It just makes me feel sick when I read how much some people earn without deserving it.

But I tell you what, in our country the discussion is becoming alive now, since a lady (Mrs Susanne Wiest) has applied a petition for which has been granted in the federal country she lives in.

Proof: [url]https://epetitionen.bundestag.de/index.php?action=petition;sa=details;petition=1422"]ePetition[/url]

She applied for an unconditionally basic salary.

What that means is, that EVERY single citizen should get the basic right, by the grounds of basic law, to receive Euro 1.500.- per month. (£1376.- / $2.021.-)
And every child Euro 1.000.- per month (£918.- / $1.348.-)
That's WITHOUT any attachments, strings or commitments.
Meaning, whatever one decides to do, the basic income, will be secure, no matter what.
On the top of that income, everybody would be free to earn additional money.
But the whole point is, the independancy that would give you and everybody around you, it would leave you to decide WHAT you do, and in what timeframe you want to do it.
No pressure, no force, no corruption, no reasons for fear not to be able to survive.

Yes, experts in finance & economics have calculated it through, IT IS ABSOLUTELY POSSIBLE TO FINANCE THIS.

When people on the streets are asked about their opinions, they first of all question whether that is eligible for financing at all.
And secondly, they doubt that people can be trusted to still contribute to our society in any form or shape.
The first objection is already proofed wrong.
But the second seems to be grounded on a fundamental mistrust in human beings in general.
What can you see in that justification ? I can see only a tense fear about the unknown.
because that what it is, isn't it ? It's about thinking of a system which we never had before, nowhere in the world.
So, we don't have something to show that this system actually works ... yet.

Just consider the following.
About 45% of the population are in work, the rest are pensioneers, children & teenagers, the unemployed, housewifes / housemen and the handicaped.
From there you can see that the majority already lives from income which they don't "earn" in the traditional way.

The beenefits, a gouvernment pours out every single year onto the population, makes already approx 70 % of that support what a "unconditionally basic salary" already would cost anyway.
But think of the advantages for one minute, and you will realize maybe what potential there is !

Here only a few which come to my mind:

1. Crime will decrease because far less people would commit crime out of devastation.

2. The amount of security we have to take care of in order to protect ourselves / posessions is crazy in my eyes. That would decrease as well.

3. Prostitution is a very big issue all over the world. That would decrease significant.

4. At this moment of time, a huge number of people are working voluntary in our society.
I know of many in my circle of friends who can't follow all the things they want to do because of a lack of free time.

5. The massive decrease of administration, because all other benefits would be abolished.
That alone and the simplifying of complicated tax law would be a change most welcome and overdue too.

6. Think about the level of aggressions between people who're pushed to the limit.
Those people are the ones who can affect you in a very negative way, if you're not one of them anyway. People are not bad by nature, but they can be pushed / forced to the point where there's just no space for them to distinguish the fire where it burns the most.
We can read about the results of their actions every day in the newspaper.
Reports where people got killed for reasons which are beyond us.
I believe that the independancy this system could give everybody, would cause a significant decrease of violence.

etc etc etc

From there you can see what potential of people's dedications & efforts could be released.

Just imagine what you could do if you would be given the "time" and the "independency" to do your things. And nothing & nobody could put you under pressure.

And now just think for one moment how your life might have looked like, if you had been given the chance from your birth onwards.

What would have changed and how would things have turned out differently for you ?

I have only got into this political hot topic since the collection of signature for the said petition was closed. I was too late. The petition opened end of December 2008 and closed end of February 2009.

Normal petitions get about 1.000 to 2.000 signatures - the most.
This petition has collected 52.973 signatures, and that only online !
If it had been continued until today, it would have grown to over 500.000 signatures in only three months time !

Since then, this idea and all information I was able to gather from the internet about it, does not release me anymore.
From all I know now, it is the overdue next logical revolution we all need in our country, after the fall of the wall in 1989.
I'm convinced that it is the one thing that would kick off changes in the whole of our world, which are purely positive for everyone involved.
That would introduce a change affecting every single one us and everybody around us !

Having followed discussions between pro & contra politicians, I noticed how corrup the leader of our society really are.
I realized that the major objection they have in their job role is to secure their position and not to represent the people of their country.
I realize that we live in a very, very injustice society.
Wealth is not fairly divided.
In fact, the poor work for the rich.
In a society where certain people are given the oportunity to gain so much money by investing, there is no fairness.
Please do not come with "Yes, but all have the same chances.", you know that it's bullshit and purely capitalism thinking.
Unemployment can hit everyone of us and there is no reassurance existing, except we take things now in our hands.

Since I got to know about this subject, I just know that this system is the answer to most of our problems and to establish a real sense of justice.
Not that shit what we're having now.

How would society work, with 90% of the citizens doing nothing all day?

I know I would take the €1500 per month and dedicate my life to workout, watching movies, reading books, listening to music, smoking weed and having sex.

normal petitions require you to physically sign a piece of paper. and possibly mail it in. much harder. an internet petition is worthless - see all the petitions trying to save this or that canceled show...

Mrs Susanne Wiest has done it the correct way, and has been invited to continue / follow up her application at the German Federal Gouvernment.
The public feedback has been overwhelming until now, far beyond anyones expectations.

You cannot compare this with any of the many petitions happened over the last decades in our country.
And neither can you follow the many heated discussions on german TV from where you are.
As the election is already due in September this year, the outcome will be exciting to follow.
If things are going to happen in favour of the claimant, we're all in for a little surprise.


Ãœberlegungen zur Finanzierung eines bedingungslosen Grundeinkommens
http://www.archiv-grundeinkommen.de/strawe/Finanzartikel_06_Endfassung-1.pdf

Bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedingungsloses_Grundeinkommen

Finanzierung und Wirkung
eines bedingungslosen Grundeinkommens
http://www.unternimm-die-zukunft.de/index.php?id=54

Ein bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen für alle
http://www.ladeva.de/magazin_details.php?magazin_id=46

Bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen (BGE)
http://www.grundeinkommen.info/fileadmin/Text-Depot/Newsletter8/TG-Modell.pdf

FAQ Bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen
http://autismus-kultur.de/autismus/politik/bedingungsloses-grundeinkommen.html#finanzierbar

Ein bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen ist bezahlbar.
http://www.forum-neue-politik-der-arbeit.de/content/workshop/2008/Fischer_Pelzer.pdf

Looks like I'll be moving to Germany. Do nothing in life and earn vastly more money than by working your ass off the entire day - sounds good to me!

How about instead we just give everyone a flat salary of €1 million a year. Then a €1 million poll tax can be introduced to finance it.

It's a stupid idea. Haven't they thought of the massive inflation it would cause of things that the 'economically inactive' purchase most often. Fast food prices would rocket, as would cigarettes, alcohol and illegal drugs. Satellite and cable TV prices would skyrocket, as would seats on SleazyJet to the Costa del Skin Cancer.

With the elderly having much more disposable income prices of bingo nights, walking sticks and incontinence pants would no doubt triple over night.

Some people earn more than other people because they actually work harder. Why can't some people just accept this?

Because capitalism is EVOL!!! It's not fair to the lazy, so it must be abolished!

Another thing is that if this were enacted, the world would run out of garbagemen and janitors real quick! No one would want to clean up dirty toilets for a small wage (which would get smaller in this "ideal system").

I don't what it's like in your country, but over here, people who clean the streets have very high wages. You need very good connections with the city authorities (read: bribe someone) to get that job.

really. so an actor pretending to be a doctor in ER, for example, works harder than a real ER doc getting paid a fraction of his wage and saving actual lives? so Dennis Kozlowski worked harder than all the shareholders whose money he stole? so Fred Goodwin worked harder than all of the taxpayers who are now funding his £703,000 per year reward for causing the UK's biggest ever bank failure?

I have no shame in quoting Barack Obama on this one:

As it happens I work in the medical field and I can tell you doctors make a decent wage. Some consultants are on over £250k pa. While a few actors might make an amount to dwarf that, most don't. Think about the extras in soaps.


Just because one person made some money in a very unpopular way, doesn't mean everyone else better off than oneself has. There are plenty of wealthy people who have nothing to do with the banking crisis and are being hit hard by it with thousands wiped off their income. Yet the public in general has just decided to lump all affluent people in together. That's just looking for a scapegoat. The unions are lobbying the one-eyed Scottish idiot to introduce a new top level of income tax. It's got nothing to do with them and is based upon ignorance and spite.

As for Sir Fred, yes, the money does not reflect the performance of the institution but he is legally entitled to it. Contractually someone signed off all of this paperwork. The government bailed out RBS including committing to supporting the pension scheme. No questions were asked at that point by our glorious leader, the one-eyed Scottish idiot.

And where did most of those people get their money, influence, and control? It certainly wasn't handed to them by the gov't, and does anyone really believe that all people with money are evil and stole it from "the little guy". My father-in-law, is one of those so-called "wealthy people" that Obama seems to hate (not really the one's he's talking about in the above quote though). He started as a assistant mover for a moving company. After 20 years, he bought his own truck and became an owner/operator, which is like a contractor who works for bigger companies. After 30 years, he owns his own company and doesn't have to do a damn thing but rake in the money his employees make...but he still does the moving himself! My wife tells me that they had some hard time growing up, he didn't make much in the beginning, but he got where he was with hard work and persistance, not gov't handouts.

This is just Obama's attempt to vilify the wealthy so he can socialize America, and whether you agree with that policy or not, no one should be silly enough to believe it's anything but that. Socialism works in the movies when everyone has a reason to do what they want, but in reality, most people would do nothing but sit on their a$$es and get paid. If you live anywhere in the US, go to the closest mid-major city and drive around the outskirts of the downtown area (yeah, the "rough" parts of town) during work hours. Ever wonder why there are so many people at home during the day in those areas? Two words: FREE MONEY.

Get rid of the ability to prosper beyond the masses, and you get rid of the DESIRE to proper at all.

Using Hollywood or major sports figures to toss out the argument of hard workers, isn't the best though...I think we can all agree those people are overpaid.

It's obvious that this will not be settled by debate, it needs to be settled by a trial. I think Brittan or Germany should take a leadership role here and try it out for at least 10 years, and if its going well, expand to the whole EU for another 20 years. At that point you're just starting to talk about having touched a single generation. If it's still going well at that point, expand to every industrialized nation, and if the theory is correct, this mandatory wage will cause a huge increase in world affluence and in another decade or two it will have overflowed into all the other nations so it can be rolled out to the world.

The fact remains the same however, it's just a theory. We all know that communism is the best form of government in theory but in practice it didn't work out so well. Try this new policy out in a couple countries first to test the theory, maybe Brittan, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Brazil, and Australia so you get some diversity in geography and values systems. If the program works well over a period of 10-20 years in those countries then expand it out to more. Anything that is a theory must be tested before rolled out to the whole world, everyone knows that's just good policy. You wouldn't sell food without testing it first, so there's no reason to sell this policy without testing it first.

You described the American dream yet not everyone is their own race car meaning that in order for them to race they need to serve the stable owner which makes them dependent. This idea suggest free racing and those who whish to race harder are free to do so, ok, fine with me.


Anyways...
I don’t necessarily feel threatened by the idea shouting alert general we have â€

"In 2008-2009, the full basic State Pension is £90.70 a week for a single person and £145.05 a week for a couple, but your individual circumstances may affect the amount you get." http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/PensionsAndRetirement/StatePension/DG_10014671

That's about €450 a month for a single person.

Before we start talking about giving able bodied adults €1500 a month for doing nothing, how about we look after the pensioners first? Then maybe the disabled, then mothers who give up work to raise children.

I can't see where the money will come from to finance a scheme like this.

I can see that there will be major problems getting people that do work, to happily accept that part of the tax they pay, will go to pay someone to sit at home watching movies and skinning up all day long. (does sound nice though)

Apart from the many problems of implementing such a scheme, personally, I feel that everyone in a society who is able to, should contribute something and not expect to live off the work of others.

How is this different from communism.?

Well obviously in communism everyone gets paid the same regardless of the job, with this stupid idea everyone gets paid the same for doing nothing at all. This is the most stupid idea I have heard in quite a while.

If anyone thinks this will actually work, thats because they are so stupid they have just given away all of their money to Nigerian scammers who promise to pay them £1m and cant get a job so need the money and want this to rescue them.


Andy

'in communism everyone gets paid the same regardless of the job' is A BIG LIE! I know very well how people were paid in a real communist society.
Remember, there's no such thing as an 'ideal communist society', only the grim reality of tyranny. Many people are willing to take advantage of other people for some petty advantage.
Those within a communist leadership and those who serve them to oppress the people are getting paid MUCH BETTER!

Obviously, I disagree with a salary without any work. Those unemployed should be helped by creating new jobs.

During the interwar period there were discussions in the UK about a citizen income, this has been documented by Valter Van Trier in Every One A King. And Thomas Paine wrote about a citizen income as early as 1796 in his book Agrarian Justice so this is not a new topic.

However, here's a bunch of more contemporary links that might be of interest to you:
Citizen's Income (UK based)
U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network
Basic Income Earth Network
Basic Income Studies
A basic income project in Namibia

Then there's the negative income tax set forth by the British economist Juliet Rhys-Williams in the 1940s and by Milton Friedman in his book Capitalism and Freedom from 1962. It's been put into practice too; from 1968 to 1980 the governments in US and Canada conducted five large-scale experiments - paper by Karl Widerquist.

The SWAB as outlined in the above link seems like a much more efficient method of providing benefits than the complex and confusing system we have currently in the UK and would presumably result in a substantial saving in admin costs which might actually result in a net saving for the treasury which could be spent on infra structure projects which would create more jobs.
The crucial difference between this scheme and the one put forward by the 'simple' lady, Mrs Susanne Wiest; is this line:
"The SWAB would provide an income for anyone who is legitimately resident in the UK and is both willing and able to work (or is exempted from the latter criterion because of illness, disability or caring responsibilities......)"

The standard redistributive flat tax has this property: if you earn Y, you get (1-t)Y+b where b is given by whatever the government has left over after paying for any direct expenses. (Maybe this is Milton Friedman's form.)
What's ridiculous about the policy in the petition is that b=$15,000. That would require a huge tax rate, would hugely reduce work done, as so is probably not even feasable.

My point exactly, people will find a way to fiddle, or most likely weill just not bother working at all or at least a full days work (kind of like many people under communism).

If there is no incentive to work (money, or other) then people dont.

Right now in the UK there are thousands of people exploiting the "free money" the government is giving them whilst they are not working (not to say that everyone does, or that I think its a bad idea), but that some people are always unemployed. Some are unemployed because they are lazy and can "get by" on benefits until a job that suits them turns up, some are unemployed, homeless, single teenage parents because they get loads of benefits and actually have enough money to be happy in their free house.

What would happen to society if everyone got heaps of money, it would fall apart.

Here is how I see at tax systems.

Fair tax systems, are very complex, and cost a lot to administer (you the taxpayer pay for this, and complain about how much it costs).

Less fair tax systems, are very simple, and very cheap to administer (you the voter complain about how unfair it is even though its cheap (average per person).

Most countries end up with something between the two, the bulk of the collected revenue is based on a simple tax system, the rest is complex, but there to keep people happpy because it is seen as fairer.


Andy

Nope.
Let's continue the discussion here then.


The one thing that drives me crazy the most is the argument that people should "earn" their place in society.
And if they fail to prove that they have the value you can accpet, they have automatically lost justification to live, is that right ? Sounds like a paranoya to me.

Is it right that you think, those who cannot be motivated paying back, should die or maybe be sent into gas chambers ?
Possibly you wouldn't want to make your fingers dirty with blood, and rather choose to let the case resolve itself, because those people falling through the social net don't turn to be criminals, no ?
They don't know how to abuse the system, and if they did, they would never do it, is that what you think ?
They basically are wrong instantly, because we don't want to look closer at what has gone wrong with the individual.
One equal haircut for everybody.
All we want is them to contribute. How they do it, doesn't matter and you wouldn't care how sensless and underpaid the job was, as long as he does something ... anything would do.
That makes you sleep better at night ?

That is typical thinking of people who either are well off or having a hard life and could not bear others to have it any easier.

Who are you to decide about life and death of others ? Are you God ? And even if.
Why pointing out constantly that people "get" money for doing nothing ?

You haven't finished thinking and to give your opinion based on insufficient data, that's just not smart.


Or why don't you critizise that most wealthy people, doing nothing all day ?
I guess in your eyes, they have earned their place by being lucky, right ?
So, to live and die has become a matter of luck.

I cannot hear that vomit anymore, about who works harder - deserves more. Neglecting that you have to have some investment before you can multyply it.
Where does that the poor leave ? I don't think you care, as long as it works for you.

It appears to me that you defend the blood eagle, and want the host to accept the eagle to continue sucking blood.
If the host complaints, you simply point out that everybody has to live with blood eagles, sucking blood.
Doesn't make sense to you ? To me neither. But who cares about sense ?

While the idea of a Communist society is beautiful in a way. All mankind doing what they want, and sharing the wealth; the nature of man is not setup in such a way to allow this to happen. People want to own a better car not because it gets better gas mileage or drives faster ect., they want it so they can say "HAHA I am better than you, I get more vagina because my daddy had more connections and therefore I can drive around in a car that represents how much better I am than you." Name brand clothing, cars, ect. are usually of no better quality, but people buy them simply to show off. If you gave everyone enough money to buy a Porsche then there would undoubtable be people unhappy with it because they don't really want the name brand, they want to rub it in everyone else's faces.

The US government is however severely F'ed up. I live in the Ghetto. Three people have been shot at the corner less than 200 ft from my girlfriends mothers house where I stay. I have a Bachelor's degree in management and can't find work. There are people selling drugs right down the street with sports cars, and if you call the cops to alert them of this they say, we will take care of it. But nothing ever happens. I go to the store to buy soup and crackers because that is all I can afford from my savings and in front of me there will be several <usually African-American> shoppers with carts full of ribs, steak ect. totaling upwards of $500., then they get out their food stamp card and pay for it. If you follow them to their car afterwards they will get into a Lexus or BMW and drive off. They pump out kids and sell drugs or rob people and all day you can see them sitting on their porches harassing anyone who walks by. My stepfather, his friend/neighbor have both been robbed while buying gas. I was assaulted but they didn't get anything from me because I'm broke.

I say forget handouts. The reason this country is rotting is because of handouts. I am literally to the point of starving and no one will give me a handout. I worked two jobs and attended college full-time where I made nearly straight A's. I got a Pell grant which paid for about half of my education, but I still owed $30,000, 15,000 of which I paid by working, 15,000 I still owe.

I say that a maximum wage should be instated at say $5 million, anything above that goes to taxes. Minimum wage should be set at whatever it costs for 2 people to survive, rent, food ect. which would bring it to probably double what it currently is.

People in prison should be forced to work the worst jobs imaginable <for minimum wage> until they repay 5 times whatever damage they caused to society. If someone mugs someone they should have to pay back any medical damages, and work lost by the victim, any damages to property, ect five times before they are released. If you kill, or rape someone then you should be forced to work for minimum wage your entire life. There is no reason that honest citizen should have to pay taxes to keep criminals locked up.

Make prisoners work, make crimes more strict, and cut all handouts, and maybe things will start to turn back up.

This sounds like less of a problem with the concept of a handout than with who gets one.

Just to rephrase my argument from the other thread:

-People create a lot more wealth than ever before
-There are a lot more people creating wealth than ever before
-Practically this means our economy keeps growing
-Our planet will not support this much longer
-Most people still lead miserable lives despite economic affluence

however
-There are objective ways to determine wether resources are used constructively or destructively
-By doing away with destructive resource use we can diminish our economy to sustainable levels while gaining constructive wealth.

but
-Overall this will require a lot less manpower.

The Unconditional Basic Income is one way to prepare for the last, inevitable consequence of the coming postindustrial age.

Gamingod, you point out one of the issues with the UBI. In Belgium at least the UBI is championed by people much on the libertarian side of the political spectrum.

The UBI is a step in the good direction, but it will only work if certain amenities are guaranteed by the government. Healthcare, eductation, infrastructure, etc.

People who would most benefit of the UBI are likely to have bad decision making skills. See for example the correlation between poverty and fast food consumption.

The reason I like the UBI despite this flaw is that it's still a trojan horse for the postindustrial, cornucopian economy. It is certainly easier to sell than communism, and less damaging to individual liberty.

qviri, you're right, and it's petulant, and it's standing in the way of progres, but you can't change human psychology.
There are concepts that will make handouts acceptible to people, and percieved fairness is a big part of it.
If you are following what happens in the UK right now you'll see that there's a limit after which society breaks down.

At one point too many people unfairly profiting will make people pull out of the system.
Perception is the key. If that sounds like a call for propaganda, keep in mind that you're already surrounded by advertisement selling a dog-eat-dog economy.
Some counter-advertising focusing on humane values might help people re-assess what is and is not fair.

Let's assume that a state somewhere decided to introduce this scheme.
What would be the outcome if everyone thought that it was a damn fine idea and everyone stopped working?
Any thoughts?

If there were to be a system like UBI in place, I think it would have an extremely detrimental effect. Unless the UBI was so low as to be sufficient for only the basic requirements of food, shelter, clothing; the incentive to work would be removed for many people.
Society would become even more polarised than it is today; those that have a natural inclination to work hard to earn more money to buy nicer things would continue to do so whilst at the same time resenting the fact that their taxes were subsidising that section of the population that are naturally inclined to laziness and freeloading.
Most intelligent people would, I imagine, want to work for the satisfaction they derive from their work, and I'm sure that there would be a small group of well meaning people who would take the UBI and choose to do voluntary work for charities and to help the old and sick; just as I'm sure that there would be a small group of people who would supplement their UBI by drug dealing and thieving.

Exactly. And one really doesn't want to experience how it works in practice.

It's terrifying that people get such ideas. They should really talk with people who experienced socialistic "equality and common ownership".

If someone wants to be wealthier, then he/she should work more, better or change his job, not make riots from boredom like some poor people (immigrants on social welfare most likely) in France because the government can't or don't want to give them more for doing nothing except setting "rich" peoples cars on fire.

Taxes should be as low as possible and people should work to provide for themselves, not for other people. Only people who really need social help (for example people with disabilities) should receive it.

Capitalism isn't ideal. Ideal things don't exist. But socialism is utopian and in practice is much worse. You really think that giving money for nothing will resolve any problems? That everybody's live will magically become better and there will be no poverty? You can't make something from nothing. Take away from the rich ( well, everyone who isn't poor) and give to the poor? To make everybody equally impecunious? Not to mention the scale of inflation caused by such unrealistic plan. I wonder how many years would it take such socialistic system to collapse? I think it wouldn't withstand a decade.

There was a funny saying in Poland before communism was defeated : "Regardless you stand or lie, you are entitled to your pay" It's a very loose and lousy translation, without rhyme, but you get the idea - your are paid the same amount regardless of the work your are actually doing (if any). You can imagine that such a situation isn't best for the quality of work done by people and their motivation. And you want to go one step forward and pay for nothing and you thing that everything will work just fine, people will do their work out of charity.

There will always be people who earn fortunes event though they don't deserve it. In every economical system. Nothing will change it and rumbling about it smells like ordinary populism.

Wow.

This idea is just so twisted, I have to rant about it.

This sounds eerily like a combination of the worst of socialism and capitalism. All the manipulativeness, mysticism and eccentricity of the market with hardly any of however much meritocracy it promotes.

Okay, I could understand a bit of basic provisions to make people worry less about getting by. I mean, socialized medicine already works like that...

You know, they already kind of do this with condoms.

Yeah, so, I think there's a lot of other unconditional provisions which it would be okay for governments to provide. For example, a supply of low cost vitamin pills. Or- I'll take a somewhat local perspective on this- maybe a few pounds of seal meat a year(surplus from fur hunting). Or a few pounds of wheat germ(surplus from white flour). Maybe a few pounds of barley(lots of it here, I think they just end up feeding most of it to the cows, although it probably doesn't make the as sick as corn). Maybe an allotment of cheap vegetables. Of yeah, and why not a bit of supplies for fixing things to reduce hazardous waste.

Or how about just unconditional employment? That's far less extreme. Maybe something like 3 weeks a year worth.

Yeah, but, this whole basic salary scheme would completely distort things. I'd guess it would:

-drastically cut labor for unappealing jobs
-reduce incentives to be wary of being fired
-reduce the impact of a criminal record, at best just increasing the need for fines and jail time
-cause a lot more people to be obsessed with bargain hunting
-increase homebrewing and such

just to name a few inevitable odd side effects.

That bit makes no sense at all.

I mean really, where is the problem? I've just read the best argument for this idea yet.

That cliche is just absurd. "Theory" is nothing but a conceptual model of reality. If something is proven to not work in real life, it shouldn't work in theory either, you know then that the theory is crap, you need to make a new theory, and if you come up with a theory that makes as much sense and predicts a bad outcome, in all likelyhood, it's a much better theory.

Fu**ing commies brainwashing everyone.


If that is your problem, why don't you focus on that?


Crime is a very broad concept, it includes a lot more than property crimes, and even that would actually increase if you looked at this realistically.



How could this in any way be argued to increase security for ourselves, not in relation to securing our posessions?


Then rape would increase.



This is an incredibly naive view. People are very good at finding reasons to resent each other and giving each other reasons to do so.


People pressure each other in all sorts of ways. They'd find ways to do so.



NO. I've already wasted far too much time thinking about what if my life hadn't been twisted up by all sort of bizarre underhanded schemes by selfrighteous shits who think they can save the world.

Hmmm, maybe I should step back from this thread a bit.