Kulturkampf

[benji]

As many in the replies point out, this really seems to prove how it's a small group of people who cause so much shit for all the rest and just a small barrier can already keep them out. These reductions are insane.

It seems unlikely that it will actually happen, but I want to see how this would compare to Mamdani's free buses idea.

as in, free buses will universally suck because the minor fare keeps the worst shit-stirrers out?

One thing I never see people grapple with is that when a service no longer excludes by pricing it by its very nature must exclude by other things then. Often things that are even less acceptable than excluding by price but progressive/socialist/etc. systems can't utilize pricing as a proxy so must turn to these despite their being far less progressive than price. Accusations of racism or whatever other crimes against the marginalized then follow despite the government being more progressive and so they are no longer "true progressives" and the system needs even less barriers to access and so on in a neverending spiral towards utopia.

You see this all the time with "free" services and not just from progressives, but otherwise intelligent people, instead an instant assumption that if you stop pricing at the point of service or near it that it disappears entirely and everything tied to it and its necessity for the direction of resources will go away too. "Free" buses, "free" health care, "free" education, "free" social media, etc. As long as we don't sinfully openly price things, it's unbound from the constraints of reality, of scarcity, etc. Magical thinking about the suppression of information.