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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

#411

Post by robocat »

HelloUsername wrote: post #160

> Everytime you meet someone new and they ask “What do you do?” they’re not asking about your passions, hobbies, or the mundane human tasks that take up most of your time; but how you make money, how you turn yourself into income. 1. That's your assumption. They could really ask out of interest. They couldn't care less if that's your main source of income. 2. In some cultures this question will never be asked. 3. If…

> What do you do?

The first question when you meet someone is often to measure your status.

In New Zealand, different cities had different questions. Auckland: where do you live (using suburb as a proxy for status), Christchurch: what school did you go to (status used to be highly linked to your high school), Wellington: what do you do (a lot of people move to Wellington to work and it has a very wide variety of professional and government jobs).

It depends somewhat on context since often status is implied by the situation you've met someone. I've even had people straight up ask: how much do you earn.

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

#412

Post by nicbou »

HelloUsername wrote: post #160

> Everytime you meet someone new and they ask “What do you do?” they’re not asking about your passions, hobbies, or the mundane human tasks that take up most of your time; but how you make money, how you turn yourself into income. 1. That's your assumption. They could really ask out of interest. They couldn't care less if that's your main source of income. 2. In some cultures this question will never be asked. 3. If…

One thing I love about living in Berlin is that you can meet a dozen stranger and spend hours with them, and no one remembers to ask that question.

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

#413

Post by impossiblefork »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #30
Brendinooo wrote: post #11

The author lays most of this at the feet of capitalism, and I agree that the system has excesses that have contributed to the atomization of society, which can cause people to slip through the cracks, but...has any other system been obviously _better_ at supporting those with disabilities? Did feudalism or communism do this better? (I think about the "worst system, except for all the other systems" quote often)

Democratic socialism. The US has quite a few such experiments like the New Deal. And they've been quite a bit better than the grinding, unbridled industrialism that consumed and spat out young and old alike.

I think what you want is a welfare state, not socialism.

Socialism is not necessarily cuddly. "To each according to his contribution" is the one sentence description of it after all. I want socialism, because it's "to each according to his contribution" but "to each according to his contribution" isn't obviously this nice cuddly we-take-care-of-everybody type thing.

I'd call the New Deal an attempt to bring discipline to go from capitalism to free markets, to control excesses, prevent monopolies and otherwise preventing people from locking down the economy so that there can be competition, and that's a goal compatible with socialism, because it does bring us closer to "to each according to his contribution" but it isn't an attempt at creating socialism, but of breaking capitalism down to create a market economy with free markets (capitalism is not a market economy, capitalism is the accumulation of capital by some to the exclusion of others, so capitalism and a market economy with free markets are actually things that are extremely incompatible).

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

#414

Post by gblargg »

bestouff wrote: post #75
Taikonerd wrote: post #27

If you read this article and feel worried about your financial situation if you become disabled, you might look into long-term disability insurance (LTD). It's a policy where, if you become disabled to the point where you can't work, it pays out $X per month, every year until you're 65. And if you're partly disabled and have to cut back your hours, some policies compensate you for those lost wages. These LTD policies…

Wouldn't it be marvelous if these were mandatory and paid by state with huge scale benefits ?

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

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

#415

Post by adamtaylor_13 »

therealdrag0 wrote: post #337
adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #159

I think part of the lie is that we live for and unto ourselves. We instinctively know it's not true, yet for much of our lives we live as if it is. Until one day we find out what we knew all along. When you suddenly become unable to "give anything" to others and become the one who must be given to, you feel a disconcerting sense of loss and powerlessness. I don't think it really has anything to do with capitalism.

It’s human nature.

Nature != Good

We miss that much of the time, and it causes all manner of suffering.

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

#416

Post by watwut »

AlexandrB wrote: post #187
daishi55 wrote: post #94

Earlier 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.

> we could take care of everyone with disabilities 10x over with plenty to spare. Yes, like the 40%[1] of Stanford undergrads who have disabilities. The greatest long term impediment to what you're suggesting is folks who don't need the help taking advantage of the resource distribution. It both massively increases the costs and sours those who have to pay into the system on the whole thing leading to a backlash. If…

Yeah, disability accommodation like having single dorm room and being allowed to cook for themselves rather then using cantine. Maybe the question is why the cantine is obligatory anyway.

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

#417

Post by kakwa_ »

hogehoge51 wrote: post #381
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Debt is just accounting, and has nothing to do with whether or not a surplus exists and who gets to consume it. The surplus exists, it doesn't magically appear because of your accounting system.

The accounting system is what ensures that we can ACCOUNT for if such a statement is true or not. It also allows us to characterize and understand how the capability to generate surplus has been distributed etc etc. There is no single lump of goods and services, or a single lump of surplus. There is an economic problem of ensuring such are created in surplus and distributed to those who need them. A surplus of lawn m…

The debt amount is very roughly proportional to the size of the economy.

It's also a system that is unstable in non-booming economies, drifts over time and needs periodic resets (through revolution, debt cancelling or inflation for example).

When dealing with material well-being, it makes much more sense to focus on goods and services and frame things more in the line of "would you trade a bit of wealth (smaller car or home, less Uber Eat, etc) to ensure a few unlucky people have food and roof".

Most western economies, specially one as wasteful as the US, have the luxury to make this choice. Not sharing it is a political & ideological decision, not a materially constrained one.

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

#418

Post by lenkite »

germandiago wrote: post #369
Telaneo wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are truckloads of perfectly good food and clothes being incinerated every day since that's somehow cheaper for the owners of capital. The excess is there. It's just not ending up in the pockets of those who need it.

Oh, and you think everyone will continue prpducing all the things you need for you to use them forever withiut contributing anything back to anyone? Then get ready to be a slave, bc noone, absolutely noone gives things for free, which is, in my view, reasonable.

> Oh, and you think everyone will continue prpducing all the things you need for you to use them forever withiut contributing anything back to anyone?

What happens when labour-based production is fully replaced by automated factories? Then ?

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

#420

Post by sharts »

aianus wrote: post #364
Telaneo wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pensions probably ought to be reduced/readjusted in accordance with life time expectancy, or some other maths that actually ends up in the green somehow while still allowing those who cannot take care of themselves to live a decent life. I've seen enough rich pensioners (my own grandmother among them...) to come to that conclusion. The US spends an inordinate amount on healthcare since the system is covered in leeche…

The US healthcare system is incredible compared to socialized systems if you can afford it. That's at least part of the reason it represents 17% of GDP. The same procedure I needed had a 2 day wait time in the US and a 10 month wait time in Canada.

“If you can afford it” is not efficient. It’s merely priority queue vs FIFO wherein it is decided that some folks get to skip lines based on some arbitrary merit.

If it were efficient it would clear the queue with max throughput. This is not so.

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