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Whirlpool (the appliance manufacturer) donated washers and driers to schools and increased attendance.
According to Whirlpool's research, one in five school children report difficulty finding clean clothes to wear to school. It turns out that offering free in-school laundry services to kids with attendance problems increases their attendance.
When compared to factors like economic opportunity, unemployment, and institutional racism, laundry seems pretty inconsequential in the fight to keep kids in school. But while that might be the case for their parents, for a ten-year-old who already has the odds stacked against them, having nothing clean to wear to school could be the deciding factor in whether or not they want to face their classmates that day.
I can remember my grandmother telling me that she thought lunches in schools were a wonderful innovation, because they didn't have anything like that when she was a girl, and many children couldn't come because they wouldn't have lunch. I'm sure back then nobody thought of lunch as something school should provide. Now apparently laundry is the next big innovation.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2016, @10:32PM
He's demonstrating your point that any attempt to fix the underlying problems gets blocked at every turn.
He's showing you that he is not part of the solution, he proudly part of the problem.
What else would you expect from someone so narcissistic that he uses the least legible font available for his posts even though the font he types in the text box is unaffected?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by TrumpetPower! on Wednesday August 17 2016, @11:06PM
It's also a perfect demonstration of the little-l libertarian mindset: "I've got mine, so fuck you."
In reality, society is, of necessity, going to be significantly (gasp!) socialist. I mean, that's kinda the whole point of society, to be social, no? A bunch of people banding together to do that which nobody can do alone?
Few people in America have a problem with our socialized paved road system, from the Interstate Highways to the streets leading to our houses. Few of us could even afford to pave just the half a street in front of our houses, let alone the whole rest of the block the fire trucks need to get to our own house in case of a fire, never mind the freeways we travel to work and which allow trucks to deliver the goods we buy.
Did I mention? We have socialized fire departments, too -- having long since learned the lesson with privatized ones. That was a double whammy: not only does letting your neighbor's house burn due to not paying the fire bill dramatically increase your own house's chances of burning, but the leading arsonists in the days of privatized fire departments were the firefighters themselves looking for a quick buck.
That's much the same reason why we have socialized police, too. Do you really want competing police departments having shootouts whenever there's a dispute between whose clients should be arrested?
Same with our socialized military. If your neighbor failed to pay his private military bill, would you really be okay with your own private military refusing to defend his property against invasion?
Socialized health care should be a no-brainer, too. Do you really want your neighbor to be sick and contagious? Or to become disabled from preventable reasons, and therefore no longer able to work and be self-supporting? How safe do you think you're going to be from said neighbor? How well do you think your own property values will sustain themselves when your neighbor can't afford to keep up on maintenance?
And, to tie it all together...it's the exact same story with education and childhood welfare. We can either all chip in a few pennies to ensure that all kids grow up healthy and well situated to become productive members of society themselves...or we can tell them, "I've got mine, so fuck you"...and watch them grow up dysfunctional and turn to crime (with us as victims) just to have some chance at survival.
It can't be said often enough: we all should be happy to pay taxes. With taxes, we buy civilization.
Yes, yes -- no system is perfect, and we should always be on the lookout for fraud and other forms of abuse. But thinking that instances of fraud are good reason to shut down the government entirely is exactly what the aphorism, "cutting off one's nose to spite one's face" is all about.
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2016, @11:55PM
I fully expect you to share your wife/girlfriend/goat with the less fortunate sexually.
Socialized sexuality.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18 2016, @01:56PM
My wife/girlfriend/goat are not my property, they are not mine to share with anyone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @04:59AM
Oh, right, sorry.
I fully expect you to share yourself with the less fortunate sexually, hygenically, and medically. Us ugly HPV carriers need love, too!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18 2016, @02:30AM
Have you noticed that the Internet favors extreme solutions (relative to the status quo, at least in the USA) such as libertarianism or socialism?
Because when you adopt an extreme position you stand for something. You can't be dismissed as being boring or wishy-washy. You can endlessly post, pointing out the latest abuses from the status quo as examples of why you're right.
And you can stop thinking about your fundamental positions, because you already have one that is easy to state, and has been stated by others.
If your post misses the mark, no problem - there will be others who share your position who can fill in the gaps, provide the talking points and the links you forgot to post.
In many cases you'll be modded up. Advocate a center-right, center-left or center position and you'll almost never be modded up. Why? Because it's not interesting enough, doesn't seem passionate enough.
But one can be passionate about crafting a society that works for almost everybody, but still encourages innovation and the development of talent. You probably won't be very loud about it, though, and you may be mistaken for being apathetic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18 2016, @02:53AM
I have noticed certain groups want to maintain control of the message, modding dissenting points of view into oblivion instead of a convincing critique.
You could have a happy medium between libertarianism or socialism.
But more these discussion seem less about actually solving the problem presented, and more about control.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday August 18 2016, @04:17AM
Define extreme, and define where the center is. The US is massively right of center ("Overton window"), so something that to many Americans would seem dangerously left-wing would be a no-brainer for the rest of the civilized world.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18 2016, @04:37AM
The USA being insanely right-wing is a pretty popular idea. It gets thrown around a lot - and usually by people on the left, because it serves their needs - but rarely dissected and analysed.
So what is so insanely right wing about the USA? The idea of having a large military? Of course nobody else wants one, because they're insanely expensive and you can always give Uncle Sam a call if you're in NATO.
What else? No national medicine? Germany has a blended system with lots of private insurance options - not that far off the USA. The UK has private healthcare, but their heavyweight national health system is choking their budget so much that even New Labour had to do some fancy footwork around the amount of debt they were racking up to finance it. Canada's federal government was getting dragged down by the fiscal burden, so they palmed it off on the provinces, and a judge had to tell the government that private health care arrangements were necessarily legal. So the USA isn't that far off there.
What else is super right wing? Banned abortions! ... except no, wait, they're not banned. In fact, they pretty much have to be available. In reality access to abortions in the USA isn't that far off some other countries.
OK, so what else? Fiscal probity? More spendthrift than much of Northern Europe, in fact. So not that.
Anything else? Nazis have first amendment rights too? That's actually kind of liberal.
Next? Guns! Guns, zomg gunzzz! ... actually, Canada has very similar gun ownership per capita, and outside Europe large parts of the world are a lot more laissez-faire about it than the USA is.
You know, maybe I'm missing something, and I'm sure somebody will be around to talk about environmental regulations (where the USA is actually something of a tastemaker) or right wingers in government (like half of Europe) or the predominance of industry (but less so than so many countries with national champions or aggressive industrial policies like France's) or gay marriage or trans rights or something like that, but I'm really not seeing it.
The USA is maybe slightly more to the right of a cherry-picked few nations in the world. Strongly to the left of many.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday August 18 2016, @05:06AM
I said the civilized world. You don't get to point to the dysfunctional basket cases that are...well, hell, most of the Eastern Hemisphere, and go "we're left of THAT!" Being better than Iran is not exactly a stunning achievement in human rights, is my point.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @04:06PM
Aaaah, I get it.
You get to say "The US is way more right-wing thant he civilised world!" with a footnote of where the civilised world is defined as that part more left-wing on my preferred measures than the US.
Instead of throwing around general statements with hidden implications, how about stating straight up what your notion of left and right wing are, what your notion of the civilised world is, and why you chose those metrics?
Since you mention the eastern hemisphere, how about comparisons with some countries in the west? Ireland, that still has an official religion and kind of means it? Argentina, that's awash with protectionism and loves to beat a militaristic drum about the Falklands ... I mean, Malvinas? Jamaica, where anti-gay sentiment makes Mobile, Alabama look like a mecca of tolerance?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday August 19 2016, @04:46PM
Oh quit the nitpicking. You know fucking well what my metric is: not letting a good 15% of your population be so poor due to dysregulated economics that they have to be on assistance. Not forcing people to choose between rent, food, and medical care. Not throwing people away like trash for being poor.
Basic. Human. Decency. That's my goddamn metric. No nation is perfect, but places like Norway do a hell of a lot better overall than the US does.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @08:18PM
Nits to pick matter in public policy. They matter a lot. Otherwise you're stuck at the level of bumper sticker policy.
And it's funny you should pick Norway, since they're actually gradually rolling back some of their social policies, on the observation that a heavily taxed and demotivated population with low incentive to invest leads to reduced capacity for growth and innovation. Not to mention, their right wing is (partly as a consequence) growing.
You know what else? Cherry-picking Norway as your point of comparison just means the US is far to the right of Norway, and means nothing whatsoever with respect to the rest of the world. So congratulations, you're right about one tiny corner case. The very fact that you have to reach for this corner case shows how weak your general case is.
So let's try this again, shall we? Take three deep, cleansing breaths and repeat after me:
"Politics in the USA is pretty middle-of-the-road in international terms, while being tolerant of lunatic extremes on pretty much all fronts."
There, was that so hard?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday August 19 2016, @08:54PM
Again: we're only "middle of the road" in international terms because 2/3 of the planet is ratfucking insane. Beware, too, the golden mean fallacy: the truth is not always in the center of two competing opinions. Sometimes it's way the hell off to the side of one of them.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @05:13AM
This is a gold mine.
If you think that 2/3 of the planet is ratfucking insane (to use your pungent phrase) does that mean that 2/3 of the planet thinks that you're ratfucking insane (at least on policy grounds)?
Maybe what seems like obvious common sense to you seems like a really bad idea to a huge number of people?
Maybe what seems like crucially important stuff to you seems disgusting, vile, and possibly outright evil to most of the people out there?
But it's cool. You could very easily be right. So, all you have to do is prove it. Lay out your political philosophy. Be organised, detailed and specific. Hell, submit it to Soylent. Maybe we can figure out how to reshape America in your image? Or, you know, at least according to your ideals.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:43AM
My ideals are simple but they're never going to be implemented, because they would mean too many people who are enjoying their elite status at the cost of making the rest of us suffer to varying degrees wouldn't be able to do that any more. You can't fix sociopathy with technology, and there are some people for whom the feeling of control over others is their driving force.
That being said, we've seen what happens when the standard of living goes up. The problem is that we can't do that with the current production paradigm: our base resources are limited and a lot of our energy production methods are polluting. My policy starts with a massive push for thorium-cycle fission and renewables, with fusion as a hoped-for but not necessary development. Desalinization has to be developed along with it and ideally run in tandem with, say, a thermal-mass solar power plant. Hydroponics and tower farms figure heavily into this too. And something you might call synthesizable housing, more or less "we can basically 3D print standard housing/apartment spaces." Imagine a second Manhattan Project, but with peace instead of war as its aim.
We're going to need some form of basic income, though I would suggest that most of it be in the form of vouchers for specific goods (food, healthcare, etc) rather than straight money, as we know some people simply cannot handle money. This is less because I think this is a good idea in and of itself than because the amount of productive work that needs done is rapidly shrinking as the population continues to grow. Since the end result of that is either mass starvation and riots or a huge welfare state ANYWAY, we may as well be prepared for it and do it right. Personally, I think a lot of people will still choose to work, and ye gods, we will have need of workers for all the above-mentioned infrastructure.
There will also be a heavy emphasis on knowledge, especially scientific knowledge. No one will be forced to learn things past 12th grade, just like now, but I would like to see it become a cultural point of pride to be well-read, rather than today's ignorance. I also want to see people taught to build and repair and create things from early on, and taught to be proud of hands that create and shelter, rather than hands that destroy and rob. The outdoors needs to figure more prominently too.
You're probably assuming I'm a big government type. Quite the opposite, actually; the point of all the above is that it will free people from much of the current system, which is a corrupted, incestuous orgy of dysregulation and cronyism and abuse. The education and engagement parts of this are massively important: we do NOT want a race of idiot Eloi tended to by a Morlock caste, so "everyone" will need to know the basics of how things like a hydroponic greenhouse or a wind turbine work.
Pie in the sky? Sure. I doubt this will happen in my lifetime, or at all; I personally suspect the human race is doomed. But you asked, and I answered.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:51PM
What you're describing isn't a set of ideals so much as a programme for action. This isn't bad, but you're not saying how you would get there. Who gets to push thorium generation? How? Using which incentives, prohibitions and legal structures? What are the limits placed on government, if any? How do you prevent government agents from becoming the new elite? How do you prevent anybody else from becoming the new elite? Why hydroponics and tower farms? What about the limited resources upon which they rely? How are those allocated? How are conflicts adjudicated? How do you assure Pareto efficiency with your system of vouchers? How do you prevent voucher black markets from cropping up? What about commodity black currencies? How do you compensate people who deliver things paid for by vouchers? How do you ensure that they give voucher holders equal priority?
These questions, in case you're wondering, come pretty directly in most cases from world experience with proposals similar to yours, whether you're talking about war rationing systems, attempts to do various forms of alternative farming at grand scale, and alternative legal systems that left lacunae in terms of dispute resolution over access to resources.
To put it another way, you're a meta-level too high. Get down to more fundamental points.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday August 21 2016, @02:13AM
Yeah, I've thought about all this, and come to the conclusion that the blocker is lack of political will, not lack of technology.
At this point, unfortunately, I think only a tragedy (and I count massive, bloody revolution in this category) is going to allow these changes to happen. Too many people with too much power are too invested in the status quo, and as this seems to be a consequence of human nature, I don't think there's any way of putting a permanent end to that.
There is a reason "may you live in interesting times" is a swear-phrase in Mandarin.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday August 18 2016, @08:01AM
You keep claiming things that aren't that far left of the U.S. but in reality are quite different. You claim, for example that the health care systems in the U.K. and Canada are not that far from the U.S.
So you're saying the U.S. presumes that you have a right to healthcare? That they too have to haggle between insurance and the doctor to figure out how much they owe out of pocket after deductables, disallowed treatments, and co-pays are accounted for? That they get dozens of bills for a single instance of care? That they are considered personally responsible for whatever their insurance company decides (post-facto) that it doesn't care to cover?
I'd say there's a world of difference in healthcare.
To get a good idea of how far to the right the U.S. has moved, look at Eisenhower. If you didn't know he was a Republican, you'd swear he was a leftish Democrat. Pretty much every 1st world country's right looks left of the Republicans and often left of the Democrats as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @04:22PM
Funny you should bring that up.
Yes.
A right is something you are in the right to do. It doesn't mean that you can demand it as a prerogative, or that you can impose a duty on other; merely that you are at liberty to do so if you should choose. In the USA, if you can find a doctor with whom you are able to make a mutually agreeable arrangement (generally possible) then receiving medical care is not a cause for going to jail.
But let's go deeper, shall we? More than a right, in the US, it's actually a prerogative for many people, in many cases. You may not be turned away from an emergency room, should you seek medical care there. (There are some other cases, but this is the most famous so what the hell I'll make it my example.) There is a clear, legally enforceable duty on the part of an emergency room to offer you some level of access to medical care.
On top of that, there are quite a few cases where the cost of medicine is socialised to a greater or lesser extent. VA, Medicare, Medicaid are again the most famous but certain forms of Social Security payments can also go under that heading, depending on where you go.
The big difference in the USA with respect to the UK and Canada (both of which have private health care systems, however atrophied) lies in the question of payment, and how much of an open-ended guarantee it is. In point of fact, you could easily say that if the USA had a military relatively similar in size per capita to that of the UK, the USA could afford universal tax-paid health care. The problem is that the situations are not symmetrical. The USA has nobody to fall back on in military matters. The UK does - the USA. In other words, the american tax base is subsidising health care in the UK.
Now, conversely, the notion of a "right" to medical care in Canada and the UK is rather truncated, because if the public health care system decides not to offer you what you want, or need, or not in a timely fashion, you get to ... experience the reality that public health care in Canada is a privilege granted at the pleasure of the government, on its terms, with its formulary, and that it has so long been so hostile to its private health care system that the alternative barely exists any more. (Not speculation. Been there. Suffered that. And it's no joke that medical tourism in the USA from Canada is alive and well.)
Yes, Virginia, in Canada health care is a privilege. In the US it's a right.