In other news, natural selection still applies, even to smart primates in 2026.
What an insane comment. Can't tell if you're serious.
I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore
281–290 of 528 posts
Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore
#282Earlier 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…
Do you really believe that nonsense? By that logic, we should legalize all drugs and optimize that LSD supply chain.
Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore
#283Earlier 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…
Why would someone take time out of their day to contradict or narrow someone else's so-called argument? Nobody cares about your argument. Anecdotes are shared because someone found an anecdote, that came to mind based on previous discussion, to be interesting. Sometimes that interest isn't shared and the thread dies there, but other times others do find interest in it and discussion continues. That's the nature of discussion.
Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are not trolling. They are stating the simple, undeniable fact that there is more than enough to go around and if we had a more equitable distribution of resources, we could take care of everyone with disabilities 10x over with plenty to spare.
The problem is that when you get more for less, it kills the incentive to do more. This is a really glaring problem, and people go to really great lengths to either sweep it under the rug or hand wave it away.
> it kills the incentive to do more
I'm an employee. I don't really benefit from doing more. When I do more, someone else makes money. In my experience that someone else is just as likely to lay me off for a cheaper worker as they are to give me a raise
The incentives our system produces are already really skewed, and it would be nice to see them skew the other way for once
Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore
#285> Much of modern Western culture, particularly in the United States, was shaped by what sociologist Max Weber called the Protestant work ethic: the belief that hard work, discipline, frugality, and productivity were signs of virtue. I hail from a culture that's decidedly Catholic, but at the same time shares this mindset. To me it has more to do with farming and the culture around it. On a farm you have to earn your…
> Max Weber called the Protestant work ethic ...hmm. Not sure that this is quite state-of-the art in sociology today. Crediting a particular strand of a particular religion as the locus of a virtue that confers a clear fitness advantage in and of itself, and without recourse to any outside explanation, seems a bit off.
Well of course Weber isn't exactly state-of-the-art sociology, but when people say "the Protestant work ethic" that is basically one widely-accepted name (a pointer if you will) to an idea that sociologists have long recognized is present in some segments of many societies.
Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore
#286> I’m 38 years old and I just had to ask my mom if I could borrow money [...] potentially spending the next 50 years without stable income Without stable income it might be more like 20 years. (I wish you personally a long and bountiful life!) I'm in a similar boat. As a 3rd child in a somewhat poor family, I do not have any inheritance and actually need to help my mom financially (though it's not a burden). My wife…
If you live your life in stress it makes it strange. Breathe less, stress less.
Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore
#287Earlier 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.
Social security taxes explicitly pay for the current generation of retirees. it's not a pyramid scheme (how would that even make any sense?). The "trust fund" is running out of money but that could easily be solved if we were willing to tax the rich, corporate profits, and capital gains, at higher rates or more aggressively (that is not allowing corporations to escape tax so easily). Or we could continue to fund it at a deficit. But, again, it's not a pyramid scheme. That doesn't make any sense.
Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are not trolling. They are stating the simple, undeniable fact that there is more than enough to go around and if we had a more equitable distribution of resources, we could take care of everyone with disabilities 10x over with plenty to spare.
The problem is that when you get more for less, it kills the incentive to do more. This is a really glaring problem, and people go to really great lengths to either sweep it under the rug or hand wave it away.
Incentives don't disappear at some arbitrary level of taxation. I think you can have both sufficient incentives and more equitable distribution. The frankly obscene levels of wealth concentration we are witnessing suggest that there is a lot of room for refinement.
I do find it interesting that a lot of people (not trying to imply that you are one) bang on about incentives while also fighting tooth and nail in favour of weighting taxes toward earned income (derived from doing useful/productive things) instead of unearned income (derived from simply owning things).
I get that some people view all forms of tax as theft and while I appreciate their honesty, I simply can't take them seriously.
Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
It almost seems as if you are trolling. Surely we can, at least, agree that the excesses you mention exist only because of those who produce.
They are not trolling. They are stating the simple, undeniable fact that there is more than enough to go around and if we had a more equitable distribution of resources, we could take care of everyone with disabilities 10x over with plenty to spare.
I don't think people realize how much evening out society will impact them. This is a very US (and probably EU) way of thinking. Everyone thinks they are middle class but when it comes down to it there are far more people in poverty and that evening things out will bring down the quality of life for the people advocating for evening out things.
Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
It almost seems as if you are trolling. Surely we can, at least, agree that the excesses you mention exist only because of those who produce.
They are not trolling. They are stating the simple, undeniable fact that there is more than enough to go around and if we had a more equitable distribution of resources, we could take care of everyone with disabilities 10x over with plenty to spare.
I'm so sick and tired of hearing about this mythical "excess". I can't afford housing. Millions like me can't. There is no excess. Unless it's being hoarded by the capital class.