capitalism is actually the worst possible system
For a growing economy with an excess of people and resources it’s pretty good.
Our current world, not so much.
The problem is that there isn’t a currently viable alternative.
Capitalist realism is a bitch.
There are plenty of viable alternatives; in isolation. The real problem is that capital will always intervene before an alternative can get a foothold.
Unregulated capitalism*
Capitalism in and of itself is a turbo charger for the economy, but like a real turbo charger it need regulations to not destroy itself and the engine.
that’s a pretty good metaphor but assumes regulatory capture isn’t baked into the cake and pulling up the ladder after consolidating all the wealth isn’t the entire point.
You are absolutely right, my comment assumed regulation and acting in good faith.
I am mainly just so tired of everyone just going “capitalism bad”, when that is not the single answer.
Eradicating capitalism would be terrible and idiotic.
I am a firm believer in a social democratic system with a well regulated free market.
You’re correct that everything is being held up by capitalism right now so if you remove it then everything collapses. We need to build alternative structures to hold things up before making any attempt on the current system, which should be as simple as using the alternatives instead but power was never given up without a fight.
I think market systems in general lead to exploitation and democracy is just the tyranny of the majority. We can do better and we should do better.
Democracy doesn’t have to be a tyranny of the majority. In its purest form it is. And that is why constitutional republics ensure citizen’s rights in their constitutions. We need a similar system for economy.
A sketch of that would a be a system where you’d have constitutional republic with independent legislature, judiciary and executive branches. Separated from the economic players as well as possible. They would provide the the outer bounds of a level playing field. Economy would a market economy, where ownership of companies would be distributed among the stakeholders of the system workers, customers and the executive. Similar to how governments ideally function. Workers would have “legislative” power in the company. They would be responsible for company policy. Executives would implement those policies. Customers would decide how well the company performs by either buying their products or withholding their patronage. This would need a lot of guard rails in place. But this would prevent centralization of power in the hands of an “owner”-class.
Transitioning to this type of system would not be that difficult. As most of what it has is already there. In western democracies. At least on paper. There would be a lot of resistance to this from the “owner”-class. I have no doubt of that.
a lot of guard rails
as always any system is only as good as the people perpetuating it.
Mom says I get to post the “shit on the US” thread tomorrow!
The root of their problems is not political or politicians it’s greedy capitalism. Arguably it’s also the root of their morally ambiguous success.
The gun rights y’all have?
Now, most people would tell you that Gun Control Works and that you should just do that and get less dead kids per month which is a generally good thing.
… But here’s another thing to consider. As long as you’re allowed to purchase weapons for cheap and easy.
You do realise you can in fact do something about the assholes in your government with those guns, right? That they can be used for more than just killing children?
Luigi Mangione seemed to get it.
US was founded on Capitalism and is a basket case of rampant Greedy Capitalism, Slavery, War Profiteering and Bullying. It has always been the case and has never stopped. Ever since the British tried stopping George Washington from usurping American Indians’ land. The lofty ideals were mere veneer.
The only thing that has changed is that there are many more players in the field and US’ shortcomings as a modern society is getting apparent.
Stop polluting up all our shit. Fuck you.
As an American, I’m gonna barge in with my loud opinion, 'cuz that’s what we do. Here’s something which people living elsewhere might not know that Americans aren’t ready to hear:
Automobiles are luxury toys and fashion accessories, and we shouldn’t base our entire lives on them. No, the car industry didn’t make our economy strong; it took off after we already had a lot of extra wealth to burn after becoming a world economic powerhouse. We can’t afford to keep wasting all that wealth on them as the world starts to burn, and half of our citizens sink into poverty.
Your (as in Americans) Imperial system of Units & measurements is a big joke & you are a British colony & you have bad cars
We can’t understand how millions can vote for a senile, convicted sexual predator as president…
Welcome to every election, not just presidential and not just a Republican or Democrat problem. Trump is disgusting but Seattles former mayor was way worse and didn’t get a peep nationwide.
And Chicago, and New York, and…
I’m just glad our poor congressmen can legally insider trade, think of the children!
Hah! Let’s make a list of the countries where leadership of that ilk has never existed. (We’ll just ignore that most of them did not allow elections.) Won’t take much paper.
How is you not understanding that the fault of the Americans?
The original question was not “what bad thing are Americans guilty of?”
Dude half of us don’t understand it either.
It’s amazing what decades of defunding education will do when you mix it with a healthy dose of conservative talk show TV and social media algorithms.
I wonder how differently the last US election would have played out if Murdoch had died before campaign season
Going to have a big party when he finally goes and joins Reagan in hell
Not very. His shitty propaganda machine is running itself by now.
Less than half apparently…
I guess it’s much less than half.
About 1/7 are less than voting age. Another 1/7 or so voted for the oompa loompa, and another 1/7 voted against. So actually, about half of the population just doesn’t vote because they’re a different type of idiot.
I do hate it here, for what it’s worth.
I dunno, i understand it pretty well. Lack of education, lead paint/gasoline, nationalism, fascism, racism, sexism, economic disparity, lack of healthcare to deal with neural degeneracy common in trump supporters, and finally lower borth rates among the more educated. America is a shithole, and has been for the past 40 years at least. Until we finally grow a spine and start “adjusting”, things are going to continue getting worse until were all dead and the olligarchs own everything. Then theyll move on to fucking the rest of the world (harder than they already are)
Was with you to the last bit. What does it mean to “grow a spine and start ‘adjusting’”? Why is “adjusting” in quotes?
a metaphor which means “get our shit together”
Great, thanks. I want to know what OP actually wants us to do. I hate the situation we were in and I sure as shit didn’t vote for this asshole the first or second time, but other than voting and trying to survive what exactly do you want us to do to “get our shit together”.
Your traffic laws are weird.
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Overtaking/passing on the right
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4 way stops and whoever comes first can go
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No strict right of way when coming from the right
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Right on red
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Grinding all traffic in all directions over multiple lanes to a stop when a school bus stops
At least the last one I can understand a little with the nearly non-existent pedestrian infrastructure.
A note, not all states operate this way, but the concept of ‘right of way’ is going away. Judges do not like the idea of someone feeling privileged enough to make a situation worse. In general, they want to implement fail-safes and not fail-unsafe situations.
Edit: To add - we’ve actually had this for a while, it’s called ‘failure to yield’. The switch is actually being more driven by emergency services making things worse, which is kind of relieving given the general sentiment. Unfortunately it’s just another phrase for the same thing, semantics…but if you do go to court, you’re better off presenting who failed vs who’s entitled.
I think I have seen this and been confused by it. Does it mean that nobody should assume they have right of way? For example, having right of way isn’t necessarily an excuse for being in an accident because you didn’t give way to someone driving badly.
If a person didn’t yield at a sign saying they should, and caused an accident as a result, they are demonstrably at fault.
Pretty much, the only caveat I’d add is the assumption of ‘right of way’. You can have situations where road conditions were unusual but drivers are not certain to all the conditions. The involved parties can all assume they have the ‘right of way’, when in reality the best option would have been for everyone to yield until conditions ARE certain.
I’ll give a personal example: I once came upon an accident on a bridge, and the cop cars were already on the scene. It was night, raining hard and the cop cars were facing the oncoming lane with headlights set to high. I couldn’t see anything past the cop cars, so I slowed down from 50 to 25. As I passed, I briefly saw a shadow of a person and heard them say “SLOW DOWN”. I still have no idea how close I was to hitting them, but they must have been very close to hear them thru the rain and sirens. I should have gone much, much slower, maybe even stopped. Fortunately, nothing bad happened, but I had assumed that since the one lane was open that it was ok to use. I don’t know why the cop cars oriented themselves in a way to blind oncoming drivers, but had something happened, the fault would have ultimately been mine regardless.
Another example is parking lots, so many accidents occur at busy locations. People forget how you are not supposed to block ingress (to prevent traffic backing up into the street and making things worse) and get road rage because they can’t leave. I’ve seen people try to “squeeze in” and end up blocking an entire lot because they can’t move. One side will say “zipper” (ie: “my turn for RoW”) the other will say “right of way”, and parking lots are notorious for not having any signs.
Edit: and ofc, old ladies who think blinkers give them RoW
Edit2: an example for cops: blowing thru red lights without making sure intersections are clear. To be fair, everyone should yield to a cop car in the performance of their duties, but this doesn’t mean cop cars get a free pass for RoW and can plow thru full speed, damn the consequences. They still have to take safety of others in mind and yield if required.
Edit3: because I’ve had the discussion before. Yes, it’s semantics. RoW and FTY are the same thing. I’m only saying the phrase is being sunsetted, no Judge wants to hear someone say RoW. Some laws even use them together as “Failure to Yield Right of Way”. The goal is to prevent the mindset of entitlement, to make sure the clarity of safeguards remain in place.
Honestly right on red is so stupid. So many people don’t even slow down and they just go. Sometimes I’ll be waiting to turn right at red light and some dickhead in a behemoth truck behind me will start spamming their horn like they think I have the right away and can just mow down whichever pedestrians are in the crosswalk. I bike a lot and I have narrowly avoided being hit by a car turning right on red multiple times. One time I had a car graze my back tire which was really scary but fortunately I ended up okay.
To offer a counter argument. Right on red the concept isn’t stupid, its stupid to just sit there when there’s not a car in sight.
The drivers, shitty driver tests and 0 enforcement is all dumb.
It’s supposed to be treated like a stop sign, you stop, look, and go when safe. Not roll through at max speed. People also don’t seem to know that a red arrow equals a no-turn on red sign.
I’ve been seeing electronic no-turn on red signs that can turn on/off with the light cycle. So if the opposite lane has the left green, the sign tells you not to turn on red. One would hope they’re integrated into the cross walks too, (not that everyone uses those either).
I think the us has the worse road tests, mine was just some suburbs with 0 merges, no highways, a couple stops signs and maybe a light. Pretty much anyone driving for a day could have passed that thing, and that’s how we end up with the bullshit like “the fast cruise lane (pass lane)” “right roll on red” “the merger has right away” “merge on highway 20miles(32kmh) slower than traffic” “blinker optional” “blinker on only when half way through turn or merge” “break before blinker” “wave of death on two lane roads” the list could go on and on…
I know I’m being pedantic but I just thought it’s interesting that you said “there’s not a car in sight” when I thought the primary concern was drivers not paying attention to pedestrians crossing the street.
However, why is it more stupid to sit there when there’s not a car on sight only when turning right but not when going straight or turning left? There’s an argument for larger roads with many lanes, sure, but isn’t it the same when it’s only 1-2 lane roads?
You are correct, I should have said “Not a car, pedestrian or other obstacle in sight”.
The problem is absolutely people not paying attention when turning; they’ll fixate on the traffic coming from the left, and the moment there’s a tiny opening they’ll floor it and ram into stopped traffic or pedestrians on the right.
I would say its equally stupid to sit there with no car in sight. I guess this most often happens at night when little traffic. There are some light that seems to have a 60sec cycle and it sucks idling there for no reason. Roundabouts help, and over the last 10? years they’ve been appearing more.
Telling people to use their judgment to decide if they can just go regardless of red is a bad idea. People barley handle the right-on-red as it is.
right away
Maybe it was autocowreckt but the phrase is “right of way”.
You’re correct. I wrote that at around 4 am and I had a variety of other errors as well on my first draft, that one happened to slip through.
Honestly right on red is so stupid.
Everything you wrote after this sentence told me that people are stupid, not necessarily the right itself. It makes a lot of sense, I’d like to have it in the EU.
You are correct in my opinion. I don’t like how many people assume it’s a green arrow or that you must go if able, but I wouldn’t give it up.
Not nearly as bad as left on green BUT yielding to oncoming traffic.
I’m so confused here.
The right lanes are the slow lanes - we overtake/pass on the left, and you are advised to stay out of the left lane unless you are passing. This makes sense because you need to slow down to exit the freeway, or in case of emergency, you are closer to the side of the road to be able to do so.
How else are you supposed to deal with 4-way stops? In my state it’s first arrival goes first, however if two cars arrive at the same time the car on the right proceeds first. It’s not that complicated, and I’m not sure what’s wrong with it?
And I’m not at all sure what you’re referring to regarding coming from the right? Coming from the right in relation to where?
How else are you supposed to deal with 4-way stops? In my state it’s first arrival goes first, however if two cars arrive at the same time the car on the right proceeds first.
By always respecting the second rule. There are no 4-way stops here. If an intersection does not have signs the vehicle on the right always has priority. No exceptions.
It’s not that complicated, and I’m not sure what’s wrong with it
The problem is that people have different views on who came first but there are no different views on where right is. If there are any disputes there can be no arguments on who came 20 milliseconds earlier, instead you can just look at who had the right of way.
Uh, we do have a rule about right goes first…
In a four-way stop, if you arrive at the same time then the one on the right goes first and if you’re across from each other then the one going straight gets the right of way and the one turning goes after otherwise it doesn’t matter if both are going straight.
Otherwise, if you have two people arrive at a four-way stop and one is clearly there before the other then the winner gets the right of way to keep flow of traffic going rather than waiting for the other to stop and go just because they were on the right side.
We don’t have a ton of roundabouts/traffic circles here but it works the same as it would in Europe.
Doesn’t matter who got there first, person from the right gets right of way even if he came later. You approach the intersection with caution and make sure you can stop to yield should anyone come from the right.
In the US I believed it’s legal to pass people from the right if they are driving to your left. That’s illegal here, you can only pass from the left.
It’s also illegal to hog a lane, you must always use the right most lane when it’s free, unless you’re passing.
it’s also illegal to hog a lane
Yeah, that’s a HUGE problem here.
Grinding all traffic in all directions over multiple lanes to a stop when a school bus stops
This varies by state, but I think I most of them are setup so that you don’t have to stop if the road is divided, or if there are more than 4 lanes (so 2 lanes for each direction, plus a turn lane in the middle, you don’t have to stop). As always, check your local laws, and when in doubt, signal and stop.
Edit: to clarify, the oncoming lanes don’t stop, the lane behind and adjacent to the bus still have to stop.
“check your local laws”
Lol sorry what? It’s even worse than I thought 😂
There are 50 states in the USA. They generally have the same rules of the road but you are being an idiot if you think that all states have the same laws. Does any other coalition in the world work like that?
You should see us a roundabout! 😉
What does “strict right of way when coming from the right” mean? If it’s up for debate there’s usually either stops or yields, or road size rules (double yellow takes priority over local small roads)
Overtaking/passing on the right
Generally illegal, some people do it still.
4 way stops and whoever comes first can go
We get circles in high population areas, but not enough, I agree
No strict right of way when coming from the right
This is actually in our traffic laws, just most are dumb enough not to be able to figure it out :)
Right on red
Varies per state. (which is also stupid) It’s like the circles, it’s a density_safety/cost thing. If you don’t have pedestrians, treating a turn with traffic as a stop sign can keep intersection costs down.
I’d also tac on abysmal public transportation, poorly maintained rail lines and horrible airport candor.
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Credit scores only exist in the US. Everywhere else just compares your income to your debt.
Australia is trying to bring it in though.
Wrong, it exists in Europe as well (e.g. Germany)
That’s a completely different thing.
Your Schufa Score is only relevant in very few cases, as long as it’s not super super bad. Due to data protection laws, the data they’re allowed to keep of you is very limited and thus the usefulness is much lower for businesses.
Schufa basically blackmails you into giving you their data: Not giving them access to ALL your data WILL result in the lowest possible score for your business, which has huge implications in regards to any credit.
No, they don’t. Businesses just send their negative data to the Schufa.
I worked in that area for years, and unless you’re actively trying to tank your score, the Schufa is almost useless for all sides, and maybe businesses only use them to filter the really bad cases.
You have not read my comment at all, have you? Not giving them your business data reaults in the lowest score. That’s blackmail.
You have no business data unless you’re a business.
Are you a business? Thought so.
My brother in law has a business. That’s how I know this. But you’re just disagreeing out of principle, so you’re immune to facts. Do go on and talk out of your ass and be the ignorant person you strive to be.
Informing it is not just a few cases. Not only does it impact things connected to a loan like Buying a house or a car, but also getting a mobile or landline subscription, a credit card and also more and more landlords expect you to show them a Schufaauszug proving a stable financial situation
Again, Schufa only really cares about negative data, they’re not allowed to use much more than that.
That means, unless you have unpaid bills stacking up or relevant loans on your name, the Schufa knows hardly anything about you.
I’ve worked in that business. I personally looked at hundreds of datasets and for most people, the Schufa knows only that they exist and where they live.
There’s a lot to criticize about these organizations, but the Schufa is by far not as pervasive as some here like to imagine.
Well, I’ve got a schufa GDPR data abstract which contains a lot of positive data as well. How many credit cards at which Bank and so on.
Also if schufa incorrectly adds negative entries to your dataset (e.g. due to two persons with the same name having the same date of birth), good luck getting the data straight.
Or if a debt collector enters an unjustified entry…
You obviously did but come in contact with any negative aspects of schufa while working with it, but these cases definitely exist, just check the results on Google…
I guess germans aren’t ready to hear it either RIP
What? We have credit scores in the UK. Used for getting mobile phone contracts, housing, banks, credit cards, loans, etc.
The UK is just the “light” version of the US
Uh, no, not really.
The British attitudes to work, social systems and regulatory standards are more closely aligned with the EU than the US, even post-brexit.
We are very diplomatically aligned with the US as a result of our historical/cultural overlap and trading relationship, though.
post-brexit
True, doesn’t sound to me like anything the US would do xD
I don’t think the US would leave the EU given they’re not in it xD
To be serious, the sentiment behind Brexit is the exact kind of sentiment you see in US people/politics as well: right-wing propaganda, xenophobia, resistance against any kind of authority, nationalism.
UK is literally the parent of the US. Puritan culture flows through both. A national superiority complex (which you seem to be a slight victim to). Surveillance capitalism. Deregulation.
Yes, the issues in the UK aren’t as severe as in the US, they are more aligned with EU/socialist values, but that’s why I said it’s the “light” version of the US, didn’t say they are the same. But out of all European countries, the UK is definitely the most similar to the US by a large margin.
Edit: also, Brexit is basically the same as the thoughts of some Republican states like Texas seceding from the US.
I mean, I don’t disagree that there’s similarities especially wrt to nationalism etc, but I also think those things are far more widespread than the UK and US.
Germany for example has had the AfD emerge as a major party with a big rise in nationalism, Italy has Brothers of Italy in power, who were an explicitly fascist party until very recently, and Italy has a long history of nationalism. China and Russia are extremely right-wing, propagandised, xenophobic, nationalist, surveillance capitalist and deregulatory (moreso wrt Russia), but it would be very silly to claim that makes them America-like.
I’m just stating how I see it from the perspective of a person actually from Britain - not sure what you’re referring to wrt UK/me personally(?) having a superiority complex about it, in fact I’d argue self-deprecating, anti-British attitudes are an integral part of British culture in a way that is a direct inverse of US nationalist fervour.
I just think “the UK is America lite” is a very reductive way to look at a country that is highly culturally and politically distinct from the US. Whether that’s the NHS (the first ever single-payer national health system), which the US has no equivalent of, the importance placed on the separation of church and state, or the far stronger regulatory frameworks that have frequently been a preventative factor that have repeatedly caused trade deals with America to fail (eg the whole bleached chicken thing).
Huh… Well assumptions and monoliths make fools of us all
Literally all of south and central America use credit scores, the fuck You are talking about?
Canada too, but half the country wants to be the US so it doesn’t really count.
honestly, this is something I needed to hear. my family has been pretty anti-credit (dad was bad with money) and my own hatred for the system grew once I started working at a retail chain. to know this is just another part of the fucked up system kinda gives me hope I can either escape it or dismantle it
Hell yeah!!!
Here’s one from the Middle East: Fuck your veterans. Y’all were right when you were calling Vietnam vets baby killers, and Afghanistan and Iraq weren’t much better. And here’s a corollary: Get the fuck out of the Middle East.
American here. Lots of us don’t want to be over there either. Seeing our tax dollars literally set on fire on the other side of the world pisses us off.
Lots of us don’t want bases “over there” or in fact anywhere. The casual nature in which Americans think having bases in other countries all around the globe is normal and fine is highly alarming.
Another thing you may not be ready to hear is that the world holds you collectively responsible for the actions of your democratically-elected government even if you supported the other guy.
Seeing our tax dollars literally set on fire killing people on the other side of the world pisses us off.
(Padme meme)
ITT: As per usual, Lemmy thinks living in conditions and condoning them are the same thing
South Central and Caribbean duh
You may have heard about North America but that’s a hoax. Who would be gullible to believe there’s people who behave like USA’ians?
Canada is another hoax, it’s just the part of Greenland where people live.
You need a second civil war
