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>>Nothing like studying your ass off for 16+ years, only to work your ass off for another 40+ years, taking on debt that you wind up spending a large portion of

>>Nothing like studying your ass off for 16+ years, only to work your ass off for another 40+ years, taking on debt that you wind up spending a large portion of your life repaying (while often paying more than double the original price just to service your debt), only to finally retire - old, broken and in poor health, and never enjoying much more of your life than 2-4 weeks every year... With all due respect, and I can tell from your other posts you are grateful for what you have, but this needs to be put in perspective. That 16+ years of studying your ass off is an investment someone else made in you, hoping you become a productive member of society that makes life a little bit better for someone else while earning a living for yourself along the way. There are roughly 3 billion people on this planet who are desperate to get any sort of education, let alone the education you were given, for free (before college). I get your complaints, but a 9-5 gig (or even an 8-7 one) would be considered a life of leisure and luxury for most of the world for pretty much all of history. In fact, the only time a life you are wishing you had has been common has been in the last 50 years or so in the developed world. I'd say we're pretty damn lucky. If you want to get ahead, instead of thinking you need to out-compete your rivals, I would instead focus on ways to make someone's life significantly better, then figure out how to do it for 10 people, then 1000....see where I'm going with this?

rquantz 12y ago
If you want to get ahead, instead of thinking you need to out-compete your rivals, I would instead focus on ways to make someone's life significantly better, then figure out how to do it for 10 people, then 1000....see where I'm going with this? This is a profound failure of imagination. The problem the GP is decrying is the late capitalist devaluation of humanity, and your solution is to suck it up and find a business model.
- ChuckFrank 12y ago
  Thank you for calling this out. This is not only a profound failure of the imagination, but it's the terrible source of the problem that we find ourselves in. In many ways it is the box itself, just take another pull at the slot machines of casino capitalism, and remember nothing was every promised to you, not through your education, nor through the debt that you accumulated - it's all on you, and your inability to scale fro 10 to 1000, see where I'm going?
  - bsbechtel 12y ago
    Both of you complain about a lack of imagination and then fail to offer any sort of alternative, just further complaining. Figuring out how to make someone else's life better and make a living off of it isn't a roll of the dice. It's a process of observing and learning about the world around you, coming up with ideas of how to improve something (using what you learned in your education), and offering to take action on those ideas in exchange for money. This doesn't have to be done at scale or by starting your own business. It can easily be done anywhere, but instead of scaling (starting your own business), just continuing to come up with new ways to make your boss's life easier. This doesn't have to be super innovative or use technology either. Sometimes just simple words of encouragement are all a stressed out boss may need. Higher education is an investment and comes with risk, it's not a promise to a better life. And on the other side of that coin, accumulation of debt is a promise that you are going to earn more money in the future to pay the money you borrowed back. You don't need to make more money, and you don't need to pay back your debt, just your standard of living will go down because you can't buy nice things, but you can live the life of leisure you so desire then. edit: I should have clarified, you don't need to pay back your debt by going through the process of filing bankruptcy. Yes, this affects your ability to secure further debt and buy stuff, but if you want a life of leisure earning a low income and having lots of time off, then theoretically bankruptcy is a path to your land of milk and honey.
    - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
      >Higher education is an investment and comes with risk What you have said here is not an inevitable truth of the universe. It is a component of the way your society has chosen to write its current social contract. If people do not like the social contract, it will be renegotiated: either with words or with blows.
    - rquantz 12y ago
      Head -> desk Figuring out how to make someone else's life better and make a living off of it isn't a roll of the dice. It's a process of observing and learning about the world around you, coming up with ideas... etc. It is all the things you list and a roll of the dice. It is working very very hard and also getting lucky. just continuing to come up with new ways to make your boss's life easier. This is getting back to my original point: you are thinking incredibly small. We are talking about a societal problem. The GP wrote: your two options are to be perpetually poor (basically limiting you to a life of indentured servitude), or to out-compete your rivals and achieve an upper-middle class to upper class income You do realize that what you're describing falls on the "out-compete your rivals" side of that scale, right? It isn't a rebuttal to what GP was saying, because it's just an example of it. Higher education is an investment and comes with risk And who is making that investment? In most developed countries, the state has determined it has an interest in an educated populace, and pays for people to go to college. Young people graduate debt-free, and are able to do all this innovating you're talking about. For some reason in the United States, we look to private institutions to fund education. you don't need to pay back your debt by going through the process of filing bankruptcy You realize that student loan debt is incredibly hard to discharge through bankruptcy? And Congress has made it even more difficult in the last decade. So, to clarify, in most developed countries, the state takes on the risk from education (just like health care!). In the US, who takes on the risk? Not the bank that does the lending - the government guarantees the debt! But not the government, either, because they've made it nearly impossible to discharge the debt. No, the risk falls almost entirely on the borrower, the individual in that trio that is least able to absorb the risk. but you can live the life of leisure you so desire then. This is not about leisure, it's about having the freedom to have a role as a human being separate from your role in the capitalist system. It's about not having to live your life in fear of losing what little you have, and being able to make choices that maximize factors that have nothing to do with capital. Both of you complain about a lack of imagination and then fail to offer any sort of alternative, just further complaining. This is the same argument I heard from people who supported the Iraq war during the worst of its quagmire phase. My response was that there were no good options (other than not having gone there in the first place), but that doesn't mean we shouldn't point out the problem. In this case, there isn't much an individual can do to change a society that has been withered and corrupted by corporate control. We have to live in it. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't also point out that there are better ways to live.
- cbd1984 12y ago
  > the late capitalist devaluation of humanity Nonsense. Doesn't happen.
coldtea 12y ago
>With all due respect, and I can tell from your other posts you are grateful for what you have, but this needs to be put in perspective. That 16+ years of studying your ass off is an investment someone else made in you, hoping you become a productive member of society that makes life a little bit better for someone else while earning a living for yourself along the way. So? People were investing those 16+ years of education to young people in the 50's and 60's too, and upon graduation they were able to make a much more comfortable living with less debt that present day degree holders do. >In fact, the only time a life you are wishing you had has been common has been in the last 50 years or so in the developed world. That's not totally accurate. There's this conception that the mass population lived as some kind of slaves, constantly working to the bone etc. Now, they might not have had washing machines and trucks and running water, but tons of traditional societies had much better standards of living than people give them credit for work-wise. In some of medieval Europe's agrarian communities, for example, there were over 100 days of what we'd call "bank holidays" per year. In other societies, in Africa, in Polynesia etc, the whole community more or less lazily went about their business, more like a '60s hippie commune than 19th century factory workers.
- bsbechtel 12y ago
  No one is forcing the average modern worker in the developed world to buy trucks, washing machines, and have running water. If someone chose to have the same standard of living as a medieval European peasant or African tribe member today, they could easily do so in modern day Europe or the US for costs well below the poverty line, and easily get their 100+ days of holidays you mention. The story of the Toronto Blue Jays pitcher who lives in a van comes to mind as an example of this. >>So? People were investing those 16+ years of education to young people in the 50's and 60's too, and upon graduation they were able to make a much more comfortable living with less debt that present day degree holders do. Education in the 50s and 60s cost a fraction of what it does today, even adjusted for inflation. In addition, that education gave European and American workers a unique skill set that the rest of the world didn't acquire until later on, giving those workers a competitive advantage that lasted a generation or more.
  - 12y ago
ddebernardy 12y ago
> a 9-5 gig (or even an 8-7 one) would be considered a life of leisure and luxury for most of the world for pretty much all of history. In fact, the only time a life you are wishing you had has been common has been in the last 50 years or so in the developed world. I'd say we're pretty damn lucky. 40h+ work weeks and small amounts of vacation per year actually are an aberration in history. They only appeared during the industrial revolution. Prior to that, life was rather slow-paced and leisurely compared to how people live nowadays. http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/08/29/why-a-medieval-peasant-got-more-vacation-time-than-you/ http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/08/29/why-a-medie...
Mikeb85 12y ago
> I get your complaints, but a 9-5 gig (or even an 8-7 one) would be considered a life of leisure and luxury for most of the world for pretty much all of history. In fact, the only time a life you are wishing you had has been common has been in the last 50 years or so in the developed world. I'd say we're pretty damn lucky. I make a comment on the sad state of the system of institutions and expectations that railroads people into a constant cycle of work and debt, and your best response is that "it's better than certain points in history so be thankful"? See, the point isn't that the 'system' we're a part of is unchangeable and eternal (although American politicians may argue otherwise, that it was delivered strait from the heavens along with a KJV Bible and the US Constitution), but that it's something that can be changed, and made better. And that a better pace of life does exist, today, it's real, some people do live it. > That 16+ years of studying your ass off is an investment someone else made in you It's paid forward, but if you pay taxes, raise children, etc..., it's not free; it's not 'given' to you, any more than unemployment benefits are 'given' to someone who pays into the system, or health care is 'given' to someone who pays taxes (or their health care premiums). > If you want to get ahead, instead of thinking you need to out-compete your rivals, I would instead focus on ways to make someone's life significantly better, then figure out how to do it for 10 people, then 1000....see where I'm going with this? You may not see it, but this 'scaling' of your business is an attempt to 'out-compete' your rivals. Anyhow, I'm not complaining about my lot in life, you're right, it's not bad at all (no debt to speak of, good wife, we eat well and have leisure time, school was my choice and I pay for it personally), but merely questioning the direction society is going, and whether or not there's a better alternative. You see, I'm studying economics, and a recurring theme is that consumers make personally rational decisions. In my case, it's a decision to stay here and figure out a way to pay the high cost of living, or figure out a way to pay for a lower cost of living with more leisure time. And along the way, I like to philosophise about the meaning of life, the purpose of economic systems, the financial/banking system, etc...

rquantz 12y ago

If you want to get ahead, instead of thinking you need to out-compete your rivals, I would instead focus on ways to make someone's life significantly better, then figure out how to do it for 10 people, then 1000....see where I'm going with this? This is a profound failure of imagination. The problem the GP is decrying is the late capitalist devaluation of humanity, and your solution is to suck it up and find a business model.

ChuckFrank 12y ago
Thank you for calling this out. This is not only a profound failure of the imagination, but it's the terrible source of the problem that we find ourselves in. In many ways it is the box itself, just take another pull at the slot machines of casino capitalism, and remember nothing was every promised to you, not through your education, nor through the debt that you accumulated - it's all on you, and your inability to scale fro 10 to 1000, see where I'm going?
- bsbechtel 12y ago
  Both of you complain about a lack of imagination and then fail to offer any sort of alternative, just further complaining. Figuring out how to make someone else's life better and make a living off of it isn't a roll of the dice. It's a process of observing and learning about the world around you, coming up with ideas of how to improve something (using what you learned in your education), and offering to take action on those ideas in exchange for money. This doesn't have to be done at scale or by starting your own business. It can easily be done anywhere, but instead of scaling (starting your own business), just continuing to come up with new ways to make your boss's life easier. This doesn't have to be super innovative or use technology either. Sometimes just simple words of encouragement are all a stressed out boss may need. Higher education is an investment and comes with risk, it's not a promise to a better life. And on the other side of that coin, accumulation of debt is a promise that you are going to earn more money in the future to pay the money you borrowed back. You don't need to make more money, and you don't need to pay back your debt, just your standard of living will go down because you can't buy nice things, but you can live the life of leisure you so desire then. edit: I should have clarified, you don't need to pay back your debt by going through the process of filing bankruptcy. Yes, this affects your ability to secure further debt and buy stuff, but if you want a life of leisure earning a low income and having lots of time off, then theoretically bankruptcy is a path to your land of milk and honey.
  - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
    >Higher education is an investment and comes with risk What you have said here is not an inevitable truth of the universe. It is a component of the way your society has chosen to write its current social contract. If people do not like the social contract, it will be renegotiated: either with words or with blows.
  - rquantz 12y ago
    Head -> desk Figuring out how to make someone else's life better and make a living off of it isn't a roll of the dice. It's a process of observing and learning about the world around you, coming up with ideas... etc. It is all the things you list and a roll of the dice. It is working very very hard and also getting lucky. just continuing to come up with new ways to make your boss's life easier. This is getting back to my original point: you are thinking incredibly small. We are talking about a societal problem. The GP wrote: your two options are to be perpetually poor (basically limiting you to a life of indentured servitude), or to out-compete your rivals and achieve an upper-middle class to upper class income You do realize that what you're describing falls on the "out-compete your rivals" side of that scale, right? It isn't a rebuttal to what GP was saying, because it's just an example of it. Higher education is an investment and comes with risk And who is making that investment? In most developed countries, the state has determined it has an interest in an educated populace, and pays for people to go to college. Young people graduate debt-free, and are able to do all this innovating you're talking about. For some reason in the United States, we look to private institutions to fund education. you don't need to pay back your debt by going through the process of filing bankruptcy You realize that student loan debt is incredibly hard to discharge through bankruptcy? And Congress has made it even more difficult in the last decade. So, to clarify, in most developed countries, the state takes on the risk from education (just like health care!). In the US, who takes on the risk? Not the bank that does the lending - the government guarantees the debt! But not the government, either, because they've made it nearly impossible to discharge the debt. No, the risk falls almost entirely on the borrower, the individual in that trio that is least able to absorb the risk. but you can live the life of leisure you so desire then. This is not about leisure, it's about having the freedom to have a role as a human being separate from your role in the capitalist system. It's about not having to live your life in fear of losing what little you have, and being able to make choices that maximize factors that have nothing to do with capital. Both of you complain about a lack of imagination and then fail to offer any sort of alternative, just further complaining. This is the same argument I heard from people who supported the Iraq war during the worst of its quagmire phase. My response was that there were no good options (other than not having gone there in the first place), but that doesn't mean we shouldn't point out the problem. In this case, there isn't much an individual can do to change a society that has been withered and corrupted by corporate control. We have to live in it. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't also point out that there are better ways to live.
cbd1984 12y ago
> the late capitalist devaluation of humanity Nonsense. Doesn't happen.

coldtea 12y ago

>With all due respect, and I can tell from your other posts you are grateful for what you have, but this needs to be put in perspective. That 16+ years of studying your ass off is an investment someone else made in you, hoping you become a productive member of society that makes life a little bit better for someone else while earning a living for yourself along the way. So? People were investing those 16+ years of education to young people in the 50's and 60's too, and upon graduation they were able to make a much more comfortable living with less debt that present day degree holders do. >In fact, the only time a life you are wishing you had has been common has been in the last 50 years or so in the developed world. That's not totally accurate. There's this conception that the mass population lived as some kind of slaves, constantly working to the bone etc. Now, they might not have had washing machines and trucks and running water, but tons of traditional societies had much better standards of living than people give them credit for work-wise. In some of medieval Europe's agrarian communities, for example, there were over 100 days of what we'd call "bank holidays" per year. In other societies, in Africa, in Polynesia etc, the whole community more or less lazily went about their business, more like a '60s hippie commune than 19th century factory workers.

bsbechtel 12y ago
No one is forcing the average modern worker in the developed world to buy trucks, washing machines, and have running water. If someone chose to have the same standard of living as a medieval European peasant or African tribe member today, they could easily do so in modern day Europe or the US for costs well below the poverty line, and easily get their 100+ days of holidays you mention. The story of the Toronto Blue Jays pitcher who lives in a van comes to mind as an example of this. >>So? People were investing those 16+ years of education to young people in the 50's and 60's too, and upon graduation they were able to make a much more comfortable living with less debt that present day degree holders do. Education in the 50s and 60s cost a fraction of what it does today, even adjusted for inflation. In addition, that education gave European and American workers a unique skill set that the rest of the world didn't acquire until later on, giving those workers a competitive advantage that lasted a generation or more.
- 12y ago

ddebernardy 12y ago

> a 9-5 gig (or even an 8-7 one) would be considered a life of leisure and luxury for most of the world for pretty much all of history. In fact, the only time a life you are wishing you had has been common has been in the last 50 years or so in the developed world. I'd say we're pretty damn lucky. 40h+ work weeks and small amounts of vacation per year actually are an aberration in history. They only appeared during the industrial revolution. Prior to that, life was rather slow-paced and leisurely compared to how people live nowadays. http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/08/29/why-a-medieval-peasant-got-more-vacation-time-than-you/ http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/08/29/why-a-medie...

Mikeb85 12y ago

> I get your complaints, but a 9-5 gig (or even an 8-7 one) would be considered a life of leisure and luxury for most of the world for pretty much all of history. In fact, the only time a life you are wishing you had has been common has been in the last 50 years or so in the developed world. I'd say we're pretty damn lucky. I make a comment on the sad state of the system of institutions and expectations that railroads people into a constant cycle of work and debt, and your best response is that "it's better than certain points in history so be thankful"? See, the point isn't that the 'system' we're a part of is unchangeable and eternal (although American politicians may argue otherwise, that it was delivered strait from the heavens along with a KJV Bible and the US Constitution), but that it's something that can be changed, and made better. And that a better pace of life does exist, today, it's real, some people do live it. > That 16+ years of studying your ass off is an investment someone else made in you It's paid forward, but if you pay taxes, raise children, etc..., it's not free; it's not 'given' to you, any more than unemployment benefits are 'given' to someone who pays into the system, or health care is 'given' to someone who pays taxes (or their health care premiums). > If you want to get ahead, instead of thinking you need to out-compete your rivals, I would instead focus on ways to make someone's life significantly better, then figure out how to do it for 10 people, then 1000....see where I'm going with this? You may not see it, but this 'scaling' of your business is an attempt to 'out-compete' your rivals. Anyhow, I'm not complaining about my lot in life, you're right, it's not bad at all (no debt to speak of, good wife, we eat well and have leisure time, school was my choice and I pay for it personally), but merely questioning the direction society is going, and whether or not there's a better alternative. You see, I'm studying economics, and a recurring theme is that consumers make personally rational decisions. In my case, it's a decision to stay here and figure out a way to pay the high cost of living, or figure out a way to pay for a lower cost of living with more leisure time. And along the way, I like to philosophise about the meaning of life, the purpose of economic systems, the financial/banking system, etc...