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How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

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Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#231

Post by nickthemagicman »

esotericn wrote: post #218
TeMPOraL wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, fair enough. I didn't mean to diminish your experience. I also I didn't realize meeting in homes is strictly illegal in the UK. That sounds a tad bit excessive, for the reasons you outline (over here in Poland, it's currently max 5 people except the host and people living with the host, and I think there was no actual case of enforcing it against small family&friends gatherings). > But it's not viable at a popula…

Meeting indoors has been illegal in London since December 2 and based on current communication will be illegal until at least March 2, so that'll be four months of it being illegal to meet any person from outside your household indoors. I actually had to look this up in order to make sure I had the dates right, but it's absolutely correct. It is also illegal to meet a single person in your garden or outside unless yo…

I'm glad people are starting to get angry.

I've felt like you for a long time, after monitoring the actual statistics instead of the news.

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#232

Post by zepto »

_y5hn wrote: post #187
zepto wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's no way to know for sure how well preventative measures work This is true. It’s not a valid counterfactual to compare against an imagined ideal. It’s just as possible to consider that the pandemic response team had degenerated into ineffectiveness, and by disbanding them Trump made things better. This is why imagined counterfactuals aren’t helpful compared vs comparing with an actual benchmark.

This is just as true then: People die in hospitals. Demolishing them will make things better.

Do you claim no hospital should ever be demolished, regardless of whether it was built with toxic materials, or has been neglected to the point of being unsafe?

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#233

Post by zepto »

ehsankia wrote: post #186
zepto wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's no way to know for sure how well preventative measures work This is true. It’s not a valid counterfactual to compare against an imagined ideal. It’s just as possible to consider that the pandemic response team had degenerated into ineffectiveness, and by disbanding them Trump made things better. This is why imagined counterfactuals aren’t helpful compared vs comparing with an actual benchmark.

When you get both the worst pandemic and worst hack in a century right 1-2 year after killing the very teams whose job it is to prevent said catastrophes, at what point do you stop blaming things on bad luck?

Where has anyone blamed anything on bad luck? I think our institutions are terrible, and definitely a factor in things like the pandemic and the hack.

I just think it makes no sense to reduce that to blaming the republicans or even a specific act of the Trump administration, based on pure imagination of an alternative outcome.

If ‘American republicanism’ is to blame for how bad the pandemic is, how do you explain Europe’s performance?

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#234

Post by chordalkeyboard »

djrobstep wrote: post #208
chordalkeyboard wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Incorrect, dead people cannot own things. That is precisely why they initiate the transfer while they are alive by making a will. > People do not own what they are taxed. When a person is taxed and the money given to eg a social security recipient, that's not violating ownership, that's enforcing ownership. That money is literally the property of the SS recipient. The law is very clear on this. Then it sounds like…

> That is precisely why they initiate the transfer while they are alive by making a will. A will is not a transfer. The law is very clear on this. The government gets the property, then redistributes it to the rich kids via a nanny state program called "inheritance law". > What’s your justification for changing the law on property? To increase fairness and justice. What's your justification for not? > this amounts to…

> To increase fairness and justice.

It’s not fair for you to decide what other people own. Its injust for you to have that much control over other’s property.

> What's your justification for not?

According to you I am changing the law, same as you. Fairness and justice.

> A will is not a transfer. The law is very clear on this.

Thats not really the case, and I’m unconcerned aboit statutes that were written by oligarchs. A will is a valid transfer.

> Every possible political system does this

You’re not in a position to decide what is and is not possible.

> Property isn't voluntary.

Yes it is.

> It is coercively enforced by the state.

So what if you (incorrectly) believe this to be the case? You can’t imagine a possible political system without coercive enforcement so you’re unable to criticize property on this basis.

> It's literally not their stuff.

In any system of fairness and justice it is.

> Me: This stuff rightfully belongs to A, because of egalitarianism. You: This stuff rightfully belongs to B, because it belongs to B.

You: This stuff rightfully belongs to A, because of egalitarianism. Me: Its not egalitarian for you to dictate what other people rightfully own. That would be a hierarchy with you at the top.

> You're doing a basic circular argument.

No, I’m applying egalitarian principles to your proposed authoritarian restructuring of society.

> This is the thing with libertarianism - it's just pure status quo bias. "This person rightfully owns it because they own it".

Who cares about libertarianism? I’m sharing the joys of egalitarianism with you. Quit trying to dictate the world to the rest of us and embrace the pluralism of egalitarianism.

> Nothing to do with freedom, because property is coercive,

But you like coercion, so to you this isn’t a problem for libertarianism.

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#235

Post by _y5hn »

esotericn wrote: post #201
imtringued wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, the problem is that nobody goes and thinks "Oh we have messed up, now we need stronger lockdown measures, if only we had done a weaker lockdown sooner we could have avoided this" instead everyone thinks "The government is subverting democracy. We must fight back." x months later "The government is getting worse. We must fight back even harder"

We are eleven months in. I voluntarily restricted myself for a long while. Far, far longer than I should have, to the point that I may have given myself brain damage. Now I am visiting my family because I'm not willing to do it indefinitely. The UK government is waffling on about restrictions until 2022 despite the fact we'll have vaccinated most of the vulnerable in a month or two. Everyone has their breaking point,…

Maybe news from other countries may be more informative than your current sources. Current projection in my country is that by summer every adult may've been vaccinated. The vaccine lessens severity of the disease, even if it doesn't block it entirely. So we might be on track to open up sooner than expected, which initially could be 2-3 years trajectory following fast-track of normal vaccine development.

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#236

Post by pgsimp »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #124
pgsimp wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably companies that don't pay you well are already struggling, so their problems (that you were put to work on) were also more of a struggle. Of course companies who are doing well can also afford to pay more and give all sorts of perks to their employees. I suspect often that is the actual causation, not vice versa. People like to point at successful companies and say "see, if you would treat your employees li…

I think this is more than a bit naive. Companies have a wide variety of values. Some certainly do the best they can for their hires as they’re able, others very shrewdly extract every bit of value they can. Most fall in between in a variety of ways. But assuming the best intent is just plain ahistorical. We’re only a century out from when companies routinely hired armed security services to threaten and ultimately mu…

"routinely hired armed security services to threaten and ultimately murder people organizing to get their share of what wealth they created"

To be honest that sounds to me as if those people "organized" to take by force what they thought they deserved. In that case, hiring security for defense seems justified.

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#237

Post by pgsimp »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #62
pgsimp wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just seems too simplistic to me. Sometimes there is struggle. Taking an extreme example, soldiers at war. Are they generally being treated well? I'm not sure they are, and I don't necessarily mean deliberately. I don't think generals want their soldiers to be killed, in general. It just happens that situations arise where there is struggle and soldiers get killed. I remember complaints about CD Projekt Red (makers…

Considering how quickly CP2077 became profitable I doubt it's a good example of necessary death marches. Quite the opposite. I suspect they could have delayed until winter 2021 and still turned a profit easily.

They would have had to survive long enough, though. Profits in the future don't help you to pay your bills in the present.

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#238

Post by pgsimp »

chillfox wrote: post #78
pgsimp wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just seems too simplistic to me. Sometimes there is struggle. Taking an extreme example, soldiers at war. Are they generally being treated well? I'm not sure they are, and I don't necessarily mean deliberately. I don't think generals want their soldiers to be killed, in general. It just happens that situations arise where there is struggle and soldiers get killed. I remember complaints about CD Projekt Red (makers…

Their marketing outright lying about the progress and leadership not caring made it "necessary" to catch up.

Why, what would have happened if they hadn't? Say they promised it for some time, and then don't deliver on time. Then what?

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#239

Post by pgsimp »

landemva wrote: post #142
chordalkeyboard wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is stopping people from getting together and forming their own "universal health care" group? There must be millions who are in favor of it? Get 100 million people together, and offer health care to each other. What's stopping you? Some of them would have to put a lot of money at risk. When they do that, they usually want something in return. Well this is how corporations were invented. And those are regulated…

"What's stopping you?" Typically the State medical device licensing boards will stop you. Try this: get 1000 families to chip in for an MRI and techs to run it for the benefit of the 1000 and their families. When you apply for State permit to turn it on, that board will look at competition in the area and not allow it. The rules don't allow too much competition to drive down prices, so only the mega-corps typically c…

Then why don't the universal health care people advocate for the abolishment of such laws?

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#240

Post by chordalkeyboard »

pgsimp wrote: post #239
landemva wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What's stopping you?" Typically the State medical device licensing boards will stop you. Try this: get 1000 families to chip in for an MRI and techs to run it for the benefit of the 1000 and their families. When you apply for State permit to turn it on, that board will look at competition in the area and not allow it. The rules don't allow too much competition to drive down prices, so only the mega-corps typically c…

Then why don't the universal health care people advocate for the abolishment of such laws?

Because they don’t care that people are prohibited from forming mutually beneficial arrangements; they just want public healthcare to be free to the consumer at the point of sale and the details of how this is achieved (and what is sacrificed in order to obtain this) are generally not interesting to them.
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