I want an untouched view from my mountain. No more people.
Democrats have left moderate voters behind
- Thread starter JamieDimonsBalls
- Start date
Not sure what you’re asking here.
Are you arguing for depopulation or maintaining current numbers? I’m against depopulation. As for the benefits of more people, more innovation is a major reason. Another reason is the alternative is very likely much worse, depopulation. For example, I’d much rather have 25 billion people on the planet in the year 2100 than 2 billion. I don’t think population trends are something governments can just turn off or on. Ideally, we would have a population rate of 2.1 to 2.5, but life isn’t ideal.
Also, you can’t have a debt based monetary system with depopulation. It will cause all sorts of societal issues. As Crazy pointed out above, someone needs to pay for his SS. The perfect example is Europe. They’re no longer growing enough through national birth rates or innovation, so they’re resorting to large immigration to bridge the gap. The problem is the immigrants aren’t net producers on average and it’s only going to compound the financial issues and add new societal issues. Unfortunately, governments are self serving and it’s the path they’ll choose. Biden’s administration already did it the past 4 years.
For the record, yes, Bitcoin does fix most of these issues, because it’s the best f#cking money ever invented by humans😁
In a resource-scarce environment - which is real life - there is no moral or ethical argument for a massive population boost. There is no argument for mass global population needing to increase as we get nothing for it except a faster drain on the scarce resources.
Capital markets won’t matter if WW3 breaks out over resources which it will assuredly do in a 25B population scenario.
Bitcoin doesn’t solve a food and water resource limitation. You’re tilting at windmills. The world is just fine somewhere between 4 and 8B people. If we can get low-income countries to reduce their bit to rate we approach a more optimal solution.
There is a moral argument for it: what is good is what increases human happiness. If human happiness=# of happiness utiles in the aggregate, then more people=more happiness=more good.
The Repugnant Conclusion
Abstract. Is it better if more people live? This chapter examines the effects of population growth on existing people, overpopulation, whether a decline in
academic.oup.com
Good decision. That’s how you get tentacle porn.
This is conjecture on your part. You have no idea how much human life the world can sustain. It may be 8 billion, 25 billion, or 100 billion. Also, it seems you’re arguing more for maintaining population (I’m fine with by the way).
I was trying to help your argument out with mentioning Bitcoin. If we have depopulation the financial system will collapse on it's self with debt.
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I strongly doubt an argument that fetuses are entitled to the protections of the 14th amendment will ever be accepted by the courts.
No less than Antonin Scalia publicly and explicitly scoffed at the idea.
Best case scenario on the current court is that it gets Thomas and Scalia. But I’m even skeptical of that.
The Roberts Court sent abortion to the states and I suspect they intend for it to remain there.
Fair point.
But, I have to say, I’ve always wondered what the practical upshot of that clause is. Has it ever been cited as playing an operative role in the interpretation and application of the law?
Which powers do we recognize as being reserved by “the people” and how do we exercise them?
I don't think it's ever been used, and I'm not sure it's been discussed much. I did read an article from several years ago which tried to make the case that it implied certain powers were kept from both the states and the feds, and delegated only to the people themselves, but that, ironically, under our system of government, the best way for the people to exercise those powers would be through the House of Representatives. That seems logically incoherent to me.
However, it seems to me that we can never dismiss a clause of the Constitution as superfluous. If, therefore, we accept that the the 10th Amendment explicitly keeps non-delegated powers out of the hands of the feds, then we also must accept that it also explicitly places some of those powers with the people, rather than the states, and that this distinction, whatever it actually is, must in some way be meaningful.
You’re back! In fine fashion, and with none other than a Jim Crow comment, classic!
Welcome back Willdog, you were missed!
I agree that the argument made in the article you reference is incoherent. In fact, it’s probably even worse than that.
I hesitate to use the term superfluous for this or any other ratified language. But it’s certainly unclear when and how it would ever apply in a practical sense.
I agree it's unclear. I'm only stressing that if we're going to start extolling the importance of the 10th Amendment, it's incumbent upon us to understand and extoll all of it, not just the obvious half.
I
Craze and Goat, enjoy your give and take in this thread.
Would appreciate some feed back from both of you regarding the debate between the Federalists and Anti Federalists about both the Bill of Rights and the 10th Amendment.
The Courts have never used the 10th to find a substantive right, as far as I know. It’s used as an interpretive/structural device as you’ve already mentioned.
Some at the time of the drafting thought the Bill of Rights was not needed and afraid that by delineating some rights, people would interpret those as the only Constitutional rights people have. I think the 10th was thrown in to alleviate those concerns.
IMO it may be comforting to think the debate between the Anti Federalists and Federalists over the power struggle between the federal and state governments has been settled, but a strong argument can be made as per this link...
Additionally, the sentiments of both the Federalists and Anti-Federalists can still be felt today. Though the parties themselves no longer exist in their original forms, the central debate between them - the question of how much power the federal government should have as compared to the states - is still a relevant issue in the modern political landscape.
Moderate voters want: decoupling from China, benefits for Working families, some tariffs to reverse perceived harm, acknowledge benefits of blue collar labor, limit low-wage immigration, rebuild American manufacturing via industrial policy.
Democrats want to talk about reparations, DEI, and abortion.
They’ve lost their way
I'll give you abortion, but for the most part, it wasn't Democrats talking about reparations and DEI.
Democrats brought those to the forefront…Republicans kept it there. Highlighting Democratic ideas
Is there anything moderate voters want that you disagree with?
There certainly is for me. I’ve always very strongly agreed with Barry Goldwater’s old mantra:
“Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
Of course, people are always going to have different definitions of liberty and justice. And you’ll never find anybody who won’t claim to be pursuing those ideals. But I’ve always favored good policy over popular policy.
Many a country has ended up in a bad place because of popular policies.
The Dems didn't even bring them to the forefront. The Repubs went and got them and drug them out into the limelight.
They championed the causes of the few by demonizing the many. But guess what. They weren’t good at math. Men weren’t buying that men for Harris/walz after four years of stupid shit. Men vote and they did so for DONALD JOHN TRUMP!!!!
William Wallace
Rocky
Joe Rogan
The Hulkster
Dana White
Rocket man
Did they really think they’d get men? Gtfo
Nonsense. The genesis was alllllll Dems. From blm at the convention. Biden and the uswnt. Dei. Crt. Pronouns. Woke. Dems and Dems alone. That they tried to disavow same at the 11th hour just made them look that much more full of shit
I'm not saying Dems didn't come up with the ideas. Or at least Dems were the first ones to champion them. I'm saying very few if any Dems played any role in bringing them to the forefront. The Repubs did that. And smartly so, of course, because doing so was politically damaging to the Dems.
I think a lot has to do with time and place. The things I listed I agree with broadly but the devil is always in the details. Each policy should be examined carefully and individually. I would have to see each policy in its final form before agreeing or disagreeing
I don’t know how much I agree with that. But, to whatever extent it’s true, Republicans had plenty of videos, writings, and such.
You can’t extoll and promote ideas while people aren’t paying attention and then just act like that never happened when they are.
Harris certainly wasn’t flaunting her former advocacy of taxpayer-funded transition treatments for prisoners. But she had earlier video where she was amenable to it. Of course the Trump campaign is going to flog that video.
I'm not saying the Repubs made it up. They just blasted the Dems for what the Dems actually said. Like with trans issues. Lots of Dem politicians swallowed that pill whole-heartedly. Only a few of them made it a pillar of their campaign strategy. But the Repubs made damn sure the many Dems who wanted to downplay it would find doing so very difficult.
Same with reparations and DEI and everything else woke. Blame the libs for coming up with it, sure, but Woke is more than one thing. On the one hand, it's a leftist way of viewing the world. On the other hand, it's a powerful political weapon for the right. And the right wielded that weapon with great authority this past election.
I don't really even understand what's to be gained by downplaying this. It was a great strategy. Take credit for it.
(I still think it was a very distant reason #2 for the bad Dem performance, behind cost of living, of course.)
I agree with this - at least that it was #2. But I wouldn’t downplay it…especially wrt Trump’s relatively strong performance among younger voters. They’re exposed to wokesters every day.
Let me put it this way: I think the reaction to wokeism earned Trump a lot of extra votes, but when it comes to why he won, I think only the cost of living crisis clearly passes the but-for test. In other words, if Woke didn't exist, I think Trump still wins easily. If the cost of living crisis didn't exist, I think it's actually a close thing.
Bureau of Labor Statistics Data
data.bls.gov
Worker productivity in the manufacturing sector has been falling for more than 10 years
Bureau of Labor Statistics Data
Worker productivity in the manufacturing sector has been falling for more than 10 years
Is this a matter of lazy and poorly trained workers or owners not investing their money in ways to improve productivity.
Think robots, productivity combined with highly trained and well paid managers.
Downside, what happens to untrained and often older low skilled workers who aren't too far from retiring and face Social Security/ Medicaid cut backs?
Yikes!!!
We hear about employment going down but not productivity. It’s not what we should expect in our system.
Good question.
Our capitalist system means owners investing in making workers more productive. The outcome being both higher wages for the workers and bigger profits for the owners (investors).
The future can change this from my prospective. Owners investing in AI and robots instead of people.
Our factories now require more workers than in 2011 to produce equivalent output…based on BLS
Sparty, good catch, as this article states there has been a recent downturn in workers productivity with the exact reason being somewhat unclear. One explanation being Covid with more workers working at home.
In spite of this downturn I'll bet with the help of robots and AI productivity gains will again be part of our future as has been the case throughout most of our history.
Problem: too little productivity growth including from automation.
One solution: incentives and investment
All Employees, Manufacturing
Graph and download economic data for All Employees, Manufacturing (MANEMP) from Jan 1939 to Nov 2024 about headline figure, establishment survey, manufacturing, employment, and USA.
fred.stlouisfed.org
From 1947 to 1972, manufacturing employment went from about 14 million to about 17 million
