Tired of all the dicks in the world? Science may have found an solution.

[Viper1j]

Plastic may be the death of us all.

It has contaminated all water on the planet, and is now found in basically all living things. We have poisoned ourselves and our entire planet along with us. The consequences of this poisoning are only beginning to emerge. Just what does it mean to have these chemicals in our organs? Stay tuned to find out. This may be one of those consequences.

Rates of exposure will only continue to increase as our cumulative total of plastic production skyrockets.

Funny you should mention that.

I have almost completely (almost) divested myself of anything plastic for food storage. A friend of mine showed me some stuff, and suggested that I replace anything I previously used that was plastic for Purex containers.

I don't know about any health benefits, but I can definitely tell you that leftovers taste much better.

 

[Moonbeam]

So in other words the rules got changed while you were a homeowner. Great - let’s change them back to what they were when you bought. It doesn’t remove your culpability for now supporting special tax privileges for yourself though.


Yes, and now prop 13 becomes a generational entitlement. Again, personal charity is admirable but that system which allows you to do this is inflicting mass suffering. Are you okay with that? It’s the same with nonsensical rent control in NYC. Get a rent controlled apartment passed down to you from grandma? You get to pay $500/month for a $5,000 apartment. Everyone else of your income? Screwed.

I want to make it so everyone has a chance at decent housing, not the privileged few.


Precisely the opposite - YOU seek that only your privileged family members or the 1% can live in your house because you oppose building sufficient housing. Like I said, you helped make a situation where only millionaires can live in your neighborhood and now your complaint is that you’ve driven the price up on your property so high that you can’t pay the taxes.

Sorry, you get no pity from me. You’ve enriched yourself while supporting a policy of mass human suffering. Maybe you didn’t realize this is what you were doing and only thought about your family and your garden, but that’s what you did.


My answer to homelessness is simple - allow homes to be built and stop using the government to ban them and the problem will largely solve itself. There will always be some people who can’t afford homes though, and for those people the government will provide it.

There’s no point in you or I trying to decide where people want to live, what we think doesn’t matter. Let people decide for themselves - stop using the law to stop people from reducing homelessness. The main reason people cite when emigrating from California is not that they no longer wish to live there but that they simply can’t afford it. This is almost entirely due to the housing crisis.

I'm sure you would use the law to stop me from preventing eviction for non payment of property tax. And here you are arguing the virtues of density while decrying the roadblocks that come up that prevent denser housing from being built. You blame me for wanting to give my really modest home to someone who has nothing but could have this one modest thing. Well how about I blame all the people who have children or family members who can't do the same for them. It's quite common for farmers to rat proof stored grain. The reciprocal of me using the law to protect what I have is morally different from you wanting to use law to force me to move. You sympathies with one kind of human need and I with another. Forcing people out of their homes is not something I could ever live with. I mentioned that I have personally known a large number of people to whom that has happened. I know what destruction it brings to their lives.

So many other solutions. Lower all property taxes for home owners to prop 13 levels. Wait for sea level rise to park a cruse ship above where I now live. Wait for sterility to eliminate most all of human life. Why bandage a patient who is intent on dying. I don't think it is me who lacks imagination. One thing I do think is positive is that my city has relaxed zoning laws to make it easier to get a permit to do an in-law apartment or whatever they are called. I would be interested in doing that but since I always wind up paying so others can live rent free, it would just raise the hell out of my current property tax making my death a requirement sooner rather than later.

 

[Moonbeam]

Funny you should mention that.

I have almost completely (almost) divested myself of anything plastic for food storage. A friend of mine showed me some stuff, and suggested that I replace anything I previously used that was plastic for Purex containers.

I don't know about any health benefits, but I can definitely tell you that leftovers taste much better.

I did this years and years ago. The knowledge that plastics are destroying the planet has been known for a very very long time. I also buy food in glass whenever I can, but it is becoming harder and harder to do. I can remember a time when I could collect 10 coke bottles and turn them in for a full coke. My first adventure as an entrepreneur.

 

[Maxima1]

If this is the case can you point me to a single time in history where population decline was a positive thing for a society? Is Japan better off now than it was ten years ago because its population is declining?

Population growing rapidly has definitely had consequences in the past. FYI, I'd rather be in Japan than Philippines.

Asia for Educators | Columbia University

afe.easia.columbia.edu