3 ms·

How is it a human right? How does that work?

throwaway655368 3y ago
Every human has a right to enslave three other humans and force them to build a house. When a house is finished they have to be released though to prevent infringing of their own human rights.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
  I refuse to believe that you actually believe that's how "rights" work when it comes to rights that require the labor of others to provide. Nobody can actually believe this in good faith. Children have the right to a K-12 education. Do you consider the entire public school system to purely be slaves? If I go to an emergency room, I have the right to life-saving treatments even if I can't pay. Are the doctors slaves? No, of course not. They all get paid. They're all free to quit their jobs at any time.
  - johngladtj 3y ago
    The prison-school complex is not the example you think it is Buddy
  - gottorf 3y ago
    > Nobody can actually believe this in good faith. Let's steelman GP's argument, which obviously was hyperbolic. But it's true that positive rights (or entitlements) are always paid for by the labor of others. K-12 public schools are generally majority paid for by local property taxes, and we all know what happens if you stop paying property taxes. The average American worker already pays close to quarter of their earnings in labor-related taxes[0], which doesn't include property tax, sales tax, or any other kind of tax that people pay. I think we can safely estimate that at least a third of everyone's labor is already spoken for by various layers of government; this lines up with the pre-Covid US government expenditure as a percent of GDP, which was around ~35%[1]. Of course, all of that spending was decided by a democratically-elected government and people more or less buy in to the idea that it is for the common good of the country. But as that spending increases monotonically over time, and as people share fewer things in common with each other (I mean, try putting a 22-year-old college graduate working at a nonprofit in Brooklyn and a 22-year-old journeyman electrician in Iowa City in the same room), it gets harder and harder to believe in that common good, and you start to wonder why a third of your productive output goes to things you had no direct choice over, and why the people who make those decisions get richer and richer. Half of the top ten richest counties in the country[2] are suburbs of Washington, D.C. Does that make you feel good? And guess what happens if you try to keep more of your productive output? You go to jail. That's what people mean by "slavery". Or at any rate, this is my attempt at steelmanning that argument. [0]: https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/taxing-wages-united-states.pdf https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/taxing-wages-united-stat... [1]: https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/exp@FPP/USA https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/exp@FPP/USA [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-income_counties_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-income_countie...
ryaneager 3y ago
It doesn’t work in a capitalistic society, as capitalism only benefits, those who own. It’s my belief that we create enough resources in this world for everyone to live a comfortable life but we don’t love one is because a few thousand people hoard all the resources and say we have to keep working.
- gottorf 3y ago
  > as capitalism only benefits, those who own A rising tide lifts all boats, and that is what has borne out by historical fact for capitalism. The easiest way to see how it benefits everyone, even the poorest, is to look at the median person's living standards in places that don't have "capitalism" (which in this context is shorthand for rule of law, strong private property rights, and a market economy). > a few thousand people hoard all the resources The mega-ultra-rich (the top richest few thousand people in the world, like you said) aren't piling vaults with gold, Scrooge McDuck style. Their wealth is the productive assets they own, almost always companies that generate value for consumers. Besides, the net worth of all American billionaires combined is about four and a half trillion dollars[0]. Even if you could magically confiscate all of that "money" at that same valuation (which you can't, since you cannot liquidate a stock and expect it to fetch the same price) and redistribute it to everyone, that's a whopping bonus of $13.5k to every man, woman, and child in this country. Do you seriously imagine everyone can stop working and live happy lives with that money? Put another way, $4.5T is not even five years of Social Security. What happens next? > we have to keep working I'm not really sure what you think the alternative is. As pg said, wealth is what people want[1], whether that's an AC unit to keep yourself cool if you live in a hot place, or heating oil to keep yourself warm if you live in a cool place, or a flight to Paris for a vacation, or filet mignon, or rice and beans, or a can of Coke, or a glass of wine. Every single one of those things takes labor to produce. If all rich people ceased to exist, it will not change the fact that you cannot wave a magic wand and put food on your table. [0]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1291685/us-combined-value-billionaire-wealth/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1291685/us-combined-valu... [1]: http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
seanw444 3y ago
Welcome to 2023. Everything's a human right.

Every human has a right to enslave three other humans and force them to build a house. When a house is finished they have to be released though to prevent infringing of their own human rights.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
I refuse to believe that you actually believe that's how "rights" work when it comes to rights that require the labor of others to provide. Nobody can actually believe this in good faith. Children have the right to a K-12 education. Do you consider the entire public school system to purely be slaves? If I go to an emergency room, I have the right to life-saving treatments even if I can't pay. Are the doctors slaves? No, of course not. They all get paid. They're all free to quit their jobs at any time.
- johngladtj 3y ago
  The prison-school complex is not the example you think it is Buddy
- gottorf 3y ago
  > Nobody can actually believe this in good faith. Let's steelman GP's argument, which obviously was hyperbolic. But it's true that positive rights (or entitlements) are always paid for by the labor of others. K-12 public schools are generally majority paid for by local property taxes, and we all know what happens if you stop paying property taxes. The average American worker already pays close to quarter of their earnings in labor-related taxes[0], which doesn't include property tax, sales tax, or any other kind of tax that people pay. I think we can safely estimate that at least a third of everyone's labor is already spoken for by various layers of government; this lines up with the pre-Covid US government expenditure as a percent of GDP, which was around ~35%[1]. Of course, all of that spending was decided by a democratically-elected government and people more or less buy in to the idea that it is for the common good of the country. But as that spending increases monotonically over time, and as people share fewer things in common with each other (I mean, try putting a 22-year-old college graduate working at a nonprofit in Brooklyn and a 22-year-old journeyman electrician in Iowa City in the same room), it gets harder and harder to believe in that common good, and you start to wonder why a third of your productive output goes to things you had no direct choice over, and why the people who make those decisions get richer and richer. Half of the top ten richest counties in the country[2] are suburbs of Washington, D.C. Does that make you feel good? And guess what happens if you try to keep more of your productive output? You go to jail. That's what people mean by "slavery". Or at any rate, this is my attempt at steelmanning that argument. [0]: https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/taxing-wages-united-states.pdf https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/taxing-wages-united-stat... [1]: https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/exp@FPP/USA https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/exp@FPP/USA [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-income_counties_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-income_countie...

ryaneager 3y ago

It doesn’t work in a capitalistic society, as capitalism only benefits, those who own. It’s my belief that we create enough resources in this world for everyone to live a comfortable life but we don’t love one is because a few thousand people hoard all the resources and say we have to keep working.

gottorf 3y ago
> as capitalism only benefits, those who own A rising tide lifts all boats, and that is what has borne out by historical fact for capitalism. The easiest way to see how it benefits everyone, even the poorest, is to look at the median person's living standards in places that don't have "capitalism" (which in this context is shorthand for rule of law, strong private property rights, and a market economy). > a few thousand people hoard all the resources The mega-ultra-rich (the top richest few thousand people in the world, like you said) aren't piling vaults with gold, Scrooge McDuck style. Their wealth is the productive assets they own, almost always companies that generate value for consumers. Besides, the net worth of all American billionaires combined is about four and a half trillion dollars[0]. Even if you could magically confiscate all of that "money" at that same valuation (which you can't, since you cannot liquidate a stock and expect it to fetch the same price) and redistribute it to everyone, that's a whopping bonus of $13.5k to every man, woman, and child in this country. Do you seriously imagine everyone can stop working and live happy lives with that money? Put another way, $4.5T is not even five years of Social Security. What happens next? > we have to keep working I'm not really sure what you think the alternative is. As pg said, wealth is what people want[1], whether that's an AC unit to keep yourself cool if you live in a hot place, or heating oil to keep yourself warm if you live in a cool place, or a flight to Paris for a vacation, or filet mignon, or rice and beans, or a can of Coke, or a glass of wine. Every single one of those things takes labor to produce. If all rich people ceased to exist, it will not change the fact that you cannot wave a magic wand and put food on your table. [0]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1291685/us-combined-value-billionaire-wealth/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1291685/us-combined-valu... [1]: http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html
- dragonwriter 3y ago

seanw444 3y ago

Welcome to 2023. Everything's a human right.