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Why give free school to everyone, libraries? Clearly a rich person doesn't need those either? Public services should be public. There's extreme social value in

Why give free school to everyone, libraries? Clearly a rich person doesn't need those either? Public services should be public. There's extreme social value in equal access and you reduce an extreme amount of bureaucracy and debate in the process. >If I got free money I wouldn’t increase spending, I would reduce work. WE SHOULD ALL REDUCE WORK. Sorry for the caps but we need to collectively get into this mindset. We're more productive than ever with very little to show for it. We've been having labor outright stolen from us for decades.

yelloweyes 6y ago
Yeah like, wtf is the point of technological innovation if we're still working like crazy?
- boogies 6y ago
  To double life expectancy so we can retire?
  - aahhahahaaa 6y ago
    Ouch, that's kind of like the lottery. Sorry you worked your ass off waiting for retirement, here's some cancer.
    - luckylion 6y ago
      From that perspective, everything is a lottery. Sorry, you worked your ass off doing good things for your fellow humans, here's a tree branch falling on your head. The standard of living has improved massively. I agree wholeheartedly that there are issues (e.g. people are giving more free time, but they don't know what to do with it and engage in unhealthy habits to kill the free time they've been given), but generally, it's not even close.
  - prawn 6y ago
    Amazes me that American Presidential candidates are in their 70s and people and parties just go with it. I was shocked reading the news that Wilbur Ross was hospitalised - he has a major work role and is 82 years old. Age of retirement in Australia for that age group is 65. I understand some people just don't know how to stop or what else to do with their time, but I feel like pinning too much hope on retirement is misguided. Far better surely to be doing more living while in your prime. More likely to be physically able to enjoy it, for one thing.
- Negitivefrags 6y ago
  Hopefully you would agree that even if we are working just as hard as we were 1000 years ago, that our lives are still improved from that time.
- alexmingoia 6y ago
  You don’t need to work like crazy if you do skilled work and spend your money wisely. When I was a software engineer I took months off between jobs. I worked less than 40 hours when freelancing. However, most of my colleagues used their income to buy trappings like a mortgage, clothes, eating out, video games, drugs, new gadgets and toys, cars, their own apartment, etc. Most people choose to spend their money increasing their standard of living instead of buying time at a low standard of living. As Picasso said, “I’d like to live as a poor man with a rich man’s money.”
  - ATsch 6y ago
    > You don’t need to work like crazy if [list of privileges] Nobody should have to work like crazy
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - alexmingoia 6y ago
      If working for what I have is privileged, then that privilege is available to anyone. I didn’t graduate high school, my dad waited on tables to raise me. Get out of here with your privilege crap.
      - Afton 6y ago
        You're responding to an aggregate statistic with an anecdote. I too did not graduate high school, but now have an advanced degree and a high paying job. Claiming that that invalidates the notion of privilege is silly.
        rcar 6y ago
        Still, he literally said "do skilled work and spend your money wisely", the former implying that he focused on developing his skills, and the latter implying that he didn't live beyond his means. Hard to characterize either as some sort of undue "privilege".
- refurb 6y ago
  Higher standard of living. There is nothing stopping you from working 10 hours a week and living like a person in the 1920’s. Local doctor who will put a $1 poultice on your skin cancer, no AC, no car, 10 to a house.
  - aahhahahaaa 6y ago
    I'll say it again because apparently no one's listening. We're working more and getting paid less for that work. This isn't because of the standard of living. Standard of living can still increase while pay tracks productivity, and it does in other developed countries. This is the most frustrating HN discussion I've seen in a while. People are coming here to peddle this "quality of life" argument with zero evidence. You're not even stopping for a second to consider that the US isn't the only country in the world. If you compare the American GDP to other countries, the average individual is getting very little bang for their buck as far as quality of life goes.
    - refurb 6y ago
      But we aren’t getting paid less, we’re getting paid more, if you measure by total compensation (salary + benefits), not just cash compensation.
- tornato7 6y ago
  So we can shoot aliens in VR with our friends a thousand miles away
  - aahhahahaaa 6y ago
    This is not true. You're completely pulling this out of your ass. Your job isn't paying less and outputting more because video games exist. When cars were introduced pay didn't suddenly stop tracking productivity.
- brippalcharrid 6y ago
  Our desire to have awesome stuff and amazing experiences expands to fit the space available. People compete for social status, and they don't want to miss out on whatever's new and exciting. There's an unlimited amount of resources that we could spend on medical research (curing every medical condition, including shortness, cognitive impairments and ageing, plus enhancements/transhumanism), climate engineering/geoengineering/megastructures, space exploration/tourism/real estate and other areas of scientific research, and most of this is going to happen as a result of private-sector employees exercising their consumer purchasing power. We're curious and productive creatures; I don't think a large proportion of us are ever going to just stop and make do with whatever the state of the art was at the time.
logicchains 6y ago
>WE SHOULD ALL REDUCE WORK. >Sorry for the caps but we need to collectively get into this mindset. We're more productive than ever with very little to show for it. We've been having labor outright stolen from us for decades. Speak for yourself. Not everybody's comfortable spending most of their time lounging around doing nothing that anybody else even values enough to pay for.
- aahhahahaaa 6y ago
  The thing is... you can have the choice. Sometimes you need the choice, things can go south for any of us. The choice can also free you to take risks... it makes it easier to start a business, it makes it easier to fail. I've been literally working without an unemployment gap since I've been 14. I worked 60+ hours a week through most of my 20s. I didn't have a choice. It took me half of my life to reach financial stability and normalcy. I still get stressed about healthcare costs despite being healthy. It doesn't have to be this way for anyone. Even if you want to work all the time, most people aren't being paid appropriately for the time they put in. None of us are really experiencing the benefits of society's dramatically increased productivity.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    > None of us are really experiencing the benefits of society's dramatically increased productivity. You're just not seeing it. I remember the days of manual typewriters. Make a mistake, type it over again. Put in an envelope, mail, wait weeks for a reply. Write the letter by hand, even worse. Today, shoot off a text or email with automatic spellchecking. Cars need far less maintenance. TVs are practically free. My microwave greatly reduces meal prep time. I could go on and on.
    - robertpateii 6y ago
      Those examples save us minutes but don’t make humans more free or happier or safer. Better examples would be increased lifespans and lower infant mortality. Stuff that ties into the standard of living definition. Which is the point: our standard of living has not increased at the same rate as productivity.
tropdrop 6y ago
We're more productive than ever with very little to show for it. Agreed. "Indeed, in 2006, the top twenty per cent of earners were twice as likely to work more than fifty hours a week than the bottom twenty per cent, a reversal of historic conditions." [1] 1 - https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/you-really-dont-need-to-work-so-much https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/you-really-dont...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- rramdin 6y ago
  Doesn't that statistic imply that working more correlates with higher earnings?
- donatj 6y ago
  Hours isn't a great metric for direct comparison here. I worked 50 hours a week back when I was lead for a small company years ago. But 50 hours coding vs 50 hours working manual labor? My dad was a farm hand back in the 1950's-1970's. I'd much rather do 50 hours of my job than even 5 of his. To argue the two are comparable strictly on hours is… goofy. They're not remotely comparable. The jobs themselves have gotten better even if the hours might have gotten worse. I spend my day listening to music, watching YouTube, doing largely what I'd be doing anyway but with GitHub, Slack and a terminal open. Why do I care if it's 15 hours or 60 if I'm getting paid to do what I'd be doing anyway?
  - tropdrop 6y ago
    Doesn't it strike you as odd that you must perform the appearance of working all those 50 hours (even though, as you've just mentioned, you spend the majority of your day listening to music and watching YouTube)? And what about those of us who don't have that luxury - say, due to increasingly invasive corporate tools preventing "time theft"? Why don't we just drop the act?
jknoepfler 6y ago
but think of all the child labor we took out of the workforce when we made education free and mandatory.
- baconandeggs 6y ago
  Machines made child labor redundant. Minimum wage law made child labor unprofitable.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Minimum wage law made child labor unprofitable. Despite minimum wage, there is extensive child labor in agriculture in the US, because there is a gap in child labor law. Which suggest that minimum wage didn't make child labor obsolete, banning child labor did.
    - baconandeggs 6y ago
      >Despite minimum wage, there is extensive child labor in agriculture in the US, because there is a gap in child labor law. Which suggest that minimum wage didn't make child labor obsolete, banning child labor did. That is of course not true, because as you yourself point out, there is still child labor going on. Banning something has nothing to do with it existing, just look at drugs. Minimum wage law made child labor mostly unprofitable, is what I should have said.
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        > That is of course not true, because as you yourself point out, there is still child labor going on. In specifically the area where it wasn't banned. > Banning something has nothing to do with it existing Odd, then, that child labor has been vastly reduced in exactly the domains where it is prohibited, and not where it isn’t. > Minimum wage law made child labor mostly unprofitable, is what I should have said. Were that the case, and not prohibition being the limiting factor, you'd expect child labor to exist where minimum wage is inapplicable, but not where it is, even independent of whether it is allowed. But in agriculture, where it is prevalent and not prohibited, minimum wage applies and hasn't limited it. Yet it's not found in most of the other places it existed before being banned, and where it is, in fact, prohibited. It's prohibition, not minimum wage, that did it in. Although there is a technical sense where “minimum wage law” is the deciding factor, because it was actually the same law (though the applicability of the minimum wage and the child labor prohibition pieces differ) that implemented federal minimum wage and the child labor prohibitions and restrictions, the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.
nickff 6y ago
We have a lot to show for our increased productivity, though the 'things' may not be what you care about. Fancy televisions, nice food, great cars, and a lot more travel are the current 'mindset'. If you think people should be happy with less, you shoud try to convince them; if that fails, you can also lead a less consumption-driven lifestyle on your own! Why do you want to force me to follow your priorities?
- aahhahahaaa 6y ago
  This is false. I do not understand how so many people are coming in here peddling this theory with 0 sources. It doesn't even follow basic logic. You're positing that we're spending more while also earning less? Where's that money coming from then? It's objective that productivity has increased while pay and leisure time have decreased. This isn't a result of any increase in material goods. People are spending less because simply because they're getting paid less. In 1956 the federal minimum wage was $1 (roughly $10 adjusted for inflation). Today it's 3/4 of that at 7.25.
  - kortilla 6y ago
    Minimum wage is irrelevant in a discussion about averages. Also, you’re forgetting that increased productivity has led to decreased prices for things that used to be manual labor intensive. It’s possible to both make less on average (inflation adjusted) and have access to much nicer things. The equivalent computing power of an iPhone would have cost you millions of dollars in 1990. Food is cheaper, any automated manufacturing output is significantly cheaper, etc. When so many people point something out to you that you think “doesn’t even follow basic logic”, it usually means you’re making a bad assumption somewhere. Unless a corporation (or cartel) can monopolize an increase in productivity, society will reap the benefits through lower prices even if wages don’t increase. Competitive forces ensure that. If you’re interested in learning more, check out what happened with the mini mills and steel prices.
kortilla 6y ago
People prefer the better quality of life than what was had even in the fifties. That’s why they work more. Houses are bigger, multiple cars are had, people travel, people have elective surgeries, dental cleanings, the Internet, college educations, etc. You’re proposing that people should be happy with what we had back then by reducing output. I’d rather work full time and have the better quality of life, thanks.
- aahhahahaaa 6y ago
  This ain't it chief. People are more productive than they were in the 50s and also have lower net worths. You can work less and have a constantly increasing quality of life. They aren't diametrically opposed. Your labor is being stolen from you. Where do you think the increasing wealth gap comes from?
throwawaygh 6y ago
Literally the opposite. We do so much useless work that our productivity curve remains flat even as technology makes us extraordinarily productive at the tiny fraction of actually meaningful and necessary work
jariel 6y ago
"Public services should be public" Money is not a public service. Also, to the OP Milton Friedman's 'Negative Tax' is the same thing as UBI - in the end, 'rich people' would not get a cheque in the mail because on the whole, they'd make too much money. Also - the top 10% taxes would have to go up radically in order to pay for UBI.
- aahhahahaaa 6y ago
  The top 10% of taxes should go up radically. They've been MUCH higher in the past.
  - jariel 6y ago
    There were somewhat higher for a tiny slice of history.
baconandeggs 6y ago
We live in a planet. A planet that also has other countries. The reason people in the first world can even produce the thought of wishing for less work is because all of the heavy lifting needed for them to exist was outsourced to third world countries. The only reason you think you are so productive is because almost all your clothes, technology, medical supplies, house appliances and most of your food was produced outside the US by foreign workers; you had nothing to do with it. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR, YOUR SUPERIOR PRODUCTIVITY, OR ROBOTS. The US is living off the back of illegal miners in the third world and it tells itself "yeah, we should do less!". I am not making a point against automation, we clearly need more. But the world is so big and the people so numerous all the automation we have pales in comparison with the needs of us all. That is why the number of people working globally has increased, even with automation, not decreased.
- aahhahahaaa 6y ago
  This is not true. I'm talking about worker productivity within the US. Hour for hour we're outputting more and getting paid less. Before overseas labor you weren't less productive because you had to make your own clothes or something. That time had already long passed. I'm talking about what has happened since the 1950s, not the 1850s.
  - baconandeggs 6y ago
    In the US, in the 50s most women weren't in the labor-force. That is about half of the population.
- triceratops 6y ago
  > The reason people in the first world can even produce the thought of wishing for less work is because all of the heavy lifting needed for them to exist was outsourced to third world countries. That is why the number of people working globally has increased, even with automation, not decreased. It's not because the number of people existing globally has increased? People in poor countries didn't work at all until developed countries started shipping their work overseas? What did they all do then?

yelloweyes 6y ago

Yeah like, wtf is the point of technological innovation if we're still working like crazy?

boogies 6y ago
To double life expectancy so we can retire?
- aahhahahaaa 6y ago
  Ouch, that's kind of like the lottery. Sorry you worked your ass off waiting for retirement, here's some cancer.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    From that perspective, everything is a lottery. Sorry, you worked your ass off doing good things for your fellow humans, here's a tree branch falling on your head. The standard of living has improved massively. I agree wholeheartedly that there are issues (e.g. people are giving more free time, but they don't know what to do with it and engage in unhealthy habits to kill the free time they've been given), but generally, it's not even close.
- prawn 6y ago
  Amazes me that American Presidential candidates are in their 70s and people and parties just go with it. I was shocked reading the news that Wilbur Ross was hospitalised - he has a major work role and is 82 years old. Age of retirement in Australia for that age group is 65. I understand some people just don't know how to stop or what else to do with their time, but I feel like pinning too much hope on retirement is misguided. Far better surely to be doing more living while in your prime. More likely to be physically able to enjoy it, for one thing.
Negitivefrags 6y ago
Hopefully you would agree that even if we are working just as hard as we were 1000 years ago, that our lives are still improved from that time.
alexmingoia 6y ago
You don’t need to work like crazy if you do skilled work and spend your money wisely. When I was a software engineer I took months off between jobs. I worked less than 40 hours when freelancing. However, most of my colleagues used their income to buy trappings like a mortgage, clothes, eating out, video games, drugs, new gadgets and toys, cars, their own apartment, etc. Most people choose to spend their money increasing their standard of living instead of buying time at a low standard of living. As Picasso said, “I’d like to live as a poor man with a rich man’s money.”
- ATsch 6y ago
  > You don’t need to work like crazy if [list of privileges] Nobody should have to work like crazy
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - alexmingoia 6y ago
    If working for what I have is privileged, then that privilege is available to anyone. I didn’t graduate high school, my dad waited on tables to raise me. Get out of here with your privilege crap.
    - Afton 6y ago
      You're responding to an aggregate statistic with an anecdote. I too did not graduate high school, but now have an advanced degree and a high paying job. Claiming that that invalidates the notion of privilege is silly.
      - rcar 6y ago
        Still, he literally said "do skilled work and spend your money wisely", the former implying that he focused on developing his skills, and the latter implying that he didn't live beyond his means. Hard to characterize either as some sort of undue "privilege".
refurb 6y ago
Higher standard of living. There is nothing stopping you from working 10 hours a week and living like a person in the 1920’s. Local doctor who will put a $1 poultice on your skin cancer, no AC, no car, 10 to a house.
- aahhahahaaa 6y ago
  I'll say it again because apparently no one's listening. We're working more and getting paid less for that work. This isn't because of the standard of living. Standard of living can still increase while pay tracks productivity, and it does in other developed countries. This is the most frustrating HN discussion I've seen in a while. People are coming here to peddle this "quality of life" argument with zero evidence. You're not even stopping for a second to consider that the US isn't the only country in the world. If you compare the American GDP to other countries, the average individual is getting very little bang for their buck as far as quality of life goes.
  - refurb 6y ago
    But we aren’t getting paid less, we’re getting paid more, if you measure by total compensation (salary + benefits), not just cash compensation.
tornato7 6y ago
So we can shoot aliens in VR with our friends a thousand miles away
- aahhahahaaa 6y ago
  This is not true. You're completely pulling this out of your ass. Your job isn't paying less and outputting more because video games exist. When cars were introduced pay didn't suddenly stop tracking productivity.
brippalcharrid 6y ago
Our desire to have awesome stuff and amazing experiences expands to fit the space available. People compete for social status, and they don't want to miss out on whatever's new and exciting. There's an unlimited amount of resources that we could spend on medical research (curing every medical condition, including shortness, cognitive impairments and ageing, plus enhancements/transhumanism), climate engineering/geoengineering/megastructures, space exploration/tourism/real estate and other areas of scientific research, and most of this is going to happen as a result of private-sector employees exercising their consumer purchasing power. We're curious and productive creatures; I don't think a large proportion of us are ever going to just stop and make do with whatever the state of the art was at the time.

logicchains 6y ago

>WE SHOULD ALL REDUCE WORK. >Sorry for the caps but we need to collectively get into this mindset. We're more productive than ever with very little to show for it. We've been having labor outright stolen from us for decades. Speak for yourself. Not everybody's comfortable spending most of their time lounging around doing nothing that anybody else even values enough to pay for.

aahhahahaaa 6y ago
The thing is... you can have the choice. Sometimes you need the choice, things can go south for any of us. The choice can also free you to take risks... it makes it easier to start a business, it makes it easier to fail. I've been literally working without an unemployment gap since I've been 14. I worked 60+ hours a week through most of my 20s. I didn't have a choice. It took me half of my life to reach financial stability and normalcy. I still get stressed about healthcare costs despite being healthy. It doesn't have to be this way for anyone. Even if you want to work all the time, most people aren't being paid appropriately for the time they put in. None of us are really experiencing the benefits of society's dramatically increased productivity.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  > None of us are really experiencing the benefits of society's dramatically increased productivity. You're just not seeing it. I remember the days of manual typewriters. Make a mistake, type it over again. Put in an envelope, mail, wait weeks for a reply. Write the letter by hand, even worse. Today, shoot off a text or email with automatic spellchecking. Cars need far less maintenance. TVs are practically free. My microwave greatly reduces meal prep time. I could go on and on.
  - robertpateii 6y ago
    Those examples save us minutes but don’t make humans more free or happier or safer. Better examples would be increased lifespans and lower infant mortality. Stuff that ties into the standard of living definition. Which is the point: our standard of living has not increased at the same rate as productivity.

tropdrop 6y ago

We're more productive than ever with very little to show for it. Agreed. "Indeed, in 2006, the top twenty per cent of earners were twice as likely to work more than fifty hours a week than the bottom twenty per cent, a reversal of historic conditions." [1] 1 - https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/you-really-dont-need-to-work-so-much https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/you-really-dont...

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rramdin 6y ago
Doesn't that statistic imply that working more correlates with higher earnings?
donatj 6y ago
Hours isn't a great metric for direct comparison here. I worked 50 hours a week back when I was lead for a small company years ago. But 50 hours coding vs 50 hours working manual labor? My dad was a farm hand back in the 1950's-1970's. I'd much rather do 50 hours of my job than even 5 of his. To argue the two are comparable strictly on hours is… goofy. They're not remotely comparable. The jobs themselves have gotten better even if the hours might have gotten worse. I spend my day listening to music, watching YouTube, doing largely what I'd be doing anyway but with GitHub, Slack and a terminal open. Why do I care if it's 15 hours or 60 if I'm getting paid to do what I'd be doing anyway?
- tropdrop 6y ago
  Doesn't it strike you as odd that you must perform the appearance of working all those 50 hours (even though, as you've just mentioned, you spend the majority of your day listening to music and watching YouTube)? And what about those of us who don't have that luxury - say, due to increasingly invasive corporate tools preventing "time theft"? Why don't we just drop the act?

jknoepfler 6y ago

but think of all the child labor we took out of the workforce when we made education free and mandatory.

baconandeggs 6y ago
Machines made child labor redundant. Minimum wage law made child labor unprofitable.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Minimum wage law made child labor unprofitable. Despite minimum wage, there is extensive child labor in agriculture in the US, because there is a gap in child labor law. Which suggest that minimum wage didn't make child labor obsolete, banning child labor did.
  - baconandeggs 6y ago
    >Despite minimum wage, there is extensive child labor in agriculture in the US, because there is a gap in child labor law. Which suggest that minimum wage didn't make child labor obsolete, banning child labor did. That is of course not true, because as you yourself point out, there is still child labor going on. Banning something has nothing to do with it existing, just look at drugs. Minimum wage law made child labor mostly unprofitable, is what I should have said.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > That is of course not true, because as you yourself point out, there is still child labor going on. In specifically the area where it wasn't banned. > Banning something has nothing to do with it existing Odd, then, that child labor has been vastly reduced in exactly the domains where it is prohibited, and not where it isn’t. > Minimum wage law made child labor mostly unprofitable, is what I should have said. Were that the case, and not prohibition being the limiting factor, you'd expect child labor to exist where minimum wage is inapplicable, but not where it is, even independent of whether it is allowed. But in agriculture, where it is prevalent and not prohibited, minimum wage applies and hasn't limited it. Yet it's not found in most of the other places it existed before being banned, and where it is, in fact, prohibited. It's prohibition, not minimum wage, that did it in. Although there is a technical sense where “minimum wage law” is the deciding factor, because it was actually the same law (though the applicability of the minimum wage and the child labor prohibition pieces differ) that implemented federal minimum wage and the child labor prohibitions and restrictions, the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.

nickff 6y ago

We have a lot to show for our increased productivity, though the 'things' may not be what you care about. Fancy televisions, nice food, great cars, and a lot more travel are the current 'mindset'. If you think people should be happy with less, you shoud try to convince them; if that fails, you can also lead a less consumption-driven lifestyle on your own! Why do you want to force me to follow your priorities?

aahhahahaaa 6y ago
This is false. I do not understand how so many people are coming in here peddling this theory with 0 sources. It doesn't even follow basic logic. You're positing that we're spending more while also earning less? Where's that money coming from then? It's objective that productivity has increased while pay and leisure time have decreased. This isn't a result of any increase in material goods. People are spending less because simply because they're getting paid less. In 1956 the federal minimum wage was $1 (roughly $10 adjusted for inflation). Today it's 3/4 of that at 7.25.
- kortilla 6y ago
  Minimum wage is irrelevant in a discussion about averages. Also, you’re forgetting that increased productivity has led to decreased prices for things that used to be manual labor intensive. It’s possible to both make less on average (inflation adjusted) and have access to much nicer things. The equivalent computing power of an iPhone would have cost you millions of dollars in 1990. Food is cheaper, any automated manufacturing output is significantly cheaper, etc. When so many people point something out to you that you think “doesn’t even follow basic logic”, it usually means you’re making a bad assumption somewhere. Unless a corporation (or cartel) can monopolize an increase in productivity, society will reap the benefits through lower prices even if wages don’t increase. Competitive forces ensure that. If you’re interested in learning more, check out what happened with the mini mills and steel prices.

kortilla 6y ago

People prefer the better quality of life than what was had even in the fifties. That’s why they work more. Houses are bigger, multiple cars are had, people travel, people have elective surgeries, dental cleanings, the Internet, college educations, etc. You’re proposing that people should be happy with what we had back then by reducing output. I’d rather work full time and have the better quality of life, thanks.

aahhahahaaa 6y ago
This ain't it chief. People are more productive than they were in the 50s and also have lower net worths. You can work less and have a constantly increasing quality of life. They aren't diametrically opposed. Your labor is being stolen from you. Where do you think the increasing wealth gap comes from?

throwawaygh 6y ago

Literally the opposite. We do so much useless work that our productivity curve remains flat even as technology makes us extraordinarily productive at the tiny fraction of actually meaningful and necessary work

jariel 6y ago

"Public services should be public" Money is not a public service. Also, to the OP Milton Friedman's 'Negative Tax' is the same thing as UBI - in the end, 'rich people' would not get a cheque in the mail because on the whole, they'd make too much money. Also - the top 10% taxes would have to go up radically in order to pay for UBI.

aahhahahaaa 6y ago
The top 10% of taxes should go up radically. They've been MUCH higher in the past.
- jariel 6y ago
  There were somewhat higher for a tiny slice of history.

baconandeggs 6y ago

We live in a planet. A planet that also has other countries. The reason people in the first world can even produce the thought of wishing for less work is because all of the heavy lifting needed for them to exist was outsourced to third world countries. The only reason you think you are so productive is because almost all your clothes, technology, medical supplies, house appliances and most of your food was produced outside the US by foreign workers; you had nothing to do with it. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR, YOUR SUPERIOR PRODUCTIVITY, OR ROBOTS. The US is living off the back of illegal miners in the third world and it tells itself "yeah, we should do less!". I am not making a point against automation, we clearly need more. But the world is so big and the people so numerous all the automation we have pales in comparison with the needs of us all. That is why the number of people working globally has increased, even with automation, not decreased.

aahhahahaaa 6y ago
This is not true. I'm talking about worker productivity within the US. Hour for hour we're outputting more and getting paid less. Before overseas labor you weren't less productive because you had to make your own clothes or something. That time had already long passed. I'm talking about what has happened since the 1950s, not the 1850s.
- baconandeggs 6y ago
  In the US, in the 50s most women weren't in the labor-force. That is about half of the population.
triceratops 6y ago
> The reason people in the first world can even produce the thought of wishing for less work is because all of the heavy lifting needed for them to exist was outsourced to third world countries. That is why the number of people working globally has increased, even with automation, not decreased. It's not because the number of people existing globally has increased? People in poor countries didn't work at all until developed countries started shipping their work overseas? What did they all do then?