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The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

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Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#151

Post by beaconstudios »

llamataboot wrote: post #102
beaconstudios wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which is kind of ironic because in a state of anarchy like subsistence farming you'd expect to work a lot more than 50 hours, and doing back-breaking manual labour at that.

I'm not sure how much subsistence farming has to do with a socio-political theory that primarily came out of 19th Century Europe/Russia and Modernity, but sure, if that's your critique I don't want to derail the thread into a discussion about what anarchism is/isn't

it's just one example of a system of living that doesn't involve a central government. I'm not an anarchist myself so tend to be extremely skeptical of anarchist claims that a country with no police force would continue to be "modern" for any stretch of time.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#152

Post by jdietrich »

readittwice wrote: post #140
hellofunk wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Holland, everyone takes off 4 - 6 weeks in the summer to travel the world. This is so different than Americans: 1) In the U.S. you can work for years at a company before getting more than 1 or 2 weeks paid vacation. 2) Most Americans don't travel much outside their own state or region, let alone country. Most don't even own passports. 3) Even when not on the job, either at night, on the weekends, or on vacation, A…

Why should Americans bother to have a passport? Their country is so huge, probably more than you could visit in a lifetime. Deserts, mountains, cities, ... In Europe countries and the continent are smaller, Vienna for example literally has 3 other countries in commuting distance. It is quite obvious that you are more likely to need a passport here in Europe. A much fairer comparison would be to only count Europeans t…

Visiting a foreign country is regarded as an essential rite of passage in many parts of the world. Being surrounded by people who speak a different language, use a different currency and have a different culture provides a very valuable life experience. Your understanding of "normal" can shift very quickly when you get to experience being a foreigner.

I can't help but think that passport ownership is one of the fundamental cultural divides in the US. It's difficult to understand the value of travelling abroad if you've never experienced it and don't know many people who have.

Geography is no excuse - Australians are prolific international travellers, despite the size of their continent and their oceanic isolation. Spending a year abroad is the norm for young Aussies, but it's still regarded as a rare privilege for young Americans.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#153

Post by d--b »

This is a strangely divisive topic in the startup industry.

For some reason, there are smart people who think that meritocracy works: work hard and things will be good for you. The problem is that in many cases working hard (as in building up a startup) does indeed give people the opportunity to rise in society. But it is not true in all cases at all. And so the negative statement "if you are struggling you didn't try enough" is completely flawed.

First, in capitalism, a work's remuneration is supposed to be related in a way to the perceived utility of that work for society in general. Second competition means that a work's remuneration is inversely proportional to how easy it is to perform.

Using those 2 propositions, it becomes obvious that jobs with little utility and high competition have a remuneration that tends to go down to 0 (fast food, taxis, etc.). So in these cases, no matter how hard you work, your pay can only go that high.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#154

Post by zelos »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #113
intended wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whats the comparison of sizes like ? Really curious because if the next smaller house in size is a trailer then the UK sizes must be weirdly small.

Average home size in the UK is less than half that of the US: http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/how-big-is-a-house US @ 77 sq meters per capita vs UK @ 33 sq meters per capita.

Yet in the equally crowded Netherlands, the average house size is much larger. Is it just the house building industry is really poor here in the UK?

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#155

Post by ycombinete »

willdotphipps wrote: post #47

...you see even IF Uber prohibit drivers from using their own app between rides, if they all just agree, they can just go fuck it, we've had enough. anyone here ever spoken to a happy Uber driver? Me neither. Wife...family..kids meanwhile Kalanick gets his $6bn...NICE.

Literally every Uber driver I've spoken to was happy. In fact many of them have actually quit other jobs, to drive an Uber.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#156

Post by ZeroGravitas »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #116
tscs37 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please keep in mind that your costs of living are also different. In the EU you don't pay as much for the same services as in the US, especially healthcare. I'm not sure about Japan but it could be the same thing there.

Tokyo's definitely cheaper than the bay area or NYC, but it's still not exactly cheap. The median monthly rent is low, but you have to figure that the median apartment is tiny by American standards.

So many comments about big houses, I'm wondering if buying a big house in the suburbs that you have to commute hours to work from and therefore rarely enjoy is (to quote Homer Simpson) both the solution and the cause of all America's problems.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#157

Post by vanviegen »

readittwice wrote: post #140
hellofunk wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Holland, everyone takes off 4 - 6 weeks in the summer to travel the world. This is so different than Americans: 1) In the U.S. you can work for years at a company before getting more than 1 or 2 weeks paid vacation. 2) Most Americans don't travel much outside their own state or region, let alone country. Most don't even own passports. 3) Even when not on the job, either at night, on the weekends, or on vacation, A…

Why should Americans bother to have a passport? Their country is so huge, probably more than you could visit in a lifetime. Deserts, mountains, cities, ... In Europe countries and the continent are smaller, Vienna for example literally has 3 other countries in commuting distance. It is quite obvious that you are more likely to need a passport here in Europe. A much fairer comparison would be to only count Europeans t…

You don't actually need a passport to travel within the EU. Just a European id card. Still, most people I know do have passports, but that might tell you more about my particular bubble than anything else.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#158

Post by kingkawn »

J-dawg wrote: post #73
rmc wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And many of them think that people in Europe have it worse. That the economy would just collapse into African-levels of poverty if there was mandatory paid holidays. This is a danger of American TV shows and movie studios remaking shows for the American audiences. They don't get to see that Europe is mostly a developed place.

Not to disagree with the parent comment (because overall I prefer the European way) but we do have it worse in some ways. Salaries for professionals are markedly lower, we live in much smaller houses etc. I get the feeling that when you're winning at life in America, you're really winning. But when you're losing you're really losing. In Europe the ups and downs of life are more smoothed out.

You have been colonized by American propaganda

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#159

Post by alkonaut »

collyw wrote: post #124
cyphunk wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hardest thing for me to explain to my American family, as someone living in the EU, is that a tax or burden that is evenly distributed has near 0 negative impact on collective productivity. A society where everyone is missing one leg will still function and be largely productive, up until they have to compete with a society where everyone has two legs. That leg is something like health care, maternaty leave, vaca…

Don't Europeans pay similar levels of tax to Americans?

Depends on which europeans you mean. The higher taxed countries like the nordics pay mad taxes. I don't mind though because I feel it's well spent (i.e. my attitude towards public spending is that it is usually pretty efficient). That's probably a big difference to the US where the attitude seems to be that taxes are pretty much a black hole.

Tax calc for me:

Employer pays $8k

Payroll taxes deducted: $2k

My gross salary: $6k

My income tax: $2k

My net salary: $4k

If I make one big pruchase for all my $4k, the VAT is (with some exceptions, 25%) so I buy goods for $3k + $1k tax.

So basically, of $8 paid by my employer each month, I can buy goods or services for $3k. That's pretty steep! If you look at the income tax above, you'll see it's only 1/3 however.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#160

Post by taway_1212 »

collyw wrote: post #124
cyphunk wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hardest thing for me to explain to my American family, as someone living in the EU, is that a tax or burden that is evenly distributed has near 0 negative impact on collective productivity. A society where everyone is missing one leg will still function and be largely productive, up until they have to compete with a society where everyone has two legs. That leg is something like health care, maternaty leave, vaca…

Don't Europeans pay similar levels of tax to Americans?

According to Wikipedia [1], in the US tax revenue is 26% of GDP and in the UK it's 34.4% (while in Denmark it's 50.8%). Moreover, the US spends large portion of its budget on military, so even less goes back directly to the people.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_reven...

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