!opinion
@lemmy.mlThe abortion debate is probably one of the most contentious of all. It affects people on a very personal level, so most people have very strong opinions on it.
I'm not here to debate this, more to share a way of thinking which might help people. If it doesn't help you, then ignore it. The world does not need another circular intractable abortion debate.
In fact most people (in my experience) fall into one of two extremist polarised camps.
Abortion should be freely available to all, up to a certain date (usually in the months). If one parent (usually the mother but not always) desires it, nobody else shall interfere.
Abortion should be banned except in a medical emergency, feotal non-viability, or to save the mother's life.
These are both extremist views, and they are mutually exclusive. So the abortion debate is about winning and losing. Both of these policies are disastrous for vast numbers of people. Whichever side wins, vast numbers of lives and entire families will be ruined.
But put it another way. These are the things people really care about:
Nobody should be forced to bring an unwanted child into the world
Living things (especially human) should not be killed except under dire need.
People should be able to have sex without consequences.
They are not exclusive.
Everybody wants the same three things. And society can have all of those things, at the same time.
Let's put the issues in the third and final arrangement:
So the issue is access to contraception and to information about contraception. People know about condoms and pills and patches. Everybody knows that 100% effective contraception does not exist. But that is only true is you want it to be - if people are taught ineffective contraception methods. Most people have never heard about ovulation testing or tube ligation. But they both are effective. They need to be as accessible and publicised. Depending on condoms is a method designed to fail.
Access to effective contraception obviates the need for abortion for the vast majority of cases/people. But you can imagine failure cases. So this is the safety net. Abortion up to 21 days.
And abortions must be as rare as possible, because they do destroy families. There is no good answer to a lot of the problems with abortion - who needs to be informed, consulted or give authorisation, how do you measure 21 days...
Part of the motivation here is to bring human medicine up to the standards of vet medicine. Vets do not normally perform abortions. They perform sterilisations. They do this because this is the ethical way. In the past, people used to drown kittens, now they spay kittens. Let's be like the kittens.
Today many artists and inventors and businessmen rely on donations. But a system where the donation is rewarded with shares would be better.
Then, if the business eventually becomes successful, they will get back dividends. It's a much more inviting concept. Having shares in something really makes people loyal, in a way that being a donor does not. It would generate much more money IMO.
Patreon (or the ethical alternative whose name I forget) could add this option without much difficulty. The new relationship would be a powerful improvement. It would lead to more and better-funded independent projects everywhere.
It's been obvious for a while that governments worldwide are not able to design effective strategies to stop covid. So I've been trying to think of initiatives that bypass government.
One example is the decision whether to leave pubs open or closed, despite different pubs having very different infectiousness. One pub might be 100x safer than another, so it's improper to paint them all with the same brush. It leads to the worst of both worlds, with high contagion and high restrictions on peoples lives, at the same time.
It's possible to categorise public spaces by their infectiousness. For example somewhere with bad ventillation, high density of people, who stay there for a long time; is more infectious than for example an outdoor space.
So privately owned public spaces (shops, pubs, cafés schools, stations, etc) can ask for an evaluation by an expert. The expert can do a calculation based on the properties of the space and its usage, using transparent criteria. The space will get a result. Not a safe/unsafe one, or a stay open / stay closed one, but something like this:
This result can be posted on the door, as an advertisement that the space is taking covid seriously, and a helpful guide to concerned customers.
This is easy to understand and obey, and helps people control their risks, but it never stops people from doing business somewhere. Nowhere will get a 0 min rating, exuivalent to being temporarily shut down, because that doesn't make epidemiological sense. One pub might get a 30min rating and another a 90min rating. So the first one won't go out of business (like it would under a lockdown) but there is a strong incentive to improve its ventillation to get a longer rating.
This is the ideal situation. It solves all the weaknesses with most governments' policies in one go. It's a shame governments don't have the sense to implement it, but any non-profit could.
The sign on the door is also an advertisement for the scheme, to get more businesses to sign up. People will choose to go to the shop with the bright covid rating sign in the door, over the one with no information on how infectious it is. The abstaining shops will be conspicuous and lose business.
You've heard about 'fragility' WRT covid policy.
If we are all following the same centrally determined rules set by government, then those rules have to be perfectly thought-out. If they make policy mistakes (as they frequently do) then everybody in the territory suffers the consequences. These decrees from government are always (necessarily) rigid. It is well known that decisions should be made at the lowest possible level, so they can be flexible enough.
But I've realised there is a possible counter-argument. It's 'perverse incentives'.
Imagine people are well-informed, because a government has been providing appropriate information. Imagine there is a covid outbreak one day in December. Most people will decide (depending on their personal risk-factors) to stay away from the butchers. But if there is one 'bad actor' who goes in anyway, he will get his pick of the turkeys. The man who does bad is rewarded. For any policy to work, breaking the policy must not be rewarded.
And if one man is breaking the rules and benefiting from it, then everyone must do the same.
To be clear, this is not about people who must interact with society despite the epidemic - they have to do some business or work, or for the young people the work they need to do is socialising. Pro-lockdown people would say stop all of that irrespective of its importance. This is a weak argument, but it's not the pertinent one. This is about people who are compelled to do business against their own best interests, because they know other people will do so.
So (although I've never heard it from anywhere else) there is an argument for centrally dictated covid policy.
Do you think it's a strong argument, despite all the problems with government-set covid policy?
if someone tells you that something should be easy for you
if someone tells you that something should be easy for you, and then when you try something, something is easy, that was good advice in the end, but
if someone tells you that something should be easy for you, and then you try something, and something is difficult for you, it doesn't seem to me that it is easy for someone to judge what is easy for you, let alone give you advice....
as someone told you something should be easy for you, then you try it, then it is hard, and then someone doesn't know what that someone is talking about.
If that someone knew what that someone was talking about, then the specific thing someone told you should be easy for you, when you try it, then it has to be easy for you, or someone misjudged...
...regarding you, when you judge something is easy for you, something is easy for you...
...when you judge something is difficult for you, something is difficult for you...
...and when something other than the above two happens to you, you have misjudged what is easy and difficult for you for the specific occasion.
People who excel at difficult things
In order for people to have a good life, they need to have fun in a way that is fun for their own selves , or else they are not having fun, and the universe can't do anything to change that for them if they don't change their way, that they notice, is not fun for them.
Regarding people who excel at difficult things, either...
The things those people excel at, are not difficult for them up to the point they excel...or...
The things those people excel at, are difficult for them up to the point they excel, ...and then ....
People who excel at things, that are difficult for them up to the point they excel, make it more difficult for anyone else to excel, as they already know that there are some for who it is easy to excel up to the point they excel, if they don't add some extra hurdles on the way for other to excel...so that...they can excel instead...
Do these people make sense in general?
No, they don't in general.
And in specific, they make things difficult for others...
Shamed for doing something difficult
Some people find things which the majority find easy to do, difficult to do, and they are shamed for this.
Some people find things which the majority find easy to do, difficult to do, and they are not shamed for this.
Whether they are shamed for doing something or not, depends on the consequences something has in reality, on whether the rest like something in reality, and in the end on whether the rest people think it is sensible for them to try to be kind to others for the specific occasion, and...
sometimes it is sensible to be kind to another, and sometimes you are not being sensible with yourself, spending time and effort with another, and regardless of how kind you want to be to another, in the end justice is blind, since the beginning of humans, and you are not being sensible with yourself, when you ignore that.
things that are easy are easy for those who understand how to do them,
and things that are hard are no different than the things that are easy for those who don't understand how to do them...
Humans who have a different definition of easy than other humans, should remember:
Something is easy for me, if it is not hard for me to do in reality.
Something is easy for some people, if it is not hard for some people to do in reality.
Something is easy for most people , if it is not hard for most people to do in reality.
And what I mean by this is
If something is easy for most people or some people, but it is not easy for one, then whether something is easy doesn't become hard for everyone because of one, does it?
Clarifications
if people in groups or societies, don't have a common way to judge which things are easy or difficult, it seems to me things get more difficult for that group or society as time passes , or do you think this is not the case?
And what is that way,
which is common in a group of people to judge which things are easy or difficult,
you may wonder?..
In short it is what I initially wrote down. If you want me to write more...
You have a group of people, or society, people do things, and for the things they do, those things can be easy or difficult for them, on average, and that is because of the following...
When people in the group or society, want to judge other people in the same group or society doing things, they do that using their own personal view, but... regardless of their personal view, the common view people in the group or society have, is the view that most people have... commonly, that is the view that makes common sense for that group of people or society.
Because within a group of people, the common view people in the group or society have, is the view that most people have, the common view people in the group or society have, better for that group or society be a sensible one,
or else things get more difficult for the group or society, as time passes...
as the human senses work to support humans to have fun in their lives and stay alive up until they die, when humans follow their senses... and they warn them when they are not really having fun...
So how people in a group or society built a common view, happens in a funny way...
people exchange views, some are really thinking while doing that, some are really just choosing the views expressed in the group or society, that they would want the universe to impose to the rest of the group, as if the humans sense don't have common elements among humans...
But regardless of peoples' personal views,
the way that that human senses work is in a funny way for the conscious being inside the human body, because otherwise,
it wouldn't be funny for the conscious being inside the human body,
and this is because this is the best the universe could do for the conscious being inside the human body, both for the easy and the difficult times, as reality in the end is something else than anything you can imagine, because it really seems to be happening on its own without you really having to imagine reality, for reality to happen.
But to cut a long story short, so that I can hope that you at least have some reason to read my reply, in the end
within a group of people or society, people build a common view on which things are difficult or easy, however...unfortunately up to now, there can be cases where the entire group or society doesn't make sense, but this isn't what people who make up the group or society want to do, this is simply what they did, is what we find in the past, so that we can learn to avoid similar mistakes in the future.
CASES,
That people view similarly over some time become…
FASHIONABLE,
But ways that people view similarly
OVER AND OVER IN TIME, become…
…common sense.
We have a right to clean air.
Just as 19th century disease was (to oversimplify a tad) erradicated by providing people clean water. And 20th century disease by clean surfaces. The 21st century will be all about clean air.
In offices, public spaces, and especially in public transport, the air is infectious. It doesn't matter if you wear a mask, or disinfect your hands and doorhandles. Modern diseases are adapted to spreading through the air and air-conditioning.
As long as the poor are forced to travel daily in overcrowded buses and trains, the epidemics will continue.
We've seen that lockdowns, hand sanitisers, vaccination, etc, are all only slightly effective against airborn disease.
But some territories have started to take the first steps toward eliminating covid. Small incremental improvements to ventilation. And it will help a bit. But it's worth remembering that it won't be enough - this is a disease of overcrowding, and the only effective cure is to improve living conditions.
There are several possible solutions I've thought of, though others could maybe find better ones:
We need a way to measure the level of democracy of each territory. And especially when it changes, we need a may to measure whether the new law or regime takes us closer or further away.
First, the simplest objections:
A pure, or 'direct' democracy, does not exist anywhere today. It is a theoretical ideal, like a competitive economy, or a meritocracy, or equality-of-opportunity. But democracy at least is easy to specify: "It is a government which is totally subservient to the population. It acts according to the will of the majority. The actions of the democractic government are the same as would be taken by a well-designed multiple-round referendum."
That was my own definition. There are other definitions, mostly because there are multiple meanings of the word democracy. For some people it is "territories with the word 'democratic' in them, or "places where the government is made of elected representatives", or "places which are free and economically open", or "states which are political allies of my state". Those are vague definitions so they are not much use in objective discussions.
To show what it would look like, I'll build an example section.
The number of 'yes' answers is important. But some questions are more important than others. The above questions are a sample of the more important ones near the top. The questions near the bottom will be more like 10. "is there a government" 11. are there elections? 12. is succession chosen by people outside the family of the office holder?
Nearly every territory will get yes answers to q9-11. They more measure whether it is the opposite of democracy. The places that fail will be monarchies or dictatorships etc.
Very few will answer yes to q1-8. Only Switzerland (AFAIK) will pass q5. So with only one state that can pass it, q5 is therefore the most important question.
So it becomes a ranking on two levels. The questions are ranked by importance, according to how many territories can answer yes to them. Then the territories are ranked in order, according to the lowest question it answers no to.
For example the UK is often called a democracy, because it ranks highly in surveys of people's perception of democracy. It has extraordinarily effective propoganda. But objectively it is much less democratic than its neighbours. It fails questions 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, and 9. And 7 and 9 are very weak tests, that indicate a very weak democracy.
So this is a concrete measure, not of people's perception of democracy in their regions, but of real democracy. The word will no longer just be a political throwaway, but have real meaning. This tool will inform our debates and influence policy.
Politicians are (by and large) people who spend a lot of time talking to other politicians, who are sensitive to other people's expectations, who go with the flow and follow conventional wisdom. They don't break ranks and do anything radical or innovative alone.
The politician who does otherwise is an unsuccessful politician.
When a government makes a plan to solve some problem, it tends to be the same as his neighbour's solution.
China was the first territory to react to Covid, and it reacted brutally, with what we now call lock-downs. Total suppression of human movement and interaction and activity, covering an entire city.
This was not the only option nor the most effective one, though the people who copied this solution now claim that it was.
And that's just it, most of the world copied this approach, because politicians instinctively copy each other.
But if covid had started somewhere else, if the first government to react had been portuguese or venezualan or dutch, the template solution would certainly have been very different. It would have been a less brutal and more effective one. The world might be a very different place today.