1,501 karma · joined August 31, 2009
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A large middle class is pretty much exactly what you'd expect based on the testing.
Why would anything need to have changed in the last 50 years?
That being said, many things are possible in groups with smaller populations, I've heard stories of large communes being fairly successful with up to several thousand people. However, at some point they tend to become too disorganized and break down, in one way or another.
In contrast, the concepts of private property and trade have enabled our human family to grow to 7 Billion, and population growth is barely even slowing down yet. Civilization allows things to work on an entirely different scale by providing a somewhat standardized framework for our territorial disputes.
This is also the most non-violent time in history by far, according to researchers, presumably due to the end of tribalism.
So, for me personally, there would have to be extremely compelling arguments to even begin to argue against the utility of private property as a social and economic system.
Private property can't be "theft" if there is no private property.
If you don't believe in private property, you're sort of poisoning the well of any economic conversation, since it's the foundation of basically all of peaceful civilization.
Without private property there is only tribalism and, "might makes right."
Correct, it isn't a racial issue. Take the two most well-known cases for instance, Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown.
Trayvon Martin assaulted Zimmerman unilaterally (Zimmerman never threw a punch,) had him in a ground-and-pound position and was bashing the back of Zimmerman's head onto the sidewalk while Zimmerman repeatedly screamed for help. If any white seventeen-year-old had done the same thing there would be zero outcry about recognizing the need for self-defense on the part of the neighborhood watchman. If a white kid in a hoodie was walking behind houses in the rain and looking into windows, nobody would label it "profiling" when a neighborhood watch leader called the police, since that's obviously questionable behavior.
Michael Brown had just committed robbery at a convenience store, then he assaulted a cop who asked him to walk on the sidewalk, then tried to wrestle away the cop's gun. Forensics shows Michael Brown didn't have his "hands up" when he was shot, meaning the witnesses all lied about the situation. Again, if a white teenager had committed strongarmed robbery and proceeded to try to grab a cops gun there would be literally zero sympathy or outcry when he was shot in self-defense by the cop. People would basically just call the dead teenager "trailer-trash," or something equally derogatory and move on.
The only factor race plays in any of this is that we would never have even discussed or heard of these absurd cases had the so-called "victims" not been black. If race enters into the narrative at all it's in the form of black privilege / supremacy, in that black communities seem to believe these incredibly violent assaults are fine and don't merit self-defense for some reason, solely due to skin color.
More accurately, it's all hyped up and manufactured by the media to stoke division because nothing sells ad space like impassioned controversy.
He was part of this community. He was in crisis and it was obvious. People would have wanted to help.
You don't talk someone down from a ledge by turning your back on them.
That's all I'll say on the matter.
As someone else said, if you're checking email while exercising it's probably not all that difficult of a workout.
Write your novel for an hour, or paint, and you're out the door by 6am. Work until 5ish, rinse, repeat.
Just because you are used to the current legislative system doesn't mean it isn't replaceable.
Discrete math is the branch that is most likely to make you a better programmer. Not Kahn academy, etc.
Can't it?
Democracy is simply voting, which can easily be handled by machines.
Capitalism is simply the codification of a monetary transaction to which both parties agree. As long as there is supply and demand (finite resources) there is capitalism.
We have democratic socialism to make capitalism less brutal (read: less efficient but more humanizing) but demand is too fickle for most economies to be centralized much beyond that.
So he knows a lot of math then!
Also, many would disagree that welfare makes the "world better for everyone." A more competitive outlook would say welfare simply encourages dysgenics on a massive scale and multiplies problems.
I'd say about half that, at least in the Midwest.
Seems like pretty basic due diligence to complete before submitting an article with this title.