America-specific, but how well our culture-pot mixing has worked. Lots of incidents and issues make the headlines, but the crazy stuff makes the news because it’s so unordinary.
That interacting with the smallest parts of our universe changes them from behaving like continuous waves to discrete objects.
It was weird enough a century ago when it was first figured out, along with all the associated weirdness like information erasure reverting behavior back to behaving like a wave.
But now we are regularly building procedurally generated worlds where continuous seed functions deterministically placing world geometry convert to discrete voxels when interacted with in order to track state changes.
TL;DR: The building blocks of our universe behave much like how we currently build randomly generated virtual worlds where free agents can interact with them. It’s wild this isn’t being discussed more than it is.
Having money means you automatically get to have more money - ie interest, rent, investments.
Why is that crazy? If I loan the bank money and they make money on my loan I should get paid for it.
How does the bank make money from your money?
If I leave a pile of money in my closet, it doesn’t grow like mold.
Exactly. And that’s why banks pay you to give it to them instead.
Banks provide a valuable function to society that works on two sides:
- There’s a group of people who want to keep their money safe
- There’s a group of people that need a loan to get started in a business that will then make money and improve society
The bank takes all the money that has been deposited and makes the loan, charging interest. It then pays the depositors (less) interest to incentivise them to put money in the bank (instead of under the mattress).
In order for society to advance and grow you need a source of finance to get things off the ground. Anything from small businesses to massive infrastructure projects. Banks help facilitate that.
That like four people have as much wealth as 7 billion others.
Produce that are readily available all year round and having some fruits that naturally won’t thrive in your area be available in the grocery.
That some people can have a fleet or private planes and billion-dollar yachts while a major part of the population struggles to get enough food and has very limited access to medical care. Any sane society needs to have a minimal standard of life and needs to shift wealth (i.e. tax) as necessary to achieve it.
Everything.
Like, I’m talking to you now from the back bedroom of a random house in a small isolated town in the north east of England, and you could be anywhere. Travelling on a train is crazy fast. There are SO MANY leaves on that tree. Dogs are the best and there’s no way humanity deserves them. Isn’t it cool that we invented bread? My travel mug can keep hot tea at an acceptable drinking temperature for hours. Hugs are amazing. Windows are insane.
Sometimes I have to take motion sickness pills and they make me a bit loopy to the point where I start to really notice things around me, haha.
There’s a Pratchett quote that goes something like,
“In a universe so full of wonders, it’s a marvel that humans invented boredom.”
Your post reminded me of that.
Life.
Unearned income is taxed at a lower rate than earned income. I mean, pretty much everything about capitalism tbf, but that particular thing is saying the quiet part out loud and it still gets almost no attention.
A flat tax system would resolve a lot of this.
For me it’s time. That when we look in the night sky we don’t see what’s happening right now, but instead light from many years ago… Dunno, just can’t wrap my head around it
Reality. Anyone who has suddenly had their perception of reality completely unhinged due to a mental, psychiatric, or spiritual crisis is likely to attest their exuberant appreciation simply for “the ground beneath my feet”
Water, arguably the most important thing for sustaining life, just falls from the sky.
And we still get charged a fortune for it. Yay capitalism!
Sewage system and wastewater treatment
