Love that NOAA is getting shit done. They just redid the climate.gov website to be more useful: https://www.climate.gov/
Last thing we need is a new administration in 2024 completely undoing all the progress we’re making again.
There is still a lot of losses and a lot of inaction. I don’t know if humanity will have a peaceful time mid or late century, but I don’t think the situation is as dire as it used to be.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment...
I’m paying for this. And so are you. And we should expect nothing but excellence. It’s harsh but this is what I feel.
Our governments are deeply disincentivized to cleanup these inefficiencies because it means higher unemployment.
This is one of the reasons I'm a strong supporting of an actual UBI + universal healthcare. If people's lives aren't destroyed and driven to death by poverty if they don't have a job, then there won't be as much moral and political hazard to eliminating bullshit jobs in favor a system that works better for all of us.
If we make sure everyone's basic economic needs are met, then maybe they'll surprise you and find a job or social niche where they legitimately are useful and valued. But if you're economically imprisoned to your current job, then you won't have the time or freedom to explore.
Also, unemployment insurance and welfare as they are now are fundamentally different from UBI. The nature of these programs is "stay unemployed or economically useless, or else you lose the benefit" and it actively disincentivizes people from trying to contribute to society.
And it's pathologically toxic that we as a society believe the only valid way to meet those emotional needs is by providing value to a company in exchange for the means to survive.
I disagree entirely. The practical and moral reason why it's difficult to fire workers is because it generally results in the worker losing his income and healthcare, leading to personal and familial hardship. If healthcare were de-coupled from employment, then the hardship experienced by a fired worker is reduced. If some amount of income is de-coupled from employment, then the hardship experienced by a fired worker is further reduced (unemployment insurance works fine enough as a temporary band-aid, but it's not the real deal).
If we can get enough social infrastructure in place so that fired workers experience minimal hardship, then it becomes morally acceptable to make our government and companies more efficient, by laying off inefficient or unnecessary workers. Society then gets to equitably reap the rewards of this increased efficiency.
Yet I also have bills to pay and kids to feed, so they languish. This would help.
It seems like a pretty thankless job, and I would by no means want to do it.
For an example relevant to here, consider how movies depict operating a computer and how that relates to one's own lived experiences.