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.
I think there are plenty of things that can’t be solved, but nothing that can’t be improved.
Homelessness, there are just some people who don’t fit into modern life - maybe they can’t be housed, but conditions could be improved.
Poverty, there is no complete solution that won’t be worse than the problem (yet) but things could be so much better than they are with the means we do have.
Pollution, there is probably no way we can live with our current technology without causing pollution but again - we could make substantial improvements with the tech we do have now.
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.
High impact youth sports. Destroys joints, destroys brains, destroys futures, but if you suggest getting rid of them, you’re a cultural betrayer.
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.
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.
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.
