That's the European approach that children belong to whole community not only their parents and the authority and the burden is shared. I don't get why are you so hell bent on having exclusive authority over your child?

Nah. That’s what people used to say abou WFH too. All this is purely due to capricious employers and institutions, not because of some natural law. If companies had their way, we’d be working 80h/week. That’s true for both low paying and high paying jobs.

I just don't buy this; it feels like a lack of imagination. Sure, today, very few firms that traditionally employ full-time, salaried employees would even consider the idea of hiring twice as many half-time workers, but there's no inherent reason why it couldn't work.

Certainly, there are hurdles: some per-employee costs are fixed regardless of how many hours they work. But this is just an argument to fix them (because they're stupid in general), not to avoid the situation. Most part-time and contract workers in the US don't get benefits like health insurance and retirement plans. But this is an argument to fix those broken programs, not throw our hands up and claim the status quo is the only option.

Corporate profits and executive pay growth is generally far outstripping the wages paid to mid- and low-level employees. There's no reason why most companies can't pay their employees more equitably, and stop with all the pay inequality garbage.

> That's the European approach that children belong to whole community not only their parents and the authority and the burden is shared. I don't get why are you so hell bent on having exclusive authority over your child?

I'm not a parent, but childhood education these days seems more about pushing government propaganda and training kids to be obedient little employees (not to mention providing much-needed free day-care for parents), than about nurturing creativity and curiosity, and giving kids the tools they need to be productive, yet critical-thinking, independent people. I look at stories of 12-year-old kids getting arrested at school for asinine reasons[0] and wonder what the hell is happening.

I don't think people need "exclusive authority" over their children in general, but I do think the current state of public (and even private, in many cases) education could easily drive parents to not want their kids to be a part of it.

[0] https://www.copblock.org/140900/stupid-reasons-police-arrest...

EDIT: apparently any kind of reduction is possible (even 2 hours per week) but the reduction needs to be sensible and the employer needs to agree. if they don't you can sue, and if the judges decide that your requested reduction is reasonable they must comply (i guess that means, you can ask for 2 hours a week and get it if the employer agrees, but if the employer doesn't agree you probably won't convince a judge either)

mothers wanting to send their children to kindergarten does not translate into needing to make it mandatory to do so. a better response would have been to make it a legal right (but not an obligation) combined with the necessary financial support or offer of government paid kindergarten spaces. the latter is lacking in germany for example.

Communities don't share the burden except to the extent that the parents need it and want it and share access to their household with members of their chosen communities and faiths. That is how it works in the entire massive United States and other Western Democracies, barring these irresponsible western European countries that seem to be possessed by increasingly idiotic ideas on how much control they want over our kids but how little responsibility they will show on serious urgent matters like nuclear reactor construction and adequate defense spending. The French should be absolutely ashamed and should repent.

When a state tries a state-sponsored approach to compulsively being responsible for teaching children with a monopoly on violence, especially contrary to what the parents may want to teach their child, that becomes a cause for jihad.

Obviously at the end of the day most of a child's upbringing is the parents' prerogative but at the same time if people want to pull the "it takes a village" bs, as a gay man who will not have children (and not use any of the resources that tax dollars goes into) I believe that certain things like a child's education _should_ be managed by the government.

If the village does not have a say in village matters, then it makes me wonder why the hell everyone was allowed a say when it came to things like gay marriage, etc.

Hmmm... let me look around my neighborhood...

School teacher - easy; Lawyer - doable; Doctor - already done; Auto mechanic - no problem; Bank teller - easy; Construction worker...

Ok. I can't come up with any. I'm sure there must be some, but they don't come to mind. Most people work the number of hours it takes to earn the standard of living they accept. Work is never done. There's always more to do. That is never the question.

I suspect you're trolling, but in case you're not:

As a European, I do have a lot of community centric philosophy - but given the government (local and country) incompetence in virtually all matters of education and the universally awful opinion all teachers I know hold of the government and their interference and policies regarding education and child care - I do not think that wanting the best for your kids that you love and wanting to be able to raise them yourself with individual attention and perspective is really that strange.

If there are good schools, I have no problem with my kids going to them, as long as it doesn't interfere with their growth and education.

(My kids go to local state schools, fwiw).

If the village had a say in my matters, the village can sure as hell have a say in everyone else's matters, imo.

This really looks like trolling.

How does replacing one form of authoritarianism with another, perhaps preferable to some, form of authoritarianism make things better?

> More shitty government programs or opportunities for bad and dishonest people to indoctrinate the young from earlier ages, particularly now that some bureaucrats would want to use their responsibilities as if they constitute the power to subvert parental involvement, are a huge no from me.

As opposed to shitty private sector programs run by profiteers?

> We spent too much already and these politicians only gave us inflation.

What does this have to do with anything?

Also you complain about inflation but also want more direct cash infusions?

Direct cash infusions to households would not affect inflation. Giant bailouts for huge corporations and for huge corrupt political super pacs definitely does though. Read the book Utopia For Realists for the chapter on direct cash to households and the compiled evidence done over decades in the United States and even Canada.

He’s a $BAD. Otherwise he’d do $THING_I_WANT.

I mean, even if both parts turn out to be true I doubt this is how it works.

So no, it's not such a simple reductionist shit-take like you're offering. Be more mature and serious or be banned. There's no more time for bullshit. We can measure the consequences of his actions and ideas by seeing the struggle of the nuclear reactors, which wouldn't have been a problem if France leadership including Macron was truly wise and privy to what the people need at a basic level - which is cheap and reliable electricity for fuck's sake.

And NATO defense spending should've been 2% of GDP for a long time, but they failed even in times of great relative peace by comparison in 2014 when they were below where they are supposed to be. No serious person, in the face of rockets obliterating their nation, could resort to such a shitty reductionist take like yours unless they were just looking to troll rather than to understand that YES, it's possible to say that someone is bad and why and how.

https://phys.org/news/2018-11-france-nuclear-reactors-macron...

How is this working out for him and France now with energy costs skyrocketing and old pipelines and new pipelines from Russia no longer guaranteed because of immaturity across the board at all levels of leadership now culminating in barbarism in 2022 of all times? So yes, it's possible to prove that Macron made bad choices, because of what the consequences are.

Why the assumption that my criticism of your criticism of the French leadership has anything to do with the war in Ukraine?

I think, friendo, you are taking this too personally. It’s just an Internet forum and I only objected to your logic.

It's coming to an end by people advocating for the truth more aggressively in light of what's all over the news and readily accessible. You said something very immature to a serious topic and thus received a frank response. There was no personal attack though. I don't know you, so how can I attack you personally or as a person? I didn't attack you at all. Re-read the message. I told you to be more mature and to stop being immature. Because reductionist one-liners that disregard good-intentioned expositions for the sake of advocating for the truth...show immaturity. And that is much more of a personal attack, by the way, than anything I said. The entire context of the conversation was Macron and how his being a terrible leader means he should have no say in anything, let alone when a state can tear away a child from his or her parents. Ukraine was provided as an example of that, because it relates to France's defense spending as a share of GDP (which historically has not been adequate) and because of France's idiotic policies on nuclear reactors some recent years ago now coming to bite them in the ass because of, you guessed it, Macron and other "leaders" such as him. These things show awful leadership skills on their parent, and consequently are evidence for why they should not be trusted as leaders in general. Not just because his stance on education is wrong, boneheaded, and even evil. And these are urgent and important subjects on account of inaccessible energy and inadequate defense spending resulting in many lives being lost and society regressing if these things are not corrected swiftly.

Nothing personal intended friendo, it's the internet - but notice that I'm the one who in the last handful of messages has made arguments, whereas that other comment you made was not an argument. You did not contest or object to the logic.

>> Be more mature and serious or be banned

I don’t buy your good intentions. Have a lovely day!

If you want people generally to work less and earn more, how are you going to reduce the amount of work there is for them to do? Also how are you going to provide the additional goods and services these people will be able to afford (inflation? What dat?) if less work is being done to provide them? Sounds fascinating.

We could start manufacturing those more expensive but better quality goods, which most of people could not afford. There is no problem with manufacturing enough goods. There is problem that many people only have money for the cheapest shit which breaks easily and needs to be replaced soon which costs even more money and destroys environment.

It’s all very well saying “we could just”, but how would you bring about this change? How do you persuade people to want different things and make different choices? That’s the interesting question.

Production is expanding elsewhere in SE Asia but those countries are much smaller and taking time and a lot of capital to ramp up.

Where are all these new workers going to come from, and if they could work productively already why aren’t they?

None of this makes a lick of sense.

Why would they work more productively if that is not needed? They would have to make more things, which people wouldn't buy because there is overproduction. If you have order for 1000 items every week, you make 1000 items every week, even when you could make 5000 items every week. You can slow your production line, this way workers are more relaxed and you have time for maintenance. It's not like every employee out there is used at 100% utilisation, that would not be sustainable. Many times you employ as many people as you can just because it's cheaper than using more automation. If you need to produce more and can't find employes, you can pay them more. If you can't find enough employes at all, that means price per employee is so high that you can now employ some robots. Yeah, it takes time, but global change in time of employment is also not going to happen overnight.

So, we provided more products to people who now have money. And now you are asking "Who will pay". Well, the people who now have the money to pay for it? That was the reason for increased production in the first place?

Or increase taxes on capital and redistribute the gains, rather than relying on wages.

Preschool in my district is 4 days a week, 2.5hrs / day.

That's a JOKE. Meant only for people who don't work.

But they also got another levy on taxes for "technology" and "new buildings".

They don't need more money, they just need to better spend the money they have.

Private daycare costs around $2000/month. That's more than tuition on the university ($1000/month or so).

So I just wish that once kids are in preschool age the preschool offered something reasonable

Also, have i mentioned that public preschool is not free? On top of taxes, we pay $400/month or so for 4 days a week, 2.5hrs/day preschool. It's nuts.

Oh, and they insert a random "teacher development days" where preschool is closed. Can't they do development in summer, when the school is closed anyway?

Being a parent sux.

I don’t even see that much early retirement, instead of getting our mountains of things.

Or is this advice only for the proletariat, who for some reason will behave differently?

Plus, proper retirement saving is hard. Saving 10% in a method that negates inflation only nets you 4.5 years of income at retirement age. You’ll need to drop your living costs by over 3x to live to a median age, unless you don’t retire in the traditional sense.

Ok. How?

Getting "direct cash" that a young family could use for daycare doesn't make any difference if there's nowhere for them to spend it.

Direct cash to households with kids during almost two years of pandemi has lifted many children out of poverty and given parents more freedom and flexibility. Plenty of evidence of this.

When you’re getting direct cash and wages are good and bureaucrats aren’t inflating their way to Power, you can even afford to work less so one of the parents is always around if they want. That’s how it should be and can be and will be.