DEVO
Devolution of mankind
Instead of getting smarter , some choose getting dumber !
Gene pool is polluted, everyone pissed in the pool !

faffi wrote on 07/28/18 at 10:50:03:


You gonna Lead the way?

Eegore wrote on 07/27/18 at 20:32:03:



Other than the question from JoG2, the only reply worth its "ink".

I didn't want to imply that I am any different, but that doesn't make mine/our actions better. I've had several near-fatal accidents that have cost society quite large sums to rectify. I ride 5000 miles every season for pleasure alone, ignoring that the rubber worn off my tires turn into micro-plastic that has a devastating effect on animal life, which again will end up in our bodies. Etc. etc.

Turning the deaf ear and blind eye towards the problems we as a race cause does not help, though. You may think it is your right to eat until you weight 500 lb and are totally out of shape, but some poor nurses will have to fight with your carcass when you get ill. Which you are quite likely to become. Or if you drive after a couple of beers, you are far more likely to cause an accident than if you were totally sober. And so on. In other words, our selfish actions more often than not have a negative impact on others around us.

So what can be done? Well, the simplest way is probably to make doing the right things beneficial and the wrong things unattractive. Like taxing junk food to the moon and have no taxes on healthy food. Like giving big insurance discounts for putting speed limiters and alcohol-locks in cars, and raising the insurance for those who will not. Like having big taxes on environmentally unfriendly wrapping. Like giving tax reduction for those able to document at least 30 minutes of fairly high intensity physical activity on average per day. Stick and carrot.

The idea of bottled water when I was a kid was a joke.
I hope I'm dead before it's the only way safe water.
I'm not at all comfortable with the shale oil, horizontal wells and the huge fracking jobs. Fracking a standard well doesn't require but a fraction of the fluids and doesn't expose thousands of square feet of strata to the pressures designed to fracture rock in order for fluids to flow,, and some of what they pump is very aggressive and toxic,,  that separate the water from everything else.

Nanny state social engineering pisses me off.

I agree that education is vital, but there is more to it than that. Everybody knows smoking is bad and alcohol is bad and not using the body is bad, yet it is very common to smoke, drink and sit still.

In Norway, everybody - for good and bad - have the same education for the first 10 years of school. And if you have the grades, you can go to any university for free (more or less). Yet we see that people from families with higher education eat better and keep fitter than people from blue collar families. They also live substantially longer. So there is likely some differences in the brains as well as with the environment that cause these changes in behaviour.

BTW, in Norway alcohol carry heavy taxes (a pint of ordinary beer cost around USD 12 in a restaurant or bar) and this does help reduce overall alcohol consumption. The lower the price and the easier the access, the higher the consumption (anything stronger than normal beer must be bought in special stores). Tobacco is also heavily taxed, which also helps reduce the number of smokers. In addition, the high taxes on alcohol and tobacco pays for some of the extra cost these groups are to the society.

As to food - if a hamburger suddenly cost 3 times more and salmon got a 20% price cut, don't you think many would toss the burger and try fish instead? If chocolate got twice as expensive, is it likely that consumption would drop? And if fruit at the same time got cheaper, wouldn't many eat apples and oranges instead? The savings on the health budget would be massive.

Add: Pay some junkie huge amounts of money to draw ugly, pointless, permanent pictures all over their bodies.
Oh, wait - this is a motorcycle forum! I take it back! Sorry!