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I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

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Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#221

Post by xbmcuser »

smallmancontrov wrote: post #70
xbmcuser wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people conflate the 2 things the current problems are not just because of capitalism but rather the capture of the government by capitalism.

If you don't discipline capitalism with a firm hand, double insulation guarantees that it takes over the government.

I agree with you. I don't believe pure capitalism or pure socialism works; we need something in between. China is somewhat like that, but because of the type of government it has, it is viewed with a jaundiced eye. Countries exist for their citizens, so things like healthcare, housing, and most infrastructure should be provided or subsidized by the government.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#222

Post by jplrssn »

avalys wrote: post #121
jplrssn wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who produces the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the house you live in, the energy you use, the medicine you consume, etc You could say the same thing about software engineers. But someone spending their days just creating JS frameworks is oh-so-productive and paid enough money every month to buy several years’ worth of food and shelter.

If they are JS frameworks that enable other engineers to build applications that support farms, and banks, and taxi services and insurance companies and mines and factories, etc. then obviously that is productive. If someone is willingly paying money for their labor then I see little point in questioning the worth of that exchange. When JS engineers start asking for public money to support them writing JS frameworks…

My point is that, unless you think that the purpose of human existence is to maximise insurance profitability and mining throughput, lifetime earnings potential is not a good proxy for someone’s value to society.

I think it is sad that many of the people that have the largest positive impact on society — teachers, care assistants and the like — are also some of worst paid.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#223

Post by chneu »

Suzuran wrote: post #176
avalys wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who produces the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the house you live in, the energy you use, the medicine you consume, etc. while you airily define ‘productivity’ as reading the classics and spending time with friends?

Does it matter? In the US, we send a sizable portion of our paychecks to the government's Social Security program so it can provide for us in this exact scenario . The government dictated the terms and we upheld our end of the contract on pain of incarceration. Now it's time for the government to uphold their end.

Technically, SS provides for the next generation. We pay into it to the next generation can use that, not the current one. It's a pyramid scheme meant to pay out early and then die. The math doesn't work if the individual expects to retire on it. It's a great scam.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#224

Post by ryandrake »

s_dev wrote: post #184
b3lvedere wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know several families who are absolutely not a building block of society. Some not by choice.

I'll never understand how people think a personal anecdote contradicts a more general point attained by evaluating collected data that would include those anecdotes. e.g. The claim: Planes are a very safe way to travel. Followed by someone jumping up to say: I know a person who was injured in a rough landing. Note I'm not claiming either the individual or family is the atomic unit here just pointing out that your con…

HN commenters do this all the time. A lot of people here treat comments as mathematical or logic proofs. They see a statement like "Planes are a very safe way to travel", and their minds go to:

∀x(X(x)⟹(Y(x))

and then they make it their mission to find the falsifying x sub 0 example.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#226

Post by senordevnyc »

inigyou wrote: post #15
AllegedAlec wrote: post #7

> Capitalism has defined ‘health’ itself as a capacity to submit oneself to labor People keep mindlessly saying this but I have never seen evidence for it. Before money was ever invented the idea was already there that if you're healthy you can sustain yourself. All 'capitalism' did was saying "and most people nowadays perform abstract services in trade for an abstraction of a promise of a pinky swear saying "if you…

You are a fish unable to see water. Yes, you need food. Guess what, we have plenty of food. But the system for allocating food says this guy doesn't get any because he's disabled.

Guess what, we have plenty of food

We have plenty of food because of capitalism (particularly the fact that we have plenty of incredibly cheap food grown by a tiny fraction of our population).

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#227

Post by senordevnyc »

inigyou wrote: post #138
AllegedAlec wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing my point. Shortage and conflict is the default . It's not a fault unique to capitalism, and to say that it's its fault is missing the mark. I'm not saying it's an ought situation or even an is situation; it's that I disagree with his diagnosis of what causes it.

Well right now there isn't a food shortage so what should we do while there isn't a food shortage? Should we perhaps say, that we only jettison the disabled people once we're actually running out of food and are forced to make a tough decision about who to keep alive, instead of doing it 20 years in advance just because there might be a shortage one day?

Whether we as a society support those who cannot productively contribute is orthogonal to capitalism. Capitalism itself has nothing to say about what we do with the increases in productivity. You can see this in many developed countries, which have wealth and surplus thanks to their capitalistic markets, but they also have high taxes and a strong safety net.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#228

Post by hackingonempty »

lostmsu wrote: post #201
kakacik wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't expect much sympathy here, as per many comments folks are mostly on purely capitalistic camps to the extreme. Its distillation of US approach to work and society, something I've grown to detest by mere fact of living in much more humane, while vastly more financially efficient system that doesn't use my tax money to kill civilians all over the world (none other than Swiss system and yes it could easily work els…

Switzerland got its wealth predominantly by shielding money stolen from around the entire world. I'm glad US ended that carnival of happiness to a large degree in 2009.

Whatever the US did in 2009 doesn't seem to have had any long term effect on Swiss GDP. It dipped in 2009, like everyone else, from the "global financial crisis" but recovered the next year.

https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/en/home/statistics/national-eco...

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#229

Post by Suzuran »

chneu wrote: post #223
Suzuran wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it matter? In the US, we send a sizable portion of our paychecks to the government's Social Security program so it can provide for us in this exact scenario . The government dictated the terms and we upheld our end of the contract on pain of incarceration. Now it's time for the government to uphold their end.

Technically, SS provides for the next generation. We pay into it to the next generation can use that, not the current one. It's a pyramid scheme meant to pay out early and then die. The math doesn't work if the individual expects to retire on it. It's a great scam.

It's not my problem if the math doesn't work, or if my money doesn't pay for me. The contract as presented to me by the government is "You will pay into this system, it provides Social Security to the aged and disabled. If you do not pay into this system, you will be judged guilty of a criminal offense and sentenced accordingly." The specifics of who pays and for what are the government's problem, not mine. Whether or not the government is guilty of fraud or misrepresentation does not affect the terms. I fail to see why I should consider the government free of the obligations they themselves have mandated.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#230

Post by senordevnyc »

Telaneo wrote: post #206
senordevnyc wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh come on. Parent is right, at this point, words have no meaning. By this logic, everything produces something , therefore everything is productive.

> By this logic, everything produces something, therefore everything is productive. Yes. That word is only useful insofar as you say or imply a goal. Candy Crush is not productive in gathering food. Most people imply the goal to be money. I'd rather imply enjoyment. See my OP.

And yet, you seemed to have been using it the way the rest of us are in this discussion, right here:

You are worth so much more than your productivity.

I think the issue here is that everyone else is having a discussion about economics, how we efficiently allocate scarce resources as a society, and the role that individual productivity plays in that allocation. You're having a discussion about enjoying your life. Which is great, if you want to play Candy Crush all day and call it "productive" because that makes you feel better, go for it.

But I'm not interested in paying your bills so you can.

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