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But who is "we", and who is anyone to decide which of the 35% should be retrained, or which new field to retrain them in, or how to allocate resources to such r

But who is "we", and who is anyone to decide which of the 35% should be retrained, or which new field to retrain them in, or how to allocate resources to such retraining? Those are the difficult questions that are most deftly answered by the Dead Hand when we grant each "35-percenter" the responsibility for their own retraining; they either retrain ("evolve"); figure out how to stay relevant in their old field (also "evolve"); or fail, and in doing so, demonstrate that they were unwilling to be "spent" in any way that society was willing to spend them ("perish"). Which is to say, I do not quite understand how you are disagreeing with me.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago
I suggest that we should grant each "35-percenter" (wherever that term came from) not only the responsibility for their own retraining, but the resources to do so, and maybe even some suggestions (not orders!) as to what direction they should go in. Just giving them the responsibility without the resources sounds like the worst kind of "Social Darwinism".
- mmirate 8y ago
  Again: who is "we" and -more importantly - how do we decide which/how-much resources to grant? Write a nice letter to the Gates Foundation? Steal from the productive and call it "taxation"?
  - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
    "We" is society as a whole. (Moderately careful reading of my first post should have made that clear, but you seem more interested in arguing than in understanding.) How do we decide? The process wasn't specified. (How does society as a whole make decisions? These kind of decisions it makes through the political process.) The point wasn't the mechanics of the decision-making process. The point was that we should view these people as an under-utilized asset rather than a liability, and figure out how to use them for the progress of our society. > Steal from the productive and call it "taxation"? You want to let people starve (judging by your posts in this thread) rather than pay taxes, which you regard as theft? You need to replace your moral compass; it's a bit defective... Do you feel the same way about taxes to pay for, say, highways and airports? Or do you give those a pass because it's infrastructure, from which you benefit? If we can get these people able to contribute to society, we'll benefit, in at least two ways. One is that they'll pay more taxes, which could lower yours. Second, they'll do things that are useful, and some of it we'll personally use.
    - mmirate 8y ago
      > Do you feel the same way about taxes to pay for, say, highways and airports? Or do you give those a pass because it's infrastructure, from which you benefit? I don't give them a pass. Not by a long shot. Right now I'm only benefiting from one particular nearby highway, and even then only a few miles of its vast length. Of the two nearest airports (both of which are at least an hour's drive away), I have never used one, have not used the other in at least a year, and have no intention of using either for at least a couple decades; yet I am still forced to pay for them, beyond the length of any "professional's retainer" term that I might have voluntarily chosen. (I correctly predicted which airport usage would be my last, several years prior to it.) But of course there are others who feel differently - they'd like to have a different stretch of that highway, a different highway, an airport with nonstop roundtrips to Podunk, Alabama, you name it. And I do not wish to quarrel with them. In a properly-functioning free market, when there is a selection of alternative goods available and different people have different preferences, the result is that the people who prefer one good purchase it, and the people who prefer another good purchase it instead of the previous. Both goods end up being sold to the people who prefer them. The anomalous situation in any of certain markets (e.g. infrastructure of a given kind; security; morals; laws) wherein people must coercively prohibit the sale of all goods except one, the one to be chosen by all manner of unpleasant quarrels - be they the heated vitriol before an election, or the cold hard bullying might of dynasties and coups d'etat ... it only results when there is a localized monopoly on the use of unprovoked force - also known as a government.
      - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
        So this is getting somewhat afield from the original topic, but... have you ever lived somewhere where there is not a monopoly on the use of unprovoked force? (I have never done so, but some who have state rather eloquently why having the government having a monopoly on this is really beneficial compared to the alternative.)
        mmirate 8y ago
        Me neither; and such a place does not (yet) exist, and to my knowledge humans have never truly created such a place since the dawn of agriculture, if not earlier. It's entirely in the realm of theory, for now. I'll even admit: we barely have the information-technology today with which to conduct business as quickly, frequently and frictionlessly as it could theoretically need to be conducted in such a place. In places where there is not only a monopoly on the use of unprovoked force, but where the same entity also monopolizes everything else, there is another collection of people who eloquently state why that was a bad idea. If you're wondering what is the difference between an area with all markets free; and an area whose governments merely don't call themselves as such, and tend to compete via (expensive) violence instead of advertising - then this tome should provide a much more eloquent description (albeit as theoretical as ever) than I could ever hope to achieve: http://www.daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf http://www.daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf

AnimalMuppet 8y ago

I suggest that we should grant each "35-percenter" (wherever that term came from) not only the responsibility for their own retraining, but the resources to do so, and maybe even some suggestions (not orders!) as to what direction they should go in. Just giving them the responsibility without the resources sounds like the worst kind of "Social Darwinism".

mmirate 8y ago
Again: who is "we" and -more importantly - how do we decide which/how-much resources to grant? Write a nice letter to the Gates Foundation? Steal from the productive and call it "taxation"?
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  "We" is society as a whole. (Moderately careful reading of my first post should have made that clear, but you seem more interested in arguing than in understanding.) How do we decide? The process wasn't specified. (How does society as a whole make decisions? These kind of decisions it makes through the political process.) The point wasn't the mechanics of the decision-making process. The point was that we should view these people as an under-utilized asset rather than a liability, and figure out how to use them for the progress of our society. > Steal from the productive and call it "taxation"? You want to let people starve (judging by your posts in this thread) rather than pay taxes, which you regard as theft? You need to replace your moral compass; it's a bit defective... Do you feel the same way about taxes to pay for, say, highways and airports? Or do you give those a pass because it's infrastructure, from which you benefit? If we can get these people able to contribute to society, we'll benefit, in at least two ways. One is that they'll pay more taxes, which could lower yours. Second, they'll do things that are useful, and some of it we'll personally use.
  - mmirate 8y ago
    > Do you feel the same way about taxes to pay for, say, highways and airports? Or do you give those a pass because it's infrastructure, from which you benefit? I don't give them a pass. Not by a long shot. Right now I'm only benefiting from one particular nearby highway, and even then only a few miles of its vast length. Of the two nearest airports (both of which are at least an hour's drive away), I have never used one, have not used the other in at least a year, and have no intention of using either for at least a couple decades; yet I am still forced to pay for them, beyond the length of any "professional's retainer" term that I might have voluntarily chosen. (I correctly predicted which airport usage would be my last, several years prior to it.) But of course there are others who feel differently - they'd like to have a different stretch of that highway, a different highway, an airport with nonstop roundtrips to Podunk, Alabama, you name it. And I do not wish to quarrel with them. In a properly-functioning free market, when there is a selection of alternative goods available and different people have different preferences, the result is that the people who prefer one good purchase it, and the people who prefer another good purchase it instead of the previous. Both goods end up being sold to the people who prefer them. The anomalous situation in any of certain markets (e.g. infrastructure of a given kind; security; morals; laws) wherein people must coercively prohibit the sale of all goods except one, the one to be chosen by all manner of unpleasant quarrels - be they the heated vitriol before an election, or the cold hard bullying might of dynasties and coups d'etat ... it only results when there is a localized monopoly on the use of unprovoked force - also known as a government.
    - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
      So this is getting somewhat afield from the original topic, but... have you ever lived somewhere where there is not a monopoly on the use of unprovoked force? (I have never done so, but some who have state rather eloquently why having the government having a monopoly on this is really beneficial compared to the alternative.)
      - mmirate 8y ago
        Me neither; and such a place does not (yet) exist, and to my knowledge humans have never truly created such a place since the dawn of agriculture, if not earlier. It's entirely in the realm of theory, for now. I'll even admit: we barely have the information-technology today with which to conduct business as quickly, frequently and frictionlessly as it could theoretically need to be conducted in such a place. In places where there is not only a monopoly on the use of unprovoked force, but where the same entity also monopolizes everything else, there is another collection of people who eloquently state why that was a bad idea. If you're wondering what is the difference between an area with all markets free; and an area whose governments merely don't call themselves as such, and tend to compete via (expensive) violence instead of advertising - then this tome should provide a much more eloquent description (albeit as theoretical as ever) than I could ever hope to achieve: http://www.daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf http://www.daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf