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Someone is stealing your life (1990)

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Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#71

Post by Calamitous »

grammaton wrote: post #58
jonnathanson wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It takes effort, and it also takes balls (for lack of a more gender-neutral and appropriate word). If you want to get out of the drudgery and soul-hemorrage of the rat race, then you need to be prepared for the risk. Most people aren't. They do the mental math, figure that they need the salary or the stability or the medical coverage too much to risk it, and they take the blue pill. They resign themselves to the…

"figure that they need the salary or the stability or the medical coverage too much to risk it...it's a choice nonetheless." You don't see the contradiction here? What if someone is ill and really needs the medical coverage? What if they have dependents? Just because you are fortunate enough to be healthy and relatively responsibility free (if you are), doesn't mean that everyone else is in the same boat, and that pe…

Everything in life is a choice. Often it's a choice between two bad options-- that's life.

Covering your ears and humming loudly at the problem doesn't eliminate your responsibility to address it; nor the consequences for doing so.

Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#72

Post by jonnathanson »

grammaton wrote: post #58
jonnathanson wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It takes effort, and it also takes balls (for lack of a more gender-neutral and appropriate word). If you want to get out of the drudgery and soul-hemorrage of the rat race, then you need to be prepared for the risk. Most people aren't. They do the mental math, figure that they need the salary or the stability or the medical coverage too much to risk it, and they take the blue pill. They resign themselves to the…

"figure that they need the salary or the stability or the medical coverage too much to risk it...it's a choice nonetheless." You don't see the contradiction here? What if someone is ill and really needs the medical coverage? What if they have dependents? Just because you are fortunate enough to be healthy and relatively responsibility free (if you are), doesn't mean that everyone else is in the same boat, and that pe…

No, it's not a level playing field. You're absolutely right. I did not mean to give that impression.

Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#73

Post by steveklabnik »

lionhearted wrote: post #43
pygy_ wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're attacking the messenger, but you fail to address his core argument which boils down to Marx's criticism of capitalism (the fact that workers don't own the production means is unfair). "Just start your business" as a mean to all ends doesn't scale. Your last paragraph also seems to ignore that, for some people, just getting by takes (sometimes a lot of) effort. You may be clueless at some key point in your life…

> You're attacking the messenger, but you fail to address his core argument I'm not attacking him. His message places a lot of blame externally. That leads to not looking for solutions and building a better life. Marxism isn't the solution. I've been to a lot of the Marxist/ex-Marxist countries, and they're all worse off than similar neighbors who didn't endure Marxism. But that's not the big point. The big point is…

Marx's critique of capital is totally separate from his answer about what to do instead.

I know it may seem like a small nit to pick, but you can agree with one and disagree with the other (like me).

Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#74

Post by jonnathanson »

rgraham wrote: post #42
jonnathanson wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It takes effort, and it also takes balls (for lack of a more gender-neutral and appropriate word). If you want to get out of the drudgery and soul-hemorrage of the rat race, then you need to be prepared for the risk. Most people aren't. They do the mental math, figure that they need the salary or the stability or the medical coverage too much to risk it, and they take the blue pill. They resign themselves to the…

Courage, bravery, bravado, boldness, gusto, audacity, pluck, fearlessness, risk-tolerance, temerity, tenacity, fortitude, nerve, or stoutheartedness work for you? It is indeed a choice. The consequences of reversing that choice get much more complex as you gain responsibilities in life. Ultimately, however, your life is on you. No one else can care like you do.

Yes, though as a corollary, we need to remember that the "accumulation of responsibilities" is composed largely (though not solely) of the accumulation of a set of outcomes from a set of prior choices.

Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#75

Post by istari »

I walk into a restaurant. They charge me $10 for a meal. Yet they only paid $2 for the ingredients!

Now I don't know a lot of math, but even I know that 2 goes into 10... FIVE times! They are charging me FIVE times what it cost them to make that meal!

Sure, they came up with the money to open the restaurant, and the time to make the meal, but does that give them the right to rip me off? Because I spent my life earn my money, and by stealing my money THEY ARE STEALING MY LIFE!

Now you could say that I could always go and open my own restaurant, but that would require credit which THEY wouldn't give me, and ripping off other people, which I refuse to do.

Cooking? What's cooking? Never heard of it.

Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#76

Post by steveklabnik »

Tycho wrote: post #63
grammaton wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Most of the respondents to this thread don't seem to realize that we occupy a very unusual and richly privileged period of history - or for that matter, a very privileged position by dint of being fortunate enough to work in an industry that does allow it's workers a very high degree of autonomy if they choose that for themselves. Even then, it's still very hard and risky work.

The question is why do we currently occupy this very rich and priveleged perioud of history - because we took Michael Ventura's advice 20 years ago and abandoned capitalism?

We personally have managed to occupy a very rich and privileged part of history. That doesn't mean that anyone outside of this country (or even this industry) is rich and privileged, and you could make the argument that our riches are built on their repression and exploitation.

Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#77

Post by Tycho »

grammaton wrote: post #66
Tycho wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is why do we currently occupy this very rich and priveleged perioud of history - because we took Michael Ventura's advice 20 years ago and abandoned capitalism?

That brings us to the follow up question of, if a small number of people are privileged during a small part of history, does that mean that the rest of it - filled as it was with problems and exploitation - is no longer a problem, and the critiques are no longer valid? Just because capitalism works some of the time for a few of the people, doesn't mean that it's above criticism, and has no problems. Since the majorit…

The way you phrased the initial objection, made it sound like our current state (whereby anybody with internet access can launch a webapp with global reach for practically nothing) is some sort of insignificant fluke rather than part of a trend of continual improvement.

Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#78

Post by steveklabnik »

pdx wrote: post #30
rwl wrote: post #26

The upshot of this piece is much more significant than the comments here have been willing to admit. Yes, you can write the author off as having a whiny, blame-others attitude. Yes, you can say that if he would just take matters into his own hands, the path of entrepreneurship is hard but ultimately rewarding. And maybe that's right. But if you say that, then you have already accepted a premise that the piece is call…

Why should we structure our society so that, for the average person, self-sacrifice is the only way to survive, much less get ahead? So, we should structure our society so that you can get ahead without sacrifice? Do you get to be ahead of me or do I get to be ahead of you? I just want to be clear which of us gets ahead of the other one, what with neither one of us sacrificing anything.

You could both move forward together, rather than ensuring that someone is always ahead and another is farther behind...

A rising tide lifts all boats.

Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#79

Post by z0r »

lionhearted wrote: post #8
jarin wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, take a look at the jobs he's listed as doing. That's not the career path of someone who has any direction or ambition, it's the career path of someone who takes whatever job comes along because he's out of money and desperate. I know, because I used to be that guy. My early career path looks like this: work at dad's restaurant, work at mom's jewelry store, temp agency, Cutco salesman, furniture assembler, temp…

I've been out of money and desperate at various times. It sucks. But if you point the blame only outwards, you're very likely to remain broke and desperate. Own everything. Take all responsibility for everything that happens to you, even if it wasn't your fault. This leads to some instant satisfaction in terms of feeling more in control of your life. And long term, you do a hell of a lot better. I try to own everythi…

Blame the poor for being poor?

Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#80

Post by grammaton »

Calamitous wrote: post #71
grammaton wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"figure that they need the salary or the stability or the medical coverage too much to risk it...it's a choice nonetheless." You don't see the contradiction here? What if someone is ill and really needs the medical coverage? What if they have dependents? Just because you are fortunate enough to be healthy and relatively responsibility free (if you are), doesn't mean that everyone else is in the same boat, and that pe…

Everything in life is a choice. Often it's a choice between two bad options-- that's life. Covering your ears and humming loudly at the problem doesn't eliminate your responsibility to address it; nor the consequences for doing so.

Sorry, this one is a tad ambiguous. By "humming loudly at the problem," are you talking about addressing problems in your own life, a'la the dominant theme of this thread, or addressing the problems of capitalism as suggested by the author of the article?
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