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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 20, 2024

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I don't care if they are purposeful parasites or just lazy, they've got no call on the resources of the productive. The actually unable (and not by their own device) are another matter, and in a better world it would be fine to support them provided we didn't allow the illusion that they were actually supporting themselves. The problem is that in any world like today's, that just results in large amounts of people claiming they're actually unable or making themselves so in order to loot, while the administrators of the system look the other way.

I feel like the key is that someone who is working should have a life that's clearly and obviously better than someone who isn't working, even when taking into account all the time and stress of the work itself. Right now the incentives are out of whack.

I envision something like people having a 10' square room, including bed and desk and sink and shower and toilet, with communal meals that are nutritious but bland, and simple clothes in pastel colors. If they can work enough to buy a computer or smartphone of their own, they can spend all day freebasing video games and porn, and the rest of us never have to see them again. Or they can go to the library, train to do something useful, find a job, and then actually live somewhere with a separate bathroom, and buy clothes of their choice, and eat real meat, and drink decent coffee, and have beer and soda and junk food whenever they want.

I suspect a good chunk of the left would react in horror. But this seems like something we could afford in America, if we got control of the borders, and got control of cost disease.

(And then there's the little problem of children.)