Compound interest.
Let’s say you need to borrow 5000 € for your first car, but you have only 700 €. First, you’ll need to find a lender who is willing to share the risk with you. Then, you form a joint stock company (Tom’s Volvo C30 2008 incorporated), where you own 7/50 of the car and the other party owns the rest. When you have some more money, you can buy some more stocks. One day, you’ll own the whole car and the lender has all of their money back.
So…instead of loans, you’re advocating that people form corporations where shares are bought over time instead?
You’ll still have to pay some interest to motivate the other party to invest, all you’ve really done is generate a bunch of extra paperwork to spin up a corporation.
The idea is to avoid the expense spiraling out of control due to exponential growth.
In order to motivate your business partner, you should have a contract that defines the price of the stocks in a favorable way. It’s like buying and selling really. The lender pays 4300 € for the car, and sells it at a higher price, such as 4600 €.
Oh, if you’re trying to prevent usury, it would be far simpler to either cap interest rates or ban compound interest in favor of simple interest.
Rate caps are the simplest solution least likely to backfire, but unfortunately they tend to push people away from legitimate sources of lending, so you do have to be careful that they aren’t too low.
Like I said, forming a corporation isn’t a simple thing, doing it to organize a personal loan would take up an enormous amount of time and money, and result in substantially fewer consumer protections.
Well, now that taking a loan is fast and easy, people tend to spend the money they don’t have and buy the things they can’t afford. Having some sort of a speed bump along the way should make people think a little more and avoid getting into unnecessary debt.
I agree, but forming a corp is time consuming in an expensive way, you need (usually) retain lawyers and an accounting firm.
I think it would be better if getting credit were subject to income and asset verification, and most importantly that the government make sure eligibility verification is not abusive, discriminatory, or inconsistent in nature.
Let’s give an example that is more uplifting.
A 16 year old who just got their motorcycle license being able to buy a 200hp superbike capable of doing 180+mph.
For all intents and purposes, this should be illegal, because the teenager (usually) doesn’t have the skills and willpower to handle such a powerful motorcycle as a noob.
But it does feel awesome to be able to buy whatever motorcycle you can afford once you get your license in the US, rather than being forced to start on a 125cc that can’t even hit 60mph.
A 16 year old who just got their motorcycle license being able to buy a 200hp superbike capable of doing 180+mph.
True, but rarely does a 16 y/o have ~$10k saved up to purchase a sport bike with that power.
Then it wont be a problem for most of them when theyre not legally allowed to buy one.
Eh, I don’t think the correlation of age is the causation of getting wounded or killed due to questionable decisions on powerful motorcycles. I’d venture to say the correlation is moreso in personality type, and aversion, or lack thereof to risk.
Like, you don’t see complete straight edge 16 year olds getting bikes, and from my own anecdotal experience, my straight edge friends were scared of it. Though if there wasn’t an inherent aversion to the risk, I’d bet those types would be incredibly safe motorcycle drivers.
The types that currently get them are the types that will take risks, regardless of their age, and we can’t rightly outlaw something because some risk takers act dangerously on them. We’d have to outlaw cars too.
It’s wild that’s legal there! Where I live learners and provisional riders are restricted by power to weight ratio (150kw per tonne/200hp per 2000lbs), and that honestly seems like it keeps them on reasonable bikes for the skill level without having them all stuck on 125cc bikes struggling to reach the speed limit
Your provisional rider laws are a lot more fair than Europe’s, which limit teenagers to 125cc for the first two year of riding.
150KW/tonne (with the rider) is enough to get a Ninja 400 or Harley Sportster 1200, both of which are plenty powerful for the street. But maybe these calculations don’t factor in a typical rider’s weight.
In India, minimum age is 18.
Churches.
Capitalism
Something (almost) no one has mentioned: factory farming of livestock. I’m not gonna say a person who engages in subsistence farming shouldn’t be able to keep a coop of chickens for eggs (as long as their chickens are well cared for), but large scale animal husbandry and livestock is devastating to the environment and genuinely cruel.
Kill it yourself and eat it? Fine by me. Circle of life, yadda yadda.
Send hundreds into an abattoir to be machine killed by robots or strangers and eat it? No. Own up to the process, or don’t partake.
Own up to the process, or don’t partake.
That’s actually why I went vegan: I couldn’t see myself ever killing an animal.
That’s great in theory, but there’s just too many people for that to be anywhere close to realistic. If we had about 20% of our current global population, then I’d agree with you, but even the worst pandemic in modern history couldn’t scratch 1%.
my parents grew up eating meat once a every few months, from animals they raised themselves. No big farm, just a house in a village. Is that not sustainable?
No it isnt because unless you eat/drink enough dairy or take B12 supplements, youre going to have a B12 deficiency if you do that. People forget that meat actually serves a nutritional purpose.
Well shit, B12 supplements are cheap enough. Are there any other reasons it’s a bad idea?
Vegans and vegetarians (once a month meat consumption isnt really an omnivore diet) are more likely to be deficient in Zinc, Iron and are more susceptible to osteoporosis due to poor Calcium uptake. Because animal protein does help the body to absorb minerals like Iron, Zinc and the like (it isnt known for sure why and phytates in certain plant foods also hampers mineral uptake) vegetarians and vegans need to overcompensate for those minerals in their food. On the order of about 50% higher than the RDA for omnivores.
Now I am not saying it cant be healthy, it can and there certainly are problems with how the average westerner eats, but I have no confidence in this being done correctly on a mass scale given the data that has come out. eg. 50% of vegans are deficient in B12 as measured by blood test and thats among a population that is likely much more aware of B12 being problematic since it is only naturally found in significant quantities in animal products and almost every meat and dairy substitute on the market is fortified with B12. And that widespread deficiency STILL happens. Vegetarians are less susceptible to B12 deficiency but still generally rely on the dairy industry to obtain that B12 along with Calcium and Zinc. And because B12 is water soluble not fat soluble, it needs to be obtained daily or in higher doses, semidaily. And the effects of B12 deficiency can be delayed months (pernicious anemia) or years (permanent nerve damage with the anemia hidden by excess folate consumption)
People need education and better meat and dairy substitutes that arent as processed to make this work. Right now, most of them have too much salt and saturated fats to be an improvement.
Thank you for the write up!
Well they did eat lots of cheese and dairy. Is that not okay?
You need cows to produce all of that just like you would meat. The way cow physiology works requires that calves be birthed periodically to maintain milk production at large scale. The dairy industry is to a large extent, a by product of the meat industry. Those new calves have to go somewhere. And you have to keep in mind that 70% of the world’s population is lactose intolerant as adults. They rely on nondairy meat products for the majority of the B12 they get. OR you switch people to vegan substitutes that have B12 added to them. Right now those are niche/luxury products which is problematic for developing nations. Like… imagine going from small scale cattle and poultry farming to relying on B12 bacterial fermenters and soy production at large scale. That might be doable if new processes for using certain strains of B12 producing pseudomonas bacterial cultures can be developed for fermented soy products like tempeh can spread there but again, those arent there yet. More R&D is needed.
Tipping.
Giving tips is okay. Paying your employees less because you expect them to be tipped is stupid. Culturally requiring tips to make up the majority of a position’s income is ridiculous, but very difficult to change.
Smoking
yes because alcohol prohibition and the WaR oN dRuGs worked out so well /s
Billionaires
Ads for medication
Campaign contributions greater than $n from people and greater than $0 from corporations
Civil forfeiture
Prosecuting attorneys withholding exculpatory evidence
Firearms which aren’t single action for civilian use (police are civilians)
Receiving gifts greater than $250 USD as a supreme Court Justice or family member of the supreme Court Justice.
Psych drugging children and psychiatry in general
I’ll hang onto my Lexapro and Buspar so I don’t have debilitating panic attacks, thank you very much.
Not sure about those, but see this on Xanax/Alprazolam (49:48). Also, I have panic disorder due to psych drugs
Half of the things that go on with donations. People who are enlightened enough to know 90% of your money doesn’t go to its intended place (whether you’re donating to starving Africans, people with a medical condition, etc.) cannot effectively stand up to corrupt charity organizations in a culture where half of the people still think the Salvation Army is a literal branch of the army. Even the charity watch groups are compromised.
Reposting things from reddit that have been posted there over 1000 times.
Oh shit! He’s on to us.
Richness
Selling life-saving drugs at large multiples of the cost to manufacture + distribute. The most obvious example being insulin.
Switching political party in the same term that you were elected to office.
CEOs making 100x the median worker at the same company.
Assault rifles and other automatic or military-grade weapons. They have no practical purpose in the hands of a citizen. Pistols, shotguns, and hunting rifles should be sufficient for hunting and self defense.
Generic finance bro bullshit. Frivolous use of bank credit for speculative investment. Predatory lending. Credit default swaps. It’s just a spectrum of Ponzi Schemes. Let’s reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act.
Non-disclosure of expensive gifts to Supreme Court judges. Looking at you, Clarence.
Military recruiting at high schools.
Junk mail. You literally have to pay a company to stop sending it.
What the fuck? You have to pay to stop getting junk mail? We in Australia just put a little sign on our letterbox saying ‘no junk mail’ and we stop getting it. That’s insane. Same thing with the insulin comment and some of the stuff other people said like forced arbitration. America is crazy.
You think thats bad, we have active shooter drills and safe rooms because nothing is done about our gun nut problem.
Yup I paid the fee to stop getting marketing junk mail. Then when I started an LLC, they started sending all of that mail again addressed to the LLC. You can’t fucking win.
Free paper is free paper. You can also mess with them by signing them up for each other and/or sending them stones (if there’s a return envelope; they’ll be charged for it).
Automatic weapons for the most part are already illegal, assault rifle isn’t a term that actually means anything and neither does military grade. In fact only 3% of gun deaths in the states are from rifles. The real issue is the illegal gun market and the endless supply of hi-points and other pistols.
You’ve been lied to.
I thought the last few school shootings were from legslky owned rifles?
They were. They were horrific tragedies. They are also the outlier of outliers. And any legislation targeting them is either a) going to have zero effect on crime, b) only going to harm law abiding citizens or C) both
isn’t it specifically going to rein in the outlier of outliers that school shootings are? I think people would be really happy with that, even if the average crime rate doesn’t go down
I doubt it If they cant get an ar they’ll just go get a black market pistol for $100. And besides, the way to curb school shootings isn’t through firearm restrictions. It’s through actual proper mental health programs and funding. Something that the US government refuses to fund because it’ll actually fix the problem instead of just being a feel good gesture.
The only shootings where mental illness plays a major factor are suicides. When it comes to gun violence, only 4-5% of perpetrators have a severe mental illness. When it comes to school mass shootings specifically [ source ]:
- 67% are white
- 100% are male (95% according to a different source)
- “Severe mental illness (e.g., psychosis) was absent in the majority of perpetrators; when present, psychotic symptoms are more associated with mass murders in academic settings involving means other than firearms”
And with regard to school shootings generally:
- 77% of the time, someone knew about their plans for the shooting ahead of time
- more than half of K-12 shooters have a history of psychological problems, but the bigger issue is that nearly three quarters of the time, they had been being bullied or harassed in school
- depending on the source, nearly half or more than half got the gun from home or a relative, often by stealing an unsecured or under-secured firearm
- 91% of shootings were with a handgun
If we could reduce bullying and do a better job at making students feel like they have value and matter, that would go a lot further toward reducing school shootings than anything involving mental illness (aside from, perhaps, efforts to reduce the stigma associated with it).
Substance abuse - drugs, particularly those that are illegal, and alcohol - as well as poverty and inequality is much more strongly linked to gun violence.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t continue improving our available mental health resources (the majority of deaths from guns are by suicide, after all), but we shouldn’t use mental illness as a scapegoat.
Huh well alright then. I thought mentally illness played a bigger part. Now I know. Thanks!
That’s what you hear about. You don’t hear about the other 40,000 gun deaths (almost half suicides) anymore than you hear about the 40,000 vehicular deaths.
Kis shoots up a school and kills 5? All over the media for a solid week. Asshole ripping down the interstate takes out a family of 5? Meh. Quick local news blurb.
OP’s point is that rifles, legal or not, aren’t what’s doing all the killing. It’s the pistols. Nobody will talk about it because there’s no way in hell for a pistol ban to pass. But words like “assault” and “military” get traction.
Remember Virginia Tech? Worst mass murder at the time? Kid did most of his killing with a .22 pistol.
An “assault rifle” is specifically a selective-fire rifle with detachable magazines and intermediate cartridges. AR-15s, AK-47s, and M16s meet this definition. You are likely thinking of “assault weapon,” a term which is not well-defined.
And while it’s true that most mass shootings and gun deaths in general are perpetrated by handguns, assault rifles are responsible for the deadliest mass shootings.
Because it is so challenging to pass gun control legislation in the US, the least we can hope to do is forbid ownership of the deadliest types of guns.
I agree that this is not sufficient though. We need to have more stringent requirements for acquiring any firearm. 28 states don’t even require background checks for private sale of guns. Our laws fall way too short on gun trafficking.
The illegal gun market is just a symptom of the very legal gun market. The head of the ATF even said, “virtually every crime gun in the US starts off as a legal firearm.”
We need background checks, and I don’t think private unlicensed gun sales should be legal either.
Okay except most rifles, including AK47’s AR15’s and M16’s are semi automatic only so they aren’t selective fire. And if we ignore that requirement and go with the the other two requirements it means that .22lr hunting rifles with a box mag count as “assault rifles”
Pistols are still the deadliest type of guns no matter what metric you use.
The head of the ATF is also responsible for operation fast and furious. Not to mention that is a nothing statement when you think about it. Of course they start off as legal firearms. Gun traffickers are “legally” buying these weapons overseas end mass from firearm companies and warlords or they’re being stolen from legal gun owners.
Pistols are still the deadliest type of guns no matter what metric you use.
That’s a silly statement. Why do you think soldiers prefer to use assault rifles in combat? I said “deadliest” meaning the most capable of killing, not the most statistically likely gun to kill someone.
“Most capable of killing” doesn’t mean anything though. A bullet is a bullet is a bullet. What gun its fired out of doesn’t really matter when its against soft targets. 9mm 5.56 and 7.62 are all the same lethality.
Edit: Also comparing the use case of gangers and even school shooters with soldiers is foolish. The main benefits of a rifle (in war) are range, stability and higher cyclic rate. Virtually all rifles are semi automatic so cyclic rate doesn’t matter. And at the range pretty much all school shootings take place in, pistol vs rifle doesn’t matter. Stability is also largely irrelevant based on distance and the fact that unarmed civilians dont shoot back.
All this to say, 91% of school shootings are perpetrated with pistols. So this hyperfixation on “assault rifles” is silly. I say again, you’ve been lied to.
Ok I don’t really agree with all of your lines of reasoning but I’m curious what you think the solution to our gun problem is. We at least agree that we have a problem, right?
The head of the ATF is also responsible for operation fast and furious.
That’s just whataboutism.
Honestly true. I just think he’s a moron so I discount much of what he says.
Also I looked up the statement about most guns being legal. Based on data from his own agency its 54%. While that is technically the majority, thats a coin flip. “Virtually all” in my books is 70% or higher.
Exploiting animals
Removing AUX ports, forcing people to throw away their headphones, because you ALSO nowhere sell your overpriced USB DACs.
Climate Destruction
Stealing already existing nature land, forcing people out of it, and “taking care of it” and get carbon credits for it like what?
Mine Coal or Oil in 2024. Same with building nuclear plants.
We had a thing in Germany, where nuclear industries needed to pay for the disposal of nuclear waste. Instead of calculating real numbers, they should invest ⅒ or less of the actually needed money into trust funds. Like… what? Money doesnt grow just like that, it comes from exploiting workers, and “magically” they didnt need to pay that much. And of course that was too little so now the tax payers have to pay for these horrible companies.
Nuclear energy is significantly greener than coal and oil, IIRC. As well, there are a lot of places where it can be hard to get enough energy from renewable sources like hydro and solar.
Nuclear energy is slow, which is why things like “night storage heating” where invented, which store the unneeded heat generated at night.
We have a constant electricity demand and a varying. Especially if we use “smart” devices (nothing IOT, just washing machines only washing during the day) the constant demand can be decreased a lot.
So as we are awake roughly around the time that we can produce solar energy, and have wind for the constant part, we dont need nuclear power, really.
Also building these plants takes years which we dont have.
And nothing is sustainable if it produces non-disposable nuclear waste that will likely live longer than humanity on this planet.
