The issue is not reporting these issues I find, its actually getting action. I used to reach out to my city representatives about these sorts of things. At this point, I've given up on that, realizing that I will never have my position actually heard unless I represent either a very large sum of money or an overwhelming majority of the people who actually vote in these local elections. They have no incentive to work for individual or minorities of their constituency. They alienate me they lose a measly one vote. They alienate an important donor and they can't afford to pitch themselves to voters and even run.
Politicians don't fight for you, they fight for the betterment of their political careers and their own position. If they were in the job to actually quickly address and fix these sorts of local grievances, there wouldn't be so many of them left to address in the first place.
Surely folks aren't generally so unimaginative they think the only two options are "shitty" and "shittier".
Anyway, given our massive encarceration rate and our love of solitary confinement, being "disappeared" is not out of the question. Hell, Georgia is trying to prosecute protestors with RICO charges. The federal government itself makes no effort to hide the fact that it salivates over punishing Snowden for publicly embarrassing them. The idea that we have some sort of special immunity to politically-oriented violence from the state is fairly naïve. (Not to mention the fact that the rest of American society will absolutely punish you for your political views if you're outspoken in the wrong context or have the wrong opinion—god forbid you point out how useless voting is, even if it has non-zero value.)
It is one of the most dangerous markets to compete in, and often leads to one's demise, but I don't see it as an absolute guarantee. Regardless, lots of historic undertakings (and accomplishments) with outsized rewards came with substantial risk....maybe modern Westerners have become too soft to be the masters of our own destiny.
If you can mobilize enough people to make a stink, councils will give you whatever it takes to make you go away.
Even if politicians were entirely pure and good, the calculus yields a bias towards non-action.
Each and every decision will piss someone off. Now or any time in the future. Some of the enraged can make a stink. It's very hard to predict negative outcomes. So the best strategy is to play it safe.
Then add corruption, incompetence, fossilized worldviews, and pathologically power obsessed try hards.
Politics is just the worst. And unfortunately necessary.
So many issues come down from the fact these people need to campaign to keep their jobs. Imagine if the sewer department operated like this, with engineers fretting over if they should actually tear up the street and fix the main or if that would piss off some wealthy donors to their reelection bid, instead of just doing work that is known by domain experts to be unequivocally required according to the realities of the situation.
Well if you think about it from a more… zoomed out perspective. Why should they take YOUR opinion as the truth to execute? Not saying you’re wrong, but it’s very easy to find someone that disagrees with you on whatever topic you want. So which person are they representing more?
Where do you draw the line?
They could start by at least following their own ideas and rules. There are so many sidewalks for example that are completely upended by tree roots in my area. City rules say a sidewalk should be flat and not look like the Front Range. This is one of the wealthiest parts of the world for reference, why are we tolerating stuff like this for the elderly and disabled? There's more than enough money available, just a lack of any altruism.
It’s funny how in the supposedly late capitalist world of contemporary America, there are lots of problems that could be solved by money/business/entrepreneurship but are prevented from doing so by not-actually-representative government councils and arbitrary laws.
Two examples that pop out to me are litter/graffiti removal and clean public bathrooms. Millions of people would gladly pay $10-$50 a year to get both, but regulations prevent a private company from even beginning to solve either.
The train station I get off at has probably two dozen LED signs. Each one of them just shows the date and time, and not when the next train is coming or anything actually useful to transit riders. But I'm sure they cost a few thousand a piece and parts are expensive for what amounts to a wall clock mounted every 10 feet, and whoever signed off on this station projects probably cut a huge red ribbon with the biggest grin on their face for the press photos.
Comments
The issue is not reporting these issues I find, its actually getting action. I used to reach out to my city representatives about these sorts of things. At this point, I've given up on that, realizing that I will never have my position actually heard unless I represent either a very large sum of money or an overwhelming majority of the people who actually vote in these local elections. They have no incentive to work for individual or minorities of their constituency. They alienate me they lose a measly one vote. They alienate an important donor and they can't afford to pitch themselves to voters and even run.
Politicians don't fight for you, they fight for the betterment of their political careers and their own position. If they were in the job to actually quickly address and fix these sorts of local grievances, there wouldn't be so many of them left to address in the first place.
Even funnier: they've somehow managed to convince everyone to defend and promote this system!
Truth is stranger than fiction as they say.
Well, the alternative to complaining and having nothing done is complaining and being disappeared, so there's that
Surely folks aren't generally so unimaginative they think the only two options are "shitty" and "shittier".
Anyway, given our massive encarceration rate and our love of solitary confinement, being "disappeared" is not out of the question. Hell, Georgia is trying to prosecute protestors with RICO charges. The federal government itself makes no effort to hide the fact that it salivates over punishing Snowden for publicly embarrassing them. The idea that we have some sort of special immunity to politically-oriented violence from the state is fairly naïve. (Not to mention the fact that the rest of American society will absolutely punish you for your political views if you're outspoken in the wrong context or have the wrong opinion—god forbid you point out how useless voting is, even if it has non-zero value.)
Thinking in false dichotomies is the human default in my experience.
Thanks nudge economics and Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith–Mundt_Act & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization....
It is one of the most dangerous markets to compete in, and often leads to one's demise, but I don't see it as an absolute guarantee. Regardless, lots of historic undertakings (and accomplishments) with outsized rewards came with substantial risk....maybe modern Westerners have become too soft to be the masters of our own destiny.
100 years ago people complained but they managed to build big things too. No secret police required either.
If you can mobilize enough people to make a stink, councils will give you whatever it takes to make you go away.
Even if politicians were entirely pure and good, the calculus yields a bias towards non-action.
Each and every decision will piss someone off. Now or any time in the future. Some of the enraged can make a stink. It's very hard to predict negative outcomes. So the best strategy is to play it safe.
Then add corruption, incompetence, fossilized worldviews, and pathologically power obsessed try hards.
Politics is just the worst. And unfortunately necessary.
So many issues come down from the fact these people need to campaign to keep their jobs. Imagine if the sewer department operated like this, with engineers fretting over if they should actually tear up the street and fix the main or if that would piss off some wealthy donors to their reelection bid, instead of just doing work that is known by domain experts to be unequivocally required according to the realities of the situation.
Well if you think about it from a more… zoomed out perspective. Why should they take YOUR opinion as the truth to execute? Not saying you’re wrong, but it’s very easy to find someone that disagrees with you on whatever topic you want. So which person are they representing more? Where do you draw the line?
They could start by at least following their own ideas and rules. There are so many sidewalks for example that are completely upended by tree roots in my area. City rules say a sidewalk should be flat and not look like the Front Range. This is one of the wealthiest parts of the world for reference, why are we tolerating stuff like this for the elderly and disabled? There's more than enough money available, just a lack of any altruism.
It’s funny how in the supposedly late capitalist world of contemporary America, there are lots of problems that could be solved by money/business/entrepreneurship but are prevented from doing so by not-actually-representative government councils and arbitrary laws.
Two examples that pop out to me are litter/graffiti removal and clean public bathrooms. Millions of people would gladly pay $10-$50 a year to get both, but regulations prevent a private company from even beginning to solve either.
The train station I get off at has probably two dozen LED signs. Each one of them just shows the date and time, and not when the next train is coming or anything actually useful to transit riders. But I'm sure they cost a few thousand a piece and parts are expensive for what amounts to a wall clock mounted every 10 feet, and whoever signed off on this station projects probably cut a huge red ribbon with the biggest grin on their face for the press photos.
I agree with this.