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On February 17 2013 14:09 Dagan159 wrote: According to Marx, it is nearly impossible for a hard working, driven person to ascend to the bourgeois, and that simply isnt true.
On February 17 2013 14:37 Broly wrote: @Jonny Mother Earth can't be accounted for in Excel. We can draw boundaries and allocate resources however we see fit, but there is no final solution.
Some chose to be unemployed, hermits, reclusive people in Alaska and other places. That is there decision, money isn't the answer for everyone. A few find it quite...trivial. In the end it is just currency to exchange goods and services.
Then my excel spreadsheets will be forever wrong...
And by extension all for profit and not for profit institutions will, at best, be groping in the dark for the right answers.
From an "on the ground" perspective: we seem to be getting better at it, though it's still sloppy as my last shit*.
*To be clear (and fwiw) - I absolutely do enjoy my "personal time" in the bathroom
On February 17 2013 14:44 aksfjh wrote: Just want to repost this since it was the post that somehow derailed everything to the full philosophic discussion:
Here's a brief read on modern minimum wage impact findings. Looks promising for advocates.
This article only looks at employment rates. If you increase McDonalds cant hire less employees, they are not running a charity they dont hire more workers than they absolutely need. They cant fire people that are a necessity to running their company. However, it may mean that they will not open a store in a town that desires it.
Just looking at employment rates is a very narrow vision of what raising the minimum wage does.
On February 17 2013 14:44 aksfjh wrote: Just want to repost this since it was the post that somehow derailed everything to the full philosophic discussion:
Here's a brief read on modern minimum wage impact findings. Looks promising for advocates.
Didn't that guy work (or still works) for Obama?
Regardless:
From what I've read, US min wage could be raised (some amount) though raising it "too much" would be counter productive.
So if you raise it by X then adjust to inflation you'd better be damn sure you haven't raised it "too much" because then you've institutionalized "too much".
Shit.
As a small "c" conservative I must support error on the side of caution (favor raising it too little over too much).
On February 17 2013 14:37 Broly wrote: @Jonny Mother Earth can't be accounted for in Excel. We can draw boundaries and allocate resources however we see fit, but there is no final solution.
Some chose to be unemployed, hermits, reclusive people in Alaska and other places. That is there decision, money isn't the answer for everyone. A few find it quite...trivial. In the end it is just currency to exchange goods and services.
Then my excel spreadsheets will be forever wrong...
And by extension all for profit and not for profit institutions will, at best, be groping in the dark for the right answers.
YES! Exactly! This is why we should be hyperconservative when it comes to the environment, that is the obvious logical conclusion of the thing you have just said - Follow your own reasoning man!
On February 17 2013 14:09 Dagan159 wrote: According to Marx, it is nearly impossible for a hard working, driven person to ascend to the bourgeois, and that simply isnt true.
citation
You caught me =P
It was never explicitly stated in the manifesto, but was a logical next step:
The essential conditions for the existence and for the sway of the bourgeois class is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by the revolutionary combination, due to association.
If these people are tied to wage-labor, then they would never be able to create enough wealth to join the ranks of the bourgeois. But people do manage to do this. back to my example, Mark Cuban.
Buddy, do you wanna just trust that I know a lot more about Marx than you do and take my word that what you are saying has nothing to do with Marx and is not a problem for Marxism? That would save us all a lot of trouble. Rags to riches stories are sort of a basic commonly accepted facet of capitalist ideology. Not to mention, I grew up a few blocks from Mark Cuban's house, so I'm well aware of his existence.
What you have described Dagan is utilitarianism. Very similar to John Stuart Mill's approach as a matter fact. You believe I am arguing for a position like socialism or communism. This is not my intent. Utopia is no place. This idea is possible. The only variable is choices. Choices by fully sentient beings.
Now to the questions you have asked me: If we're all born equally human, why is it that some of us get to reap the benefits of a comfortable living and some can only dream of the chance? We aren't born in the same social class. Some of us are given more opportunities than others. This isn't one person's fault. Our world plays host to many different cultures and societies. Each one has gotten to where they are under different circumstances. It's ubiquitous however, that the same conditions play out. The have and the have not's. Some have attained it through tremendous sacrifice, while others have simply inherited the fruits of others.
I never said we were born equally, we can be equal through our cognitive outlook on life. Our approach to life if you will.
I agree with your sentiment about the rich to an extent. They provide numerous opportunities, but frankly they can do more. They shouldn't need incentive to provide opportunities. This pertains to the big whales, those with exuberant amounts of money and merely need the will or the benevolence to open doors for others.
Why would you disregard adeptness? Because some of us are more adept at particular skills then others.i.e. we all can't perform the same jobs at the same standard (I dont micro as well as MKP or MVP). Each person has a different set of skills. Gates may in fact create a product which is worth its weight in gold to untold amounts of people, but that shouldn;t make him anymore significant than anyone else. He may be in fact play a vital role in society but he shouldn't be better than anyone else. Why? Because even the hobos or Joe could perform some task, some action which in itself could be worth to society. Every action can be worthwhile, it is all dependent upon the individual.
Why should you or anyone else care? Because there may come a day when that individual or any individual for that matter could perform an action which is beneficial to society, perhaps even for yourself. Much like pay it forward, without the hedonistic treadmill.
On February 17 2013 14:44 aksfjh wrote: Just want to repost this since it was the post that somehow derailed everything to the full philosophic discussion:
Here's a brief read on modern minimum wage impact findings. Looks promising for advocates.
This article only looks at employment rates. If you increase McDonalds cant hire less employees, they are not running a charity they dont hire more workers than they absolutely need. They cant fire people that are a necessity to running their company. However, it may mean that they will not open a store in a town that desires it.
Just looking at employment rates is a very narrow vision of what raising the minimum wage does.
That was a way to track employment across states that have different minimum wage laws.
In regards to the minimum wage article. A rise in price will cause firms to either cut back on labor, implicit costs (i.e. time employees works), cutbacks, or combination on all three. The wage rate increase to nine dollars may be well intended, but frankly it will more tan likely cause more harm then good.
On February 17 2013 15:23 sam!zdat wrote: Buddy, do you wanna just trust that I know a lot more about Marx than you do and take my word that what you are saying has nothing to do with Marx and is not a problem for Marxism? That would save us all a lot of trouble. Rags to riches stories are sort of a basic commonly accepted facet of capitalist ideology. Not to mention, I grew up a few blocks from Mark Cuban's house, so I'm well aware of his existence.
Im sure you know more about marxism. Now please explain to me how someone could under wage-labor attain enough capital to ascend to the bourgeois? If you are a true marxist (and I have my suspicions that you are) you would believe that the worker class is under the toe of the bourgeois, and they are confined to this status with no chance of advancement because the bourgeois is exploiting them and not giving them any more capital than is needed for them to survive and pay for the products the capitalists are selling. The idea of upward mobility is completely against this train of logic.
Marx was right for the early 1900's... industrialization led to the dumbing down of the jobs in the workforce, however, now with advances in technology jobs are becoming more and more diverse and requiring more and more technological skill.
On February 17 2013 15:23 sam!zdat wrote: Buddy, do you wanna just trust that I know a lot more about Marx than you do and take my word that what you are saying has nothing to do with Marx and is not a problem for Marxism? That would save us all a lot of trouble. Rags to riches stories are sort of a basic commonly accepted facet of capitalist ideology. Not to mention, I grew up a few blocks from Mark Cuban's house, so I'm well aware of his existence.
Im sure you know more about marxism. Now please explain to me how someone could under wage-labor attain enough capital to ascend to the bourgeois?
Because the world is messy. Duh.
edit:
On February 17 2013 15:45 Dagan159 wrote: If you are a true marxist (and I have my suspicions that you are)
Why can't we all just perform a task without any upward mobility. Your a engineer, I'm a construction worker, I perform a task and we all enjoy what we want.
On February 17 2013 15:33 sam!zdat wrote: it's just crazy enough to be a worthwhile suggestion
But isn't that what GDP is supposed to be? ... a proxy for happiness?
That is, a caveman would consider GDP to be a great, neigh an absolutely fantastic, indicator of happiness - starvation sucks! Homelessness sucks! Tedious toil sucks! All these things are captured in GDP .... yet it's just a proxy - it is incomplete.
This is stupid:
Yet also brilliant!
But is the goal to game GDP higher or to make people's lives better?
Edit: sorry if I'm too philosophical tonight. I blame this (or more accurately, six of these):
On February 17 2013 15:39 Broly wrote: What you have described Dagan is utilitarianism. Very similar to John Stuart Mill's approach as a matter fact. You believe I am arguing for a position like socialism or communism. This is not my intent. Utopia is no place. This idea is possible. The only variable is choices. Choices by fully sentient beings.
Now to the questions you have asked me: If we're all born equally human, why is it that some of us get to reap the benefits of a comfortable living and some can only dream of the chance? We aren't born in the same social class. Some of us are given more opportunities than others. This isn't one person's fault. Our world plays host to many different cultures and societies. Each one has gotten to where they are under different circumstances. It's ubiquitous however, that the same conditions play out. The have and the have not's. Some have attained it through tremendous sacrifice, while others have simply inherited the fruits of others.
I never said we were born equally, we can be equal through our cognitive outlook on life. Our approach to life if you will.
I agree with your sentiment about the rich to an extent. They provide numerous opportunities, but frankly they can do more. They shouldn't need incentive to provide opportunities. This pertains to the big whales, those with exuberant amounts of money and merely need the will or the benevolence to open doors for others.
Why would you disregard adeptness? Because some of us are more adept at particular skills then others.i.e. we all can't perform the same jobs at the same standard (I dont micro as well as MKP or MVP). Each person has a different set of skills. Gates may in fact create a product which is worth its weight in gold to untold amounts of people, but that shouldn;t make him anymore significant than anyone else. He may be in fact play a vital role in society but he shouldn't be better than anyone else. Why? Because even the hobos or Joe could perform some task, some action which in itself could be worth to society. Every action can be worthwhile, it is all dependent upon the individual.
Why should you or anyone else care? Because there may come a day when that individual or any individual for that matter could perform an action which is beneficial to society, perhaps even for yourself. Much like pay it forward, without the hedonistic treadmill.
LIfe isn't fair. I get that. The most unfair part of life is where we start out. However, I believe that a person should do everything in their power to improve their own situation. If I felt guilty about having a better life than someobody else then I could never finish a bite of food without thinking how a person in another country needs it more.
The rich don't have piles of money sitting around, in fact just about 100% of it is invested, the fact that the money has their name on it makes very little difference, it is still being put to good use for society.
Gates is better than Joe not because his set of skills is different, but rather because his set of skills is better. Maybe Joe makes a great cup of tea. Thats great, but does it really measure up to the ability to create Microsoft? nope. Their skill sets are different, but Gates' skill set is better for society, and his work has been compensated accordingly.
Why do democrats and republicans bother to argue when they are genetically hardwired to discredit each other? You are never going to accomplish anything but fill your need for significance .
Ideological differences between partisans may reflect distinct neural processes, and they can predict who’s right and who’s left of center with 82.9 percent accuracy, outperforming the “your parents pick your party” model. It also out-predicts another neural model based on differences in brain structure, which distinguishes liberals from conservatives with 71.6 percent accuracy.
The study matched publicly available party registration records with the names of 82 American participants whose risk-taking behavior during a gambling experiment was monitored by brain scans. The researchers found that liberals and conservatives don’t differ in the risks they do or don’t take, but their brain activity does vary while they’re making decisions.
The idea that the brains of Democrats and Republicans may be hard-wired to their beliefs is not new. Previous research has shown that during MRI scans, areas linked to broad social connectedness, which involves friends and the world at large, light up in Democrats’ brains. Republicans, on the other hand, show more neural activity in parts of the brain associated with tight social connectedness, which focuses on family and country.
Other scans have shown that brain regions associated with risk and uncertainty, such as the fear-processing amygdala, differ in structure in liberals and conservatives. And different architecture means different behavior. Liberals tend to seek out novelty and uncertainty, while conservatives exhibit strong changes in attitude to threatening situations. The former are more willing to accept risk, while the latter tends to have more intense physical reactions to threatening stimuli.
Building on this, the new research shows that Democrats exhibited significantly greater activity in the left insula, a region associated with social and self-awareness, during the task. Republicans, however, showed significantly greater activity in the right amygdala, a region involved in our fight-or flight response system.
“If you went to Vegas, you won’t be able to tell who’s a Democrat or who’s a Republican, but the fact that being a Republican changes how your brain processes risk and gambling is really fascinating,” says lead researcher Darren Schreiber, a University of Exeter professor who’s currently teaching at Central European University in Budapest. “It suggests that politics alters our worldview and alters the way our brains process.”
Politics isn’t the first to cause structural changes in the brain. More than a decade ago, researchers used brain scans to show that London cab drivers’ gray matter grew larger to help them store a mental map of the city. There more time they spent on the road, the bigger their hippocampi, an area associated with navigation, became.
This implies that despite the political leanings seen through our brains, how we vote—and thus the cause of our political affiliations—may not be set in stone, Schreiber says.
“If we believe that we’re hardwired for our political views, then it’s really easy for me to discount in you in a conversation. ‘Oh, you’re just a conservative because you have a red brain,’ or ‘Oh, you’re a liberal because you have a blue brain,’” Schreiber explains. “But that’s just not the case. The brain changes. The brain is dynamic.”