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Someone is stealing your life (1990)

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Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#111

Post by JonnieCache »

grammaton wrote: post #108
JonnieCache wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes you can. You just have to adjust your expectations. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Freeganism Note: these ideas do not necessarily reflect the views of the management

Ah, so all you have to do is be willing to live like a scavenger and adjust to a third-world standard of living. Well that seems reasonable.

Some people choose to do so, because it makes them happy. Does that make them foolish? If so, what does that say about our economic relationship with the people who actually live in the third world?

Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#113

Post by doyoulikeworms »

s_jambo wrote: post #67
jacoblyles wrote: post #12

It sucks to have nothing to offer an employer except fungible labor that they could get from a million other people. The author should work on that. There are 6 billion people in this world and not enough wealth to let everyone live like a king just for breathing (yet).

Are you sure on that last point? There have been some kings with pretty low standards of living historically... :) I think a big part of the issue is our economy isn't aimed at letting everyone live like a king for just breathing, it's aimed at maximizing how fast we can transform raw resources into things people want and maximizing how much stuff we can get people with money to want to want.

Considering "living like a king" typically means that you get what you want, I'd say that the two are the same.

The slog from subsistence to utopia is, and will be, accomplished one step at a time. Improved productivity (often achieved through the transformation of raw materials), increases output relative to effort and time spent working. The dividends paid by this improved productivity is almost always reinvested, typically by reducing effort, but maintaining (or increasing) time.

tl;dr the economy is very much aimed at letting everyone live like a king just for breathing, but breathing alone is not yet productive enough to satisfy anyone's needs.

Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#114

Post by wybo »

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…

> But that's not the big point. The big point is that placing the blame externally kills off your ability to solve problems yourself.

If all you think about is solving your own problems, in the self-help sense, then placing blame externally is bad and non-productive indeed (as it makes you passive).

But if you think about how society as a whole impacts the lives of most people, then it is an empirical issue, and I'd guess most peoples lives are rather much impacted by external factors... So considering them is sensible there (as it focuses attention on the most important factors).

Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#115

Post by grammaton »

rick888 wrote: post #106
grammaton wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

"addressing the problems of capitalism as suggested by the author of the article?" and what problems are those? That not everyone comes out on top? Of course this is the case. I am interested in alternatives that don't involve limiting the success of the people that are actually creating wealth or taking exorbitant amounts of money through taxes. When you've lived long enough, you realize that there aren't many ideas…

Did I suggest I had any such idea? Did I suggest limiting anyone's success or taking exorbitant amounts of money through taxes?

The problems in question are not that not everyone comes out on top - it's that "not coming out on top" involves a great deal of exploitation and coercion. More so than most will admit. The problem is that "coming out on top" now means you control a hugely disproportionate sum of wealth - and thereby exert a disproportionate influence on society, invariably to the expense of others.

"limiting the success of the people that are actually creating wealth."

And therein lies one of the problems - the rewards do not go to those who make the wealth, and that's exactly the point the author of the article was making.

If an engineer invents a radical new process for fabricating microchips, who is paid the huge sum of money resulting from it - the CEO or the engineer? Which one actually created wealth and value?

"When you've lived long enough, you realize that there aren't many ideas that are truly unique."

This is merely condescension. Age doesn't grant you any magical insights, and you don't have to reach a certain age to know there are no new ideas. I figured that out a long time ago. That said, you want to talk about defeatists attitudes? "There are no new ideas" is a cake taker in that department.

I don't have all the answers, and I don't claim to - but we have absolutely zero chance of addressing social issues if we as a society won't even acknowledge them. And just because I don't have a better alternative right now, doesn't mean that no one else does either - or that I won't in the future.

Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#116

Post by mortehu »

watchandwait wrote: post #39

The real theft is that the federal, state, and local governments take about 40 percent of your earnings in an array of taxes.

In my opinion, taxing some fraction of people's income is the best solution to the problem he's mentioning. Although I am under the impression that USA is rather reluctant to tax high earners.

Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#117

Post by Tycho »

grammaton wrote: post #82
Tycho wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The current state has been thus for all of about a decade, maybe two if you want to get technical about it. It remains to be seen whether it sticks around for the long term. It is also debatable whether this really represents an improvement, much less a continual one. With the increasing availability of the basics to launch a web application, the expected value of doing so has declined correspondingly. Even if we tak…

I don't want to get drawn into a really long debate, I just have two things to say: 1. People aren't born developers, plumbers, etc., it's a career you choose 2. The technology that enables these things is not going to disappear, of that we can be pretty sure

Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#118

Post by ajju »

rbarooah wrote: post #93
ajju wrote: post #27

" And to compete in the business community, you'll find yourself having to treat others - your employees - as much like slaves as you can get away with. Pay them as little as they'll tolerate and give them no say in anything, because that's what's most efficient and profitable. Money is the absolute standard. Freedom, and the dignity and well-being of one's fellow creatures, simply don't figure in the basic formula."…

Are you seriously arguing that Google and Zappos are representative of many companies?

They are examples that it can be done. The entire tone of the article is defeatist with the author arguing that it cannot be done.

For example: "you'll find yourself having to treat others - your employees - as much like slaves as you can get away with"

No. You won't find yourself having to do anything like that. There are well known companies that don't do that and make tonnes of money. That is what I am arguing.

Just noticed (1990) in the title. I am not sure it was there before. Either the title was updated or I missed it. In any case, the article makes more sense if you take that into account.

Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#119

Post by A1kmm »

lionhearted wrote: post #3

> On the other hand - or so they say - you're free, and if you don't like your job you can pursue happiness by starting a business of your very own, by becoming an "independent" entrepreneur. But you're only as independent as your credit rating. And to compete in the business community, you'll find yourself having to treat others - your employees - as much like slaves as you can get away with. The whole piece is like…

I think the author intended the post to be a macroeconomic critique, with personal details given as analogies.

Macroeconomic reasoning by analogy, especially personal ones, is not very rigorous, and can sound defeatist; the same article could perhaps be more rigorously written from a more academic perspective with statistics rather than personal analogies.

However, there is a certain subset of HN who don't seem to get macroeconomics - every time anyone discusses it, people come up with microeconomic solutions that wouldn't scale.

Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#120

Post by momotomo »

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…

Have you ever read up on ILOC and ELOC? I'm not sure if it's just pop psych but I found it a good example to explain to people the importance of owning your life and outcomes.

Basically people with a high internal locus of control drive change and own the outcomes (good or bad). People with an external locus of control accept change and blame external factors for the outcomes. Distinct difference in the happiness / satisfaction between the groups, if I recall correctly.

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