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A nation of slaves

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Re: A nation of slaves

#181

Post by dang »

angersock wrote: post #95
raldi wrote: post #84

This article is predicated on the idea that, because we're more efficient today than 1930, we should be able to work less and live the same lifestyle. Well, in fact, we can. But you can't ignore those last three words: you have to live the same lifestyle as a typical 1930s person. * No internet. * No TV. * No air conditioning. * No cell phone. * No car. * Bunk beds for your kids. * One bathroom for the whole house. *…

What? That's quite silly. On the internet/TV for example, you are failing to take into account the spread of tech and efficiency. We can have factories produce TVs automatically, and internet infrastructure doesn't require a huge number of people to keep it running--and most of them, I wager, would be happy to keep doing what they're doing, because it's fun . As for fancy restaurants or organic groceries...that's jus…

What? That's quite silly. [...] I'm sorry, but your assertion isn't borne out by thought.

This comment would have been better without its hostile preface and its hostile appendix. Please don't use such language on Hacker News.

All: Please re-read what you've posted and, if it contains phrases that contribute hostility to the discussion, edit them out.

This is really important, because (speaking metaphorically) our brains are all programmed to pick up on the agitation in such language. That leads to bad things, like the comment getting less reflective attention, and threads getting provoked into a downward spiral.

Re: A nation of slaves

#182

Post by dang »

[deleted] wrote: post #180
nhaehnle wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "virtue" of hard work is just a shallow manipulation tactic devised by those in power. How is this an argument against what ekianjo wrote? Yes, there has (almost?) always been a privileged upper class that had much more leisure than the masses. Still, the fact remains that living standards would have been lower had a majority of the population not worked their asses off. Should the distribution of work be adjuste…

[deleted]

What's sickening is how brainwashed you are.

Personal attacks like this are absolutely unwelcome on Hacker News. People who do it repeatedly—or even once, if they don't have a history as a valuable contributor—will be banned.

Re: A nation of slaves

#183

Post by dang »

chadwickthebold wrote: post #171
erichocean wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have no choice but to work or be discarded, then, when the value you can provide via work is less than that required to maintain your life, you have no choice but to attempt to indenture yourself. And failing that, you're truly, completely fucked. Work or be discarded? Really? Most people have, you know, other people in their lives. Hell, 20% of the country at any given time is children, and they don't work…

Are you aware of the history of the U.S. before 1865?

Please don't post nasty sarcasm to Hacker News, either in the form of a question or in any other form.

I don't mean to pick on you personally. This is a community ailment.

Re: A nation of slaves

#184

Post by mrow84 »

crusso wrote: post #178
mrow84 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think pessimizer was saying that the relative return to the labour at the bottom end is low. It is like (to be hyperbolic) living a life of luxury, but on giving the starving man who labours for you a bit of food, suggesting that that is ample reward for his efforts, because of how much value that bit of food has for him. Then, you can top that off by saying that it doesn't matter how much food he produces for you,…

I think pessimizer was saying that the relative return to the labour at the bottom end is low At which end of the economic ladder do you think improvements occur for there to be a dramatic reduction in poverty within a whole society?

That's simply a rhetorical question, because it is obvious that poverty can only be reduced by providing more wealth to those in poverty.

Your rhetoric doesn't address the point though, which is simply that there are (quite dramatic) unequal returns to labour which in turn persist poverty.

Re: A nation of slaves

#185

Post by crusso »

pessimizer wrote: post #177
crusso wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The value: not so much for them. How is a "dramatic reduction in poverty" not of much value? http://filipspagnoli.wordpress.com/stats-on-human-rights/sta...

>How is a "dramatic reduction in poverty" not of much value? Value relative to effort. Compare your level of effort to your level of PPP received in return. Would you consider 1.25 USD@2005 a day to be an achievement for them in comparison to you, or an abysmal failure of society to justly allocate its rewards to the people who put in the effort? In other words: is a just reward for doing the work that supports the l…

Value relative to effort.

society to justly allocate its rewards

Your arguments ignore the failure illustrated by history of the strategy of society proactively allocating anything. Decades and decades of programs that spent billions of dollars giving money and sustenance impoverished groups across the globe, yet what finally begins to pull China out of poverty? Capitalism.

Letting people trade freely within a legal framework that protects everyone's property rights without regard to political and financial power is just. Everything after that is gravy.

Re: A nation of slaves

#186

Post by crusso »

mrow84 wrote: post #184
crusso wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think pessimizer was saying that the relative return to the labour at the bottom end is low At which end of the economic ladder do you think improvements occur for there to be a dramatic reduction in poverty within a whole society?

That's simply a rhetorical question, because it is obvious that poverty can only be reduced by providing more wealth to those in poverty. Your rhetoric doesn't address the point though, which is simply that there are (quite dramatic) unequal returns to labour which in turn persist poverty.

You call it "rhetoric", I call it "evidence that what you're focusing on isn't important".

All this focus on economic inequality is misguided. The focus should be upon breaking chains of economic mobility.

Re: A nation of slaves

#187

Post by knodi123 »

ekianjo wrote: post #94
nostromo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An additional negative aspect of this mentality is that effort, rather than value, is praised. Working hard should never be a goal. It should be a means to a goal.

Well if your grandparents hadn't worked their asses off, you would live in a very different world right now. It's easy to say now that you are in a comfortable place where you can afford everything for almost nothing, but it was a very different world back then. Let's not forget that. And even now, you can afford things because people in China and other countries are working their asses off to make cheap stuff for de…

My grandparents did indeed work their asses off. And in china, people are now working their asses off.

But robots are only going to get better; this process has already started and is having a huge impact. Manufacturing is only going to get cheaper; this process has been going on for centuries and will not stop just because we want to have more jobs.

The total comfort available in the world today requires less total off-ass-working than it did in my grandparents' day, and it will take even less work in my grandchildren's day.

Let's begin a gradual transition instead of just assuming the status quo is a fixed constant.

Re: A nation of slaves

#188

Post by mrow84 »

crusso wrote: post #186
mrow84 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's simply a rhetorical question, because it is obvious that poverty can only be reduced by providing more wealth to those in poverty. Your rhetoric doesn't address the point though, which is simply that there are (quite dramatic) unequal returns to labour which in turn persist poverty.

You call it "rhetoric", I call it "evidence that what you're focusing on isn't important". All this focus on economic inequality is misguided. The focus should be upon breaking chains of economic mobility.

Why do you think it is misguided? You "break the chains of economic mobility" by providing people with enough wealth and time to allow self-improvement; if you withhold that wealth and time by dictating terms from the powerful side of an economic relationship then that absolutely is significant.

You state "all this focus on economic inequality is misguided" very brazenly, but what evidence do you have that the two aren't linked? From my position they intuitively are linked, and pretty strongly - sure, intuitions can be wrong, but why are you so confident that we can ignore the effects of inequality on poverty?

At the most basic level, wage growth for those in poverty provides better housing, better nutrition, better healthcare, and better education, which all in turn lead to better economic prospects, because those things make you significantly more employable in all sorts of ways (you're more reliable, you're not weak, you're more healthy, and you're not stupid).

Re: A nation of slaves

#189

Post by knodi123 »

levosmetalo wrote: post #56
Ygg2 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is completely opposite from Antic times, during which work was considered demeaning, because, hey we got slaves to do that stuff. Going out to the field and harvesting was looked upon same as now is rolling in shit. You could do it but highly degrading. Arts and philosophy were all the rage.

Replace slaves with robots and machines, and that's pretty much the world I'd like to live on. Maybe Platonic state is not that far away after all.

Interesting aside: The word "robot" comes from slavic "robota", meaning drudge work that a serf is forced to perform for his lord.

It's funny that the word has evolved to mean "something which frees us from drudge work" instead.

And "slave" came from "Slav", referring to a member of the slavic people, who in ancient times were frequently taken as slaves. I love etymology.

Re: A nation of slaves

#190

Post by tsotha »

pessimizer wrote: post #177
crusso wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The value: not so much for them. How is a "dramatic reduction in poverty" not of much value? http://filipspagnoli.wordpress.com/stats-on-human-rights/sta...

>How is a "dramatic reduction in poverty" not of much value? Value relative to effort. Compare your level of effort to your level of PPP received in return. Would you consider 1.25 USD@2005 a day to be an achievement for them in comparison to you, or an abysmal failure of society to justly allocate its rewards to the people who put in the effort? In other words: is a just reward for doing the work that supports the l…

>Value relative to effort.

I'm not sure what you think Chinese people did before they moved to the cities. Farm labor is backbreaking work, and they did it from sunup to sundown. Working in a factory for ten or twelve hours a day is a step up.

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