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The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

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Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#431

Post by coldtea »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #426
coldtea wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm glad you've agreed with me that life has done nothing but get better. We're all winners, whereas by modern standards our parents were all losers. Only in the sense that being a loser with a cellphone makes you a winner over a winner in the 60s without a cellphone. But I don't think "availability/access to gadgets and avocados" is of primary concern when one considers whether "life getting better" over access to…

You might be right that reduced status for white males is causing them to suffer psychologically. They may also engage in harmful lifestyles that reduce their life expectancy. I'm sorry you feel that reduced status for white people is a problem, but we just need to accept that we're no longer automatically at the top of the heap. I similarly agree that the lack of work and easy ability to be idle is harming people's…

>I'm sorry you feel that reduced status for white people is a problem, but we just need to accept that we're no longer automatically at the top of the heap.

Not an American, not a horse in the white males losing their status race, etc.

So don't particularly care for the weaselly "frame his sending this link as racism/white anger" angle ("I'm sorry you feel that reduced status for white people is a problem").

The issue pointed to is increased unemployment and scarce of blue collar jobs. It takes some twist it to turn it into some "reduced status for white people" problem in the sense of racist rhetoric. In fact it's a totally irrelevant reading, if not purposefully bad.

Reduced status as pertaining to white vs other races is irrelevant to whites losing their blue collar jobs. Whites could be getting less unemployment and still lose their status as superior to other races in American society, or they could lose their jobs and still retain their racist/top-of-the-heap status (and in fact racism often increases when unemployment rises -- just ask the Weimar republic. Germans were never poorer, but they sure increased their "top of the heap" status over jews).

And of course it's not just for white people -- it's just the demographic the research focused on. As if blacks for example have no issues with lack of blue collar jobs and lack of degrees (two things mentioned in the article). It's just that for blacks, premature deaths like mentioned in the article (and worse) have always been common, and nobody bats an eye.

I'm merely pointing something your "we're winning vs decades past" idea forgot, and which affects tons of people.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#432

Post by mpweiher »

conanbatt wrote: post #190
alkonaut wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Salaries for professionals are markedly lower, we live in much smaller houses etc. This is an age old debate, and it's very hard to compare one vast continent to another. Regional differences between US cities and European cities are at least as large or larger than the difference between the avereages of US and European salaries/living standards etc. The difference between central manhattan and rural Apalachia is…

A software engineer in a startup in berlin earns maybe a median salary of 60k euros ayear at a 40% tax rate. Thats less of what interns make in the us at a 30% tax rate. An experienced engineer at google or facebook make 200k with a sizable signup bonus. As far as I know, theres no comparison between what a soft dev makes in the us and what he makes in europe. This is from someone that lives in south america, and is…

When I was in the US working first at Apple and later at Livescribe, I was essentially breaking even on salary vs. cost of living.

Moving back to Berlin, I went part time because it was sufficient.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#433

Post by jospoortvliet »

bante wrote: post #384
BeetleB wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was not the point of the thread that money is not the only factor in life?

That's the point everyone else is making, yet conanbatt keeps coming back to comparing salaries between Berlin and San Francisco as an example of higher salaries in the US. Berlin is not even the highest paying city in Germany, let alone Europe.

I'd go as far as claiming Berlin is a very low paid place in Europe. Living costs and standards are quite low here compared to Munich or Amsterdam. You'd earn 50% more there for the same work.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#434

Post by Asooka »

Asooka wrote: post #115
yummyfajitas wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in reality, working hours have no significant upward trend. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AWHNONAG https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M0829BUSM065NNBR https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AWHAETP More people simply don't work. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART Consumption (note: figure adjusted for inflation) has only increased. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A794RX0Q048SBEA Looks like that prote…

Well yeah at least you're not working more than physically sane. But you still don't get any vacations and the like. You don't even have sick days! I mean proper sick days where you're paid and they aren't counted against some imaginary limit of how sick a person can be.

Downvoting won't fix your broken employer-employee relations.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#435

Post by hellofunk »

dnel wrote: post #119
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…

That's the benefit of travel isn't it, these same friends we visited had come over to the UK 2 years prior for the first time and that experience adjusted a lot of their pre-concieved ideas about the British in a positive way. If American's were enabled to take the time to see the world a bit more they would be less reliant on media stereotypes to understand it and might question their lot a bit more often but perhap…

As Twain said, "Travel is fatal to prejudice."

Americans could use a little less prejudice in their lives.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#436

Post by yummyfajitas »

coldtea wrote: post #431
yummyfajitas wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be right that reduced status for white males is causing them to suffer psychologically. They may also engage in harmful lifestyles that reduce their life expectancy. I'm sorry you feel that reduced status for white people is a problem, but we just need to accept that we're no longer automatically at the top of the heap. I similarly agree that the lack of work and easy ability to be idle is harming people's…

> I'm sorry you feel that reduced status for white people is a problem, but we just need to accept that we're no longer automatically at the top of the heap. Not an American, not a horse in the white males losing their status race, etc. So don't particularly care for the weaselly "frame his sending this link as racism/white anger" angle ("I'm sorry you feel that reduced status for white people is a problem"). The iss…

Actually no, the the upward trend in mortality is primarily a white people problem. Mid life mortality has significantly decreased for blacks and hispanics.

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/5FB2/production/_...

You seem to be focusing on whites when they are the exception. Weird.

I'm also not sure why you are discussing a lack of jobs now. Wasn't the original topic that we work too hard? And what evidence do you have that we lack jobs?

Given that virtually all of your factual claims have been disproven, I think you need to offer some evidence before I take this seriously.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#437

Post by conanbatt »

mpweiher wrote: post #432
conanbatt wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A software engineer in a startup in berlin earns maybe a median salary of 60k euros ayear at a 40% tax rate. Thats less of what interns make in the us at a 30% tax rate. An experienced engineer at google or facebook make 200k with a sizable signup bonus. As far as I know, theres no comparison between what a soft dev makes in the us and what he makes in europe. This is from someone that lives in south america, and is…

When I was in the US working first at Apple and later at Livescribe, I was essentially breaking even on salary vs. cost of living. Moving back to Berlin, I went part time because it was sufficient.

Break-even with an apple eng salary in the us? I cant believe that is true.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#438

Post by ionised »

shokunin wrote: post #344
onion2k wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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... If having more money and a bigger house is winning that's true, but many people don't see life that way. Being happy, having time to enjoy life with your friends, doing worthwhile and interesting things, raising your kids well, etc are also ways to win. In general if you…

Yeah, try enjoying your time with friends and long vacations with no money in your pocket. Fuck Berlin.

Nobody in Berlin has any money? That's awful.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#439

Post by usrusr »

ionised wrote: post #438
shokunin wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, try enjoying your time with friends and long vacations with no money in your pocket. Fuck Berlin.

Nobody in Berlin has any money? That's awful.

That's awfully untrue. Except for the part where having no money as a lifestyle choice is a very Berlin thing to do. I have literally met people who switched from full time in a smaller city to part time remote to fulfill their dream of having little money in Berlin. (Berlin also has its share of genuinely poor people, but those are not the less-than-silicon-valley-wage developers we are talking about)

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#440

Post by usrusr »

dukeluke wrote: post #222
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't sound like even you believe they are both the same, certainly you've provided no evidence that is the case in your response. You'd just prefer if the Democrats were even more towards your preference on fiscal matters. I can agree with that, whether it would fly with the American voters sufficiently to overcome the rural/republican tilt is another matter entirely.

In my opinion, the Democrats and Republicans are two sides of the same coin, focusing on divisive social issues and not on actually helping the country. What I would truly like is voter reform allowing for more than a two-party system. I feel that the current system leads naturally to corruption and favoring corporate needs.

I believe that all systems eventually lead to corruption. All rules can be gamed somehow, the quality of the ruleset is how long it takes for people to discover the necessary manipulations. Given the age, the US had a pretty good run.

Maybe occasional rewrites could be a solution, but if they happen without the customary devastating violence, I'm afraid that the rewrite would only further entrench existing corruption (and even devastating violence is far from a guarantee that this won't happen, quite the opposite actually).

Maybe have a dozen or so mixed teams create separate drafts in isolation, vote out the worst half and then select one of the remaining by chance? Something along these lines might greatly help rewriters to forget about their own personal or group interests for a while and focus on what would be good for society as a whole. It's most likely just a theoretical design, right?

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