A Scandinavian psychologist somewhat recently proposed a typically Scandinavian reversal of this: he suggested people should work to age 80, but work proportionally less in all the years up to there. Basically redirect the pension system to subsidize more early-age vacation and less pension.

edit: http://cphpost.dk/business/researcher-advocates-25-hour-work...

And this exact kind of thinking is what the societal overlords want you to subscribe to. Give them the best years of your life to get a degree of freedom later in your life, when the freedom won't matter anymore anyway, cause you'll be pissing in your diapers and be limited to a very small subset of things a healthy young person can do.

I see it this way: when you're retired and old, the overall potential of what you can do with your life is much lower than that of when you were in your 20s and 30s. Why is that? Because an old person with the same amount of time and money can do much less with those resources than a young person.

When you live your life like a run off the mill robot, living your life according to a set of societal expectations and rules set by other people, what's the point of such a life anyway?

PS. OP, I wasn't addressing you, in case you feel I've attacked your point, I am just furthering it :)

I don't make 100K but I did recently have what you might call a religious epiphany about my job, my finances, and freedom. Luckily for me, I have little debt and actually like my job a lot so I'm not the hole some folks are, God bless them all.

I just hope most of us aren't Bukowski's age when we realize we were building useless bullshit for useless people in order to buy useless plastic garbage. I know some of us are doing important work, but many of us are not.

Jeez, guys, we get one chance at this. Most people are destined to live anonymous lives so at the very least try to enjoy it.

Having to wear a nice suit is also a failure. I would never consider working anywhere where I have to wear a suit.

Edit: My overarching point being that attitudes are changing. The 'American dream' doesn't really apply anymore, and especially not everywhere.

Having to wear a nice suit is not failure either. Both cars and suits are just tools. It's what you use a tool for that matters. Also I'll note if you resent wearing a suit, you have never actually worn a nice one...

Regarding my suit comment, it's about looking into the mirror in the morning and thinking whether the person you see is really who you once aspired to be.

Some people like to wear suits. One of my friend's greatest days was when just off high school he got straight into finance and finally could wear a suit 24/7. It genuinely makes him happy, it's an extension of his personality. He wants to be the big-shot-80s-New-York-cocaine-snorting-penthouse-owner-investment-banker type of guy.

But for me and I guess many others, to walk the earth in a suit would be, I don't know...perhaps the antithesis of existence. I think most people never think about it and even enjoy the office culture in a perverse way. Perhaps it's some form of a groupthink empathy, a we're-all-in-this-together style of getting a kick out of this masked suffering. I remember being a small kid and swearing I'd never be like an office manager or the bankers I saw, all wearing the same suits and becoming an empty shell that just assumes whatever of a corporate idenitity, becoming an embodiment of a foreign entity. Really just a zombie or a host for a parasite until it chews you out.

Because it does chew you out exactly as stated in this Bukowski letter, you're not really getting out. All the prices, the whole economy is set upon this 40-hour workweek, wage slave reality. All value is derived from this standard. I saw this very clearly 20+ years ago without even knowing the proper vocabulary to understand it. It's surprising how simple and clear it is, yet it's collectively decided that we don't want to look at it, we don't want to face it. You want out? The only way is to become the embodiment of the hope of getting out - a well-known star that can sell us the dream. And we'll gladly pay for it!

But you're right, the binge-drinking, fixed-bike urbano hipster thing is also a joke. We're all a joke in the end. But at least we could maybe strive to be funnier than we are because the joke is getting old.

No one holds a gun to the consumer's head, they just convince themselves they need thing. Then they whine when they haven't saved more than 300k for retirement at age 50 and social security is looking rocky.

Probably though I just need to quit Facebook again.

I think that we in the tech industry are... different here. In other industries, there is a /lot/ of pressure to look the part (well, to look an /expensive/ part.) Have you ever seen a real-estate agent in a car worth less than thirty grand? Hell, I've met a few sales folks and managers who wear watches they claim are worth at least half that.

Engineering is a little different in that we can dress down, and nobody is going to seriously give us shit for driving a piece of junk car. One can reasonably be a six-figure computer nerd and be a frugal person. A six figure salesman would be... well, he would be breaking a lot of expectations if he lived frugally.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/08/how-americ...

Also, spend lavishly on the best clothes, eat lavishly, but drive a very modest car and live in a modest home. People don't know what to make of that.

You are not perceived as eccentric geniuses, not by anyone. Never, ever. They might say that to keep you on the treadmill but the the truth is that (especially by VCs) you are perceived as cannon fodder with a personal hygiene problem. You are kept around as long as you are useful and don't bitch too much. The minute that stops you are out on your ear. Welcome to the real world.

My point was just that if you are in management or sales, it seems that having expensive clothing and an expensive car are part of that 'being useful' - Appearance is a huge part of those jobs that are primarily human interaction. Appearance is a hugely important when dealing with other humans. I mean, I'm not saying that social skills and appearance don't matter for the technical individual contributor; they do, but it is not everything (like it is for management and sales.) It is possible to be technically good enough that people are willing to employ you in spite of your poor social skills. Obviously, that isn't the case for sales and management (as those jobs are, in a very real sense, social skills in and of themselves.)

Also note: If you are dealing directly with VC, you are more sales/management than an individual contributor.

Also, might want to work with that resentment problem of yours.

If you're talking about dressing cleanly, not betraying only passing acquaintance with showers by one's smell and being able to appear in public without shocking small children into tears - yes, sure. But that costs next to no money. Beyond that - nobody could care less which car you're driving and which house you're living in, unless you're a bank president or some other C level executive or business owner, where your conspicuous consumption skills may imply the success of your business. If you, however, are a professional, there's no problem with living simply, should you wish so, if that doesn't imply looking like a dervish or living literally in a cave.

Really? huh. My experience has been that even foreign workers demand $10+ per hour, which is enough for a shitty car in a low cost of living area in the US. Good English is a reasonable multiplier.

Yeah, this is what I was talking about with our industry being different. This is... common for programmers. You don't even have to be uncommonly good, just useful.

But I think this is dramatically harder in other industries; to the point where I've never met, say, a real-estate agent like that, or a lawyer.

I've not only seen such an agent, I've engaged hers & his (they're a couple) services to buy my house. And it was just fine. Of course, I don't know the exact price tag on their car, but it was a moderately old suv, nothing flashy, probably nowhere near 30K. Actually, I'd be more vary of an agent with a really expensive car - if he's already so rich, would he care about getting my money enough?

They want to stay near their close family & friends, because they love them and want to see them and want their kids to grow up around them. Which means spending X per month on a house.

They want to have a car that doesn't embarrass them when they drive into work or round their friends, because owning a BMW has been a secret dream and it's a totally reasonable price, and a smooth ride and great acceleration.

They value different things than you and that all costs money.

I'm actually somewhere between the 'norm' and your view, but at least I'm realistic enough to realise that my priorities are different to most people's. I understand why they buy what they buy.

Most people aren't massive over-consumers.

This is really pushing it. Anybody buying a BMW on $100k in Silicon Valley while paying SV-level rents is a pretty big over-consumer. If you have a family on top of that, well... you won't be retiring any time soon.

I also find it odd that you jump immediately from "a car that doesn't embarrass them" to BMW. There's no in between? You have to go all the way to a luxury BMW to not be embarrassed by your car?

By all means, if you really value owning a BMW then get one, but unless you're making considerably north of $100k you don't have a strong case for not being an over-consumer.

You know how much $100k was when the term "six figure salary" started being used in the early 60s? Let me put it this way. The rich Donald Draper on Mad Men made $45k. $100k would have been more like $800k today. That was a CEO's salary. A "six figure salary" today is nothing like what it was when that term was coined.

Exhibit A is whenever a story about public employees makes the front page of HN (for example, the Detroit bankruptcy or the BART strike) and people start freaking out about train operators making $100K: "They don't even have college degrees, for godsakes!"

The car retains the majority of its value, they enjoy the car, they're not actually spending massive amounts of money like you seem to think they are. It's essentially a hobby item that they enjoy driving.

And it's only a proportion of my friends, some just get other cars that are a lot cheaper to run.

I remember checking how leasing a Porsche for 3 years would cost me less than half of the value the car would lose in that time.

In general, though, the best way to combat the depreciation of a car's value is to take out a long-term 0% interest loan, provided of course that you can get it. This works because (1) inflation reduces your effective net expenditure on the car; (2) you can take the cash you would have spent on the car and invest it instead; if you even conservatively get 3% returns a year, you've still come out far ahead.

Regarding (2), if you can't afford the car in cash, then you can't afford the car. That's always been my motto. Financing is a choice; it should never be something you are forced to do, unless this is your first car straight out of school and you just have no money yet.

Got married to someone who thinks like I do wrt to retirement and with one child we are on track to 'retire' when we want to. Barring us doing something dumb or global financial meltdowns - by mid 50s or so. I put retire in quotes because who believe in retirement where one site on their ass all day and says I'm so glad I don't have to work any more? I don't. Retirement means we will be able to give meaningful time to .org's that need it. But this will still be 'work'. I can't imagine a worse hell than retirement where I have no meaningful work to do.

Note: with two or more children much of what I can still do would need to be re-evaluated.

The cost is over a $1,000,000 (with a Dr. Evil pinky). If you look at the costs online, then you will see something between $200K to $400K depending on how good of parent are you. However, this doesn't bring in the opportunity cost of investing. If you just take the 18 year time span, then the first year is insanely expensive. Now, imagine it expanding 30, 40, 50 years out.

I'd write more but, as you say, we only get one chance at this and we're living in the best time ever.

http://bukowski.net/timeline/

Martin expresses concern for Bukowski's "image" when he buys a new BMW. Volkswagon Beetle is relegated to the garage.

Water view, but it's of the harbor, which is mainly shipping. Kind of like the difference of a bay view from Oakland, CA and the SF Peninsula, Tacoma/West Seattle and Magnolia, or Newark and Manhattan.

    For some reason, we see long-term travel to faraway 
    lands as a recurring dream or an exotic temptation, but 
    not something that applies to the here and now. Instead 
    — out of our insane duty to fear, fashion, and monthly 
    payments on things we don't really need — we quarantine 
    our travels to short, frenzied bursts. In this way, as 
    we throw our wealth at an abstract notion called 
    "lifestyle," travel becomes just another accessory — a 
    smooth-edged, encapsulated experience that we purchase 
    the same way we buy clothing and furniture.

Am I lucky to make a good salary that allows me to pay these things down? Absolutely. However, I'm also responsible for the choices I make. Many people make more than I do and don't save as much, many More people make less and drive cars that are twice as expensive as mine.

Debt is leverage. Leverage, applied correctly, is an excellent means for accelerating the furtherance of a goal. Is having debt on a house a bad thing? Certainly not in a rising market, or in a market where rents tend to exceed mortgage payments. Additionally, equity gained in that house can be leveraged when times get rough in the future, or a new opportunity arises. Most people do not have the capital power to buy a home outright, even after many years of saving -- if you're spending on rent, you likely cannot save enough for an entire home in one lump sum. Most notably, you'd have to have a very smart growth strategy on that saving to beat both inflation and the rising prices of homes in the area you want to live over the course of the 15-20 years you'd have to employ that strategy. Therefore, for those with the wherewithal to manage their leverage correctly and effectively, a loan makes a lot of sense - they don't have to pay the rents, and they've gambled, successfully or otherwise TBD, against the future price of that home. They can as well make a decision to take gains early, long before ever having had to lay out the entire capital should their local market rise. In the case of 20% down on a $100k house that increases to $200k in value over 3 years with a total of $24k spent in payments over that time = $100k in returns for $44k invested, or a profit of $56k, with no additional rent charges during that time.

In addition, the same can run true for a vehicle. If a person needs a vehicle for transportation, they can apply leverage, especially if they do so wisely, to purchase a vehicle better suited to their needs than their normal cash flow allows. I, for example, could be fine with a 20-year old vehicle that needs regular maintenance. I can do that maintenance myself. Someone else may rightly say a 5-6% interest rate over three years is less costly to them than monthly visits to their mechanic.

So, this "debt is bad," thing is mostly stated by people who get leveraged beyond their means, or don't understand how to successfully apply the right amount of leverage at the right time. No debt can be as bad for one's fortunes as too much debt.

Very few Americans (or otherwise) could consider the idea of owning a house and a car outright at 45 without ever having taken on debt.

Debt isn't bad, debt is great - provided a) your time machine use doesn't cost too much and b) you really will have this money in the future (or, in other words, can keep up with the payments). Most problems with debt stem from misunderstanding the concept that it doesn't produce money, only shifts money around in time, and does not produce, but rather consume money - and of course from failure, deliberate or out of ignorance, to predict one's future amount of money. People also tend to double-count future money - once they debt-shifted it to present, they still consider it being there in the future, available for another debt-shift. This is where the trouble starts.

You just can't believe it because you believe in a magical hierarchy with the free ones on top -- but so do the ones way up there. My god, if you're even able to leave a comment, you're already better off than 99% of people alive today!

The "rat race" is a subjective, elective construct and, by definition you cannot escape it a long as you subscribe to it. The people you think have escaped it, or control it, are also trappe by it, no matter how hard that is for you to believe. The only ones who have truly escaped are the ones who have had a fundamental shift in the way they conceptualize work, career, goals, desires and everything.

[1] They're only victims if they go too far, trigger civil unrest, and wind up on the losing side of the guillotine.

"I must Create a System, or be enslav'd by another Man's" -William Blake

We haven't yet found a way to fairly spread privilege in our societies, so we're stuck with the least worst system, but I would note that globalisation has actually raised living standards in many countries from India to China, in spite of, or perhaps because of its deleterious effects. People always want to hoard wealth (almost everyone does this, even those at the bottom), and it's hard to change that. It remains to be seen whether we can effectively temper human desires and spread that wealth and not end up in dystopia, but please don't try to blame things on a secret elite directing a carefully created system - it's a mirage and is not helpful. There are many contending forces vying for prominence in our societies, and in many ways corporations are more powerful than people or politicians (NB a corporation is not a CEO, it is a composite body).

The guillotine you mention was actually far worse for the ordinary people of France than for the aristocracy (many of whom simply fled) - terror and denunciation was used as a weapon on moderate politicians and everyday citizens, and even eventually the chief proponent of its use.

There have been, historically and presently, power and wealth grabs by the already powerful, and manipulation of political and social structures to suit their needs. To some extent this was easier historically, partly because there were fewer laws, but even now, with the legacy of hundreds of years of social and political reform, and a lot of it intended to liberate common people, there are still large distortions in our political systems that significantly mis-allocate power to the already powerful.

I would also take some umbrage with your statement that we "haven't yet found a way to fairly spread privilege in our societies" and your defence of the "least worst system" meme. Whilst there are aspects of the Western socio-political setup that are designed around the (reasonably) fair distribution of wealth, there remains constant pressure against legislation designed to develop the rights of common people in society. Indeed, those interested in reducing those rights are often able to gain popular support for their cause by positioning themselves as defenders of the wealth and power of those people whose wealth has recently increased - i.e. the middle classes, which now form a very significant political power base.

We do know of ways of more fairly distributing the rewards of labour (cooperatives come to mind, as a single example), but they are unpopular in a lot of the West, and if you look back to history you will see that that mentality was actively created to counter threats to vested interests. Ironically the system of laissez-faire capitalism that was adopted to counter these more de-centralised power structures ended up diluting the power base of the "old money" (and was eventually massively scaled back), though it persisted the fundamental inequality in wealth distribution.

I would, however, fully agree with your assertion that these problems are not (or at least very unlikely to be) the result of a direct conspiracy by some elite group. I don't think history supports that view, and I don't believe people are particularly capable of maintaining such a conspiracy for so long a period of time. It should be clear, however, that the "conspiracy" could itself be an emergent part of the system - a higher order structure that has managed to persist itself (thus far) without continuous direct human intervention, however that would make it not a conspiracy in the traditional sense of the word.

N.B. This is obviously a pretty broad sweep based on my interpretation of history - if anyone has any corrections or comments I'd appreciate hearing them.

Sure. But that does not conflict with "emergent structure": There's no need for a cabal at the top consciously arranging the structure of society. Just a bunch of people who are often trying to manipulate things in specific directions, and where a lot of them will have overlapping motivations. From the outside, that can look very much the same.

A lot of the time people are not necessarily even trying to steer things a certain way, but merely looking after their own interests.

E.g. a central idea in marxism is that the capitalist is not really at fault: He's "caught up" in the system just as much as the worker. He is exploiting people working for him, but he does not necessarily intentionally want to oppress. He is merely playing his role, protecting what he sees as his own interests, just like the workers.

And so you get "nice" capitalists, who try to do better, but they can still largely only act within the confines of their role: The only way the capitalist can top oppressing, is by ceasing to be a capitalist. But that is not in his interest, and it is unreasonable to expect the capitalist to willingly do so - he will find every excuse for not giving up his privilege (and many might be good; e.g. it is perfectly possible an individual capitalist might be doing more net good with his profit than it would have if he shared everything equally with his workers). Ultimately, marxism is cynical about human nature: We are all looking out for our own interests; to the extent we do not, it is because we lack awareness of our real interests or position.

Further: "I don't think history supports that view, and I don't believe people are particularly capable of maintaining such a conspiracy for so long a period of time. It should be clear, however, that the "conspiracy" could itself be an emergent part of the system - a higher order structure that has managed to persist itself (thus far) without continuous direct human intervention, however that would make it not a conspiracy in the traditional sense of the word."

I will also reiterate that just because there isn't a genuine conspiracy does not mean, as some (not you, here) conclude, that "the system" is as good as uncorrupted and can't be improved.

I'm not enough of a scholar of Marxism to disagree with your reading of it, but for my own part I would say that people are (obviously in my view) capable of acting in more than their own self interest, unless one insists on almost ridiculous contortions of their motives. This capability for action in the wider good can and should be harnessed by society, and my preference would be for this to take place in step with a broader decentralisation of power (and wealth).

Finally, I think a tiresome strand to this debate (not brought by you) is the idea that any kind of social improvement inevitably leads to some kind of totalitarianism. I know this view is a little passé, but I really see this as part of a set of propaganda disseminated by the powerful intended to counter challenges to their power. This certainly has historical precedent, and it is pretty clear that similar things happen today, often through support to favourable political parties, which comes with an influence over those parties' message. Of course, lots of other people buy into the propaganda, because it also serves their own (much smaller) interests.

I didn't claim our current system is perfect or uncorrupted (the phrase least worst system clearly points out that our current systems are flawed). I don't think social improvement (however you define that) inevitably leads to some kind of totalitarianism, but I do think people claiming to have all the answers to creating a fairer society have turned out to be tyrannical more often than not (e.g. Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin etc), and I prefer the gradual, consensual move to socialism we have in Western Europe (a form of capitalism tempered by social justice and redistribution, far more equitable than in Marx's time for example). Blaming, dehumanising and scapegoating minority groups (the 1%, bankers, etc) to expiate our sins does nothing to help our society become more fair, quite the reverse.

The last century under moderated capitalism has seen much progress in conditions of work in the western world, and even recently in the developing world, and this in spite of the selfishness inherent in capitalism which you would think would tend to ever-increasing centralisation of power and wealth if left unchecked - I find that an interesting contradiction.

If people want to debate redistribution, what fair means, how to moderate capitalism or replace it and how to make our societies more fair that's (in my view) a useful debate, but diatribes about a shadowy conspiracy of a 1% elite spanning centuries are not productive, because they're not going to make people face with sober senses their real conditions of life, and their relations with others in society.

I wasn't referring to you when I indicated that some conclude that the system is "as good as uncorrupted and can't be improved", nor was I suggesting that you subscribe to "the idea that any kind of social improvement inevitably leads to some kind of totalitarianism". In both cases I was speaking about the opinions I encounter in this debate more generally.

As to the point you make in your second paragraph; it strikes me that the improvement in living standards is more to do with improvements in technology and political freedom than it is to do with the way our economy is organised. The idea that we owe these improvements to the economic structure is, however, prevalent; sometimes the idea is modified to say that the technological advancement we have enjoyed would have been impossible without the economic system we have.

Both forms of this idea fail to recognise that there have been numerous burst of technological and social advancement that haven't relied upon capitalism (e.g. the Romans, but also basically every civilisation in history), unless of course you broaden the definition of capitalism so much to include almost any commercial system, and both fail to offer evidence that capitalism was causal of, rather than merely temporally correlated with, the improvements in living standards. The negative evidence available, about systems which have historically been anti-correlated with progress (like the ones you mentioned), only covers a narrow range of possibilities, and are difficult to generalise from.

I should note that I'm strongly inclined to believe that there was a causal link between capitalism and the success of the industrial revolution and the things that followed (i.e. it was sufficient), but I am far less convinced that the form of capitalism used, which strongly concentrated power, was necessary, and I think that it is deleterious to broader society.

I, like you, "prefer the gradual, consensual move to socialism we have in Western Europe". This is a sentiment I agree with wholeheartedly, and I find these ideas of conspiracy very boring, but I'm still wary of the notion that we should pretend that no one has an interest in concentrating power and wealth, and maintain the status quo. My reading of history, and the present, is that people do have such interests, and that they use both their power and their wealth to secure their positions. I fail to see why this is particularly controversial, except that it suggests moral culpability for actions that have, for a long time, been lauded.

I can see that you are not arguing to maintain the status quo, but I hope you recognise that the greater social justice in modern capitalism, which is constantly under attack from the right, was fought for over long periods. The rights we enjoy today were not given to us by the benevolence of our leaders.

Sorry for the long post! ;-)

That referred to the post which started this thread.

In both cases I was speaking about the opinions I encounter in this debate more generally.

Ok, I'm not sure there's much point in debating general opinion; it makes it very confusing if you attempt to debate interlocutors of your own invention.

I'm still wary of the notion that we should pretend that no one has an interest in concentrating power and wealth, and maintain the status quo. My reading of history, and the present, is that people do have such interests

Everyone has this interest, whether they have power and wealth presently or not, and whether they admit it or not, and I don't see it as culpable, merely something to be managed. It can even be healthy in small doses, in encouraging competition rather than resignation. I'm not sure many would claim that all progress comes via capitalism, but recent globalisation has resulted in a shift in wealth to countries which are developing due to trade, and I do find the question of how much regulated capitalism has contributed to global levelling an interesting one.

Anyway, it seems to me that we largely agree on the appropriate means to desirable ends - nothing too dramatic.

Thanks for the discussion!

I do love me some Marx on a Friday afternoon!

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.

If you think about wealth in this abstracted sense, a notch away from money, then you can see how basic trading dynamics might apply.

Yakovenko modelled the trading dynamics in a perfect game of chance (coin flips determine winners and losers). Something interesting emerged.

http://iopscience.iop.org/1367-2630/12/7/075032

What it shows is that if everyone starts with the same amount of money, after a bit of random trading, their wealth is normally distributed (this is obvious if you are familiar with the binomial distribution). A few people are doing well, a few are doing badly, and most people are around where they started. As the trading continues though, it turns into a power curve where most people are doing badly and a few are taking everything. Its the same thing that happens when a rich man sits down at a poor man's poker table. He can keep putting him all in on every good hand and he only needs to be right maybe 1 in ten times and he wins everything. There's a runaeay effect after you hit a certain point.

Of course, things are a lot messier at this higher level interpretation of wealth since its harder to attach numbers to wealth in the form of political power, good health, and other factors which have a compounding effect (good health and political power help you make more money, but they cost money, so there's a feedback loop, but you xan equate them for simplicity). This is why people complain about a shrinking middle class.

The good news is that human life is messy we often allow our relationships to balance things out. The bad news is that we have gotten better and better at sterilizing our social and physical environments so the past might not predict what's coming next.

Aside: I wonder what effect increased lifespans will have on hoarding. We know the old horde, will they horde even more?

"I IPO'd for ten million dollars! Life is awesome!" quickly transitions to "Frank IPO'd for 5x what I did! That's not fair!"

It is not healthy to constantly compare yourself with people who are worse off. Sure, it induces a sense of gratitude to know that you have clean drinking water and no threat of being killed by a warlord today (unlike many people in Africa, for instance), however if we settled for that, there would never be any incentive to improve our situation further. Imagine what would've happened if every inventor and scientist in the history of mankind had that attitude.

Also, not everyone on this board lives in Silicon Valley and works for a startup that spoils him stupid with catered lunches, scheduled massages and a 150K/yr salary. A lot of us are just normal middle class people living in economies that aren't that prosperous and the prospect of losing a job can really threaten our financial security. Also, if you work for a shit company that takes advantage of that, you can be in for a pretty miserable experience. So get off your high horse already.

I never thought "keeping up with the Joneses" is part of my human nature. Or even my culture.

The 'societal overlords' from previous posts you have now ascribed to human nature (??) are really 'society', perhaps influenced by some ultra-elite cadre, sure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_up_with_the_Joneses

EDIT: should really be pathetic and sad and not depressing, but I think you get my point. Youth and health are so precious that no amount of money compensates ever.

all your efforts are to look younger, but this is lost as your youth is long gone. if you think you made great use of it by sitting at the office... well not even sure how to comment on this.

let me rephrase it: guy in 911 in his 50s even in great shape is a little bit like a woman in her 50s in great shape who just had a boob job done.

"Enjoy your Golden years" has turned into "Winter is coming."

A few folks I've known worked until they simply couldn't, then died a few months later.

I'm reminded of my own father, who worked like a dog since he was a pre-teen, and simply hasn't been able to come to terms with retirement, choosing to start another job in his elder years instead of writing, painting and fishing which he has an obvious talent and interest in.

I tell myself that I won't succumb to this failure to live life and try to overcompensate a bit by traveling a lot, photography and many stalled attempts at writing. I wonder what would happen if I got fuck you money and if I could discipline myself to follow up to my passions instead of trying to fit them into my free time.

Consulting was a critical step. This approach would be hard to pull off in most regular jobs.

It doesn't have to be the same job, or to be gap-free, though. If you have a strong retraining/welfare system to cover the gaps, as Denmark has, it's not as big a deal if someone needs to take a year or two off to change jobs. If you can't do your job anymore at some point for health reasons, there is a generous system for disability leave. And, a common unemployment insurance system (a-kasse) covers being unemployed for up to two years, with up to ~$36k/yr salary and retraining / job-finding assistance. As a last resort, there's a floor of ~$22k/yr welfare that anyone can get if they have no other source of income, with no time limits. That's comparable to the low end of U.S. Social Security, so at least nobody would really end up with no income.

The wager is that enough people would be productive post-65 to have a significant overall effect.

It would be an interesting question given most of the aged people change their job. Then those categories of jobs would probably be overrun by aged people seeking those jobs, and hence poor wages and rampant unemployment.

Without including the chance to really mature, you are basically talking about extending adolescence, and we already complain about how irresponsible and short-sighted twenty-year-olds are today.

The reason I ask is because without distinctions, it is difficult to tell what your motivations are and what about what kind of work you find attractive.

As a side note, the word 'work' of the industrial revolution sense being combined with notions that it automatically makes you better than people who don't 'work' in the same sense because it makes them more childish was one of those 'white-man's burden' type justifications for imperialism because of that particular poem's observation that non-european first nation people were 'half-devil and half-child'.

NOT an accusation of you. Just an observation. :) This is and, will be, a contentious topic in the near future, I think.

The problem comes when people limit themselves to a singular purpose and spend the rest of their time being consumers. The don't learn and grow and so end up in this rut for the duration. You're left with aging, atrophied, one-dimensional automatons who don't know anything else besides the grind and T.V. to relax in the evening. Rinse, repeat. When they retire they have no idea what to do with themselves and the thought of figuring it out probably makes them anxious so they stick to what they know.

Speaking of which, I gotta go. TMZ is on soon...

http://5by5.tv/b2w/120

At around 42:00-56:00, (I made a note because I liked it so much), they start talking about safety nets and how we think about events changing our behavior. Merlin made the point that if you're not practicing enjoying your weekends now, having a lot of money can give you a more expensive weekend, but not necessarily a more enjoyable one. A more productive strategy is to rehearse how to be happy with what you have, not what it would be like if you didn't have to worry about anything (because that's probably never going to happen).

At 70, your body is generally not able to do the same things you were doing at 20/30, at least not with the same ease. A 75 year old man could work as hard as a 25 year old man, but the same amount of work will probably take a greater toll on his health.

In a way, seems like his scheme is pretty much geared to make people dread reaching old age, and a reduction in pension payments would come from all the people committing suicide after facing the realization that as their bodies become more tired and less resilient, they will have to work harder.

Note that this proposal is also in the context of a system that provides full support for job retraining and unemployment pay in the gaps (and a good disability and mental-health system), so if you run into serious problems you have options.

Maybe wanting to stop working at 65 and step into full retirement is particular to the American system. Most 70 year olds I know would like some kind of job/retirement hybrid: work 30 hours a week, have longer vacation times, more flexible hours, not losing the job when you have to take a leave for medical reasons, etc.

My father is almost 70, and going on hikes with him leaves me pretty winded. Certainly no walk in the park. I'm just a little more than one third of his age. If he would do some strength training in addition to his jogs and hikes, I imagine he would be in great overall shape.

I don't think that I'll necessarily be anywhere near his physical fitness when that time comes. But with retirement or a decreased workload, I intend to dedicate more time to keeping fit and treating my body as more of a temple.

With societies obsession over youth these days, it's gonna be interesting to see how the youth of today hold up in forty to fifty years.

Here's another crazy idea: become financially independent in your 30s; no hitting the startup jackpot required: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/145360121X/ref=ox_sc_act_ti...

And a big grin at the people saying we working in tech can make a difference. Creating a new social photo sharing app is not changing the world. Get real.

As a trapped life, the closest you can do to live happy is to do as much what you want (again coming back to the above) while living in the system. And yes, working in tech gives yoy higher chances to live how and where you want, but it stops there.

The only way to escape is living separate, somewhere deep down a rainforest. But then what, die from a snake bite or die from fever. Sounds better, no?

What about a medical start-up or one to do with education?

For quite a long time now, the technical means have existed to provide the basics of life to every human being on the planet at a modest cost. And yet we don't – instead the vast majority of us continue to work hard to provide that global elite their "due".

Institutionalized theft? How about economic and social justice?

The tiny global elite you impugne does not hoard anything relevant. They are just a hose thru which a lot of high velocity money flows, most of their income flowing right back out to others. Without them, the structure for working for that $12,000 average income would collapse and you'd be working a lot harder for a lot less net return.

Take that high density money away from that elite, and you'll discover two things happen. One, you'll be out of a job and relegated to living exactly as a large percentage of world population does: eking out a meager existence from the land to paltry returns; that elite holds the high-wage system together because they profit from it, and without those returns there is little incentive to make such systems work. Two, averaging out all income & wealth so everyone has the same would soon coalesce back into the distribution we have now: those expecting a no-effort living wage produce nothing and get nothing for it, while those enticed by work*risk=profit will find a way and earn that which the others will give to survive.

Yes, institutionalized theft: those who work and take risks having their earnings taken by threat of force by those having no moral & economic interest therein or beyond what was contracted for in a competitive market. Go live off the land for a year, excluding any connection to "the elite", and then tell me about the justice of someone taking the fruits of your labors from you simply because they exist (choosing not to produce).

With less than 5% people employed in agriculture [1], it must be possible to allocate resources in a way that does not require most people to waste their lives in jobs. The universal basic income, for instance, would achieve that without abolishing capitalism.

The only problem are people who glorify employment.

[1] http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.AGR.EMPL.ZS?order=wba... (I speak of developed countries only)

Glorify employment? The socioeconomic world is as good as it is because most people are employed, doing something which contributes to maintenance and advancement of society & technology. By glorifying unemployment, you're proposing removing the efforts which maintain our socioeconomic position & direction, soon leaving us with insufficient effort to even maintain a status quo.

"Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else — if you run very fast for a long time, as we've been doing." "A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!" - Alice In Wonderland

The resources of which you speak are, on the whole, perishable consumables. Remember: any society is 3 food-sparse days from violent breakdown. We have to work hard to keep things as they are, and twice as hard to get to where we want to go. Cutting workforce in half means the remaining workers must work twice as hard just to keep everyone as they are, and four times harder if any real progress is desired. Universal basic income means those not earning it are supported by those who do - reducing the incentive to work at all. You say "*it must be possible to allocate resources..." - it isn't, short of incentivising tremendous work times high risk with expectations of huge payoff.

Can you justify this? If we use the US as an example and look at the most common jobs, we find that over 4 million people are employed as salespersons, another 3 million as cashiers, followed by 3 million people employed serving food (including fast food), etc. [1]

As the population has been moved away from agriculture, and recently manufacturing, they have become increasingly employed in the service sector. These people are not creating and advancing the technology of tomorrow, they are preforming basic tasks that could easily be done by the customers themselves (eg. automated checkouts).

What's more, there is now millions of people employed in areas such as advertising and sales, where people are essentially tasked with manufacturing wants and increasing the amount of money people spend, which not only defeats the entire basis of a functioning economic system (rational consumers making rational choices), but ensures that additional numbers of people are employed in the manufacture of superfluous goods that people are deceived into buying.

Is there any indication that if we seriously consider what is and isn't necessary in our society, the working population couldn't easily be cut by half without any kind of imminent collapse?

1. http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/Screen%...

edit: spelling

I dislike human-clerk checkouts at stores. Nothing against people per se, but as a high-tech introvert I'd rather do it myself - exactly as you suggest. Sure, the technology is there; heck, Walmart even has a phone-based self-scanner so you can do 95% of checkout before you even get to the self-serve register for final payment. The technology sounds great on paper and in rhetoric, but in reality it sucks (despite my valiant concerted efforts to be a automation-supporting customer). Standard self-checkout chokes on the bottle of wine ("Human clerk, is customer over 21?" Uh, yeah, I'm greying with two kids in tow, of course I'm of age). Phone-based on-the-go checkout is time consuming (stop, turn on phone (again), tap Scan, point camera, wait for slow auto-focus, wait for crappy in-store wireless connection to function, get to payment station, get selected for another 15-minute "you've been selected for a compliance check" which confuses human staff every time). Never mind shoplifting, mis-scans, and a host of other problems. Those ten million "technology replaceable staff" are still employed because they're better at the work than technology, and relieving them of their duties does NOT make their freed-up wages available for confiscation & redistribution as "living wages" to the now-unemployed former workers (it's going to technology costs and high-tech maintenance staff). That's 10M people "contributing to maintenance of society".

As for manufacturing wants and increasing money spent vs. consumers making rational choices? I'm watching a startup put serious money into marketing staff; the product is [r]evolutionary and WILL "advance society & technology", but isn't going anywhere without convincing a lot of people to buy it, and the staff IS earning their significant wages by doing so. Oh sure, there's a lot of sales of superfluous goods out there, but even that helps fill out & support an infrastructure which gets vital goods to a broad clientele: Walmart isn't going to get five pounds of bread flour on a shelf for $1.89 without the delivery system greased with the profits from the "cheap crap" they're famous for; in comparison, that same sack of flour would cost about $5 at everything-is-perfect Whole Foods.

Indication that considering what is and isn't necessary in society could "liberate" half the population? Yeah: every society that tried it, like the Soviet Union (hint: they'd kill people for trying to leave).

So yes, these people are "contributing to the maintenance of society", but there are conceivable alternatives that would give these individuals (and society as a whole) more liberty, and would only require some small inconveniences.

The anecdote you give of your startup which needs advertising to get off the ground is beside the point. Perhaps your startup is revolutionary, and perhaps it needs some advertising to get off the ground, but this doesn't change the fact that most advertising is simply misinformation. Television commercials which make use of lush landscapes and half-naked women to sell cars don't create rational consumers, and without rational consumers you cannot have a functioning market. If advertising was simply a way in which companies communicated well-reasoned facts about products, and came with a balanced analysis of a product and its competitors, then we could argue that advertising was working towards creating a functioning market system. Until then, advertising will simply favour those with the largest advertising budgets and those who are best at disinformation, and so it's difficult to argue it is contributing to society.

> Indication that considering what is and isn't necessary in society could "liberate" half the population? Yeah: every society that tried it, like the Soviet Union (hint: they'd kill people for trying to leave).

This is really cheap rhetoric -- and not even accurate. If I'm arguing for a society where people are liberated from work, why are you using the Soviet Union, a dictatorship where everyone worked all the time, as some kind of counterpoint? Not everything that contradicts the status-quo is totalitarian communism, you know.

Besides, the points I'm trying to make aren't even original. There are serious proposals that have been made for why society should move to a 20-hour work week to address things ranging from rising levels of depression to climate change. [1]

[1] http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/entry/21-hours

You can live on a very very small income right now. I figure an intelligent frugal life can suffice at $10/day. But you don't, because you won't give up what you don't need.

Explain how this works logically. Do you honestly believe that if you simply took most of the money from rich people, that you would be able to sustainably feed everyone else? Have you considered all, if any, of the potential consequences of this action?

> For quite a long time now, the technical means have existed to provide the basics of life to every human being on the planet at a modest cost.

Again, explain how this works. A major issue with food, for example, is not one of production but instead transportation and distribution. How would making the rich poorer solve this problem?

> Institutionalized theft? How about economic and social justice?

Define justice.

And who on Earth do you trust to take and do well with all of the money taken from rich people?

At least a setup where right to live is actual right to live and does not degrade to right to not get killed.

Does that mean that you also don't support kicking renters to the curb during winter months if they don't pay?

Charity has its place, I advocate and facilitate it, and am not under any delusion that it comes from compelling others to contribute.

There are a lot of people such as you that think that right to own things and do whatever you like with the things you own trumps pretty much every other right. Including the right not to get killed of the people who'd try to steal your stuff. Fortunately lawmakers in lots of first world countries got passed that barbaric notion. In my country for example you can't hurt the thief. You can try to hold him until the police comes, but if you beat the shit out of him or set a booby trap to harm him you will be prosecuted because you endangered his life and health, a value more important than your petty stuff. Same way you can smash the window of a car parked in the sun on a hot day if you see dog left inside. You are violating less important right to protect higher value.

But because they have so much money they can hoard resources. And they do to earn more like so: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/27/opinion/goldman-sachss-alu... They also hoard food: http://www.dw.de/germanys-dz-bank-ends-food-speculation-trad... They also can hoard companies. Buy them and harm them. This happens to most acquired startups.

The problem is not that they have a lot of money. The problem is what they do with the money. Of course it's not all bad. There are things that rich people made that benefited everybody, but I'm guessing most such things were created on the way to getting rich.

The problem is just that people want to live in the cities, and there just isn't a lot of space in the cities.

If you spread population of the world to occupy all the land evenly it would be only 300 feet from each person to its closes neighbors. So it's not that much free space.

> The problem is just that people want to live in the cities, and there just isn't a lot of space in the cities.

And this makes the problem of price elevation from hoarding real estate even more pronounced.

People will live where they can find jobs, and the very concentration of people brings in even more jobs to cities. As much as some cite the amenities of large cities to stay, a very large portion of the retiring population move away as soon as they don't need to work anymore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax

And that reduced demand doesn't come from people needing less real estate to live. Just from the fact that real estate reached prices that most people can't afford even if they pay with slaving their whole life for mortgage.

Reasonable price for apartment would be what most people could save up during the time they still live with their parents. But since real estate backed credit is legal that's not gonna happen. Such credit allows people to sell their future work in a manner almost perfectly safe for the bank. Thanks to this since you need place to live to have a life it can cost huge part of what you earn in life.

> For quite a long time now, the technical means have existed to provide the basics of life to every human being on the planet at a modest cost.

Are you sure we have all the fuel and land to feed, house and clothe everyone? And if so, who's going to work for that? If everyone gets food and shelter for free, I'm not working to provide that.

The reality is, food needs to be grown, clothes made and houses built. Some people need to work for that. In exchange for that work, they ask some sort of compensation from others, in the form of other services or goods. This has nothing to do with the "global elite", this is just the nature of trade. I think giving someone stuff for free without getting anything in return is a greater injustice than this "instutionalized theft" you speak of.

That's not life. It's just a rule that comes out of the fact that people won't care about you if you give them no benefit. It's only natural but is it right or humane?

You won't have life if you don't work - or coerce it from others.

World average income equals the USA poverty line. That doesn't give much room for the productive to support the unproductive. Charity, yes indeed, but there's an unsupportably growing number who are quite capable of supporting themselves but demand others do instead.

The "right and humane" step is choosing to give to others freely, not to put a gun to someone's head and demand what's not yours.

There are some exceptions. You don't have to work a single day in your life if:

- you inherited wealth.

- you are homeless and sustain yourself with whatever you can get without paying.

- you commit crimes and are put in prison.

- you are a woman and merry well.

- you build something as a hobby and it makes big.

> That doesn't give much room for the productive to support the unproductive.

That would be true if people were source of wealth. But source of wealth for many years now are the machines, and this wealth increased disproportionately to increase in population. If on average we are coming out of poverty at slower rate than the growth of wealth our machines produce then something is wrong.

> The "right and humane" step is choosing to give to others freely

Almost no one gives anybody anything freely. Do you think your employer would give you anything for your work if he didn't have to?

The ones that have more have it often because they exchanged something worth less for something worth more. The ones that have less have it often because they exchange something worth more for something worth less.

Why they do it? Because exchange often is not free. Lot's of people have no choice but to exchange good that is very valuable for them and irreplaceable (such as hours of their life) for something as plain, abundant and worthless in our modern world as food.

Excuse me, but you're an idiot. (Unless your whole comment is meant as a joke.)

People exchange things that are worth less for things that are worth more. In such an exchange, both parties profit, always. In the case above, you exchange hours of your life for food so that you can live another day.

Also, people are the only source of wealth. Right now, machines are not capable of producing anything on their own, that is why there are no completely automatic factories and nothing gets created without human help, design or at least supervision. Once we create such a world, great! But capitalism dictates that once this happens, the price of goods will drop tremendously. The fact that this has not yet happened tells you that this spot has not yet been reached.

There are some goods that have so high a value it will be worth trading almost anything for it. Eating is one, medical care is another. This fact is routinely exploited so that those not in danger of losing those highly valuable things get more out of an exchange. The execs that run McDonald's don't have to worry about acquiring food or health care, they have the class advantage to securely have those things. And yet this same company puts out a spending guide to the workers that get low wages suggesting they have 2 jobs and that they put no money towards health care or heating their apt/homes. Those low wage workers can't simply stop working there, their ability to live and eat is in direct danger from losing that work. Is that a fair exchange?

> Also, people are the only source of wealth. Right now, machines are not capable of producing anything on their own, that is why there are no completely automatic factories and nothing gets created without human help, design or at least supervision.

It doesn't matter if machines are 100% automated and don't require humans. What matters it that as machine automation gets more efficient and requires less humans to operate, the more previously employed human workers lose their ability to work and therefore their ability to eat and have shelter. And yet the ownership classes don't suffer from this advancement, they still continue to consume and funnel money and resources into themselves. Is that a fair exchange?

2) However, the question whether this is socially or even globally fair is not a question of capitalism, but of politics/government. If things continue this way, sooner or later there will be too many unemployed people and there will be a revolt/class revolution. I believe the elite will work hard to prevent it, by introducing some kind of wealth/capital tax that will redistribute wealth to the not-haves.

You are an optimist then. I think more popular sentiment seem to be rather that elite will use its advantage to develop surveillance, law and prison system to detain whoever opposes them. After all they had one communist revolution to learn such things have to be actively mitigated.

You might argue that keeping poor in prison is a way of providing for them. And since less and less criminal people will go there it might some day become some sort support center for homeless/jobless.

Someone puts gun to your head and tells you to cut off your left hand in exchange for him not pulling the trigger. Both parties benefit from such exchange. You get the rest of your life, and he gets his amusement. Wouldn't you agree that such exchange wouldn't be exactly just and free?

Let's assume that this trade is unfair even though you might see it as benefiting both parties in some way so unfair trades exist. One might say that it would be illegal and all legal trades are free. But if law can so perfectly tell fair trade from unfair trade then why the law changes over time? And how do we know that now the law is perfect, not like it was 100 years ago or like it will be 100 years in the future?

My comments were serious, so I guess I'm idiot, at least from your point of view.

Also, you are imprecise to say that "people" are the source of wealth. If we go with your claim, labor is the source of wealth, in which case capitalism is indeed systematized exploitation and theft from the true source of all wealth: workers.

i dont believe this to be true (tho i'd like to see any reliable sources).

I find it more likely that a small number of people control so much "productivity" that the majority must either be "coerced" into cooperating in order to get some of the crumbs, or that they lack the basic resources to dig themselves out of the poverty hole. Its true that they aren't productive enough to support themselves, but i would imagine they would if they had the chance.

Yes, Bulkowski observed that most people are in unfulfilling jobs, and he was happy to escape that life to pursue what pleased him. He failed to note that to leave those jobs would be a terminal move because they had nothing they found fulfilling which would at the same time create livable productivity. He was lucky enough to have notable talent in doing something fulfilling to the point that someone else was willing to exchange a "living wage" for it, and he was happy as a result. I'm happy too, having found my equivalent combination of joyful productivity coupled with a satisfying fair wage for writing (iOS code instead of English prose).

Yes, we lament those who toil to unsatisfying ends. So ask each and every one of them: what do you want to do? Most answers you receive, alas, would be either "I don't know" or something not rising to the exchangeable equivalent of sustenance farming. Natural reality being that you do not get fed & clothed just for mere existence, all have a natural obligation to produce enough for themselves & dependents to survive on, and if they can't find a pleasant way to do it then they must find an unpleasant way as charity (while morally obligatory) can only go so far.

Sure, you need to find a balance, for yourself and friends and family. But where work is utterly separate from being alive I think something is broken. Just consider what dogs enjoy doing most: running after stuff and biting it. You could say, doing their job, that's what makes them fucking happy. Most animals are harder to read than dogs when it comes to happiness, but I really don't see dragging anyone "dragging their feet to work" except humans, and maybe some animals that lived too close to humans, or were caged by them.

I also want to be a motivational speaker when I 'grow up'. I came from humble beginnings. Some people's talks have really changed my life. In order to give those talks and be invited to speak, yes you have to ascend the established social order.

Am I wasting my life by working a lot? No. The things I work so hard for have real effects in this world. My mom has been working for over 40 years of her life. If I do things right, she'll be able to retire eventually. Do I work harder than other people do for the same, or less, compensation? I'm sure I do. But you know what, you have to make the best of the situation you're in.

I was recently invited to give my first talk. Here is the abridged executive summary: http://www.evernote.com/shard/s34/sh/9a92bf45-27e1-4470-be7e...

OK, so you're unlikely to regret not robbing a bank, but do you think you're any more likely to regret robbing a bank? Bear in mind that requires you to a) rob a bank and b) regret it. Sure, given a) it seems plausible you'd regret it, but it also seems exceedingly unlikely you'll actually rob a bank, even following that advice.

It's the actions that we toy with but never get around to that count, not the things that we know full-well are terrible ideas.

Same for startups ;-)

It is not about the things we do not do, it is about having had enough.

once you realize that work by definition is your life, you'll take it more seriously, especially if it is harmful to you. you do not have to swallow each and every bullshit thrown at you, this is your life. you want to travel, experience other cultures? use work to reach this goal. nothing shows you other cultures like working with them directly, on the ground. lots of consulting gigs allow you to do this.

i also don't get this inherent fear that seems prevalent in US corporate culture. well, i fundamentally understand, in Europe you can't get fired on a whim, but over here in US I see this amazing mindset around CEOs and how people behave around them. Massaging emails until they definitely won't cause a ruckus, filtering, keeping silent. Why? Because CEO.

your work time is your life time. treat it as such.

coincidentally the people I have met that have understood this seem to have great careers. they go all in and are not driven by fear. my first boss called this mindset "scheiss di ned aun", viennese for "don't shit yourself". life's too short to be afraid of suits and orgcharts.

You could regard the invention of agriculture as the curse which permanently excluded humankind from the hunter-gatherer Garden of Eden.

http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_w...