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I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

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Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, we're not. It just seems like there's excess because the costs of running social programs are being paid with runaway debt. Those bills will eventually require settling, and it will become obvious how much excess there really is.

Debt is just accounting, and has nothing to do with whether or not a surplus exists and who gets to consume it. The surplus exists, it doesn't magically appear because of your accounting system.

The accounting system is what ensures that we can ACCOUNT for if such a statement is true or not.

It also allows us to characterize and understand how the capability to generate surplus has been distributed etc etc.

There is no single lump of goods and services, or a single lump of surplus. There is an economic problem of ensuring such are created in surplus and distributed to those who need them. A surplus of lawn mowing and shopping services (such as disability welfare has created in my country) could easily be accompanied by a shortage in housing. In fact one could be caused by the other.

The economy has capacity today and surplus from yesterday. Beyond that takes vigilance and accountability to maintain the system.

The fundamental question is why exactly you think a system can have some fundamental governing and observation mechanism such as debt (or equity accounting) removed and it would still maintain the same system characteristics that produce said surplus?

This is basic engineering and system architecture 101 and I would expect technologists to have more than a surface level expectation that systems do not operate magically nor label components as redundant without detailed reasoning.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, and you think everyone will continue prpducing all the things you need for you to use them forever withiut contributing anything back to anyone? Then get ready to be a slave, bc noone, absolutely noone gives things for free, which is, in my view, reasonable.

> Oh, and you think everyone will continue prpducing all the things you need for you to use them forever withiut contributing anything back to anyone? Why would I believe this?

You don't have to believe it. It is a risk, you simply have to mitigate it.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you figure? It seems trivially relevant to asserting that family has only mattered for 200 years. I suspect you're actually talking about the current western/american conception of family (fair!) but it doesn't make sense to ignore this obvious miscommunication.

To be fair (and I’m certainly not saying its not a good movie) Odyssey has very little to do with the original story or the worldviews and values described by Homer if anything at all. It’s a modern fantasy movie (i.e. the characters world views are mostly modern) loosely inspired by the Odyssey.

Of course this is true! But family still plays a major role in both versions

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#384
post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are failing to analyze the system corectly. "Have enough" is a static steady state. "Produce enough" now and in the future is a dynamic constraint. The mechanism is economic surplus, to have the producers (productive people who produce needed goods and inputs to such) create more than they need. This generally requires increasing and maintaining productivity to have surplus. Once you have a surplus the absolute m…

> the cost of distributing it has been increasing at a far higher rate than the rate of increasing surplus. Is it? Or is it that an increasing proportion of total income ends up going to the people who find ways of hiding it such that it does not get distributed.

How do you hide something in a closed loop system such as an economy?

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it kills the incentive to do more I'm an employee. I don't really benefit from doing more. When I do more, someone else makes money. In my experience that someone else is just as likely to lay me off for a cheaper worker as they are to give me a raise The incentives our system produces are already really skewed, and it would be nice to see them skew the other way for once

You do not get equity from your comoany?

Pff, what? No.

You're in a super small bubble if you think earning equity in your employer's company is standard.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh, and you think everyone will continue prpducing all the things you need for you to use them forever withiut contributing anything back to anyone? Why would I believe this?

You don't have to believe it. It is a risk, you simply have to mitigate it.

I think historic records of production have a lot of wisdom. For whoever it is interested.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#387
Not everyone needs to be productive, those of us that are… are here to support. My brother was a cto and got one shotted by a prescribed weed + aderall in CA combo and lack of sleep (schizophrenia genetics in our family line). He is homeless and occasionally lives with us.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#388

The idea that "hard work, discipline, frugality" are Calvinist and Protestant inventions may be the most preposterous thing I've read today. As if the rest of the world or previous eras valued self-indulgence and wasteful lavishness. Or that an unproductive member of society wasn't always scorned or at least viewed negatively by those having to produce.

Agreed. I believe the special sauce Calvinism added was equating those values with moral success/failure, and therefore spiritual salvation. It gave "not working hard enough" an eternal consequence. It may not have been the first, but Calvinism certainly made it mainstream in the west. See also: how frequently critiques of the poor slide into moral judgements.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#389

I've felt worthless for a long time. Sucked at school, suck at university, jobless. But something about the things I do has given me comfort. Trying to make music, trying to draw. And just doing the things another version of me would look at and think "that's nice" I've also been a social outcast for a while now. But putting my creative works out there makes me feel like I'm building the tools to appreciate myself an…

That's awesome! Love that stubborn boldness.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#390

The idea that "hard work, discipline, frugality" are Calvinist and Protestant inventions may be the most preposterous thing I've read today. As if the rest of the world or previous eras valued self-indulgence and wasteful lavishness. Or that an unproductive member of society wasn't always scorned or at least viewed negatively by those having to produce.

It was a strategic invention that has only ever applied to the plebs, the plutocrats have always been exempt from it.
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