Hot Takes

well anyway
People who say water has no taste have never been thirsty
take: water tastes mildly sweet, and a bit metallic, like a hint of licking iron. It‘s not just the dissolved minerals: purified water still tastes metallic to me.
 

Ginger Princess

Girl moding so hard rn
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This seems interesting, and I am curious as to how people react to these wACkY policies that I unironically support-

The United States Senate should be abolished (have only a House of Representatives).

We live in 2020. No one gives a fuck about 'small states being underrepresented'. At this point, all the Senate does is give the people least likely to be informed about the major issues concerning American politics a disproportionate amount of power. Of course, the entire constitution would basically need to be rewritten to account for this, which will make this impossible to accomplish.


Tests that determine basic skills (primarily critical thinking) needs to be administered independently before people are allowed to vote.

Poll tests in general have a history of excluding certain groups of people from being able to vote.
This won't change that. I don't want people who do not understand what they are reading or saying to be able to vote. I'm sure this is classist and prideful, and that such a system could be abused by people in charge, and that realistically this will never happen so long as traditional American values are maintained with a modicum of stability. But if we could realistically figure out a way to prevent people who don't have the capability to clearly think about the choices they are making, such a system would be preferable to what we have right now. We will never advance so long as a sizable plurality of individuals exist that have the power to prevent any advancements.


The more an industry has the capacity for death if mistreated, (pharmaceutical, mass transportation), the more they should be run by the government.

Maybe this isn't much of a hot take here as it may be in other pockets of the internet, but basically industries that can cause mass death if handled improperly should not be put into private hands. By 'private', I specifically mean 'unaccountable, primarily anonymous, and profit driven'. An organization that has the capability to cause significant harm to people's lives should not also be an organization whose main goal is to take advantage of people, and it should not also be an organization that cannot be meaningfully challenged by these same people. Sure, America loves suing corporations, but the average American can't afford the legal fees associated with targeting massively wealthier individuals; against electable officials, they can be simply voted out. That's literally how people like Donald Trump have been able to avoid consequences for his actions, by stalling cases made against him until the poorer individual can no longer afford to sue. This is commonplace for most wealthy individuals.

You always hear an argument about how 'competition drives down prices and creates a better product, and since a government has no competition, the prices will be higher.' To this, I would point out that the very same competition is what often leads to cutting corners and actual death within these industries, while the lack of competition driven by profit creates no reason to keep prices high in the first place. Also, its kind of laughable to think that a system whose career security relies on maintaining the comfort of the people would neither be motivated to consistently improve, nor reward those who create such improvements. Everyone acts like the average government worker is the clerk at the DMV.

This plan couldn't work right now, with the corporate political stranglehold currently in place. Attempts to achieve this when the current players in politics care for corporate interests more than the people's would be purposefully inefficient and designed to fail, in order to 'prove' to Americans how the status quo is just and right. But, maybe in the future, this can be achieved.


In general, States and their Governments should be dissolved and replaced with population-based local governments.

Democracies work best when the people being represented are small in number. This makes chosen representatives much more personal and much more accountable to the voter who is choosing them. The mayor of a small Wyoming town is going to be a lot more connected to their voter base than the mayor of Los Angeles, and the voters in that small town are going to be far more aware of the candidate they are choosing. A system of trust and connection is required in order for an effective democracy to exist, otherwise the people chosen to represent the masses become less and less connected to those who they are supposed to answer to.

The solution is to divide the nation into regions that encapsulate a set population of individuals, with shared geographic and cultural concerns (you wouldn't have a region that connects rural farmers and urban tertiary workers together). The regions would shift every census period, and new ones would be created as the population grew. They would answer to a federal government, who itself would be represented by individuals from each region, but the purpose of this federal government would be primarily to protect the nation as a whole militarily, assist with the overall infrastructural needs of the regions of the nation, collect necessary taxes, and enforce the national Constitution, making sure no principality violated a specific point from the document. Federal laws as a concept wouldn't exist, as it would be up to each region to create their own laws, so long as they abided by the national constitution. Federal laws would not be required because the people who are tasked with creating the laws would be necessarily connected to the people, and would be easily held accountable if they were to act against the interests of the small region they represent.

This probably needs fine tuning, and realistically couldn't happen overnight, but I think my core notion - that democracies are more effective the smaller the populous is - is true, and thus having a system that represents this in some way would be to the benefit of the people


I may say more later.
 
We live in 2020. No one gives a fuck about 'small states being underrepresented'.
but they do lol
and with a non changing house (at least rn) theres no room for growth
*note: i am also uninformed but a divided/opposing house will just block stuff anyway
Poll tests in general have a history of excluding certain groups of people from being able to vote.
This won't change that. I don't want people who do not understand what they are reading or saying to be able to vote. I'm sure this is classist and prideful, and that such a system could be abused by people in charge, and that realistically this will never happen so long as traditional American values are maintained with a modicum of stability
but 'traditional' american values would say to exclude groups from voting?? ie the history
xenophobia def has and still exists
ultimately the people dont control the reps and the reps would gain way too much power
The more an industry has the capacity for death if mistreated, (pharmaceutical, mass transportation), the more they should be run by the government.
generally agree but isnt mass transport a coordination thing (as well as the positive externality that isn't backed by enough profit)
prison def is something
 

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