It kinda does, because for you to be able to idle and sit in your home painting, somebody else has to go on the "giant treadmill" to feed you, house you, and clothe you. Do you think I wouldn't like to idle at home as I please, and paint and write and read and laze about? Only if everybody did that we would all starve to death. It seems to me to be a gigantic sense of entitlement, that you deride people who work and brag about not looking for a job and complain about being called lazy, when in fact those people are the ones paying for your food so you can lounge about your house and paint and what else. Unless you have a legitimate disability, yeah, that pisses me off.
It hasn't, and we're still working 40 hours a week, but now it's to support the consumption machine that WWII created. Do we really need new original Netflix programming? Do we need whatever crazy-ass pumpkin and coffee flavored beverage a hard working soul at Starbucks or Tim Horton's has cooked up for the fall season? Do we need bigger, cheaper televisions? Faster computers? A new diet craze? A new exercise regime that will be better than the last? Where does this end?
Not to be overly dramatic on a Monday morning, but where are we going with our hustle and drive? When you stop and meditate on that, you realize that to feed, house and clothe us requires 10% of the energy we burn every day, but not if we expect a hedonistic lifestyle where you eat something new, fresh and delicious everyday. I'm not free of that expectation either, so that's not a judgement, just an observation.
Your life is what you make out of it. I work hard, think consumerism is dumb, and I generally spend my extra income by investing it. But I also enjoy getting some really great coffee (not necessarily from Starbucks) or watching a really fun TV show. Try not to worry too much about what frivolous things people spend money on, or it'll drive you crazy.
Because it's either BS consumerism or subsistence farming?
The same is true for a number of horrible things too: some people like them and go for them. That doesn't make them less bad.
I'm not in favor of total relativism...
That said, I think a lot of overconsumption originates from traumatic childhoods (people trying to fill a hole in their hearts) and the welfare state (people don't know what things truly cost).
Actually they are quite limited on their own. And they're not usually about things either -- aside from food and shelter, people want sex, love, security, etc.
That's why it takes a whole lot of convincing, advertising, conditioning etc. to get people to consume at the level modern societies do (and it took a whole lot of convincing, installment buying, easy credit etc. and nagging to jump start this trend, back in the pre-WWII days).
For instance, Elon Musk has developed a desire to colonize Mars. Bill Gates has developed a desire to combat malaria. That is exactly the sort of thing that has to happen in everyone who acquires great wealth. After seeing to the needs of your immediate family, and possibly also your grandchildren, you have an economic duty to spend money, and not just invest it such that it comes right back to you.
Ordinary folks never have quite enough socked away that the economy has to worry about their non-circulating currency. But the rich, as a class, seem to lack the vision to "throw away" their money on grand-scale consumption. The middle classes have picked up some of that slack by buying phones and game consoles and affordable vacation packages, but that has largely served to make the wealthy wealthier, still with no corresponding increase in vision.
So the economy has two options. The rich start actually spending, like Gates and Musk. Or the government breaks the misers' fingers and pries the gold bars out of their grip, to spend on enormously expensive things like wars, welfare, and mega-engineering projects. The latter choice has become somewhat problematic, as the wealthy have discovered and developed ways to recycle the government spending back into their pockets before too much of it is lost to the hoi polloi--largely thanks to the military-industrial complex and corrupted political systems.
So what can a non-wealthy person do to unlock those resources wasting away as the immobile savings of the wealthy, or the tight-looped investments that turn only a few economic gears before returning to the coffers?
Try to get them all addicted to expensive drugs, perhaps? It would be nice if the rich folks of this era actually developed some sense of noblesse oblige, and decided to spend resources on developing the general welfare rather than increasing numbers on balance sheets. Depending on the scale of the wealth, this could be a patronage fund for local artists, or supporting donations to cultural institutions like museums and libraries, or underwriting improvements in the public transit system, or even collecting expensive items like classic cars or celebrity memorabilia.
If your only desire is to be Scrooge McDuck, and swim in your vault full of money, society is far better served by inspiring your heirs to have expensive dreams, and then arranging an unfortunate accident for you. If you don't want that, then spend some of your rassafrassin' money on isht you don't need, whenever you can afford it! If that cash doesn't move, some people out there might not be able to find work.
What about incessant advertising?
Personally, I think the only real reason to have human workers in our automated future is to have some human contact. So there's no reason to have human baristas: those people stand behind a counter and I may or may not be able to interact with them, depending on how the establishment is laid out. But if I go to a café and sit in a comfy chair and order a drink, I'd rather have a cute college girl bring it to me than a robot.
So basically, until femmebots are invented and perfected, the big value that humans can provide that robots and automation cannot is sex and socialization.
And if they ever invent AI robots that look and act just like people, it's all over for humans because the robots won't have our annoying flaws.
Or like the old definition of "hacker" WRT computers.
The ship has sailed, begging the question now means leading someone to ask a question, hacker means two minutes hate against computer criminals, and hedonism means laughably pitiful time preference problem or what is the opposite of a wise plan for the future.
I would argue, however, that hedonism is a human philosophy that leads to pleasure maximization, which means consumerism and excess compliment it.
There are other ways to live your life, that seek to maximize the impact of your effort in other's lives, which do not work was well alongside consumerism.
My wife does...
I work a certain amount to earn the basics, and everything after that is for nice things that I want. Is that bad?
Adam Curtis - HyperNormalisation was released last night (http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p04b183c/adam-curtis-hy...).
Haven't watched it yet but I do think there seems to be a certain type of crazy happening in the world and I can't put my finger on it.
We have whole generations of young people that have been disenfranchised and are having to carry the financial burden of baby boomers. A group in our society, that as it ages, becomes selfish and politically more conservative in their approach.
Something big needs to change and the idea "you must work to survive" within our society is beginning to sound very disjointed.
You'd be able to take walks, sit by the river and write in a journal, or do whatever idle activity appeals to you, but it won't be fancy.
What many people fancy here based on my observation is the removal of stress to work on job with low productivity because of fear of becoming homeless and starving instead of working on some personal project that may or may not lead to success.
> Some experts suspect that frequent use of painkillers is a result of being out of work, because people who have no job prospects are more likely to be depressed, become addicted to drugs and alcohol and have other mental health problems.
A job is more than a way to earn money. Jobs help people structure their lives and live with a sense of purpose.
Our culture is so wrapped up in the idea of the necessity of jobs that I predict we will see government programs to pay 1/2 of the people to dig holes and the other 1/2 to fill them in, before we see Basic Income.
Every generation faces difficult challenges, and the financial issues of the millennial generation are just a matter of national policy. Okay, so some activism is needed to change this. Every generation had to engage in activism to create a more equitable society, why should the millennial generation be the exception? I think the future looks very bright overall, although I can totally see why some millennials see only doom and gloom because of their personal situation.
And don't forget, millennials have been shouldering this global war on terror crap for the last 15 years. While WW2 was horrific, at least they were fighting for something they believed in, and at least it was over after 4 years. Oh and then add in the second worst financial crisis ever putting millions out of work, and crushing student loan debt in order to even participate in the workforce.
The greatest generation fought the greatest war, but their kids were the worst American generation we've ever had.
To be fair, that's largely because engagement was so low[1]. Under 10% of the population were college graduates. If we returned to those levels, costs would drop dramatically.
[1] http://i.imgur.com/1xUOimy.jpg
> home ownership was a given
But so was living in small town/rural areas, something that is completely unfathomable to most people these days. Like college attainment, urbanization is an upward trend. The difficulty of trying to fit more and more people into a relatively fixed area is what is largely responsible for the increased difficulty of affording a home.
The real problem here is that we think we can do what they did, with our own unique twist on it. If we actually lived like they did, those would still be true today. But we expect more, and that comes with a cost.
Want to get a job? Have to get a college degree, hence a lot more people in college.
Even with home ownership I don't think the issue is as simple as urbanization. I'd say it's more related to something like wage stagnation versus property value increases. Although I'm lucky enough to afford my own place, many of my friends can't because they can't afford to save enough because of rent prices... and it would take them 10 years to save even a down payment. That's just an example though.
In U.S., Canada, and Europe (in general) it seems like the best cities and even marginally great cities are filling up with foreign investors looking for an asset to hide their money in so their corrupt governments don't take it from them. Vancouver is the colloquial example here I think. Personally, I'd propose some sort of live-in requirement for all foreign-owned home real estate. If you're not living there or renting it out (which means rent would have to be affordable) then you should lose the property. I don't have an issue with anybody moving to the U.S. or anything, but actually come live here and don't just buy property to drive up housing costs for the people that actually live and work here. (FWIW this isn't something I deal with as I own my own place etc. etc. )
Respectfully, that's absolutely ridiculous. As you can see, even now those with degrees are only 30% of the population. The unemployment rate is nowhere near 70%, I can assure you.
I am willing to agree that the numbers have gone up because people fell for the marketing that told them they wouldn't find work without a degree, but that's entirely on them. We wouldn't give them sympathy if they bought an iPhone, that they couldn't afford, because Apple told them they had to have one.
> Even with home ownership I don't think the issue is as simple as urbanization.
It still comes down to supply and demand, and cities tend to be land-locked, leaving up the only way to expand. But as most people still desire detached homes, up is not an option to help with that market. Not to mention zoning issues, financial issues, etc. that can add considerable time to making upward growth available to those who are interested. Outside of that, the only thing that can give is on the demand side, but these cities continue to grow by leaps and bounds regardless.
Outside the cities, where supply is effectively unlimited and demand has waned in favour of urban living, we can find markets where houses have gone down in price.
> I'd say it's more related to something like wage stagnation
Which clearly dispels any myths that more education leads to higher incomes, so that isn't a justification for being there either, in case you were thinking it (many do, sadly).
> Vancouver is the colloquial example here I think.
I don't know why Vancouver gets all the attention. I think it is because Canada typically reports using mean, while most of the rest of the world use median. The mean average will tend to skew higher given the nature of the market, so it sounds scary to those not paying attention.
The median home price in San Francisco is about $1.1M USD[1]. The median home price in Vancouver is about $540,000 USD[2].
[1] http://www.zillow.com/san-francisco-ca/home-values/
[2] http://www.timescolonist.com/news/b-c/real-time-sales-number...
Now, the median income in Vancouver is about $20,000 USD per year lower than in SF, but $20K isn't anywhere near enough to cover an additional $560,000 on a mortgage. Not even close. So, in reality, the issue is far more apparent in SF than it is in Vancouver.
Yes, people are employed without a college degree, and they're working at McDonalds at or near minimum wage. I should have been specific: if you want a good job you need a college degree.
It still comes down to supply and demand, and cities tend to be land-locked, leaving up the only way to expand. But as most people still desire detached homes, up is not an option to help with that market. Not to mention zoning issues, financial issues, etc. that can add considerable time to making upward growth available to those who are interested. Outside of that, the only thing that can give is on the demand side, but these cities continue to grow by leaps and bounds regardless.
Sorry I still don't see how this means that urbanization is the issue.
> Which clearly dispels any myths that more education leads to higher incomes, so that isn't a justification for being there either, in case you were thinking it (many do, sadly).
A college degree absolutely leads to higher incomes. This has been studied and is a fact.
> Now, the median income in Vancouver is about $20,000 USD per year lower than in SF, but $20K isn't anywhere near enough to cover an additional $560,000 on a mortgage. Not even close. So, in reality, the issue is far more apparent in SF than it is in Vancouver.
I think the difference is that the reason home prices are what they are in San Francisco is because you have an accumulation of the most powerful companies in the most powerful industry on the planet. People are making a lot of money in San Francisco and there are a lot of jobs. There is some foreign investment, but people can also Why are home prices high in Vancouver?
So I'm not 100% sure how accurate this is... but it looks like more than 40% of residents in San Francisco are earning $100k +. What's that statistic for Vancouver? The median is misleading. Look at the distributions.
That's hilarious, but in no way representative of the real world. In fact, the tech industry in particular goes out of its way to welcome people without degrees with open arms. You're in the wrong place if you think the tech industry doesn't provide good jobs.
Check out the income distribution of bachelor earning college graduates sometime. They are pretty well evenly represented through every income group, just as they would be without a degree. The exception is those who have post-graduate degrees. They are disproportionately represented amongst the highest earners. But of course they are. Doctors, lawyers, etc. which are traditionally entered through post-graduate schooling implement supply management to artificially limit supply, which artificially increases their incomes.
Of course, that has nothing to do with education, just a manipulation of the market. Since we've been talking about Canada, the dairy industry there does the same thing[1]. There, you have to invest in quota instead of investing in a post-graduate degree to become one of the chosen few, but the economic results are the same.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_management_(Canada)
> Sorry I still don't see how this means that urbanization is the issue.
What part don't you understand? It's just preschool level economics.
> A college degree absolutely leads to higher incomes. This has been studied and is a fact.
If incomes have increased as more and more have college attainment, then there isn't stagnation. Which is it? You can't have it both ways.
> Why are home prices high in Vancouver?
~$500K USD for the median place isn't that high, especially compared to most world-class cities around the world, but Vancouver does have a few things going for it:
1. Low population density. About half that of even San Francisco. The city is growing and people are buying these single occupant homes with the plan of turning them into multi-occupant homes in the future. $1M when you divide it by 100 families down the road is nothing.
2. The climate! The Vancouver region is very unique to Canada, consistently warmer than pretty much anywhere else in the country. Those who wish (or forced) to remain in Canada, but not live out the normally harsh winters are immediately attracted to Vancouver.
3. The geography is breathtaking. Mountains, the ocean, and prime farmland all define the boundaries of the city. Again, there is not much else like it in Canada, especially if you want to reside in a city.
> but it looks like more than 40% of residents in San Francisco are earning $100k +
But realistically, you need about $250K+ to even consider the median home in SF. What percentage of the population does that comprise of? In contrast, about $120K in Vancouver. It would be interesting to see how those numbers compare, not the same income in both cities, because again a home is about half the cost in Vancouver.
> The median is misleading.
It doesn't tell the whole story, for sure. I welcome more comprehensive data. However, it's not misleading to tell the story of the people who live there. Median is simply the number in the middle, so we know that half the population make less, half the population make more. Likewise, we know half of the homes cost more, half cost less.
If you want the people of a given city to be able to afford homes, then the median household realistically has to be able to buy the median home. If we don't care about everyone being able to buy a home, then who cares who is buying them? They could be $100M homes and nothing would change.
It seems I have lost track of your original point here.
The greatest generation in the US had it a lot easier than their peers in Europe, but the economics are intertwined. By focusing exclusively on US prosperity you're missing that. The US prospered in large part _because_ of the miserable rebuilding effort in the rest of the world.
WW2 also lasted for 6 years, not 4.
As for your claim that boomers are the worst generation in American history, surely you're not suggesting that they're worse than the slave-holding generations? That position is frankly untenable.
I think perhaps the concept of continual war has been advanced to conceal the fact that we as a civilization don't really need all hands on deck any more. Governments have been inventing busy work for people, desperately hoping that no one notices that an increasing fraction of the necessary labor is being done by robots, and unskilled laborers have become increasingly superfluous. But the Puritanical, Calvinist, Bradfordian cultural undercurrents in the US frown deeply and disapprovingly on idleness, even as those doing the majority of the frowning and tsk-tsk-ing are now "retired".
In the slave-holding generations, the institution of slavery was largely perpetuated by wealthy plantation-owners, as a political minority. Slaves could escape on foot. Nowadays, the student loan debts may not be discharged in bankruptcy, and will follow you to the far ends of the Earth if you run. You generally cannot inhabit a dwelling without steep rent or mortgage debt. You cannot work without making payments into a system that transfers 15% of your earnings to mostly the retired Boomers, through a system that may not even be solvent at the time Gen X starts retiring. Is that worse than slavery? That's a matter of opinion. I think most would say not, but some might say yes sarcastically or as hyperbole in addition to those with a genuine and vehement disdain of Boomers.
Your post is also bad history.
Firstly, a full third of households held enslaved people in the south. Not just the rich elites.
Secondly, enslaved people couldn't just run away. Of course some tried but the risk of getting caught was very high and the consequences dire:
> The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 strengthened provisions for the recapture of slaves, and offered them no protection in the justice system. Bounty hunters and civilians could lawfully capture escaped slaves in the North, or any other place, using little more than an affidavit, and return them to the Slave master.
> Many escaped slaves upon return were to face harsh punishments such as amputation of limbs, whippings, branding, and many other horrible acts
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugitive_slaves_in_the_United_...)
Not exactly comparable to the burden of college debt, wouldn't you say?
The history of the Underground Railroad and Caribbean slave rebellions shows that it was, in fact, possible for slaves to escape slavery. Smuggling yourself to Canada won't get you away from Experian et al.
But if you had read my post more carefully, you might have noticed that I did say that most people would share the opinion that slavery is worse, and those who did not were probably just doing it for rhetorical effect. It's the same sort of behavior as saying someone is "literally Hitler"--extreme hyperbole.
For the US, the war lasted 4 years, not 6.
No, slave-holding generations weren't worse, because not everyone owned slaves; that was mostly unique to the South. That's like claiming that Millennials suck because they all love 4x4s and mudding and having lots of guns and are big Trump fans. The US fought a nasty war over that issue because most of the population was not part of the slave-holding class, and even the poor white people in the South didn't own slaves either, only the rich ones, though they suckered the poor ones into fighting for their stupid cause.
What in the hell are you talking about (or smoking)? If you're talking about the US, which seems to be the case given your talk of financial struggles and "Millennials", the US won the lottery with WWII. In case you forgot, the US was completely unscathed (except for some bombed ships in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii), and there was no rebuilding to do! Instead, we were the only industrial power left standing, so we made out like bandits by helping everyone else rebuild. Why do you think we became so economically powerful? All the other powers had to buy all their stuff from us! The "Greatest Generation" wasn't "tasked" with much: they put up with 4 years of war (mostly finishing up the job after England and Russia duked it out with Germany, plus dealing with Imperial Japan), and in return they profited handsomely.
If it weren't for WWII (and maybe WWI before it), America would not be a superpower now. We'd be more like Mexico: a good-sized economy, but probably not the most powerful nation on earth both economically and militarily, as Germany and Britain and maybe France would have been too much competition.
At 18, he had to join the Army. He spent the next two years in Europe.
He came home, and went to school on the GI bill.
He then went from job to job--trying to find one that had purpose. He decided to live in a commune. He bought a Indian motorcycle, and took off across the United States. When he need money, he would take odd jobs.(almost impossible today, unless you want to end up like that guy in Alaska who died in a bus.) He liked to drink, and smoke. He got into bar fights.(see how that one lapse of judgement will ruin your life today.) He finally found a job he liked. It was journalism. Within months, he had Union benefits.(again--try to find that today). Within a year, he had a house.(again--blah, blah, blah.) Then a wife, and kids.
I took away two things from that speech.
I couldn't imagine having to go to war at 18.
The other was all the things he did when he got home, and how now---just one mistake could ruin the future of a young person.
I'm not a millennial.
That said, I don't like this economy. I don't like knowing if I make one mistake, I could seriously derail my life. I don't like the fact that we have made so many things, once legal, illegial. Hell, you can't even smoke a cigarette in a park. You can't bum around until you find youself. You're lucky if you have a parent that has a basement you can throw a mattress in.
I really just don't like this current American society.
Would I want to be thrown into a war at 18--no.
That's about all I don't like about the past though.
(I won't be back to debate all the clever counter points. All I know is it's not great today. America has lost a lot. This is not the best country anymore. We need change. I would like to start with rolling back laws. It seems like there's a law against everything? Again, I won't be back, but understand the frustration out there.)
We have huge numbers of talented people burning themselves out on things which absolutely do not matter, and are only subtracting value.
Some people are just not equipped to log in day after day, doing things that don't matter.
The question is about handling the productivity gains. One option would be to use the gains to have more (intelligent, as was proposed) leisure time.
You do not have to work 8 hours a day if the job you did could be done in 30 minutes of work.
You can still keep working for 8 hours (or as it common, more) to squeeze even more out you than was possible before.
There is no explicit need for exponential growth of the productivity or population but for some reason industrialized word tries to maximize the first while the rest tries to maximise the last.
In combination it has lead to devaluation of the human life and our ideals.
You're confusing doing work with being at work.
I suspect for bean counting reasons and putting on a really good show, we'll all have to "work" for sixteen hour days in open offices generating great departmental metrics, but we'll actually work about 30 minutes a day and goof off on social media and online shopping and complaining about how busy we are for fifteen and a half hours per day. Well sure I spent three hours eating lunch at my desk and another three hour break is coming up in an hour for dinner so lets get the planning meeting for the pre-meeting for the meeting started...
You know how when you drive by a construction site and inevitably there's like six guys watching one guy operate a shovel? Same idea. Due to all the social media and online gaming, its gonna take ten programmers working together for weeks of pair programming to write fizzbuzz, but at least we'll all be putting in 16 hour days on paper. The whole business world is going to be like that.
The future is here, although unevenly distributed.
I agree, 100%. Even if we aren't at that stage now, we will be very soon, with the automation revolution and continued optimisation of the industrial process. Many people will soon have the realistic possibility to do their same jobs, for the same value creation, in 2 or 3 hours 4 days a week. Yet free market dictates that they work 8 hours per day 5 days a week for even more productivity growth, because if you don't you will fall behind, in a capitalistic free market.
You can easily have a system where a large number of people are unemployed and everyone still gets fed and employed people don't feel resentment.
Do you think men resented their wives for the centuries when it was normal for wives to be homemakers? I would hope not.
It's one thing to be in the work force vs being at home and idle, and it's another to be in the work force vs at home clean / caring for children, etc.
People feeling the social pressure to do stuff, already do stuff and always will.
Its interesting to watch retired people.
Some social groups do just sit at home and watch TV and get inebriated, and no government program is going to stop them, or start them down that path. Others do all kinds of volunteer crazy work.
My retired MiL has a near part time job of volunteer work, around 20 hrs week. My wife was unemployed for awhile many years ago and she did some volunteer work to pad the resume and took training and educational classes. All the classes were theoretically STEM/useful but were completely useless in practice (if there's no job, it doesn't matter if you're now a freshly minted MCSE of Excel if there's no job).
My near retirement accountant neighbor can do nothing accounting like on his own, although he could have helped me a lot when I was a treasurer for a volunteer org, I was pretty lost the first few weeks. Also he spends about ten hours a week in his woodworking shop and I suspect after 40 years he's pretty tired of accounting even if he is an expert. He's a better woodworker than I (and I'm not that bad) so if we were both out of work permanently I'd probably apprentice under him for a few years.
Worthless people are going to be worthless and that's always been the case. People who aren't worthless are always going to be doing something (maybe not what you like or expect, but they'll be nose to grindstone on something...) and that's always been the case. A mere economic policy isn't going to change any of that.
Much like being fired or downsized usually doesn't change most people forever, merely being fired or downsized forever isn't going to change most people very much.
This is becoming less and less true, as there are less and less demand for labor, because of automation.
You only look at the physics aspect of the economy. Meanwhile, labor is changing. A job is privilege, not a right. People consent to work. They decide that they want to get that money. The concept of "contributing to society" belongs to communism, not capitalism. The world works with self interest. I don't think people can really pretend they go to work to help others.
So, why don't you? If you really value these things more than your current life, maybe you should pursue them and let someone else take (part of) your place on the treadmill?
So why don't you? I get that if everyone did that, it wouldn't work, but you aren't everyone. You're just you.
Some people have the "luxury" of lazing about at home but that kind of lifestyle is not sustainable for society at large. Expecting someone else to carry your weight just because you don't want to is rather childish.
The OP said he wanted to do something that wouldn't work if everyone did it. But he's not everyone. If he did it, it would work, and he said that's what he wanted to do. He wants to do something that will work. So why not do it? Since it will work.
Expecting someone else to carry your weight just because you don't want to is rather childish.
Boo hoo, cry me a river. So what? If you're the kind of person who doesn't want to be seen as childish, then there's your motivation for not mooching around at home all day, but the OP does want to mooch around at home all day, so why not do it?
So you're saying that this:
"So why don't you? I get that if everyone did that, it wouldn't work, but you aren't everyone. You're just you."
doesn't tell me anything about your mindset? You're telling me that it's okay to stay at home and be lazy because, why not, it's just you right? It could work if OP is willing to be a mooch on society, yes, but that's not the kind of thinking anyone should be condoning.
To take it to an extreme, you could say "if you're the kind of person who doesn't want to go to prison, then there's your motivation for not murdering people, but OP does want to murder people, so why not do it?" The logic is the same.
You're right though. If you want to be a non-contributing member of society and act like a child, that's completely your prerogative but it's an absolutely childish, selfish, and narrow mindset to have.
Didn't say that. You have taken a question, and assumed that I'm advocating something. This is, long story short, incompetency on your part. If you don't like that I'm pointing this out, so something about it. Screaming at me won't do anything. You need to improve your thinking.
It does tell you something about my mindset. It tells you I am capable of understanding that other people think differently, and I am asking why someone thinks the way they do. I'm not saying they're right; I'm not saying they're wrong. I'm not assuming that if someone explores a view, they agree with it. That is extremely childish, literally. Young children who have not developed a theory of mind do this, as do you. For someone throwing around the word "childish", you have a remarkable lack of self-awareness.
This tells you one thing only about my mindset; that it's wide enough to embrace different views, and ask people why they don't consider alternative options for themselves based on these different views. I DISAGREE with staying home and doing nothing, living off welfare. Amazing. I DISAGREE with that, yet you believed I completely AGREED with it because your thinking is so primitive.
You drew exactly the wrong conclusion about my mindset. I see this frequently; anyone capable of entertaining ideas other than yours is narrow minded. Labelling someone dismissively is much easier than having to actually expand your own thinking. Grow up; start thinking.
Oh, feel your anger. How dare a line of text on a screen be so mean about you. Why not take this opportunity to actually improve yourself, rather than having a hissy fit?
>"So why don't you? I get that if everyone did that, it wouldn't work, but you aren't everyone. You're just you."
I fail to see how "You're telling me that it's okay to stay at home and be lazy because, why not, it's just you right?" misrepresents that statement at all.
>"I DISAGREE with staying home and doing nothing, living off welfare. Amazing. I DISAGREE with that, yet you believed I completely AGREED with it because your thinking is so primitive."
And where in the world did you ever imply that you disagreed with that? Everything you've said so far advocated for this position for at least OP. If you wanted to have a discussion about what's right or wrong about this situation as it pertains to other people, if not society at large, then maybe you should have done that instead of your whole "[b]oo hoo, cry me a river" line. If you're so capable of understanding other peoples way of thinking then perhaps you could have understood why I would not catch on to your supposed Devil's Advocate position. You don't know a thing about me.
The inactivity and the feeling of exclusion is soul-killing
The simple idea of idleness and staying at home to paint or draw seems to drive people crazy.
From what you write, it seems that you want someone to just give you a job, without you really having to going put in the effort to work for it. You say you're also training to be an army reservist, which implies that you're at least physically fit, and you know how to code, so you're at least mentally capable, so I'm guessing the disability is related to something like depression.
Now, I have no intention to knock depression, but it is on you to figure out how you can live that will satisfy you and provide your needs, whether it is working a corporate job, working in a field or being an artist.
But the way you describe yourself, I think the majority of people would classify you as being lazy, and I would say they are right to do so.
My issue is how people have been transformed into labor machines. Being rated by a salary is meek metric to begin with. That's a problem of principle.
> I think the majority of people would classify you as being lazy, and I would say they are right to do so.
And they would, but until you can find a good reason for me to contribute to a society, I would call that relatively low motivation. If I have to beg to get a job, and if it is literally work to find a job, then it is not going to make a lot of sense to me since I am not legally obligated to work. If there is actual unemployment, but there are no simple jobs to do, then maybe laziness is not the problem, maybe it's something else. It's so biblical to call somebody lazy.
> without you really having to going put in the effort to work for it
In the current system you will get removed instantly if you are not competitive enough or take a little too much time to work on something. That's how capitalism works: only the numbers matter. People are not machines. Competition can be a problem if it becomes more important than cooperation. Unemployment is the failure of cooperation.
I know exactly how to give you a good reason to contribute society. If we stop giving you free food and shelter, and if you want to not starve, you will find a job.
In the current system you will get removed instantly if you are not competitive enough or take a little too much time to work on something. That's how capitalism works: only the numbers matter. People are not machines. Competition can be a problem if it becomes more important than cooperation. Unemployment is the failure of cooperation.
Yet basic income has become a large conversation.
> If we stop giving you free food and shelter, and if you want to not starve, you will find a job.
Sure, go do that. I'm not against it, I'm just scared that so many people will starve and not find a job, that those people will start rioting pretty quickly. That's an aspect you don't seem to think about.
> How would you know this? By your words, you have never worked more than a month in your entire life.
Well not getting hired for the same reason is the same thing.
Nobody owes you a living. "Contributing to the labour force" isn't a religion; it is a necessary condition of life, without which we starve. There's no free lunch.
I think that, to protect your ego against accusations of laziness, you've projected this idea of society as a pointless activity, so you can defend to yourself your choices. It is self-delusional.
.. and that's why we turn pensioners out into the snow once they cease contributing.
Oh, wait, no we don't, because we recognise that they're human beings and members of society.
The OP is talking about cases where you are not in retirement, and not disabled, the society expects you to pull your own weight. It is only fair, no?
2. Even minimum wage earners have retirement contributions deducted through payroll. Not a lot of money, true, but poor people's pensions are slightly subsidized by higher earners (which is fair, IMO).
"There is no good or bad, it's only what you can or you cannot do".
Everyone will act in it's best interest, according to the possibilites that is has available.
Those possibilites are refined by the feedback from the other members of society.
100 years ago this may have been true, but there has been this great thing called automation (letting machines do our work for us) which has flourished over the past century (especially in the area of food production).
Food production is a solved problem. ~40% of food goes wasted in the US every year.
So no, we don't need "all hands on deck" to keep us from starving anymore. Insisting on such in the face of obvious surplus and an obesity epidemic is what is delusional.
Since FDR, social programs has been implemented, so actually, yes, everyone is owed something because we understood that society can easily crash if some people don't have food.
Well you should knock to doors in all the ghettos you can find to get an answer or at least some bit of conversation.
> I thought social programs were more about moral aspects
It's also a matter of society not drowning in crime. It's better if government can give money to people instead of criminal paying poor people to sell drugs.
Those who haven't lived through a depression will never understand your plight and obviously not be able to "see" the challenges you face -- how oddly suppressed your voice is against this entire world -- but walk out of this ditch right now. It is going to kill you and even then the world will not understand your pain because it's designed that way.
You don't have to contribute or be a part of the machinery. Do not feed the for-profit machinery that you, like many of us, sorely dislike. Go into non-profit mode perhaps?: help a charity, give shelter to other underprivileged people or may be start an open source movement to make the machinery bleed.
Don't just sit and lose these moments explaining your situation to people who're blind and deaf and presumably dumb. They'll never see. They'll never see until this depression hits them for reasons of their own.
It may not!, but usually healing others is also self-healing.
One has to figure this path for themselves.
> I think you need to fix the depression issue first.
Absolutely! However, solving inability to work is equally important. Otherwise the patient will fall back into a depression again.
P.S: The comments above were for OP's inability to work, find work or be motivated about it. It isn't a solution for depression, which obviously needs thorough professional or medical help.
> How on earth do you want people like me begging for a job? It makes no sense.
What do you mean with "people like you"? What is your problem? I'm taking the first paragraph to mean depress or some related disorder, but then you have
> In some meeting with other people with disabilities, I suggested that there should be companies whose job is to match candidates with companies directly, so that candidates do not have to move sky and earth to find a job. I think it's not even a problem of investment and risk taking, it's just that there is nothing to build or to make, except software and robots, which require education, which is always money-constrained, unsurprisingly. Either that or people don't want to work anymore, and it's fine, because work is less and less necessary.
Do you mean this would be a more systematic issue due to changes in labor requirements? Or that we currently have a shitty situation in job finding?
I'm the archetype loser.
> Or that we currently have a shitty situation in job finding?
I think companies don't care about the candidate they are looking for. Of course it's a market, but it's not well "regulated". Nobody really knows who is available for what, and due to that, companies can't really hire properly. If there were an actual database of candidates, and if there were better profiling, and less job websites, maybe things would be much smoother. The job market is a complete anarchy. I would be glad to give $500 to a company so that this company can find me a good job that I will keep for 6 months. That would be an awesome investment. Yet this doesn't seem to exist for some reason.
I think that the number one occupation we should have is to live our lives. The way we do this should be according to our values and not neccesarily to how others think we should.
Now, life has a mechanistic component driven by neccesities and an artistic one driven by ideals, self expression and pleasure.
The promised goal of modern technology was that a large part of the rutined work covering the neccesities of life would be outsourced to machines while humans could occupy themselves with the more pleasurable aspects of life..
I'm not sure if many realize, but in such a world very few would actually work. All the rest will play.
This is what AI will make a reality, and the job market needs a radical reform.
We should all prepare to transition from a work based paradigm to a play based paradigm. If you're doing it already good to you.
The subject is vast and has multiple implications but that's all I could distill in a HN post.
I'm not sure if many realize, but in such a world very few would actually work. All the rest will play.
Right now, the reason some people bust their ass working, is being they can get paid more and live a higher quality of life. If everybody get everything they want, why would anyone work?
But remember, AI may change things a lot. It'll not be a problem of you will work so I can sit, but more a problem of you and I will have some machines working for us, so what's left for us to do..
One of the implications I was talking about, is that the human psyche is built to function under survival pressure, when the pressure is removed, then depression may occur. So it's going to be very tricky, unless we train ourselves to function in a different mode.. where we are the masters.
your English is good, given your skills background if you applied to 1,000 junior software dev positions (which would take you less than a year at the lowly pace of three per day) you would be employed in short order. But nobody is paying you to do that. You are, however, being paid to be disabled.
your comment is simply an example of people responding to incentives.
- Disclaimer: please don't respond to this comment. since I expect a bunch of responses from you let me preempt them by saying that I don't believe the above (or it's a joke) and I just copied it from a neo-Nazi web site, it's obviously completely wrong and not worth responding to, thanks. I just wanted to give it an example of what people say who are literally worse than Hitler. don't respond. I will just say that you're obviously completely right in every way and your response wasn't worth writing.
And no, I don't get paid for my disability, I just get welfare like other unemployed people.
- If companies need me so much, they would be contacting me. If they don't, they can do without. Those are incentives too.
Firstly, this is written in absolutely perfect English, including the idiom "do without". You're a highly skilled intellectual worker, far above the average employed French person in terms of employability. You're talented even before we introduce the fact that you can code. While people might train to become a junior pastry chef in a few weeks (to use another recent thread), while learning on the job, it takes far more than a week or two to be able to program in a single language, let alone three of them, with one being the industrial language C++. You have a naturally very high wage, discounting the friction of being placed at a job, which is high.
You are correct when you say that employers have an 'incentive' to hire you, this is a good point and I want to reply to it, but here you are using the term 'incentive' a bit differently from the part I originally quoted, and it's a problem for thinking clearly about the argument that I originally quoted. So, in the part I quoted that says "people respond to incentives" it is very narrow, such as a bonus. What it means is that if a restaurant enacts a rule, "The waiter who upsells the most bottles of champagne, being at least 25 bottles, to parties of at least 5 in a given month will receive a $500 cash for (ANY explanation/justification)" this is an incentive. It doesn't matter what justification is put. What "people respond to incentives", in the very narrow sense, means, is that regardless of what the explanation/justification is, as a direct result of that policy, waiters will be selling more bottles of champagne. So, by enacting that policy, the bottles of champagne being sold to parties of 5 or more will increase. (It might have other effects: for example, perhaps Yelp reviews will start talking about waiters/waitresses becoming "very pushy" -- perhaps near the end of the month when one has sold nearly 25 bottles and needs to make it to 25. But it could also have an effect where near the end of the month a waiter will themselves personally invite a party to a bottle of champagne, paying out of pocket but not noting this, to win versus some other waiter. Both of these behavior changes are "people responding to incentives." The very existence of the rule that the waiter who upsells the most bottles of champagne, being at least 25, in a given month, will receive a $500 cash bonus will affect people's behavior. Even though it is literally part of every waiter's job every single day to upsell expensive beverages -- plus, since waiters in America are usually paid as a percentage tip, they already have even a financial incentive to upsell by themselves.)
So if we take this very narrow case of "incentive" -- perhaps let's call it "financial transaction rule" to make it very explicit -- for example "There is a financial transaction rule that in each month the server who has sold the most bottles of champagne to parties of at least 5, being at least 25 bottles in that month, will receive a financial transaction from the house of $500." It's just a rule. There's no "morality" there's no "what it's for."
If the government enacted the "financial transaction rule" that any person who ate foul-smelling food received a welfare payment, then as a direct result, some people would begin to eat foul-smelling foods. Even if it's not really worth it to them. Even if they don't like to do it. And even if it costs them more to do so in direct money. They are simply responding to the "financial transaction rule."
So, in this sense, the very existence of the "financial transaction rule" resulting in people such as yourself receiving disability payments while having to check a checkbox "I looked for a job this month" (even if it's not true and you sent zero resumes/CV's), will result in some employable people receiving those payments and not working. It's a simple direct consequence of the universal fact that people respond to "financial transaction rules".
I switched from using "incentive" to using "financial transaction rule" so I could address your broader point, that companies, too, have an incentive (let's call it 'motivating factor') to contact you.
We can make quite a simple analogy. So, I'm single at the moment, but take care of my body, have free time, some people find me humorous and I'm generally fun. I'm pretty picky about my girlfriends and often went years between one, and was in long-term relationships. I don't often have one-night stands or the sort. Now, I know for a fact that there are a lot of women who would find me interesting - I know this because when I take the inordinate amount of effort it takes to be in a position to interact with them, whether on dating sites, in some social circles, while going out, and so forth, I get positive feedback and after all connected with my previous long-term significant others this way. But the existence of this "motivating factor" on both sides (mine and theirs) is not enough to magically 'clear' the market. How could they contact me, if I'm not available anywhere?
Likewise, how could I contact them, if they had other things they were focusing on? If I would most of all like to be connected with women who place other things far above partying and going out and socializing, that makes it somewhat difficult to find them.
So the existence of a "motivating factor" is insufficient to make things happen on its own. Companies can't find you if you are not out there on the job market - as you said, you are not.
Finally, I wanted to address:
- And no, I don't get paid for my disability, I just get welfare like other unemployed people.
So I think I've discussed that it is a "financial transaction rule", and in this sense you do get paid. Now I want to just say that there's no moral aspect here. For example, if someone were a well-trained programmer but homeless (they could be very highly trained and really expert), the friction with placing them in a new job might be too high, even if they were sending in applications. Perhaps they don't have access to the Internet, cannot dress and smell cleanly for a single interview, perhaps cannot afford transportation across town to make an interview, may not have a charged cell phone, and many other problems.
So while the existence of a 'financial transaction rule' will change people's behaviors, still, society is making a correct choice by having some of these in place in certain cases. It's really not easy.
Perhaps if, rather than make you check a checkbox (lying) saying you've sent out applications, you were forced to send a screenshot of sent email applications, then in your case this may be enough for you to have started working. I can't say.
I can say for sure and with certainty that in your case you are qualified for a job, and I can say for sure and with certainty based on your post that you are meeting the requirements of a financial transaction rule, including checking the checkbox that you're looking for a job.
If I were the government, I would look at the interaction of both "motivating factors" (including reading, drawing, bettering yourself on your own time) and the "financial transaction rules". I don't think everyone should work 60-hour weeks as a corporate drone.
I don't think there's anything wrong with your lifestyle. I do think that working could be part of it, and that as you reported there is a financial transaction rule that you are meeting the requirements of.
I hope this explains everything in the thinking that I quoted earlier. It seems you are ready to make serious responses, I will read them carefully and think about and address anyhting you have to say about those matters.
Note: if you want to discuss the details of your disability I'm not really open to it and would just say that I agree with you and point out that Nazi's exterminated people with disabilities and that the thinking I quoted is from a neo-Nazi website and obviously wrong, so in that case this discussion is over.
That way I wouldn't have to argue with you about genetics and intuitive eating and how the body knows what it needs, and all the wrong things fat people believe.
I don't want to argue with you about all the wrong things long-term unemployed people on state benefits believe. . So I've given you all the information I have and there's nothing left to discuss.
You don't seem to have questions or followups, so thanks for the discussions and reading what I wrote.
If you will leave it as the empty kneejerk comment reading "at least put some effort in" (which is against HN policy and derails the thread) all I have to say, as promised, is oh those aren't my thoughts, we obviously agree and I was just quoting off of a neo-Nazi message board. No need to reply. Thanks for your understanding.
(If you wanted to make a constructive reply, you could start by saying "If we were to take that argument seriously for a moment..." and then state your thoughts.)
There's really no need for any other short comment, I will just agree with you. We can just agree to agree.
I'm not in your place so I'm not saying you should do it, or even that I would actually do that if it were me. But I think I would try to consider this as an opportunity.
On the other hand, I have absolutely no problem with people being supported without doing productive work, because that's the way some of the greatest artists, inventors or scientists have been able to do their thing in the past.
I think universal basic income is the answer to this situation. The fact that you are (apparently) able to survive in our society without being a productive worker seems to be proof that society doesn't need everyone to be workers, contrary to what current politicians (at least in France) say about work, and how having a job seems to be the most important part of life and of citizenship. While the most important thing should just be taking part in society, and having a job clearly doesn't help with that unless you think society is just a large company, which is wrong.
Anyway, just don't forget that a lot of people don't have a problem with others staying at home to paint, draw, write or think. Society isn't blaming you for being lazy, only most of its rulers are, and those people who listen too much to them. It's not easy, but try not to get too influenced by the opinions you keep hearing in public medias, because they're all run by people who have an interest in having citizens think they have to work.
I can understand that the OP is getting tired of job hunting. It makes sense he believes working is not necessary and I actually agree with the OP somewhat. However, I think the only reason he has this stance is because of his difficulty in finding a job.
I could work at mcdonalds.
The problem I have is how we tend to reward some attitudes, which to me seems weird. I have a huge problem with the job interview process and how I'm advised to behave or not. It sounds like I'm on some reality TV. And still, getting a job is one thing that could solve many of social problems, meaning socializing.
I agree with you on some levels, this idea of ultra-productiveness is a religion. I would rather see high levels of productiveness to WORK LESS and ENJOY LIFE more. I'd love to work a 30-hour week so I can pursue other interests.
Instead, ultra-productiveness is causing a burnout loop of WORK MORE to allow more time to WORK MORE.
But this is all pointless. In the future, the amount of lazy people will be astronomical as robots and computers take over 99% of jobs.
-- Just 2 eurocents from fellow european. I have had my share of handicap and exclusion, it took long arduous years but now I can stay idle whenever I want and not give a fuck about people thinking what I should be doing instead.
Sounds like a good trade-off to me...
I mean, to a degree i can understand what you mean. We are seeking happiness in the treadmill and that rarely seems to bring it. We hope that after the treadmill there will be happiness, but few are sure of that.
My problem though, with what i took from your words, was that it sounds like you believe work is becoming less and less required. I don't feel that's true, unfortunately.
I think that will become true, in time, but we don't have the technology to automate the work we need to. Sure, we have various factory line jobs replaces with robotics, and we're working on lots of general replacement (Taxis, for example), but most of the labor force, even "just" manual labor, requires specific intensive understanding that we are not even close to replicating with robotics. Hell, we're still struggling to walk easily and effectively. Sure, walking robots are becoming more natural and skilled, but it's definitely still a WIP.
My robotics leap may have seemed odd, but that's what i believe is required before your comment holds true. Work will always be required - there is no doubt about that. Someone, some thing, will be doing work. And humanity will only be able to ignore work once we've enslaved something else to do it for us.
So back to topic, i think part of the stress you feel from society is a bit of a "i have to do it, so you have to do it" thing. Why should you get to do what you like, when others so clearly cant? You could argue that we're all expecting too much, we don't need the gadgets/etc, and that living very frugal can be a means to happiness, but living frugal doesn't absolve yourself from work.
The frugal lives of the world still work. Some may not work as hard, some may have much more free time, but there's still work to be done. You still have to learn the trades to repair your stuff, or pay someone else to do it for you. To grow your food, or to pay someone else to. And etc.
I'm not trying to come off aggressive, so i hope it doesn't seem that way. Perhaps i'm missing your point, but the statement of:
> ... and it's fine, because work is less and less necessary.
Seems very very foreign to me.
Because I'm free to do so, because work is consented, not forced.
> Seems very very foreign to me.
The most basic things are becoming cheaper and cheaper, so I don't think there are good enough reasons to run on that treadmill to deliver pizzas or wait tables. Those are bonus, yet we warrant that those things are necessary in society, instead of giving a basic income.
My rant is not only about automation and the need of jobs, it's also political, it's about resource allocation. Arguing that "everybody has to do its part" is a paradox in a free capitalist society. If there is known inequality on top of it, asking people to get that job will not make sense, especially when you hear that people are working hard to automate everything. So either your take unemployed people and you train them at robotics, but you can't tell them to deliver pizza when engineers are working on pizza-making machines.
I mean, you're not really addressing the argument with that part. I'm not forcing you to do so, but do you really think you are entitled to live off welfare of others? Because that is the implication of that statement.
If you want to not work, not pay taxes, and live in the woods, by all means. But if you expect society to support you, with no contribution, then you're just abusing the system. Sure, you may "be free to do so", but that doesn't make it correct. And if everyone abused the system like that, it wouldn't work.
So yes, work is less and less necessary, regardless of your religious beliefs to the contrary. No, not all work is going to go away; we'll still need engineers for a long time (unless they invent human-level AIs to do the engineering work for us). But not everyone is capable of being an engineer or doctor or other worker requiring significant education; most people just aren't capable of those jobs.
The other big factor is: how much work? Why do we need to work 40 hours a week or more? With more work being done by automation, and our productivity at the highest point in history, when can we finally take more time off and do enjoyable things instead of putting in "face time" at a workplace because of the quaint notion of hourly pay? Why are we not all benefitting from automated labor making our lives easier and more luxurious?
It does not entitles me to money, but companies must have 6% of handicapped personnel or they must pay some small fine.
It's in the "armee de terre", meaning ground army. It's not the usual army training, since it's the reserve. It's only a 2 week training.
Every month I check a box online to certify I am actively looking for a job, but honestly I am not. How on earth do you want people like me begging for a job? It makes no sense. The worst thing is how society treats you and blames you for "laziness", yet those people are increasing but it seems nobody wants to hear it.
In some meeting with other people with disabilities, I suggested that there should be companies whose job is to match candidates with companies directly, so that candidates do not have to move sky and earth to find a job. I think it's not even a problem of investment and risk taking, it's just that there is nothing to build or to make, except software and robots, which require education, which is always money-constrained, unsurprisingly. Either that or people don't want to work anymore, and it's fine, because work is less and less necessary.
What kills me even more is the whole "get motivated" movement. I know I'm ranting but to me, society looks like a giant treading mill. Happiness and the slow, intelligent life have been forgotten in favor of a society of endless work and jobs. Contributing to the labor force has become a religion. The simple idea of idleness and staying at home to paint or draw seems to drive people crazy. It should not.