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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

#311

Post by kbelder »

alexgieg wrote: post #213
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?

Billionaires, evidently. Why else would they deserve a million times what you make in your entire lifetime, weren't for the fact they're a million times more productive than you? In fact, if one were to die tomorrow that'd be like the loss to the world of a million of you, whereas were you to do the same, that'd be a loss of only one of you. This is also why you can be downsized without that impacting anything import…

A billionaire makes more like a thousand times what a normal working stiff makes in a lifetime, not a million times.

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

#312

Post by dubeye »

hallole wrote: post #262
dubeye wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that you highlight classics, is the implication that it's more ... productive for your personal development to read classics than trashy thrillers? As someone who spent four years reading 'the' Classics at uni, I doubt it's very true you comment wouldn't read quite so well if you swapped classics for posting cat tiktoks and hanging out with strangers you bump into in the street. But what makes that inferi…

Yes, it is more productive. Becoming more familiar with the English language and skillfully written prose is good. The notion that modern prose is of lesser quality is widespread. This comment reads as snarky post-modernism.

I think you missed my point. But you think the bounds of every field of research and technology has expanded, except language?

To learn how to read and write well, then you would do just as well, if not better, to read modern authors at the top of their fields. I wouldn't exclude thrillers. Reading Chaucer in old English, to stretch the point to breaking, is not going to give you any kind of edge. Maybe it will teach you a bit of French, but again, you are better off reading modern French literature for that.

I suspect you were not forced to read the classics as I was. Much of it is stuffed with overly flowery prose and immature ideas. It's mostly tradition that keeps them alive.

There is much personal satisfaction in literature, but I would place it much closer to leisure than work.

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

#313

Post by dubeye »

Telaneo wrote: post #295
dubeye wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that you highlight classics, is the implication that it's more ... productive for your personal development to read classics than trashy thrillers? As someone who spent four years reading 'the' Classics at uni, I doubt it's very true you comment wouldn't read quite so well if you swapped classics for posting cat tiktoks and hanging out with strangers you bump into in the street. But what makes that inferi…

> Interesting that you highlight classics, is the implication that it's more ... productive for your personal development to read classics than trashy thrillers? No. You can play Candy Crush for all I care if that's what gets you more enjoyment. The classic were just what were on my mind when I wrote that comment.

not every profession has excess, not sure I can get on board with the idea that candy crush is of equal value to any job. money is just a measure of goods and services.

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

#314

Post by jjav »

mrkstu wrote: post #305
NuclearPM wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an issue, but billionaires are a greater issue.

You could take away 100% of billionaires capital to redistribute and end up in the exact same place in 4 years.

You would not end up in the same place because then you'd be in a world without billionaires, so you would not have people who can too easily just buy every politician and law they wish for their own perpetuation.

That alone would be a massive win.

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

#315

Post by Danox »

qwytw wrote: post #259
lostmsu wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Switzerland was already the second richest country in Europe in 1913 despite not having a colonial empire to exploit, ample raw resources or the best geographic location.

Norway is kind of the same, but they made a decision to set up the Norwegian sovereign fund to save and invest that North Sea oil money their counterparts however on the other side of the North Sea, Great Britain decided to spend like a drunken sailors most of the money ended up mostly in the hands of the upper crust of the country. if a country is wealthy and unselfish enough, they can make provisions for society in general.

What is terrible is the fact that our leaders who should think ahead long-term don’t whether it’s Covid or current measles outbreak there are going be a large number of people that will potentially be disabled by the effects of catching either one, and sadly the policy makers who are charged with the responsibility of solving problems, can’t think ahead. Those are just two recent examples, but there are many things in the course of life which can happen to anyone.

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

#316

Post by closeparen »

zem wrote: post #294
techteach00 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I mean, it is very obviously being hoarded by the capital class! there has been tons of writing on the subject, no one can credibly deny that that's what's happening right now.

The wealth of the capital class is, unsurprisingly, capital - the facilities, equipment, organizational structures, etc. used to make stuff. What does it mean for capital to be hoarded?

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

#317

Post by hogehoge51 »

Telaneo wrote: post #13
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?

We have enough excess in society that we can spare enough of those things to those who are unable to take care of themselves.

You are failing to analyze the system corectly.

"Have enough" is a static steady state. "Produce enough" now and in the future is a dynamic constraint.

The mechanism is economic surplus, to have the producers (productive people who produce needed goods and inputs to such) create more than they need. This generally requires increasing and maintaining productivity to have surplus.

Once you have a surplus the absolute maximum priority is to maintain it. Plant, machinery, systems, irrigation, fertilizer production etc etc.

The system is dynamic, surplus today is not surplus tommorow.

In my country we have a means to ditribute this excess, and it may even go to those in need, but the cost of distributing it has been increasing at a far higher rate than the rate of increasing surplus.

what i fail to understand is why people come to a technologist forum without a basic understanding of system dynamics. this is entry level material for engineering, mathematics and physics. are they not teaching it in CS?

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

#318

Post by ImJamal »

efficax wrote: post #287
chneu wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

I think the person you were responding to meant ponzi scheme, not pyramid scheme. The first sentence from Wikipedia sounds quite similar to SS

> A Ponzi scheme (/ˈpɒnzi/, Italian: [ˈpontsi]) is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors

Just replace investors with tax payers.

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

#319

Post by yoyohello13 »

WarmWash wrote: post #296
bluefirebrand wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

It seems your complaint is a lack of recognition, and maybe redistribution would provide vengeance for this injustice. But that is different than "we ought to start giving raises to people who do less work, not more" which is what "skewing the other way" seems to imply.

Maybe we should start requiring companies to pay a percent of wages in equity. That would at least allow workers to share in a company’s success.

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

#320

Post by Telaneo »

hogehoge51 wrote: post #317
Telaneo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have enough excess in society that we can spare enough of those things to those who are unable to take care of themselves.

You are failing to analyze the system corectly. "Have enough" is a static steady state. "Produce enough" now and in the future is a dynamic constraint. The mechanism is economic surplus, to have the producers (productive people who produce needed goods and inputs to such) create more than they need. This generally requires increasing and maintaining productivity to have surplus. Once you have a surplus the absolute m…

We are producing enough excess that we can spare enough of those things to those who are unable to take care of themselves, and we have for a number of years.
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