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we're going to have to undertake a huge cultural shift and accept a large XX% of the populace just sitting around, vaping and playing video games all day I don

by xyzzyz 7y ago

we're going to have to undertake a huge cultural shift and accept a large XX% of the populace just sitting around, vaping and playing video games all day I don't think most people care too much about that. Unlike communist states which forced people to work, even if the job was bullshit, this is a free country, and if someone wants to sit around doing nothing useful all day, they are perfectly welcome to do so. What the people do care about though is when the government takes their money that they earned through their work and gives it to people who sit all day vaping and playing video games, so that they can keep enjoying their leisurely lifestyle. This is blatant unfairness, being punished for working and rewarded for not working.

downerending 7y ago
I care a lot more about the social effects than the "taking my money" part. Having lived in areas with very high unemployment rates, there's not much good to say about them.
- xyzzyz 7y ago
  > Having lived in areas with very high unemployment rates, there's not much good to say about them. Indeed, and for this precise reason incentivizing unemployment by supporting the vaping and video game habits of the unemployed is exceedingly bad social policy. Suppose government didn't do redistributive welfare. If you're a typical HN user, you'd probably then end up with tens of thousands of extra dollars a year saved on taxes. Would you then use these tens of thousands of dollars to help your own neighbors enjoy life of vaping and playing video games?
  - downerending 7y ago
    I'm not a typical HN user. I probably earn less than 70% of you, and most of my salary goes straight to alimony. Taxes take half of the rest. It's not that those taxes don't sting for me--they surely do--but rather that I think the social effects of worklessness will be huge. It wouldn't take that much for the US to drop into the second world.
gknoy 7y ago
> I don't think most people care too much about that I feel like a LOT of people care strongly about this. Almost all of our national dialogue about immigrants, taxpayer-funded healthcare, etc, is centered around how unfair it is for Other People to get Free Stuff. The idea that we could _build housing and give it to homeless people_, or just pay for everyone's basic healthcare needs (even if you could still get better by paying more), raises the ire of a significant portion of the population here. Our country is in love with the idea that if you fail, it was because you made mistakes, and _deserve to be punished_ for them. (Never mind that often times, people go bankrupt because of unplanned medical issues, etc.)
- xyzzyz 7y ago
  > The idea that we could _build housing and give it to homeless people_, or just pay for everyone's basic healthcare needs (even if you could still get better by paying more), raises the ire of a significant portion of the population here. Does that surprise you that people who earned their own houses and their own healthcare through their own work resent the idea of skimming some of the fruits of their labor and giving them to people who didn't do so? Look, this thread started with suggestion that "we're going to have to undertake a huge cultural shift and accept a large XX% of the populace just sitting around, vaping and playing video games all day". I don't like this bait and switch, where first I'm forced to support people who just want to live life of leisure, and when I complain about that, I get slandered by suggestions that I want to _punish_ unlucky chaps with medical bankruptcies.
  - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    It surprises me that people actually believe the lie that you're more likely to get rich by "hard work" than by skimming the fruits of other people's labour. If you want a comfortable life of leisure then skimming is the way to do it. And it's socially approved, in the US at least. Speculate on and/or rent out property, own stocks, profit from tiny pointless loopholes in money markets, become a monopolist, or work for one of the huge bureaucratic IT monopolies, even scam gullible VCs and investors - all good well-paid "hard work" you can do with a clear conscience.
  - 7y ago
mac01021 7y ago
> This is blatant unfairness, being punished for working and rewarded for not working. It's not (not always) blatantly unfair. I can earn lots of money by working because I live in a society, governed by a body of laws, which has provided tremendous value to me in the form of educational opportunities and an extremely specialized labor force. Our shared civilization also constrains my behavior in myriad ways (I can't just go out and kill animals for food or harvest natural resources wherever I want, for example, and I have to share the limited space on our planet with a lot more people) but, for me, the benefits far outweigh the costs. But if someone finds themselves in a position where the constraints imposed by civilization outweigh the benefits to them, then it's unfair for society not to help them out. Ideally, we should all be reimbursed by our shared civilization for the loss of our natural inheritance (our right to live off the land, etc), with society providing the same reimbursement to each member. If people are unable (or just unwilling) to work for additional income beyond that, I won't feel exploited. It'll just be me paying my fair share for the benefit I get at their expense.

by xyzzyz 7y ago

downerending 7y ago

I care a lot more about the social effects than the "taking my money" part. Having lived in areas with very high unemployment rates, there's not much good to say about them.

xyzzyz 7y ago
> Having lived in areas with very high unemployment rates, there's not much good to say about them. Indeed, and for this precise reason incentivizing unemployment by supporting the vaping and video game habits of the unemployed is exceedingly bad social policy. Suppose government didn't do redistributive welfare. If you're a typical HN user, you'd probably then end up with tens of thousands of extra dollars a year saved on taxes. Would you then use these tens of thousands of dollars to help your own neighbors enjoy life of vaping and playing video games?
- downerending 7y ago
  I'm not a typical HN user. I probably earn less than 70% of you, and most of my salary goes straight to alimony. Taxes take half of the rest. It's not that those taxes don't sting for me--they surely do--but rather that I think the social effects of worklessness will be huge. It wouldn't take that much for the US to drop into the second world.

gknoy 7y ago

> I don't think most people care too much about that I feel like a LOT of people care strongly about this. Almost all of our national dialogue about immigrants, taxpayer-funded healthcare, etc, is centered around how unfair it is for Other People to get Free Stuff. The idea that we could _build housing and give it to homeless people_, or just pay for everyone's basic healthcare needs (even if you could still get better by paying more), raises the ire of a significant portion of the population here. Our country is in love with the idea that if you fail, it was because you made mistakes, and _deserve to be punished_ for them. (Never mind that often times, people go bankrupt because of unplanned medical issues, etc.)

xyzzyz 7y ago
> The idea that we could _build housing and give it to homeless people_, or just pay for everyone's basic healthcare needs (even if you could still get better by paying more), raises the ire of a significant portion of the population here. Does that surprise you that people who earned their own houses and their own healthcare through their own work resent the idea of skimming some of the fruits of their labor and giving them to people who didn't do so? Look, this thread started with suggestion that "we're going to have to undertake a huge cultural shift and accept a large XX% of the populace just sitting around, vaping and playing video games all day". I don't like this bait and switch, where first I'm forced to support people who just want to live life of leisure, and when I complain about that, I get slandered by suggestions that I want to _punish_ unlucky chaps with medical bankruptcies.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
  It surprises me that people actually believe the lie that you're more likely to get rich by "hard work" than by skimming the fruits of other people's labour. If you want a comfortable life of leisure then skimming is the way to do it. And it's socially approved, in the US at least. Speculate on and/or rent out property, own stocks, profit from tiny pointless loopholes in money markets, become a monopolist, or work for one of the huge bureaucratic IT monopolies, even scam gullible VCs and investors - all good well-paid "hard work" you can do with a clear conscience.
- 7y ago

mac01021 7y ago

> This is blatant unfairness, being punished for working and rewarded for not working. It's not (not always) blatantly unfair. I can earn lots of money by working because I live in a society, governed by a body of laws, which has provided tremendous value to me in the form of educational opportunities and an extremely specialized labor force. Our shared civilization also constrains my behavior in myriad ways (I can't just go out and kill animals for food or harvest natural resources wherever I want, for example, and I have to share the limited space on our planet with a lot more people) but, for me, the benefits far outweigh the costs. But if someone finds themselves in a position where the constraints imposed by civilization outweigh the benefits to them, then it's unfair for society not to help them out. Ideally, we should all be reimbursed by our shared civilization for the loss of our natural inheritance (our right to live off the land, etc), with society providing the same reimbursement to each member. If people are unable (or just unwilling) to work for additional income beyond that, I won't feel exploited. It'll just be me paying my fair share for the benefit I get at their expense.