(March 9, 2016 at 11:22 pm)KUSA Wrote:

(March 9, 2016 at 11:01 pm)Sterben Wrote: In communism a person who is a farmer is equal to the programmer, they both need each other and does not make one better then the other in anyway.

That is a flawed system. They should not be on the same level. Although being a farmer is an important job, it doesn't take a very large skill set to do it. Therefore, most people can easily learn to do it.

The programming job is a lot more mentally challenging. Not everyone can do it regardless of how hard they try.

My perspective, as a Sanders-style democratic socialist (or social democrat?) is such. I'll use a more common comparison that I see.

The doctor's job is undoubtedly more painstaking, difficult and demanding of skill and education than the McDonald's employee. The doctor should absolutely be compensated considerably more than the McDonald's employee. But, the McDonald's employee is providing a service that is in demand (there are many, many people whose jobs involve enabling the McDonald's employee to serve food to paying customers), and it is a job that demands a significant portion of that employee's time and physical energy. They deserve to earn a wage that, at least, guarantees a roof over their head and food on their table. Sure, it may raise the cost of your Big Mac and fries, but since you're not paying as much in taxes to support a social safety net, since it has fewer people relying on it, it is an overall net benefit to you (even moreso if you're not killing yourself with shitty McDonald's food).

IDK Kusa, the fact that farmers are disappearing and going out of business left right and center, despite decades of experience...while high school dropouts manage to succeed and profit as programmers seems to suggest otherwise.  It's not as if the market (or need) for food is smaller than the market for code.....so that wouldn't explain it. 

 I think that people are so far removed from the one that they really have no idea what's involved.  They, maybe, planted a tomato in their yard once and they think "hell, this isn't so hard".  No, that's not very hard.  It's not farming, though.  Farming is the thing that people with lots of money leaning on -many- degrees..both their own and entire universities of others, do.  

Even when it comes to doctors, the water is muddy....it's easy to imagine that the job is "worth more", in some sense, than another.  OTOH, I;d worry more about my health and wellbeing if all of our sanitation workers (read:trashmen) went on strike than if all our doctors went on strike.  Sure, people will pay whatever they'll pay, and people will accept whatever wage they'll accept...but to imagine there's some profound underlying logic or demonstrable scale that justifies the disparity between farmers and coders, doctors and trashmen.......well, gl with that.

(March 10, 2016 at 1:26 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Sure, people will pay whatever they'll pay, and people will accept whatever wage they'll accept...but to imagine there's some profound underlying logic or demonstrable scale that justifies the disparity between farmers and coders, doctors and trashmen.......well, gl with that.

It's also not what Marx and Engels had in mind. As usual, people lean on everyone's equal with equal pay and equal rights or obligations. That's what has been hammered into their heads for decades. But all they asked for was workers actually profiting from what they produce. Getting their fair share of the means of production. They also said that everyone should persue a career of their liking and do what they are best suited for. Total equality was never the goal.

Even in the communist countries of old, although they weren't really communist and didn't even claim to be, equality never was on the forefront. Doctors still earned more than workers. Probably not as much as in the West, even in comparison to living standards, but still enough to purchase their own small luxuries. Eve within the system.

In USA president is a puppet that control with hand of some giant capitalist hidden leaders.
they control people with media and they now they want push people of USA to Clinton by Donald trump.
Clinton will be win.

(March 10, 2016 at 1:26 pm)Rhythm Wrote: I think that people are so far removed from the one that they really have no idea what's involved.  They, maybe, planted a tomato in their yard once and they think "hell, this isn't so hard".  No, that's not very hard.  It's not farming, though.  Farming is the thing that people with lots of money leaning on -many- degrees..both their own and entire universities of others, do.

This is true, and why I didn't want to touch that analogy. The basics of farming are pretty simple, but that doesn't mean any idiot can be good at it. Put me on a farm and tell me to produce a yield, and I'd be lost.

Quote:Even when it comes to doctors, the water is muddy....it's easy to imagine that the job is "worth more", in some sense, than another.  OTOH, I;d worry more about my health and wellbeing if all of our sanitation workers (read:trashmen) went on strike than if all our doctors went on strike.  Sure, people will pay whatever they'll pay, and people will accept whatever wage they'll accept...but to imagine there's some profound underlying logic or demonstrable scale that justifies the disparity between farmers and coders, doctors and trashmen.......well, gl with that.

That goes into another aspect of the debate. Should compensation be reliant on the difficulty and knowledge requirements of a job? The physical or mental demands of the job? The job's role in allowing a stable, functional and advanced society to function?

I think we can all agree that a doctor is a more vital job than a burger flipper, overall, and deserves very good compensation, but should that mean the burger flipper doesn't deserve a living wage? That's not an argument that makes sense to me.

I don't want to derail, but the list of ethnicities seems a bit crass ;P No need to split black people into college or no college I guess?

OK, I'm willing to blow both my legs off on this. Unless something happens Trump will win.
He will carry all of the States that went with Romney = 206 electoral votes. In addition he will pick up Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. His total will be 313 electoral votes.

(March 10, 2016 at 3:00 pm)Alex K Wrote: I don't want to derail, but the list of ethnicities seems a bit crass ;P No need to split black people into college or no college I guess?

Nah, I agree that FiveThirtyEight maybe should have provided an explanation of why they did it like that.  It struck me as a little blunt as well, but I didn't note that in my post on the map tool.  Near as I can tell, the reasons for that particular breakdown are 1) non-white voters don't tend to vote differently based on whether they have a college degree, whereas white voters markedly do, and 2) FiveThirtyEight is first and foremost a statistical site, so they want their sample sizes to be as big as possible and their mathematical tools to be as helpful as possible; the bloc of "college-educated Asian/Other voters" is only 2 or 3 percent of the whole electorate, which might be hard to get reliable results for and wouldn't really effect the utility of the map tool.  Essentially - and I'm just guessing what FiveThirtyEight was doing, here - they didn't think it would be helpful for some of the groups in the tool to be less than a tenth the size of other groups (the current breakdown of the groups sizes is: White College Educated 37.2%, White Non-College-Educated 33.3%, Black 13.3%, Hispanic/Latino 10.6%, Asian/Other 5.5%)

(March 9, 2016 at 11:22 pm)KUSA Wrote:

(March 9, 2016 at 11:01 pm)Sterben Wrote: In communism a person who is a farmer is equal to the programmer, they both need each other and does not make one better then the other in anyway.

That is a flawed system. They should not be on the same level. Although being a farmer is an important job, it doesn't take a very large skill set to do it. Therefore, most people can easily learn to do it.

The programming job is a lot more mentally challenging. Not everyone can do it regardless of how hard they try.

       Equal in social status they should be the same, Farming can be hard as well in this day and age. With the partnership of the farmer and the programmer they can do great things together without one trying to screw over the other. Prime example, the origins of T.V Filo had the talent and got screwed out everything cause of what factor? Give up yet? The answer is money! RCA ruined him till they could get a working model. Now, back to the farmer and programmer. If the programmer helps the farmer with better equipment making the farmer's life easier they deserve equal shares of the profit. It does not happen like that, the programmer uses his abilities to take more then is owed to him from the profits of the farm. The farmer does a majority of the work on the farm and takes less profit. How is that fair? The programmer built the software to allow the farmers machines to function better, do you see the programmer helping on the farm other then that? No, you see the farmer. The people benefit from faster and greater quality and quantity of goods, that's what matters. They have both done something good and has improved society. Who is better?