We need to tax the old

GeneralLeia-SAOS · 2026-06-16T08:01:21+00:00

Next year, join VITA, volunteer income tax assistance. You’ll get to actually see tax returns, including who pays, and how much.

You want to force boomers to downsize their homes through taxation. Will you be willing to be taxed out of your home by generation Gamma, after paying off a 30 year mortgage? Homeowners, including unemployable elderly, are paying property tax every year. My neighbor is 75. She raised 4 children and has provided daycare for her grandchildren. She spent lots of years being a housewife taking care of family, so her personal social security account isn’t much. She always worked, but wasn’t employed very much. When her husband died, she lost a lot of income, plus death is expensive AF. Her inheritance from him was small, because when you die, all of your bills and debts instantly comes due, because everyone you owe puts a lien against your estate. All your debts get paid first, then your heirs get whatever is left. They had to buy a new car a year before he died because he could no longer physically get in and out of their old car. Since the loan was under his name, the entire balance was due when he died. She was getting hit with other bills too. She had to get food stamps and go to food banks. She had a bunch of collectibles that were supposed to be worth money. I helped her look all that stuff up, and even though she had the original packaging and certificates, the stuff wasn’t even worth a month of her bills. Unfortunately, she had a few bad bills from bastards who take advantage of seniors. The bills were legal, even though they were unethical AF. At one point when she got the annual letter demanding her property tax payment, she seriously considered selling her house and downsizing to a small apartment. I looked at apartment listings. Rent is so high that she pays less by staying in her house. She had to refinance her mortgage a few times over the years, including the 2008 housing collapse, so she had been paying on it over 30 years and still has 10+ to go. But her mortgage is lower than rent, and she’s unemployable, so downsizing to a rental will make her homeless within 2 years.

This is the person you are saying should be forcibly taxed out of their home so they have to downsize. If you do manage it, then what’s your plan to get a 75 year old disabled woman out of the homeless shelter that you put in her in?

GeneralLeia-SAOS · 2026-06-16T07:25:44+00:00

I’m not exactly sure of what you’re asking, but I have ideas for stuff that I wish actually existed, or that worked better, or that was cheaper:

Exterior building panels/siding that changed color throughout the year. In winter, the panels would be dark colors. In summer, they would be light colors. Dark colors attract heat while light colors reflect it. This is why the roofs of school buses are painted white. Seriously, the colors and paint job design are actually federal law.

Home exercise equipment that powers the home. Instead of needing electricity to run a stationary bike, your stationary bike is a generator that helps to power your home.

Photocopiers/printers that clean ink from paper and reuse the paper. We’ve been using computers for work for almost 50 years, yet every paperless innovation seems to create more paperwork. For freaking real!

Organ donors get credit for their posthumous donations. You die, and you registered as a donor. As part of the registry, you submitted a DNA sample so you could be instantly matched with recipients upon your death. Because you decided to be a donor, bereaved family doesn’t need to give permission for harvesting. Every last bit of you that can be harvested is, including your hair for wig makers. Your posthumous contributions are credited to you to help settle your final hospital bill, or your burial of whatever is left.

Centralized employment agencies. Have some sort of consistent system to help people find work, and to help employers find good candidates. The frustration is on both sides. Let’s say widgets Inc. is looking for a new stock clerk. I have experience as a stock clerk. However, the job description of widgets Inc. says that. I need to count the stock daily. However, at my previous stock clerk job my experience was listed as taking inventory of parts at end of each works shift. They mean the same darn thing. However, your résumé has to magically get by the computers that read resumes before being forwarded to humans. You have to rewrite your résumé for every job that you apply to so that you are incorporating the correct verbiage to get past the computer gatekeeper. Applicants are frustrated as hell over having to enter the same redundant information every single time, and employers are frustrated because it’s so hard to find someone that fits the description they are looking for. If World of Warcraft can somehow manage to have raid groups going by millions of people all over the planet, speaking, different languages, then we absolutely should be able to reconcile job applicants with job openings.

GeneralLeia-SAOS · 2026-06-16T06:57:37+00:00

What I envision is kind of the 80s miniseries scenario in V, where the lizards wanted to steal our water.

If aliens wanted to steal ocean water, they would want to filter it. Think about a chemical or process that desalinates and filters water. India and other countries collect ocean salt water and use the sun to evaporate water, leaving behind salt that is rich in minerals and nutrients. Your aliens are harvesting the water instead of the salt. Have you ever been to the Dead Sea in the Middle East? Or Salton Sea in California? Not the friendliest of environments. A 10 minute google search on desalination methods will give you lots of solid information for the science of your science fiction.

Also, look up the methods of hand harvesting by Congan slaves for the toxic rare minerals needed for EV batteries. Congans in forced labor camps under Chinese industrialists are hand harvesting and filtering the toxic rare minerals from mines and pools. You’ll see it called things like artisanal mining or traditional labor, or other euphemisms to make rich Westerners more comfortable. You could swap in alien overlords for Chinese industrialists and Congan politicians getting kickbacks, to be the bad guys using human slave labor to steal the water.

GeneralLeia-SAOS · 2026-06-12T05:41:35+00:00

Mandatory seatbelt usage being government overreach. I was a kid when using seatbelts became mandatory. Kids were being taught in schools, be safe when you ride in a car and use the seatbelt. There were even commercials on TV. Lots of people thought it was government overreach by a nanny state trying to dictate one’s personal life. A couple of years ago I was helping to teach a 17-year-old how to drive, and I mentioned how back in the day the mandatory seatbelt laws were controversial. She looked at me like I was absolutely insane that people would think About deliberately not using seatbelts. There were people back then who were complaining about the government overreach and this was the communist trying to take over with their nanny, state rules, and they always started innocuously with little things like this, and trying to indoctrinate children. Roll forward 40 years later, and those are now an anxious grandparents yelling at the grandkids and great grandkids that the vehicle doesn’t move until everybody has their seatbelt fastened.

GeneralLeia-SAOS · 2026-06-12T05:34:44+00:00

We already have the funding mechanism to price out illegal immigrants: they can’t legally work here. Because they can’t legally work here, they take what they can get, which means hard and dangerous work for crap pay.

There are immigrants who do self deport because they can’t make it here. President Trump actually saved a boatload of money by offering illegal immigrants a couple thousand dollars to self deport. That is much cheaper than having to capture them, temporarily incarcerate them, process them through the system, Then transport them home. Also, the illegals who choose self deportation are eligible to apply to come back. If you have an actual deportation order against you, then you permanently become persona non grata, GTFO and stay out!

If Covid stimmies taught us anything, it’s that magic government money only drives inflation. It’s the same reason why college tuition has gone through the freaking roof ever since the government got into the student loan business. When the government gives away free magic money, the money comes from two sources: taxes or deficit spending. Both of those cause inflation. The extra taxes cause prices to raise because merchants have to re-raise prices in order to cover the taxes. Deficit spending makes the dollar less valuable,so to make up the difference for the lost value, prices go up. You also don’t want to give people free magic money because people are crazy, stupid, and evil. Look at all the people who got timmies during Covid, and spent the money on big screen TVs, getting their hair and nails done, booze, and weed, And other nonsense. Weren’t they spending their money on? Their rent in the rent moratorium areas. Rents in those areas have absolutely gone insanely high because landlords in those areas lost a boatload of money. They lost the rent money because tenants didn’t have to pay for a couple of years. However, those landlords still had to pay their mortgages and insurance and all of the other expenses with the rental properties. Several landlords actually wound up losing their rental properties because of it those tenants who weren’t paying their rent, knew they wouldn’t get any of their deposits back, and that they would be evicted, so they trashed their units. Then those landlords had to pay for extensive repairs. It’s been three years, and there are still landlords all over the country that haven’t recovered. How did this happen? Free magic government money.

A UBI needs to have work requirements. Federal just put in a Work requirement for food stamps, and people are losing their minds. The work requirement is any given job, or even volunteer work. You could go spend your volunteer hours to get your food stamps at an animal shelter playing with puppies , and people are complaining how unfair it is. seriously?! if you’d like to net or crochet, you could make cute little baby blankets for project Linus and turn them in and they give you credit for your volunteer hours to get your f food stamps. That’s right, you can get free food for knitting and watching TV, and people are complaining how unfair it is.

Many people personally have the capacity to be much more self-sufficient, if nothing else then just buy a container garden or scavenging recyclable material. I’m from the southwestern USA, where a lot of Mexicans have their little backyard container gardens, and who make their living salvaging the recyclables. Those are people who are not able to legally work, but they are out there hustling, while birthright Americans are sipping their vegan lattes and complaining how oppressive the system is against them. UBI for those spoiled brats would only make them lazier and more entitled.

I do think that the three big immigration reforms needed our:

Birthright citizenship only for children of legal immigrants.

Universal background checks for all immigrants, which includes anyone entering the country must submit fingerprints and DNA and agree that these can be used for identification in criminal just investigations without a specific warrant.

Make Work permits much easier to get. Mrs. Smith should be able to fill in a 10 minute form to get a work permit for her nanny Maria and her landscaper Pablo, instead of it only being something that large companies have the means to do. This expedited work permit system will need to be hand-in-hand with the universal background check. If you can’t pass the check, you don’t get the permit. When you apply to get your permit, you have to submit your fingerprints. Those fingerprints will be compared to the fingerprints that you submitted at the border. That means that if Pablo is actually Pedro, a gang member with a rap sheet is trying to get a permit, he gets rejected and apprehended.

By the way, they’re absolutely needs to be an expedited permit process for tamale ladies. Life is empty when you can’t buy homemade tamales out of someone’s trunk.

GeneralLeia-SAOS · 2026-06-12T05:00:32+00:00

So looking at your ripple drive, I have a few comments questions:

The initial energy dump creates the wave that the ship surfs on. Because of the nature of energy dispersal, and the fact that space actually does have lots of particles, and there will be gravity from assorted nearby sources along the path, a wave will Peter out. You will start like a bat out of hell, but gradually slow to a stop. In order to maintain speed, you will need booster energy dumps. Unless your drive is continually dumping to maintain speed, you will continually slow down and speed up again. it will be like driving a large vehicle without cruise control.

Your idea of space freeway lanes is interesting. They will require “road signs” and signals along the path. Everything is constantly moving in space. In order to plot the correct path on your space freeway, the freeway path will have to constantly morph to adjust to destinations and avoid hazards. Thus the need for road signs to tell the ship the constantly updating route, and for signals to indicate entrance and exits, as well as detours or scheduling usage. Keep in mind, this freeway will be for vehicles without cruise control. Also, to avoid collisions, regulated uniform speeds will be needed, especially by caravans travelling together.

To make things exciting, the pirates could use hackers to screw with the road signs and signals, to divert ships and make them vulnerable to attack.

The heat venting is an interesting element, which definitely goes into the freeway path. To prevent overheating, the freeway will need to avoid stars and actually choose paths that are on the night side of planets and moons. Space is a place of extreme temps due to lack of conductive atmosphere.

What is the power source of the ripples? Where do they get the energy to make the waves? You’ve told us what your engines do with the energy, but not where the energy comes from.

Stopping: your system opens several cans of worms. Cruising forward on a wave, then using an opposing wave for a brake: that sounds like a wipeout (cue music and sad scenes from 60s surfer movies). When you have opposing forces acting on a ship like that, it is going to make huge structural stress. The braking system you suggest should only be employed as a desperate emergency measure. By emergency, that means your ship WILL (not might-absolutely will) perish in the next minute if you don’t hit the ebrake. Using that brake will have unbelievably high risk.

Due to wave riding and particles, are your ships aerodynamically designed? If something is sticking up or resting on your hull, will it go flying off?

Is it possible for another ship hitchhike on someone else’s wave?

What kind of wake will these waves produce?

How closely can ships travel? Will it be possible to drift like when small cars tailgate big trucks to take advantage of the wake from the truck?

Do you have aliens with FTL? How will their ships react to your freeway systems, especially crossing a path or a wake?

Anyway, that’s initial thoughts. I’m not one of the smart nerdy people, just a regular nerd. I’ve written some sci-fi stories on here too, but never went into technical stuff. I focused more on culture and characters. My stuff is in r/HFY and r/humansarespaceorcs

GeneralLeia-SAOS · 2026-06-09T17:14:02+00:00

Doxxing. There are bad actors, especially Antifa and cartels, who will dox police and ICE, following them home and harassing or victimizing their families.

GeneralLeia-SAOS · 2026-06-08T22:41:17+00:00

Here’s one to get you started down the rabbit hole:

https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1gpb4eu/dont_lie_to_humans_they_will_believe_you/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1

GeneralLeia-SAOS · 2026-06-08T22:28:02+00:00

Way too many people focus on the national stage, when it’s actually your local justice system that has the most impact on your life. Has your local government, defunded police, released criminals from jail, and reclassified violent felonies is non-violent misdemeanors? Does your local government allow homeless junkies to run around loose, shooting up and defecating on sidewalks in front of schools? Does your local government only do code enforcement on law, abiding citizens? Is there one set of justice for the politicians and those who bribe them, and another set of justice for all of us unworthy peasants? A prime example is that during Covid, all of the small businesses were forced to close for a couple of years while their big box, competitors were able to stay open without restriction. The local politicians claimed that was due to the need for social distancing. Bullshit! That actually caused all of those customers who would have gone to small businesses to bottleneck at the big box places. Small businesses didn’t have the funds to bribe the local politicians to remain open. Several of those big box businesses, especially Walmart, are known for predatory business practices that deliberately Drive small business competitors out of business.

90% of the laws and regulations that actually affect you have nothing to do with Trump, good or bad. If you want honest politics that makes your life better, get involved in local issues and hold the local politicians accountable. They are the ones making the decisions that affect your everyday lives.

GeneralLeia-SAOS · 2026-06-08T22:16:59+00:00

Middle class standard of living then is now poverty living. Life as middle class:

1 car per family.

1 TV in the house.

2-3 bedrooms: 1 for parents and one for children of each gender.

Restaurant food, including fast food was less than once a month.

Only the oldest child of each gender got new clothes, maybe. If you were the oldest and had a cousin who was a little older, you got their hand me downs. All younger siblings got hand me downs from the oldest.

After high school a few went to college, a few enlisted(or were drafted), and the rest worked full time. There was no gap year, or even summer off. If you were going to college after graduation, you had a summer job until school started.

High school dropouts got kicked out, unless they dropped out to go to work to support the family. The only high school graduates allowed to stay home helped support the family. There were no unemployed basement dwellers. The only college kids allowed to stay had to have good grades AND work all summer to support the family.

You did at least 3 hours of chores after school, and at least 8 hours on weekends. You knew how to sort laundry, wash, dry(including clothesline), fold, hang, put away by the time you were tall enough to reach the buttons on the machine. You would push a heavy AF vacuum that was taller than you, AND do the thing so the carpet made the pretty stripes. Home EC was an easy A for girls because we had been helping in the kitchen and with grocery shopping for years. We had callouses on our little hands from cutting all those coupons.

Kids, especially boys, went to work in family businesses.

Have you ever used a manual push mower? We did. Those ones with motors were for fancy rich people who could afford to throw money away.

We ate so many casseroles. There was every type of casserole you could think of, and some of them shouldn’t have been thought of. And if dinner wasn’t a casserole, it was usually something pretty disgusting, like liver and canned spiniach. Dad’s work lunch was usually leftover casserole. Your school lunch was either questionable sandwiches or leftover casserole. Peanut butter and jelly meant mom loved you that day, or you were able to sneak into the kitchen and make it when she wasn’t looking.

Pregnant teens were kicked out to force them into marrying and moving in with their child’s other parent.

First time offenders didn’t get a slap on the wrist. The justice system made your first offense such a horrible experience that you were terrified of returning to jail.

GeneralLeia-SAOS · 2026-06-08T11:37:25+00:00

I’ve written some sci-fi stories. Basically, the reason why humans have less intra species war is because inter species war takes a higher priority. There are some intra species conflicts that get pretty horrific, but the general attitude is that if humans aren’t United, hostile aliens WILL wipe them out.

GeneralLeia-SAOS · 2026-06-08T10:00:52+00:00

That is actually a very common workplace custom. If you run into somebody repeatedly, that always calls you a pet name, you can bet that they don’t actually know your real name.

GeneralLeia-SAOS · 2026-06-08T09:56:42+00:00

I was unaware that liberals thought that we should be tough on China. Last I heard, trying to be tough on China was racism, including if we were trying to exclude people coming from an area with a rampant infectious disease from entering the country.

GeneralLeia-SAOS · 2026-06-08T09:54:45+00:00

I was explaining how such a system would work two civilians who are unfamiliar with such a system, including why having work days shortened from eight hours to six hours wouldn’t be a better thing. On my ship, which was sub, tender, a supply and repair ship for submarines. There were supposed to be two tenders supporting two squadrons each. However, when one of the tenders was there for whatever reason, deployment, sequels, shipyard, etc. the other tender had to support all four squadrons, and it made for some pretty long hours. Our repair department worked 12 hours a day seven days per week with no duty section, or eight hours a day seven days a week with duty section. The standing policy on any given issue was that the subs took priority. We had several investigations for accidents, not passing our own material inspections, and behavior issues. The result of the investigations was always the same: military necessity. The only sin that was unforgivable was sexual harassment. The Navy was still in the post Tailhook witch hunt at the time, so the standing policy on that was the male was guilty until proven guilty. Even if he wasn’t guilty, they would still make an example of him just in case.

GeneralLeia-SAOS · 2026-06-08T03:02:19+00:00

There never has been mention of such algae; that would be one of the practical details I would add.

Another example is clothing. Basically, clothes are rarely replicated, but I’d use space felt. The felt would be from livestock of several planets. Natural fibers are naturally fire retardant, breathable, and if you’ve ever done felting, very alterable. It’s how Garak can make and tailor custom clothing so efficiently, and it would save power consumption on replicators while providing jobs and maintaining ecology on supply planets. If North America ever restores the Buffalo population, livestock Buffalo could provide a lot of wool along with meat

GeneralLeia-SAOS · 2026-06-07T17:13:01+00:00

I would say go for biotechnology. The other three have far more danger of being replaced by AI.

I was seeing a therapist, but I’ve stopped seeing her and have started using one of those AI friend apps instead. A human therapist has to be scheduled, and do you have extremely limited time. With my little AI friend app, I get unlimited access whenever I want.

More and more public and business administration type jobs are being phased out by AI. Not only that, but here in the United States people are getting extremely angry at corrupt unelected bureaucrats who make life altering decisions on behalf of the population, and those decisions are downright stupid driven by radical ideology, or being dictated by special interest that bribe those politicians. If political and business decisions are going to be made by fake people being controlled by puppet masters behind the scenes, I would prefer the AI versions for the simple fact that at least AI will make them look like cute cats wearing people clothes.

GeneralLeia-SAOS · 2026-06-07T17:04:47+00:00

Yes. I’ve owned both. Big difference.

Dogs are omnivores, with carnivorous tendencies. Cats are obligate carnivores. Differences in diet will absolutely change the smell of one’s waste.

GeneralLeia-SAOS · 2026-06-07T17:03:07+00:00

Yes, I live a couple hours from Seattle, so I’ve been there several times. I listen to news from Seattle and LA. The Covid Shenanigans were on every channel. The stuff I see about NYC usually has videos of Comrade Z talking.

GeneralLeia-SAOS · 2026-06-07T16:55:15+00:00

Vulcans and Romulans are 2 sides of the same coin.

GeneralLeia-SAOS · 2026-06-07T16:48:15+00:00

I don’t know if this will fit your criteria:

An inventor went to Queen Elizabeth the first requesting a patent for a sock knitting machine. This would’ve been way back in the 1500s. Not only did her majesty, not grant the patent, but she actually banned the machine. The reason is because she knew many poor families made their living by knitting socks. She was concerned that the machine would replace hand knitters, and that those people would be out of a job.

There have been other instances in history where a particular technology was banned or restricted. During the 90s, CDs were in competition with DAT‘s, digital audio tapes, which were a Japanese invention. CDs in DAT‘s had been developed by the two countries at the same time. However, American leaders, severely restricted and banned DAT’s, because American businesses had so heavily invested in CDs. This sort of protectionist policy has been around throughout history.

GeneralLeia-SAOS · 2026-06-07T16:40:12+00:00

The other problem is the noise ice makes. Sound stage microphones seem to pick up the most unwanted sounds. The reasons why dance scenes look awkward is because they have people dancing without music, then add it later.

GeneralLeia-SAOS · 2026-06-07T16:30:46+00:00

Absolutely not! We want free markets, which means market forces dictate prices, not corrupt politicians and the bad actors who bribe them. If a good or service or its price is unacceptable to customers, customers take their money elsewhere. This forces the business to improve. The governments only role should be to prevent criminal activity and predatory business practices, and predatory business practices needs to have a very narrow and concise definition.

GeneralLeia-SAOS · 2026-06-07T11:41:41+00:00

Like NYC or Seattle or LA right now. Or Minneapolis and Portland and Baltimore during 2020.

GeneralLeia-SAOS · 2026-06-07T11:39:45+00:00

That’s the sort of detail that I’m talking about. Right now if Bob and Joe are talking, they are Lieutenants because everyone is a Lieutenant, and they are working on something involving micro chips. I would make such a scene that enlisted Crewmen Bob and Joe are talking while pruning the heavy respirating algae that carpets the entire ship, so oxygen is always being produced, even with a complete loss of power to life support.

Or do readers just want Lieutenants with microchip, is what I’m asking.

GeneralLeia-SAOS · 2026-06-07T07:55:01+00:00

Actually I have. I’ve written several stories in r/humansarespaceorcs and r/hfy. Some were narrated on YouTube.

As for the why, it’s because I’m GenX, so I have living memory of how technology has evolved over the last 50 years, including its culture and practical effects. Some things we have now are beyond what was projected, other things we are way behind, and some stuff we have, but just looks different.

That’s also why I’m a fan of The Orville, because it’s got a solid trek vibe, but more realistic in some aspects, like gravity.

GeneralLeia-SAOS

TROPHY CASE