Turns out brainwashing a society to be selfish consumers has side effects like: not wanting to spend their money on services for the public good.

"They aren't me, why should I care!?"

Capitalists trying to convince the public to privatize things has nothing to do with cost; even if they were free, every dollar saved by the public represents a potential profit they're losing.

Cheaply selling drinks (maybe non-alcoholic) would probably more than off-set the additional costs.

I'm pro-library, and many reduced hours during the pandemic and never picked it back up. Resources are shrinking for them.

And it sucks that there's so many society problems and places like libraries and ER rooms get slashed resources. Because these spaces serve a public good, for neighborhoods, and the unhoused.

In his book Humankind Rutger Bregman talks about the election of a mayor in a city in Venezuela who campaigned on the notion that he wouldn't do the job. After years of corruption and broken promises from other politicians, the people hated the mayor so much they liked this idea a lot.

Part of his job was to create a budget. So he told everybody to submit a budget, and gave them last year's as a template. The general consensus was that they'd happily raise their taxes to pay for new parks and bus routes.

(This is a half remembered summary but I highly recommend the entire book.)

I think the real reason we can't have nice things is because we don't have a way to make sure nice things can happen.

Those damn librarytarians!

Also librarians maybe want the same free time as their families