D&D and the rising pandemic

[Umbran]

The idea that a person needs to be punished because work is no longer required is ridiculous.

Unfortunately, we are dealing with a culture that is not ready for post-scarcity ideas like Universal Basic Income. We still have hangups leftover from the age when not pulling your weight in the community was actually a problem for the community. That isn't changing overnight, and not in the middle of this crisis.

 

[Zardnaar]

Unfortunately, we are dealing with a culture that is not ready for post-scarcity ideas like Universal Basic Income. We still have hangups leftover from the age when not pulling your weight in the community was actually a problem for the community. That isn't changing overnight, and not in the middle of this crisis.

No one's figured out how to pay for a UBI.

Universal welfare at least would give people a shot at paying rent.

Our governments done the right thing and yeah our dollar has taken a hit already.

We've "lost" 20k or so on retirement fund, estimated 50-75k on fall in house values. Expecting share market to tank more.

All the losses are on paper. All you can do is wait it out so not worth stressing out about.
Not anticipating going back to work anytime soon either so home renovation or landscaping time.

Neighbors have lost around 30k on retirement funds.

No more D&D books anytime soon.

Brothers a pilot. He was one of the first to lose his job.

Rent and mortage prices have outstripped welfare payments which are tied to the consumer price index which excludes rent and mortages.

 

[Hussar]

As far as banks not charging for 6 months, that's all very well and good for Canadian banks. Canadian banks are some of the strongest, most profitable banks in the world. To the point where Canada maybe not has the best banks in the world, but, is certainly in the top three.

OTOH, for example, in Japan, the banks consistently lose money and have to be bailed out by the government. Expecting the banks here to not take any money for six months would collapse the economy.

 

[ad_hoc]

Unfortunately, we are dealing with a culture that is not ready for post-scarcity ideas like Universal Basic Income. We still have hangups leftover from the age when not pulling your weight in the community was actually a problem for the community. That isn't changing overnight, and not in the middle of this crisis.

Something to aspire to after this is all over.

One can hope that this is a wake up call for the issues present in the current system.

That's all I'm saying. That the framing is all backwards. Americans are out there protesting lockdowns when they should be protesting the lack of support from the government.

I understand that people need to get back to work because they aren't being provided with the means to survive. I just think it's unnecessary and barbaric. It's also ultimately self defeating. Prolonging the lockdown just a little more will prevent a lot more damage in the end.

Kind of like how healthcare works. If people can go for check ups for free then they can address potential issues before they end up in the emergency room costing tens of thousands.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Unfortunately, we are dealing with a culture that is not ready for post-scarcity ideas like Universal Basic Income. We still have hangups leftover from the age when not pulling your weight in the community was actually a problem for the community. That isn't changing overnight, and not in the middle of this crisis.

See also the Protestant Work Ethic, aka the Calvinist Work Ethic or Puritan Work Ethic, a concept involving theology, economics, sociology and other factors that combined- Voltron-like- into a powerful driver of political policy and how charities structure their methods of helping others.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

No one's figured out how to pay for a UBI.

That’s not exactly true. It depends on the exact details of the UBI.

There was a version of it posited a few years ago that converted the all tax money earmarked for all kinds of social programs into UBI, eliminating all of the government agencies involved in the administration and oversight of those programs. Most loopholes involving the sprawling welfare system would be closed. The only government expansion would be a subsection of the Treasury tasked with the accounting and disbursements. In terms of dollar value of benefits, this program delivered more benefits to the average recipients than the benefits they got under current law.

It was picked apart by both sides of the political spectrum.

On one side, reducing everything to a simple $$$$/month looked like paying people to do nothing- a big violation of the Protestant Work Ethic. To that mindset, UBI looks like it encourages social parasitism. (RW research on this has revealed mixed results.)

On the other, the UBI itself is anti-paternalistic. UBI depends on recipients taking personal responsibility for how the money is spent, and some current programs were designed to help people who have histories of questionable judgement. If a program’s key goal is to mitigate the negative societal effects of bad decision making, UBI looks like a recipe for disaster.

For both sides, imagine the fallout from telling your constituents that the entirety of the “welfare system” was being ended. The resulting clamor would drown out every sentence after that, and the helpful reports you printed detailing the new and improved system would become torches & fuses for Molotov cocktails.

So, even though that version of UBI was technically more efficient, there’s reasons in both sides of American politics that would undermine the political willpower to enact one in the foreseeable future.

 

[Umbran]

That's all I'm saying. That the framing is all backwards. Americans are out there protesting lockdowns when they should be protesting the lack of support from the government.

I think there is a whole lot more going on around those protests than, "I am not being provided for so let me work."

Discussion of who "should" be protesting what is... politics. Discussion of why they protest what they do... politics. So, I'm not going there.

 

[ad_hoc]

I think there is a whole lot more going on around those protests than, "I am not being provided for so let me work."

Discussion of who "should" be protesting what is... politics. Discussion of why they protest what they do... politics. So, I'm not going there.

I specifically avoided certain other reasons for protests because it wasn't what we were talking about and is highly political.

There are obviously more dimensions to things than is reasonable to go through. I try to stick to the subject of what we're talking about.

In this case it was government providing security of people during a time of crisis.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Americans are freaking idiots, which I can say as an American. My city's newspaper was well trusted before the pandemic, but as soon as it started posting articles on people not staying home, the increasing number of cases in my town, and how many deaths we have, the people who previously read them all the time suddenly turned on them. Every article they post online is immediately bombarded with comments on "Anyone who has a headache is diagnosed with Corona," and "They're lying to make us stay inside. We can't let that happen!"

It's going to take something bit in order to get these people to change their mind about Coronavirus. I'm guessing it'll take someone super important dying of this disease, possibly a government official, but who knows. Maybe they'll come up with more conspiracy theories to explain this death.

I don't know how you inform the misinformed. How do you convince a stubborn person they're wrong?

 

[Jester David]

On the plus side, my housing situation has been forked of late, as I had to leave the house I was staying in for a crappy apartment. And I'm closer to retirement than I am to the start of my career, so I really want to find a permanent housing solution that I can afford in 20 years.
With the virus tanking everything and hitting housing prices hard in a few months it might be a good time for me to looking at buying something.