Leo Gura

This is not a systemic solution. If your solution is have people save up money to pay for $100,000 surgeries and cancer treatments, that will result in the unnecessary deaths and suffering of millions of people. Don't then be surprised when some depressed, angry guy walks into a school and shoots your child in the face. All because that guy is pissed off that his child died of a cancer which he didn't have the money to treat. Don't forget, everything is connected in society. What goes around comes around. If you treat people like animals they will act like animals. If your own mother was hungry, would you let her starve on the streets? If you own mother broke her leg in the woods, would you leave her out there by herself to fight off the wolves? Why do you take that attitude towards others in desperate need?

Seems like Denmark, Netherlands, Switzerland, and Scandinavia are leading the way. It's easier to do in small nations with high per capita GDP. It's much harder to do in a nation with 300 million people, huge income disparity, and lots of cultural/racial tension.

This is exactly what the right-wingers foresee and the reason they get so defensive and don't allow any gun laws whatsoever. They see it as a slippery slope which will eventually lead to the ban of even handguns. The biggest fear of right-wingers is that liberals will take away all their guns through a gradual series of bans. Don't forget, we have a 2nd Amendment here: So you cannot ban all firearms without a Constitutional Amendment, which requires 3/4ths of all states to agree. This is highly unrealistic. I propose a compromise where liberals guarantee that handguns and hunting rifles will not be banned, in return for sensible gun control. But see, right-wingers won't even agree to that because they will think it's just a ploy with further bans to come (as your strategy suggests). In the very long term (perhaps 100 years), I agree that many kinds of firearms will probably end up banned. But not without a fight. The right-wingers understand this, so they are already digging in their heels.

David Doel is great at talking about this. He's a Canadian and he explains how Canada's healthcare system works:

Bernie will not be able to pass Medical For All with winning the Senate and also massive popular support from the people. His whole strategy is to lead a cultural movement to get it done. It won't be easy and he knows that. It needs to become a cultural movement along the lines of Civil Rights in the 60's. The health insurance industry will throw hundreds of millions of dollars to stop Bernie if he starts to get close. They will fight this thing to the bitter end. The devilry will get shameless because that industry will be fighting for its life like a cornered racoon.

I actually don't see this as a big problem. We've already had weapons of mass destruction technology for a long time. It is very strictly regulated and so no citizens can realistically access it. You can't access rocket launchers, flame throwers, grenades, chemical weapons, land mines, etc. That stuff is so dangerous even the most extreme gun advocates are not foolish enough to suggest that people have a right to own rocket launchers. Really, the trickiest case is hand guns. Because on the one hand they are very reasonable to own. But on the other hand, they are still very lethal and can cause a mass shooting when in the wrong hands. How do you regulate that? That's a very tricky balance. I would like to see mandatory gun safety training courses for anyone who wants to own a firearm. Similar to getting a driver's license. But of course this still won't be enough to stop mass shootings.

@Mikael89 There are 300 million guns in America. It is simply unrealistic to get rid of them all. Realistically you cannot get rid of handguns, shotguns, and hunting rifles. And those alone are enough to create many mass shootings. Yes, we can have better background checks and ban assault rifles, but a handgun is enough to kill 10-20 people. Handguns are NOT going away. So this problem needs to be addressed at a deeper, cultural level. If only it was as simple as banning guns. What you have to understand is that American culture is big on hunting and guns. You have to take this into account. You can't just compare America to Europe or Japan because our cultures are different. Americans will not ban handguns. And even if we did, millions of people would just own them illegally because they would disagree with the spirit of the ban. It would be like banning weed or alcohol. You can't ban something which millions of people think is reasonable to own. Banning handguns would be as unrealistic as banning cars. Responsible gun owners will get understandably very upset when you penalize them for the actions of a handful of extremists. There are 10s of millions of responsible gun owners. Try to imagine how you'd feel if some kid shot up a school after playing Grand Theft Auto, so then we ban all Grand Theft Auto games. Millions of decent Grand Theft Auto players would be pissed because out of 10 million players there is bound to be one extremist. The reason the problem of mass shooting hasn't been resolved is because it's a very tricky problem. Even if the Democrats succeed in passing strict gun regulation, I still predict mass shootings will continue to happen. So what then? How do you solve that?

It's a big one. Still uploading.

Well, that's mostly just classic stage Blue/Orange. Japan is very ethnically isolated and monocultural. They don't have much diversity. They tend to be either very old school and traditional, or modern and materialistic. They work themselves to death and they are extremely conformist. Stage Orange and stage Blue qualities. Japan might develop faster if they had more cultural and racial diversity. Without that diversity it becomes like inbreeding, an echo chamber of the same old ideas with not enough cross-pollination or people challenging the accepted paradigm. Highly diverse places (like big cosmopolitan cities) are forced to be progressive and innovative. Which is why rural areas tend to be so backwards and deeply stage Blue. Stage Blue can only be maintained through lack of multiculturalism. Which is why conservatives tend to hate multiculturalism. They view it as an evil. Because they want to be monocultural. Multiculturalism makes them scared and uncomfortable because it threatens to erode their simplistic nationalist identities. Japanese culture values politeness over truth. This is problematic. And yeah, that leads to hiding serious issues under a fake veneer of politeness and deference. Their suicide rates demonstrate the limitations of unchecked materialism. If you run materialism to the hilt, what you'll get is depression and suicidal thoughts as you realize that no amount of material success leads to happiness, but you won't know any alternative (because materialism denies spirituality). So the only way out becomes suicide. Our materialist culture doesn't properly teach people that the solution to depression and suicide is genuine spiritual practice. So yes, suicide, alienation, and depression in materialistic cultures will skyrocket until the lesson is learned.

@AlldayLoop No, I am not suited for that. And even if I wanted to, with the things I have said in the past, I would never be electable to anything.

@Shiva What's even crazier is that I pay $300/mo for health insurance which I basically cannot use because it has a $7000 deductible. So it's only usable if I have a serious illness/surgery. And under this plan, my choice of doctors is extremely limited. My insurance does not cover my favorite doctors. I have to go to the worst doctors in town if I want insurance to cover it. Otherwise I'd need a much more expensive insurance plan. This makes preventative care very hard. The system is not designed to help sick people, it is designed to exploit the sick.

It's not fantastic even if you have money. I am considered upper class. I buy my own health insurance. It still sucks. It's very expensive, deductibles are very high, and the paperwork is so complex and full of so many scams and loopholes that if I had a serious health issue it would be nightmare to deal with. I basically pay for it but never use it. I pay for all my medicine and basic doctors visits cash, out of pocket just to avoid dealing with all the limitations and hassles of my insurance. This winter I went for a couple of doctors visits for a common cold/flu. I was supposed to pay like $50 co-pays and that's it. Then 3 months later they send me a bill for $300 more that I supposedly owe them. Yet none of these costs/fees were told to me upfront. That's how the system is deliberately designed to work. No costs are fairly announced. The system is so byzantine and opaque by design so that they could charge you any ridiculous fees they want. No other industry works this way. It's totally corrupt and needs to be nuked from on high. And I'm not even talking about the thousands of people who die every year due to lack of coverage. But the hassles of dealing with all the paperwork alone is enough to warrant nuking the system. It's absurdly inefficient. Meanwhile in Canada you can just go to the doctor for a surgery and pay nothing out of pocket. And no absurd paperwork.

I asked that you don't play devil's advocate in this thread but ground your objections in genuine objections & confusions you personally have. I am not here to argue with devils.

You can't avoid the truth of the matter. What the scientist needs to realize is that all science is mediated through subjective experience and that it could not be otherwise. To skip over this point is the crux of problem. This is a giant epistemic oversight on their part. The subjectivity of science is the elephant in the room that no scientist wants to acknowledge. The very belief that science is objective is itself a subjective belief! Science is objective because one imagines it to be so.

These shootings are an expected phenomena of a hyper materialistic society. As stage Orange runs its course, the limitations of Blue/Orange will become more and more apparent in the form of these kinds of ego backlashes. But this shines collective awareness on the problem, which will ultimately lead to its resolution and a transition into a stage Green society. Banning guns will not be enough to resolve this. What's necessary is to make society more fair and to provide more opportunities and social support for alienated people. It's an alienation problem. Alienated, nihilistic, depressed, angry, impoverished, poorly-socialized, and sexually frustrated people adopt radical and violent ideologies. Same as in the Middle East. As stage Orange becomes more and more excessive and unhealthy, alienation will increase, violence and radicalism will increase. When people lack a proper spiritual connection to life, they become hopeless and turn to drugs, sex, exploitation of others, and nationalist ideologies. This is why it's important to foster a sense of community and to help those who are in bad shape. Because if they are not helped, they will not simply suffer silently by themselves, they will lash out at the world. These shootings are really a cry for help. Society is failing not only the victims of these shootings, but the shooters especially. The shooters are lashing out because they don't have proper channels for getting the love they want in healthy ways. And of course Trump is pouring gasoline on this problem because he epitomizes toxic Orange while goading on Blue and demonizing Green.

@Enizeo You just have to be curious about it. I don't not sure there's a mechanical method to it. If your curiosity is lacking, then it won't go anywhere. For me it's just spontaneous.

You do not appreciate the historical context of 600 AD Arabia. Mohammad was not just a spiritual leader, he was also a political leader. And of course I don't think Mohammad was the most enlightened guy.

The free market has proven that private health insurance is a scam. All advanced democracies except the US have public healthcare systems that work. This is just a no brainer to people who live in those countries. Medicare works great for seniors. Now just imagine that expanded to everyone.

@RendHeaven Mushrooms

@XYZ Watch your disrespectful attitude.

I don't do weed so my opinion on it isn't worth much.

Green cities will be expensive cause people like to live there.

Stage Green is all about building community. You ain't being very original. People have been saying that shit for 2000 years.

Austin, Seattle, Oregon.

@Vignesh Pagadala Name one thing which isn't highly grounded in subjectivity.