Have you lived, worked, or interacted with people who have been on long term welfare? What works in other countries can't be transferred over and work here like people think they can. Reform? Sure! I'm all up for it. In fact check my comment history about 6 months back and you'll see that I'm actually the one that suggested paying people a minimum income for being peaceful, since 100 years from now most jobs will be automated and the unemployment rate will skyrocket to over 50%. I have since abandoned that plan after careful consideration that things don't work out the way we intelligent human calculators think they will. Adjusting numbers on paper doesn't take into account for primitive human behavior.
I know we here at Hacker News are entrepreneurs and are dead set on trying 100 new crazy ideas of which 99 will fail and cost investors hundreds of millions and 1 will succeed and exit, ipo, or fizzle out in 5 years. We're so crazy we even try ideas that have already failed 12 times over thinking we're going to do something different this time. Humanity doesn't change as much as you think. You can't take the human out of the human. And this plan for giving away money or housing or food (which has already been tried numerous times) is dead on delivery.
> Adjusting numbers on paper doesn't take into account for primitive human behavior.
No, but treating humans like humans gets us to behave like good humans. Even in our own country we've seen murder rates go down year by year, with few anomalies, as we've cleaned up things like child abuse and spousal abuse and so on.
Primitive human behavior used to include bear-baiting and beating children bloody for not being able to recite a Latin passage correctly. Is it any wonder that reducing that has lead to fewer people who have no real compassion?
> You can't take the human out of the human. And this plan for giving away money or housing or food (which has already been tried numerous times) is dead on delivery.
Except in all the countries where it's worked for decades, right? Is the Nordic Model a fantasy, then?
Denmark, Sweden, and Norway are genetically and ethnically homogeneous, making it easier and faster for the society to enforce social norms and standards. Japan and South Korea are as well. That's why that system works so well and those countries are so...well... civilized and developed. What works for a homogeneous country will not automatically work for a heterogeneous country like America. There are some fucked up people living here. You really don't get it because you haven't been here. Again, like I said in my first comment, you have a good heart and good intentions but you might think this way because you've been living in a nice walled garden away from shitty people.
The people of a country determine the majority of its success. Not just it's laws. People from different countries, people from different backgrounds have different levels of civility. It may be cultural (which can be changed) or it may be genetic (which cannot be changed unless weeded out genetically). This is why I'm saying what works in one country won't automatically work in another.
Few people I have the chance to listen about such maters actually know what they are talking about. I upvoted your strings of replies here.
I live in Romania and here we always have had all kinds of immigrants from all around us. Maybe there were inter-ethnic tensions but the environment was always civilized, and the minorities integrated themselves (mostly) as a part of society. ...well, with one notable exception - the gypsies. The rest of the Europe are blaming us for not putting enough efforts on their education and integration but they do not seem to have an idea who the gypsies are and that is especially irritating. There are all kind of... let's say "peculiar" people in this world with whom it is difficult to accomplish things, but many of us are not willing or prepared to acknowledge this.
> Denmark, Sweden, and Norway are genetically and ethnically homogeneous, making it easier and faster for the society to enforce social norms and standards.
I have absolutely no time for racism. BTW, I'm American, born and raised.
I know we here at Hacker News are entrepreneurs and are dead set on trying 100 new crazy ideas of which 99 will fail and cost investors hundreds of millions and 1 will succeed and exit, ipo, or fizzle out in 5 years. We're so crazy we even try ideas that have already failed 12 times over thinking we're going to do something different this time. Humanity doesn't change as much as you think. You can't take the human out of the human. And this plan for giving away money or housing or food (which has already been tried numerous times) is dead on delivery.