Are you paid to look busy? • Hacker News Board

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#161

Post by seabee » Sat, May 10, 2014, 8:25 PM UTC

DougWebb wrote: post #156

WalterBright wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Starting any business requires capital. Not really. A large number of businesses can be started with essentially nothing. Rowling wrote "Harry Potter" on a yellow pad, for one example.

Did she live in a house made of yellow paper, and eat yellow paper as well? Who paid for the yellow pads? And how did her scribblings on the yellow pad become a best-selling novel? Did she just leave the pad in a bookstore and charge people to read it there? Maybe starting a business doesn't require much capital, but running it until it becomes self-sustaining (or fails) sure does.

Or alternatively (more accurately?) praying for the good fortune that someone will invest in your idea. Who knows how many almost-Harry Potters there are in the world?

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#162

Post by [deleted] » Sat, May 10, 2014, 8:32 PM UTC

Infinitesimus wrote: post #116

sliverstorm wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've had systems where not everybody had to work to eat & make a living. It was called monarchy, and you will notice it didn't go over well. The problem is one in ten thousand still leaves a very disgruntled & disenfranchised 30,000 people in America slaving away so everyone else can do as they wish. And until we can automate all the dirty work, the hard laborious work, these aren't 30,000 people working white colla…

"And until we can automate all the dirty work, the hard laborious work, these aren't 30,000 people working white collar desk jobs." Wanna guess what will happen when we start automating those jobs? Hint: riots about 'the machines are stealing our jobs'

[deleted]

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#163

Post by torbit » Sat, May 10, 2014, 8:48 PM UTC

Just two weeks ago I was talking to a guy in the military. His government job was to monitor military test taking. At times only 2 people would show up in one day to take a test. He gets paid $20+ an hour. I didn't ask how many hours a week he worked, but I got the impression it was his current main job.

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#164

Post by [deleted] » Sat, May 10, 2014, 8:52 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #127

turnip1979 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not someone who downvoted you but would like to discuss your points. Lets start bottom up. 1) You cannot legally collect berries in the woods. That may have been possible a few hundred years ago. For all my life, I've lived in concrete jungles where pretty much every shrub was manicured and every tree was allowed to survive for aesthetic reasons. More so that that, we don't have commons any more. In the stone age…

> Starting any business requires capital. Not really. A large number of businesses can be started with essentially nothing. Rowling wrote "Harry Potter" on a yellow pad, for one example.

[deleted]

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#165

Post by stealing-is-bad » Sat, May 10, 2014, 8:58 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #22

“We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery becau…

not another: - Lets just steal from the productive and we all be just fine. - We just need lots of armed guys that will keep the productive in check. leading to: - Government decided that I have to go to gulag?

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#166

Post by Artistry121 » Sat, May 10, 2014, 8:59 PM UTC

chasing wrote: post #100

Artistry121 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Libertarians would actually be against many policies designed to keep people in jobs - pushed by many of both major parties today. In fact full employment is a goal mostly supported by policies and politicians decidedly anti-free-market. Voluntary giving and charity and voluntary communal groups could easily grow. The notion that taxes are the only way to spread wealth is flawed. The nuclear family is already one exa…

> Voluntary giving and charity and voluntary communal groups could easily grow. The notion that taxes are the only way to spread wealth is flawed. Except now you've created a situation where only the wealthy get to choose society's direction. We need taxes so that even those without financial resources can have a say in what our collective money funds. This is made even more extreme if only a small part of the popula…

You've actually created a situation where only those who provide value to others get to choose society's direction - and only in non-coercive ways. Thought leaders, religious leaders and other individuals can all have power as well - although non-violent power.

In a heavy tax-scenario those who get to choose society's direction can do so with military level force and attain power through politics and favor trading unrestricted by limits of the law (i.e. they can rewrite the laws). Also, those with influence can influence the law and write favorable, coercive, policies for themselves (as evidenced by the banking crisis and bailouts and current low interest rate environment).

Here is a list of current expenditures by the financial industry on lawmakers: http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/recips.php?ind=F&cycle...

Either way someone accumulates wealth - in one case its through forced redistribution (which will benefit a specific class, and which is unlikely to be the class that doesn't have the funds to contribute to politicians) and in once case is through voluntary redistribution. Dr. Dre gets to be a billionaire because people want to give him money in exchange for his music and social cred and Steve Jobs gets to be a billionaire because people want to give him money for his company's technology.

Taxes and regulations are needed in some cases - but the more power they get the more people will attempt to use them for anticompetitive purposes. 1000s of banks shut down during the financial crisis - but the worst offenders got cheap loans to make record profits in the succeeding years.

It would be nice to think a central authority can have our best interests in minds. That central authority has killed more civilians than combatants in current wars: https://www.iraqbodycount.org/

And the first lady and President openly pronounce disgust with Boko Haram while ordering airstrikes and military actions that have directly caused the deaths of far more children and left more than half of Iraqi children orphans. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/12/world/meast/yemen-u-s-drone-we... (Notice US Officials declined to comment on actions they could have prevented - but are more than willing to comment on crimes in other countries far beyond their jurisdiction)

On the "home front" non-violent and non-lying offenders in prison account for nearly 60% of incarcerated because violence has been used to punish these crimes of choice rather than social stigmas and education.

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#167

Post by ghaff » Sat, May 10, 2014, 9:03 PM UTC

_dark_matter_ wrote: post #155

vidarh wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And to strengthen that: We're talking not just on public land, but in privately owned forests too. When I grew up in Norway, the notion of whether or not a forest area was owned was moot - many of the places we went for walks or went to collect berries and mushrooms probably were, but I can't tell you which were and which were public, as it was totally irrelevant to us as we have the same legal rights of access eithe…

Man this is cool. It's a little scary here in the US when you could be shot, or at the very least arrested, for a similar act.

Oh please. Yes, if land is posted "No Trespassing" you shouldn't be, well, trespassing. And, indeed, if you're doing something like hunting you could get in trouble, arrested even. Otherwise I expect if the property owner saw you, you'd simply be asked to leave. And that would be it unless you refused to leave or made a habit of it.

That said, there are lots of places where there is a mix of public and private where no one is going to bother anyone if you're just walking around. There's plenty such property in my town in the US.

As for getting shot, maybe if you run across someone's marijuana crop, still, or other illegal activity. But any property owner that starts shooting at a trespasser is going to be in very deep trouble. And I'm quite confident in saying it's not standard practice.

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#168

Post by hippich » Sat, May 10, 2014, 9:04 PM UTC

zanny wrote: post #123

hippich wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Initially I wanted to write about proprietary/opensource software, but knew people here will downvote it, so brought up different example. But I am glad you got message :))

I don't care if people downvote me, the only reason to read the comments anyway to is to get other peoples insight into the matters of whatever the threads subject is. Doesn't it defeat the purpose of being here if you are afraid to speak your mind? I have plenty of unpopular opinions, but until someone can persuade me with facts and reasoning and not an arbitrary Internet number that I'm wrong I'll keep espousing th…

Each community have its own customs. It wouldn't make any positive effect if I come over to forum about Catholicism and start talking about big bang.. Similar here, i wanted to deliver my point and chose example which should be received well, instead of trying to confront with people here.

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#169

Post by Alphasite_ » Sat, May 10, 2014, 9:05 PM UTC

vishnugupta wrote: post #119

chasing wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You appear to be getting downvoted, but you've struck at the heart of the issue: If we want to do away with meaningless jobs, people will still need resources to survive. And that "one-in-ten-thousand" (or whatever) will need to be taxed very heavily so the wealth can be spread. We can't have all of our financial resources siloed into an increasingly small number of people's wallets. A great benefit to this system wi…

> And that "one-in-ten-thousand" (or whatever) will need to be taxed very heavily so the wealth can be spread I think this is always going to be problematic because once wealth gets concentrated it's going to be very hard to redistribute it, short of some revolution or coup. And I sense that this is going to be especially hard in democratic countries where there's a very close nexus between elected representatives an…

On the topic of 5, my view on this has always been that military investment is the governments R&D investment. So I'm not convinced that the military is a worthless investment.

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#170

Post by seanos » Sat, May 10, 2014, 9:08 PM UTC

autodidakto wrote: post #113

TylerJay wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a counterpoint, I remember being taught in a Game Theory course that both the shooters and the goalies acted in accordance with the Nash Equilibrium which (IIRC) happens to be equal amounts to each option. You would think that if such a vulnerability actually existed, coaches and analysts would have figured it out and it would be exploited.

Thanks. I hope someone could look up a discussion on this soccer goalie example: I never really understood it. Is the example above saying goalies would do the "more productive" thing of standing still more often if they didn't feel the pressure to look like they were doing something? If kickers evenly spread out their shots, you got a 1/3 chance no matter what you do. It wouldn't matter if the goalie went always lef…

"And if goalies are being irrational, why aren't kickers exploiting it?"

Two reasons I can think of. First, if you shoot to the left or right (particularly top or bottom corner of goal) then the goalkeeper has further to travel to reach the ball, therefore if it is done with sufficient accuracy and power it is harder, or even impossible, to save even if the goalkeeper guesses correctly. In contrast, a central shot, even if hit with high power is often easy to save if the goalkeeper keeps central. Therefore, shooting left or right more often than centrally can be a rational choice if the goalkeeper distributes evenly between going left, right and center - especially for high level players. Secondly, shooting centrally can look a bit silly if the goalkeeper guesses correctly, since it is usually an easy save, therefore it is seen as a bit of an arrogant, or show off, move. Therefore players may be reluctant to shoot centrally - this is somewhat related to the reasoning given for the goalkeepers in that the players want to be seen to be doing something.