this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2024
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. No politics
    • If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
    • A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS

If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.

Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.

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[–] TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone 166 points 3 months ago (5 children)

Why not simply make fees proportional to income? For parking and other traffic infractions.

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 35 points 3 months ago

Some places do. Wish more did though.

[–] Deconceptualist@lemm.ee 32 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Because the real asshole money hoarders don't make a big income and store their funds as wealth and are living off interest.

Still, this would be a step in the right direction and as others said, some places do it.

[–] DarkDarkHouse@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 3 months ago

This is why it has to be their time, not their money.

[–] PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 months ago

Realized interest is supposed to count as income, but there are so many tax loopholes that it's crazy

[–] circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 18 points 3 months ago

This is the way. For a lot of things, not just parking fees.

[–] ch00f@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago (2 children)

That would require the city to know your income.

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 29 points 3 months ago (2 children)

That would require the city to know your income.

Easy enough. The city asks you when you pay the fine. If you lie, your tax return the following year shows you lied and then you get a felony charge.

[–] virku@lemmy.world 22 points 3 months ago (2 children)

The rich here in Norway have no income and no fortune if you look at their tax returns. But they own huge companies, have multiple houses and cars, etc. Not to mention the ones who have moved abroad who doesn't have tax returns at all..

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The rich here in Norway have no income and no fortune if you look at their tax returns.

No income after deductions or no reported income at all? And yes I understand the concept of getting loans against assets that doesn't show up at taxable income. Do they not report income to their country of residence if it isn't Norway?

[–] virku@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

I haven't looked into it directly, but when the media looks into it every time the tax lists are released (yes, anybody can look into anybodys tax returns) then many are shown with zero in both columns.

Others move to different countries to get away from our taxes. I guess it is because they are'nt rigged in such a way that they can hide their assets or do deductibles like that. But I don't know how the countries they move to work taxwise other than that it pays off for them, or they wouldn't keep doing it.

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[–] ch00f@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Not every state has income tax.

[–] BakerBagel@midwest.social 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Those people still pay federal taxes

[–] ch00f@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Do you think the federal government is going to answer the phone for your local municipal traffic cop tracking down a parking ticket?

[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] ch00f@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

To the federal government. No income tax in WA.

[–] taiyang@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

That's what they do in a few countries. It works, lol.

[–] CodingCarpenter@lemm.ee 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Dumb question but does this not just allow people with little to no income Park wherever they want? Including red zones or in front of fire hydrants?

[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 3 months ago

Why would it? It would still be expensive for them

[–] mumblerfish@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago

These fines are not zero at zero income.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 44 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Steve Jobs worked out a system with the local Mercedes dealer where he’d get a new car every three months.

Why every three months? Because that was how long you could drive without a license plate, and he liked to park in handicapped spots and they couldn’t ticket him without a plate.

[–] elgordino@fedia.io 24 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I’ve never understood that about America. How can you leave the dealership without a license plate. In the UK if you don’t have a plate you’re not on the road.

[–] taiyang@lemmy.world 12 points 3 months ago

I think now they give you those paper plates? Not ideal, but I see them a lot, flapping in the winds.

[–] cryptiod137@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

At least until a couple years ago, California you could drive without a plate for a couple months. I'm not sure how that really worked tbh, like what would happen if you were pulled over ECT.

Now you must get a temp paper plate right as you leave the lot.

[–] ProjectPatatoe@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago

You get the paperwork folded up and taped to your windshield. Thats what you would present if you got pulled over to prove you owned the car.

[–] ThisIsNotHim@sopuli.xyz 2 points 3 months ago

Vermont has (or had?) handwritten paper plates. Like if you imagine dealer plates, just messily written in sharpie and taped in the window.

As fake as they look to begin with, if you get close enough to read them, they're almost always expired.

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[–] Deebster@lemmy.ml 15 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I hadn't heard that, so I looked it up. It's true, although it was every six months, not three, and California has closed that loophole now (dealers now issue and register temporary plates for new sales). I didn't see anything saying he'd parked in handicapped spots outside of the Apple car park.

[–] GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 6 points 3 months ago

I didn't see anything saying he'd parked in handicapped spots outside of the Apple car park.

This makes it no less egregious.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

Thanks for the fact check. In my defense I read this on a BBS in the 90s so the details are hazy

[–] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The ultra rich don't matter in this equation. You could charge Elon Musk $10 or $10 million...it's practically the same to him.

They are anomalies. There are plenty of just-as-entitled, less-filthy-rich people.

[–] PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 15 points 3 months ago (2 children)

But the $10 million would sure help the community that ticketed him

[–] themurphy@lemmy.ml 7 points 3 months ago

This this this.

If we are afraid the ultra rich person doesn't care, guess we are in for another 10 mil next week.

Could finance alot of things in a society.

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[–] PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 39 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Proportional to income and wealth

[–] Kit@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 points 3 months ago

All fines should be proportional to income or wealth, otherwise they're only punishing the poor.

[–] daq@lemmy.sdf.org 35 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I drive a wheelchair accessible minivan which is stupidly fucking expensive but not because it's a good or a luxury car. Modifications for the wheelchair access roughly doubled the total cost of the car.

I love the idea of penalties being proportional to income, but we all know cunts like musk will never pay a dime, while regular people will get fucked or ultra-fucked if they are poor.

[–] whome@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 3 months ago

Yeah so there should be way more reserved spots for cars like yours plus you probably wouldn't park on a side walk, cause you know how frustrating that is. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

[–] Delphia@lemmy.world 26 points 3 months ago (2 children)

They should increase exponentially over say a 5 year period. Anyone can not see a sign or accidentally overstay a meter now and then, starting with a "Hey jackass" amount of money that to most people would merely be an annoyance but escalate relatively quickly.

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[–] jet@hackertalks.com 19 points 3 months ago

In one downtown area i lived in, a private tow company would tow illegally parked cars from allies, street side, etc... Unless the car was a real beater and the owner would be unlikely to pick it up. One of my friends bought a super beater 2 door work truck for 300 bucks, that was his downtown car. He would drive downtown and park it anywhere, and it never got towed.

[–] ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml 16 points 3 months ago

My car is worth negative money. I could become a professional parking ticket getter.

That would be unfair towards people like me who are into cars and just spend much more in proportion to my income compared to someone who just wants to go from A to B.

Only fair solution is to make it like north european countries do, based on your income.

[–] 5715@feddit.org 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Parking fines follow the costs-by-cause principle. Thus, qualifying them makes their size dependent on their damage.

Parking in a fire department safety zone resulting in a delayed fire response can be costly, but even if no fire response was delayed, there's an opportunity cost for the fire department, because they need to buy way-clearing devices or extended fire response tools, if there is high likelihood of blocked zones or passage.

There is a whole department of economic science dealing with this, the internalisation of external costs into economic activity (carbon tax is an example).

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[–] lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 6 points 3 months ago

Hard disagree. This implies that parking abuse is worse if you have a new car than if you have an old one, and that's just not true.

Now, if they were a percentage of income, so that it hits everyone equally (inaptly named “day fine”), I would agree!
But expensive cars also don't imply higher income at all!

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 5 points 3 months ago

Fines in general should use the day fine system.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 4 points 3 months ago

This is actually pretty smart

Probably wouldn't work in practice

[–] Zomg@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago (8 children)

Based on current value, or value at time of sale though?

If current value, who determines that value?

[–] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

A data analyst could easily compile average prices from the top 10 online car marketplaces, or whatever lawmakers want to set as the baseline. More likely they would just use blue book and maybe weigh it against the market area.

[–] JamesTBagg@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

But that's ignoring certain aspects. If some blue collar fella had spent his free time and money fixing his dad's old Camaro, a car dad bought for 4,000. Now it's still well maintained, numbers matching, original paint, etc. now it's worth 30,000, 40,000 maybe.
Then we have some other c-suite exec in a Tesla of similar market value.

Parking fines based on vehicle value is going to penalize one person much more than the other. Fines should be based on income or total net worth, not the value of a particular piece of property.

That was difficult to type with sticky BBQ fingers.

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[–] slumberlust@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

Every state in the US already does this to prevent the ole 'sold this car for a $1' ruse to lower sales tax.

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