Slop.Me when I live in a society that caters to my every while: yesss haha yesss
Me when the same society caters to someone elses whims: this sucks
Indiana does not tax Social Security benefits. How rich is this person that they're facing big tax bills at 90? Sounds like this is an old thought deeply rooted from a life of unexamined privilege.
It's crazy how people don't realize how public transit and having a fucking literate population is a societal good that benefits everyone.
The wonders a bicycle culture would do for public health...
I don't think the opinion of a 90 year old guy on these matters or most matters is worth printing. I cant imagine being that old and caring that much, you'd be dead before anything changes even if people followed your crank ideas.
We should take his car away, it's unsafe anyway
die then
He's right. I don't personally go to school, so I don't use them. I don't mind if my doctor can't read, or the engineer who made the bridge by my house never learned algebra
And see it took me a minute cause I was like "Yes! I'm also tired of paying for car infrastructure"
Don't burden taxpayers for extremely costly public transit — almost free for bus riders — when most never use public transit. Transit is not available in most neighborhoods. 90-year-olds cannot walk a block to ride a bus, much less a mile.
How about you invest more into infrastructure instead of making it shittier? I got an electric Mercedes bus showing up every 15mins right in front of my home + 5 more lines to drive in all kinds of directions. And when I'm sitting in it, it's mostly children and elderly people in there.
There's also wheelchair users and people with walkers, for whom the driver can lower an inbuilt ramp if they need one. My grandma used them until her late 80s, and she lived in a rural place.
Its incredible the amount of people that are against bikelanes and public transit because of the severely disabled. Yeah, let's make the people that can't walk or bike a short distance dependent on the car. This will surely go well. Im sure they can all afford private chauffeurs and this will not at alle mess with their QoL.
Not to mention there are so many mobility aids for disabled people. But if you make cars the only viable transport, then a lot of them are also suddenly fucked, which puts additional pressure on the few aids the system provides, which makes things even worse for those that absolutely need it even in a neighborhood with good transport and infrastructure.
From the linked opinion letter to the paper:
As a 90-year-old experiencing double-digit inflation on every major expenditure,
I do not support Indianapolis dunning taxpayers for professional sports that I have never enjoyed.
...It does not make sense to support bond issues for discrimination by public schools that decline paying for athletic programs or school busing for school choice children.
Don't burden taxpayers for extremely costly public transit — almost free for bus riders — when most never use public transit. Transit is not available in most neighborhoods. 90-year-olds cannot walk a block to ride a bus, much less a mile
I know this one 90 year old that ran a marathon in my building. If you were just used to walking all your life, you would be able to walk at 90
I know this one 90 year old
One anecdotal observation does not mean that all people aged 90 who walked or ran throughout life will be able to keep doing so as they age. I know people in their 80s and younger who were active their whole lives and can barely get around. Two of them have Parkinsons. Six of them have had knee replacements. One of them has COPD so debilitating that he has to breathe in extra oxygen 24/7 -- including during the hour he spends every day on his in-home tread mill which he has used since he was in his 50s (he was also a hiker, camper, canoer, etc., but he also used the treadmill whenever not in the wilds, and still does).
The editorial writer is a fool, but please don't fall into the trap of presuming 'those other people' did something wrong, be it a failure to exercise or a failure to work enough.
Those are all diseases though, its not an intrinsic quality to being 90. Yes, you're more likely to get them as you get older, but again, its something that pops up for some people. Society is designed around making you inactive as hell.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10360303/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0197457217302057
The rate of mobility affecting ailments is roughly 30% of people beyond age 70. Regular walking results in better prognosis and extended lifespan for all groups outside of someone with say, a heart ailment. Its better to have a society that is designed for more activity as that directly results in increased lifespans. Its also important to have stations be accessible of course, too many buses, trains, and trams don't allow at grade wheelchair access. Some stations don't even have elevators.
I agree! Thank you for coming back with data, and I'm sure we'll agree that if a 1/4th of those over 70 have mobility issues, we should not blanket-blame the whole lot for personal failings. Sure, most of them probably /should/ have exercised more, but a good chunk got dealt a bad hand. I don't want to blame the elderly for bad health. I want to blame the editorialist for bad reasoning.
I really enjoy the ending
We need reduced state, county and local taxes and reduced welfare subsidies for those aged 18 to 64 who are able bodied but do not work to fully pay for their welfare subsidies.
"Those fuckin' 64 year old whipper-snappers....!!"
It takes extreme restraint seeing this to not launch into a rant about "useless eaters". On the one hand it's fascist eugenics language designed to dehumanize people with disabilities. On the other hand how else is one meant to describe a selfish 90 year old decrying the one measly avenue they still have to contribute to society because they don't directly benefit from it.
I think it's pretty easy to not go on a fascist rant about "useless eaters" because the problem is obviously not that he's being provided for, and that wouldn't be a problem even if he didn't have to pay taxes (say due to poverty), the problem is 100% that he's trying to tear down every good thing in society that isn't directly benefiting him in the most narrow-minded perspective possible (because these services do benefit him by making society run better).
Don't let spite make you justify being a reactionary.
go ahead and die then
What the fuck are you even using your money for at 90. Just give it over for people who can actually do things.
They are paying for cable so they can watch 24hr news cycles that encourage their racism, paranoia, and bigotry.
Society grows great when old men cut down all trees that they won't get to sit in the shade of -Boomers
Ok sure I did use that shade for decades, but now I'm done with it so what use are those trees now?
I'm tired of paying for the cops and courts and jails protecting reactionary dipshits from being punched in the face.
all im saying is hey maybe we can cut these guys a deal that works in our advantage
You have been a net negative for society for decades. Assuming you are a burshwá dipshit, probably all your life actually.
Sometimes I'm tired of paying to keep old farts alive but you won't hear me constantly complaining about it because I'm not a monster.
Sometimes those olds are working actively (usually in meagre ways) to uphold shit I hate like white supremacy. But I’m still not like “fuck em all, let god sort em” because, like you said, we aren’t monsters.
Don’t worry: at 90, you won’t have to pay much longer.
ok cool then we get to do this for the military and funding to Israel
Yeah, all the freed up bus and school funds can go to developing a new fighter jet that we can send to Israel! /j
No that's the one part that stays. As any serious small-government Libertarian will tell you, spreading death and destruction both domestically and overseas is the only worthwhile use of taxpayer money.
Insert Graeber Thiel debate.
Then perish
maybe we should take away the paved roads to this guys suburb and see what he thinks about that
Isn't the situation in the US that upkeep is payed by property taxes anyway and only initial construction is funded by the state?
Cool, then no more social security.
Besides, the boomers don’t even want it.
Okay get in
He actually makes a reasonable point. He pays for stuff that doesn’t exist. There is no public transport, so why is he paying for it? Schools in the US (public ones at least) are more about indoctrination than education, so why pay for it?
I agree that increasing taxation is a step towards fixing this, and other third world living standards in an allegedly first world country, but have trouble believing that it wouldn’t just be diverted to corrupt officials bank accounts.
Increasing standards of living here would first require increasing accountability from public officials. THEN you can increase taxes.
He says dont pay for public transit because most dont use it.
He then says dont pay for public transit because it is not accessible.
He says it is almost free, which is bad, because he pays for that too.
How are you going to make public transit more accessible without paying for more Public transit? How are you going to get people to use public transit, if it is not affordable?
This logic is often levied at public transit, whilst private automobiles go interrogated. Like it is here. Its not a good argument. Its basic boomer mentality. And its even worse, since he makes it explicitly about himself.
Don't burden taxpayers for extremely costly public transit — almost free for bus riders — when most never use public transit. Transit is not available in most neighborhoods. 90-year-olds cannot walk a block to ride a bus, much less a mile.
"Well I can't walk a block, so that means no one should get to use it."
Neat. Lets cut off dialysis funding then.
Why waste our tax dollars for the minority of Indianapolis residents who use their bikes to drive to work while ignoring repair of roadways and street markings.
Bikes damage roads way less, which increases their longevity. The infrastructure is also typically cheaper and you see more people binding the better the infrastructure is.
Another argument is that public education needs less money, since its doing really poorly. That's not a good argument.
We need reduced state, county and local taxes and reduced welfare subsidies for those aged 18 to 64 who are able bodied but do not work to fully pay for their welfare subsidies.
"Fuck you, give me mine"
Funding for christian schools (of one sect) was blocked by christians (of another sect).
