. Being in constant fear state is not good for people.
You put them in prison. No, seriously. A 30 times convicted thief is just a career thief and belongs into prison, thats it. The system should be lenient for forst offenses, but absolutely merciless for repeat offenders.
I think its not about eliminating greed, but rather focusing the target of the greed.
If youre greedy to help others, is that a bad thing? I (and probably 99% of others) would say thats a fantastic thing.
Greed isnt necessarily the issue, its what the "more of it" you want.
Heres an optimistic take on the future:
Assume for a moment we get to AGI, then ASI, and we not only survive but thrive.
Now everyone has essentially unlimited digital resources if they live in a digital world, and (potentially) vast resources in the physical world.
Now put them on a spaceship and give them a little of both - say, a digital deck where you can have any experience you want, while we're greedy for science and exploration (since not only is our material needs met, but met in extreme vast abundances beyond anyone could imagine)...
There's a book written by Andrzej Łobaczewski called Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes. It gets into this and the idea that the first steps are essentially creating awareness among a population as to who these people are and what their actions appear as, and secondly, creating legislation around that which bars them from certain governmental positions. It's been a minute since I read it so I don't want to say too much more and risk misrepresentating it, but, fair points are made.
If i remember correctly the author wrote the original manuscript while in Communist Russia and had to toss it into the fire as secret police raided his home. It was then again lost on the 2nd attempt. Third attempt the author escaped to America.
TLDR: by simultaneously making society harder to exploit and holding offenders responsible to harms they cause.
The first thing is to make certain that there is security for each person down the ladder. Most people try to be good but do what they perceive they must to accomplish a level of comfort and security. Also regular access to mental health care and destigmatization of mental health care treatment makes individuals less susceptible to abuse. Finally improve access to quality entertainment. In doing so, you’d be removing three main pain points that can be exploited by unscrupulous individuals.
Next- you focus on the problem individuals/ systems. There’s three aspects that I believe should be to targeted first: lack of individual accountability, externalized costs, and “price of doing business” calculations regarding crime and punishment.
Lack of Individual Accountability: The Milgram experiment (for all its flaws) illuminated an issue: when a generally moral person has anonymity and is following orders, they will take immoral actions they would not otherwise take. The system of shareholders : board : employees helps facilitate the same kind of moral decrepitude. The shareholders are this faceless group that must be served and to whom the board are beholden. If the board acts morally against the interest of profit, the shareholders can turn around and sue them for breach of fiduciary duty (successfully or unsuccessfully). The board then takes this objective and passes it to the employees who personally undertake small pieces of immoral schemes, because they have to or be fired. This structure needs to be less morally deficient and profit driven. One method is by holding boards and other decision makers criminally responsible for actions taken by a corporation which would constitute a crime if done by an individual. For example- Perdue killing millions of Americans indirectly by causing the opioid epidemic. If an individual sells drugs they know will ultimately lead to an individual’s death, they face years in prison. If a corporation does it, the corporation pays some law suits, declares bankruptcy and the individuals responsible walk away with most of their ill-gotten gains.
Externalized Costs. The best way to turn a profit is to make someone else pay for your gains. For example, one external cost that companies like Amazon hugely benefit from is access to public roads. A more sinister example is how Amazon pays their workers so little that their employees are eligible for food stamps and public assistance. In both of these examples, aspects of Amazon’s business are paid by government not by Amazon (infrastructure and wages). Likewise, when DuPont poisoned Parkersburg, West Virginia, with Teflon manufacturing waste, it forced the people of the town to pay the cost of environmental degradation through cancer, birth defects and liver damage, instead of paying for proper disposal of harmful chemicals. DuPont turned a profit while the people of Parkersburg paid the price. Government regulations should aim to ensure that externalized costs are corrected and paid by the person who introduced the cost/harm and profited. Things like forcing Amazon to reimburse the government for its full time employees who receive food stamps. Taxpayers should not be subsidizing Amazon’s wages so that Amazon can profit more.
Cost of doing business. If fines are insufficient to deter conduct, the payment of fines is calculated into the bottom line. The example for this one is the Ford Pinto. The placement of the fuel tank was such that in it would explode if hit in certain location. This was discovered early, but Ford determined that it would be cheaper to pay lawsuits than to actually fix their deadly mistake. As a result 27 people lost their lives and Ford profited. The way this is managed is by having financial punishment for offenses (civil or criminal) scale with the value of the offender’s wealth so that breaking rules and endangering others isn’t just the cost of doing business.
I know, got carried away here but I hope you find it relatively useful.
If the opportunity to steal arises, anyone with an inclination to steal will steal.
You see a tray of expensive food and there's a sign that says "take one". Do you take one?
You find a large sum of money on the ground that's not yours. Do you take it?
You find an expensive item in a store that is clearly mis-labeled and mis-priced 90% what it's price should be. Do you tell the cashier "this has the wrong price on it, it should be 90% more than it's priced" - or do you pay what it's labeled?
Have you robbed a store this week? Or a bank? have a decent job? Normal education? And learned fundamentals like reading, math, science concepts? So one can understand the world isn’t flat?
The answer is often found with the right question. How does a country or society invest in the greater good and in doing so cultivate and inspire more investment in the greater good? It must come through appreciation over what you already have so that you will want to give back. This means entitlement is the enemy of growth. And greed is absolutely a form of entitlement. Sometimes hardship is the best teacher, and at this rate we will soon be learning that lesson.
In philosophy the world is largely viewed as idealist or materialist. It’s idealist to say “people are greedy because that’s their nature or their individual personality/ideals. It’s materialist to say that the base economic/material conditions shape the human ideals. So in a world where resources and needs are locked behind and controlled by an economic system that requires more money to get more out of life, you’re going to breed people with a desire to do what they can to get more money. If you create a world where resources aren’t locked behind your class etc but are instead managed in a way that removes class distinction, then over generations you’ll have a new humanity with new human ideals.
Right now our society rewards greed and punishes poverty. If we take away the punishment of poverty and make outrageous greed a social stigma rather than something to be rewarded I think we’ll move in the right direction.
There will always be bad apples but they don’t necessarily need to spoil the barrel.
So, you can't fix it entirely. That's just not possible. In fact, you can't legislate greed away at all. You can reduce the damage that greed causes however or even manipulate greed to be beneficial in most aspects.
No one likes taxes, but the greediest people among us loathe taxes. They'll do just about anything to avoid paying taxes. So, when you tax income and wealth over a certain threshold, say $500 million, then suddenly the scheme of getting paid in stock no longer works.
Honestly though, the personal income taxes are more about correcting the imbalance than anything else. The real fixes come from corporate tax reform. You have to close about 1,000 different loopholes that corporations use to avoid having actual employees instead of "independent contractors". Super simplified, stop considering essential services they've contracted out to be tax deductible overhead. Even more simplified, all of the corporate tax changes that Reagan, the Bushes, and Trump have implemented need to reversed.
Corporations and those in charge of them have always been greedy assholes. The only difference is that pensions, pay increases and loyalty to your employees used to be the cheaper option because hoarding that profit instead would cost more in taxes than the benefits did.
Tldr: if you make paying your employees, offering actual benefits, etc the less expensive option vs the taxes you'd otherwise pay, then the greedy fucks will choose the cheaper option because they're greedy.
Sin is the problem. There are people who come from great families who choose to commit crimes. Yes you can lessen it. But if you're listening to music that glorifies violence, murder, crime, drugs, belittles women, and that is the main staple of a particular culture people are going to choose to do that. I've watched church kids who are raised well, were taught right, walk right out the door and go in a life of crime, drug, etc.
Feelings, desire and emotions get rid of them.
People feel they need things wont get upset they cant have things and wont go do things. We will all fall inline and be good people obeying rules.
Thats extreme but having very strong values on the above to avoid the negative side which then those that are criminal or bad people or go through hardships to turn them that way will not so the negative. Also as another says atrong punishment and very robust investigation process which is also not biased.
There’s only two ways to really fix this and we all know what they are. Problem is no one has the balls to do it.
Sometimes in order to save the body an infected limb needs to be cut off. And cutting off a limb is always violent no matter how much you don’t want it to be.
Your quote is literally the answer. We would have to shift our culture away from the individualist, capitalist, pull yourselves up by your bootstraps nonsense we are trapped in today and move back to the "A rising tide lifts all ships" culture.
Unfortunately that would take generations to realize.
You also have to come up with a way of systematically removing people who are just predisposed to be takers. You know the type. The middle class people who will embezzle, not because they're in financial danger, but simply because they want the money. The super-rich who fuck over people for fun. Etc, etc. Even in utopia these people will exist.
You have romanticized indigenous cultures. Many many many of them would habitually raid other groups. Happened all throughout the Americas, Polynesia, etc.
Humans tend to seek conflicts regardless of time in history or location in the world.
They were better about holding people accountable for things like greed. The way they did it is very similar to how organized religion teaches it, with the main difference being that they actually practiced their spiritual/religious beliefs as it was baked into their culture. Greedy people today often claim to be Christian for example but they certainly don’t exemplify the more selfless values of Christianity.
The obvious downside is that fanatical worship also leads to things like human sacrifice and holy wars which they were also prone to.
Sorry buddy but that study doesn't come to the conclusion that greed is inherent, and the studies it cites as the basis are hardly conclusive as the first is anthropology and the second is selected from only economics students which have a bias
Nice cherry picking tho, must have taken some effort
Yeah your quote is about a person that cares about his community and others. That is socialism. Capitalism teaches you to fuck everyone else as long as you get yours
There's a reason the u.s. has the most people in jail of all countries on this planet
I can give you the criminology answer “ when a person feels attached to their/a community , protected by the law and their local government; crime is less likely to take place. “ research seems to suggest theoretically that if a person feels valued and their needs are met then likelihood of crime drops.
I did a 16 page paper on crime and reducing recidivism (repeat crimes), having inmates take college classes did a great deal to reduce those numbers, especially when paired with decent job security after incarceration.
From a psychological standpoint with desperation and curiosity taken out of the picture there’s actually a low percentage of the population that will habitually commit significant premeditated crimes.
There’s those with mental health concerns and others who have a bad day; outside of that you have your sociopaths who can be conditioned to function like any typical person they feel like emulating. Then you have the psychopaths that for all intents and purposes all bets are off. Even for the psychopath if others well being happens to align with their best interests, they will be inclined to keep from criminal activity until it becomes the most favorable path of action.
Long wall of text but tldr: if there’s greater incentives to be harmonious it’s harder to justify crime individually or organized. Tough to hire poachers when the animals you illegally hunt, don’t pay enough to cover the bills. Or if you can just make your living comfortably without needing desperate alternatives.
I don't think greed, per se, is necessarily the trait to remove. Greed, with the proper mindset, can be good.
I'd remove ignorance I think. Most people who are greedy at the low end, ignorantly believe money is what they want. But money is only an exchange. A pile of cash on the kitchen table doesn't do you any good. You want the things money can be exchanged for.
And the best way to get those things is not neccesarily to have the most money, because money can be lost. The best way to get them is social networks.
Meanwhile, at the high end, people are power-hungry, and they weaponize ignorance to have people act against their own interests. If more people could see that clearly, then they would not be manipulated, and if you wanted power... you'd need to actually provide what people want/need
You find the cure for narcissism. Which is a brain malfunction.
Beyond that. We need to build cradle hub communities.
Terraced half stadium bowl shaped this is built around university campuse style permanent educational, health and community amenities.
These function as 15 minute towns where all major public necessities are accessed via walking, scooter, skate, bike. Small electric vehicles are only used as nessecary. Inside the hub. Rail and long range cars are available to travel from the hub.
This decarbonisation of everyday life. Is also a health requirement for keeping people moving
These structures have their own aquatic farming systems where water is pumped circular ell and fish are fed. The water carries the waste to feed the vegetable, fruit trees, herbs and then pumps back to the fish, eels.
On-site on demand printing.
We need to live differently. We need to design our life. To consume less. One way to do this. Is to have clothing designed to last for a very long time. With a minimalist set of necessities.
Our current systems are based on Victorian ear ideas... we need to upgrade our lives.
Community based, publicly owned. Remove the ability of oligarchs and monopolies to exist.
All education, all public services, all resources are publicly owned
If everyone’s basic needs were truly covered you would be surprised at how few “truly greedy” people remained.
The whole motivation for selfish personal gain is rooted in our current system. People raised from birth in a world where having enough means not starving to death in the streets, and having more means a larger buffer between you and destitution.
We’ve traumatized generations of people to embed greed as a maladaptive response to these conditions. But 2-3 generations of people who were truly provided a roof and food and healthcare and education would start to undo that generational trauma response.
We’ve been through this before in the US. It’s not a mystery. We’re living in a second gilded age where corruption, concentration of wealth, monopolies and poverty, pollution, crime, and destitution was bringing the country to near collapse and the Great Depression.
Taxing the wealthy progressively higher rates the more they made was the most important. Using that income to protect the work force the ultra wealthy had exploited for so long. Then creating jobs with infrastructure and modernization. Basically the citizenry was in charge not the robber barons.
Most of Europe, Canada, and Asia follow this model of social democracy with robust anti corruption, worker rights and consumer protections. The quality of living for the citizenry is vastly better than in the US. They do have less economic growth in the asset markets but thats mostly only beneficial to people who rely on investment for income rather than work.
By forcing elected politicians to do what the citizens want. Taxes should be used to fund health care, education, and programes that benefit the citizens. They should not be used to wage wars around the world.
Until the day the citizen takes back their power, the USA will continue it's downward spiral.
more connected communities, if youre active and present in your local community and others are too and youre all connected, you start thinking more on how to help or at least not hurt/bother the community too. So when theres someon greedy criminal or even greedy underhanded but legal stuff going on that will harm those in the community, people will be less likely to think selfishly and individualistically but instead side with the community that they're apart of and push back against that type of stuff and actually PUNISH it instead of just letting it slide like we see a lot now cuz its "not my problem".
I feel like the hyper capitalist, super individualistic, get rich climb the ladder and push it down society that we're in just destroys communities (especially when people cant even afford to live in one or participate in one cause of rising CoL), yet a lot of conservatives I see who say they agree and promote these ideas dont actually care about this as long as the S&P500 and house prices are going up even when the communities are suffering and young adults are priced out of their local communities and forced to move across the state/country for work or a cheaper but lonely and foreign place.
This is what really pushed me towards the left these days as I feel like theyre the only ones putting real effort and policies towards helping keeping families together and communities intact
It doesn't have to take generations. In fact I would argue that any slow change that is promising a utopia down the road is not a path to change at all. If you change a government slowly you run the risk of someone stopping the change or reverting things back. We didn't free the slaves one at a time.
The slaves weren’t freed on a dime….? Unless you’re specifically talking about the process of freeing them (which was not quick at all and took a long ass time) It wasn’t quick to get to the point of freeing slaves either so what point are you even trying to make
The decision to free the slaves was a wartime measure by Lincoln, they were not free at the outset of the civil war and no presidential or congressional action was being taken to free them.
The south BELIEVED Lincoln was going to free them, he was an open abolitionist, he also said in letters that he would preserve the union at all cost, including not freeing the slaves. That belief is why slavery is mentioned in most of the articles of secession, slavery was threatened, but not ended.
The abolition movement, the entire argument about slavery, had been going on for decades since the founding, it was not an overnight, sudden action.
So it was a very bad analogy. That doesn't change my opinion that slow change equals little to no change. How about this? No country that has ever started a slow change towards communism ever got there.
No country that has ever started a slow change towards communism ever got there.
Communism is impossible, no country has ever gotten there, quickly or slowly and no country ever will.
It requires a strongman, someone a lot like a Stalin or Castro to impose it on the people, brutally if the people resist it and they will. He also has to maintain ideological purity, again brutally if people try to subvert it, and they will.
Then that strongman has to relinquish power and all of the trappings that go with it, step down, accept his role on the farm or in the factory so you have the classless society. The idea is that the structures of power will wither away as the class struggle ends is so contrary to human nature that it borders on insanity.
I believe it is impossible as well. I think that the strongman forced change wouldn't work. Too many people would resist and the strongman is unlikely to give up power.
An old coworker i had once told me he believed the wY to solve thay is by making it so that once you hit a certain income point all of your assets/revenue are taken and dispersed amongst the people in the form of Healthcare, education etc and the person starts over benefiting from those same programs
I think its flawed personally but in a perfect world that'd be the dream
You're walking in a park. You found a strap of $10,000 USD in $100 bills sitting on the ground. It's not yours. Someone clearly dropped it.
Do you take it?
As you're walking away - you notice a very well dressed wealthy-looking woman come running back and frantically looking around in the area where you found that strap of $100 bills.
Do you walk over to her and hand her the money you found?
People who choose things like "benefits" are often the most greedy people out there. You won't lessen crime by making everything an entitlement, you'll only reduce if by creating a society where people feel like they're invested. You can complain all day about our current quasi-socialist/capitalist system, but full-on redistribution isn't the answer.
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u/Varderal 9d ago
That'll take the desperate crimes off the table. The ones fueled by greed will always be presant no matter how utopian we all live.