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“People simply empty out”

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Re: “People simply empty out”

#241

Post by Leander_B »

telephonetemp wrote: post #239
Leander_B wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one has a choice, either born in US or Western Sahara. Hard to accept, but this is reality. Only most people think they have the illusion they have, but this is false. Even Bukowski is trapped, still needs to work/money for food and to live. Yes, he does what he wants, or has the illusion as I said above. And a big grin at the people saying we working in tech can make a difference. Creating a new social photo shar…

> Creating a new social photo sharing app is not changing the world. Get real. What about a medical start-up or one to do with education?

Definitely! I am a big fan myself of Kiva and charity:water. Just saying that a lot of (tech) people have different perceptions of how exactly technology can make an impact. Unfortunately the scale between charity and money driven startups is not exactly well balanced. So lets not praise ourselves too much..

Re: “People simply empty out”

#242

Post by Lewton »

rhdoenges wrote: post #197
tankbot wrote: post #129

Can I just say that I love Charles Bukowski? If you've never read him go buy his books now. There's so much humanity in there. Some will think he's a downer or depressing, but I think he's genius. His life reminds me of this quote by Hokusai: When I was 50 I had published a universe of designs. But all I have done before the the age of 70 is not worth bothering with. At 75 I'll have learned something of the pattern o…

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

His quality as a human being has no impact on his quality as a writer. The guy was a genius and an all out asshole

Re: “People simply empty out”

#243

Post by inthewind »

dalek_cannes wrote: post #222
lsc wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

This thread is showing the US bias of the forum again. Some of aren't earning enough to run a car let alone a modest one.

Re: “People simply empty out”

#244

Post by wintersFright »

mikeash wrote: post #44
consz wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incorrect, it is worth approx $0. Data General NOVA: 1969 $8000 2013 ~$0 $100 * ($0 / $8000) = $0

Nah, it's really worth $110,150, since you could have held on to the $100 for two years, then bought into Intel's IPO which would result in 5,000 shares held today due to subsequent splits, which are currently going for $22.03 each. I first tried this exercise with oil instead of gold, but the price change over the period in question is nearly identical. I doubt it means anything, but I thought it was interesting.

Here is a crazy theory: Say you have a really big oil field. Really really big. Unimaginally huge wealth flows in every day because the world wants, nay needs this modern lifeblood. How do you store that wealth. Do you stack IOU's from those countries in the form of currency? Nah. They will just inflate the currency to pay you back after they burn up all that precious oil? How about you just meter out enough oil to meet your life needs? Nah, they'll call your country a terrorist axis of evil and invade to help the oil flow.

ok how about this. How about you do a deal and pump as much oil as possible as long as you can exchange it for something real. and you have a long time cultural affilation for a yellow shiny metal. yeah that will do. How about we do a deal. We keep the oil pumping as long as we can exchange a ratio of oil barrels for this shiny metal. When the oil runs out in a hundred years or so we will have a stack of shiny metal to trade back.

More reading at this blog: http://fofoa.blogspot.com.au/2009/08/call-of-century.html

Re: “People simply empty out”

#245

Post by sz4kerto »

lotsofcows wrote: post #240
mkrecny wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reason for downvote?

Apparently it's acceptable to downvote without providing an argument. It's anonymous and requires no thought so it's very popular.

No, just there are people who understand why physical abuse and violence is not tolerable in _any_ situation, especially not against the weak. People who equate physical and verbal violence (by verbal violence I mean anything not physical) either have no idea what they're talking about or they're mentally ill.

Re: “People simply empty out”

#247

Post by vidarh »

mrow84 wrote: post #218
grey-area wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I've been a fan of the emergent structure hypothesis for quite a long time, but I do feel that you are pushing it too far. 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 yea…

> 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.

Sure. But that does not conflict with "emergent structure": There's no need for a cabal at the top consciously arranging the structure of society. Just a bunch of people who are often trying to manipulate things in specific directions, and where a lot of them will have overlapping motivations. From the outside, that can look very much the same.

A lot of the time people are not necessarily even trying to steer things a certain way, but merely looking after their own interests.

E.g. a central idea in marxism is that the capitalist is not really at fault: He's "caught up" in the system just as much as the worker. He is exploiting people working for him, but he does not necessarily intentionally want to oppress. He is merely playing his role, protecting what he sees as his own interests, just like the workers.

And so you get "nice" capitalists, who try to do better, but they can still largely only act within the confines of their role: The only way the capitalist can top oppressing, is by ceasing to be a capitalist. But that is not in his interest, and it is unreasonable to expect the capitalist to willingly do so - he will find every excuse for not giving up his privilege (and many might be good; e.g. it is perfectly possible an individual capitalist might be doing more net good with his profit than it would have if he shared everything equally with his workers). Ultimately, marxism is cynical about human nature: We are all looking out for our own interests; to the extent we do not, it is because we lack awareness of our real interests or position.

Re: “People simply empty out”

#248

Post by walshemj »

chii wrote: post #196
hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #102

Employment is, by definition, exploitation. If the objective of the company is to profit, it has to pay the employee less than the value he generates. The alternative is profiting out of non-internalized costs (e.g., exploiting natural resources).

there are other forms of organization out there - a non-profit, "cooperative" organization could and should be the norm. This form of organization means that everyone in the org is an owner, and is paid according to the work they do. There is no fat cat at the top that don't do work but takes in money. I believe in brazil there is a manufacturing company that is like this - each worker gets a slice of the profit.

Sorry worker coops are all about making money but distributing it in a more equitable way with the workers controlling the company.

John Lewis makes a profit and the "partners" got 17% of salary as a bonus in FY12/13

Re: “People simply empty out”

#249

Post by LekkoscPiwa »

enraged_camel wrote: post #41
jgross206 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference, to me, is that the lack of freedom you describe is simply a part of the human condition (food and shelter require work, which has been true as long as life has existed) as opposed to what you call "traditional slavery" which is man-made.

>>"traditional slavery" which is man-made. So is capitalism. So is the corporate hierarchy. Heck, the society we live in right now is man-made. Why does that matter as an evaluation criteria? Yes, food and shelter have always required work. The difference is that they have required work by the person for the person. Or by the person for their family. Or by the person for their tribe. This meant that you worked only a…

Capitalism is as man made as theory of evolution. It's been discovered. Or it's just the way the societies always worked. Most efficient. Capitalism as an ideology is just noting the fact. Not inventing, just realization of how brutally nature is and how brutally it works. Socialism is invention from the realization that capitalism is morally bad. It's exactly like vegetarians agenda: killing animals is morally wrong. Yeah, but you know what we still need to eat. It's the same way with socialism: exploiting people is morally bad. Yeah, but you know the work still needs to be done.

Re: “People simply empty out”

#250

Post by lgieron »

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.

FWIW, Europe is larger than the US (10.1m vs 9.2m km^2).
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