Feel free to critique the following:
What I think of as vanilla MBI + Health Care is something like this:
1. Sufficient wealth for each adult to be above the poverty line in that country. In the US, this is ~$1,000 per month. In various parts of Africa, this may be $30 a month. The idea is not to meet all wants, but to meet all needs. Ideally, I'd like to do this universally for all humanity, but I'll start with US Citizens.
2. Free health Care, like every other developed country. Imagine if there was some machine I could toss money into and then people wouldn't die. Pretty much is, so let's do it.
This'd be expensive, for sure, but let's do it.
While we're at it, some other things I'd like us to do:
A. Let's make it easier to vote. Let's have voting day be a holiday, on a weekend. Let's have universal voter reg. Let's let convicts vote, children, too. Get rid of all voter ID laws, unless and until we have a universal ID card.
B. Dismantle this largest of all military apparatus. We don't need ten super aircraft carriers. We don't need to spend more on military spending than the next 7 countries combined.
C. While we're at it, let's simplify taxes. Tax breaks (yes, like the Mortgage interest deduction) exist to benefit the wealthy, and the middle-class enjoys the crumbs left over. Let's get rid of those. The only exception I want to carve out is retirement expenses.
D. Oh hey, let's treat churches like any other non-profit. No more special treatment!
E. Oh, and those symbols of the South's traitorous past? Let's remove all federal funding for them, and stop Virginia (and other states) from having roads and schools named after those assholes.
F. Hyperloop! Maybe, but really let's do some infrastructure rebuilding. Water, electricity, high speed internet, bike lanes, etc etc.
That's about it for now. Want to add anything to the list? And are the things you want to add revenue positive or negative? What would they accomplish?
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If retirees have an MBI, why do you want a tax exemption for retirement expenses? I'm not sure I see how that (specifically) becomes a compelling social good for you.
ReplyDeleteEssentially to offset how bad humans are at predicting the future.
ReplyDeleteThough, agreed, that's carved out more because I have a fear of removing it than anything else.
Free or subsidized child care.
ReplyDeleteI forgot universal pre-K!
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I am okay with the idea of children voting. There is already a problem with informing the populace on issues, but including people who are LITERALLY directly under the control of adults just kind of makes procreation a direct way to get votes.
ReplyDeleteThere's no such thing as a holiday that people don't work on. Does the US have a varient of the three consecutive hours rule for voters/employers?
ReplyDeleteTony Lower-Basch Would do you think of Matt's claim there? In particular, would your kids vote how you told them to?
ReplyDeleteFollow up, maybe "Children" needs to be defined. Do you mean 2 year olds? 16 year olds? What makes them eligible for voting?
ReplyDeleteMo Jave maybe, but I don't know what that is. It is assuredly state-by-state.
ReplyDeleteOh, how did I forget?
ReplyDeletePart of that free health care package is, of course, free 10-year not having a baby shot at age 15. Screw this whole teenage pregnancy thing.
William Nichols You'll have to lower the age of the no-baby-shot. Waiting until 15, unless there's some really good sex education (& maybe even then) is putting it a bit late.
ReplyDeleteIn Canada, federally, all citizens are guarenteed three consecutive non-working hours to vote, so If I have three hours off on a voting day, then I'm good, but if I'm supposed to be working and don't have three consecutive hours, then work has to give me paid time off to get me up to those three hours.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe we have any such protections; however, we cannot be fired for taking time off to go vote. But in most states it does not need to be paid.
ReplyDeleteThat is: we're a shitshow.
Arlene Medder Sure! 14? 13? I don't know when kiddoes start making kiddoes, and I'll happily farm that knowledge work out to smarter people!
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols: My kids wouldn't vote like I told them any more today than they will once they're 18.
ReplyDeleteWhich is to say, yeah, I've been a huge influence in their political thinking, and that's going to have an impact. Plus, I keep better tabs on who's running, so they might reasonably ask "how are you voting?" and not look much further than giving that a brief sanity check.
My worry is less about the influence parents have over kids than the extent to which the school system is a huge Petri dish of mimetic evolution, and that might make kids vulnerable to demagoguery detached from consequence.
Whether they'd be more vulnerable than adults, I don't know ... I just feel like part of childhood innocence (such as it is) is the partial shield they get from such manipulation. Putting kids in the cross-hairs of demagogues rubs me wrong.
Matt Johnson oh, sure. I don't know what makes them eligible for voting, other than saying they do. Who am I to tell them they aren't good enough to vote?
ReplyDeleteArlene Medder Is there a problem with giving the no-baby shot to ten year olds? I mean, we're talking hormonal injection.
ReplyDeleteI love how no one has a problem with free health care and a MBI. Or felons voting. Because why would you!
ReplyDeleteWhile I'm restructuring society, let's release everyone from federal prison who is there for a non-violent drug offense, and get those damn laws off the books.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what to make of your comment Tony. I mean, there was/is literally a plan by conservative christian groups to out breed other groups and while not 100% effective it also wasn't a failure. You might feel your children would vote their own conscience, but I don't think that's something we can safely extrapolate to all children based on your example.
ReplyDeleteAnd this is also part of the "What defines a voting child" thing. Is it just going to be "Is able to use the voting machine without aid"? Will there just be a lowered age limit, which is still just as arbitrary as 18?
how about this, Matt: What reason exists to tell a 16 year old she cannot vote? How about a 12 year old? An 8 year old?
ReplyDeleteThere may be answers; I do not see what is special about 18 year olds!
Matt Johnson: I am perplexed that you think I'm saying my children would vote their conscience.
ReplyDeleteWhat I'm saying is that they're quite likely to vote my conscience for some foreseeable time into the future, that time explicitly including time that society already gives them the right to vote.
It's not like there's a magic switch that gets flipped when they're 18, and suddenly their mind is its own unique snowflake, untouched by the stamp of its upbringing and influences.
So, like William says, if we accept that 18 year olds can vote, and are pretty much just proxies for their parents, how is the line drawn?
I'd be down with an argument that said "Look, ten years or so (statistical spread) of proxy-vote per child is fine, but extending that down to voting age of ten and therefore giving folks eighteen years is not cool."
Oh, and its the same argument for why women shouldn't vote; they'll just vote like their husbands, so letting women vote just doubles the vote of married men!
ReplyDeletePretty sure this was a real anti-suffrage argument. Maybe there is really & importantly different about children versus adults, but I don't know what it is.
"My kids wouldn't vote like I told them any more today than they will once they're 18."
ReplyDeleteTo me, this statement says "My kids will not vote how I want them to and will vote based on their own choices". Do you mean something else here?
" I do not see what is special about 18 year olds!"
ReplyDeleteAs far as I can tell, nothing much. :P
But seriously, like i said it's all kind of arbitrary, and based on averages. Could we lower it to 16? That's probably more or less a safe bet. 12? Pfff... maybe? 8? I'd say no, I don't trust the average 8 year old to be making life decisions. But I don't know how you quantify that. Some sort of testing? But then you get in to things that are dangerous like limiting people with developmental issues.... I don't know. It's a big scary slippery slope...
And I'm /really/ uncomfortable with how close you just came to equating women and children's abilities to be independent...
Matt Johnson: I don't want to come across as condescending, which limits my options here in terms of explaining the meaning of my words.
ReplyDelete"My kids won't vote like I told them any more today than they will when they're 18" is the same (symbolically) as saying "My kids won't vote like I told them any less when they're 18 than they do today." Does that help?
Yes, in that I get what you are trying to say, but no in that I don't know why you would try to say it the way you did there.
ReplyDeleteAnd I can't seem to reply without getting argumentative with you, which I feel is probably beyond the scope of William's thread here so.... I'll settle for saying, symbolic logic puzzles are a medium with well defined variables, language is not.
I guess both Tony Lower-Basch and Matt Johnson are argreeing, in general, that 18 year olds probably vote as proxies for their parents? Or, vote exactly the opposite?
ReplyDeleteThat is, that either way, 18 year olds are probably not so good at voting?
Is that mostly agreeable with both of you?
Yes. Also ... Most 28 year olds, 48 year olds, and 68 year olds? Not all that good at voting either.
ReplyDeleteSadly there is no not having a baby shot that lasts ten years. Depo Provera is six months and has health risks. I'm not certain it's a great idea for developing bones either (osteoporosis is one of the risks, but maybe that only pertains to older women. OTOH pregnancy while developing your bones is also a terrible idea.) Mandating IUDs.... Ouuuuch. You could not pay me to use an IUD, even though it's one of the more efficient ones, and lasts about five years.
ReplyDeleteCurrent age of menarche is as low as ten and dropping.
Gretchen S. I am totes open to alternative ideas! Gimme some.
ReplyDeleteI'd tie voting age to driving age, on the theory that if you can handle a lethal piece of machinery, you can handle a lethal piece of machinery. Teach voter education along with driver ed. (My school taught us CPR and first aid and driver ed in the same class.) Drinking age, too.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols I sure wish there were birth control that wasn't either full of bad side effects, ineffective, or permanent! I had to switch my method recently because it was killing me, even though it also did wonders for my hellish migraines (BC does a heck of a lot more than prevent conception; for a lot of people it vastly improves quality of life.) Migraines are better than dying. So legally mandating BC is NOT just a religious issue. Not all forms are appropriate for all people.
ReplyDeleteThe method we switched to (sterilization) is very safe but inappropriate for anyone who might wish to procreate later. I did look into IUDs but my doctor discouraged it because we don't want children. I wasn't able to get any progesterone-only that I could take, for allergy reasons, and progesterone-only is bad for bone health in the long term (at my age at least) so I can't do the shot.
Re: children voting.
ReplyDeleteKids' brains literally just do not have the parts to do critical thinking until late adolescence. Kids should not vote for the same reason that kids cannot meaningfully consent to sex.
Each individual is different, and some can do the critical thinking trick well before 18. Some–far, far fewer–don't develop those parts until after 18 (if at all).
The trick is that the numbers of people who are literally incapable of critical thinking (not ignorant of it, which is different) post-18 are (probably) statistically insignificant. Basically it's easier to the point of being feasible to just put the threshold at 18.
Are there 17-year-olds, 14-year-olds, even 8-year-olds that can make informed decisions and could vote responsibly? Sure there are. But absent some sort of test to determine fitness to vote (and holy shit, that's a bad idea), an arbitrary but generally safe threshold is the way to go.
Re voting on weekends or holidays - we should talk off line :)
ReplyDeleteok, Sam. You know how to reach me. :-)
ReplyDeleteThe frontal cortex is actually fully grown in at 25 in most people, but I personally think kids probably have enough critical thinking (even if it hasn't maxed yet) if they can drive; a lot of the later development seems to be more around impulse control and emotional stability.
ReplyDelete