Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can rent a mailbox if you don't have one.
For free?
No, but the ingredients for what you are cooking are not going to be free either.
Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)
291–300 of 343 posts
Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)
#292It's stupid comparison, as others have pointed out.
Also, why not 100 or 1000 years? Previous generations had their spiel of "our goal is to make things better for the next generation". That doesn't seem to hold true as much these days. Within my lifetime power went from being "cheap" when I was a kid to jumping up massively in price (some thanks to Russia) so it's not really so great anyway. And maybe I can buy 51 years of light, but my generation can't buy a fucking house to live in.
As a millennial the saddest thing is that we don't have enough political clout to pull rank and get things solved for the zoomers ahead of time.
Perhaps if we pulled together and voted (bc ofc only older people vote in large numbers)...but I think the crux of the issue, around the world even, is that the only candidates we have to vote for are in their 70s.
What we need is more 30-40 candidates, if mils and zooms of voting age pull together we could get some real change.
Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)
#293Considering that the amount of computing that could be rented for the price of a house every month could now be bought for $20, this isn't surprising. What's surprising is that with all these resources made available to the world, we still have systems that allow hoarding of wealth to such a degree that most people can't afford to own a home and many can barely afford rent and food.
Totally agree, although my comment on the topic reeks of anger aha, yours is admiringly restrained.
Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
Globalization over the last several decades has greatly reduced inflation and allowed the first world to “gain” far more wealth than would have actually happened otherwise. For instance, 70 years ago, more American cars were built in America. The money that consumers paid for cars went to American companies. This caused increased demand for (American) workers, which increased workers’ wages, and thus their spending p…
You are really drifting in to largely discredited mechantilism there, the belief that money should not flow out of the nation. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/mercantilism.asp#:~:tex... .
What if 100% of your economy's money goes out to foreign tax havens then?
Something that works for the general case should work for both extremes, because then that better informs usage for the general case (this applies to development too, imo).
If we know how to manage the economy when: no money is flowing out to foreign countries + all the money is flowing out to foreign countries, then we have a good idea of the best way to handle _some_ money flowing out to foreign countries.
Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think they meant a fire itself would need to burn 10 hours a day for 6 days a week - the chopping to support that fire. The light over the duration is as much as a lightbulb for one hour.
I can't see any combination, length of time burned or length of time to gather the material, where it takes 60 hours to get a fire that outputs as much light as a single lightbulb over one hour.
However, a 60W incandescent bulb puts out about 800 lumens, which is about 64 candela. So one bulb-hour is indeed about 60 candle-hours. This is omnidirectional output, useful output may be less.
The original paper reports a 21 pounds of firewood was measured to produce 2.1 foot-candles (22 lux) for 3.4 hours. Overall useful fireplace output was estimated at about 1.7 lumen-hours per pound of wood, which is 10 lumens (just under 1 candela) on average for that 21 pound fire.
By focusing on light output, and not the heat output, I still think it's an incomplete comparison, as an LED bulb may be very bright and cheap to run, but it won't keep you very warm in a cave in prehistoric Zhoukoudian.
Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)
#296Yea but nowdays the amount of work to buy a home to turn on your lights from takes 30x what it used too. So what's it really matter...
Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)
#297Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who can't afford food? An egg costs like 30 cents, rice is like 20 cents a pound. Make some fried rice. Make a sandwich. The cost of great food is like $40 a month per person, with the bonus that they wouldn't be morbidly obese. Now explain why its unreasonable to expect people to eat high quality cheap food. (and no "poor people are too stupid" paternalistic arguments)
I'll take this as a teaching opportunity Here's who can't practically afford that: Someone with 3 kids working 80 hours a week in service or truck driving. Or someone that is disabled. Or someone that has severe mental health issues. There are quite a few prerequisites that you assume exist that just don't in a poor American household and the primary one that doesn't exist is time. Beyond the time you need to plan, s…
Thank you for explaining this.
Normal people who are used to cooking at home see it as no big deal to whip up a simple meal.
Some of the rest of us encounter insurmountable obstacles in our own kitchens.
Personally, I haven't prepared a single meal at home since last October. I've been ordering delivery at an extraordinary markup.
Several bad experiences last year put me permanently off home meal preparation. I've tried all the alternatives. I'm desperate to save money; I'm desparate to eat better. I have been left with no other choice.
Basically 100% of my paychecks go to fund those meals because the alternatives are absolutely intractable, due to several of the above factors.
Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nothing is objectively “bad” about that, but it is an insane stretch to call that “great food.” That is subsistence eating. Moreover—can you put beans, rice, eggs, and mixed veggies in a sandwich? Because a sandwich was one of OP’s “$40/mo” suggestions. A food budget where a simple ham and cheese sandwich is an unimaginable luxury is ridiculous to propose as a reasonable target.
Why isn't it great food? People line up to get rice, veggies, and beans, onion, and chicken in a tortilla at Chipotle, but if you combine those ingredients at home you are 'subsistence eating'?
Well you seem to be skipping over the fresh cilantro, herbs and spices, marinating time, and expert preparation found in a Chipotle. Do you understand what it takes to build and maintain a respectable and functional spice rack?
Not to mention the spoilage that goes on. The rice and beans can keep long-term, but you'll need to do logistics on chicken, tortillas etc to keep fresh ones in the pipeline without wasting any, which you can't afford either.
Look, I've had food boxes before. The food box is an amazing wondrous bit of charity where you can get a ton of free food just for asking. There's cereal, I've gotten big hunks of frozen meat, dry beans and rice, I've gotten bits of candy and such, lots of staples, powdered milk, canned chickpeas and spinach and you-name-it.
However the food boxes only go so far. They won't cook the meals for you. They won't give you the utensils, pots and pans. You don't get any fats, oils, herbs, spices, or seasonings. they won't tell you which ingredients combine in a flavorful way. You don't get any recipes that use these ingredients and don't call for something you don't have.
Now you boil some water, throw in some beans and rice plain, and cook until soft. Go ahead, throw in some string beans for vitamins, and some kind of protein. Spoil yourself! Then try to choke that down in the absence of salt, butter, or anything that might impart flavor. How long until you're going to just kill yourself?
Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think they meant a fire itself would need to burn 10 hours a day for 6 days a week - the chopping to support that fire. The light over the duration is as much as a lightbulb for one hour.
This is why i dont like these kind of studies. Clearly it does not take 60 hours to find a dead tree in the woods, break it down, and light it on fire.
Might not be far off if you don't have very effective tools (Peking Man had simple stone tools) or you've exhausted nearby suitable wood supplies like sticks you can just pick up or trees you can tackle, so you have to travel out and drag it back.
The original study estimated 10 pounds (5kg) of wood foraged, trimmed and dried per hour of labour. That sounds low with a saw and an axe (and very low with a chainsaw), but might be about right with primitive tools including travel and processing and wood stack maintenance (no tarps either).
Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like most large systems, economies are complicated. A counter-point is that unskilled immigration also drives down many essential costs, like food and construction. Immigrants tend to work for less and are disproportionately represented in the agriculture, construction, and meat-packing industries. So in some ways they may increase demand costs while also bringing down supply costs.
Again, the flip side of that is that they depress wages - not only for unskilled jobs. You probably wouldn't be happy if you're an accountant on one side of the building and in the other side the people working in the meat packing plant are making as much as you.
That’s a bit of a strawman position. I don’t think anyone is claiming there should be absolute equality.
What they are saying is a particular group should not be scapegoated, particularly when that group is taken advantage of to subsidize the quality of life of those that are demonizing them.
It comes down to having a nuanced understanding of the issue and rejecting overly simplistic (and wrong) mental models.