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How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

entertainment.timesonline.co.uk

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Re: How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

#71

Post by dhimes »

megablast wrote: post #70
caf wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aye - being a stay-at-home husband and father ought to be as equally socially acceptable as wife & mother.

No, I am sorry it is not. Anybody can stay at home. Not anyone can start up a company, or work at a senior level, or even work at a technical level. There are plenty of people who could never achieve that level of competence, they can stay at home.

I strongly disagree. It should be the choice of the man, or at least of the family. Society shouldn't punish men socially for making that choice.

Re: How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

#72

Post by dhimes »

jacquesm wrote: post #43
zaidf wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny. An assistant at my Dad's work figured she was paying almost her salary in babysitting costs and other expenses for things she could do herself if she had time. So she quit. My dad calls it the pay-your-neighbor-so-he-can-pay-his-neighbor phenomenon. Uncle Sam makes the most money in that relationship. He makes nothing when you babysit your own kid; he makes plenty when you hire someone to do the same thing(and…

Yes, that also happens quite a lot, the cost of having someone look after your children is substantial. I've heard school be referred to as the cheapest child minders that could be found.

We chose daycare because of the long-term implications. Some careers are harder to rebuild, so we took the hit for a few years in order to be in a better place (career wise if not financially) later.

Re: How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

#73

Post by wccrawford »

dannyr wrote: post #22

This reminded of an App Store developer I met a few months ago who had an app selling for $10. He was working too much answering too many technical support questions. What he did was increase the price of the app to $25. Less people purchased his app but his revenue is about the same. The volume of technical support questions dropped significantly because he has less users.

I used to play a MUD called DragonRealms. They charged $10 for a basic account and $30 for premium. The servers were quite crowded and there was a fair bit of lag.

Suddenly they announced a price hike to $15 and $40. Many of the old-timers left. The servers weren't as crowded and laggy.

Everyone called them greedy at the time, but I theorized that they did it because they couldn't scale their servers any more and they had to find a way to earn as much money but have fewer customers. Since they're still in business and haven't lowered their prices yet, I'd say it worked.

Re: How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

#74

Post by Confusion »

lionhearted wrote: post #21
Confusion wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the majority of men died without descendents. Things like that. Well, to me that's a reason not to read the essay, because it sounds quite like a naturalistic fallacy to care whether someone had offspring.

> Well, to me that's a reason not to read the essay, because it sounds quite like a naturalistic fallacy to care whether someone had offspring. I think you'll find it a thought-provoking essay regardless of your personal ethics. It's well-written, has lots of numbers, and brings up a lot of counterintuitive/counter-cultural points. I found it through Hacker News originally, actually.

  regardless of your personal ethics
My comment has nothing to do with ethics. Your prime example sounds like a common logical fallacy, which is independent of my ethics and raises my suspicions about the contents of the essay. I don't understand why I'm being downvoted into oblivion.

Re: How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

#75

Post by roel_v »

loewenskind wrote: post #67
roel_v wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In absolute terms the cost of living (when comparing with a constant standard of living though!) has decreased significantly vis-a-vis median salaries over the last 30 years. Most of the gains were made in increased production efficiencies. I think you severely underestimate the amount of gains that have been made there over that time. Total food budget is 5 to 10% of middle class household income in most of the West…

I think that's a little trickier to pin down than that. Yes food costs less. Housing? Maybe. But now things you didn't have 100 years ago are requirements. For example, if you don't have a phone today you're going to have a hard time finding and keeping a job. Keeping someone from 100 years ago alive would certainly cost less than it did then but you have to also consider if they could function in today's society on…

Yes this is true, but only to a certain extent. It's why I put in the "when comparing with a constant standard of living though", but that is trickier than just that one line of course, as you correctly point out.

Still many of the factors that are considered 'requirements' today aren't in my book, but of course this can be subject to discussion. To take your telephone example, here in the Netherlands (an advanced Western country by all measures) I don't know of many jobs that one wouldn't be able to get or keep without a phone. For those where you're on-call, you are provided with one.

Similarly, cost of living statistics by our national statistics institute changed their household budgets a few years ago - the tv has been a 'basic necessity' for decades (in these statistics), but the budget was upped several hundred euros because now LCD tv's are the norm. Still I think it's stupid to budget 800 euros every 5 years for a TV into a 'basic necessity' budget.

I remain convinced that even after accounting for an adjusted lifestyle to the level of a 'basic lifestyle', and where 'basic needs' have evolved to match societal progress, the increase in income has outpaced the rise of cost of living.

Re: How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

#76

Post by roel_v »

dublinclontarf wrote: post #57
roel_v wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I guess that the comparison is meaningless with someone who lives in a 2nd tier Chinese city...

It's got me thinking on changing professions.

Do you have any idea of how much a prostitute in a Chinese city would make? Is there any open reporting, human interest reporting or something like that in China? Is prostitution visible at all?

Re: How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

#77

Post by notahacker »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #61
gaius wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Men worked extremely physically demanding jobs that made their muscles and bones give out by age 40 Yes, this is kinda the little secret of Feminism. They see that men have "good" jobs like CEOs and want some of that for themselves, and who wouldn't? But they overlook that men are also collecting the garbage, working in the mines, and generally doing all of society's dirty, dangerous jobs. Where're the calls for "equ…

"When you think of a sanitation worker — riding on a garbage truck and dumping trash can after trash can — most people would picture a big, tough guy in their minds. But out of 7,000 uniformed city workers nicknamed "the strongest," 200 of them are women. In honor of women's history month, the department celebrated some of the the first females to suit up in green. Verilyn Gallo was only the third woman in the depart…

That's <3% of refuse collectors So women are more shockingly underrepresented in refuse collection than in the upper ranks of the Fortune 500...

Re: How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

#78

Post by wazoox »

lionhearted wrote: post #14

Problems with the article: > Throughout history, it has invariably been easier to be male than female. Yes, this is an overgeneralisation and yes, there are exceptions, but by any important measure, women have had it rougher than men. This one is a PC-friendly thing to say, the opposite point of view is not. If you haven't read it, I must urge you to check out the excellent "Is There Anything Good About Men?" essay b…

I don't see why being a house-husband couldn't be a suitable, meaningful, and happy occupation neither. You made some interesting remarks but didn't push it to its logical end.

Re: How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

#79

Post by duairc »

gaius wrote: post #58
jacobolus wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly life is pretty shitty for (e.g.) rural peasants of both genders, and while in general in the past men had more independence and ability to choose their life direction, etc., I’ve always been pretty skeptical of attempts to rank the two in any absolute way. Men got killed in high numbers in war. Women got raped by invading armies. Men worked extremely physically demanding jobs that made their muscles and bones…

Men worked extremely physically demanding jobs that made their muscles and bones give out by age 40 Yes, this is kinda the little secret of Feminism. They see that men have "good" jobs like CEOs and want some of that for themselves, and who wouldn't? But they overlook that men are also collecting the garbage, working in the mines, and generally doing all of society's dirty, dangerous jobs. Where're the calls for "equ…

That is inaccurate and a strawman. Feminism is about destroying the concept of gender.

Re: How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

#80

Post by gaius »

duairc wrote: post #79
gaius wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Men worked extremely physically demanding jobs that made their muscles and bones give out by age 40 Yes, this is kinda the little secret of Feminism. They see that men have "good" jobs like CEOs and want some of that for themselves, and who wouldn't? But they overlook that men are also collecting the garbage, working in the mines, and generally doing all of society's dirty, dangerous jobs. Where're the calls for "equ…

That is inaccurate and a strawman. Feminism is about destroying the concept of gender.

If that were true it would be called "equalism".
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