kava

And what do companies have to do with it?

We live in capitalist countries. Anything and everything will have money involved. Even public healthcare involves money changing hands with private contractors and such. There is no way to get around this fact. And wherever money changes hands it creates the potential for perverse incentives that we are possibly opening the door wide open for.

What I am getting at is that the length of the life has very little to do with its quality.

I see what you're saying. I think if somebody cannot sustain life by themselves in a practical sense, then it's a different scenario. For example someone being born in the scenario you outlined would not live without intervention. However, we are talking about the inverse. A body that would otherwise survive (at least for the near future) and we are artificially ending it.

It feels wrong to me in both scenarios. A sort of symmetry in a way.

but if someone doesn’t want to live anymore, why is it anyone’s business but their own?

I think here I need to separate two groups of people. 1) somebody who has a terminal illness and is in pain. I think in these scenarios, I am more open to the idea. 2) people who are depressed or in some sort of chronic pain who otherwise could live a full life

In the 2nd scenario, I think that suicidal thoughts is a mental illness. It's not something healthy adjusted people think, even when they are in pain. By indulging in their desire, we are doing them a disservice. Like I brought up before, I made the analogy to addiction.

When someone is addicted, they make the conscious decision to use a drug. It's their body, it's their choice. They have the autonomy to do whatever they like- even if that choice is going to kill them. For example with fentanyl leading to an eventual overdose.

I think we, as a society, need to take care of these people. We need to provide them treatment and get them off the drugs. The solution isn't just to put them in a box and give them a ton of drugs so they can use until they die. To me, it feels like we're throwing away their human dignity in the name of individualism. We should take care of each other, not indulge each other's worst thoughts and actions.

This is what makes me feel wrong about this.

same as the logic behind thinking abortions are wrong

I don't consider a fetus a human life so I don't see it as wrong. I'm not even religious, I'd say I'm "culturally Christian" sort of like most Jews I've met are "culturally Jewish"

The way I view it- you're gonna be dead for the rest of eternity. Any amount of suffering you are going through now is temporary. You will eventually die.

Of course, I know it's easy to say that when you're not suffering in pain like your grandfather may be. So like I said, I'm not judging and I'm holding reservations on this until I've thought more about it.

Really, to be frank, I think people already have the option to kill themselves. They have always had that option. What I really disagree with is giving our institutions the ability to kill people. I don't trust our healthcare systems, I don't trust our government, and I don't trust all the middlemen in between. They could pressure people who don't need to do or they could rush judgements.

Typically, not friends. I'll greet them and make small talk.

I walk my dog multiple times a day at similar hours and other neighbors do as well. So I'll run into the same people regularly. We'll talk a little bit. Sometimes I'll talk a few minutes, sometimes it's just a greeting.

I have asked on two occasions in 3 years for a neighbor to take out the dog. So generally no, but it has happened

idea in theory, but rather because people were nowhere near responsible enough to administer such a program in practical application

What I find interesting is that nowadays we see eugenics in a bad light. Back then most progressive liberals endorsed it. But the Catholic church- condemned the idea of eugenics. It was seen as an affront to God's creation. Us artificially manipulating something that should not be manipulated.

I agree with your statement above. I don't trust our institutions. I believe people will fall through the cracks and will get killed unnecessarily. Suicide is a permanent thing that you can not undo. It's a similar reason I have misgivings about capital punishment.

I think there are two primary reasons for the difference in treatment of these two killings

1. The killing of the CEO was meant to be a message to the country. It's a different scale. Because something like this is such a spectacle, it gets national attention and the local and federal authorities are forced to deal with it quickly- otherwise they lose face.

2. Ultimately the power structure cannot tolerate these types of rebellions. It's like a slave talking back to the master. You allow it once and you open the door for it to happen again. You have to try and shut it down as quickly as possible.

are you saying that those construction projects won’t get done

No, but it would both

a) slow down significantly

b) costs would rise significantly

The issue is it's hard to find laborers. Americans simply don't work as hard as immigrants. I've been doing this for about a decade now and that's one thing I've learned. You don't hire Americans to dig holes. They will work half as hard, complain 5 times as much, and leave as soon as they find something better.

But Pablo and Juan will work with a smile on their face, don't care about being nomads working from state to state without complaints, and they'll work Saturdays and even Sundays if you let them. You gotta basically force them to take days off.

Low-skill Americans prefer easy jobs like working at a cashier where they can stand around all day. That's what they're good for. Skilled Americans do office jobs, management, supervision, etc.

So let's say we get rid of all illegals. During a time where we already have a labor shortage, we would eliminate 10~15 million people from the economy that basically fuel key parts of our economy.

What would happen? An exacerbation of the labor shortage and inflation. Large construction companies would see their costs jump up. Productivity would lower. Which would mean less demand for construction materials. Which would lead to price instability - aka more inflation. Small businesses would be most effected.

That's just construction. We would see effects in many industries such as landscaping or agriculture as well.

I mean, this is they way the left makes it sound… as if, we DON’T support illegal immigration, our country is doomed… and it’s ridiculous.

First, I want you to remember being pro-illegal immigration is a right-wing capitalist policy. Ronald Reagan gave amnesty to all illegals. His economic advisor, Milton Friedman, advocated for open borders.

The reason being because immigration is essentially an extension of economic policy. The labor market is a market like any other. The more regulations you put, the worse it gets for business. Regulations include, for example, restricting the importing of labor or artificially removing labor from the population (aka mass deportations)

Second, I would like to remind you that Obama deported more people than Trump did.

This entire conversation has nothing to do with left versus right. Both parties are more or less in agreement on the general trends. There has been no significant immigration reform for decades, even though there have been multiple instances of GOP majorities and DNC majorities. Why?

Because of the reasons I outlined above. It's actually really beneficial to the economy for us to have an underclass of cheap labor that has less rights than everyone else. It's essentially a mini and voluntary slavery. Sort of like how Dubai imports Indians. Lots of pros, very little cons.

Thirdly and lastly, it's only been since 2016 or so that we have seen the anti-illegal and anti-immigrant rhetoric in general start increasing. You want to know why?

Because our society has been taken over by populists. Our country is in its death throes and vultures are already picking at the corpse.

This once free market economy that produced the strongest country in the world is being destroyed bit by bit. They want to restrict the market as much as possible. First, you put in tariffs restricting the free flow of goods. Then you artificially freeze the labor market.

The end goal? An economy designed for only the largest corporations who are allied with those in power. That is what we are becoming and they are accomplishing that by pulling the wool over your eyes.

I understand this phenomenon and it goes all the way back to Socrates. There's that famous quote.

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.

And he even used to complain about the new invention of writing. Said it would weaken people's memory because they wouldn't have to remember everything.

So I get it. I understand what you mean.

But I think this is different. Because let me posit this.

Cigarettes existed for a very long time, but it wasn't until the late 1800s that they started being produced en masse. Very quickly, the majority of the country was smoking and smoking a lot. Much more than before.

That eventually caused a dramatic increase in lung diseases because a lot more people were smoking. You could say "Tobacco has been around forever. Every generation has fads"

But in reality, it was different. It was a new thing. Cigarettes were hand-rolled before. Now you could buy a pack and smoke your 20 a day much more easily.

I think this is more similar to what we are seeing with social media today. I consciously make an effort not to judge the youth. And I'm not judging the youth. The social media "epidemic" does not only concern the youth, but all generations. Smartphones in general but modern social media specifically operate in manners we don't fully understand.

Look at the brains of gambling addicts. Your brain literally gets rewired when you play slots all day. Social media operates in a similar manner as slots. We are all rewiring our brains in a way that has never happened in human history.

It could cause permanent damage for all we know. We just haven't had the time or studies to confirm this. And if we look at research that exists right now, social media does increase rate of anxiety, depression, etc. It's not so simple.

There’s also obviously plenty of, for lack of a better word, entrepreneurs

Yeah, it's interesting.

Over the course of the last two decades or so, the government has slowly been enforcing the I9 verification process. Where employers have to get some information from you when they hire you. Social security number, driver's license, etc. This makes it so illegals shouldn't be able to work most jobs.

Of course, there are ways around it. I've worked for smaller sized publicly traded companies that simply look the other way. I knew a middle manager who was illegal and the company knew about it- but didn't really care. So they just cooked the books, so to speak, so the employee could continue working. I remember when he got deported. His wife wanted her niece from their home country to come visit and stay with them for a couple weeks. Girl was 16. Customs officer thought it was suspicious, started asking girl some questions. Officer did not like the responses.

So they waited at the airport with the girl until employee went to go pick up his wife's niece. Officer then questions employee, he doesn't have appropriate documents. 8 months later, after the standard deportation procedures (which involves going in front of an immigration judge, etc), he was deported.

Moral of the story? If you have to pick up someone from the airport and you're illegal.. find a friend with documents and send them instead. Safer

One way to get around as an illegal that seems to be very popular is just to start a company and work as a 1099 subcontractor.

So for example, you don't need documents to start a business. You start a business, apply for an EIN number with the IRS under that business. Then when you go work for some construction company, you don't work as an employee. You sign up as a 1099 contractor.

That way the company hiring you is not legally liable for anything - they are simply hiring a company to provide a service. They aren't hiring illegals to do work- whoever the contractor chooses to hire or not is not a concern of the host company. Uncle Sam gets his taxes and everybody is happy.

Vast swathes of the construction industry work using that system. I don't want to name names, but some very big-name companies would suffer quite a bit should we actually deport even a small % of illegals.

My main point is that the system is designed to keep undocumented immigrants in the “informal economy” by paying under the table

I understand the point you're making and I agree with you. It's designed to keep them in the shadows. Although keep in mind, it's not always under the table. Like I outlined above, a lot of it ends up being taxed and documented properly. I know illegals that get paid $2000 weekly salary, have a work truck assigned to them, and have their rent paid for. They do their yearly taxes and Uncle Sam doesn't care because he's making his cut.

There's a high demand for people that speak both English and Spanish and have both a) technical skills (aka can work spreadsheets, emails) and b) have construction experience. It's really hard to find these people and many of them tend to be illegals.

You want to really hurt illegals? Get rid of the ability to do what I just outlined. But then Uncle Sam would lose $$$. So that's what I'm curious what Trump is actually gonna do.

There absolutely are illegals being put in similar situations as Dubai does with the Indians. For example, the Chinese love doing this. They'll start a Chinese restaurant and then import Chinese to live and work there for pennies on the dollar. Other examples are Mexicans working in agricultural in the SW of the country.

But that certainly isn't the only way and in my experience isn't that common.

I've worked all over the rust belt / bible belt in a little over a dozen states doing large construction projects. At least for my industry, the vast majority of the laborers are illegals. They don't disappear after getting paid. I've worked with some regularly for over 5 years.

From what I've heard from people in California, your experience is not typical

Undocumented immigrants don’t “do the work legal citizens aren’t willing to do” or “work harder than legal citizens”. Those are both racist liberal talking points

majority of my life was spent as an illegal immigrant. i've been embedded in illegal immigrant communities my whole life. i've worked with many and have known many more

it's my experience that both of those statements are true.

a) they do work citizens aren't willing to do and b) they work harder

i can elaborate on why I believe those things are true, but absolutely if I'm looking for a laborer for specific types of work.. I will always avoid the native-born citizen.

whole ecosystem of fear is designed to keep immigrants working jobs below minimum wage and/or in appalling working conditions

believe it or not there are many illegals that make wages higher than what most americans make.

there's many types of illegal immigrants. there's not one size fits all to make generalizations. but the majority of them are similar to oil drill workers.

a working class male goes far away to a labor-intensive job that nobody wants to do. they do this because they can make a relatively large salary and then use that money to do something back at home.

so for example Mexicans will come and work in construction. They can make upwards of $300+ a day of work with experience. this is many times more than what they could reasonably expect in Mexico. but not only that, they're making more than many native born American citizens.

it's just lower skilled Americans tend to flock to low salary and low effort jobs like retail or food service.