5 ms·

> That's why people don't have a higher savings rate. Most people are idiots when it comes to spending, the dumbest habit of which is increasing your spending o

> That's why people don't have a higher savings rate. Most people are idiots when it comes to spending, the dumbest habit of which is increasing your spending on pace with increased in income. Okay maybe not the dumbest as it's even dumber when they increase it faster than income (ex: new job => new car with higher monthly payment v.s. difference in salary). It's also why megacorporations and a very small percentage of people have such immense amounts of money and give essentially nothing back for it. > Why not? What else are they going to do anyway and why should they be granted N years of do nothingness just because they're old? Sure sounds like a ponzi scheme to me... What is so valuable about forcing everyone to work their whole lives? Who benefits?

koolba 10y ago
> It's also why megacorporations and a very small percentage of people have such immense amounts of money and give essentially nothing back for it. Besides you sounding bitter and misinformed or changing the conversation to one about converting the USA to communism, I don't see how that's relevant to this. > What is so valuable about forcing everyone to work their whole lives? Who benefits? They benefit by providing for themselves and their families. They're not being forced to do anything (though food, shelter, and self preservation tend to be good motivators). To flip your question around, why should they get a free ride because they past a certain age? I'm not saying people shouldn't retire, I'm saying that if they want to do it, they need to be realistic about what's financially involved and either save significantly more or realize they're going to be living off of rice and beans.
- ivraatiems 10y ago
  > Besides you sounding bitter and misinformed or changing the conversation to one about converting the USA to communism, I don't see how that's relevant to this. I didn't say that. I think you're leaping to conclusions. What I'm trying to do, to be frank, is poke holes in the assumptions you're making in the first post about how things are and should be. I'm not a communist (it's never worked as envisioned, and likely can't), but I'm getting pretty sick of the notion that our system as-is is the best one for most people. I want to have a conversation about ways it could either be made better, or what it could be replaced with. > They benefit by providing for themselves and their families. They're not being forced to do anything (though food, shelter, and self preservation tend to be good motivators). Again, this is a false choice. It actually is a couple of false assumptions: First, the idea that food, shelter and self-preservation are things that people must earn, rather than have a right to. Second, that people who are in a "do it or die" situation have any real choice, given that almost nobody would choose the "die" part of that. > To flip your question around, why should they get a free ride because they past a certain age? I'm not saying people shouldn't retire, I'm saying that if they want to do it, they need to be realistic about what's financially involved and either save significantly more or realize they're going to be living off of rice and beans. So, first of all, I agree with the notion that in the system as it is, one has to be prudent and thoughtful, one has to save money, one has to plan for oneself. We're in agreement on all that: With the world the way it is, it's important for each individual to plan and put themselves first. I fully understand how to work within the system we have to keep oneself afloat, and I'm not suggesting people shouldn't. Why shouldn't people get a free ride for food, health, shelter? Why are those things things which must somehow be earned? I'm talking philosophically here, not practically. I'm not saying everyone is entitled to caviar and vegan d3 supplements on private yachts, but I don't understand the assumption that, given a society which could technologically provide basics for everyone, people shouldn't have them.
  - hosh 10y ago
    I'm not sure why your comments got downvoted. These are questions I have been asking for the past few years. I haven't come up with any satisfactory answers, other than that I see a lot of people strongly holding onto some narratives that don't seem to be working out well for people. I have not seen anything close to a satisfactory answer, though I see a lot of people making the attempt. To address some of the other comments in this thread: this idea that someone has to earn the right to live has not, historically, been the norm. Pre-modern societies tend to lean more towards values emphasizing community rather than values emphasizing individuals. There is a lot to say about this, philosophically, when you start looking at how modernity changed things. One of the weirdest notions of modernity is this idea that humans are at the apex, with the implicit narrative that what is current will always be the best. Human brain achieved higher intelligence than any other living organism on earth, therefore humans are the apex predators. During the colonial era, the colonial powers considered themselves civilized ... and everyone else were savages, somehow lesser. Now, there are certain ideologies (democracy, free market, capitalism) that are considered as the apex. There is something very broken about modernity. I'm not suggesting pre-modern notions are necessarily better. I do think this narrative of 'being the best' has blinded our modernist sensibilities, and we have yet to find a satisfactory answer beyond modernity.
    - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
      >Now, there are certain ideologies (democracy, free market, capitalism) that are considered as the apex. At this point, I would say capitalism is eating both democracy and free markets.
      - ivraatiems 10y ago
        Not capitalism. End-stage oligarchocapitalism.
- Nrsolis 10y ago
  What I see at play here is a radical difference in philosophies. For the record, I don't think any country or society owes you anything. If you want something, you should be prepared to work for it. That includes a goal like "comfortable retirement". But I'm sympathetic to expectations that every individual learn money management and investment skills that are on-par with professionals. Exposing individuals to risk via complex variables such as life expectancy, investment strategy, and diversification is a sure recipe for a winners and losers type of scenario. We want a system where the maximum number of people have the best probability of reaching a non-working retirement with enough accumulated assets to be comfortable. You only need look at what's happened in Detroit to see how perilous it is to trust politicians or parties with divergent interests from yours with your financial future.
  - ivraatiems 10y ago
    Your post is exactly right, this is a philosophical difference I have with the parent commentor. > If you want something, you should be prepared to work for it. This is the part I'm trying to get at. I agree with this statement, but with a caveat: There's a difference between "want" and "need." If you want some new jeans 'cause they look good, society doesn't owe them to you. If you need to buy basic clothing because you have none (or what you have is clearly insufficient, e. g., falling apart), it doesn't bother me to say society ought to provide that to you. People see the idea that a sufficiently developed society ought to provide the very basics for all its members, and immediately assume that the only way to do this is some sort of draconian, single-party iron-wall communism. That just isn't true. In fact, there are already societies on the planet that get fairly close to doing this, and none of them are communist. (The "communist" ones tend to be some of the farthest away from this ideal.) My question to you would be: How do you feel about making that distinction, and why?
    - hosh 10y ago
      "Want" and "need" is something that requires clarity and introspection. It is easy to confuse the two, especially ones that are deeply embedded in the psyche. What's often the case is that there is a real need underneath a want, but that deeper, more essential need is not expressed in the same way as the want. To use the jeans example, "'cause they look good", the deeper need will be somewhere along the lines of, needing to belong; needing approval of others; needing to feel a certain way. It depends on the person. Some people have a very clear idea of what these underlying needs are ... many of us humans, don't. Getting those jeans might temporarily satisfy the want, but without addressing the underlying needs, a person will now seek out something else in hopes to satisfy that deeper need. As a tangent: there is a way to probe even deeper needs underlying those needs too. When done iteratively and radically honestly (which means going deeper than survival needs) across many different wants, there is a surprising result: it generally converges on single basic need. However, since this is probing deeper than survival needs, it isn't something that a society, technology, or a system can provide. It certainly won't be something that one can easily "work for". My point is: I agree, societies and communities should look at providing basic needs. However, there are some things that cannot be addressed with material goods, as long as there is mass confusion. Withholding those material things don't necessarily help either.
- Frondo 10y ago
  No one mentioned communism. The status quo vs communism is also a false dichotomy; obviously many, many nations around the world have chosen something in between the contemporary American system and communism. Over the last hundred years, we've decided, as a nation, we want to do better than "let every individual fend for themselves". We weren't comfortable with the outcomes--old people eating pet food, dying for lack of heating in the winter, etc. And there are certainly many low-paid workers who simply can't save anything substantial for any retirement, ever. Assuming everyone can sock away money to live on for when they're just too old to work is going to leave a lot of people out in the cold (possibly literally). I guess what I'm trying to say is, your discussion about "let them all fend for themselves" doesn't really fit here at all, because we as a nation moved beyond that decades ago. Whether to move back to pensions, or improve 401Ks, that's an interesting question and worth discussing.
  - mjevans 10y ago
    How about we just directly provide a safety net. The government can buy rent/food/medical if the market is cheaper or do it on it's own if not. (Force the market to compete with 'government inefficiency').
    - eropple 10y ago
      The common argument against this (to be clear: I think this argument is hogwash, but it should be mentioned) is that the government will then change laws to make it harder for market forces to compete. Which I find smacks of a certain kind of "but then we'll loooooose", but it is a concern, if generally low-impact.

koolba 10y ago

> It's also why megacorporations and a very small percentage of people have such immense amounts of money and give essentially nothing back for it. Besides you sounding bitter and misinformed or changing the conversation to one about converting the USA to communism, I don't see how that's relevant to this. > What is so valuable about forcing everyone to work their whole lives? Who benefits? They benefit by providing for themselves and their families. They're not being forced to do anything (though food, shelter, and self preservation tend to be good motivators). To flip your question around, why should they get a free ride because they past a certain age? I'm not saying people shouldn't retire, I'm saying that if they want to do it, they need to be realistic about what's financially involved and either save significantly more or realize they're going to be living off of rice and beans.

ivraatiems 10y ago
> Besides you sounding bitter and misinformed or changing the conversation to one about converting the USA to communism, I don't see how that's relevant to this. I didn't say that. I think you're leaping to conclusions. What I'm trying to do, to be frank, is poke holes in the assumptions you're making in the first post about how things are and should be. I'm not a communist (it's never worked as envisioned, and likely can't), but I'm getting pretty sick of the notion that our system as-is is the best one for most people. I want to have a conversation about ways it could either be made better, or what it could be replaced with. > They benefit by providing for themselves and their families. They're not being forced to do anything (though food, shelter, and self preservation tend to be good motivators). Again, this is a false choice. It actually is a couple of false assumptions: First, the idea that food, shelter and self-preservation are things that people must earn, rather than have a right to. Second, that people who are in a "do it or die" situation have any real choice, given that almost nobody would choose the "die" part of that. > To flip your question around, why should they get a free ride because they past a certain age? I'm not saying people shouldn't retire, I'm saying that if they want to do it, they need to be realistic about what's financially involved and either save significantly more or realize they're going to be living off of rice and beans. So, first of all, I agree with the notion that in the system as it is, one has to be prudent and thoughtful, one has to save money, one has to plan for oneself. We're in agreement on all that: With the world the way it is, it's important for each individual to plan and put themselves first. I fully understand how to work within the system we have to keep oneself afloat, and I'm not suggesting people shouldn't. Why shouldn't people get a free ride for food, health, shelter? Why are those things things which must somehow be earned? I'm talking philosophically here, not practically. I'm not saying everyone is entitled to caviar and vegan d3 supplements on private yachts, but I don't understand the assumption that, given a society which could technologically provide basics for everyone, people shouldn't have them.
- hosh 10y ago
  I'm not sure why your comments got downvoted. These are questions I have been asking for the past few years. I haven't come up with any satisfactory answers, other than that I see a lot of people strongly holding onto some narratives that don't seem to be working out well for people. I have not seen anything close to a satisfactory answer, though I see a lot of people making the attempt. To address some of the other comments in this thread: this idea that someone has to earn the right to live has not, historically, been the norm. Pre-modern societies tend to lean more towards values emphasizing community rather than values emphasizing individuals. There is a lot to say about this, philosophically, when you start looking at how modernity changed things. One of the weirdest notions of modernity is this idea that humans are at the apex, with the implicit narrative that what is current will always be the best. Human brain achieved higher intelligence than any other living organism on earth, therefore humans are the apex predators. During the colonial era, the colonial powers considered themselves civilized ... and everyone else were savages, somehow lesser. Now, there are certain ideologies (democracy, free market, capitalism) that are considered as the apex. There is something very broken about modernity. I'm not suggesting pre-modern notions are necessarily better. I do think this narrative of 'being the best' has blinded our modernist sensibilities, and we have yet to find a satisfactory answer beyond modernity.
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    >Now, there are certain ideologies (democracy, free market, capitalism) that are considered as the apex. At this point, I would say capitalism is eating both democracy and free markets.
    - ivraatiems 10y ago
      Not capitalism. End-stage oligarchocapitalism.
Nrsolis 10y ago
What I see at play here is a radical difference in philosophies. For the record, I don't think any country or society owes you anything. If you want something, you should be prepared to work for it. That includes a goal like "comfortable retirement". But I'm sympathetic to expectations that every individual learn money management and investment skills that are on-par with professionals. Exposing individuals to risk via complex variables such as life expectancy, investment strategy, and diversification is a sure recipe for a winners and losers type of scenario. We want a system where the maximum number of people have the best probability of reaching a non-working retirement with enough accumulated assets to be comfortable. You only need look at what's happened in Detroit to see how perilous it is to trust politicians or parties with divergent interests from yours with your financial future.
- ivraatiems 10y ago
  Your post is exactly right, this is a philosophical difference I have with the parent commentor. > If you want something, you should be prepared to work for it. This is the part I'm trying to get at. I agree with this statement, but with a caveat: There's a difference between "want" and "need." If you want some new jeans 'cause they look good, society doesn't owe them to you. If you need to buy basic clothing because you have none (or what you have is clearly insufficient, e. g., falling apart), it doesn't bother me to say society ought to provide that to you. People see the idea that a sufficiently developed society ought to provide the very basics for all its members, and immediately assume that the only way to do this is some sort of draconian, single-party iron-wall communism. That just isn't true. In fact, there are already societies on the planet that get fairly close to doing this, and none of them are communist. (The "communist" ones tend to be some of the farthest away from this ideal.) My question to you would be: How do you feel about making that distinction, and why?
  - hosh 10y ago
    "Want" and "need" is something that requires clarity and introspection. It is easy to confuse the two, especially ones that are deeply embedded in the psyche. What's often the case is that there is a real need underneath a want, but that deeper, more essential need is not expressed in the same way as the want. To use the jeans example, "'cause they look good", the deeper need will be somewhere along the lines of, needing to belong; needing approval of others; needing to feel a certain way. It depends on the person. Some people have a very clear idea of what these underlying needs are ... many of us humans, don't. Getting those jeans might temporarily satisfy the want, but without addressing the underlying needs, a person will now seek out something else in hopes to satisfy that deeper need. As a tangent: there is a way to probe even deeper needs underlying those needs too. When done iteratively and radically honestly (which means going deeper than survival needs) across many different wants, there is a surprising result: it generally converges on single basic need. However, since this is probing deeper than survival needs, it isn't something that a society, technology, or a system can provide. It certainly won't be something that one can easily "work for". My point is: I agree, societies and communities should look at providing basic needs. However, there are some things that cannot be addressed with material goods, as long as there is mass confusion. Withholding those material things don't necessarily help either.
Frondo 10y ago
No one mentioned communism. The status quo vs communism is also a false dichotomy; obviously many, many nations around the world have chosen something in between the contemporary American system and communism. Over the last hundred years, we've decided, as a nation, we want to do better than "let every individual fend for themselves". We weren't comfortable with the outcomes--old people eating pet food, dying for lack of heating in the winter, etc. And there are certainly many low-paid workers who simply can't save anything substantial for any retirement, ever. Assuming everyone can sock away money to live on for when they're just too old to work is going to leave a lot of people out in the cold (possibly literally). I guess what I'm trying to say is, your discussion about "let them all fend for themselves" doesn't really fit here at all, because we as a nation moved beyond that decades ago. Whether to move back to pensions, or improve 401Ks, that's an interesting question and worth discussing.
- mjevans 10y ago
  How about we just directly provide a safety net. The government can buy rent/food/medical if the market is cheaper or do it on it's own if not. (Force the market to compete with 'government inefficiency').
  - eropple 10y ago
    The common argument against this (to be clear: I think this argument is hogwash, but it should be mentioned) is that the government will then change laws to make it harder for market forces to compete. Which I find smacks of a certain kind of "but then we'll loooooose", but it is a concern, if generally low-impact.