• Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      7 hours ago

      Silly “leftists” when Conservatives reinvent Maoism: 😱

      Seriously though, horseshoe theory is nonsense.

  • kemsat@lemmy.world
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    19 hours ago

    I think all citizens should have to go through the military’s Basic Training when they hit 18. No need to do the 4 years of service if they don’t want to, but do have to make it through boot camp, even if you want to go to university.

    • Allero@lemmy.today
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      14 hours ago

      As a scientist (i.e. someone who went through a lot of academia) who’s strictly opposed to taking a gun, especially in the name of a state, hell no.

      A better idea would probably be to advocate for peace, so that people wouldn’t have to learn these things to begin with.

      Military is not productive labor, it’s just draining countless lives and resources in the name of some guy’s fucked up ambitions.

      • ubergeek@lemmy.today
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        18 hours ago

        I dunno… being trained in individual and squad movement tactics might come in handy over the next 4 years. Firearms training too, that in restricted states can let you skip classes you’d otherwise pay for is cool too, and would be handy for a lot of peeps.

    • Allero@lemmy.today
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      14 hours ago

      We still live in a world with mandatory military service in many countries. I’d trade it for that.

      But otherwise thanks, I’d rather have neither.

  • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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    19 hours ago

    Over a decade ago, Obama proposed significantly expanding AmeriCorps, the tea party Republicans basically did everything they could to water down the expansion to amount to basically nothing.

    I wonder if Twitter Republicans even know AmeriCorps exists.

    • NewNewAccount@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      Stop demonizing your neighbor. Demonize the 1%.

      That income range still very much encompasses “normal” people who already pay a large share of income taxes.

      Tax the super rich (both income and wealth), and redistribute that money via healthcare, education and social programs like UBI.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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        7 hours ago

        To be fair, we can’t get to higher taxes and social services without both mass labor organization and recent successful Socialist revolution, which is what allowed the New Deal to go through. Socialism is still a necessity, and that starts with organizing.

      • TheRealKuni@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        Stop demonizing your neighbor. Demonize the 1%.

        Even more than the 1%, the 0.0001%. An excellent resource to illustrate this point:

        Wealth Shown to Scale

        I feel like everyone should go through this at least once. It’s eye-opening. Even people who we generally think of as crazy rich, like the average hedge fund manager, are just a drop of water in a pond compared to the ultra-wealthy.

      • JokklMaster@lemmy.world
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        18 hours ago

        Yeah people don’t get this. Many of those people may agree with you and were simply lucky enough to get comfortable in life. They are certainly not the main contributors to inequality in our society.

        • CH3DD4R_G0B-L1N@sh.itjust.works
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          16 hours ago

          I like to say it like this: I’m doing alright, but not “able to weather serious healthcare in America” alright. I think that’s a decent way to lessen the confusion of class divide.

  • JargonWagon@lemmy.world
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    21 hours ago

    Didn’t they try this already on like teenagers or college students or something? Didn’t it go horribly wrong?

    • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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      21 hours ago

      I for one will be sowing all my seed incredibly close together, the plants will grow stronger together. Also all birds are now counter revolutionary, get out your noisiest banging pans my dudes.

      Also, how do I invest in pig iron futures?

  • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
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    23 hours ago

    Yeah, can’t wait to see what a bunch of bored teenagers and twenty somethings will do to our food supply after the first couple of seasons fucking around. Forced labor also doesn’t mean quality labor.

    Authoritarians never learn that forcing people to act like they want doesn’t work.

    • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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      19 hours ago

      RFK Jr has seriously proposed sending drug addicts, which he defines as people taking prescribed medication for mental health reasons, as well as your more stereotypical hardcore drug addicts… to basically agricultural work / detox camps.

      No meds, no phone, live in a barracks, do farm work… while you and everyone else are cold turkey quitting heroin, or fentanyl, or ritalin or zoloft or wellbutrin.

    • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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      20 hours ago

      The thing about forced labor is that quantity is its own quality.

      You can also use certain government controlled documents as an incentive. For instance, it was common in the Soviet Union to use agricultural service as a requisite for graduation.

    • sudo@programming.dev
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      20 hours ago

      Its actually been done before and most teens quitted or were fired within weeks because of the inhuman working conditions. The quality of the work they would do is completely irrelevant.

    • MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml
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      21 hours ago

      I imagine it would be similar to the authoritarian practice of forcing teenagers to attend school: it really depends upon how it is organized and executed with additional variations in response based upon the individual.

    • bratorange@feddit.org
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      22 hours ago

      The trick is just that everyone has to do it. Without exemptions for rich, influential etc…. (Ofc. not disabled, pregnant etc…)

      • Cypher@lemmy.world
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        20 hours ago

        You will quickly find all the rich have bone spurs which prevents their service.

        Now get back to the fields peasant.

      • Madison420@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        It does make sense and the issue here isn’t communal service periods but for making it only the young which “by chance” makes it so almost everyone who had any hand in it wouldn’t have to do it ever.

        If it were every citizen had to do some form of labor for some period I don’t think anyone would have much of an argument.

  • DreamButt@lemmy.world
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    23 hours ago

    Anytime I’ve done some world building in my head for the great human empire :tm: it involves some sort of rotational labor period in each citizens early 20’s to give them exposure to a few different styles of work

    It’s a nice way to give back to the community while also getting to see how the rest of the world lives

    I’m sure there’s flaws with it but sounds a hell of a lot better than what we have now

    • Eatspancakes84@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      Great, I would love to have some free research assistants! Oh wait, these plans invariably only concern manual labor (real work TM).

    • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
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      19 hours ago

      I think if you could opt out of you really really didn’t want to do a particular job then it would be fine. Maybe if it’s a job that a lot of people dislike, like sanitation, you could provide an incentive to make it worthwhile - like you get the next season off.

      • DreamButt@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        Well I imagine it like high school electives. You get to pick from a selection and go through 3 or 4 until you’re ready to settle one some sort of career

    • BanjoShepard@lemmy.world
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      21 hours ago

      I’ve had similar thoughts. Maybe not a rotation, but a compulsory period of service following high school that where people can select from a variety of public service assignments.

    • Aremel@lemmy.world
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      23 hours ago

      I genuinely believe everyone should serve some sort of customer service role at least once in their life.

      • ch00f@lemmy.world
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        23 hours ago

        Except the American response to this would be to be extra shitty to retail workers since customers were shitty to them during their tour.

        • abekonge@lemmy.ml
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          21 hours ago

          That’s not how walking a mile in someone else’s shoes work. It’s the opposite.

          • XeroxCool@lemmy.world
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            14 hours ago

            That’s not how it should work, but it does. It’s a conservative thing to lack empathy. They struggled 20 years ago, so 1. It must be the same exact struggle and 2. Instead of making life better for all, they’ll actively contribute to maintaining shitty life for these “entry” people because that’s apparently just how it works.

            They want $15/hr for flipping burgers? I only got $4! (inflation is meaningless, intangible, and not calculable)

            They want more savings and less money? Stop buying coffee! (bespoke coffee has tracked way lower than inflation, making daily Starbucks pretty insignificant compared to rent)

            They want more respect in customer service? Why, I dealt with all kinds of bullshit! (as demonstrated by their shitty attitude, with less working hours, better benefits, lower population density, less stripped work force, local management support, and a higher percentage of people speaking the common language)

            It’s not walking a mile in their shoes, to them. It’s walking in very different shoes and assuming everyone’s shoes are the same. Just look at any meth overdose death story when it’s a nice white girl. She just made a mistake, or got tricked, or was down on hard times. If the case looks like their own daughter, there’s empathy. Anyone else? Victim’s fault.

          • kemsat@lemmy.world
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            19 hours ago

            Many Americans believe that the new guys have to suffer, like they had to, and that it’s the suffering that unites us. Many don’t seem to be ok with being the last ones that suffer so the next don’t have to, which is seen as unfair. At least that’s been my experience living over here.

            • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
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              19 hours ago

              That’s a really unfortunate philosophy because at best it guarantees things never improve

              • kemsat@lemmy.world
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                19 hours ago

                Oh yeah, it’s very unfortunate, specially considering that saying about planting trees whose shade we will never enjoy.