[mystified5016]

Police no longer feel the need to do their jobs, and Americans in general have just lost any sense of empathy or even awareness of other people.

But also we have a serious problem where taking away someone's license to drive is to sentence them to poverty if not homelessness and starvation. We don't have decent public transit and there are very few jobs within walking distance of most residential areas. Those jobs that do exist don't pay a living wage because pegging minimum wage to inflation or even the poverty line is "communism" and an "attack on businesses".

Our problems with car fatalities is really only one small symptom of the ongoing collapse of American society.

[sokoloff]

My objection to raising minimum wage too high is that it makes it illegal for people with modest skills and abilities to earn a living unless they can find an employer to dress up charity as a job.

I know people who would struggle to create $100 of value for an employer per day. I would rather they be allowed to hold a job at $80/day than to have minimum wage set above the value they are able to create.

[eggsome]

In Australia there is a scheme to pay lower wages to people with disabilities (lowest is approx $3 per hour).

Seems to work well for people who would otherwise not be able to participate in the workforce.

https://www.fairwork.gov.au/pay-and-wages/minimum-wages/empl...

[graemep]

> Police no longer feel the need to do their jobs, and Americans in general have just lost any sense of empathy or even awareness of other people.

Is that different from anywhere else? In terms of change over the years, at least.

[dqv]

> But also we have a serious problem where taking away someone's license to drive is to sentence them to poverty if not homelessness and starvation.

This is why I always get uncomfortable about people saying things like "seniors should not be allowed to drive". They get the part about it being a safety risk, but then the suggestion of increasing the availability of public transit is, like you say, "communism" and "an attack on businesses".

Just today, I communistically attacked a business by walking to it, which communistically saved a parking spot for someone who would have a hard time walking there, necessitating them driving.

In all seriousness, the freedom of walking and being able to interact with the environment outweighs the "freedom" of going long distances in a vehicle.

I have this weird optimism about the decline you are talking about: that somehow a new, more thoughtful, culture will arise from the ashes. One that is less concerned with monetary profit and more concerned with social profit. It does suck that there will be so much suffering and still no guarantee that any such culture arises, but I do have a tendency to smoke hopium until I am comatose.