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Obituary for a quiet life (2023)

bittersoutherner.com

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Re: Obituary for a quiet life (2023)

#301

Post by CRConrad »

p1esk wrote: post #292
swiftcoder wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe in abstract. I doubt the majority of people have considered those positions in more detail than "wouldn't it be nice if no one could tell me what to do?", or "wouldn't it be nice to never worry about money ever again?". Close proximity to a bunch of tech executives very quickly cured me of any illusion that I wanted to belong to that in-group. Most already with more money than they knew how to spend, and still…

Well, you write code for a living, right? I’m guessing the vast majority of humans would shudder at the thought of doing that 40 hours a week. It would be a similar attitude to what you expressed towards executives. Executives are sexier than coders, at least for general population. And it’s not clear which one would become more attractive to an average Joe after personally experiencing both professions. I’ve read th…

> Well, you write code for a living, right? I’m guessing the vast majority of humans would shudder at the thought of doing that 40 hours a week.

Yeah, right. The vast number of subsistence farmers in the Third World, and the (tens of?) millions of single parents holding down three jobs (at least one of which full-time) and eking out a subsistence based on constantly increasing their debts to pay-day loansharks in the USA, they all "shudder at the thought" of doing a mere 40 hours a week of a plush sit-down job like tapping code into a computer.

You need to seriously recalibrate your perspective.

Re: Obituary for a quiet life (2023)

#302

Post by CRConrad »

GeoAtreides wrote: post #38
ttiurani wrote: post #16

> All around us are these lives — heads down and arms open — that ignore the siren call of flashy American individualism, of bright lights and center stage. I’m fine right here is the response from the edge of the room, and that contentment is downright subversive. How could you want only that? the world demands. There’s more to have, always more. Beautiful writing, and I feel this part especially elevates it. Going…

> the world demands. There’s more to have, always more. is it really the world? or is it the ad industry? the social media algorithms? bet if we shutdown the ad industry and accept only sorted by date for social media the world will quiet down tremendously

> > the world demands. There’s more to have, always more.

> is it really the world? or is it the ad industry? the social media algorithms?

Those have so much influence nowadays that they pretty much are "the world".

Or at the very least, they're the means for it -- they're how "the world demands".

Re: Obituary for a quiet life (2023)

#303

Post by CRConrad »

otteromkram wrote: post #279
onion2k wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how many people would happily trade access to the web for a world where a laundry truck driver can afford a house. I imagine it's quite a lot.

Not me. Buying a house comes with a lot of responsibility and you basically give up any freedoms to be able to pay your mortgage, saved up for any repairs, and hope that a natural disaster doesn't wipe out your largest investment. Comparatively, we're at the best time to be alive in history. I don't even know where the person I'm replying to lives, but I don't they will receive this message almost instantly. I can le…

> Buying a house comes with a lot of responsibility and you basically give up any freedoms to be able to pay your mortgage, saved up for any repairs, and hope that a natural disaster doesn't wipe out your largest investment.

I think you kind of missed the point. The GP was talking about the days when a laundry truck driver could afford a house, i.e. a time when owning a house wasn't that big of a deal. If you could afford it as a laundry truck driver in your twenties, then you cold also afford to totally lose it, live as a renter for a few years, and buy another house in your thirties or forties. The entire point was, it didn't take such a crippling anmount of debt back then.

Re: Obituary for a quiet life (2023)

#304

Post by CRConrad »

fennecbutt wrote: post #154
twojobsoneboss wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Near Fruitland NC for 365k. Not too bad at all https://redf.in/tmYs3p

I'm not American but I can do this rough: median salary PC Henderson county 37,457 (2022) after taxes $30,858. Mortgage rates seem to be about 8% for 30y fix atm so that's 36,500 deposit with $2017 monthly payment, but at least that's $0 fees. At $2571 in pocket per month it'll take a while to save that deposit when median rent in that location is apparently $1500 for an apartment,let alone the fact you'll need a car…

> median salary [...] after taxes $30,858. Mortgage [...] with $2017 monthly payment

Leaves $6,000/y or $500/m for everything else. Feels... Precarious.

Re: Obituary for a quiet life (2023)

#305

Post by CRConrad »

notincel wrote: post #34

This is nice story. That said, I feel like the people praising "the quiet life" are missing that this man found a companion at ~20yrs old and with that companion had a family and kids and grand kids. Plenty of people never find that anchor/base/partner https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2021/10/05/rising-... It's arguably easy to be content when you have good support around you. Bad or no support and it's much…

You make a not uninteresting point, but your choice of user id detracts considerably from it.

Re: Obituary for a quiet life (2023)

#306

Post by pixelmonkey »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #275
pixelmonkey wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I recently rewatched "The Big Chill" and wrote a reflection about the movie vs the internet age: https://amontalenti.com/2023/12/28/the-blog-chill

Enjoyed that very much, as I do all small blog pieces written with heart. Good to read your contrast of Big Chill with Roderick's take. (He's a serious joker, for me a kinda Bill Hicks who took the job title philosopher instead of stand-up comedian) > they are only honest with themselves about this in the private setting I'm sure you're aware of the phase "social cooling" [0] TBH I am astonished by the extreme differ…

Well said.

Re: Obituary for a quiet life (2023)

#307

Post by eggdaft »

616c wrote: post #89
eggdaft wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve achieved everything I set out to in life, at least everything I have control over and set out to do when I was in my 20s. I’ve added a new ambition after some thought, not sure if I’ll manage to squeeze it in. But I see the second half of my life now as predominantly about “service”. I think it’s important for everyone to have a life, to do the things they love, to follow some ambition or passion and take care o…

I for one would like to see you write more about this.

What would you like to know?

Re: Obituary for a quiet life (2023)

#309

Post by hellojesus »

gen220 wrote: post #300
hellojesus wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the response and the links. It's an interesting perspective on life, but I'm not sure I'm totally sold. > 17And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. 19You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery…

> In selling his goods, does the man not capture value from his customers? No, because selling goods is not the same thing as capturing value. Jesus is not asking for the man to first accrue wealth and then distribute it, he's asking the man to liquidate his wealth and distribute them. The implication is that the man developed his wealth through value capture. > I don't mind that some of the $700 goes to paying the p…

I don't think it was possible to investigate the entire supply chain even before the modern era. I go to a farmer and buy some crops, or barter with them. Who's to say they don't have slaves, or don't have good working conditions, etc.?

How does an economy work under your system? I must create demand somewhere. I need food. I need clothes. I need shelter. Amd I want things. Eventually I'll need to trade, and that trade will benefit both parties by making them both better off. But by becoming better off, some value was captured: I value what I purchase equal to or more that what I gave up. The concepts of marginal costs and revenue come into play here. Under your system, do I have to abstain from all trade if my marginal revenue exceeds my marginal cost? How do I scale?

Re: Obituary for a quiet life (2023)

#310

Post by gen220 »

hellojesus wrote: post #309
gen220 wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In selling his goods, does the man not capture value from his customers? No, because selling goods is not the same thing as capturing value. Jesus is not asking for the man to first accrue wealth and then distribute it, he's asking the man to liquidate his wealth and distribute them. The implication is that the man developed his wealth through value capture. > I don't mind that some of the $700 goes to paying the p…

I don't think it was possible to investigate the entire supply chain even before the modern era. I go to a farmer and buy some crops, or barter with them. Who's to say they don't have slaves, or don't have good working conditions, etc.? How does an economy work under your system? I must create demand somewhere. I need food. I need clothes. I need shelter. Amd I want things. Eventually I'll need to trade, and that tra…

> Who's to say they don't have slaves, or don't have good working conditions, etc.?

This is what social norms are for, and we have done it forever. The modern era has made this exponentially more difficult.

> Eventually I'll need to trade, and that trade will benefit both parties by making them both better off.

Yep yep, totally fine if you're not exploiting anybody.

> But by becoming better off, some value was captured: I value what I purchase equal to or more that what I gave up.

As long as you're creating value throughout the chain, you're doing just fine.

> Do I have to abstain from all trade if my marginal revenue exceeds my marginal cost?

This is actually an interesting question! The Luther piece touches on this a lot (where is the line between "Usury" and "Commerce"?). The answer he arrives on is no, you don't need to abstain, and that division of labor is not Usury.

The point is not to avoid profit, it's to avoid breaking the golden rule – there's no hard cutoff around how much profit is "too much" profit, but a rule of thumb that's often quoted (for whatever reason) is around 30% – i.e. if you see a gross profit that's consistently at or above that number, there's usually exploitation happening somewhere.

> How do I scale?

The answer depends on what we mean by scale. Revenues? Profits? Headcount? Volume of throughput?

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