people in today world are disconnected from their "nature", we are made to be seminomad huntergatherers living in small tribes of kin. A lot of our wants are a surrogate of our biology, like the craving for sugars/fats. A lot of societal/mental ills can be correlated to such disconnection
malthusian bollocks, earth can sustain tens of billions of human beings, the downside that 10 acre mcmansions and huge pickup trucks will be unaffordable for the "middle class". We produce already enough resources, we waste them on allocation
more like socialist policies aftereffects, first of all government pension scheme which gave the illusion to working class they didnt need to have childrens as a safety net for old age relegating them as the "fruit of love". Spoiler: the system still need an above replacement fertitlity rate to keep the ponzi pension going
i believe Universal Basic Income & All you can Use research resources would be a sustainable model for people who prove mastery on a subject (Phd) and can show "improvements" to said subject (acclaimed research?). That would free a lot on creative/innovative talent in what matter, innovation instead of playing academy political chairs game, at the price that some of recipients would be lazy and non productive (but i believe say becoming a leading phisicist is a masochistic way of becoming a welfare recipient).
We can see gatekeepers of academia are more interested in economic/ideological qualms instead of pursuing truth/knowledge. Throwing money at research can be counterproductive.
consumers most of the time dont care about craftmanship, even if the end product is far superior & lasitng than the cheaper shoddier alternative, and when they do its mostly for status. As european i remember how discounts had to remarket themselves hardly and show consumers they arent anymore the places where "poors" shop
automation will increase worker productivity making smaller cohesive teams more efficient into producing results, entrepreneurship will be a lor more accessible, leading to a creation of specialized "skilled" jobs.
Instead in Italy we say that the government is poor but its citizens are rich [0]. A country of shopkeeper and small business owners never too keen to pay duties to government and always looking for some scheme to game welfare/subsidies.
Italian median / mean wealth by person: 107,315 / 221,370 euro
Germany median / mean wealth by person: 66,735 / 256,179 euro
Italy by capita has 48k euro of public debt vs 30k by capita of Germany
Or we can say that the massmedia landscape is shaping a generation of people incapable of handling dissenting opinions in a constructive way, everything is becoming emotionally charged and taboo to question; in an era of unlimited access to knowledge we are relegating ourself in more and more extremist cults, wheter reactionary or progressive
Chinese leadership has shown time and time again that is willing to ruin the country economic base rather than undergo any political change that will lower even the reputation of the "party as the center of the nation". Xi Jimping is going on the route of Mao, nationalizing or destroying all major businesses propping up in their stead State Owned/controlled alternatives. Entrepreneurs always felt like a necessary evil to the party, but Xi with his "common prosperity" isnt playing nice anymore
Singapore is a city-state made up of two+ etnicities, what worked for them probably wouldnt scale to something more complex as a big & diverse nation like U.S.A
>that everyone can reach a similar intellectual level given the right "system"
False on absolute terms and useless for most "real life" training. Time to learn/master a subject is an enormous competitive advantage to foster, as "talented" people will always have an edge over "clumsy" people. Mediocre people can only beat a genius trough effort of luck IF the genius is lazy and/or unlucky.
Unions are too adversarial in relation with business owners/managers for a Pareto efficency in most of modern economies. What they do mostly is forcing a price on labour due to their cartel like strenght, when they are not sitting on their asses.
China has always had hegemonic ambitions with "(Communist) chinese characteristics" using the "Hide your strength, bide your time" approach. Xi Jimping, showed its aggressive attitudes without having enough strenght behind, one of his many geopolitical blunders, forcing Western leaders to take much needed countermeasuers despite business leaders desires (business interests in chinese markets)
ADL showed a lot of ethnic bias in "exposing" hamas simpatizers compared to the demographics of such simpatizers. This organization and others (ACLU,BLM,...) hide behind "mighty missions" to covertly push narratives of its boards, revolving doors to political/influential positions.
Usually such organizations focus mostly on "awareness" (manufactured consent, political propaganda) and fund raising ( guilt based extortions and publicity stunts / tax write off for corpos), most of their funds get eaten in administrative (good salaries) / fund raising expenses instead of helping whatever cause
its just a marketing stunt that became a culture icon in a society weak to commercial propaganda last century. Its basically a tacky display of status or a modern bride price, something socially incompetent nerds find funny outside the blood part
banks literally operate in a fascist framework, the goverment control literally everything on how they can operate, usually under political logics above sound economics (paper growth by debt creation). By being a sector which consolidate naturally overtime in few conglomerates it becomes quite ripe to corruption and backdealings
entrapment would be more like tempting someone into doing crime, this honeypot is more a public safety service as it targets already would be murderers
Societies are a multigenerational building project, far beyond taxes-welfare ratio or the "culture preservation", the idea that nations are simple interchangeable places where somebody makes money and consume goods/services is a "luxury belief" built upon centuries of human development. For example, I rember from a study on china social mobility that it takes there on average 4/5 generations of "progress" to move from subsistence farming to "urban middle class"
Singapore is a special case, Korea is more a fair comparison, the country was by most metrics in a worse shape than most (african & non) colonies at the indipendence/civil war. Korea developed well considering its starting position