Provided that I must work to feed myself, to shelter myself from the elements, and to receive routine medical care: I cannot be described as consenting to work. I am coerced. In an ideal system, I would not be coerced to work as my access to basic necessities would not be predicated upon my employment.

In nature, survival makes certain demands of us but as intelligent creatures capable of automating most work there is simply no need. People who wish to do more deserve more but no one should have to work to be alive. Without life you cannot have liberty and without liberty you cannot find happiness. The goal of any society should be equity of happiness. This implies sustainability as consuming resources leaves none for those who come later and thus deprives them of opportunity.

More concretely, I find it difficult to believe that those in entirely different environments can have great insights into the challenges faced by others. Thus smaller societies should be preferred to larger ones. Outside of crisis, any decision should be unanimous among representatives. Locally, provided the capacity to re-home each community should decide how it runs for itself. This is effectively an initial pure democracy with majority rule which may then evolve in any direction. It’s fine for local groups to be disfunctional as society as a whole relies on social experiments to determine what works best in any given environment.

If nothing else the freckles make it so every inch is different. 😁

As a pasty ginger, I’m super jealous of what you consider a sunburn and not just an amazing tan.

Realistically, only the monkey is being spanked.

So a nice squeeze, perhaps?

Even that definition is myopic. The Dems only want to return to 2016 in the same way I want to return to 1933 when minimum wage was actually valuable. It’s not a focus on the past when your actions wouldn’t change even if the past wasn’t there.

To play a little bit of devil’s advocate.

People do have an ingrained instinct for in/out groups and dehumanizing and even wishing for harm to befall the out group is very much a part of human nature. That there is harm being inflicted on the in group by the out group (perceived or true) will of course reinforce this.

Having said that, most people will agree that we should be more than our base instincts and use at least logic if not compassion in our decision making.