The dangerous fallacy of "You can do it."

[The Architect Of Fate]

The gold shirts were screwing whatever starlet showed up for that episode. Snuffed by the boyfriend is a chance I'd take.

BTW Brian: Notice that the gold shirts are doing it?

Odds of being killed by shirt (TOS only):

Gold: 13.9

Red: 10.0

Blue: 5.1

While more red shirts in raw numbers died, they made up a larger percentage of the crew. Relatively few gold shirts turns their lower number of deaths into a higher percentage.

The REAL risk was being a security officer. Their death rate was around 60%.

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

I think I can see Brians point. So long as success is measured in money or in rising up™ out of one's current job to some other thing deemed more worthy, it will remain a fact that most people don't achieve it.

It's probably not for lack of trying, or lack of personal attribute x, but down to how we've arranged society. Where the vast majority, regardless of their ability or drive, will be in the bottom portion of jobs on the worthiness scale as a consequence of our needs and demands. It becomes more and more pronounced as we automate out from the middle rather than up from bottom - specifically targeting those worthy jobs a step up from poverty precisely because of the labor savings.

Upward mobility is a dangerous myth in the us, especially when it's used to justify our treatment of the lower socioeconomic rungs. We imagine, in some sense, that people achieve the success they deserve - even as we know and gripe and grouse about that not being so. A poor socioeconomic state becomes the barometer for personal skill, education, and conviction.

Their poorness or their shitty job is on them, not our society, not us, not me. Anyone who tries hard can make it. These things are demonstrably untrue, and also demonstrably representative of what americans believe about the us...and, fwiw, it does kind of shit on the mass of bottom rung worthiness that all of modern civilization depends on. A doctor does less for the world's health than a garbageman, but which would we prefer to bring home to meet the parents? Service confers honor, repairing pavement doesn't. etc etc etc

[GrandizerII]

So Shia LaBeouf was wrong then?

[onlinebiker]

Brian seems to think every job should "provide a living wage". Utter and complete bullshit. If you believe it you don't understand the money concept.. 


Money is ultimately a substitute for work. (Material things need to be quantified as to the amount of work required to produce it plus availability factor (what makes gold worth more than dirt). It is just an easy way to barter for work.

Jobs that require little or no training, experience, talent, willingness to learn or physical discomfort (hard physical work. Like lifting big rocks) should NOT pay enough to cover one's basic needs.

Why not? Because - go do it all on your own. Build your own house - from scratch. Grow your own food. Dig your own well. Protect said home and food and water  from predators. 


It's a whole lot of work just for basic survival. You don't even have electricity to make it easier or internet to tell you how to do it all.

Basic survival is a shitload more work than handing someone a doughnut and saying "have a nice day."

Doorstops should come cheap.

Sure - a bunch of people working together make a job easier - but a worker is a worker and a doorstop is a doorstop. Some jobs simply do not rise to a level of difficulty that makes their execution equal to a level of basic survival.

You have to get off the couch - and work for a living to get a full handle on the concept.

[Rhizomorph13]

Brian seems to think every job should "provide a living wage". Utter and complete bullshit. If you believe it you don't understand the money concept.. 


Money is ultimately a substitute for work. (Material things need to be quantified as to the amount of work required to produce it plus availability factor (what makes gold worth more than dirt). It is just an easy way to barter for work.

Jobs that require little or no training, experience, talent, willingness to learn or physical discomfort (hard physical work. Like lifting big rocks) should NOT pay enough to cover one's basic needs.

Why not? Because - go do it all on your own. Build your own house - from scratch. Grow your own food. Dig your own well. Protect said home and food and water  from predators. 


It's a whole lot of work just for basic survival. You don't even have electricity to make it easier or internet to tell you how to do it all.

Basic survival is a shitload more work than handing someone a doughnut and saying "have a nice day."

Doorstops should come cheap.

Sure - a bunch of people working together make a job easier - but a worker is a worker and a doorstop is a doorstop. Some jobs simply do not rise to a level of difficulty that makes their execution equal to a level of basic survival.

You have to get off the couch - and work for a living to get a full handle on the concept.

An interesting, if un-empathetic, take on employment. You realize they are automating jobs away at an alarming rate right? What would you suggest when all trucking becomes automated? Or even design jobs are eliminated because an AI can produce better work at a faster rate and for free?

Me, I think the factors of production should be used to assure a living EVERYTHING (wage, housing, food, etc.) for the people in the nation. I do not believe that spontaneous charity from the wealthy will do it, I do not want to impart an onerous tax on the wealthy. I think we should do away with minimum wage, provide a universal basic income, universal healthcare. Basically fully subsidize all need within the nation and let the market figure out wants.

I forgot one, housing, if you default on life and do nothing you will be ok, because there will be government housing. Either tiny homes, or capsule hotel style.

[onlinebiker]

Empathy has nothing more to do with it than wishing makes things so.

Worries of "automation taking over" overlooks historical precidence.


At one time there was a push for a legal ban on sewing machines - as they "put seamstresses out of work."

Not what happened of course - clothing simply got better quality at lower costs.

Automation will not replace human workers. They will just make jobs easier and yield better results. People will also need to train for new jobs.

[Rhizomorph13]

Empathy has nothing more to do with it than wishing makes things so.

Worries of "automation taking over" overlooks historical precidence.


At one time there was a push for a legal ban on sewing machines - as they "put seamstresses out of work."

Not what happened of course - clothing simply got better quality at lower costs.

Automation will not replace human workers. They will just make jobs easier and yield better results. People will also need to train for new jobs.

Automation already HAS replaced human workers. It is the biggest reason that many middle class jobs have gone away. For example I work in ATE (Automated Test Equipment) in an Intel lab. Two of the machine I work on are AXI (Automated X-ray Inspection) and Scorpion Flying Probe. Not too long ago there would be a need for multiple people to operate multiple x-rays to perform the task that is now done with a few machines operated by me and a couple other people. Same with electrical testing done by the flying probe.

I'm not anti-automation, in fact my utopia would include no need for any menial task to be done by a person with robots or AI doing all the necessary work and people would be left to pursue whatever makes their monkey jump.The problem with my utopia is that there is a resource cost associated with all the things and I haven't done the math to figure out whether it is possible or not, but something worth striving for I think.

The U.S. has a problem, and you can see it plain as day with a simple stroll through downtown Portland. There is a reason, even pre-Covid, for the rising homeless population, and it isn't apathy; at least not apathy within the homeless population.

[arewethereyet]

The other day I saw an article about a woman lamenting being out of work and not being able to find work because she is 57 years old.  Well, I hope she finds something but she is going to have to do something besides lamenting the fact if she wants the situation to change.

I recently turned 63 and in April, May, and most of June was out of work thanks to COVID.  In mid-June I saw a job on one of the job posting sites I follow.  A company in need of a part time bookkeeper with a specific set of skills.  Due to study I have done on my own over the years I have those skills.  Now I have a part time job and work from home other than an occasional trip to the office to pick up paperwork and supplies.  Had I not taken the initiative to study the specific software applications and had over the years used many different software programs to assist with industry specific bookkeeping, I would not have been qualified for the job.

As a bookkeeper, I have been warned for years that my job will become obsolete thanks to new and better software programs and the dream of a paperless society.  As it turns out you can find people to train to fill in the blanks on a computer screen.  It's more difficult to find someone who understands where those numbers go and what effect they have on the company's financials...that's where people like me come in.

My boss has run her company for 30 years so it's stable.  I have, in the last couple months, learned several new software applications quickly.  I also received an unsolicited raise in the first month.  

I was willing to go run a cash register to bring in some money if it came to that.  I have done that off an on since I was a teen.

What is often lacking is a desire to learn, on your own time if necessary, skills that can turn into assets for a company.

Yes, there needs to be dishwashers.  I have done that too.  Yes, there needs to be workers on an assembly line, been there - done that.  I knew those weren't the things I wanted to do forever so I took steps for that not to be my only option.

Everyone has limitations either in intellect or physical ability when it comes to certain types of professions.  But the most limiting thing is thinking that you can't do better.  If you think you can't do better, you won't.  If you think you can do better, you just might.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

 But the most limiting thing is thinking that you can't do better.  If you think you can't do better, you won't.  If you think you can do better, you just might.

Nail head hit.

I suspect that a lot of ‘dead end jobs’ are that because people hang on to them hoping for things to get better and - for a variety of reasons - don’t make the effort for change.

Tired of digging ditches? I don’t blame you, it’s miserable work. But if you aren’t going to do more than ‘hope’, you’re off the low end of my sympathy meter.

Boru

[Sal]

One of the problems living in a capitalist economy is that human labour has skewed value, it isn't 1:1 ratio to effort done, not even between the same job for different people. But, this is a tier above the "living wage" propaganda perpetrated by those stuck in and supporting this economic system. Many of the systemic bugs (seen as features by those still in the box) are a result of capitalism directly; such as monopolies, wealth accumulating at focal points into the hands of a few, zero-sum thinking (when the reality is that labour adds value) and not to mention fallout effects of capitalism, such as wealth inequality (I don't mean here a few owning almost everything, while the vast majority owns almost nothing) and even environmental damage from product malfeasance built into them (designed to wear down easily) straining it, most notably is all the plastics in the oceans.

The usual sorry-ass "rebuttals" involve the genius notion that since everyone uses products produced within a capitalist system, that it means capitalism works, somehow - as if they choose to be born into it.

Attempts to improve on it are just a patchwork of gaffa-tape fixtures of governmental regulations, re-distributions, mixed economy and breaking up monopolies. Capitalism is fundamentally flawed from the outset.

The main chokehold maintaining capitalism is a centralized fiat currency issued by government central banks. The decoupling of monetary value from physical value (usually rare metals) made it worse. The madness is best illustrated, even today, with the various instances of hyperinflation around the world.

If you take away money - entirely - what are you really left with? The buildings, all the products, all the labour involved doesn't magically go away along with money. What is really needed is some sort of representation of labour that went into a product/service/whatever, and money is a sad excuse for that given the vast wealth inequality inherent in capitalism, among all the other faults. There are alternative systems to represent labour, my favorite is one based loosely on energy. Technocrats have pontificated on this for over a century, but never, AFAIK, really been put into practice - not for lack of trying - but because of interest groups wanting to retain capitalism and shooting down any attempts on improving on labour representation.