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Overworked? Good habits, not holidays, are the answer

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Re: Overworked? Good habits, not holidays, are the answer

#91

Post by [deleted] »

mikekchar wrote: post #82
EC1 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part of it isn't true though? Don't look at how it reads, just read the words. I feel the same way, like you're being stomped in the face every day by an invisible boot except nobody knows who's wearing it, but we all feel it. We are collectively losing our identities and blending into one due to how hyper connected we are and how available cheap forms of entertainment are. It's all quite eerie. I still haven't…

Earlier someone said that they want to opt out of the whole thing. Although I'm not you and I can't know precisely what you are feeling, I'm going to make an educated guess that this is the key to your freedom. This invisible boot is an illusion. I once read an article on privilege. The idea is that if you were a slave owner, you could "promote" some of your slaves to be "head slaves". This privilege creates a kind o…

[deleted]

Re: Overworked? Good habits, not holidays, are the answer

#92

Post by maxxxxx »

golergka wrote: post #34
simplemath wrote: post #8

Overworked? Everyone is overworked. We live in a post scarcity industrial world, or very very close to it, and bad actors have gobbled up the spoils of the huge gains in productivity in the last 50 years. How much of the entire economy is predicated on grey money? How much of your time is indirectly consumed by this leviathan? The more I think about it, the more i want to opt out of the entire fucking thing.

I really hope you're talking about taxes. That's where half of my salary is going to, not to some mythical "evil rich", but to pay for beurocracy and welfare programs.

I don't know about your situation for most people the salary increases of the last 30 or so years have gone to the "rich".

Re: Overworked? Good habits, not holidays, are the answer

#93

Post by maxxxxx »

elcct wrote: post #55

Regardless of how much time you you spend at work I think having a couple of weeks in a year for yourself to explore the world or be it just mindlessly staring at the sea waves is a reality check and time when you can evaluate whatever you are doing. It is also a good benchmark - if your current job doesn't allow you to do that then - is this a good job? Or you can't really afford to go at the other side of the world…

Vacations also can bring interest in your work back. I used to do freelancing and take off at least 8 weeks a year. When I worked I was really interested in my work and put a lot of effort in. Now I work in a corporation with only 3 weeks vacation and it's just one big long never-ending drag of the same thing again and again. The quality and creativity has gone down a lot. I just don't care that much anymore.

Re: Overworked? Good habits, not holidays, are the answer

#94

Post by refurb »

Tsagadai wrote: post #81
refurb wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Top 1% of income earners pay 50% of all federal income taxes collected. What would you consider a "fair" share of the top 1%'s wealth?

Volume and proportion are not the same thing. 50% of net is very easy when you have >10% of all wealth. No super rich individuals are taxed at 50% either of their net income either (if they are they are doing their taxes themselves and their lawyer is a fool), it is more common for ultra high wealth individuals to pay less than 10% of their net earnings.

I see your point, but don't forget that almost 50% of Americans don't pay any federal tax at all.[1] In fact some of them get EITC, so they are getting free money from the government on top of keeping all of their salary.

So my question still stands, what would be a fair breakdown of tax burden? Top 1% pay 100% of all income taxes? 90%?

I'm not trying to start an argument, I'm asking an honest question.

Unless we know what "fair" looks like, we don't know what needs to change.

[1]http://dailycaller.com/2015/10/07/in-2015-45-percent-of-amer...

Re: Overworked? Good habits, not holidays, are the answer

#95

Post by refurb »

Tsagadai wrote: post #84
refurb wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you assume that an economic gain would automatically be added to someone's salary? Salary is based on supply and demand, not the value you create. That's why an assembly worker building a $20K Ford makes about the same as one building a $100K SUV.

Ford makes $776,348 per employee. I will take a stab in the dark and say that the assembly worker is making substantially less than that regardless of whether it is $20k or $100k car while still producing far more value than the cost of either vehicle. http://csimarket.com/stocks/singleEfficiencyet.php?code=F

As already mentioned, that is revenue, not profit. If you take $1000 worth of material (costs) and make something you can sell for $2000 (price), then you've created $1000 in value, not $2000.

My point is that the value created by a worker doesn't define the salary (although it creates a cap, you can pay more than value created).

A great example are lawyers. With the glut of lawyers out there, a lot of lawyers are getting paid less than $50K/yr. I would argue the work they do is worth more than that, but since there are so many lawyers chasing so many jobs, salaries fall.

Re: Overworked? Good habits, not holidays, are the answer

#97

Post by sanderjd »

StavrosK wrote: post #62
sanderjd wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point, I'm honestly not sure if this thread is a series of extremely pessimistic people, or a fairly clever riff on Lovecraftian doom writing.

Looks more like Kafka to me. Not enough "horror" and "unspeakable" to be Lovecraft.

Nah, Kafka is more banal.

Re: Overworked? Good habits, not holidays, are the answer

#98

Post by sanderjd »

EC1 wrote: post #67
sanderjd wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point, I'm honestly not sure if this thread is a series of extremely pessimistic people, or a fairly clever riff on Lovecraftian doom writing.

What part of it isn't true though? Don't look at how it reads, just read the words. I feel the same way, like you're being stomped in the face every day by an invisible boot except nobody knows who's wearing it, but we all feel it. We are collectively losing our identities and blending into one due to how hyper connected we are and how available cheap forms of entertainment are. It's all quite eerie. I still haven't…

I'm not sure what else to say besides that none of this rings true to me at all. I don't feel stomped in the face at all. I don't believe my identity is blending into one collective, and I wouldn't describe anyone I know in that way either; everyone seems unique and interesting after getting to know them at even a little depth.

Your experience of life must just be different than mine!

Re: Overworked? Good habits, not holidays, are the answer

#99

Post by dragonwriter »

refurb wrote: post #70
dragonwriter wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You see the part of your salary that goes to taxes; less visible is the share of the economic gain produced by your work that doesn't make it into your salary I the first place. The GP was referencing the latter.

Why do you assume that an economic gain would automatically be added to someone's salary? Salary is based on supply and demand, not the value you create. That's why an assembly worker building a $20K Ford makes about the same as one building a $100K SUV.

I'm pretty sure that what I said not only does not assume that economic gains would automatically be reflected in salary, but indeed that it's entire premise is that economic gains from work are often not, automatically or otherwise, reflected in salary but instead captured by capital.

Maybe you'd like to ask a sensible question?

Re: Overworked? Good habits, not holidays, are the answer

#100

Post by yongelee »

dota_fanatic wrote: post #53
simplemath wrote: post #8

Overworked? Everyone is overworked. We live in a post scarcity industrial world, or very very close to it, and bad actors have gobbled up the spoils of the huge gains in productivity in the last 50 years. How much of the entire economy is predicated on grey money? How much of your time is indirectly consumed by this leviathan? The more I think about it, the more i want to opt out of the entire fucking thing.

Imagine if all the 10x and 100x engineers were all on the same team. Keep competition, but play for the same team. The losers are losers because they didn't create the best solution, but the losers are winners because they get to enjoy the spoils, since they're on the same team. Isn't status everything, after a point? Why can't the United States actually be united? Develop universal human code, highly vetted, secure,…

What an interesting and revolutionary idea! That could actually change the world.
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