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How To Make Trillions Of Dollars

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Re: How To Make Trillions Of Dollars

#81

Post by jneen »

pjzedalis wrote: post #75
nhaehnle wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And your proposal is? A lot of alternatives have been tried in the past several thousand years and almost all of them suck. Real hard. Don't think in terms of The Alternative System, just think in terms of the small things that can make life better. Things like reduced working hours to have more time for family, or better economic freedoms for everyone. Those things do not represent a change in The System. In particu…

If enough people say they are done with 40+ hour work weeks and only will do 35 companies will adapt. So far there has not been enough people willing to do so.

I'm done with it, and all my current and future employers know it. But I'm in a pretty privileged position to be able to meet my needs working part-time.

Re: How To Make Trillions Of Dollars

#82

Post by OldSchool »

mikekij wrote: post #7

This is a great post. My only disagreement is with the insinuation that the lack of universal healthcare in the US is there to intentionally trap people in unfulfilling jobs. While I agree that it sometimes has this affect, I think universal healthcare may actually make people even more dependent on the system the author is writing against, all while decreasing the quality of the health care we receive. Great article…

For a young, single, healthy person, independent health insurance is not an issue.

Once you have a whole family living under your umbrella and multiple medical history trails 10 years long to explain on your application, it can easily become your largest recurring expense.

Barring personal catastrophe and unless they fall into the consumption pattern described in the article, most continually-employed professionals are entirely capable of reaching a cash-only, everything's paid-for state by the age of 50, sooner if they don't go the marriage/family route.

Health insurance isn't one of those things to ever check off though. Your age increases your risk premium and all rates inflate every year so it costs more and more until you reach the Medicare age, and even then, it still doesn't go away.

If the US matched the rest of the civilized world with respect to healthcare, you can bet we'd see professional people more mobile and retiring sooner.

Re: How To Make Trillions Of Dollars

#83

Post by melling »

michaelochurch wrote: post #16

It's amazing to me how much expense comes out of fear. For example, one of the reasons why Manhattan real estate is so expensive is that people feel a need to live here in order to keep up their professional status. Not to limit their commutes, but because the really evil law and financial firms stop promoting you as soon as you move off the island. So they spend $5 million on a house, as opposed to, for example, not…

Are you just making this up as you go? You're completely wrong. Getting in/out of Manhattan is painful from just about anywhere. It's usually a minimum of hour door to door. If you're working 10-12hr days, you'll pay for the easy subway commute. However, there are plenty of very successful people that do commute from NJ, CT, and Westchester.

The solution to expensive Manhattan real estate is better mass transit. Imagine getting on a train 30 miles from the island and arriving at your office 30 minutes later. What kind or a miracle would this take?

Re: How To Make Trillions Of Dollars

#84

Post by jacques_chester »

tossacct wrote: post #74
jacques_chester wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm saying that complex systems in and of themselves don't have "objectives". Deliberately designed systems can absolutely have purposes and objectives. If you want to be nitpicky there's a frothing sea of philosophers smashing endlessly against the little rowboat we're in here. Feel free to dive off and swim around, I'll stay here.

I'm responding to your philosophical ideas about emergence, I don't intend on making any philosophical points here, only responding to the ones that you made. You disagreed with the idea that society can have objectives based on philosophical grounds. >>Emergent phenomena don't have "objectives", mate. Society may or may not have some emergent qualities, but it definitely has "deliberately designed" qualities, so the…

> You disagreed with the idea that society can have objectives based on philosophical grounds.

I objected to the idea that an emergent phenomenon can be assumed to have objectives. Society wasn't "designed", it simply is.

Teleology is the name for assigning human-like motives to things. For example, saying "the hamstring muscle is designed to flex the knee and extend the hip" is erroneous. There is no designer. It evolved; we discern these functions independently of the system.

While subsystems may have designed elements, generally these too go on to have complex, emergent properties. And they're subsumed within the larger system anyway. Laws, stock markets etc are all emergent from human interactions. Nobody sat down at the start of history and designed the system we are part of today. It happened without any one guiding intelligence.

It's meaningless to say "society's objectives" because there was nobody to assign such objectives and nobody can assign such objectives. Anybody who says "the objectives for society are X" is basically saying "my personal preference for the unfolding of the emergent system are X". It's a substitution error.

Re: How To Make Trillions Of Dollars

#85

Post by bksenior »

jneen wrote: post #81
pjzedalis wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If enough people say they are done with 40+ hour work weeks and only will do 35 companies will adapt. So far there has not been enough people willing to do so.

I'm done with it, and all my current and future employers know it. But I'm in a pretty privileged position to be able to meet my needs working part-time.

Its actually quite simple. We need a massive dose of social proofing amongst those that have already attained the peak of accomplishment as seen in the current system to change their behavior. We are no different now than when we were 6 watching our parents. You emulate those you think live right, and the people that live right in the eyes of those under the spell of the implications of the article look to fame, money and power. If those that wied those act a certain way, those new ways become the pinnacle. This solution is the only non forceful way.

Re: How To Make Trillions Of Dollars

#87

Post by seanlinehan »

pjzedalis wrote: post #76
jhuni wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One feature of such a better society is that it should be classless. As long as there is there are segments of society whose happiness, health, and stability are dependent upon the whims of the ruling class rather then in their own hands then these problems will persist.

We are making progress. It used to be your class was determined by how much money your great great great grandfather had. Now it's determined by how much you have. Soon it will be determined by how much we think you will have based on your profession ("oohh a doctor"), health ("oohh she's skinny and eats right), habits (non-smokers). Eventually that bubble will pop or cancers/diabetes and other ridiculous ravagers of…

This is the dream, at least.

Re: How To Make Trillions Of Dollars

#88

Post by tossacct »

jacques_chester wrote: post #84
tossacct wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm responding to your philosophical ideas about emergence, I don't intend on making any philosophical points here, only responding to the ones that you made. You disagreed with the idea that society can have objectives based on philosophical grounds. >>Emergent phenomena don't have "objectives", mate. Society may or may not have some emergent qualities, but it definitely has "deliberately designed" qualities, so the…

> You disagreed with the idea that society can have objectives based on philosophical grounds. I objected to the idea that an emergent phenomenon can be assumed to have objectives. Society wasn't "designed", it simply is . Teleology is the name for assigning human-like motives to things. For example, saying "the hamstring muscle is designed to flex the knee and extend the hip" is erroneous. There is no designer. It e…

Well now you've jumped off the boat into the frothy water, just like you said you wouldn't ;). Let me get us back in the boat.

I agree that the definition of the concept of emergence is that there is no objective. No one even vaguely familiar with the concept could possibly disagree with that. My questions before were not disbelief, just making sure you had some passing familiarity with the concepts before I engaged you.

This is the heart of the matter: you still have not named me one deliberately designed system that has purposes and objectives, like you said you could here:

>>>Deliberately designed systems can absolutely have purposes and objectives.

Your inability to name one thing that is not emergent makes me think this:

1-You believe that everything is emergent. From the hamstring to society, banks and currency and economics and bartering, and everything in between. If everything is emergent then obviously nothing has objectives, since that is in the definition of the concept of emergence.

Re: How To Make Trillions Of Dollars

#89

Post by mistercow »

jacques_chester wrote: post #39

This is a classic example of the animism fallacy. Lightning flash, terrifying thundercrack. The Invisible Skygod is mad! All bunkum, of course. But it fits how humans usually think about the world: that every event has agency , has some directing cause which involves intelligence. The idea that the world we see emerged from a massive, incomprehensible complex system? Bah. Can't be. I see the lightning and hear the th…

I agree pretty much completely, even though the ultimate message is just fine. I found the claim that budget apartments are "designed to make you sick and impotent" particularly silly.

The author brings up ROI several times, but the ROI on subtly harming someone's health by (somehow) dictating housing design is laughably negligible. It's such a preposterously long con that any expected profit is lost in the entropy.

But if we take conspiracy theories as a constant, I do like this positive take on them.

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