Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
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Notes -
If a kind fairy made you absolute ruler of your country, what batshit crazy out of left field ideas would you implement? We’re assuming that you can’t be overthrown or stymied by the deep state, but have only the normal powers of the government and other actors for your country’s coordination problems don’t necessarily listen to you.
As for me, a few ideas-
declare that police racism is caused by angry confederate ghosts and that by appeasing them we can prevent police racism. To this end have sweet tea, Marlboros, fried chicken, etc left on confederate graves and monuments and put all of Dukes of Hazard in the library of congress. Trumpet anything and everything that could be considered improvement in race relations as a victory of this policy. This is because ‘hey, police shootings are actually nothing to worry about’ is simply not a narrative that will catch on, but an outlet of superstition can make intractable problems seem acceptable.
Ban federal funds from supporting university education for anyone without an associates degree from a community college first, including by guaranteeing debt- most people who obtain student debt without a degree drop out in the first two years, so forcing people who would otherwise borrow to complete community college will minimize the amount of new pointless student debt.
Pay already-canceled celebrities to go on racist rants using foreign racial slurs like ‘preto’ and ‘kafir’ so the n-word will lose its racial connotation as it morphs into a general very harsh swearword(which it kind of already is) similar to the c-word. This way future controversies caused by this use can avoid harming race relations.
Require any school getting federal funding to give equal time to any gender, sex Ed, or civil rights lessons to curricula designed by popular boomercon figures like Mike Rowe and Dave Ramsey. Either the schools teach things the kids could stand hearing, or they stop teaching stupidity like what actually gets pushed in the former category. Win-win.
Repeal Marbury v Madison to take the federal government out of hot button issues(which, let’s be real, are very rarely passed by congress).
Strict sumptuary laws. Outside of special occasions, everyone wears clothes that specifically indicate their job in rough categories.
A pet theory of mine is that "capitalism" in the informal sense came to exist when conspicuous consumption became the only means of status signaling. The first two estates (clergy and nobility) got gutted, so bourgeois success became the ruler of social distinction: everyone jumped on a hamster wheel of ever increasing productivity/entrepreneurship to buy the next stage of luxury good, not because they wanted the luxury, but to distinguish themselves from the lower classes. This created an economic boom. However, the excess wealth has increasingly been funneled into a meaningless hedonic treadmill, with humans throwing out all other social goods in favor of keeping up with the Joneses. The destructive dual income household, for example, results from it being the only way to maintain "middle status" in society.
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Make land acknowledgments legally binding. Microsoft says their campus is built on rightfully Suquamish land? Shame on you Microsoft! The county recorder has transferred the title to their tribal elders, please have all of your furniture out by end of day.
Honestly, I imagine what might happen then is that the tribes just rent out the land until they feel like they have enough money to justify clearing out the land, and maybe even going a step further and building something new on it like that one tribe in Vancouver(?).
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People really need to quit with the whole "land acknowledgment" thing. According to a professor friend of mine, it's fairly common in the world of academia for things like panel discussions to open with them. Because they're not giving the land back, it's almost like they're rubbing their faces in it. It reminds me of the part in the Always Sunny in Philadelphia Christmas special where Mac learns that all his childhood Christmas gifts were stolen, so they take his robot toy to one of his old friends to apologize, but they don't give it back. And he says "so you brought something that you stole from me just to show it to me?"
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Ooh, that's a good one. I wonder what the arguments people make against it would be. It seems obvious that nobody would want to be held to that standard, but of course the people making the land acknowledgements can't really say that without naked hypocrisy.
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Ban on all tipping, punishable by death-by-torture on any chief executive of any company that implements any sort of tipping system. Customers gain the right to perform summary executions on any service provider who suggests any tips. Naturally, this would also mean no alternative minimum wage for people in previously tipping jobs.
Nationalize TurboTax and other similar services, to auto-file all taxes for everyone, with taxpayers having the option to check and change if they wish.
Ban on all viewpoint-based moderation, by 1st Amendment standards, of any forum beyond a certain size.
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Total compensation for the highest paying job at a company cannot be higher than 50x the total compensation for the lowest paying job at a company.
Mandatory conscription for two years after high school, no exceptions for college. The default is Army Corp of Engineers, who will be tasked with maintaining and expanding infrastructure across the US. The only exception is for married and pregnant women. Unmarried and pregnant women can defer until their youngest child is 2, married women who become pregnant get to skip entirely.
All new HOAs and ROAs are now required to maintain a clubhouse on HOA property. This clubhouse should be able to safely hold 25% of residents and contain some sort of kids' play equipment.
1 - does that extend to company chains? Otherwise they'd simply outsource the lower tiers of the company.
The spirit of it would. It might need to be written something like, "Cannot exceed 50x the total compensation for the lowest paid employee or contractor, or person who does work at a jobsite owned by the business." It would be difficult to get the spirit of the law into reality, but this thread is for Absolute Ruler territory, so I could just threaten to execute anyone I felt was going against the spirit of the law and see if that decreases chicanery.
Let me be clear here- you’re absolute ruler of the government. In America that means you control the executive branch, congress, and all federal courts. It does not mean the media has to like you, that corporations or unions or ngos have to listen to you more than they normally have to listen to the government, or that lower level governments March to the beat of your drum, but we’re going to rule out actual insurrection or armed resistance for the sake of the scenario.
I was going to say... don't you control the troops? Just Lincoln the media if they go against the party line, corporations can eat an Alex-Jones sized fine, unions can be nationalized.
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This just leads to outsourcing of low-level jobs to companies that are technically separate.
True. It would be very hard to get the spirit of that law conveyed into iron clad words, even if I had unlimited power.
I wish I could see a counterfactual world where every company was organized into a co-op like the Mondragon Corp and see what the downsides are, before gaining unlimited political power and imposing that on people.
From my understanding, Mondragon members have largely pulled the ladder up behind them (point 7 here).
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Automated voices on self-checkout gas pumps and cashier stations must be muted by a single clearly marked button press. If this makes it harder for you to run self-checkout, hire cashiers. Any time a store implements self-checkout, they must have a CostCo style cart-checker on the way out. It is unacceptable to me how easy it is to steal from Grocery stores, and that the grocers have decided that they'll just let dishonest people steal rather than hire someone. It makes me want to steal.
On a related note, create a process by which jobs can be certified as "easy" by OSHA and thus eligible for lower-than-minimum wage. Such as the aforementioned cart checkers. It should be possible to hire someone for a job that isn't worth minimum wage.
Abolish almost all police enforcement personnel. Police should function purely in investigative and administrative roles. Instead, a 2% flat income tax on all citizens will fund both detectives and a public militia consisting of all able-bodied individuals. Every male citizen will be expected to serve 20 hours of militia service per month, patrolling local neighborhoods on call for emergencies. Completing your service hours will entitle you to avoid paying the tax, if you don't serve you do pay the tax. Citizen militias will be on hand at all times, day and night, to respond to crime calls and other emergencies.
Abolish DA and PD offices. Rather, the roles will be combined as State's Lawyers, and the same lawyers will be assigned randomly to prosecute or defend any given defendant. This will mean that defense attorneys and prosecutors will have the same experience, relationships, and access to investigative, police, and judges.
All fitness and sport equipment will be tax-free.
Significant encouragement towards mixed-income and mixed-use housing developments. The ideal layout is the classic American small town, where a series of small row-homes and apartment buildings border large corner homes where the local Doctor/Lawyer/Banker lived. There is significant value in having poor and rich Americans interact and form social bonds.
No product can be marketed using any kind of patriotic or "American" theme unless it is owned, headquartered, and predominantly assembled in America.
Strong encouragement for alternatives to graveyards. Graveyards are becoming increasingly sprawling, depressing eyesores of identikit headstones, poorly maintained because of bad finances, too large because of a system built for a much smaller population. A bitch and a half to move if development becomes necessary. Cremation, mausoleums, Tibetan Sky Funerals, go wild. But graveyards are a problem.
how would that work if almost everything can be claimed to be for fitness and sport?
Huh?
I guess running shoes are the edge-case that is most relevant here. But a treadmill, or a rowing machine, or a kettlebell seem pretty clear cases. Bikes I guess can go either way, but I also don't have a problem encouraging bicycle usage.
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On #1: try the second button from the top on the right of the gas pump's screen. It's almost never labeled as such, but it's usually set up as Mute. I've heard of one pump brand that uses top right instead, but never encountered it myself.
Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. But regardless, it should be clearly marked. Many of them seem not to have a mute button at all.
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#3: if this citizen militia is armed, you're going to get a LOT of unjustified dead bodies. If they aren't armed, they will be ineffective. Granting general citizens a state-sanctioned license to kill is a very, very bad idea (I say this as a strong proponent of the 2nd amendment).
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I would prohibit contact sports (football, basketball, rugby, field hockey, soccer, lacrosse, wrestling, hockey, boxing, futsal and martial arts with opponents) under the age of 18. Maybe team sports in general. Likely gymnastics, cheerleading, and figure skating.
I would prohibit the consumption of soda under the age of 18. Possibly.
Maybe require an hour of walking at school under the age of 18.
Basically I would try to prevent CTE, obesity, and unnecessary sports injuries. And try to save some children from their narcissistic parents.
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I would immediately put trillions toward requiring citizens to participate in longterm studies. If you are a twin, you are going to be forced to participate.
Dozens of twin mothers, one of them works and one of them doesn’t, what are the health outcomes? Dozens more, one with physical contact with child all day and one not, what are health outcomes?
Corporations will be forced to hire some percent applicants who lack full or partial college education but appear intelligent from testing, so we can measure how important college truly is for employee quality.
Placing normal people around poetry and modern art so we can measure whether there is any benefit.
For twins, force one of them to masturbate frequently and the other not, what are outcomes of their children?
Feed all kinds of mammals on organic food and measure the fourth-generational effect compared to GMO
I read a study once that longterm fasting can cure schizophrenia. Force some schizophrenics to fast because I want the study to be replicated
Forcing people into studies and randomly assigning major behavioral actions sounds hellish in actual procedure and implementation.
But think of the data…
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Give doctors the right to point firearms at their patient and tell them to take their fucking meds on the pain of death.
It's a good day at work, can you tell?
I think there's something deeply important about this issue which we haven't figured out yet.
I want to be productive. My dream is to be extremely productive. Maybe I'm lying to myself a little bit, but as far as I can tell, if I could press a button and make myself productivity-monster, a man who enjoys working and spends only perhaps an hour a day doing anything unproductive, I would. I'd like to switch all my current hobbies to more productive ones (swap reading for creative writing, for example) and spend my days accomplishing things.
That button exists, it's Adderall, and when I take it I temporarily do become very productive, and enjoy being productive. It's a great state of mind, quite pleasant to experience, and increases my overall wellbeing a lot. Emotionally I do better (because I get work done and am less stressed about it), and of course the work getting done is a big deal as well.
Before I take the pill, though, I have an aversion to taking it equal to my aversion to actually doing the work. My values are the same, I think--I want to get the work done--but on a base level it seems that my desire to do anything else is deeper than simple ADHD and has to do with base hedonism, or time preference, or something. In other words, I had thought that ADHD just means "you have a harder time focusing and getting work done", but it seems to be deeper than that. Despite deeply wanting to get work done, another part of me actively hates the idea of working in its own right. Even though I know that work under Adderall will be very enjoyable, it's still something I don't want to do. This can't be explained by simple hedonism or time preference; if it were just a case of wanting the happy chemicals, I'd be an Adderall abuser by now.
There's a phenomenon I'm sure you know more about than I do where some mental illnesses seem to involve wanting to be mentally ill on a level. Depressed people want to stay inside in the dark and avoid doing things which would snap them out of it. Some people of all types don't take their meds, even if they're capable of it, know the meds will work, and don't have any conscious reason not to take them.
I've heard bipolar people such as Freddie DeBoer describe the experience of taking meds as making them "not feel like themselves". Maybe this is true--he's certainly pretty bright, and seems to believe it--but connecting it with my own experience taking Adderall, I wonder if part of what they are going through has less to do with some vague feeling of "offness", disassociation, or feeling like their personality is being changed, and more to do with their actual subconscious values encouraging them to remain mentally ill.
It makes me wonder how much of mental illness is, at least in part, due to basic values and personality rather than anything actually wrong with the brain on a chemical or physical level. I would never have expected to develop an aversion to Adderall--it seems to solve basically all my problems--but to some small extent that has happened. My only explanation for why is that, unbeknownst to me, on some level I really did enjoy and value my hundreds of hours of playing videogames and stressing about the work I wasn't doing.
Anyways, sorry for the spew of words, it's a thought I haven't had time to explore in too much depth, but I think there's something to it.
Also, man, I always wondered how you put out so much content, but it's so easy on stimulants.
If downers like alcohol bring out the "real you", then uppers like adderall and coke bring out the "fake you". The real you genuinely just wants to laze around and play games, so even if it hurts being a depressive P.o.S., there's always catharsis in the fact you're doing what your brain wants you to do. And if you drank some booze instead of popping an adderall, you'd go, "Work? Who gives a fuck about work! I'm just gonna drink myself into a coma and die in a couple years" etc. Even if it's wrong, that is how you actually feel about things, and adderall doesn't solve that so much as cover it up.
Can you pop adderall every day to stay productive? Sure. Build a career from that if you want. But the underlying problem remains. Stop taking adderall and all the problems come back. So will you take it every day until you retire...? This drug which stifles your creativity, which makes things feel somehow phony?
When we feel extremely sad or whatever, there's a massive wave of catharsis which makes us feel oddly satisfied and complete. And every time a depressed person boots up League of Legends at 2 AM and sips another cup of coffee, there's a mini wave of catharsis. It's his version of what happy people get when they do happy people crap like take a stroll through nature. You take that away from him, and he doesn't really have anything.
If.
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I genuinely feel many different ways at once. I think it's fair to say a part of me wants to simply laze about, while another part wants to work constantly and achieve things. Drugs seem to bring out one side or another, but both sides are equally real, if not equally strong.
If I quit my job and just coasted, the achievement-oriented side of me would get much more insistent on change, and I think I'd start thinking of that side of myself as the "real me."
It does seem to stifle creativity a bit but it doesn't make things feel phony. I still get incredible enjoyment out of my usual pastimes--in fact, I find both videogames and fiction much more enjoyable--but there's less of the creeping dread which fights to keep me from getting started with work.
I didn't think I had ADHD--certainly, I can focus for very long, intense periods of time on things I'm interested in without chemical intervention--but objectively, looking at how my life was going, I think I have a pretty severe case of it. Some of this was biochemical or neurological or whatever you want to call it, and some was due to bad habits compounded over years.
Previously, on a good day I was lucky to get 80 minutes of concentrated work in. The rest of my time was generally split between videogames and mindless doomscrolling, while stressing about all the work not getting done. Now I take 10 mg and get 200 minutes done (more than enough for my job), then spend time afterwards doing things I've wanted to do for ages such as build businesses.
I guess I'm saying--on Adderall, I enjoy the same things in the same way as my "true" self. In fact I enjoy them more. And I have other desires, which I'd argue are just as "true" to the "real me", which are now also being satisfied.
It's impossible to understand people at all without understanding that some of their desires are confused, contradictory, or even actively harmful. We have the power to excise such desires from our personalities with enough work and training. I've discovered in myself a desire along those lines which I didn't know I had--one which seems actively interested, not in basic time-wasting pastimes, but in harming me--and now that I know it exists, I can watch for it and reduce its influence over me.
Doing so is the basis of mortality and possibly the only decision we can make that really means anything.
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Well, we differ significantly on this regard. I'm precisely as productive as I need to be (sadly quite a lot now), but I don't want to have be to super productive. I mean, maybe a little, but if I didn't have so many pressing concerns, I'd be content with just relaxing and enjoying my life.
And I very much do not like Ritalin. It certainly makes me more productive in the sense I actually can force myself to open textbooks, but the subjective sensation is unpleasant. It's a dirty feeling drug, like a combination of energy and anxiety, even at the lowest doses and with sustained release formulations.
Maybe I'd feel different on Adderall or other stims, but they're not available here in India, though I will try to get my prescription changed there.
I don't like Ritalin. I don't want to take it. I simply feel compelled to, if I want to make anything of myself. And I guess it's worked out?
Bipolar people alternate between mania and depression. But mania feels good. It feels fucking great. Not enough to outweigh the negative consequences from both itself and the subsequent depression, but I think that if I had to pick an ideal mental state for the rest of my life, it would hypomania. You know all the people famous for getting shit done? They're probably there or close. Or maybe just obsessed with their work.
If he's taking mood stabilizers, they're killing the buzz.
Then again, what do I know? I've been moderately depressed for most of a decade. Nothing I tried so far helped. But actually having achieved some of my career goals has genuinely helped, and there are better treatments I can look out for.
You're correct. One example is them listening to sad music, which turns out, actually makes them sadder. But Scott has discussed that at length and I have nothing novel to add.
Depression feeds on itself and seeks to perpetuate more depression. Many people don't seek treatment of their own accord after all.
Ever tried chronic sleep deprivation? I write best at 5 am when I'm dead tired yet sleep eludes me. It brings out the latent poet in me.
(And surprisingly enough, sleep deprivation can temporarily reverse depression, though it's hardly a sustainable method. Maybe that's one of the rare times when I'm not depressed. I still write plenty when I'm not on my meds. Most of what I write is, but it certainly helps.)
I've heard the same from virtually everyone. In my mind, these two things are connected. I feel a constant sense of anxiety over the many, many problems in myself and the world. It feels like morally bankrupt idiots are in charge virtually everywhere, and nearly anyone really trying could do a better job. Politics: IRL I've never talked to a single person who's actually read over a single study looking for flaws in the methodology. This is a super low bar that everyone with an interest in public policy shoild have done at some point. The same applies in creative fields (I find most books and movies very flawed), business, religion, etc.
This means there's tons of low-hanging fruit in every field. There are millions of people suffering needlessly due to bad policy, bad economics, etc. There are countless stories that just don't hit the themes they were going for, suffer cyclic-character-development-itis (where a character has a single flaw they continuously work on without ever actually growing), or otherwise could have been done way better. My own family and friends have big problems I can realistically help with if I put the time in.
If the low-hanging fruit wasn't there--if life wasn't absolutely overflowing with horrendously visible flaws in everyday things--I'd be more than happy to sit back and enjoy the simple things in life. I do really enjoy most aspects of life. But, given how easily improvable most things seem to be, I'm sure I can get more (in terms of satisfaction, status, hedonium, etc.) from improving them.
You seem to have a similar (if not better) attitude in this regard towards writing. It's not necessarily about writing per se,, it's about creating a story which really should already exist, if people were really on their game and up to snuff. The fact your story does not already exist is a sort of affront against nature.
So, going back to whether adderall causes anxiety--I'm not sure. To me, the anxiety is already there, and adderall just helps me channel it.
Hmm.. I do kinda agree with you.
I just spent a while speaking to a suicide survivor. Well, he's hardly out of the woods yet, given that he was in the ICU. But he wasn't my patient in the first place, and I might not be done with psych training, but by god I was the best one I know available at that time, and I walked the dude through a very bad place. And then made sure the cops didn't make things worse, while probably doing better than the poor bastard actually responsible for that particular HDU.
And I talked a suicidal girl I met on a dating app out of it, back to back.
Maybe I do like psychiatry because I see so many psychiatrists doing a fucking terrible job, and I'm confident I can do better. I actually probably can, but perhaps that's only true in India where standards are lower. But I'm heading abroad to learn my shit.
And you're absolutely correct that I wrote my novel because I was pissed at perceived inadequacies and flaws in otherwise decent ones, and thought I could do better.
I've heard of much worse. If it's not obviously making you anxious, then it's likely a better drug than methylphenidate/Ritalin. And when Scott did a survey on the topic, users ranked it higher, though it's been a long time and I can't remember what the post was.
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Have you ever read "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" by Anne Fadiman? It is a pretty tragic book that should be read by any medical professional. Whenever someone doesn't take their meds or has a bad experience with a doctor I think about this book.
Spoilers, a little Hmong girl with epilepsy is treated by American doctors who run into issues such as 1) her family doesn't know how to read instructions in any language, 2) her family doesn't understand time the same way, and 3) her family isn't really certain that epilepsy is a bad thing and think the doctors are possibly harming her by trying to take her seizures away.
Sometimes there isn't much a doctor can do.
Well the cure for a 9mm headache is also a 9mm headache, and while death certificates are a PITA, so is handling people who want to get there the slow way, with more to put on the damn thing.
Hmm, I've heard about the book, I'll give it a whirl, thanks!
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Real libertarian fascism has never been tried!
Establish a militia. The militia is everyone. Each sunday hosts the neighborhood hand-to-hand picnic or the community rifle and machine gun competition or the regional anti-tank/artillery/anti-air/anti-drone festival. At least once a year, there will be vehicle competitions. Absence is excusable for anyone who is regularly present otherwise, but missing more than half of a year's events gets you fined. Refusal on ethical grounds get you reassigned to the mandatory neighborhood cleanup squads that are usually populated by chain-gangs of litterers. Medical waivers exist, but long-term ones are only given if you are too weak to hold a gun and also too frail to wear a bomb vest. The militia is funded through taxes.
It is illegal to lie. A private citizen proven to have lied will be punished by a brief public shaming. Commercial entities will face heavy fines.
There is public health care. And public housing. And public transport in the shape of taxis. There is public education and public insurance. There are all shades of public welfare. All of this is available free of charge for public servants, who are lifetime wards and servants of the state and must buy their freedom (their price being equivalent to the costs of the services they used) if they desire it. Others may also use these public services, but have to pay for them outright. No tax money goes into public services. Public servants are employed for the betterment of public services, and other tasks considered essential to the existence of the state. Low-grade public service comes with a starting debt to the state.
There are no driving licenses, speed limits, or bans on drunk driving. Anyone proven to have caused an accident is liable to pay double for all damages caused. Failure to pay will get you a public shaming, caning and defenestration, and possibly mandatory public service of the lowest grade or else the fine will be extracted from any known associates.
Children are the property of their parents, and parents are responsible for all their children's actions. Forever.
The display of flags belonging to foreign polities is considered treason. Limited exceptions are possible for diplomats, consulates and other foreign functionaries on official business. Speaking foreign languages is permitted, but any citizen may request a transcript written in both languages, and failure to provide it may result in fines, shaming and/or expulsion from the country. Providing a false transcript will result in expulsion from the country, into the sea. Multiple citizenship is possible, but only for legal immigrants, and such passes are strictly limited - only a fixed and low number may exist in the entire country for any given foreign nationality.
Legal immigration is permitted, illegal immigration is not, and the punishment for illegal immigration is variably expulsion into the sea or immediate public service of the lowest grade for yourself and all your descendants. Legal immigration requires learning the language in advance and swearing an oath of allegiance. Breaking the oath results in the immigrant being returned to their country of origin, with loud complaints and a request for a refund.
The country shall protect all refugees, no matter their origin or cause of flight. This protection will take the shape of arming them to conquer their home countries or at least a small part of it. Where this is too unlikely to succeed or has demonstrably failed already, refugees may instead accept public service of the lowest grade. Refusal results in termination of their refugee status, and they are now illegal immigrants.
There shall be nature preserves, equal in size to at least half the country's. It will be permissible for any citizen to use these for recreation and hunting, though hunters are required to eat what they kill. Exceptions are made for killings of humans, cannibalism is not permitted without consent. Murder and manslaughter remain crimes, and the nature preserves are populated by large numbers of cameras and drones. It is permitted to construct temporary shelters from locally available material, but cutting wood must be limited immediately needful quantities. Fouling waters, causing wildfires or exterminating entire species is punishable by public service of the lowest grade.
Duelling is legal, but requires the written consent of all parties involved, including to the rules of the combat.
The state shall not meddle in questions of sex, gender, religion, identity, elective surgery, pregnancy, sexual practices or marriage. Except for public servants, for whom there are only two genders, no abortions, no body modification except to enhance performance, and only approved religions subject to reexamination at any time. For private citizens, the state offers arbitration in custody conflicts.
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Simplify taxes: both in the real sense (fewer rules), and in the paperwork requirements. Personal income taxes are automatically filed, sales taxes are included in the prices, etc.
Public access to public research: Any publicly-funded scientific study or similar report cannot be paywalled. If any organization puts a paywalled copy of it in an (otherwise) easily-visible place, they will face a fine.
Browser-based privacy preferences: Users can configure their browser to always accept, refuse-if-possible, or warn-or-block different types of cookies from websites. Websites are forbidden from displaying a cookie/privacy popup if the browser is configured properly.
Unsubscribe by right: If you put in a reasonable effort to unsubscribe from a service, then you have unsubscribed. If the company tries to charge you an ongoing fee after you have unsubscribed, your bank will automatically block that fee (with a message) if you have informed the bank of your actions. Any further attempts to charge the former customer will be tried as fraud, and ignorance is not a defense after that one warning.
Brands are linked to traits: Pyrex would be required to make borosilicate glass bakeware (not soda-lime glass), WD-40 would be linked to its 65% volatile organic compound formulation (not 25%), etc. If they want to sell new products, they will need a new name.
(EDIT: New) Actually support the cause: If you want to display support for a cause, then you have to actually tangibly support that cause. A $100 donation will buy you the right to a bumper sticker, $500 will allow an emoticon in your username. Hashtags are merely topics and therefore unrestricted, but (non-)supporters will be noted with a parenthetical tag in their posts.
Why do you give me your toughest cookies?
Jesus: Just install a damn adblocker, Robert.
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1: Outlaw abortion, provide free non-abortive birth control for everyone, which is mandatory for heterosexuals until they get married, or at least sign some sort of contract with their long-term partner about how potential children will be raised.
2: School vouchers, which includes subsidies for homeschooling, provided said schools and homeschools pass certain accreditation procedures so they are actually providing a legitimate education and aren't just scamming for money.
Actually.... you asked for things out of left field, and 2 seems too normal. So to play more into the thought experiment here, let's ramp it up beyond what I'd normally advocate. Massively subsidize homeschooling. Provide free teacher training for parents, with a specialization towards teaching in small classroom sizes of children who you get to see repeatedly year after year, in every subject, and teaching kids to teach themselves. Pay enough that families can go from living on a two-working-parents income to a two-working-parents-but-one's-job-is-homeschooling-their-own-kids income. It won't even cost money, just divert it from the public schools who don't need as much because many kids have moved to homeschools. Have economists figure out every possible way that bad-faith-actors could exploit the system and figure out how to prevent it.
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#1 on your list would run into the problem that progressives would view Confederate spirits less as ghosts to be propitiated and more as demons to be exorcised. If you don’t have control of the media in this scenario, then you can already picture the headlines: “SHOCKING: President Hydroacetylene Orders Confederate Slavers Be Honored In Order to Stop Police Brutality and Racism”. If the exorcism angle is played up, though, then this might have a shot.
I mean I’d just ask if they want an end to police brutality or not, I don’t think we need to hand wave away any and all opposition to have a chance of it working.
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Implement massive psy-op campaign where every school shooting is immediately portrayed as a "bombing" instead, via some kind of nonsense Instant Pot firecracker IED or some shit. Media laments how unfortunate it is that these bombs are so easy to make and so much more effective than guns. Eventually the social contagion catches on and some would-be-school-shooters start trying to actually use bombs instead, which are obviously, in fact, completely impotent since teenagers are dumb and making effective explosives is pretty hard.
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ban colour on all devices
ban color on all packaging of sweets,crisps and snacks
Well, if you're getting rid of all color, presuming black and white count, then at least we have transparent phones now!
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What's the general quality and deviance of community colleges when it comes to hard sciences and engineering? If this isn't good enough, I could easily see it becoming a problem.
A good point, but in practice I think it doesn’t matter because community college classes already transfer to state universities and students know that.
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