|
Pages: 1 2 [3] 4
|
 |
|
Author
|
Topic: Trust issues (Read 6409 times)
|
Zanthius
Enlightened
 Offline
Posts: 941
|
Due to the low level of trust in US government, the US national debt and the large military expenditure, I think USA might have been on an inevitable trajectory to become a failed state even long before Donald Trump became president. I also think the American Medicare system must be extremely inefficient compared to the west European ones, since west Europeans actually aren't using significantly larger proportions of their budgets on health care. West European citizens just get much more from their health care expenditure, probably because the West European system is much more efficient. Could also be related to the high price of pharmaceuticals in the United States.
But western Europe might also not survive the next decades, due to the large amount of immigrants coming from Africa to Italy. European countries should be spending tons of money on helping to build infrastructure in African countries. Instead, I suspect Europeans might rather eventually start to fire at African immigrants. But what is left of humanity in Europe then.
There seems to be a huge problem with humanity. Long term thinking is mostly absent in politics, which means we are unlikely to be able to substantially decrease the amount of carbon dioxide we are using, or that we are unlikely to solve the emerging immigration crisis in Europe. We simply aren't able to invest enough in long term goals. This might be the main reason why human societies almost always fail eventually. Human brains are not sufficiently developed for long term thinking.
|
|
|
|
« Last Edit: July 31, 2017, 01:18:50 am by Zanthius »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Death 999
Global Moderator
Enlightened
Offline
Gender: 
Posts: 3874
We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
|
It isn't Medicare in particular, but the entire medical system. Might want to check out Slatestarcodex's article on cost disease (SSC is linked from LW ind it's a recent article) to get a primer on the US's peculiar horribleness in respect to medical care.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Krulle
Enlightened
Offline
Gender:
Posts: 1117
*Hurghi*! Krulle is *spitting* again!
|
There seems to be a huge problem with humanity. Long term thinking is mostly absent [...] That is a direct consequence of democracy.
If you want to stay in power to do the best for your country, even if you want to be the best long-term, you cannot push for very drastic consequences (like China did with the one-child-policy).
Germany should push for harsher sanctions against the Diesel-scandal, just like Italy and France. But these three countries build a lot of Diesel-engines. The whole technology base of these countries profits from Diesel, so no politicial wants to decide something which might kill jobs, which would reduce economic welath, which would cost jobs, which would create disgruntled voters, which would mean someone else wins the next election.
Even if this decision means, that the vehicle companies think they can continue, and will not force the development of alternative propulsion sufficiently, which means that in ten years, foreign vehicle-makers will dominate the market with their electric vehicles, which will mean a much larger loss of jobs here. But that's two-and-a-half election cycles away, and no now-top-politician can expect to be in a position to grab the power then.
Democracy is not a good thing for really severe long-term crisis. It's good for personal freedom, and social equality, but not for problems like alternative energies and climate change.
A benevolent dictatorship would be the option to go for, but these systems have in common that they either collapse (having given the people to much freedom, thus the possibility to rebel), or turned into a strict dictatorship.
But, seeing how certain politician came to power, would you trust any of them to be a benevolent dictator with the best interest of "his people" in mind?
Kingdoms worked astonishingly well in that regard. Social inequality, yes, but the people were rather free under the reigning powers. Also due to a lack of supervision technologies.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Scalare
*Many bubbles*
Offline
Posts: 245
|
The EU revealed that Apple has paid 0,005% taxes in the EU.
That's 50 euro per 1 million euro.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Zanthius
Enlightened
Offline
Posts: 941
|
Sometimes, maybe. Many kings had the equivalent of secret police. That was one of the purposes of the Stamp Tax, back in the pre-revolutionary period of American history.
I think the entire population needs to be involved in deciding who is going to rule, otherwise we will just create room for corruption and the general population is likely to grow distrustful of the government.
However, western democracies are deteriorating right now, and one could perhaps argue that things aren't necessarily so much better now than during the reign of a good king.
I have added this to my page about "criteria for a healthy democracy" today:
http://www.archania.org/criteria_for_a_healthy_democracy.html
I have no doubt that our democracy has deteriorated here. Yesterday, I checked for political debate programs broadcasted by our national TV-channel during the 80's and 90's. There were lots of interesting political debates broadcasted then, while political advertisements were illegal here at that time. Now, I can barely find any political debates in our national TV broadcast, while I am flooded with oversimplified stupid political advertisements.
Also, I think people should start to realize that the age of nation states is coming to an end. We are living in an interconnected world today, and we couldn't sit and talk like this with people from all around the world 30 years ago. Traditional TV-broadcasting, radio, and newspapers are losing to the flow of information from Internet. Europeans are becoming increasingly nationalistic, maybe more because of Internet than because of foreigners. People are starting to feel an identity crisis, since their national identities are deteriorating. Ironically, this tends to make them even more nationalistic, since they are scared of losing their national identities.
|
|
|
|
« Last Edit: August 12, 2017, 02:03:45 pm by Zanthius »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Death 999
Global Moderator
Enlightened
Offline
Gender:
Posts: 3874
We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
|
A good king, yes. That's the trick. So long as the ruler is good, it's better to give them more power. Once they have more power, precedent is set for them to have a lot of power, and this precedent will apply to the office after the good king has been replaced by someone who can be quite bad at it.
Aristotle had it right - most governments are not very good at what they do, and democracy mostly mitigates the damage while curtailing the best possibilities.
I agree that the 4th estate can be abused to bend it towards kakistocracy.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Death 999
Global Moderator
Enlightened
Offline
Gender:
Posts: 3874
We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
|
Problem: that sounds really, REALLY patronizing. Because it is. And people don't like that.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Pages: 1 2 [3] 4
|
|
|
|
|
