So I’ve tried Mastodon, Pixelfed and didn’t like them. Mastodon is nice if you wanna ”tweet”, but that’s not for me. Pixelfed was dead.
I quit Meta because of tech bro fascism, and hated Twitter even before it was X because, let’s face it - nobody has ever changed their opinion on anything because of a Twitter conversation (I know I’m exaggerating, to get my point across). I was in Reddit for a few weeks, and the conversations there seem mostly friendly and constructive, but I decided I don’t want to have anything to do with social media corporations. Besides, I noticed I could scroll endlessly. And that’s not good for me.
Lemmy seems nice. There are still some topics I’m interested in that don’t have active communities, and I’m still learning on how to have my feed from multiple instances. But still, this is the way to go for me.
Against algorithms, against fascism, for free internet. Thanks for coming to my boring Ted talk and have a nice day.
Lemmy is just left wing politics in an echo chamber
I guess you're getting downvoted by those offended. It absolutely is.
Note: I am left, communist in fact, but the way political topics are discussed is a clear doomer circlejerk. I'd love to at least see more variety over "Trump is stupid, Elon is mad, senators are bootlickers, death to Nazis, we're all gonna die". Like, yeah, we got it and we know it. What next? Any political action, maybe?
Believe it or not, but I also am a leftist. Social democrat.
I say a lot of bad stuff though. Like: old people that did not have kids, should have less pension and use the money they have been saving up by not having kids.
This is seen as insane, but.. old people are the wealthiest class in most societies.
Yes there are exceptions and these people need help. High minimum pension for sure. They need a decent life.
But why would I want someone who didn't even have a kid to replace themselves as productive entity to gain a fantastic passive income on top of their already passive income generating assets?
a compromise would be something as simple as: retired person above age 65 gets +amount of euros per working child in insert home country.
It would incentivise having kids.
The reaction I get usually is that it's inhumane, that people are seen as production houses only, that people don't wanna be born... A lot of doomer stuff to be honest.
It would be fun if there's a place where you can only deny an idea if you can replace it with your own solution to the issue. In this case "aging population" (popular issue in Belgium right now)
I fail to see advantages over the expansion of direct support for families with kids.
If such families would be adequately supported, parents wouldn't be so financially disadvantaged and this would automatically resolve the issue of assets as well.
Paying it as part of pensions on the condition of children working in the home country makes people's finances directly reliant on the actions of independent actors (their adult children) and punishes people who, for example, cannot have children in the first place due to medical reasons, lack of a partner, etc. It also doesn't bring financial support when it's needed the most.
And relying on asset accumulation and personal investments as a source of pension funding is quite odd to me to begin with, as salaries don't always reflect the good done for society (for example, public sector work is often paid more poorly, despite bringing maximum value for the state), and also because personal investments cannot be done with the same precision, competence and risk management as the funds do (and even if you invest in funds, they take a cut). I believe asset accumulation should be minimized in favor of public support nets (including decent pensions and good living conditions for everyone).
These families already are adequately supported. We need to find a way to guide people into the actions we want them to do.
Like, they want me to stop using the car to work. Okay, they allow everyone at my hospital to use their taxes to pay for a commuting e bike. It's a financial incentive. (Don't worry I'm not a healthcare worker, just administration, I am not the right person to work with people in need).
Indeed there are exceptions and therefore exemptions. If a medical examination says that it's difficult for you or your partner to have children, then they'd be exempted of any punishment.
I don't think it's psychologically a smart move to punish not having kids, but to reward having kids. That's why I say "extra pension". (By behind closed doors reducing pensions in general first, but they don't know that).
Helping people that can't have kids... We could allocate resources to them to help them adopt a child. Something like that. Once again, psychologically it would help them accept this. People give them the option that nature didn't provide them.
We're competing against the funds actually. I own ETFs that tracks the Stoxx 600. It has a yearly expense of 0,07% while bank funds would take like 2% or whatever.
Personally I'm not even thinking about my pension, cannot know what will happen in 37 years so I'm definitely taking it into my two own hands to accumulate assets.
Now, I understand why a pension is desirable. It's a safety net. And I agree with that. High minimum pension for anyone who is unable to work due to old age. Just like for people who can't work for other reasons.
But as Belgian, I know a lot of people that try and take advantage of our social safety nets. For a lot of people it's not because they need it, but view it as an extra passive income while doing nothing.
That's damaging to the social democrats. We need to get rid of the abuse, the corruption. We need to motivate people to do effort and reward that. And we have. Minimum wage in Belgium is quite high. Income inequality is 0,26 gini. Median net wealth is 250k euros.
Motivating people to have kids is also a necessity. To live more together in the same household. To use fewer resources. Be economically sustainable in the long term.
People are scared in Belgium, everyone is retiring. We've been accepting a lot of immigrants to help us out with this. Luckily, second generation immigrants are tremendously helpful.
To have a meaningful social net, we do need a good amount of people that can work. That can be parents.
We need to motivate people. And everyone that really cannot help society with this, they are exempted of course.
My friend her parents never worked a day in their lives. It's absolutely normal. Her dad's disabled and her mom takes care of him.
But another guy "didn't work for 10 years cuz his knees hurt" while he randomly showed up at our hospital working, magically, when he'd lose his free passive income. He's doing a desk job. Like everyone else.
In my eyes, being adequately supported means not having any financial difference between having vs not having children. If that would be the case, there wouldn't be a financial incentive to not have them.
If we go above that (incentivise parenting even more), it's just throwing money at the problem in hopes it will go away. If someone will only have kids if they'll be rewarded on top of having extra expenses covered, they are basically parenting for money and this won't end well.
As per taking advantage of the social system - the more people overclaim something, the better the regulations become. There could be a certain ceiling on the types of support that could be taken at the same time, for example. As per unemployed folks living on subsidies - unless they have a valid reason they can't work (and there are those), they should get mandatory public employment if they stay in the unemployed status for a while - one that would respect their disabilities and limitations, if there are any, of course.
I'm literally going to financially reward my wife for taking time off work in order to take care of our kid.
Parenting is labour. When you're parenting, you can't be doing a different job.
My wife's parents in Indonesia don't have a pension much. It's barely anything. Her mom just gets money from my wife and her 2 sisters.
That's how it used to be for a long time, pension is relatively new.
So in the vast majority of history, parents always were financially rewarded for having children.
Median age in Indonesia is 30, while in Belgium it's 42. While we're far wealthier in resources. People just stopped having children because it wasn't necessary anymore.
We can't act like this isn't a problem, unless the people that willingly caused the aging population issue take full responsibility and go through hardships in order to help the society battle a period of low work force.
That's you, but it should be on the state level so that every parent is given everything to make parenthood go smooth.
People got used to comfort and are not willing to sacrifice their standards of living for having children, especially through a recession. Make them feel secure about their present and future - and birth rates will grow.
Aight, I agree it's better to give positive help at one group instead of trying to punish the other.