Quote from: monsta666 on Feb 07, 2024, 08:24 AM

Quote from: K-Dog on Feb 07, 2024, 12:40 AMNo incentive to change whatever.  There comes a day when the midnight store deliveries stop.  And people say WHAT HAPPENED ?

Other alternative is the people will no longer be able to afford the food deliveries. Affordability is another form rationing on the macro level. This is a real issue in developing countries, but people hang on by families being more and more dependent on the ones still working. More people sharing the same house to reduce expenses. Government could also provide subsidies of some kind to keep the things rolling a few years longer. You think this is a plausible scenario?

If all subsidies do is keep things rolling on a few years I'd not be happy with them.  I don't want to say no to subsidies if it reduces the suffering of the poor, but "gas still flowing freely from FSoA convenience store pumps" implies everything is the same and that is why I said 'no incentive' in my original comment. 

Gas won't be flowing freely at convenience stores, that's what physics says.  But the point is, will Americans be wearing red Trump hats wishing they still had a pick-up truck or will they evolve into a sustainable life form?  That is the question.

Raw subsidies would be like quantitative easing.  Something done to maintain current arrangements and PREVENT needed change.  Send out blue or red hats with the subsidies to remind everyone this is really about maintaining current arrangements.  Don't forget to vote.

People need evolve to reduced carbon footprints, and be rewarded for making the change.  Carbon Dividends is the way to do it.  Subsidies by themselves only postpone the inevitable day when calories needed to get through the day exceeds supply.  Subsidies make no path forward, but there is no reason they could not be added to the same plastic card carbon dividends are put on to reduce the suffering of the poor.  Since everyone gets a card there is no reason for the eligible to need a separate card.

The city-burb to the south of me is Renton.  They are having a vote on a minimum wage in a few weeks.  A milionaire business owner is saying it is the end of the world for him.  (The family owns 100 green groceries. *)  It turns out the proposed wage is in line with neighboring towns. And this matches the proposed wage.  Living Wage Calculator.  By the calculator I should get a 15 cent raise.

Going Jacobian on a few millionaires unfortunately might be necessary.  But no need to throw them to the lions if they repent.  Millionaires who repent get the best social security and get to work like everyone else.  The talented ones would get very good jobs.  A consequence of helping citizen assemblies take over.

My idea of the path forward is to make it worth peoples while to adopt low carbon footprints and reward work that benefits a low carbon society.  Subsidize the pay of the right jobs to make them more attractive.  Tax breaks for corporations that become employee owned the fastest.

But you can only do that with a transition to socialism.  I am not an idealist.  Make assholishness fashionable and everyone will be an asshole.  I have no illusions about what drives people.  People in general are ok with $7.50 being the national minimum wage because they get a thrill twitch knowing they get more than the national minimum.  The national minimum wage is a  third of what a living wage is where I am.  I hide my disgust for ignorance well. 

But make virtue something that society esteems and people will go goody-two-shoes.  That is the upside of having not so much free will.  The silver lining of knowing we are all at some level.  Sheeple.

There is a debate ongoing on the internet centered around Robert Sapolsky and free will.  He writes: "We are nothing more or less than the sum of that which we could not control – our biology, our environments, their interactions".

Regarding the effect of society on what we do I totally agree.  We are social animals.  I agree with Robert,  we are puppets on strings, but the fact is I am running this website of my own free will.  Nobody is pulling my strings here but me.  I did not start the Diner, but my free will shapes what the Diner is emerging into.

I can set goals, and to various degrees I succeed.  My environment and biology often makes me forget a goal, but then I remember what I am doing. I am both a soldier accomplishing a task, and the general commanding it be done.  Does a general have free will?

Only on the battlefield, elsewhere the general is commanded.

I am all about a transition.  Revolutions get hijacked.  A new Trans-national Political movement must emerge to make this happen.  If Roger Hallam understands peak oil he would be a good place to start, but I am not sure he does.  Just stopping oil can't sell.  Not by itself, and not without clear alternative lifestyles worth living.

Carbon Dividends is the way to start things rolling.  Carbon Dividends have huge implications. 
Carbon Dividends are the beginning of a smooth transition to socialism.  A low carbon socialism that will mean better red than dead.  I am not going to be deceitful and pretend it is anything else.

Personal Property OK Private Property NO.  Private property must be gently purchased at a fair rate or taxed away.  We must re-claim the commons.  It is the only way the commons can be conserved.

If your undies are bent out of shape and they probably are, personal property covers most of what an average person already has.  Your own home is personal property.  In my evil socialist world, owning your own home will be encouraged.

* It would not be the end of the world for him.  He already has his inherited wealth, and in my plan taking it away properly is going to take a long time.