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I'm having a hard time understanding the notion that some forms of effort ('labor') to sustain yourself are bad but other forms of effort (something other than

by gwright 11y ago

I'm having a hard time understanding the notion that some forms of effort ('labor') to sustain yourself are bad but other forms of effort (something other than labor) are good but apparently are insufficient for survival and that there is some obligation for the government (i.e. other people) to make up the difference. If you don't want to exchange your skills (physical or mental) for money, then you probably need to find a benefactor of some kind to sustain you and I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing if it is a mutually consenting relationship. Note, there is a difference between not wanting to sustain yourself through your own effort and being incapable of doing so. There is plenty of room to talk about government assistance in latter case, not so much in the former case.

quadrangle 11y ago
Did you not look at the comic in the post you're replying to? The broader argument is that the topic at hand is not actually about labor to sustain yourself. It's about a system designed to actually deprive you of access to naturally-existing wealth and resources so that you are then forced to labor for someone else in order to gain sustenance. In other words, there was at one point fresh water and land and berries and such just available in the world. People had to labor to get them, but they were there. We've made far more value for society overall such that we have resources to support far more people, and it's mostly from a long evolution of technology and science. There's tons of productive things to do to keep things going. But since we have an attitude of "you deserve your share of resources only if you labor" we have a ton of make-work bullshit that people do that can even be counter-productive. We're not all working on things that actually add value to society. People who skim off the system such as high-speed traders get a huge share of the resources while laboring in ways that create no value whatsoever. So, we need to get rid of the "work to eat" idea because it leads people to do whatever to eat when they are desperate. We'd do better if we focus on promoting things that provide the most value, and we get that better if we provide other motivations than "do whatever it takes not to starve".

by gwright 11y ago

quadrangle 11y ago

Did you not look at the comic in the post you're replying to? The broader argument is that the topic at hand is not actually about labor to sustain yourself. It's about a system designed to actually deprive you of access to naturally-existing wealth and resources so that you are then forced to labor for someone else in order to gain sustenance. In other words, there was at one point fresh water and land and berries and such just available in the world. People had to labor to get them, but they were there. We've made far more value for society overall such that we have resources to support far more people, and it's mostly from a long evolution of technology and science. There's tons of productive things to do to keep things going. But since we have an attitude of "you deserve your share of resources only if you labor" we have a ton of make-work bullshit that people do that can even be counter-productive. We're not all working on things that actually add value to society. People who skim off the system such as high-speed traders get a huge share of the resources while laboring in ways that create no value whatsoever. So, we need to get rid of the "work to eat" idea because it leads people to do whatever to eat when they are desperate. We'd do better if we focus on promoting things that provide the most value, and we get that better if we provide other motivations than "do whatever it takes not to starve".