211–220 of 477 posts
this makes me think of basic income, which might be one approach to ending wage slavery:
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I can't stomach the guy. He was an abusive drunk who thought it was funny to kick women. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8KJiay6EI0
I watched that. Here's my take: Fiance: I am and will continue to sleep with other men. Bukowski: You f ing w *re [kicks]. Relationships are hard. While I don't agree with physical or verbal abuse, I think in this case Fiance probably hurt Bukowski more with her words than he did with his kick. It certainly didn't seem like he was kicking her because he "thought it was funny to kick women".
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Our current global economic system was intentionally designed by (and for) a very small Elite, over roughly 4 centuries. Those at the very top are certainly not typical victims [1] of the system they carefully create; indeed, history shows they constantly and incrementally revise it to their benefit. [1] They're only victims if they go too far, trigger civil unrest, and wind up on the losing side of the guillotine. "…
I'd contend that it wasn't designed to any significant degree. As the parent poster is trying to tell you, it just is. The system we have is just the result of the emergent behaviour of humans interacting, it's more down to chance than design, even if some elements seem predictable. We haven't yet found a way to fairly spread privilege in our societies, so we're stuck with the least worst system, but I would note tha…
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Also, keep in mind that money is not wealth. This "global elite" is not hoarding food, fuel or other basic necessities, they only have the money. New money can be printed, old money can be destroyed, new currencies can be created. The only real wealth is goods and services created/rendered by working people, and this "global elite" doesn't really have a strong grip on that.
The other thing rich people hoard is real estate. This increases price of one of most basic necessities. This also degrades the real estate resource because more people have to rent, and people who live in their own house tend to care about its state more than people who rent and people who own house just to rent it away.
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You're right, but I'm referring to the United States. I'm sorry I didn't make that clear.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States I still don't see the rosy picture you're painting. edit: Poverty in the US is hovering at the same rate since the 60's from what I can tell, while absolute numbers obviously are rising. So.. what am I missing? Something like People aren't working in factories to put bread on the table, people are working in offices to pay for their next new car or big screen…
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Hence the somewhat curious (and I think, very American) idea of the "Golden Years". If you put your head down and work hard, taking no vacations, until you're age 65, then you flip 180 degrees in the other direction and retire into a life of full-time leisure. So if you live long enough, it really won't be a waste; you cash it in all at the end! A Scandinavian psychologist somewhat recently proposed a typically Scand…
>he suggested people should work to age 80, but work proportionally less in all the years up to there. At 70, your body is generally not able to do the same things you were doing at 20/30, at least not with the same ease. A 75 year old man could work as hard as a 25 year old man, but the same amount of work will probably take a greater toll on his health. In a way, seems like his scheme is pretty much geared to make…
My father is almost 70, and going on hikes with him leaves me pretty winded. Certainly no walk in the park. I'm just a little more than one third of his age. If he would do some strength training in addition to his jogs and hikes, I imagine he would be in great overall shape.
I don't think that I'll necessarily be anywhere near his physical fitness when that time comes. But with retirement or a decreased workload, I intend to dedicate more time to keeping fit and treating my body as more of a temple.
With societies obsession over youth these days, it's gonna be interesting to see how the youth of today hold up in forty to fifty years.
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I can't stomach the guy. He was an abusive drunk who thought it was funny to kick women. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8KJiay6EI0
What is it that you find offensive? The part that he was a drunk? The part that he kicked another human being? The part that he kicked a woman? Would you have been OK if he was sober but kicked women? Would you have been OK if he was sober but kicked a man? Side opinion: If you consume content only by people who are perfect (which really means follow your ethical system, your values), your content sources are going t…
Are your questions anything other than pointlessly flippant?
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Our current global economic system was intentionally designed by (and for) a very small Elite, over roughly 4 centuries. Those at the very top are certainly not typical victims [1] of the system they carefully create; indeed, history shows they constantly and incrementally revise it to their benefit. [1] They're only victims if they go too far, trigger civil unrest, and wind up on the losing side of the guillotine. "…
I'd contend that it wasn't designed to any significant degree. As the parent poster is trying to tell you, it just is. The system we have is just the result of the emergent behaviour of humans interacting, it's more down to chance than design, even if some elements seem predictable. We haven't yet found a way to fairly spread privilege in our societies, so we're stuck with the least worst system, but I would note tha…
There have been, historically and presently, power and wealth grabs by the already powerful, and manipulation of political and social structures to suit their needs. To some extent this was easier historically, partly because there were fewer laws, but even now, with the legacy of hundreds of years of social and political reform, and a lot of it intended to liberate common people, there are still large distortions in our political systems that significantly mis-allocate power to the already powerful.
I would also take some umbrage with your statement that we "haven't yet found a way to fairly spread privilege in our societies" and your defence of the "least worst system" meme. Whilst there are aspects of the Western socio-political setup that are designed around the (reasonably) fair distribution of wealth, there remains constant pressure against legislation designed to develop the rights of common people in society. Indeed, those interested in reducing those rights are often able to gain popular support for their cause by positioning themselves as defenders of the wealth and power of those people whose wealth has recently increased - i.e. the middle classes, which now form a very significant political power base.
We do know of ways of more fairly distributing the rewards of labour (cooperatives come to mind, as a single example), but they are unpopular in a lot of the West, and if you look back to history you will see that that mentality was actively created to counter threats to vested interests. Ironically the system of laissez-faire capitalism that was adopted to counter these more de-centralised power structures ended up diluting the power base of the "old money" (and was eventually massively scaled back), though it persisted the fundamental inequality in wealth distribution.
I would, however, fully agree with your assertion that these problems are not (or at least very unlikely to be) the result of a direct conspiracy by some elite group. I don't think history supports that view, and I don't believe people are particularly capable of maintaining such a conspiracy for so long a period of time. It should be clear, however, that the "conspiracy" could itself be an emergent part of the system - a higher order structure that has managed to persist itself (thus far) without continuous direct human intervention, however that would make it not a conspiracy in the traditional sense of the word.
N.B. This is obviously a pretty broad sweep based on my interpretation of history - if anyone has any corrections or comments I'd appreciate hearing them.
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I think you grossly misunderstood what I said. What I meant by "subsistence living" is working enough to cover the essentials, and no more. These essentials include food, water, shelter, and healthcare. The problem is the last one: it is astronomically expensive, which means that subsistence living still means working a ridiculous amount of hours.
Don't forget that the rent is too damn high. Shelter don't come cheap.
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Also, keep in mind that money is not wealth. This "global elite" is not hoarding food, fuel or other basic necessities, they only have the money. New money can be printed, old money can be destroyed, new currencies can be created. The only real wealth is goods and services created/rendered by working people, and this "global elite" doesn't really have a strong grip on that.
The other thing rich people hoard is real estate. This increases price of one of most basic necessities. This also degrades the real estate resource because more people have to rent, and people who live in their own house tend to care about its state more than people who rent and people who own house just to rent it away.
The problem is just that people want to live in the cities, and there just isn't a lot of space in the cities.