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Sometimes I try to extrapolate out current conditions. I always end up with heavily policed cities for the protected class, ghetto suburbs and rural areas for t
by LarryDarrell 8y ago
Sometimes I try to extrapolate out current conditions. I always end up with heavily policed cities for the protected class, ghetto suburbs and rural areas for the ones who didn't choose the right parents. We seem determined to build a caste system and in the US the Untouchables will be the ones who were born without professional parents. Every five years or so there will be a Hillbilly Elegy to remind the poor that it's all their fault.
This presumes that no trauma intervenes in between. Historically, war, famine, plague and ecological disasters have done pretty well at reducing inequality.
- staticautomatic 8y agoI always seem to arrive at "start over with an entirely new set of laws."
- neolefty 8y agoAnd moral framework. Don't forget the moral framework. One of my favorites is "Voting is sacred, and it is sacrilegious to try to influence anyone else's vote in any way."
- ozmbie 8y agoThe combination of democracy and term limits means that iterative change should be the norm. But something isn’t working right.
- dv_dt 8y agoHave you heard of the Sugarscape simulation? It can be used as an economic model showing interplay of wealth and taxation and inequality. I don't think I would recommend setting economic policy based on this simplistic model, but it's food for thought. http://greenteapress.com/complexity/html/thinkcomplexity012.html http://greenteapress.com/complexity/html/thinkcomplexity012.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugarscape https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugarscape
- staticautomatic 8y agoWhat's not working right is people in office doing things to prevent iterative change.
- neolefty 8y agoYes, that seems to be the pattern! I'd love to see us institutionalize a reasonable level of equality, rather than depend on disasters to provide it. We certainly have plenty of wealth and productivity for everyone to a have a pretty great life in the US. And we're headed in that direction for more and more of the rest of the world. I spent 5 years in China, and it's happening there too. We're just stuck with a survivalist attitude of "give me more" — held by people who have absolutely no threat to their survival. But from our recent behavior — lack of prosecution of financial crimes after 2008, for example — we seem headed for a very severe learning experience.
- elindbe2 8y agoLuckily climate change will give us plenty of trauma over the next few decades.