For-profit medical care.
Piggybacking for-profit prisons.
Public transport too. It really seems like every time a public service is privatised it goes to shit, almost as if for-profit motives aren’t aligned to public interest.
Profit.
For profit education
For-profit anything-necessary-for-survival
Tax exemption for religious organisations.
Could be worse, I guess. I live in a “secular” democracy that essentially collects members fees for the Catholic and Lutheran churches (and only those two!) via the federal income tax.
Knew it was DE before I saw the instance domain.
In Germany, state-recognized churches collect taxes from their members in order to finance their activities as well as wages. Everyone who is a member of an officially recognized religious group automatically gets a percentage of their monthly wage taken from their paycheck. Usually, this amounts to around 9% of income tax — with the exception of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, where the church tax amounts to 8%.
For native Germans, church tax is often automatically collected. Many Germans are baptized at a young age and thereby become members of a particular church, which means they pay taxes to that church when they begin to earn income as an adult.
If you’re a foreigner moving to Germany, you can declare your affiliation to a church when you register at your local citizen’s office.
9%? That’s absurd. Is there a way to remove yourself from this?
You can only resign from being part of the church, which many young people do once they see this on their first paycheck.
Is there a way to remove yourself from this?
Sure: There is a third box “no confession” next to “Catholic” and “Protestant” on the form. You can check that and those 9% remain with the state instead.
German secularism has a few more peculiarities. Many charitable organizations e.g. running hospitals or institutions caring for the homeless, elderly, and disabled are in fact religious (Diakonie, Johanniter, Caritas, Stadtmission, …). This has some unfortunate effects: They often hire people of Christian faith only, meaning atheists or adherents of other religions are mostly excluded at these organizations. There have also been cases of a doctor at a Christian-run hospital denying the abortion because of their faith – despite abortion being legal here. However, much of the money these organizations receive is in fact public money, supposedly spent on serving the public. Another wrinkle is that Religious Law is used when it comes to e.g. prosecuting rape cases involving priests etc. Somehow, this separate system of law that doesn’t really seem to work particularly well is accepted by the German state.
Just want to clarify: It is 9% of the income tax, not 9% of the income. Still too high, but not as absurd as some people may think after reading this incorrectly. I know some people who thought that it is 9% of the income although they were paying church tax for years…
Honestly I didn’t realize that. That does make it a bit more reasonable but it’s still a lot of the income tax. But the other explanations I’ve read sort of make it make sense. Churches were the original social services for the needy and Germany basically coopted the model into their tax system - rather than tearing down religious hospitals or making them private.
I get it, but it’s also weird!
Or better yet, religious organizations.
corporations given constitutional rights in the us like living people.
Like people but without also being subject to incarceration…
Billionaires
Since it wasn’t said yet, nukes. No one needs them.
Who’s gonna stop the whales?
gotta nuke somethin’
¯\ _ (ツ) _ /¯
NOW I CAN SEE THE WHALES!
What if I’m in my own home minding my own business and an attacker named Enola comes and waltzes right in my door and how do I protect my property then?? Some people smh
A lot of these are things that we can improve
Here’s one we can’t: giraffes 🦒
an old meme:
50,000 Square Foot Mansions. Such a waste.
I agree. How are you gonna make a mansion with just a square foot? Let alone 50,000 of them.
Billionaires
Depends on the currency, though…
Disagree.
I bet you’d have quite a different opinion if someone gave you a couple billion
I’ll bet you’re incorrect.
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Golf is equivalent to licking an entire countryside so nobody else can use it. The only activity in human history that used more space for less people were the Apollo moon landings.
TikTok
spez
elon musk
These Boston dynamics robot dogs
But in reality, military aerial drones are much more terrifying. It sounds like a sci-fi dystopia that a billionaire could type your name, press a kill button, and within a few minutes a drone locates and bombs you. But this tech has already existed for over a decade, and is being used by the US in the Middle East and North Africa.
I don’t think you just type a name and set it to go. Someone is remotely piloting that drone.
For now, anyway.
Billionaires and Guinea Worm.
The good news is we are on the verge of eradicating Guinea Worm.
every tropical disease
The 1%
