TAX FARM

Slowly-boiled frog man. Oooh it's getting hot in here.

"But we live in a democracy, we can go on TV and say stuff, our opinions are aired nationally."

Sounds great, did you manage to stop the last fuel-tax hike ?

"But we're better off now under a blah-blah government"

Sounds great, how's your finances compared to your Dad's ? Yes i know your TV is bigger but how's it on balance ?

I'm being facetious but just imagine this, just for a second imagine that powerful families communicated together over time, just the natural progression of human tribalism - the family is a hierarchy, school is a hierarchy, jobs are a hierarchy, village leader, town leader etc

Over time controlling groups have to form, to deny that would be to deny over 100 years of anthropology. Of course the groups with the most control meet and have discussions, they would be fucktards not to!

So ultimately it's like supermarkets, all the little ones die and we're just left with Tesco or whatever. We are implicitly en route to a Tesco of government, around the whole world. Then it will be a Tesco religion, a Tesco currency, E.T. Fucking Cee. (i'm on my soap box now)

There is a group and there is a plan, how could it be any other way after 6,000 years of war.

On the other hand, in 1894 the average life expectancy was 46 for men and 48 for women and our factories were full of child labor. 

You can't compare the way it was 125 years ago in the US to today. 

126 years ago:

1. there were hardly any paved roads.  The Lincoln Highway, the first (mostly) paved highway from coast to coast didn't happen until 1913.  Pavement, for your car, comes at a tremendous price compared to dirt roads.

2. There used to be unregulated commercial fishing on Lake Michigan.  By 1950, the Lake had been fished out.  Today it's available again for sport fishing but only because the surrounding states restock the fish yearly from hatcheries.  That $30 fishing license helps pay for that.  And the limits on catches helps keep sport fishing alive for everyone.

3. The first sewers were going in here.  All they did was keep the raw sewage from flowing in the streets by dumping it and rainwater into the streams.  The streams became dead open sewers.   We're still undoing those combined sewers from a century ago to separate sewer water from rain water.  The cost is huge partly because we have to tear up those paved streets that our cars love so much to get to the 100 year old sewers.  Not mentioning the treatment plant cost.

4. In towns, all that sewage soon contaminated the wells so they put in a municipal water system.  That costs money and pipes don't last forever so they have to be replaced.  Wait for it: which means tearing up those precious paved streets first.

5. We didn't need to regulate vehicle speeds because it was still mostly a 3 mph world of horses pulling wagons on those old dirt roads.  If you wanted to move faster you took a streetcar or a train if there was one.

6. 50 years ago one of our open sewer waterways caught fire.  The damn thing burned for for a week or more.  So we regulated industrial sewage in a big way.  It's no prize, but it's way cleaner now than it was.

7. 125 years ago there was a radium factory in town so your watch dial would glow in the dark.  They still don't know what to do with that land because the background radiation is high from the contaminated soil.

I could go on forever.  My point is people and industries don't regulate themselves.  We tried it and it does not work.  That and "progress" all come at a price.  There is no free lunch.  You want roads, railroads, clean water, clean air, fish, birds, cars, police, firefighters, ambulances, hospitals, schools, electricity, 4G, wired broadband all at the same time, it costs money and it can only be done with regulations and enforcement.

Do I like all the rules, regulations and fees? No.  I'm involved in my town government in a small way.  Everything we do requires permission from county, state, federal authorities.  It requires legions of lawyers, engineers, "consultants" just to do the paperwork required for permission.  And when you've finally built something, you have to pay to maintain it and generate regualr reports to all those government agencies.  It all costs taxpayers a lot of money, but it's better than a free for all like we had 125 years ago.  We're still undoing the mistakes made in the last 125 years.

Brad, thank you for that post. It's brilliant!

What Buckworks said.

Hello and welcome: Robot waiters to the rescue amid virus
https://techxplore.com/news/2020-05-robot-waiters-virus.html

Seems the main change regarding robots and covid-19 is the acceptance of their use instead of humans.  All of a sudden robot made pizza seems a lot less offensive to me. 

Food workers took the big hit on jobs during the pandemic, but they ain't seen the end of job losses yet.  Within 5 years, you'll be thanking Rosie the Robot for your burger & fries.

>robot

What we need is a robot home barber to cut hair.  Not that I want to put barbers out of business, nor am I keen on having some bucket of bolts put a straight razor to the back of my neck either.

I just convinced my wife that no matter how she cut it, I would say, "Thank you." The only disagreement we have had about my haircut is when she asks "There, how's that," and I say, "Great! Thank you," and she says, "But you didn't even look in the mirror." Now I know to look before I say it's great.

My dad, though, has done me one better. He has cut his own hair for 60 years. He struggles now because he's lost shoulder flexibility.

Mayors Tout the '15-Minute City' as Covid Recovery - Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-15/mayors-tout-the-15-minute-city-as-covid-recovery?

GitHub buried a data archive at the North Pole in case post-apocalyptic society needs help

QuoteDear people of the future: we're sorry for whatever horrible thing we did that caused the apocalypse (was it nukes? climate change? killer robots? idiots who wouldn't wear masks during a pandemic?). But the good news is, if you're reading this you must have found GitHub's buried data archive containing everything you need to reboot society

https://thenextweb.com/neural/2020/07/20/github-buried-a-data-archive-at-the-north-pole-in-case-post-apocalyptic-society-needs-help/

Yelps says more than half of restaurants temporarily closed are now permanently shuttered
https://mashable.com/article/yelp-restaurants-temporary-permanent-closures/

A third of US museums may not survive the COVID-19 pandemic
https://matadornetwork.com/read/survey-museums-may-not-survive/