6 ms·

I would like to live in Equal-land, I could live there, slouch around, work the absolute minimum and avoid work, and enjoy exactly the same benefits as those wo

by maeon3 16y ago

I would like to live in Equal-land, I could live there, slouch around, work the absolute minimum and avoid work, and enjoy exactly the same benefits as those working the hardest to maintain that utopia.

rcthompson 16y ago
You're missing the point. The point is that even when everyone is actually equal, there is still some apparent wealth inequality because different people are at different stages of life.
MrDunham 16y ago
I believe that was the promise of communism - which failed due to most people's inherent desire to be better than others or to excel. Also, people realized that they could/should do the absolute minimum, as there was no benefit for working harder. They did end up adding incentives (in the USSR) which started looking more and more like capitalism.
- jshen 16y ago
  I'm so glad linus did the minimum when working on Linux, you know, since he wasn't getting paid and there was no perceivable financial gain in it. This meme that money is the only significant benefit from ones efforts should be plainly false. Why smart people believe it is beyond me.
  - ericd 16y ago
    Linus really can't be used as an example of what normal behavior would be. Noone's saying it's the only significant benefit, but for a lot of people, it is the overwhelming majority of the benefit of what they do. Programmers live in a privileged bubble compared to most.
    - jbooth 16y ago
      Of course, when we're talking about the top of the income scale, we're very specifically talking about the group of people who live in that privileged bubble.
    - jshen 16y ago
      I disagree. most people I know have some passion that they do for the love of it. Whether it's playing guitar, doing wood work, cooking, etc. Many of us here happen to have a passion for programming. But in all cases, money is not the motivator. If money were such a strong motivator video games would be a lot less popular.
      - ericd 16y ago
        Weren't we talking about livelihoods? Of course people have hobbies... For a very large percentage of people, their livelihood and their passion are not the same thing, and it's mistaken to use programmers like Linus as representative of most people or what would happen in something like Communism.
  - tjansen 16y ago
    Linux is not a good example, because many (most?) good programmers love their work and would do it without payment. But this is not the case for many (most?) other workers - they would rather do something else and only work because they have to, or because their job pays better than other alternatives.
    - jshen 16y ago
      I think you're missing the point. That's only because other people aren't usually paid to do what they enjoy. However, most of them will have a passion like cooking, wood working, gardening, competitive video games, basketball, etc. If money were such a strong motivator things like video games would be a lot less popular. Pickup basketball would be a lot less popular.
  - MrDunham 16y ago
    There's a fantastic video on What Motivates Us. Link is [video] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc . One of the things they showed an inverse correlation on amount someone gets paid and what they produce when it's anything above menial labor. Highly worth a watch.
- loewenskind 16y ago
  Ugh. The reasons Russia's communism failed is an incredibly complicated and still debated subject. Throwing it all to "people's inherent desire to be better than others or to excel" is completely wrong.
  - Andrew_Quentin 16y ago
    Is it? Isnt that what we are told? Why did it collapse then?
    - loewenskind 16y ago
      Lots of reasons. You could watch the movie "Reds" with Warren Beatty. It's just a movie, but it should be a good jumping off place to see what parts to investigate. For example, I'm sure sanctions from the rest of the world [1] from the beginning didn't do them any favors. Having a wolf in with the hens (named Stalin) was also unfortunate. [1] All terrified that revolution would kick off in their countries. Justified fear as well, it did just that in Spain.
j_baker 16y ago
No you don't. Money is a terrible motivator. If the only thing that is keeping you from working hard is the prospect of making more money, might I suggest that you've chosen the wrong career? I'm not saying that Equalland is desirable. I'm just saying that I think you're overestimating the effect money has on how productive people are.
- johngalt 16y ago
  Can I hire you? Money doesn't motivate you right? Minimum wage, no benefits and 80hr weeks are required.
  - pavel_lishin 16y ago
    If the job was something he absolutely loved doing, that might be an attractive offer. What if the job was laying in a park, testing out the effectiveness of new marijuana strains?
    - johngalt 16y ago
      It's not my point that there are no other motivations, merely that money is a primary one.
      - khafra 16y ago
        I think we can all agree that your point was not well supported. By the way, how much do you get paid for participating in HN? Your average karma is 4.4; by the community's judgement, you put some good work into commenting.
  - j_baker 16y ago
    Oh, so we're playing the reductio ad absurdum game now? Ok, I'll bite. I'll pay you $1 million to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. Wait, what was that? Money can't motivate you to do that?
    - 16y ago
loewenskind 16y ago
That's pretty short term and pessimistic thinking. If you no longer had the burden of providing for yourself and your family would you seriously not do anything productive? Do you seriously not have any projects or things you would love to work on but never will because you can't easily get paid to do so? Further, capitalism can't possibly be the solution to every problem. For example, capitalism will probably never take us "to the stars". There isn't enough money in it to cover such a massive expense. But yet, going to the stars is the only possible way to defend against the thread of a "planet killer" meteor/asteroid. The only time there would be money in it is when we knew such an event was imminent but by then it would be too late.
- kiba 16y ago
  Super-rich people interested in space exploration? Ordinary people donating money for space exploration?
  - loewenskind 16y ago
    Neither of these are examples of capitalism.
    - kiba 16y ago
      I made the wrong presumption that we should use government to funds these kind of projects. But if life problems, accidents, aren't as urgent due to capitalism solving most of our problem, I am assuming we would be thinking of large aspiration beyond a nice house and 2 1/2 kids.
      - loewenskind 16y ago
        Except we've had capitalism for thousands of years now and the majority of people who seem to have those large aspirations are psychopaths who want to rule the world (or at least the ones who manage to achieve really large scale success of their goals). I also think "due to capitalism solving most of our problem" is a bit of a stretch. It's solving most of the problems of the rich people of the west but I bet the world's hungry don't find it so grand. Especially since there is plenty of food to feed them. There's just no money in doing so.

by maeon3 16y ago

rcthompson 16y ago

You're missing the point. The point is that even when everyone is actually equal, there is still some apparent wealth inequality because different people are at different stages of life.

MrDunham 16y ago

I believe that was the promise of communism - which failed due to most people's inherent desire to be better than others or to excel. Also, people realized that they could/should do the absolute minimum, as there was no benefit for working harder. They did end up adding incentives (in the USSR) which started looking more and more like capitalism.

jshen 16y ago
I'm so glad linus did the minimum when working on Linux, you know, since he wasn't getting paid and there was no perceivable financial gain in it. This meme that money is the only significant benefit from ones efforts should be plainly false. Why smart people believe it is beyond me.
- ericd 16y ago
  Linus really can't be used as an example of what normal behavior would be. Noone's saying it's the only significant benefit, but for a lot of people, it is the overwhelming majority of the benefit of what they do. Programmers live in a privileged bubble compared to most.
  - jbooth 16y ago
    Of course, when we're talking about the top of the income scale, we're very specifically talking about the group of people who live in that privileged bubble.
  - jshen 16y ago
    I disagree. most people I know have some passion that they do for the love of it. Whether it's playing guitar, doing wood work, cooking, etc. Many of us here happen to have a passion for programming. But in all cases, money is not the motivator. If money were such a strong motivator video games would be a lot less popular.
    - ericd 16y ago
      Weren't we talking about livelihoods? Of course people have hobbies... For a very large percentage of people, their livelihood and their passion are not the same thing, and it's mistaken to use programmers like Linus as representative of most people or what would happen in something like Communism.
- tjansen 16y ago
  Linux is not a good example, because many (most?) good programmers love their work and would do it without payment. But this is not the case for many (most?) other workers - they would rather do something else and only work because they have to, or because their job pays better than other alternatives.
  - jshen 16y ago
    I think you're missing the point. That's only because other people aren't usually paid to do what they enjoy. However, most of them will have a passion like cooking, wood working, gardening, competitive video games, basketball, etc. If money were such a strong motivator things like video games would be a lot less popular. Pickup basketball would be a lot less popular.
- MrDunham 16y ago
  There's a fantastic video on What Motivates Us. Link is [video] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc . One of the things they showed an inverse correlation on amount someone gets paid and what they produce when it's anything above menial labor. Highly worth a watch.
loewenskind 16y ago
Ugh. The reasons Russia's communism failed is an incredibly complicated and still debated subject. Throwing it all to "people's inherent desire to be better than others or to excel" is completely wrong.
- Andrew_Quentin 16y ago
  Is it? Isnt that what we are told? Why did it collapse then?
  - loewenskind 16y ago
    Lots of reasons. You could watch the movie "Reds" with Warren Beatty. It's just a movie, but it should be a good jumping off place to see what parts to investigate. For example, I'm sure sanctions from the rest of the world [1] from the beginning didn't do them any favors. Having a wolf in with the hens (named Stalin) was also unfortunate. [1] All terrified that revolution would kick off in their countries. Justified fear as well, it did just that in Spain.

j_baker 16y ago

No you don't. Money is a terrible motivator. If the only thing that is keeping you from working hard is the prospect of making more money, might I suggest that you've chosen the wrong career? I'm not saying that Equalland is desirable. I'm just saying that I think you're overestimating the effect money has on how productive people are.

johngalt 16y ago
Can I hire you? Money doesn't motivate you right? Minimum wage, no benefits and 80hr weeks are required.
- pavel_lishin 16y ago
  If the job was something he absolutely loved doing, that might be an attractive offer. What if the job was laying in a park, testing out the effectiveness of new marijuana strains?
  - johngalt 16y ago
    It's not my point that there are no other motivations, merely that money is a primary one.
    - khafra 16y ago
      I think we can all agree that your point was not well supported. By the way, how much do you get paid for participating in HN? Your average karma is 4.4; by the community's judgement, you put some good work into commenting.
- j_baker 16y ago
  Oh, so we're playing the reductio ad absurdum game now? Ok, I'll bite. I'll pay you $1 million to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. Wait, what was that? Money can't motivate you to do that?
  - 16y ago

loewenskind 16y ago

That's pretty short term and pessimistic thinking. If you no longer had the burden of providing for yourself and your family would you seriously not do anything productive? Do you seriously not have any projects or things you would love to work on but never will because you can't easily get paid to do so? Further, capitalism can't possibly be the solution to every problem. For example, capitalism will probably never take us "to the stars". There isn't enough money in it to cover such a massive expense. But yet, going to the stars is the only possible way to defend against the thread of a "planet killer" meteor/asteroid. The only time there would be money in it is when we knew such an event was imminent but by then it would be too late.

kiba 16y ago
Super-rich people interested in space exploration? Ordinary people donating money for space exploration?
- loewenskind 16y ago
  Neither of these are examples of capitalism.
  - kiba 16y ago
    I made the wrong presumption that we should use government to funds these kind of projects. But if life problems, accidents, aren't as urgent due to capitalism solving most of our problem, I am assuming we would be thinking of large aspiration beyond a nice house and 2 1/2 kids.
    - loewenskind 16y ago
      Except we've had capitalism for thousands of years now and the majority of people who seem to have those large aspirations are psychopaths who want to rule the world (or at least the ones who manage to achieve really large scale success of their goals). I also think "due to capitalism solving most of our problem" is a bit of a stretch. It's solving most of the problems of the rich people of the west but I bet the world's hungry don't find it so grand. Especially since there is plenty of food to feed them. There's just no money in doing so.