During the pandemic we had tele-health, UBI via stimulus checks, employers supporting work from home and practically eliminated the flu because people wore masks in crowded places.
We really touched greatness and gave it all away to return to the status quo.
@carnage4life Know what else UBI could do? Lessen the employer’s grip on us workers. It’s one of many fantastic reasons we should push for UBI.
Also work from home means less traffic (less maintenance costs, less pollution, lower taxes), more local businesses, and lots and lots of office buildings we can turn into homes for the homeless.
Neat right?
@carnage4life I lived in the Bay Area at the time. I had never seen the skies so clear and blue.
They're back to their old selves.
Somehow people looked at clear skies and figured it was better the old way :(
@carnage4life less noise from planes and cars, too!
Alas, the moment that bubble burst we got inflation and rising central bank rates. Seems like it does come at a cost.
@xavez Sure they do -- so they cut into profit margin. Which is still *extremely healthy.*
Businesses run on a few things (this is not a real equation, but it is close): rate of efficiency * inputs - reinvestment for growth = profit.
It is in their interest to encourage people to ignore the right hand side of that equation. It is a category mistake to forget that profit can be varied too.
@carnage4life We got SO CLOSE. Utopia almost seemed within reach.
Jeff and Mark don't want you to rest assured that the potential for freedom exists. It's important that we all understand our places.
Some say the older you get, the more conservative. My experience has been the opposite. If getting older means getting more selfish, I'll stay a young man. Thanks.
I feel the need to correct you. By the way I agree 100% however I'd say "at the beginning of the pandemic" since we're still in it.
Been waiting for everyone to catch up to the 2nd decade of the 21st century and we touched it for a brief moment. *sigh*
@carnage4life Why do better if you could do worse, I guess? We know what better looks like, but a lot of people still think all change is bad.
Tangentially related: women being told that an epidural during labor is somehow bad or weak because women used to give birth “naturally”; childhood vaccinations on the decline because they didn’t have vaccinations before and the human race still exists; etc.
We’re a moronic species, for the most part, it seems.
@doug82 @carnage4life You understand nothing.
Put on a fucking respirator and stop getting your fam sick.
@doug82 @carnage4life "[It's] all over" yeah, and people are still getting sick, and losing the ability to do things they once did, from a virus that's "over".
Get a grip. 3M 6200. 3M 2097. Thank me later.
There's no moving on until the people in the way stop lying and denying.
Get behind me, Satan.
@doug82 @carnage4life For a week.
Then I'll get some super air-AIDS and die in three years.
Nah.
I'm not going to be a moron.
Lack of access to healthcare is caused by not training up enough doctors, not people staying in. Lockdowns are also not the cause of the raised excess death rate.
But you want to believe what They:tm: tell you. Can't stop you, just don't want you making a big mistake.
@carnage4life it's still during the pandemic
we lost those things because people adopted the nazi positions of 2020 & sacrificed us disabled to the thresher maw of COVID
Right, because we saw that so many of those ideas made sense when a public health emergency shifted the balance between their upsides and downsides, but they were unsustainable.
They couldn’t last… so they didn’t.
@carnage4life We got dangerously close to the proletariat realizing that life could be better.
Can't have *that* happen. They might want to keep it that way.
@drwho @carnage4life Dead workers can't revolt or strike.
But they also don't increase shareholder value so it's a bit of a tossup.
@carnage4life And people in power gave it all away...
(Because if they didn't they'd have to change things...)
@goetz @carnage4life Turn them into homeless shelters and job outreach centers. 2 birds, one stone. Make it an actual "address" for them to use as a residence (and collect mail like a mailbox place does, help them set up bank accounts for direct deposits) so that employers are more willing to give them jobs and they can get on their feet. Won't work for all of them (especially mental health cases), but it could help a bunch out. Turn other offices into apartment spaces FOR these guys to give them a leg up til they can establish themselves and move where they want.
Only thing I can think of--affordable housing is getting harder for so many. It's why I'm searching for another job so hard--property taxes are going to gut my savings this year and I'll have to sell everything not nailed down to pay income taxes and basic expenses if this trend continues. I am lucky enough to outright own my house and land, but many others are not and can't afford the increasing property taxes along with mortgages and the like. And apartments are outrageous.
@carnage4life It really gave me a boost of hope that maybe we could also tackle the climate crisis too: something that many deniers claim is too hard and that radical change is not possible.
For a brief moment we actually saw a significant dip in new carbon emissions... before getting back to normal.
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