24 ms·

Is everything an MLM

352 points by colinprince 8y ago

nostrademons 8y ago
Life is a pyramid scheme. Rather than figure out a way to exist in a steady-state forever, our cells divide exponentially, accumulate genetic mutations until they can't take it anymore, and then rather than fix themselves, we just make new humans and let the old one die. Humanity in developed countries at least has the kindness not to make more humans than we believe have a reasonable chance of survival, but that restraint is not universal either within humanity or within the animal kingdom. Most animals just spray & pray and whatever happens to survive carries on the mantle of the next generation. The universe is a pyramid scheme too - we know that thermodynamically, the ending state is the eventual heat death of the universe, but until it happens gravity creates this big positive feedback loop where smaller clouds of hydrogen coalesce with bigger ones, which eventually start fusing, which generates all the energy the universe will ever have. We've grown to believe in steady-states and sustainable systems because until recently, the pyramids have not been birthed and died within the span of a human lifetime. Far enough down a pyramid's base and it looks like a steady-state, at least until it collapses. But now that we can watch economic systems get conceived, grow, IPO, and die all within a decade or two, we're waking up to the fact that pyramid schemes are far more ubiquitous than previously thought.
- jaggederest 8y ago
  There's another big aspect to this: the orientation of the economy towards growth. When you start asking "What happens when the population and the economy are in a steady state, where we don't expect things to increase at 2% forever", and the answers are pretty grim. Retirement systems, for example, need a certain ratio of productive workers for each retiree, and I can't figure out any math that makes sense for the next ~20 years.
  - TomMarius 8y ago
    The math involves space mining.
  - ben_w 8y ago
    My expectation is that the ratio of productive workers for each retiree will be approximately constant, and the retirement age will be adjusted to match… at least, up until the next black swan or grey swan. At this rate, I expect at least one of those to happen between now and 2030.
    - speedplane 8y ago
      > My expectation is that the ratio of productive workers for each retiree will be approximately constant, and the retirement age will be adjusted to match… This isn't necessarily a problem as long as the number of productive workers continues to increase.
      - ben_w 8y ago
        Is there any circumstance where adjusted retirement age would not be sufficient? Even in extremis, if there were zero births and zero or negative immigration, would setting it to 130 not be sufficient?
        anticensor 8y ago
        You would retire beneath your grave. Human lifespan is 120 years maximum.
        ben_w 8y ago
        That’s why I picked the number.
  - trevyn 8y ago
    >Retirement systems, for example, need a certain ratio of productive workers for each retiree, and I can't figure out any math that makes sense for the next ~20 years. Long-term systems like this are generally constantly adjusted over time to fit circumstances, and overall productivity per person is rising overall. Reframing the problem as a target quality of life vs. a target monetary amount may also help. More generally, using history as a guide, it is unwise to rely on any human organization to keep its specific long-term promises. So, ye reap what ye sow. Of course, the secret lying in plain sight is that happiness/well-being need not be a function of money at all.
    - hopler 8y ago
      The tricky bit is that human social connections, our greatest psychological need, are both the lowest cost source of value (friendship, conversion, and sex are free) and source of highest expenses (social pressure to spend money to maintain relationships and status).
      - fwip 8y ago
        I think you might live in an unusual way if you spend more on relationships than food or housing.
  - quickthrower2 8y ago
    Because growth in terms of money which has no inherent value is meaningless. The real growth is in knowledge and technology and connections. The real value is in the systems we create.
    - jononor 8y ago
      How do you measure the value of these systems? The knowledge, technology and connections?
      - quickthrower2 8y ago
        I don't think you can objectively. Money isn't a good measure, we all though that what someone gets paid is not necessarily in line with their contribution to a company or society.
  - AznHisoka 8y ago
    1 thing I never understood is this obsession towards jobs growth. Every month, when this number is released, everyone wants this number to be better than the last month. Yet if everyone who wants a job eventually gets one, this number will eventually go to zero. And if it goes to zero, that would be a good thing. Yet everyone panics if the number of jobs created that month goes down. People are freaking crazy.
    - mhluongo 8y ago
      > Yet if everyone who wants a job eventually gets one, this number will eventually go to zero. And if it goes to zero, that would be a good thing. Yet everyone panics if the number of jobs created that month goes down. Unless there's a labor shortage?
      - AznHisoka 8y ago
        True but the narrative is always about the possibility of a recession and companies being afraid to invest in their businesses. Rarely do I see this point being made.
      - nradov 8y ago
        Labor shortages are basically a myth. They only exist when governments impose artificial wage limits.
    - xondono 8y ago
      It’s a known phenomenon in economy. The modern name is “make-work bias”.
    - Retric 8y ago
      US population is growing. So the steady state employment rate requires ~190,000 net jobs to be added every month. If the number is below that the a lower percentage of population is employed this month than last month.
      - AznHisoka 8y ago
  - deleted 8y ago
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  - njepa 8y ago
    I see what you are saying, but I largely disagree with the premise. We have had, and continue to have, enormous growth through technical and organizational achievements. Growth is relative, but life mostly remain constant. The requirements to house, cloth and transport people remain largely the same. The idea that we can't have retirement becomes absurd viewed over a lifetime of spending on housing, insurance and other fees. The average city dweller today gives away hundreds of thousands if not millions in rents, interest rates and other inflated costs.
    - orthecreedence 8y ago
      Are you arguing for removing essentials like (some) housing and clothing from market forces in order to keep prices from being artificially inflated? I'm beginning to agree. I think people should still be able to buy houses, but I think municipalities should also buy apartments/houses and rent them out at-cost. This would put significant downward pressure on "essentials" while still allowing choice (nobody is stopping you from buying a house). Hypercommodification of every aspect of our lives is starting to grow tiresome and the benefits it gives ("choice" supposedly) is only realized by those who hold a decent portion of the capital.
    - saltcured 8y ago
      I think that people who argue a perpetual growth requirement are fundamentally doubting that an economy can store (sufficient) value for the future. They are rejecting that life-long earnings can be saved and invested in a person's own non-productive retirement. They are presupposing hand-to-mouth living and assigning roles to the actors in that final scene. I suppose it is true in isolation. How many years of food, energy, and medicine could you stockpile for yourself to consume in your end years? There are practical limits due to spoilage, etc. If you instead have to devise a way to keep producing for yourself, we might quibble over whether that is really retirement...? It's also easy enough to run thought experiments and demonstrate how a collapsing population has an unpleasant end-game. Like musical chairs, eventually someone loses. The last people to die will die alone, with nobody to nurse them. Before that, systems will collapse, reducing the efficiencies that survivors depend on for quality of life. But, what are all the phases in between? How long can a society sustainably function at a fixed or slowly reducing size? Could we gracefully transition to earlier modes such as functioning agrarian, hunter-gatherer, or frontier communities? Can those retro communities still enjoy technological benefits developed by their larger forebears? Or do we have to assume war, famine, and post-apocalyptic wasteland? This seems like more of a psychology test than a useful debate. We can establish our various moods and dispositions, but not prognosticate a large-scale future. At a more personal level, can't we live a good life even if we are the last one to turn out the lights? Don't we all die alone, regardless of the number of attending nurses and medical billing?
  - bootsz 8y ago
    > What happens when the population and the economy are in a steady state, where we don't expect things to increase at 2% forever https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady-state_economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady-state_economy https://steadystate.org/ https://steadystate.org/
  - zwkrt 8y ago
    It's almost like human health and wellness shouldn't rely on the economy!
  - coliveira 8y ago
    > What happens when the population and the economy are in a steady state, where we don't expect things to increase at 2% forever This is a problem that has been studied by every serious economist that looks beyond the existing structure of capitalism. Although we don't know exact shop of the future, the answer is that capitalism as we know, and specially finance, will stop working and we will need a different economic paradigm to organize our lives.
- InclinedPlane 8y ago
  No, it's not. A pyramid scheme works with net zero productivity. It's just a rearrangement of resources, that's it. Life is a resource network. There is production, and consumption. Economically people contribute to the economy and are paid money which is used to "take" goods and services back out of the economy. This is very different from a pyramid scheme.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- taway9979245 8y ago
  A red pill down the matrix lane it is then. https://youtu.be/VMU-YjVGiGs https://youtu.be/VMU-YjVGiGs
- mrfusion 8y ago
  That’s an appeal to nature argument. Humans have the capacity to be better than their nature.
caprese 8y ago
It is an effective strategy, my observation is that way more energy is expended in debating the term MLM by assuming it is a pejorative term and the potential legal ramifications Without a government stance on any particular viral campaign I typically try to avoid MLMs as I find them unattractive With government stance and intervention I notice that the only result is for people to understand exactly how to operate an MLM to avoid government intervention Most ideas simply arent self sustaining without the productivity of new participants getting diminishing returns from that idea Adding a pejorative label to that reality is arbitrary
- anmorgan 8y ago
  From my internet researching a while ago the main difference, and why MLMs are legal, is that an MLM sells a product, whereas a pyramid scheme sells people. That is, you can make money solely by acquiring more people who pay to be apart of it, in a pyramid scheme. I'm still not sure how I feel about MLMs. If it's actually a good product maybe it's not a bad thing, but when it is not, that's where it seems to get sketchy.
  - ff317 8y ago
    Yes, but many/most nominal MLMs are effectively pyramid schemes in disguise. New entrants at the bottom rungs of the network are typically sold a "starter kit" by whomever one rung up the network recruited them. The starter kit is going to be some marketing materials and an initial inventory of product to sell. The marketing materials convince them they're getting a great deal on the wholesale value of the product and will make their money back in no time just by selling off the starter products (and then order/sell more and keep making more!), but the truth turns out to be that the upstream is banking on turning a mild profit selling the starter kit to the new member and doesn't care whether individuals ever buy the products, and the actual product doesn't sell very well to individuals because it's not a very good product. Then the only realistic way to make back the starter kit money is to sell more starter kits to another layer of idiots who think they'll be able to sell the worthless product, ad infinitum. In such a scheme there is a "product", but the vast majority of the product that's ever manufactured just changes hands through the starter-kit system between various levels of salespersons as a form of pyramid currency and almost no consumers end up buying it.
YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
I think all of the above is very specific to higher-education in the US. I'm a PhD resarch student in a UK university and that's really not what I see from where I stand. And keep in mind that universities here too are for-pay and the tuition fees can be very high and the UK society has very much embraced free-market capitalism. And UK universities these days will take on just anyone for a PhD (see: me). But, really- Avon? I mean, come on. Or perhaps it has to do with the field the author was in? I'm not sure what that was, but in my case, nobody has ever asked me to do any sort of "lab work" at all. I have been asked to help with invigilation and TA duties, because I receive a stipend from the dept. of eng. as part of my funding, and they "expect" you to do that sort of thing if you get funding from them, but I do get paid for my trouble and even my advisor has to mark exam papers (from courses he doesn't deliver himself) once in a while. Like, honestly, if this is exploitation I don't think my university is doing it right.
- tomrod 8y ago
  In the US I saw engineering labs using PhDs from abroad as almost slave labor. A bit hyperbolic perhaps, but the students were not allowed to progress without the advisor's say so, and the advisors would not allow them to top-author papers they were basically sole contributing. On top of that, between their own work and lab work, they were expected to put in 60 to 80 hours a week. The point is, the power dynamics were out of whack.
  - tmoot 8y ago
    This hits close to home.
  - bitcoinmoney 8y ago
    If you can churn out 1 paper every 3 months doing 8-5 that’s fine. The truth is that the incentive model is based on papers you published (to be subsequently used in NSF proposals). Hence, for most people that means working their ass off to churn out papers at a decent rate. I guess you could say something else is broken — like the way conferences have super low acceptance rates?
  - 8y ago
nestorD 8y ago
TLDR: A reflexion on wether graduate school is a form of pyramid scheme.
- magpi3 8y ago
  Academia not graduate school.
soniman 8y ago
Any decent grad department will give the grad students a tuition waiver and stipend so it's actually the opposite of a pyramid scheme. In a pyramid scheme, you pay to join the pyramid. In academia, the pyramid pays you. I spent two years in a grad department in Boston that paid me to hang out and read books and occasionally grade papers. It probably wasn't the best life decision but there wasn't any exploitation.
- bitcoinmoney 8y ago
  Especially for EE anc CS programs. I came from a 3rd world country and a full time job there is still worse than a 1500/month grad student pay that has opportunity for 6 digit at graduation. Just like anything in life, you have to research before jumping in.
- Waterluvian 8y ago
  Yeah my MSc paid for itself. The only real cost to me was two years not in the workforce.
- klipt 8y ago
  Is it really free given the labor they get from you? Say your labor could get you $100k from a tech company but you're getting a $20k stipend + $20k fee remission from a university to do coding instead, aren't they benefitting from underpaying you by $60k?
  - hopler 8y ago
    Tech companies have more leverage. And the still obviously profit from employing you. Sure some jobs pay better than others, but that doesn't make every non-highest-paying job a pyramid scheme. The claim has no logic to it.
  - dymk 8y ago
    The opportunity cost is offset by the student wanting to work in academia more than the industry. I know several grad students who know full well they’d be paid more at Google, but enjoy doing research at a lower salary far more. Money isn’t the only value you get out of a job.
deleted 8y ago
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beardedwizard 8y ago
While there is more going on, the subtle comment about hustle culture resonates with me. Cheap labor exploitation called "hustling", and currently everyone seems to want to have a hustle. It's because we are getting screwed at our day jobs, folks, and those same employers are exploiting you again when you leave and start your hustle.
- johnisgood 8y ago
  What does exploitation mean exactly in this context? What does it mean to be exploited by an employer?
  - soVeryTired 8y ago
    I guess any sort of significant power imbalance. Does your team generate good revenue for the company but you still get paid peanuts? Does your work ask for overtime but fail to allow you to take time off when you need it? Do they ask for commitment to the job, while being prepared to terminate you at a moment's notice when time gets tough?
    - johnisgood 8y ago
      Yeah, but you get into that contract voluntarily, so you sort of know what you signed up for, and regardless, you have the option to quit. This is why I do not understand the complaints.
      - adamsea 8y ago
        Mmmm if you don’t work and make money in the US you’ll be in a bad way, and since the majority of employers have the conditions described, and most job seekers have little negotiating leverage on these issues, the choice to sign the employment contract is voluntary, yes, but so much behind the circumstances and conditions of that signing is beyond the power of an individual to effect or influence through their choices. Which is why the saying “strength in numbers” is a saying.
      - 8y ago
plaidfuji 8y ago
> everything Article is just about CorePower Yoga and grad school.
- hawski 8y ago
  It also contains this passage: > When I first suggested that yoga teacher training was an MLM, someone rightly responded: “it feels like everything today is an MLM.” That’s what happens when an industry is fully enveloped by capitalism: When a hedge fund buys a yoga company — or when universities are figured as money-making businesses, with actual consultants hired to lead them. That's the source for the title.
  - SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
    So you’re saying it’s clickbait.
OldHand2018 8y ago
> Any decent grad department will give the grad students a tuition waiver and stipend so it's actually the opposite of a pyramid scheme. If you're interested, UChicago just released a report [1] on graduate education that highlights large numbers of areas that need improvement. It is unlikely that all of these problems are specific to them. The actual report is available [2] and is about 100 pages with an additional 200 pages of appendixes that contain a LOT of data. [1] https://csl.uchicago.edu/announcement/daniel-diermeier-report-committee-graduate-education https://csl.uchicago.edu/announcement/daniel-diermeier-repor... [2] https://provost.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/documents/reports/Committee%20on%20Graduate%20Education%20Report.pdf https://provost.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/documents/r...
ryanmarsh 8y ago
I too was asked to be a teacher after maybe a couple months of classes at Core Power. Keep in mind there were a great many ordinary poses I could not do properly because of my back injuries (one of the reasons I was going in the first place). I was flattered that someone noticed my dedication. Now I feel like a fool.
bluetomcat 8y ago
Most of the economy in the so called "developed countries" is nowadays a zero-sum game between winners and losers. Seen from a macro perspective, it resembles a multi-agent system where independent agents compete to provide inessential products and services in exchange for being able to afford basic necessities like housing, food and child care. The finite resource that such companies are fighting for is people's attention and time. Some win, others lose, but the status quo is that we are sweating from work in order to live in a world with smart refrigerators, automatic garage doors and pointless baby toys. And if we had more spare time, why would we even think of that. What we really need is a change in paradigm because market forces will mostly solve only small "consumer" problems and cannot reorganise our society in a more efficient way.
- jopsen 8y ago
  > ...because market forces will mostly solve only small "consumer" problems and cannot reorganise our society in a more efficient way. Market forces have repeatedly reorganized our society from farms to factories and increasingly from factories to offices.. But we might need to tweak the incentives and refactor regulation.
  - DataWorker 8y ago
    Silliness. Why has the 40 hour week persisted? Market forces. Climate change? Market forces. The persistence of the slave trade? Market forces. Prostitution and human trafficking, opioids, disintegration of the family, Facebook; all your good friend “market forces”.
    - coliveira 8y ago
      Exactly, worship of capitalism is a disease where the afflicted can only see the advantages of this "fantastic" system. Despite the widespread evidence that there are many problems in the world that are directly caused by market forces, with the obvious conclusion that there is nothing a priori "benign" about these market forces that are worshiped by so many.
_bxg1 8y ago
Capitalism is broken. Or rather, it breaks things.
foxhop 8y ago
My goal is to extract as much money as I can out of the tech industry, without compromising on my values. While I'm doing that I'm trying to build up a small food forest which will help me avoid the pyramid altogether. My only hope for humanity is for at least 30% of the population to do the same, but I'm not holding my breath.
- cheerlessbog 8y ago
  What is a food forest?
  - foxhop 8y ago
    It's an agriculture practice which mimics natural forest for food production.
- carapace 8y ago
  That's awesome! More power to ya! I'm trying to work on ways to get people to basically do the same thing: live in ways more integrated with ecological systems. The weird thing I see is that there seems to be a lot of pent up demand, but people can't articulate what they want, so no one is selling it to them, leading to inadequate supply. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_Homes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_Homes > Village Homes is a planned community in Davis, Yolo County, California. It is designed to be ecologically sustainable by harnessing the energies and natural resources that exists in the landscape, especially stormwater and solar energy.
- SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
  I don’t understand. You want 30% of the population of earth to farm their own food? Does economy of scale not apply to food production?
  - foxhop 8y ago
    Yes I want at least 30% of the population on Earth to farm their own food. I want the food system to become localized which will prevent a crisis which makes people starve and stops "food islands" where people in certain locations only have access to junk food and fast food.
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woah 8y ago
The argument in this article is that everything is a pyramid scheme, if by “everything” you mean postgrad humanities academia. Also rails against the evils of capitalism, using examples from a system funded by government grants and loans, and peopled by vehement anti-capitalists.
nkingsy 8y ago
Life itself is a MLM scheme. When my daughter was born, our parents all displayed an almost indescribable satisfaction. Biological MLM is called “fitness”. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitness_(biology) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitness_(biology)
qwerty456127 8y ago
> The yoga teacher recruitment model is strikingly similar to an MLM (Multi Level Marketing scheme; think Avon and Amway Whatever a business model there is, there is a difference: yoga is a real thing that actually improves your health, beauty and psyche you actually get with you wherever you go while the most of the other MLM projects are consumerist bullshit.
hawski 8y ago
> just the increasingly ambivalent structure, the ever-reproducing base This reminds me of the city from Blame! manga. Ever-growing megastructure without any thought. Without any external control, just expanding. Something that began on Earth and now is becoming a Dyson sphere. Even though there are specific people that profit from current economy, will they profit forever if things will proceed as they are? Will they remain on top when the environment will crumble around us? It certainly is a different scale, so on small scale they will win, but in the long run no-one wins.
mindfulplay 8y ago
Reminds me of the Norm MacDonald joke: "When I was a child, they told me to crush the cans, recycle and plant trees. It's for your own future. Then I grew up and 'here I am', and they said, 'not you, it's for the future generation'. I know a pyramid scheme when I see one."
Unsimplified 8y ago
Within the monetary market model, the fundamental factors are money supply and money flow. To solve poverty and ensure that everyone has basic necessities satisfied, either buy from the poor or donate to them. These are the only civil options.
aj7 8y ago
“The fault with thinking of academia as a pyramid scheme is that there’s no one at the top — just the increasingly ambivalent structure, the ever-reproducing base. You could say administration profits, or football coaches profit. But it increasingly feels like a system in which no one wins: not the students, not their parents, not the graduate students, not professors facing increased belt-tightening, axing of departments, and continual fights for whatever meager resources remain.” This is a very naive statement from a dedicated academic who has written an otherwise great, and deserves-to-be-read article. Who benefits? Administrators and tenured professors, all effectively with lifetime positions, large guaranteed pensions. To duplicate the expected cashflows, here, for a mid-careered 50-year-old, requires capital of ca. $5M. THAT’s who benefits.

352 points by colinprince 8y ago

Life is a pyramid scheme. Rather than figure out a way to exist in a steady-state forever, our cells divide exponentially, accumulate genetic mutations until they can't take it anymore, and then rather than fix themselves, we just make new humans and let the old one die. Humanity in developed countries at least has the kindness not to make more humans than we believe have a reasonable chance of survival, but that restraint is not universal either within humanity or within the animal kingdom. Most animals just spray & pray and whatever happens to survive carries on the mantle of the next generation. The universe is a pyramid scheme too - we know that thermodynamically, the ending state is the eventual heat death of the universe, but until it happens gravity creates this big positive feedback loop where smaller clouds of hydrogen coalesce with bigger ones, which eventually start fusing, which generates all the energy the universe will ever have. We've grown to believe in steady-states and sustainable systems because until recently, the pyramids have not been birthed and died within the span of a human lifetime. Far enough down a pyramid's base and it looks like a steady-state, at least until it collapses. But now that we can watch economic systems get conceived, grow, IPO, and die all within a decade or two, we're waking up to the fact that pyramid schemes are far more ubiquitous than previously thought.

jaggederest 8y ago
There's another big aspect to this: the orientation of the economy towards growth. When you start asking "What happens when the population and the economy are in a steady state, where we don't expect things to increase at 2% forever", and the answers are pretty grim. Retirement systems, for example, need a certain ratio of productive workers for each retiree, and I can't figure out any math that makes sense for the next ~20 years.
- TomMarius 8y ago
  The math involves space mining.
- ben_w 8y ago
  My expectation is that the ratio of productive workers for each retiree will be approximately constant, and the retirement age will be adjusted to match… at least, up until the next black swan or grey swan. At this rate, I expect at least one of those to happen between now and 2030.
  - speedplane 8y ago
    > My expectation is that the ratio of productive workers for each retiree will be approximately constant, and the retirement age will be adjusted to match… This isn't necessarily a problem as long as the number of productive workers continues to increase.
    - ben_w 8y ago
      Is there any circumstance where adjusted retirement age would not be sufficient? Even in extremis, if there were zero births and zero or negative immigration, would setting it to 130 not be sufficient?
      - anticensor 8y ago
        You would retire beneath your grave. Human lifespan is 120 years maximum.
        ben_w 8y ago
        That’s why I picked the number.
- trevyn 8y ago
  >Retirement systems, for example, need a certain ratio of productive workers for each retiree, and I can't figure out any math that makes sense for the next ~20 years. Long-term systems like this are generally constantly adjusted over time to fit circumstances, and overall productivity per person is rising overall. Reframing the problem as a target quality of life vs. a target monetary amount may also help. More generally, using history as a guide, it is unwise to rely on any human organization to keep its specific long-term promises. So, ye reap what ye sow. Of course, the secret lying in plain sight is that happiness/well-being need not be a function of money at all.
  - hopler 8y ago
    The tricky bit is that human social connections, our greatest psychological need, are both the lowest cost source of value (friendship, conversion, and sex are free) and source of highest expenses (social pressure to spend money to maintain relationships and status).
    - fwip 8y ago
      I think you might live in an unusual way if you spend more on relationships than food or housing.
- quickthrower2 8y ago
  Because growth in terms of money which has no inherent value is meaningless. The real growth is in knowledge and technology and connections. The real value is in the systems we create.
  - jononor 8y ago
    How do you measure the value of these systems? The knowledge, technology and connections?
    - quickthrower2 8y ago
      I don't think you can objectively. Money isn't a good measure, we all though that what someone gets paid is not necessarily in line with their contribution to a company or society.
- AznHisoka 8y ago
  1 thing I never understood is this obsession towards jobs growth. Every month, when this number is released, everyone wants this number to be better than the last month. Yet if everyone who wants a job eventually gets one, this number will eventually go to zero. And if it goes to zero, that would be a good thing. Yet everyone panics if the number of jobs created that month goes down. People are freaking crazy.
  - mhluongo 8y ago
    > Yet if everyone who wants a job eventually gets one, this number will eventually go to zero. And if it goes to zero, that would be a good thing. Yet everyone panics if the number of jobs created that month goes down. Unless there's a labor shortage?
    - AznHisoka 8y ago
      True but the narrative is always about the possibility of a recession and companies being afraid to invest in their businesses. Rarely do I see this point being made.
    - nradov 8y ago
      Labor shortages are basically a myth. They only exist when governments impose artificial wage limits.
  - xondono 8y ago
    It’s a known phenomenon in economy. The modern name is “make-work bias”.
  - Retric 8y ago
    US population is growing. So the steady state employment rate requires ~190,000 net jobs to be added every month. If the number is below that the a lower percentage of population is employed this month than last month.
    - AznHisoka 8y ago
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- njepa 8y ago
  I see what you are saying, but I largely disagree with the premise. We have had, and continue to have, enormous growth through technical and organizational achievements. Growth is relative, but life mostly remain constant. The requirements to house, cloth and transport people remain largely the same. The idea that we can't have retirement becomes absurd viewed over a lifetime of spending on housing, insurance and other fees. The average city dweller today gives away hundreds of thousands if not millions in rents, interest rates and other inflated costs.
  - orthecreedence 8y ago
    Are you arguing for removing essentials like (some) housing and clothing from market forces in order to keep prices from being artificially inflated? I'm beginning to agree. I think people should still be able to buy houses, but I think municipalities should also buy apartments/houses and rent them out at-cost. This would put significant downward pressure on "essentials" while still allowing choice (nobody is stopping you from buying a house). Hypercommodification of every aspect of our lives is starting to grow tiresome and the benefits it gives ("choice" supposedly) is only realized by those who hold a decent portion of the capital.
  - saltcured 8y ago
    I think that people who argue a perpetual growth requirement are fundamentally doubting that an economy can store (sufficient) value for the future. They are rejecting that life-long earnings can be saved and invested in a person's own non-productive retirement. They are presupposing hand-to-mouth living and assigning roles to the actors in that final scene. I suppose it is true in isolation. How many years of food, energy, and medicine could you stockpile for yourself to consume in your end years? There are practical limits due to spoilage, etc. If you instead have to devise a way to keep producing for yourself, we might quibble over whether that is really retirement...? It's also easy enough to run thought experiments and demonstrate how a collapsing population has an unpleasant end-game. Like musical chairs, eventually someone loses. The last people to die will die alone, with nobody to nurse them. Before that, systems will collapse, reducing the efficiencies that survivors depend on for quality of life. But, what are all the phases in between? How long can a society sustainably function at a fixed or slowly reducing size? Could we gracefully transition to earlier modes such as functioning agrarian, hunter-gatherer, or frontier communities? Can those retro communities still enjoy technological benefits developed by their larger forebears? Or do we have to assume war, famine, and post-apocalyptic wasteland? This seems like more of a psychology test than a useful debate. We can establish our various moods and dispositions, but not prognosticate a large-scale future. At a more personal level, can't we live a good life even if we are the last one to turn out the lights? Don't we all die alone, regardless of the number of attending nurses and medical billing?
- bootsz 8y ago
  > What happens when the population and the economy are in a steady state, where we don't expect things to increase at 2% forever https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady-state_economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady-state_economy https://steadystate.org/ https://steadystate.org/
- zwkrt 8y ago
  It's almost like human health and wellness shouldn't rely on the economy!
- coliveira 8y ago
  > What happens when the population and the economy are in a steady state, where we don't expect things to increase at 2% forever This is a problem that has been studied by every serious economist that looks beyond the existing structure of capitalism. Although we don't know exact shop of the future, the answer is that capitalism as we know, and specially finance, will stop working and we will need a different economic paradigm to organize our lives.
InclinedPlane 8y ago
No, it's not. A pyramid scheme works with net zero productivity. It's just a rearrangement of resources, that's it. Life is a resource network. There is production, and consumption. Economically people contribute to the economy and are paid money which is used to "take" goods and services back out of the economy. This is very different from a pyramid scheme.
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taway9979245 8y ago
A red pill down the matrix lane it is then. https://youtu.be/VMU-YjVGiGs https://youtu.be/VMU-YjVGiGs
mrfusion 8y ago
That’s an appeal to nature argument. Humans have the capacity to be better than their nature.

caprese 8y ago

It is an effective strategy, my observation is that way more energy is expended in debating the term MLM by assuming it is a pejorative term and the potential legal ramifications Without a government stance on any particular viral campaign I typically try to avoid MLMs as I find them unattractive With government stance and intervention I notice that the only result is for people to understand exactly how to operate an MLM to avoid government intervention Most ideas simply arent self sustaining without the productivity of new participants getting diminishing returns from that idea Adding a pejorative label to that reality is arbitrary

anmorgan 8y ago
From my internet researching a while ago the main difference, and why MLMs are legal, is that an MLM sells a product, whereas a pyramid scheme sells people. That is, you can make money solely by acquiring more people who pay to be apart of it, in a pyramid scheme. I'm still not sure how I feel about MLMs. If it's actually a good product maybe it's not a bad thing, but when it is not, that's where it seems to get sketchy.
- ff317 8y ago
  Yes, but many/most nominal MLMs are effectively pyramid schemes in disguise. New entrants at the bottom rungs of the network are typically sold a "starter kit" by whomever one rung up the network recruited them. The starter kit is going to be some marketing materials and an initial inventory of product to sell. The marketing materials convince them they're getting a great deal on the wholesale value of the product and will make their money back in no time just by selling off the starter products (and then order/sell more and keep making more!), but the truth turns out to be that the upstream is banking on turning a mild profit selling the starter kit to the new member and doesn't care whether individuals ever buy the products, and the actual product doesn't sell very well to individuals because it's not a very good product. Then the only realistic way to make back the starter kit money is to sell more starter kits to another layer of idiots who think they'll be able to sell the worthless product, ad infinitum. In such a scheme there is a "product", but the vast majority of the product that's ever manufactured just changes hands through the starter-kit system between various levels of salespersons as a form of pyramid currency and almost no consumers end up buying it.

YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago

I think all of the above is very specific to higher-education in the US. I'm a PhD resarch student in a UK university and that's really not what I see from where I stand. And keep in mind that universities here too are for-pay and the tuition fees can be very high and the UK society has very much embraced free-market capitalism. And UK universities these days will take on just anyone for a PhD (see: me). But, really- Avon? I mean, come on. Or perhaps it has to do with the field the author was in? I'm not sure what that was, but in my case, nobody has ever asked me to do any sort of "lab work" at all. I have been asked to help with invigilation and TA duties, because I receive a stipend from the dept. of eng. as part of my funding, and they "expect" you to do that sort of thing if you get funding from them, but I do get paid for my trouble and even my advisor has to mark exam papers (from courses he doesn't deliver himself) once in a while. Like, honestly, if this is exploitation I don't think my university is doing it right.

tomrod 8y ago
In the US I saw engineering labs using PhDs from abroad as almost slave labor. A bit hyperbolic perhaps, but the students were not allowed to progress without the advisor's say so, and the advisors would not allow them to top-author papers they were basically sole contributing. On top of that, between their own work and lab work, they were expected to put in 60 to 80 hours a week. The point is, the power dynamics were out of whack.
- tmoot 8y ago
  This hits close to home.
- bitcoinmoney 8y ago
  If you can churn out 1 paper every 3 months doing 8-5 that’s fine. The truth is that the incentive model is based on papers you published (to be subsequently used in NSF proposals). Hence, for most people that means working their ass off to churn out papers at a decent rate. I guess you could say something else is broken — like the way conferences have super low acceptance rates?
- 8y ago

nestorD 8y ago

TLDR: A reflexion on wether graduate school is a form of pyramid scheme.

magpi3 8y ago
Academia not graduate school.

soniman 8y ago

Any decent grad department will give the grad students a tuition waiver and stipend so it's actually the opposite of a pyramid scheme. In a pyramid scheme, you pay to join the pyramid. In academia, the pyramid pays you. I spent two years in a grad department in Boston that paid me to hang out and read books and occasionally grade papers. It probably wasn't the best life decision but there wasn't any exploitation.

bitcoinmoney 8y ago
Especially for EE anc CS programs. I came from a 3rd world country and a full time job there is still worse than a 1500/month grad student pay that has opportunity for 6 digit at graduation. Just like anything in life, you have to research before jumping in.
Waterluvian 8y ago
Yeah my MSc paid for itself. The only real cost to me was two years not in the workforce.
klipt 8y ago
Is it really free given the labor they get from you? Say your labor could get you $100k from a tech company but you're getting a $20k stipend + $20k fee remission from a university to do coding instead, aren't they benefitting from underpaying you by $60k?
- hopler 8y ago
  Tech companies have more leverage. And the still obviously profit from employing you. Sure some jobs pay better than others, but that doesn't make every non-highest-paying job a pyramid scheme. The claim has no logic to it.
- dymk 8y ago
  The opportunity cost is offset by the student wanting to work in academia more than the industry. I know several grad students who know full well they’d be paid more at Google, but enjoy doing research at a lower salary far more. Money isn’t the only value you get out of a job.

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beardedwizard 8y ago

While there is more going on, the subtle comment about hustle culture resonates with me. Cheap labor exploitation called "hustling", and currently everyone seems to want to have a hustle. It's because we are getting screwed at our day jobs, folks, and those same employers are exploiting you again when you leave and start your hustle.

johnisgood 8y ago
What does exploitation mean exactly in this context? What does it mean to be exploited by an employer?
- soVeryTired 8y ago
  I guess any sort of significant power imbalance. Does your team generate good revenue for the company but you still get paid peanuts? Does your work ask for overtime but fail to allow you to take time off when you need it? Do they ask for commitment to the job, while being prepared to terminate you at a moment's notice when time gets tough?
  - johnisgood 8y ago
    Yeah, but you get into that contract voluntarily, so you sort of know what you signed up for, and regardless, you have the option to quit. This is why I do not understand the complaints.
    - adamsea 8y ago
      Mmmm if you don’t work and make money in the US you’ll be in a bad way, and since the majority of employers have the conditions described, and most job seekers have little negotiating leverage on these issues, the choice to sign the employment contract is voluntary, yes, but so much behind the circumstances and conditions of that signing is beyond the power of an individual to effect or influence through their choices. Which is why the saying “strength in numbers” is a saying.
    - 8y ago

plaidfuji 8y ago

> everything Article is just about CorePower Yoga and grad school.

hawski 8y ago
It also contains this passage: > When I first suggested that yoga teacher training was an MLM, someone rightly responded: “it feels like everything today is an MLM.” That’s what happens when an industry is fully enveloped by capitalism: When a hedge fund buys a yoga company — or when universities are figured as money-making businesses, with actual consultants hired to lead them. That's the source for the title.
- SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
  So you’re saying it’s clickbait.

OldHand2018 8y ago

> Any decent grad department will give the grad students a tuition waiver and stipend so it's actually the opposite of a pyramid scheme. If you're interested, UChicago just released a report [1] on graduate education that highlights large numbers of areas that need improvement. It is unlikely that all of these problems are specific to them. The actual report is available [2] and is about 100 pages with an additional 200 pages of appendixes that contain a LOT of data. [1] https://csl.uchicago.edu/announcement/daniel-diermeier-report-committee-graduate-education https://csl.uchicago.edu/announcement/daniel-diermeier-repor... [2] https://provost.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/documents/reports/Committee%20on%20Graduate%20Education%20Report.pdf https://provost.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/documents/r...

ryanmarsh 8y ago

I too was asked to be a teacher after maybe a couple months of classes at Core Power. Keep in mind there were a great many ordinary poses I could not do properly because of my back injuries (one of the reasons I was going in the first place). I was flattered that someone noticed my dedication. Now I feel like a fool.

bluetomcat 8y ago

Most of the economy in the so called "developed countries" is nowadays a zero-sum game between winners and losers. Seen from a macro perspective, it resembles a multi-agent system where independent agents compete to provide inessential products and services in exchange for being able to afford basic necessities like housing, food and child care. The finite resource that such companies are fighting for is people's attention and time. Some win, others lose, but the status quo is that we are sweating from work in order to live in a world with smart refrigerators, automatic garage doors and pointless baby toys. And if we had more spare time, why would we even think of that. What we really need is a change in paradigm because market forces will mostly solve only small "consumer" problems and cannot reorganise our society in a more efficient way.

jopsen 8y ago
> ...because market forces will mostly solve only small "consumer" problems and cannot reorganise our society in a more efficient way. Market forces have repeatedly reorganized our society from farms to factories and increasingly from factories to offices.. But we might need to tweak the incentives and refactor regulation.
- DataWorker 8y ago
  Silliness. Why has the 40 hour week persisted? Market forces. Climate change? Market forces. The persistence of the slave trade? Market forces. Prostitution and human trafficking, opioids, disintegration of the family, Facebook; all your good friend “market forces”.
  - coliveira 8y ago
    Exactly, worship of capitalism is a disease where the afflicted can only see the advantages of this "fantastic" system. Despite the widespread evidence that there are many problems in the world that are directly caused by market forces, with the obvious conclusion that there is nothing a priori "benign" about these market forces that are worshiped by so many.

_bxg1 8y ago

Capitalism is broken. Or rather, it breaks things.

foxhop 8y ago

My goal is to extract as much money as I can out of the tech industry, without compromising on my values. While I'm doing that I'm trying to build up a small food forest which will help me avoid the pyramid altogether. My only hope for humanity is for at least 30% of the population to do the same, but I'm not holding my breath.

cheerlessbog 8y ago
What is a food forest?
- foxhop 8y ago
  It's an agriculture practice which mimics natural forest for food production.
carapace 8y ago
That's awesome! More power to ya! I'm trying to work on ways to get people to basically do the same thing: live in ways more integrated with ecological systems. The weird thing I see is that there seems to be a lot of pent up demand, but people can't articulate what they want, so no one is selling it to them, leading to inadequate supply. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_Homes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_Homes > Village Homes is a planned community in Davis, Yolo County, California. It is designed to be ecologically sustainable by harnessing the energies and natural resources that exists in the landscape, especially stormwater and solar energy.
SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
I don’t understand. You want 30% of the population of earth to farm their own food? Does economy of scale not apply to food production?
- foxhop 8y ago
  Yes I want at least 30% of the population on Earth to farm their own food. I want the food system to become localized which will prevent a crisis which makes people starve and stops "food islands" where people in certain locations only have access to junk food and fast food.

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woah 8y ago

The argument in this article is that everything is a pyramid scheme, if by “everything” you mean postgrad humanities academia. Also rails against the evils of capitalism, using examples from a system funded by government grants and loans, and peopled by vehement anti-capitalists.

nkingsy 8y ago

Life itself is a MLM scheme. When my daughter was born, our parents all displayed an almost indescribable satisfaction. Biological MLM is called “fitness”. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitness_(biology) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitness_(biology)

qwerty456127 8y ago

> The yoga teacher recruitment model is strikingly similar to an MLM (Multi Level Marketing scheme; think Avon and Amway Whatever a business model there is, there is a difference: yoga is a real thing that actually improves your health, beauty and psyche you actually get with you wherever you go while the most of the other MLM projects are consumerist bullshit.

hawski 8y ago

> just the increasingly ambivalent structure, the ever-reproducing base This reminds me of the city from Blame! manga. Ever-growing megastructure without any thought. Without any external control, just expanding. Something that began on Earth and now is becoming a Dyson sphere. Even though there are specific people that profit from current economy, will they profit forever if things will proceed as they are? Will they remain on top when the environment will crumble around us? It certainly is a different scale, so on small scale they will win, but in the long run no-one wins.

mindfulplay 8y ago

Reminds me of the Norm MacDonald joke: "When I was a child, they told me to crush the cans, recycle and plant trees. It's for your own future. Then I grew up and 'here I am', and they said, 'not you, it's for the future generation'. I know a pyramid scheme when I see one."

Unsimplified 8y ago

Within the monetary market model, the fundamental factors are money supply and money flow. To solve poverty and ensure that everyone has basic necessities satisfied, either buy from the poor or donate to them. These are the only civil options.

aj7 8y ago

“The fault with thinking of academia as a pyramid scheme is that there’s no one at the top — just the increasingly ambivalent structure, the ever-reproducing base. You could say administration profits, or football coaches profit. But it increasingly feels like a system in which no one wins: not the students, not their parents, not the graduate students, not professors facing increased belt-tightening, axing of departments, and continual fights for whatever meager resources remain.” This is a very naive statement from a dedicated academic who has written an otherwise great, and deserves-to-be-read article. Who benefits? Administrators and tenured professors, all effectively with lifetime positions, large guaranteed pensions. To duplicate the expected cashflows, here, for a mid-careered 50-year-old, requires capital of ca. $5M. THAT’s who benefits.