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Open-Eyed Thinking (Exploring Uncomfortable Topics) — Page 4

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Trident said:

Danfun128 said:

It's a good thing this is off-topic. Otherwise you probably wouldn't be getting away with these multi-posts.

 This place is kind of strange. I think I'm going to try somewhere else for a bit.

 

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Ah, I can't post my picture because I kind of like Trident, though he obviously is young.

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I don't know why I am bothering to post this here since I don't seem to get anyone wanting to explain why any of these ideas won't work, but #5 is about welfare.

To get welfare you should have to work at some job to the best of your abilities. There are tons of things that could be done, but some of them would be like getting paid to fix up their own house or their landlord's house (by re-painting the outside or fixing the fence, etc. Then pay them to fix up and paint as many neighbor houses as wanted so that they could make the whole area look nicer. They could learn a trade, get skilled at it and not lose self respect or a working routine. Then every Friday they could get paid to deliver resumes. The resume would have a centralized phone number with an extension for them on it. They would get bonuses for each unique business that called them up for an interview and then a big bonus for getting hired and another one for staying at a job for more than 6 months. After that they could not go back on welfare until they had earned the same amount of money working at a job that they collected while on welfare (they'd keep the money, it would just be a guide to make sure people weren't just getting fired in order to get hired and get bonuses again) or until double the length of time they were on welfare had passed.

Tell me why this is a bad idea or how it could be made better.

K. Let’s have this ride.

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Possessed said:

Trident said:

Danfun128 said:

It's a good thing this is off-topic. Otherwise you probably wouldn't be getting away with these multi-posts.

 This place is kind of strange. I think I'm going to try somewhere else for a bit.

 

 Not sure if you are serious or are yanking my chain. Or if you are seriously yanking my chain.

K. Let’s have this ride.

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#6

Prison inmates should work for pay while in prison, but a part of that pay should be sent to the victims of their crime. They should not get out of jail until they have paid their victim the amount the court figures they were owed. This means that all prison sentances would be based on restorative justice rather than simply on punishment.

By being able to restore a financial payment to their victim the inmate has a chance of earning a sense that they have truly paid their debt to society rather than an abiding anger at being held in a cage for a random number of years.

K. Let’s have this ride.

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Trident said:

I don't know why I am bothering to post this here since I don't seem to get anyone wanting to explain why any of these ideas won't work, but #5 is about welfare.

To get welfare you should have to work at some job to the best of your abilities. There are tons of things that could be done, but some of them would be like getting paid to fix up their own house or their landlord's house (by re-painting the outside or fixing the fence, etc. Then pay them to fix up and paint as many neighbor houses as wanted so that they could make the whole area look nicer. They could learn a trade, get skilled at it and not lose self respect or a working routine. Then every Friday they could get paid to deliver resumes. The resume would have a centralized phone number with an extension for them on it. They would get bonuses for each unique business that called them up for an interview and then a big bonus for getting hired and another one for staying at a job for more than 6 months. After that they could not go back on welfare until they had earned the same amount of money working at a job that they collected while on welfare (they'd keep the money, it would just be a guide to make sure people weren't just getting fired in order to get hired and get bonuses again) or until double the length of time they were on welfare had passed.

Tell me why this is a bad idea or how it could be made better.

 It is wondered whether the landlord is apt to enjoy having his or her windows painted shut by a tenant whose likely chief preoccupation with the job at had is to have it finished with as soon as possible...finished with in such a way as to never demand an encore...

I was once…but now I’m not… Further: zyzzogeton

“It wasn’t the flood that destroyed the pantry…”

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Trident said:

#6

Prison inmates should work for pay while in prison, but a part of that pay should be sent to the victims of their crime. They should not get out of jail until they have paid their victim the amount the court figures they were owed. This means that all prison sentances would be based on restorative justice rather than simply on punishment.

By being able to restore a financial payment to their victim the inmate has a chance of earning a sense that they have truly paid their debt to society rather than an abiding anger at being held in a cage for a random number of years.

 Might it not be disconcerting to no small few to realize the life of a loved one might amount only to $420.50 monthly...? However, the thought is considerate...and we could use the money...although it is uncertain if the depositing of said cheque along with other notable income might elicit persistent negative memories...never mind contemplating how to record it on one's taxes...is there yet a line for blood money allowance...? 

I was once…but now I’m not… Further: zyzzogeton

“It wasn’t the flood that destroyed the pantry…”

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Post Praetorian said:

Trident said:

I don't know why I am bothering to post this here since I don't seem to get anyone wanting to explain why any of these ideas won't work, but #5 is about welfare.

To get welfare you should have to work at some job to the best of your abilities. There are tons of things that could be done, but some of them would be like getting paid to fix up their own house or their landlord's house (by re-painting the outside or fixing the fence, etc. Then pay them to fix up and paint as many neighbor houses as wanted so that they could make the whole area look nicer. They could learn a trade, get skilled at it and not lose self respect or a working routine. Then every Friday they could get paid to deliver resumes. The resume would have a centralized phone number with an extension for them on it. They would get bonuses for each unique business that called them up for an interview and then a big bonus for getting hired and another one for staying at a job for more than 6 months. After that they could not go back on welfare until they had earned the same amount of money working at a job that they collected while on welfare (they'd keep the money, it would just be a guide to make sure people weren't just getting fired in order to get hired and get bonuses again) or until double the length of time they were on welfare had passed.

Tell me why this is a bad idea or how it could be made better.

 It is wondered whether the landlord is apt to enjoy having his or her windows painted shut by a tenant whose likely chief preoccupation with the job at had is to have it finished with as soon as possible...finished with in such a way as to never demand an encore...

 OK so how would you do it? Do you think making them work is a bad idea or do you think they just shouldn't paint their masters houses? I mean maybe they could just paint each other's houses or ?

K. Let’s have this ride.

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Post Praetorian said:

Trident said:

#6

Prison inmates should work for pay while in prison, but a part of that pay should be sent to the victims of their crime. They should not get out of jail until they have paid their victim the amount the court figures they were owed. This means that all prison sentances would be based on restorative justice rather than simply on punishment.

By being able to restore a financial payment to their victim the inmate has a chance of earning a sense that they have truly paid their debt to society rather than an abiding anger at being held in a cage for a random number of years.

 Might it not be disconcerting to no small few to realize the life of a loved one might amount only to $420.50 monthly...? However, the thought is considerate...and we could use the money...although it is uncertain if the depositing of said cheque along with other notable income might elicit persistent negative memories...never mind contemplating how to record it on one's taxes...is there yet a line for blood money allowance...? 

 I don't know what you mean. What are you talking about that you could use the money? And why would it be only $420 a month? Otherwise do you think it's a good idea or not? I really don't know that it would be blood money so much as restitution. 

K. Let’s have this ride.

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Ban owning cars.

There are no drawbacks, only benefits.

VIZ TOP TIPS! - PARENTS. Impress your children by showing them a floppy disk and telling them it’s a 3D model of a save icon.

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Ryan McAvoy said:

Ban owning cars.

There are no drawbacks, only benefits.

 OK, this is interesting. 

Would you replace them with something else like trams or trains or buses or would it just be bicycles for everyone?

Would companies still be allowed trucks to make deliveries?

K. Let’s have this ride.

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Trident said:

Would you replace them with something else like trams or trains or buses or would it just be bicycles for everyone?

Would companies still be allowed trucks to make deliveries?

 All of those.

A small fraction of the vast sums of money we would have previously paid for cars, their maintenance, and fuel costs, could be taken instead as tax revenue. This money could then provide a universal transport system, free at the point of need (Within "sensible" limits, agreed in parliament).

Also, given that the roads would not be congested with millions of single person cars (Just thousands of multi-person buses and public-free taxis), the workforce who would normally spend a portion of their day in traffic jams would become more productive. Transport of goods and services would also be swifter and more efficient.

A workforce would also be required to drive the new public transport vehicles, to build them and maintain them. Providing jobs. The public would have more money (Which they would normally spend on cars) to put back into the economy.

Oh... and the environment etc.

VIZ TOP TIPS! - PARENTS. Impress your children by showing them a floppy disk and telling them it’s a 3D model of a save icon.

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And because roads wouldn't need to be so big to accomodate so many individual travelers they wouldn't need to cost as much. In fact they could all be underground for all it mattered because there wouldn't be as many interchanges needed.

But what about grocery shopping and stuff? How do you lug all that stuff home? Would that mean buying less at a time? If so would that mean having to go more often? So then a lot more time spent shopping I guess.

I like the idea that everyone would be buying more locally too. But how would people get out of a small town when they wanted? I guess we'd need more regular trains.

Still a lot of things could end up not as needed as we once thought so maybe we would not need to travel around as much on shopping trips.

I'm not sure it would save a lot of commute time because instead of traffic jams there would just be time spent waiting at train stops to catch transfers and stuff, but maybe the trains could just run super fast to make up for it?

I don't know what other bad things might come of it, but it sounds interesting!

K. Let’s have this ride.

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Trident said:

what about grocery shopping and stuff? How do you lug all that stuff home?

Use a free taxi or bus. Due to the huge potential tax revenue, we wouldn't be talking about one bus every hour. It would be as many, and as often as needed.

Trident said:

how would people get out of a small town when they wanted? I guess we'd need more regular trains.

Lots more trains. All that money that was previously spent on lumps of metal that just sit in your driveway empty and motionless for 90% of the day, rusting, depreciating in value and costing you money, would fund an amazing network of advanced superfast trains. At a fraction of the cost of what we were paying before.

VIZ TOP TIPS! - PARENTS. Impress your children by showing them a floppy disk and telling them it’s a 3D model of a save icon.

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You would hardly need traffic lights either because all busses could be set up on routes that would make it so they'd never have to turn left and they could be spaced so that they would reach traffic lights at the optimum times to avoid stopping (or just putting stops right at the intersections anyway).

One problem is that the bus driver's union could become the most powerful thing in the world lol!

K. Let’s have this ride.

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I vote *for* individual car ownership. Buses will never take people where routes don't allow.

Nobody sang The Bunny Song in years…

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Well OK, that's true.

So would you change cars in any way or would you just leave them as they are?

K. Let’s have this ride.

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I'm pretty sure there are others more qualified to answer that question then I am :P

Nobody sang The Bunny Song in years…

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We should find better ways of improving public and private transport, better technology, better roads, etc. Banning one of the most indispensable items of society of the last 100 years doesn't sound a good idea and no corporation will even consider this.

<span>The statement below is true
The statement above is false</span>

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Yes, I could only imagine the resistance to the idea, but I like exploring it to see what might have happened. 

I wonder if there is truly a perfect mass transit system?

K. Let’s have this ride.

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Trident said:

Yes, I could only imagine the resistance to the idea, but I like exploring it to see what might have happened. 

I wonder if there is truly a perfect mass transit system?

 Maybe there is, but in a bigger picture the cars seem a natural first step in achieving perfect-clean-safe-cheap-universal long distance traveling. Cars a perfect blueprint for future technology and other than environmental benefits removing the cars would have negative effects like, I don't know, not being able to sustain the entire society as we know it, perhaps? :P

<span>The statement below is true
The statement above is false</span>

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Danfun128 said:

Buses will never take people where routes don't allow.

The free-Taxis I suggest could.

dclarkg said:

no corporation will even consider this.

Absolutely, in reality it would be impossible to implement for many reasons. You'd have to first ban cars, then tax the now carless people, then invest that in the transport system, then in a few years it would be up and running. In the meantime there would be economic collapse, rioting in the streets, a few small wars etc. But if you had a magic-wand, it could work.

VIZ TOP TIPS! - PARENTS. Impress your children by showing them a floppy disk and telling them it’s a 3D model of a save icon.