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“People simply empty out”

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Re: “People simply empty out”

#221

Post by tomp »

scotty79 wrote: post #185
ctdonath wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not life. You won't have life if you don't work - or coerce it from others. World average income equals the USA poverty line. That doesn't give much room for the productive to support the unproductive. Charity, yes indeed, but there's an unsupportably growing number who are quite capable of supporting themselves but demand others do instead. The "right and humane" step is choosing to give to others freely, not…

> You won't have life if you don't work - or coerce it from others. There are some exceptions. You don't have to work a single day in your life if: - you inherited wealth. - you are homeless and sustain yourself with whatever you can get without paying. - you commit crimes and are put in prison. - you are a woman and merry well. - you build something as a hobby and it makes big. > That doesn't give much room for the…

> plain, abundant and worthless in our modern world as food.

Excuse me, but you're an idiot. (Unless your whole comment is meant as a joke.)

People exchange things that are worth less for things that are worth more. In such an exchange, both parties profit, always. In the case above, you exchange hours of your life for food so that you can live another day.

Also, people are the only source of wealth. Right now, machines are not capable of producing anything on their own, that is why there are no completely automatic factories and nothing gets created without human help, design or at least supervision. Once we create such a world, great! But capitalism dictates that once this happens, the price of goods will drop tremendously. The fact that this has not yet happened tells you that this spot has not yet been reached.

Re: “People simply empty out”

#222

Post by dalek_cannes »

lsc wrote: post #174
orofino wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the problem though - you don't need to buy the BMW or the suburban McMansion. Save that money instead and when you're in your 40 you can tell the boss that he should give you job to a whipper-snapper, you're headed to Thailand. No one holds a gun to the consumer's head, they just convince themselves they need thing. Then they whine when they haven't saved more than 300k for retirement at age 50 and social secu…

>No one holds a gun to the consumer's head, they just convince themselves they need thing. Then they whine when they haven't saved more than 300k for retirement at age 50 and social security is looking rocky. I think that we in the tech industry are... different here. In other industries, there is a /lot/ of pressure to look the part (well, to look an /expensive/ part.) Have you ever seen a real-estate agent in a car…

There's a way out of the looking-the-part problem. Cultivate an image of an eccentric genius (and work hard to actually have genius level skills) and people will start to focus more on what you can do and less on what you look like you can do. In fact, that's why the tech industry seems to get an exemption -- they're mostly perceived as eccentric geniuses.

Also, spend lavishly on the best clothes, eat lavishly, but drive a very modest car and live in a modest home. People don't know what to make of that.

Re: “People simply empty out”

#223

Post by lars512 »

enraged_camel wrote: post #111
enoch_r wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The cost of healthcare alone makes subsistence living impossible. What? It's perfectly possible to receive "subsistence healthcare" in today's society--just never go to the doctor or take any medicine. If you want to splurge, do some research online, and you'll gain knowledge leagues ahead of "subsistence" medicine.

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.

Move outside the US to a country with socialised medicine. Done.

Re: “People simply empty out”

#224

Post by casiotone »

ctdonath wrote: post #104
njharman wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's about a system, capitalism, that gives most no choice in the matter.

The system isn't capitalism, it's life: you don't work, you don't eat. The author was one of the few whose work is both enjoyable on its own and worth enough to others to survive on, capitalism in the form of sponsorship. Capitalism at least gives a generally fair exchange of work for value; the alternatives amount to institutionalized theft.

Congrats on completely perverting what Bukowski meant and also being a big old idiot

Re: “People simply empty out”

#225

Post by paganel »

medell wrote: post #36
blackhole wrote: post #5

I feel like too many people get sucked into the idea of furthering their career, to the point that they forget to further their own life. What is the point of existence if we never get around to experiencing it? "It's not the things we do in life that we regret on our death bed, it is the things we do not." - Randy Pausch

"I wish I worked more" - said no one ever on their death bed.

Just as an anecdote, my 85-year old peasant grandmother told me this last time I saw her: "I wish my feet won't hurt so much so that I could still work". She's been married since 17 and I don't think she's had a day of vacation in her entire life. Cows and pigs and what-have-you don't feed by themselves.

Re: “People simply empty out”

#226

Post by [deleted] »

scotty79 wrote: post #198
ahomescu1 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: “People simply empty out”

#227

Post by scotty79 »

tomp wrote: post #220
scotty79 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This shouldn't be a problem, especially in the US, where there is so much empty space. Maybe more in the tiny Europe, but there is still a lot of empty space here, and a lot of empty houses in remote villages. The problem is just that people want to live in the cities, and there just isn't a lot of space in the cities.

>This shouldn't be a problem, especially in the US, where there is so much empty space.

If you spread population of the world to occupy all the land evenly it would be only 300 feet from each person to its closes neighbors. So it's not that much free space.

> The problem is just that people want to live in the cities, and there just isn't a lot of space in the cities.

And this makes the problem of price elevation from hoarding real estate even more pronounced.

Re: “People simply empty out”

#228

Post by dalek_cannes »

metricman wrote: post #142
VexXtreme wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's human nature, we're designed to always keep climbing up and striving for more. It is not healthy to constantly compare yourself with people who are worse off. Sure, it induces a sense of gratitude to know that you have clean drinking water and no threat of being killed by a warlord today (unlike many people in Africa, for instance), however if we settled for that, there would never be any incentive to impr…

Come on, human nature? Designed to keep striving? I've heard this referenced as "keeping up with the Joneses" when it's about matching consumption to your neighbors'. I never thought "keeping up with the Joneses" is part of my human nature. Or even my culture. The 'societal overlords' from previous posts you have now ascribed to human nature (??) are really 'society', perhaps influenced by some ultra-elite cadre, sur…

If anything, Homo Sapiens was designed (read evolved) to be flexible because species that hard-coded their responses to the environment went extinct when the environment changed. So the only thing that could be coded into human behavior was to try to be "better". Better than what was left intentionally blank. At least, that's how I see it.

Re: “People simply empty out”

#229

Post by scotty79 »

ahomescu1 wrote: post #214
scotty79 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In principle, I agree. However, since the bubble crashed a few years back, real estate prices have been going down like crazy in many places (both US and Europe), because of the reduced demand.

Like you said "bubble". So it's not "going down like crazy" it just readjusts to level closer to sane price.

And that reduced demand doesn't come from people needing less real estate to live. Just from the fact that real estate reached prices that most people can't afford even if they pay with slaving their whole life for mortgage.

Reasonable price for apartment would be what most people could save up during the time they still live with their parents. But since real estate backed credit is legal that's not gonna happen. Such credit allows people to sell their future work in a manner almost perfectly safe for the bank. Thanks to this since you need place to live to have a life it can cost huge part of what you earn in life.

Re: “People simply empty out”

#230

Post by tomp »

[deleted] wrote: post #117
sliverstorm wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This meant that you worked only as much was actually needed - i.e. subsistence - and no more. You do know that in agrarian societies this meant 12 hours a day 7 days a week with no holidays ever? And that children worked in the fields instead of going to school? People don't subsistence farm because they don't want anything more than the bare minimum for survival. They subsistence farm because the bare minimum for su…

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Better in what way?
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