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.
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.