(no subject)
Snow at the end of March? Seriously?So another rant about politics and social services; regarding public transportation, one has three options (on the extreme end of things):
1) Pay for everyone's buses and trains.
2) Stop subsidizing travel and pay the service industry more. This would mean your janitress, waiter, and cashier might be making as much as you, and everything will cost more (but taxes will go down). This would be a necessary balance because service workers would have to pay more to live closer to where they work and/or pay more money for non-subsidized transportation.
3) Eliminate the service industry; vending machines are something of an example of a move in that direction, and digitization and industrialization are also pointing that way, but it will be a long time coming. See "Day Without a Mexican" for further reference. Most people who say they want to do without supporting the underclass have no clue what the ramifications of such are. That being said, there are a handful who really are interested in being "off the grid" and truly self-supporting. While I disagree with such a move on the grand economic scale (especially with how social I am), I have to salute it as an aware and viable concept.
Personally, I tilt more towards the first because it's more efficient per person to move a mass of people than each person individually; fuel-wise and hence money-wise. There are problems with every system; corruption, a bog-down effect, and the limiting of choice to those provided by the transit, let alone the free will of people to choose not to go anywhere (or bike or walk), which is why I'm not totally for the first option.
I kind of approve of the third move in another vein: The less "busywork" humanity at large has to do, the more we can accomplish otherwise. It seems exceptionally problematic to me that the current baby boom is projected to stimulate the economy. I understand the "more work to do" part, but I have the impression that (like so many other "saving (unnecessary?) jobs" projects) the people who are otherwise unemployed would be better served doing "something else". The problem being, I have no clue how to make such a ground shift in the way we think about work, or what that "something else" is, or how to convince people who have money to give it to the people doing "something else".If I were more rational, I probably wouldn't have as much fun with life. As it is, I'm assuming there's a correlation between my declaration of improving my life's work and relationship with people, and the facts that on Saturday a)as I got out my money at the door, they said I was covered for the milonga, and b) I got into a completely unexpected conversation in which a writer strongly suggested I apply for a game designer position at a prominent electronic game company... the kicker being, they already have coders, they really want someone on the design end of things. (They haven't asked for writers, much to my friend's dismay.)
Oh, hey, that reminds me, I should apply for that.
1) Pay for everyone's buses and trains.
2) Stop subsidizing travel and pay the service industry more. This would mean your janitress, waiter, and cashier might be making as much as you, and everything will cost more (but taxes will go down). This would be a necessary balance because service workers would have to pay more to live closer to where they work and/or pay more money for non-subsidized transportation.
3) Eliminate the service industry; vending machines are something of an example of a move in that direction, and digitization and industrialization are also pointing that way, but it will be a long time coming. See "Day Without a Mexican" for further reference. Most people who say they want to do without supporting the underclass have no clue what the ramifications of such are. That being said, there are a handful who really are interested in being "off the grid" and truly self-supporting. While I disagree with such a move on the grand economic scale (especially with how social I am), I have to salute it as an aware and viable concept.
Personally, I tilt more towards the first because it's more efficient per person to move a mass of people than each person individually; fuel-wise and hence money-wise. There are problems with every system; corruption, a bog-down effect, and the limiting of choice to those provided by the transit, let alone the free will of people to choose not to go anywhere (or bike or walk), which is why I'm not totally for the first option.
I kind of approve of the third move in another vein: The less "busywork" humanity at large has to do, the more we can accomplish otherwise. It seems exceptionally problematic to me that the current baby boom is projected to stimulate the economy. I understand the "more work to do" part, but I have the impression that (like so many other "saving (unnecessary?) jobs" projects) the people who are otherwise unemployed would be better served doing "something else". The problem being, I have no clue how to make such a ground shift in the way we think about work, or what that "something else" is, or how to convince people who have money to give it to the people doing "something else".If I were more rational, I probably wouldn't have as much fun with life. As it is, I'm assuming there's a correlation between my declaration of improving my life's work and relationship with people, and the facts that on Saturday a)as I got out my money at the door, they said I was covered for the milonga, and b) I got into a completely unexpected conversation in which a writer strongly suggested I apply for a game designer position at a prominent electronic game company... the kicker being, they already have coders, they really want someone on the design end of things. (They haven't asked for writers, much to my friend's dismay.)
Oh, hey, that reminds me, I should apply for that.