Alcohol.
Lots and lots of people lean heavily on it and think that alcohol is the spice of their life. When, it contributes to so many problems than it’s so-called benefits. We tried, in America anyways, to outright ban alcohol. Problem was that the person who wanted it banned, was too extremist.
Like he didn’t think it all through and think just going for the jugular of the problem is what will work. When, it didn’t and just made people work around it until eventually the ban was dismantled.
So, since then, we’ve been putting up with drunk drivers, drunk disputes, drunk abusers and other issues. I still wish we could just slam our hands down at the desk and demand we sit to discuss in how to properly deal with this issue than people proclaiming that it’s not a problem.
Populism
This is as old as the democracy itself, and we still don’t know how to fix it. People are so easily driven by their emotions and stubborn about their political opinions that you only have to exploit cynically their low instincts to take the power, especially in a crisis context. And once populists are in the power, they hardly give it back.
Journalism that has any tooth whatsoever would mostly fix this.
As long as no proper journalistic standards exists, populists can pour their BS down the media drain unquestioned, unchallenged. If that’s all you hear about a topic, that’s what you’ll believe.
Greed.
Similar to this, I’ve got a real beef with our unresolved insecuritues we have as a people (in principle. Obviously in practise this is hard).
I feel like the insecurities that essentially, drive us, are really holding us back from meaningful progress on our legitimately hard problems with climate, energy/food distribution, etc…
We’re still drawn into BS distractions and opposing teams and whatnot like a bunch of monkeys with sticks (which is apt, to be fair)
I don’t really agree anything is impossible to fix. Maybe I’m optimistic but I think with enough time things can get better. As far as I know alcohol is much less common among younger people and there are more people avoiding it entirely now. Or maybe by impossible you meant really difficult.
Our inability to trust anyone foreign or unfamiliar. This legacy of our evolution used to be the safest way to live. No it just holds us all back.
I think this one is closer to being solved than we think, because we know the things that can help. Travel and simply meeting other people being the big one. And there are enough people who are accepting of outsiders that we know it’s possible on a large scale.
Totally disagree. The rise of populist politicians using xenophobic rhetoric is the proof that this mechanism is still strong.
Poverty. Not for lack of resources or ability, but for lack of will.
For schaudenfreude. Capitalism would collapse without the schaudenfreude of enforced inequality.
Almost everyone trained to worship capitalism is always taught to see their worth as a function of how badly other people are losing. That’s why homelessness is an expensive problem we choose to pay extra for.
Studies have shown that all the conditioned shelters, programs, and cleanup are far more expensive than just providing conditionless basic housing for everyone without. But the homeless serve an essential purpose under runaway capitalism that takes control of a society instead of being a lowly tool of it: Capitalist Scarecrows and to look down on and fear becoming.
How can I feel rich if there aren’t poories dying in the streets?
Nearly every societal problem has a solution, but you need a medical / buddhist / marxist / approach (probably a lot of other disciplines / lenses use this approach too, those are just some ones that more or less follow this).
- Correctly identify the actual problem.
- Find the root cause(s) of the problem.
- Name / describe the state without that problem.
- Outline the cure / steps to carry it out and reach that goal.
The only problems that aren’t solvable, are things that would break the laws of physics.
As for drugs / alcohol use, lemmygrad and hexbear have a lot of good threads on drug / alcohol use, and how to view it, and handle it collectively. The USA is probably the worst example of a country to look at for alleviating the societal ills brought about by alcohol and drug mis-use, so its good to look at how socialist countries have tackled it throughout history. If you can’t find a thread I’d recommend asking over there, because you’ll get a lot of good answers.
Homelessness.
Looking beyond the argument that some people prefer the freedom to following any of the rules required by most of the organizations that might provide help.
It’s not that hard to fix, but there’s little will to tackle it properly. Homelessness is a local problem, and the NIMBY solution just exports it to another locality. If a locality solves it for their local population, they’ll then get overwhelmed by the NIMBY localities “solving” it with bus tickets. The only real solution has to come at a federal level, and there lies the lack of will. Federal government sees a local problem and refuses to help since there are local governments.
OP is apparently unaware that society would not exist if it weren’t for alcohol.
anything harder than wearing masks
In sweden they raised the price of alcohol 10 fold making it a luxury good and not something to drain your sorrows with. I think the hardest problem to solve is human greed.
Greed is the biggest issue we have in this world right now.
It should be made to be a mental health disorder that must be treated professionally and by taking away the money not needed to operate their business.
Kill tax breaks and strip the rich with 90% taxes on everything over 5 million dollars of any money they make even capital gains and investment income.
Own one home pay regular taxes, own two double the tax, own three triple the tax and so on until no one wants to own more homes. Same goes for corpos that rent to people at above market rates using software to drive rental prices up.
Greed must be made to be shameful and punishable not accepted and desired. Robber barons like Musk and Bezos should taxed into non existence.
Top 5 earners get publicly executed if they own over 500mil.
I think the ancient Romans would make their richest people pay for the construction of warships. You would only get out of it by pointing to a richer person to pay.
Do that but not for warships, pay for infrastructure repair, all those roads and bridges that keep the economy going need to be brought up to today’s standards and new bridges built to replace ones that are crumbling. Their wealth could not have been built if not for the roads and tracks that are now crumbling beneath years of cuts to local and state/provincial governments.
japanese preferring natto over peanut butter
Guns in America. The need to act inspires fear on part of enthusiasts to buy more guns, ammo, support politicians that bolster stonewalls to any legislation that could make the country safer from irresponsible gun owners. The lack of meaningful action while this is happening shows how screwed the nation is as a gun cult continues to grow and grow.
Religion amd the fighting it causes in it’s name
Human nature. Itcwas necessary to beat out the other species, but it didn’t evolve with society. Many of the things other people have mentioned are really just unevolved human nature. Greed, selfishness, racism, crime.
High impact youth sports. Destroys joints, destroys brains, destroys futures, but if you suggest getting rid of them, you’re a cultural betrayer.
My kids will not be playing football what so ever because of this
