PhD...Ehh

[ProxyAmenRa]

And so why do you continue? Why do you keep returning to boast the fact that you are incapable of comprehending the discussion? You clearly have nothing to add to it besides reiterating your tired old strawmen ("basic complaint that life does not go the way you want it to") (which you can no longer claim ignorance for as it has been repeatedly stated in no uncertain terms that that is not the point), and condescension. Neither are welcome.

People quote me so I return. I shall not be impolite and not answer someone.

Incapable of understanding the discussion? When conveying a message, you must always tailor your message to your audience. For example, if you mention a term such as 'social justice', it has underlying connotations which are going to remain unbeknown to people who have not had experience with that type of language. When I read the term, it leads me to ask the question 'what is your perception of what is just and unjust?' I opened the floor for the term to be explained many times but no one had the courtesy to act.

I opened the floor for you to put forward your standards of categorisation and determination of what is dignified work and suitable work. No one put forward any standards. I can only conclude that you have not thoroughly thought this through.

What is left? Childish complaints about profit and complaints about working. Well, profits are a sign that you're producing what people want. In addition, most people generally don't like working. They see it as a means to attain an end.

My dear, I am not here to be condescending. It is only a secondary motive. I am here to understand and pose difficult questions that need to be answered.

 

[pernoctator]

I opened the floor for you to put forward your standards of categorisation and determination of what is dignified work and suitable work. No one put forward any standards. I can only conclude that you have not thoroughly thought this through.

What you did was give three examples and ask whether they were, quote: "compatible to [highlight]my[/highlight] highest skills/talents/traits". I obviously cannot answer that because I am not you. I gave you the real answer, but you scoffed because it didn't fit into the little box you were hoping for. It's this very obsession with finding a single "standard" to manage a world of individuals that got us into the mess in the first place.

What is left? Childish complaints about profit and complaints about working. Well, profits are a sign that you're producing what people want. In addition, most people generally don't like working. They see it as a means to attain an end.

I could respond to this with quotes from the thread again, but it's become very clear how much more you value your prejudices over reality. I will simply ask you to please stop repeating them.

My dear, I am not here to be condescending.

And yet you worded that sentence thus.

I am here to understand

No you aren't. You already admitted that this is no longer your interest, if it ever was:

Spoiler

I stopped using my power of empathy. I stopped putting myself in your (plural) shoes and trying to replicate how you think so that I can understand your arguments.

 

[Pistoli]

Fear and it's virtual origins are to blame for unhappiness. Our conscious or "the little voice in our head" tells us how to achieve happiness. Following the directions of your conscious will only lead you to a content state. No matter what the voice tells you, if you are brave enough to listen, no matter what you are told, you will achieve happiness.
Some people's inner voice tells them to ask their boss for a raise, others inner voice may tell them to go on a killing spree. Either way, if you listen to your inner voice you will receive satisfaction.
Fear, prevents you to listen to that voice,, the fear of rejection from your boss prevents you from asking for a raise, the fear of imprisonment or death prevents you from going on a killing spree.
Treating fear like a disease or viral infection or, an unwanted desire could help you listen and follow your inner voice.

 

[snafupants]

Fear and it's virtual origins are to blame for unhappiness. Our conscious or "the little voice in our head" tells us how to achieve happiness. Following the directions of your conscious will only lead you to a content state. No matter what the voice tells you, if you are brave enough to listen, no matter what you are told, you will achieve happiness.
Some people's inner voice tells them to ask their boss for a raise, others inner voice may tell them to go on a killing spree. Either way, if you listen to your inner voice you will receive satisfaction.
Fear, prevents you to listen to that voice,, the fear of rejection from your boss prevents you from asking for a raise, the fear of imprisonment or death prevents you from going on a killing spree.
Treating fear like a disease or viral infection or, an unwanted desire could help you listen and follow your inner voice.

I am in love with this post.

 

[Philosophyking87]

Childish complaints about profit and complaints about working.

1. While capitalism does have virtues, and while profits do generally tend to lead to very positive results, there are also vices, and profits can sometimes lead to very negative results (e.g., mining employers ignoring costly safety measures to keep up profits, or health insurance companies rewarding employees who deny coverage to dying people the company view as "liabilities," or when judges campaign for election with handsome contributions from big corporations, only to end up in their pockets for a little extra cash).
   
   
2. You continue with an old straw man. The idea of "working" is not the issue; the issue is the state of our labor system. Those are two very different things.

Well, profits are a sign that you're producing what people want.

Not always. Again, in theory profit is a very good idea that we would like to think always indicates valuable production. However, in the real world -- in practice -- profits sometimes come from shady, unethical choices that actually harm people rather than help them (as the few examples I gave above demonstrate).

In addition, most people generally don't like working. They see it as a means to attain an end.

Since this is based on a straw man, it's invalid.
Again, the issue isn't about "not liking the idea of work."
This issue lies with the way we go about distributing work duties, how we reward certain forms of labor, and what social value we place on various goods/services.

As such, this problem is much more philosophical than simply "liking or not liking the very idea of work." There's social/psychological factors to consider, ethical notions to consider, and existential notions to consider. The issue lies in what is truly just and proper, as opposed to "what just is or is not the case." Hence, what "should be in the ideal sense."

So unless you've got really great philosophical answers to the many social/ethical dilemmas which exist in today's system of labor and work (and there are many), you really don't have anything to say on the matter at all.

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

What you did was give three examples and ask whether they were, quote: "compatible to [highlight]my[/highlight] highest skills/talents/traits". I obviously cannot answer that because I am not you. I gave you the real answer, but you scoffed because it didn't fit into the little box you were hoping for.

Now we're getting closer to the heart of the matter. Of course you can not answer this for me. You can not answer this for anyone apart from yourself. Each individual has their own hopes, dreams, goals, aspirations and ends. Each individual has their own cognitive faculties and they will use them as they see fit.

It's this very obsession with finding a single "standard" to manage a world of individuals that got us into the mess in the first place.

I have a standard I uphold in more own life but I do not ever dream of forcing my own standards on others. With that said, I will act to challenge anyone that deems themselves as master of all. Those who believe that such self-appointed roles were granted to them by some special right created by their mere existence. Being blunt, you are not special.

I could respond to this with quotes from the thread again, but it's become very clear how much more you value your prejudices over reality. I will simply ask you to please stop repeating them.

I would love you to provide quotes. The previous set of quotes were simply referred to I constructing a strawman argument. I have opened the floor for your arguments to be restrated concisely and ostensibly. I must admit that so far I have not read an intelligible argument. Please forgive me if my understanding of what you're trying to convey can be considered a strawman.

And yet you worded that sentence thus.

'Dear' is a term of endearment. My regretful apologies for being polite.

No you aren't. You already admitted that this is no longer your interest, if it ever was:

It was mentally exhausting emulating thought patterns to produce underlying assumptions to enable a result that coincided with what you have been arguing. This reminded me that the onus is not I to convey your arguments in a manner which caters to the audience. The onus is in fact on the actor that wishes to conduct a conveyance to do so.

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

I think you are now acknoweldging that people having a poor match between innate skills aptitude and possible jobs is a problem for someone (most people actually)

But it is a pity if "get over it" is the best type of advice you can provide.

We can ask why. We can think how it could be different. We can start to act to make it different for future generations.

Do people not already do this? Did the industrial revolution not plant the seeds of capital investment that led to greater productive output to lift the standards of living of society as a whole? Did it not create the wealth to shift the nature of work of from working 16 hours a day, seven days a week, toiling on the land to plant enough crops so you could survive the winter? Before you attempt to spurt nonsense I shall inform that these questions are rhetorical. I already know the answers.

I am very wary of what possible solutions you can manifest to deal with your asserted problems.

I implied what I meant and wrote: we should use mixed strategies and allocate a few resources on strategies which seem suboptimal at the moment.

How did you determine a suboptimal allocation of resources?

Even if your valuation of philosophy is zero current value, the society should still invest a little bit on it, because it can not possibly know the future value of philosophical work done today. Not with markets, not with any existing mechanisms.

My personal valuation of philosophy is high. My personal valuation of philosophers is low.

Now we can tell that society does not value philosophers highly because when you perform the economic calculations, specialization in such a vocation is at a great loss. This is even after wealth is expropriated from people to pay for their existence. Ha! Ergo, philosophers are not wise enough to know that society does not value their services.

If we had the ability of precognition, the market would be in equilibrium. There would be not profits and losses. Philosophy would reach its equilibrium price. Sadly, we don't have this ability. To remedy this, there is this price determination mechanism called 'speculation'. It is the act whereby people take information known at the present point in time, engage in critical thinking and shift resources where they believe society will value them in the future.

Fundamental difference being they divert their resources and hence bear the ramifications of doing so. You wish to divert other people's wealth and will not bear the consequences of a malinvestment. What make you so great that you have the supposed right to over-ride others' valuations of goods and services?

A couple of examples of historical mistakes of under-evaluation

" Van Gogh's works are among the world's most expensive paintings ever sold, as estimated from auctions and private sales. Those sold for over $100 million (today's equivalent) "
"The Red Vineyard is an oil painting by the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, executed on a privately-primed Toile de 30 piece of burlap in early November 1888. It was supposedly the only piece sold by the artist while he was alive.
and sold for 400 Francs (equal to about $1,000-1,050 today)"

"We, writers, painters, sculptors, architects and passionate devotees of the hitherto untouched beauty of Paris, protest with all our strength, with all our indignation in the name of slighted French taste, against the erection…of this useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower … To bring our arguments home, imagine for a moment a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack, crushing under its barbaric bulk Notre Dame, the Tour Saint-Jacques, the Louvre, the Dome of les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe, all of our humiliated monuments will disappear in this ghastly dream. And for twenty years … we shall see stretching like a blot of ink the hateful shadow of the hateful column of bolted sheet metal"

I care not for not for people's valuations of goods and services. That is their prerogative.

I believe I did understand what you meant. It is just that for me "sufficiently dignified work" directly contrast with things which are not dignifying, i.e. makes people lose their dignity. Non dignifying directly makes me think of "jobs" like prostitution or drug dealer.
In contrast, I do think jobs like being waiter or doing cleaning are dignifying ( in the sense of providing dignity, not in the sense of raising status).
But those types of jobs are certainly not empowering jobs. They do not lead to the self-actualization of the employee, and they are mostly about repetitive tasks.

I will quote some other passages you wrote throughout the thread soon ( I just don't want make it too long for now).

What makes you think that costs of such a personal pursuit as self-actualization should be borne by others and not the individual?

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

1. While capitalism does have virtues, and while profits do generally tend to lead to very positive results, there are also vices, and profits can sometimes lead to very negative results (e.g., mining employers ignoring costly safety measures to keep up profits, or health insurance companies rewarding employees who deny coverage to dying people the company view as "liabilities," or when judges campaign for election with handsome contributions from big corporations, only to end up in their pockets for a little extra cash).

You mention the term capitalism quite an amount, please define it.

Profits did not lead to 'employers ignoring costly safety measures'. Safety measures or other activities are a part of an economic calculation involved when someone is deciding to invest. It is up to individuals to decide whether or not they wish to subject themselves to such circumstances. If they deem that it is unsafe, they have ever right to withdraw their labor. People even have the right to do this en mass.

Not always. Again, in theory profit is a very good idea that we would like to think always indicates valuable production. However, in the real world -- in practice -- profits sometimes come from shady, unethical choices that actually harm people rather than help them (as the few examples I gave above demonstrate).

No, in the real world profits is the result of revenue being less than costs. Profit in turn is used by the market to structure production to what people value. Your demonization of profit is nonsensical because without this price signal, the market would not be able to adequately allocate resources to what people value. The implicit goal, to remove profit, would result in disastrous consequences. The rational allocation of resources in society would cease.

The shady and unethical choices that individuals make is their own prerogative. One would hope people will make the right choices ie. making your work place safe for employees. It must be stated that individuals are capable of making their own decisions on whether or not to subject themselves to a situation. As for real-world problems, there are a whole host of reasons why these occur.

Since this is based on a straw man, it's invalid.
Again, the issue isn't about "not liking the idea of work."
This issue lies with the way we go about distributing work duties, how we reward certain forms of labor, and what social value we place on various goods/services.

You have not put forward any intelligible arguments.

As such, this problem is much more philosophical than simply "liking or not liking the very idea of work." There's social/psychological factors to consider, ethical notions to consider, and existential notions to consider. The issue lies in what is truly just and proper, as opposed to "what just is or is not the case." Hence, what "should be in the ideal sense."

Put forward your arguments.

So unless you've got really great philosophical answers to the many social/ethical dilemmas which exist in today's system of labor and work (and there are many), you really don't have anything to say on the matter at all.

Excuse me? You were the one attempting to outline problems. The onus is on you. So far your accomplishment has been complaining that people have to sometimes do things that they don't like and the childish demonization of profits.

I wondering when you will put forward an intelligible argument.

 

[pernoctator]

Now we're getting closer to the heart of the matter. Of course you can not answer this for me. You can not answer this for anyone apart from yourself. Each individual has their own hopes, dreams, goals, aspirations and ends. Each individual has their own cognitive faculties and they will use them as they see fit.

Yes, we are getting closer to the point.

I have a standard I uphold in more own life but I do not ever dream of forcing my own standards on others. With that said, I will act to challenge anyone that deems themselves as master of all. Those who believe that such self-appointed roles were granted to them by some special right created by their mere existence. Being blunt, you are not special.

Forcing personal standards on others? Master of all? Self-appointed? Special? Where did any of this come from? You appear to be arguing with no one but yourself again.

I would love you to provide quotes. The previous set of quotes were simply referred to I constructing a strawman argument. I have opened the floor for your arguments to be restrated concisely and ostensibly. I must admit that so far I have not read an intelligible argument. Please forgive me if my understanding of what you're trying to convey can be considered a strawman.

Again you can't claim ignorance; the fact that you are aware we referred to it as a strawman means at the very least that you know it's a misinterpretation. As such it should be eliminated from your stock of potential conclusions. Continued confusion is no excuse to fall back to pretending it was correct. That achieves nothing.

When someone clearly says your assumptions are wrong, as in "You did not properly read my posts if you think this is the case" (post #73), the proper response is not to carry on arguing as though it is the case. That only wastes everyone's time, and I don't see what purpose you could have in doing so other than to fool casual readers into thinking you have a strong case by distorting the topic.

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

Forcing personal standards on others? Master of all? Self-appointed? Special? Where did any of this come from? You appear to be arguing with no one but yourself again.

I know who I am referring to. It is not you.

You can assume I don't know who I refer to and render yourself to be a person that argues with a madman.

Again you can't claim ignorance; the fact that you are aware we referred to it as a strawman means at the very least that you know it's a misinterpretation. As such it should be eliminated from your stock of potential conclusions. Continued confusion is no excuse to fall back to pretending it was correct. That achieves nothing.

Yes, I do know that you have said my understanding is different from what you are attempting to convey. In response I have opened the floor for you and others to put forward a concise and ostensible argument. Since you have not done so, I can only assume that my interpretation is the correct one.

I have read post 73 a few times. It outlines two problems:

1. Lack of dignified work.
2. Lack of work that tailors to the traits/skills of workers.

Ok, what are the reasons behind why these problems are problems?

 

[pernoctator]

I know who I am referring to. It is not you.

You can assume I don't know who I refer to and render yourself to be a person that argues with a madman.

I don't assume that you don't know who you are arguing with. I assume that who you are arguing with is expressing none of the sentiments you are arguing against, and so in effect you are having a conversation inside your head.

To argue with the madman would be to validate those sentiments. I'm not doing that; I'm asking you where you got those ideas from. You still have not answered that question.

Yes, I do know that you have said my understanding is different from what you are attempting to convey. In response I have opened the floor for you and others to put forward a concise and ostensible argument. [highlight]Since you have not done so, I can only assume that my interpretation is the correct one.[/highlight]

Nonsense. If the only idea remaining is the one that has been identified as incorrect, the sensible conclusion is not to rewind and pretend it's correct again. The only conclusion left to you would be "I don't have a clue."

1. Lack of dignified work.
2. Lack of work that tailors to the traits/skills of workers.

Ok, what are the reasons behind why these problems are problems?

If all work were tailored to the traits of workers, would it be less efficient, or more?

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

I don't assume that you don't know who you are arguing with. I assume that who you are arguing with is expressing none of the sentiments you are arguing against, and so in effect you are having a conversation inside your head.

To argue with the madman would be to validate those sentiments. I'm not doing that; I'm asking you where you got those ideas from. You still have not answered that question.

Over the years I have encountered types of people who believe themselves to be special in such a way to deem that other should be subservient to them. That their own value judgements based on what ever reasons should override the value judgements of others. They will act in such a way to create fallacious reasons why people should surrender to them. Many people in this thread seem to be of this nature.

Nonsense. If the only idea remaining is the one that has been identified as incorrect, the sensible conclusion is not to rewind and pretend it's correct again. The only conclusion left to you would be "I don't have a clue."

Yes, you're correct. I don't have the information to assume what I have assumed.

Why have you not put forward a concise and ostensible argument?

If all work were tailored to the traits of workers, would it be less efficient, or more?

Efficient in what respect? As an end in itself?

 

[Philosophyking87]

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

Well then, I thank you for your participation. Hopefully in the future when you're advocating or conveying ideas and/or arguments you will present them in a in a concise and ostensible manner. Additionally, you should underpin what you're trying to convey with reason, logic, evidence and/or arguments from first principles.

Cheerio,

Proxy

 

[Pistoli]

Over the years I have encountered types of people who believe themselves to be special in such a way to deem that other should be subservient to them. That their own value judgements based on what ever reasons should override the value judgements of others. They will act in such a way to create fallacious reasons why people should surrender to them. Many people in this thread seem to be of this nature.

I am so bad about this. I think this is because INTP's see rules, laws, theories, philosophies or, anything else "set in stone" to be potentially incorrect or requiring further thought..... crap, I did it again.

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

I am so bad about this. I think this is because INTP's see rules, laws, theories, philosophies or, anything else "set in stone" to be potentially incorrect or requiring further thought..... crap, I did it again.

I forgive you this time. Do it again and I may just have to be impolite.

 

[Pistoli]

Proxy, do you think, in a debate between two people, is it possible that a "stalemate" can be the only possible outcome. Like a person's physio-neurological and/or bio-neurological condition will not allow an idea be conveyed or registered? No matter who is right or wrong, do you think there are certain concepts that simply cannot be processed due the physical and/or chemical composition of one's brain? No matter how well an argument is delivered?

 

[Guess]

People quote me so I return. I shall not be impolite and not answer someone.

Is it your motivation to just maximize the number of quotations of your text?
The reason we do quote you in return to your strawmen is not to let you just claim victory on the discussion. For some people just reading the discussion, without reflecting it properly, they may be deceived by your strawmen arguments. In my country we call the behavior you engage as "pombo enxadrista". Here is the best example of what I am saying:

Well then, I thank you for your participation. Hopefully in the future when you're advocating or conveying ideas and/or arguments you will present them in a in a concise and ostensible manner. Additionally, you should underpin what you're trying to convey with reason, logic, evidence and/or arguments from first principles.Cheerio,Proxy

Should I be kind enough to sent you a link in english explaining what a "pombo enxadrista" is? Oddly enough it seems some people do think you "win" the discussion when you finish your participation in a topic like that.

Do people not already do this? Did the industrial revolution not plant the seeds of capital investment that led to greater productive output to lift the standards of living of society as a whole? Did it not create the wealth to shift the nature of work of from working 16 hours a day, seven days a week, toiling on the land to plant enough crops so you could survive the winter?

No, likely (but discussable) and no.
1) Do people not already do this? - I assume you were referring to "We can start to act to make it different for future generations." People like philosopherking is trying to do something. You not only do nothing. You keep on saying he shouldn't.
2) industrial revolution + capital investment ... - people read the past history in different ways. Some historians contest that. Furthermore, past gains of industrial revolution do not guarantee future gains.
3) People still work 16 hours a day 6/7 day weeks in farms throughout south america, africa and asia. People still work 16 hours a day 6/7 day weeks in factories in China and India. What removed most of us from agriculture was the green revolution.

Before you attempt to spurt nonsense I shall inform that these questions are rhetorical. I already know the answers.

Just because you do not want discuss something it does not become a rethorical question.

How did you determine a suboptimal allocation of resources?

me?

What make you so great that you have the supposed right to over-ride others' valuations of goods and services?

me? (2x)

You wish to divert other people's wealth and will not bear the consequences of a malinvestment.

me? (3x) Why are you trying so hard to bring the discussion to the personal level? Why do you accuse me of doing such things? Can't you be more creative than just distort what I said and put into a way you are accusing me of doing something which is clearly a bad thing?

My personal valuation of philosophy is high. My personal valuation of philosophers is low.

This phrase alone should make my point and show how contraditory you have been in your claims.
If everyone in the past followed your advice (of not being a philosopher because it is not worth), we would not have philosophy as we know it today.
Since you acknowledge the value of philosophy, you are acknowledging my point that we should have philosophers today, to prepare us for the society in the future.

I care not for not for people's valuations of goods and services. That is their prerogative.

And yet you blindly defend markets. If valuations are useless, markets are also.

What makes you think that costs of such a personal pursuit as self-actualization should be borne by others and not the individual? .

You are a Phd student, paid by someone else. You are paid to pursue your self-actualization. That's called an enpowering job. You bear no cost to the individual paying you. By the contrary, you bear profit. Other people are not so lucky. They do not have any open possibility for them to pursue self-actualization (or even more basic needs). Yet, you divert the topic as if someone having the possibility of self-actualization would always impose costs to others. This is clearly not the case since you are a living conter-example. Why is it that only you and me are entitled to have the possibility of self actualization? Why instead other people have to struggle and clean our floor? Do you think we are special? Do you think we are Atlas? We are no more special than a child dying of hunger in Africa right now.

Over the years I have encountered types of people who believe themselves to be special in such a way to deem that other should be subservient to them. That their own value judgements based on what ever reasons should override the value judgements of others. They will act in such a way to create fallacious reasons why people should surrender to them. Many people in this thread seem to be of this nature.

Oddly enough, when I tried to figure who in this thread could fit such description, I could only think of you...


P.S.
Nice picture, philosphy king. Indeed...

 

[Philosophyking87]

Well then, I thank you for your participation. Hopefully in the future when you're advocating or conveying ideas and/or arguments you will present them in a in a concise and ostensible manner. Additionally, you should underpin what you're trying to convey with reason, logic, evidence and/or arguments from first principles.

Cheerio,

Proxy

And hopefully in the future you will develop the open-minded capacity to comprehend ideas unfamiliar to your current understanding. Additionally, you might want to watch out for your apparent tendency to a) argue against straw men and b) to engage in motive guesswork (two very common fallacies).

Helpful tip: a fruitful, honest discussion (as opposed to one in which the only goal is to "win") depends entirely upon a) accuracy, b) tolerance, and c) impartial modesty. Why? Because in order to effectively scrutinize any argument or position, you must have the right argument in hand; because an intolerance of differing views impedes intellectual progress; and because in order to truly benefit from argumentation, one cannot be burdened by partisan loyalty or an egotistical attitude.

Here's a few sources to help with your problems:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_motive


Have a nice day, and don't argue too much with yourself in the future.
You'll go insane.

 

[Philosophyking87]

Why is it that only you and me are entitled to have the possibility of self actualization? Why instead other people have to struggle and clean our floor? Do you think we are special? Do you think we are Atlas? We are no more special than a child dying of hunger in Africa right now.

Agreed.
All people should have a basic opportunity to self-actualize.
But instead, many unfortunate individuals -- burdened by their social status -- can only realistically expect to become cheap labor or hired help for fortunate/privileged others.

Why this must be the case has not been addressed.

 

[Agent Intellect]

Agreed.
All people should have a basic opportunity to self-actualize.
But instead, many unfortunate individuals -- burdened by their social status -- can only realistically expect to become cheap labor or hired help for fortunate/privileged others.

Why this must be the case has not been addressed.

You don't know why this is the case? Perhaps the phrase has become so cliche as to be meaningless: life isn't fair.

Here's the problem: in order for humans to engineer fairness, there must be a centralized group of people, with their own agendas and special interests, to govern the redistribution of wealth in a "fair" way. There must also be people who, like those with the misfortune of having poor parents, had nothing to do with the unfairness of the world, and yet they must be punished for it.

So in essence, this governing body can force those who were not born poor to work for other peoples benefit. When you work and the compensation for that work goes to somebody else, that's slave labor. If you want real wage slavery, then taxation and redistribution of wealth is the closest you'll get.

 

[Guess]

You don't know why this is the case? Perhaps the phrase has become so cliche as to be meaningless: life isn't fair.

The details in the wording here are important. He didn't say "why this is the case". He said "why this must be the case has not been addressed"
I don't see "life isn't fair" as a root cause of anything. I see it as an undesirable status quo, that we should figure out how to change.
By the way, "life isn't fair" was addressed at page 2, post #86

Here's the problem: in order for humans to engineer fairness, there must be a centralized group of people, with their own agendas and special interests, to govern the redistribution of wealth in a "fair" way. There must also be people who, like those with the misfortune of having poor parents, had nothing to do with the unfairness of the world, and yet they must be punished for it.

So in essence, this governing body can force those who were not born poor to work for other peoples benefit. When you work and the compensation for that work goes to somebody else, that's slave labor. If you want real wage slavery, then taxation and redistribution of wealth is the closest you'll get.

Taxes (as high as you can think of them) are not even close to the wage slavery you can find, especially in 3rd world countries. The problem is exactly that a lot of people work real hard and the compensation for that work goes to somebody else. The only difference between what you are saying and what I am saying is who is forcing the work: government or a company.

If the government is giving some of my money to the poor, and not to wars, I rather work for free for the government.

I don't think fairness must be engineered by a central group of people. Perhaps it could, but it is not must that such fairness should come from governments.

However, when people think everyone is only self-interested (a value judgement commonly present in economics, as previously exposed in the thread), and advocate that everyone else should follow suit and be self-interested, then one may be ending up concluding that government is the only way out of unfairness. "Surprisingly enough", self-interested people don't like to pay taxes and finance governments.

Moving out of government (centralized) based solutions, here is one example of people trying to do something with their fortunes and speech:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/24/warren-buffett-bill-gates_n_839971.html

And here is someone who made a huge difference just with her heart and her hands:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Theresa

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

Proxy, do you think, in a debate between two people, is it possible that a "stalemate" can be the only possible outcome. Like a person's physio-neurological and/or bio-neurological condition will not allow an idea be conveyed or registered? No matter who is right or wrong, do you think there are certain concepts that simply cannot be processed due the physical and/or chemical composition of one's brain? No matter how well an argument is delivered?

I want to read an argument. If you guys can't construct one, it is not my fault.

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

Is it your motivation to just maximize the number of quotations of your text?

Stop quoting me and I will stop replying. Simply as that.

The reason we do quote you in return to your strawmen is not to let you just claim victory on the discussion. For some people just reading the discussion, without reflecting it properly, they may be deceived by your strawmen arguments. In my country we call the behavior you engage as "pombo enxadrista". Here is the best example of what I am saying:

Are you incapable of reading my invitation for people to reiterate their argument in an ostensible and concise manner? My goal of doing so to gain a proper understanding.

Should I be kind enough to sent you a link in english explaining what a "pombo enxadrista" is? Oddly enough it seems some people do think you "win" the discussion when you finish your participation in a topic like that.

Nope. I don't really give a two cents.

No, likely (but discussable) and no.
1) Do people not already do this? - I assume you were referring to "We can start to act to make it different for future generations." People like philosopherking is trying to do something. You not only do nothing. You keep on saying he shouldn't.

All Philosophyking has done, in my perception, was complained that people sometimes have to do things they don't necessarily want to do, "lack of dignified work" and complained about profits. Trying to do something? My fucking arse.

2) industrial revolution + capital investment ... - people read the past history in different ways. Some historians contest that. Furthermore, past gains of industrial revolution do not guarantee future gains.

Of course it doesn't?

3) People still work 16 hours a day 6/7 day weeks in farms throughout south america, africa and asia. People still work 16 hours a day 6/7 day weeks in factories in China and India. What removed most of us from agriculture was the green revolution.

There is a very special term you need to learn, 'capital investment'.

Just because you do not want discuss something it does not become a rethorical question.

The answer to the three question is an unambiguous 'yes'. Ergo, they did not need to be answered. I had to specifically mention that they were rhetorical because of the anticipated tripe that you could possibly manifest in response.

me?

me? (2x)

me? (3x) Why are you trying so hard to bring the discussion to the personal level? Why do you accuse me of doing such things? Can't you be more creative than just distort what I said and put into a way you are accusing me of doing something which is clearly a bad thing?

What are you going on about? You're the one putting forward value judgements. I want to know how you determined these.

This phrase alone should make my point and show how contraditory you have been in your claims.
If everyone in the past followed your advice (of not being a philosopher because it is not worth), we would not have philosophy as we know it today.
Since you acknowledge the value of philosophy, you are acknowledging my point that we should have philosophers today, to prepare us for the society in the future.

You could simply ask me 'why' I value what I value. You know? Some people, much like me, have reason why they do things.

And yet you blindly defend markets. If valuations are useless, markets are also.

'I care not for other people's valuations' does not mean 'I think valuations are useless'.

Markets serve a very valuable purpose of allocating resources in such a way that it fulfills society's most urgent needs.

You are a Phd student, paid by someone else. You are paid to pursue your self-actualization. That's called an enpowering job. You bear no cost to the individual paying you. By the contrary, you bear profit. Other people are not so lucky. They do not have any open possibility for them to pursue self-actualization (or even more basic needs). Yet, you divert the topic as if someone having the possibility of self-actualization would always impose costs to others. This is clearly not the case since you are a living conter-example. Why is it that only you and me are entitled to have the possibility of self actualization? Why instead other people have to struggle and clean our floor? Do you think we are special? Do you think we are Atlas? We are no more special than a child dying of hunger in Africa right now.

I do not derive my self-worth from my vocation. I derive it by getting drunk and snorting coke off prostitutes. Good times, good times.

I don't think anyone is entitled to anything. Entitlements are positive rights, they don't exist.

Me? Special? Nah man, I was just a cleaner, farm hand, apple picker, factory worker, hole digger, cash machine worker, general labourer, data entry monkey, phone consultant, database manager, etc. Not special at all. All I have done is worked to achieve my desired ends. If I were special, I would sit on my ass doing sweet shit all and receive my desired ends at the expense of someone else.

Oddly enough, when I tried to figure who in this thread could fit such description, I could only think of you...

Omg, we're just two peaches in a pond. I was thinking that it was you and Philosophyking87.

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

You don't know why this is the case? Perhaps the phrase has become so cliche as to be meaningless: life isn't fair.

Here's the problem: in order for humans to engineer fairness, there must be a centralized group of people, with their own agendas and special interests, to govern the redistribution of wealth in a "fair" way. There must also be people who, like those with the misfortune of having poor parents, had nothing to do with the unfairness of the world, and yet they must be punished for it.

So in essence, this governing body can force those who were not born poor to work for other peoples benefit. When you work and the compensation for that work goes to somebody else, that's slave labor. If you want real wage slavery, then taxation and redistribution of wealth is the closest you'll get.

You bring tears of happiness to my eyes.

 

[Agent Intellect]

The details in the wording here are important. He didn't say "why this is the case". He said "why this must be the case has not been addressed"
I don't see "life isn't fair" as a root cause of anything. I see it as an undesirable status quo, that we should figure out how to change.
By the way, "life isn't fair" was addressed at page 2, post #86

The implications of engineering a society in which everything is fair seems 1) philosophically dubious and 2) logistically impossible.

1) As I stated before, redistributing money (or any sort of goods) would require taking them from other people or otherwise coercing them into giving up the money/goods they've accrued. The people who benefit from this must then give up what? Where is the fairness in some people having to give up more of their property than others while others receive more property than others? If people are given money/goods through some program of wealth redistribution, or even through charity, then what incentive do they have to become productive members of society instead of continuing to receive other peoples wealth for doing little or nothing? If people who have wealth or work for wealth must give up their wealth in the name of fairness or 'social justice' then what incentive is there for people to innovate?

2) Unfairness is an inherent part of being alive. Not only are we born into different socioeconomic classes, but we are born into different geographies and climates. Even if we found a way to successfully redistribute wealth, there is still the problem that some soil is fertile and some is not; some places have a longer growing season than others; some places have better mineral deposits than others; some places are adjacent to bodies of water and others are not and so on. Individuals are born with different levels of intelligence and physical acuity, with parents that will bestow on them different values, and with access to different sources of information. These things will invariably lead to socioeconomic disparity, barring draconian laws to enforce redistribution of natural resources and talents on par with Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron."

Taxes (as high as you can think of them) are not even close to the wage slavery you can find, especially in 3rd world countries. The problem is exactly that a lot of people work real hard and the compensation for that work goes to somebody else. The only difference between what you are saying and what I am saying is who is forcing the work: government or a company.

Companies don't force work (I'm sure there are examples of companies and sweat shops that do, which I would agree should be stopped, but that would be actual slavery, not wage slavery). People sell their labor to a company, the company does not take labor from them.

The job market may be smaller in some places, but the best way to rectify that problem is by those with capital investing in new ventures. There is supply and demand for labor as much as for the products companies produce. If there is labor to be sold, new ventures will need to buy it.

If the government is giving some of my money to the poor, and not to wars, I rather work for free for the government.

I would prefer the government not to take the money from my labor for either.

I don't think fairness must be engineered by a central group of people. Perhaps it could, but it is not must that such fairness should come from governments.

However, when people think everyone is only self-interested (a value judgement commonly present in economics, as previously exposed in the thread), and advocate that everyone else should follow suit and be self-interested, then one may be ending up concluding that government is the only way out of unfairness. "Surprisingly enough", self-interested people don't like to pay taxes and finance governments.

Moving out of government (centralized) based solutions, here is one example of people trying to do something with their fortunes and speech:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/24/warren-buffett-bill-gates_n_839971.html

Charity is a noble pursuit, but there are inherent problems in that. For one, it cannot be counted on to fix problems as it's a function of individuals own volition and therefore not something that can be enforced as a method of wealth redistribution. Another problem is that it's putting a bandaid on a larger problem and often fosters dependence (as I mentioned above).

And here is someone who made a huge difference just with her heart and her hands:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Theresa

Not a very good example, but I understand what you're trying to say.

 

[pernoctator]

People quote me so I return. I shall not be impolite and not answer someone.

Stop quoting me and I will stop replying. Simply as that.

^ Nonsensical justification for a desire to have the last word. You long ago reached an impasse that you clearly don't desire to work around, yet you continue coming back to this thread to post vacuous ramblings about how baffled you are. It's not politeness, it's blatant condescension.

Unfairness is an inherent part of being alive. Not only are we born into different socioeconomic classes, but we are born into different geographies and climates. Even if we found a way to successfully redistribute wealth, there is still the problem that some soil is fertile and some is not; some places have a longer growing season than others; some places have better mineral deposits than others; some places are adjacent to bodies of water and others are not and so on. Individuals are born with different levels of intelligence and physical acuity, with parents that will bestow on them different values, and with access to different sources of information. These things will invariably lead to socioeconomic disparity, barring draconian laws to enforce redistribution of natural resources and talents on par with Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron."

Guess referred you to post #86; did you look at it? In particular, consider the quote containing "The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust..." If you are bringing up this fact of natural unfairness as a counterpoint, it seems you have overlooked the point.

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

And hopefully in the future you will develop the open-minded capacity to comprehend ideas unfamiliar to your current understanding. Additionally, you might want to watch out for your apparent tendency to a) argue against straw men and b) to engage in motive guesswork (two very common fallacies).

Helpful tip: a fruitful, honest discussion (as opposed to one in which the only goal is to "win") depends entirely upon a) accuracy, b) tolerance, and c) impartial modesty. Why? Because in order to effectively scrutinize any argument or position, you must have the right argument in hand; because an intolerance of differing views impedes intellectual progress; and because in order to truly benefit from argumentation, one cannot be burdened by partisan loyalty or an egotistical attitude.

Here's a few sources to help with your problems:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_motive


Have a nice day, and don't argue too much with yourself in the future.
You'll go insane.

Perhaps if I write loudly...YOU HAVE NOT PUT FORWARD AN INTELLIGIBLE ARGUMENT.

I have invited you and others to put forward an argument many times now and you have not done so. Are you incapable?

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

^ Nonsensical justification for a desire to have the last word. You long ago reached an impasse that you clearly don't desire to work around, yet you continue coming back to this thread to post vacuous ramblings about how baffled you are. It's not politeness, it's blatant condescension.

I do not desire to have the last word. If the quotes of my writing does not require addressing, I do not reply.

You're not going to answer the question regarding efficiency? Are you not going to present your thesis?

I am using 'you' and 'your' in the plural sense.

I do have a hypothesis. Your motives are such that you put forward some vague ideas and leave it to your audience to interpret. When your audience formulates their interpretation of what your argument is, they may debate the points. This then gives you reason to debate the merits of their rebuttal rather than ever provide a sound defense of your initial argument. In turn this allows you the freedom to never put forward a sound argument.

 

[Agent Intellect]

Guess referred you to post #86; did you look at it? In particular, consider the quote containing "The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust..." If you are bringing up this fact of natural unfairness as a counterpoint, it seems you have overlooked the point.

I did read the reply Guess referred to. I'm addressing the statement "Why this must be the case has not been addressed" in regards to the burden of social status. From a logistical point of view, the unfairness of socioeconomic disparity would be preferable to what would be required to engineer the flavor of "justice" that seeks to redistribute wealth "fairly."

 

[Philosophyking87]

You don't know why this is the case? Perhaps the phrase has become so cliche as to be meaningless: life isn't fair.

You're begging the question. For instance, if someone asks, "Why is life unfair for person X?" or "Why must life be unfair for person X?" your answer is going to be, "Because life is unfair." Clearly, you're assuming the very point in question, which is circular reasoning.

Here's the problem: in order for humans to engineer fairness, there must be a centralized group of people, with their own agendas and special interests, to govern the redistribution of wealth in a "fair" way.

You seem to be making a few questionable assumptions here.

1. That more fairness can only come strictly from a centralized group. But this isn't necessarily the case. For instance, it may just be the case that a governing body merely maintains any number of policies/mechanics which, when maintained, bring about more fairness, on top of perhaps various changes in the very social structure itself (i.e., how children are taught, how we view the very relationship between school and labor, and how we understand the very idea of the family). Thus, that you "must" have a centralized group of individuals controlling who owns what is not necessarily true. And I'm thinking this is a false dichotomy, as you are clearly ignoring other possibilities by limiting the discussion to merely "centralized planning." So your point is clearly this: "Either we accept unfairness and avoid centralized planning (which has clearly led to many problems in history) or the only way we can lower unfairness is to accept centralized planning (and clearly deal with the many problems associated with such a system)."

2. That a redistribution of wealth is the only way to mitigate unfairness (on top of the notion that centralized planning is the only way to redistribute wealth). Yet the redistribution of wealth is merely one of many possibilities when it comes to the mitigation of unfairness. Again, how we understand the relationship between economic activity, education, family background and upbringing, and all the other various aspects of social life presents a plethora of potential areas of improvement when it comes to the overall level of social unfairness (as these aspects of social life are clearly huge factors when it comes to the levels of unfairness in the world in the very first place). In essence then, your flaw is in thinking unfairness can only be curbed purely by certain policies or forms of political power, whereas the very social structure of any society is an additional avenue. As such, your understanding of "the problem" is, I'm afraid to say, too simplistic.

There must also be people who, like those with the misfortune of having poor parents, had nothing to do with the unfairness of the world, and yet they must be punished for it.

This is ridiculous. Those who were not born into poor families are not really "punished" if they have largely benefited from their fortunate upbringing in the very first place.

So in essence, this governing body can force those who were not born poor to work for other peoples benefit.

This assumes that all the monetary value these privileged persons gain from their higher social status when they labor is due merely to their labor and not to their social status, which is clearly mistaken. Thus, what really happens is the higher monetary value privileged people acquire due largely to their social status is used to improve the conditions of underprivileged individuals who, largely because of their social status, were not in a position to acquire as much monetary value for their labor. In the long run, when the luxury monetary value from the privileged is used to improve the conditions of the underprivileged, the underprivileged then have the ability to contribute to society in similar fashion to the privileged, which only makes society's output stronger and potentially higher quality.

To make an analogy, if you allow the privileged to retain their benefits at the expense of the underprivileged, you end up with a situation akin to half the people in a boat rowing, while the other half have no oars with which to row at all. Yet suppose we give the other half of the boat a few oars and allow them to row, what happens? Clearly, the overall net force exerted by the boat is increased, as there's a larger aggregate supply, or pool, of labor to power the boat's movement.

Social capitalists favor this sort of change, and they clearly understand that the underclass is certainly a great store of potential quality labor which goes untapped due to currently unaddressed social inequalities.

When you work and the compensation for that work goes to somebody else, that's slave labor.

Only if such "compensation" was due solely to one's own efforts and nothing else. Yet people are raised in families and communities of differing social status, which clearly makes this entire notion of "slave labor" irrelevant. Much of the compensation privileged people acquire is due to social benefits rather than personal hard work, and we really should acknowledge this basic social fact.

If you want real wage slavery, then taxation and redistribution of wealth is the closest you'll get.

If you base your reasoning on sketchy premises, perhaps...
But I try to avoid unrealistic premises that do not mirror reality.
Sorry.

The implications of engineering a society in which everything is fair seems 1) philosophically dubious and 2) logistically impossible.

This is a straw man.
No one said anything about engineering a society in which "everything is fair."
We're more speaking about the "mitigation of unfairness" when we speak of fairness at all. You're exaggerating the opposition's claims to make them easier to attack.

1) As I stated before, redistributing money (or any sort of goods) would require taking them from other people or otherwise coercing them into giving up the money/goods they've accrued. The people who benefit from this must then give up what? Where is the fairness in some people having to give up more of their property than others while others receive more property than others?

Your very notion of "property" is questionable, as I already explained.
Moreover, I already explained why taking from one group is not necessarily "punishment," when such monetary gains are balanced with those who did not benefit from their social status. And the underprivileged clearly do not give up anything, because they are "the ones in need" (i.e., those who were harmed/limited by their social status). Your understanding of the situation is entirely skewed.

If people are given money/goods through some program of wealth redistribution, or even through charity, then what incentive do they have to become productive members of society instead of continuing to receive other peoples wealth for doing little or nothing?

You're exaggerating the effect such measures would have on people, as if indeed people were properly educated, they would realize that some people literally do benefit from social status, such that hard earned dollars aren't necessarily taken, but instead that luxurious benefits resulting from higher social status were merely "corrected." Moreover, I'm sure it would take reducing people to poverty to truly demoralize them. Yet a redistribution of wealth would merely make those who are very well-off a "little less well-off."

And there's clearly no good argument for the notion that people need excessive amounts of wealth to "justify" their efforts to contribute to society. That is, I'm afraid, a very poor claim that holds very little water, according to a few interesting psychological studies. It instead turns out that people do better when left alone rather than constantly promised higher monetary rewards for their work. Moreover, there are other countries (like France) where doctors don't make nearly as much as they do here in America, and yet those doctors still enjoy their social position/comforts. Would they perhaps like a little more money for their years of study? Perhaps. But the point is that people can get by without excessive rewards for their social contributions.

Here's a video about what I'm saying:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

Moreover, I said the very same things this video discusses before I ever knew anything about any actual studies. It's just common sense to me that people will do work they love, even if they don't actually receive excessive amounts of reward for it. In fact, I have saved files of statements I've made years back in discussions just like this, where people made these same exact tried and boring arguments about "the lack of motivation without profits." Sadly, this simply isn't entirely the case. It's an old myth, like most conservative, conventional economic opinion.

If people who have wealth or work for wealth must give up their wealth in the name of fairness or 'social justice' then what incentive is there for people to innovate?

Again, some people are likely inclined to innovate for the sake of contributing to society in a meaningful fashion. It makes people feel better about themselves, and they don't necessarily need a paycheck at the end of the day -- at least a very large paycheck -- to justify their labor, if indeed they are given freedom to labor in their own manner (which as I pointed out earlier in the thread, usually isn't the case in wage-labor systems).

2) Unfairness is an inherent part of being alive. Not only are we born into different socioeconomic classes, but we are born into different geographies and climates. Even if we found a way to successfully redistribute wealth, there is still the problem that some soil is fertile and some is not; some places have a longer growing season than others; some places have better mineral deposits than others; some places are adjacent to bodies of water and others are not and so on. Individuals are born with different levels of intelligence and physical acuity, with parents that will bestow on them different values, and with access to different sources of information. These things will invariably lead to socioeconomic disparity, barring draconian laws to enforce redistribution of natural resources and talents on par with Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron."

Again, there is a distinction between "natural inequalities" and "social inequalities." While natural inequalities do largely entail some level of social inequality, it is not necessarily the case that we should see such extreme levels of social inequality. As John Rawls clearly stated, there are indeed potential actions we can take to mitigate some of this social unfairness and inequality without making smart people dumb, without making fast people slow, without making strong people weak. We can work around these natural inequalities, rather than allowing people to simply have a free-for-all, such that any possible inequality you can think of is entirely ignored, and the individual must surf through life with various levels of baggage attached to them all-the-while.

Clearly, this doesn't necessarily have to be the case, and if the only reason you guys have for its perpetuation is "well, there just isn't any other better way I can think of," or "people have property that you can't touch," then you guys really need some better arguments/reasons, because there is really no excuse for this level of inequality. So again, I still wish to know if you guys have any "good" reasons as to why social inequality should be accepted at face value the way if often is today? Why?

 

[Guess]

Stop quoting me and I will stop replying. Simply as that.

I will mostly stop doing so. Now that Agent Intellect stepped in it seems I can have a discussion with someone who has a different opinion than me, but actually reads what I am writing, thinks about it and offer arguments instead of strawman... Oh, and I hope I can discuss with someone who does not have the need to quote me and fill the replies with f* words.

WTF are you going on about? You're the one putting forward value judgements. I want to know how you determined these.

You gotta be kidding me?

I say "the society should still invest a little bit on it, because it can not possibly know the future value of philosophical work done today"

You say "You wish to divert other people's wealth and will not bear the consequences of a malinvestment. What make you so great that you have the supposed right to over-ride others' valuations of goods and services?"

I am advocating that society (as a whole) should allocate resources to philosophy and other undervalued knowledge fields. Then, your answer is about me stealing someone's wealth and being some sort of a dictator?
1) You totally transform what I wrote into some perverse form
2) You make it personal (I am talking about the society as a whole, impersonally, and suddenly I am the subject of some perverse phrase, not the society)
3) Now, you say you were merely asking me how i determined something
I know you know what a straw man and ad hominem are, but you should revise them
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

And quit using them!

You have been complaining that nobody puts inteligible arguments. They are inteligible enough so that you are able to understand them and perverse them...

2) Unfairness is an inherent part of being alive. Not only are we born into different socioeconomic classes, but we are born into different geographies and climates. Even if we found a way to successfully redistribute wealth, there is still the problem that some soil is fertile and some is not; some places have a longer growing season than others; some places have better mineral deposits than others; some places are adjacent to bodies of water and others are not and so on. Individuals are born with different levels of intelligence and physical acuity, with parents that will bestow on them different values, and with access to different sources of information. These things will invariably lead to socioeconomic disparity, barring draconian laws to enforce redistribution of natural resources and talents on par with Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron." .

Hi! Thanks for actually discussing the topic with arguments

I agree that natural advantages (personal born skills or e.g. resource-wise in different countries) will be present and they are intrinsinc. For that reason, one has to be quite careful in discussing innequality/unfairness.

But clearly, today the external factors for innequality surpass by far intrinsic . Countries with more natural resources are not the richest. A lot of people with extraordinary musical, sports talents or easily recognizable intelligence end up in menial jobs.

In the world of today I can easily imagine that 3 persons with potential IQ 180 born in different places will have totally different lifes. One of them is nurtured from childhood, attend the best schools and become a Nobel prize. The next has to work at factories from childhood. Eventually, he has some social ascendence, but he will be a mere shadow of what he could. And the third dies in the first year from a disease with easy cure, without no one even ever knowing of his potential.

Companies don't force work (I'm sure there are examples of companies and sweat shops that do, which I would agree should be stopped, but that would be actual slavery, not wage slavery). People sell their labor to a company, the company does not take labor from them.

Oh, companies do force people to work. In 2 ways: directly (slavery) and indirectly (wage slavery).

1) Directly - Many companies have contracts for someone to work e.g. from 9-5, Monday-Friday. Your first day at the company. You certainly arrive on time and do your best. It is 5 o'clock, you look around and everybody is still working. 6- 7, the same. You keep on working every day 9-7, 9-8. The boss points out the deadlines and makes eveyone work at the weekend. You finally ask someone about paid extra hours, he says they don't pay. Then it comes the news, that guy that was a very good worker, but left every day at 5 is fired.

Quickly trying to remember, I recall of at least 5 friends who lived such kind of situations. One of them, after moving from a different job, to the company I was, he asked me first day: Hey, how many extra hours we have to work freely here per day? He was so used to that, that he couldn't think it could be even different (in our company actually they paid everything right).
By the way, I am talking about renowned high tech and consultancy companies, not sweatshops.
Why do these things still happen? Try suing a company and searching for a job on the same field at the same time... Which leads me to point 2:

2) Indirectly - Selling the labor to the company is not simply like other kinds of selling in well functioning markets. The issue I was just discussing is a problem of power. The alternatives for the labor force (unemployment) are so bad that the labor force feels compelled to accept bad deals. I love drink coke. If coke become 10 dollars at the bar in the corner, I will not accept such bad deal. I will buy pepsi. I can walk one km to buy coke in another place. A person searching for a job, at the fear of staying longer unemployed will accept bad contract conditions.

In bargaining the salary, the company can use its extra bargaining power in putting down the wage at a much lower level than a fair share, then the one that would come from perfect bairganing. This essentially means that companies can and will pay less than they value the employee. A simple example of that, a newly graduated high potential is contracted at a low starting salary. Two years later, she is 4 times more productive. How many companies will quadruple her salary?

The job market may be smaller in some places, but the best way to rectify that problem is by those with capital investing in new ventures. There is supply and demand for labor as much as for the products companies produce. If there is labor to be sold, new ventures will need to buy it.

Capital investment is indeed important, but I don't see it saving the day. Overall, capitalism seems to be much better at growing the total pie than changing the distribution of the pie.

Not a very good example, but I understand what you're trying to say.

I'd guess no one ever came to this Earth and was free of criticisms and accusations (be them just or unjust). After reading about 10 review of this book (both 1 and 5 stars), I still rest assured Mother theresa did enough good to more than compensate any of the things in this book.
But, anyway you got my point.

1) As I stated before, redistributing money (or any sort of goods) would require taking them from other people or otherwise coercing them into giving up the money/goods they've accrued. The people who benefit from this must then give up what? Where is the fairness in some people having to give up more of their property than others while others receive more property than others? If people are given money/goods through some program of wealth redistribution, or even through charity, then what incentive do they have to become productive members of society instead of continuing to receive other peoples wealth for doing little or nothing? If people who have wealth or work for wealth must give up their wealth in the name of fairness or 'social justice' then what incentive is there for people to innovate? .

I am quite asleep now. I will come back to this point tomorrow

 

[Philosophyking87]

I will mostly stop doing so. Now that Agent Intellect stepped in it seems I can have a discussion with someone who has a different opinion than me, but actually reads what I am writing, thinks about it and offer arguments instead of strawman... Oh, and I hope I can discuss with someone who does not have the need to quote me and fill the replies with f* words.

Agreed wholeheartedly.
I truly am glad someone is involved now who is actually taking our concerns/opinions serious, though I am not very satisfied by the arguments put forward. =|

Beats arguing with a wall, though.

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

Agreed wholeheartedly.
I truly am glad someone is involved now who is actually taking our concerns/opinions serious, though I am not very satisfied by the arguments put forward. =|

Beats arguing with a wall, though.

You seem to be continually forgetting that you are the one that attempted to put forward an argument. What you presented was not intelligible. You know this. I know this. Everyone knows this. The emperor has no clothes.

I invited you on many occasions to resubmit your thesis in a ostensible and concise manner. You have chosen not to do so or you simply are unable to.

The goal of your actions was precisely not to put an intelligible argument forward but simply to address people's rebuttal of their interpretations of your nonsense. I find this to be an extremely disingenuous method of forming a discussion.

 

[Philosophyking87]

People quote me so I return.

... right

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

I will mostly stop doing so. Now that Agent Intellect stepped in it seems I can have a discussion with someone who has a different opinion than me, but actually reads what I am writing, thinks about it and offer arguments instead of strawman... Oh, and I hope I can discuss with someone who does not have the need to quote me and fill the replies with f* words.

Swearing is a great and noble Australian tradition.

I encourage you, to remedy my misunderstanding that has led to your percpetion of me engaging in strawman arguments, to put forward a ostensible and concise thesis. So far in this thread, I have not encountered one.

It appears that you guys refuse to put one forward.

You gotta be kidding me?

I say "the society should still invest a little bit on it, because it can not possibly know the future value of philosophical work done today"

You say "You wish to divert other people's wealth and will not bear the consequences of a malinvestment. What make you so great that you have the supposed right to over-ride others' valuations of goods and services?"

When you say 'society should invest a little bit on it', what do you mean? Do you mean expropriating wealth from people in order to invest in it? Or do you mean that people under their volition should invest in it?

I am advocating that society (as a whole) should allocate resources to philosophy and other undervalued knowledge fields. Then, your answer is about me stealing someone's wealth and being some sort of a dictator?

How do you know these fields are undervalued? How do you know they aren't over valued?

1) You totally transform what I wrote into some perverse form
2) You make it personal (I am talking about the society as a whole, impersonally, and suddenly I am the subject of some perverse phrase, not the society)
3) Now, you say you were merely asking me how i determined something
I know you know what a straw man and ad hominem are, but you should revise them
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

And quit using them!

You have been complaining that nobody puts inteligible arguments. They are inteligible enough so that you are able to understand them and perverse them...

Is expropriating wealth not what you want to do? It is certainly what Philosophyking87 wants to do. I wonder, will Philosophyking87 be the person putting guns to people's heads in order to do so?

 

[Agent Intellect]

The replies are long and my time is very short, so this will be more brief that I would like and I probably won't be able to address everything.

You're begging the question. For instance, if someone asks, "Why is life unfair for person X?" or "Why must life be unfair for person X?" your answer is going to be, "Because life is unfair." Clearly, you're assuming the very point in question, which is circular reasoning.

No, my answer to the question "why must life be unfair" was because the notion of creating fairness (or 'mitigating unfairness' using any sort of top down approach) is philosophically dubious and logistically impossible.

1. That more fairness can only come strictly from a centralized group. But this isn't necessarily the case. For instance, it may just be the case that a governing body

You said that it doesn't have to come from a centralized group and then went on to propose what the centralized group could do? Is there any way to do what you're proposing that doesn't require policies made by a governing body?

merely maintains any number of policies/mechanics which, when maintained, bring about more fairness, on top of perhaps various changes in the very social structure itself (i.e., how children are taught, how we view the very relationship between school and labor, and how we understand the very idea of the family).

This proposal is sort of vague, but you seem to be proposing a system of indoctrination in hopes that it leads people to conform to what you believe good people should be?

Thus, that you "must" have a centralized group of individuals controlling who owns what is not necessarily true. And I'm thinking this is a false dichotomy, as you are clearly ignoring other possibilities by limiting the discussion to merely "centralized planning."

What you just proposed also requires centralized planning. The idea of 'mitigating unfairness' is a top-down change to the socioeconomic milieu and therefore requires a centralized group to legislate these changes and enforce them. Even if all you do is change the education curriculum, centralized power would be required to ensure that all of the schools adhere to the dubious criteria required to turn out 'good people.'

So your point is clearly this: "Either we accept unfairness and avoid centralized planning (which has clearly led to many problems in history) or the only way we can lower unfairness is to accept centralized planning (and clearly deal with the many problems associated with such a system)."

Can you propose a bottom up approach to 'mitigating unfairness' that would not require a group of people to 1) create the necessary policies, 2) oversee their implementation and 3) enforce these policies?

2. That a redistribution of wealth is the only way to mitigate unfairness (on top of the notion that centralized planning is the only way to redistribute wealth). Yet the redistribution of wealth is merely one of many possibilities when it comes to the mitigation of unfairness. Again, how we understand the relationship between economic activity, education, family background and upbringing, and all the other various aspects of social life presents a plethora of potential areas of improvement when it comes to the overall level of social unfairness (as these aspects of social life are clearly huge factors when it comes to the levels of unfairness in the world in the very first place). In essence then, your flaw is in thinking unfairness can only be curbed purely by certain policies or forms of political power, whereas the very social structure of any society is an additional avenue. As such, your understanding of "the problem" is, I'm afraid to say, too simplistic.

What then is your proposal to enhance our understanding of economic activity, education etc supposed to accomplish? Is it not so that people will be more willing to share their wealth or be more happy to allow their wealth to be taken for the purpose of redistributing it? Can you honestly say that the redistribution of wealth in order to 'mitigate unfairness' in how it is naturally distributed is not the ultimate goal of this increased understanding? How do you know that increasing our understanding economic activity will even lead people to your conclusions?

Thus, what really happens is the higher monetary value privileged people acquire due largely to their social status is used to improve the conditions of underprivileged individuals who, largely because of their social status, were not in a position to acquire as much monetary value for their labor. In the long run, when the luxury monetary value from the privileged is used to improve the conditions of the underprivileged, the underprivileged then have the ability to contribute to society in similar fashion to the privileged, which only makes society's output stronger and potentially higher quality.

When you say "society's output" I'm assuming you mean GDP? If so, I recommend watching this series of videos if you want to discuss what's going to increase "society's output."

To make an analogy, if you allow the privileged to retain their benefits at the expense of the underprivileged, you end up with a situation akin to half the people in a boat rowing, while the other half have no oars with which to row at all. Yet suppose we give the other half of the boat a few oars and allow them to row, what happens? Clearly, the overall net force exerted by the boat is increased, as there's a larger aggregate supply, or pool, of labor to power the boat's movement.

If I'm understanding your analogy correctly, you're suggesting the wholesale creation of wealth (oars) to distribute to people that don't have them? It would be more likely that the oars already in existence would be redistributed and not increase the net force at all.

Your very notion of "property" is questionable, as I already explained.

I don't remember you explaining why the notion of property is questionable, if you could refresh my memory. If you own something, do you not own it? Are we to dispose of the notion of theft since I could use the argument in court that the person I stole from had more of what I stole from them than I do?

Moreover, I already explained why taking from one group is not necessarily "punishment," when such monetary gains are balanced with those who did not benefit from their social status.

"You have more property than other people, therefore we're taking your property."

How is that not punishment?

And the underprivileged clearly do not give up anything, because they are "the ones in need" (i.e., those who were harmed/limited by their social status). Your understanding of the situation is entirely skewed.

One group of people must give something up and another group of people gives up nothing. That doesn't seem fair to me.

You're exaggerating the effect such measures would have on people, as if indeed people were properly educated, they would realize that some people literally do benefit from social status, such that hard earned dollars aren't necessarily taken, but instead that luxurious benefits resulting from higher social status were merely "corrected."

Theft by any other name is still taking property from the rightful owners.




Anyway, my time for making a reply has run out. I'm very busy lately, so it may be a few days before I can make any more replies at length. Apologies for not getting to Guess' post.

 

[Philosophyking87]

Lol, I'm far beyond this thread.
Have fun living in the box, guys.

Discussions with small minds isn't very fun.
*vacation time*

 

[kantor1003]

AI addresses your post and instead of answering, you dismiss him as a lesser mind.

You sir, are an idiot.

 

[Don't mind me]

AI addresses your post and instead of answering, you dismiss him as a lesser mind.

I was surprised by this. Their past interactions seemed to be of a completely opposite nature. But then again, the same is true for many of the views AI has expressed here. Makes you wonder... what happened out there

the world is a big place where things may have unexpected turns and twists and possibly consequences

 

[Guess]

I was surprised by this. Their past interactions seemed to be of a completely opposite nature. But then again, the same is true for many of the views AI has expressed here. Makes you wonder... what happened out there

Also surprised me. My best guess is that Proxy left him so close to his patience limit, that he could not bear even a little from AI...

If I'm understanding your analogy correctly, you're suggesting the wholesale creation of wealth (oars) to distribute to people that don't have them? It would be more likely that the oars already in existence would be redistributed and not increase the net force at all.

Absolutely not. First of all you focused his argumentation on an oar being a physical thing which can not just be replicated, which lead you to miss his point.
But even if that is the case, consider this. The instantaneous force on the boat is maximized by only having the people who can row the best to do it. However, even the best rowers get tired, falling off from productivity. In the long term, the average net force on the boat can be maximized if people rotate the oars, so that everyone can row!

A lot of people complain they are Atlas, carrying the whole world on their shoulders. But they forget, they put themselves in such situation in the first place. If only they would share both the workload and profits with everyone else, they would not be in such a bad situation. But greedy people do not want to share the profits.

Somewhat, the worst time, most stressfull and that I did most stupid things in my life, I was Atlas at my job. I was the bottleneck of the tasks for the whole team. I was the only one with my speciality. The highest relief was they added a new co-worker for the same tasks but just graduated.. I loved to share the oar with him and teach him to row the best!

"You have more property than other people, therefore we're taking your property."

How is that not punishment?

Hmmm. It may be punishment if that people accrued the property with his/her own labor in an ethical way. Otherwise it could be even called justice.

But I really prefer the question :
"You have less property than other people, therefore we're taking your labor."

How is that not punishment?

Can you propose a bottom up approach to 'mitigating unfairness' that would not require a group of people to 1) create the necessary policies, 2) oversee their implementation and 3) enforce these policies?

Yes, I can come up with an approach:
1) Post over the internet your technical, science and specific knowledge
2) Convince more people to do so

Actually such type of approach is already ongoing.

Things like wikipedia and the Khan academy, are likely to have a huge impact in addressing education innequality. Think about it. Today, a large issue is that not all schools can have the same quality. What if, quality material is available to every one? You have a bad math professor? Watch math classes from a good professor over the internet!

You gotta see the beauty of this. You have been pointing out that anything you do, you need to take from others. This is not the case for knowledge. If you learn my knowledge and I learn your knowledge, we both increase in knowledge. It is a win-win situation.

Unfortunately, this would still not address the inequality for people which are starving nor have internet access. That's where current governments could step in to accelerate the uptake of such approach: subsidizing food and internet access for the poorest.

If only we could reach universal internet access, and such initiatives in all the languages of the world...

By the way changing the way we do education is done and the availability of it is pretty much what PK87 proposed , but you called it indoctrinaction...

This proposal is sort of vague, but you seem to be proposing a system of indoctrination in hopes that it leads people to conform to what you believe good people should be?

I hope I made it a little bit more concrete case.

I don't remember you explaining why the notion of property is questionable, if you could refresh my memory. If you own something, do you not own it? Are we to dispose of the notion of theft since I could use the argument in court that the person I stole from had more of what I stole from them than I do?

One group of people must give something up and another group of people gives up nothing. That doesn't seem fair to me.

Theft by any other name is still taking property from the rightful owners.

Theft is clearly bad, but one should be careful not to equate all movement of property to theft. Even to start the discussion of your questions, it would be needed to introduce philosophically what is property and define who are the rightful owners.
I decided I will create a topic specifically dealing with property and some of the misconceptions. I will try to address those questions there.

Apologies for not getting to Guess' post.

No problem. I have a little bit more to write, but maybe I wait then, hehe

 

[Agent Intellect]

I agree that natural advantages (personal born skills or e.g. resource-wise in different countries) will be present and they are intrinsinc. For that reason, one has to be quite careful in discussing innequality/unfairness.

But clearly, today the external factors for innequality surpass by far intrinsic . Countries with more natural resources are not the richest. A lot of people with extraordinary musical, sports talents or easily recognizable intelligence end up in menial jobs.

In the world of today I can easily imagine that 3 persons with potential IQ 180 born in different places will have totally different lifes. One of them is nurtured from childhood, attend the best schools and become a Nobel prize. The next has to work at factories from childhood. Eventually, he has some social ascendence, but he will be a mere shadow of what he could. And the third dies in the first year from a disease with easy cure, without no one even ever knowing of his potential.

Here's a scenario for three geniuses if we 'mitigate unfairness'. All three go to a school with the same curriculum that attempts to teach them the 'correct' way to think, and because it would be unfair to give them an advantage (and useless to do so anyway) they have to be taught watered down, politically correct, government approved curricula.

The first genius is such a genius that despite their inadequate schooling they have a great idea for a new widget with 13 moving parts that will revolutionize the way people live. The genius's firm makes a large gross revenue from this invention, but most of it is taken in the name of fairness and given to people where jobs aren't available. Because the genius's company is taxed so heavily, they aren't able to open up more factories to produce this wonderful widget, so the people receiving the tax money as a handout never have an opportunity to work in these factories, or the factories of other companies who are taxed just as heavily. This prevents the company from further growth and investment, which lowers GDP and leaves the beneficiaries of the tax money dependent on the government.

The second genius puts their intelligence into something unencumbered by the governments mitigation of unfairness: a life of crime. The lack of economic growth on account of unfairness mitigation keeps wages low and a growing number of people dependent on depleting government handouts, so a life of crime is much more fruitful than honest work or government handouts, because even in all the attempts to mitigate unfairness by controlling the economy, a free market will emerge, legitimate or not. More and more honest people will start to see the benefit of participating in the free market of illegal goods, even at the cost of harming others.

The third genius ends up getting a position within the government where they can help mitigate unfairness. This genius becomes a senator and is even in the committee for unfairness mitigation, charged with dealing with various companies. This genius becomes a shrewd politician, adept in the game of black mailing companies for government favors - they'll cut some of the unfairness mitigating taxes for some money in their own pocket and anonymous campaign contributions. And who is to stop this genius from doing this? Surely not their fellow congressmen who have been playing this game for as long as they've been in office.

Oh, companies do force people to work. In 2 ways: directly (slavery) and indirectly (wage slavery).

1) Directly - Many companies have contracts for someone to work e.g. from 9-5, Monday-Friday. Your first day at the company. You certainly arrive on time and do your best. It is 5 o'clock, you look around and everybody is still working. 6- 7, the same. You keep on working every day 9-7, 9-8. The boss points out the deadlines and makes eveyone work at the weekend. You finally ask someone about paid extra hours, he says they don't pay. Then it comes the news, that guy that was a very good worker, but left every day at 5 is fired.

Quickly trying to remember, I recall of at least 5 friends who lived such kind of situations. One of them, after moving from a different job, to the company I was, he asked me first day: Hey, how many extra hours we have to work freely here per day? He was so used to that, that he couldn't think it could be even different (in our company actually they paid everything right).
By the way, I am talking about renowned high tech and consultancy companies, not sweatshops.
Why do these things still happen? Try suing a company and searching for a job on the same field at the same time... Which leads me to point 2:

I can't really speak too much on the situation, but it sounds like the workers were voluntarily staying if the guy who gets fired was leaving at 5. If everyone left at 5 instead of voluntarily staying longer they would either have to fire everyone or allow it to happen.

2) Indirectly - Selling the labor to the company is not simply like other kinds of selling in well functioning markets. The issue I was just discussing is a problem of power. The alternatives for the labor force (unemployment) are so bad that the labor force feels compelled to accept bad deals. I love drink coke. If coke become 10 dollars at the bar in the corner, I will not accept such bad deal. I will buy pepsi. I can walk one km to buy coke in another place. A person searching for a job, at the fear of staying longer unemployed will accept bad contract conditions.

They are still not forced to work. Once again, wouldn't a solution be an uninhibited market with a growth potential that allows more labor options? How would you propose something like this be fixed - preferably something that doesn't require government dependency from the would-be workers or government taxation from the companies?

Capital investment is indeed important, but I don't see it saving the day. Overall, capitalism seems to be much better at growing the total pie than changing the distribution of the pie.

This is a problem of government intervention, not the market. Government taxation of companies inhibits growth both directly by decreasing revenue for planned investment by companies and by decreasing peoples marginal propensity to consume through taxes.

Lol, I'm far beyond this thread.
Have fun living in the box, guys.

Discussions with small minds isn't very fun.
*vacation time*

Me taking a different position than you = me having a small mind?

I'm still interested in four main points:

1) What is fairness and what is unfairness?
2) Can unfairness be mitigated without resorting to some other unfair practice?
3) Can unfairness be mitigated without a body of centralized power to make policies, implement them, and enforce them?
4) What constitutes 'property' and how is it questionable?

Absolutely not. First of all you focused his argumentation on an oar being a physical thing which can not just be replicated, which lead you to miss his point.

Are you saying wealth can be replicated?

But even if that is the case, consider this. The instantaneous force on the boat is maximized by only having the people who can row the best to do it. However, even the best rowers get tired, falling off from productivity. In the long term, the average net force on the boat can be maximized if people rotate the oars, so that everyone can row!

I think this is degrading into a false analogy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_analogy

If you could state this without the use of the oar analogy, it might be better. I'm under the assumption that oars=wealth and net force (speed?) = GDP? If this is the case, the analogy doesn't fit.

A lot of people complain they are Atlas, carrying the whole world on their shoulders. But they forget, they put themselves in such situation in the first place. If only they would share both the workload and profits with everyone else, they would not be in such a bad situation. But greedy people do not want to share the profits.

So you're suggesting that heavy taxes on the rich is for their own benefit?

Hmmm. It may be punishment if that people accrued the property with his/her own labor in an ethical way. Otherwise it could be even called justice.

What you seem to be against here is inheritance, not the accumulation of wealth. However, inheritance is at the wish of the owner of the money or property. If it's my money or property, I can do with it what I wish, which includes giving it to my family/friends upon my death.

But I really prefer the question :
"You have less property than other people, therefore we're taking your labor."

How is that not punishment?

They're not taking peoples labor, they're buying it.

Yes, I can come up with an approach:
1) Post over the internet your technical, science and specific knowledge
2) Convince more people to do so

Actually such type of approach is already ongoing.

Things like wikipedia and the Khan academy, are likely to have a huge impact in addressing education innequality. Think about it. Today, a large issue is that not all schools can have the same quality. What if, quality material is available to every one? You have a bad math professor? Watch math classes from a good professor over the internet!

You gotta see the beauty of this. You have been pointing out that anything you do, you need to take from others. This is not the case for knowledge. If you learn my knowledge and I learn your knowledge, we both increase in knowledge. It is a win-win situation.

I agree, the spreading of knowledge is a good thing. And if people want to practice their own volition to spread knowledge for free, there is nothing wrong about that. If people want to give away anything for free using their own volition - money, services, products, labor - then that is their choice. However, I don't see this as a method for mitigating unfairness - all you can do is hope that people will do these things, you can't force them to be altruistic. This makes any proposal to mitigate unfairness a suggestion at best and a personal prayer at worst.

Unfortunately, this would still not address the inequality for people which are starving nor have internet access. That's where current governments could step in to accelerate the uptake of such approach: subsidizing food and internet access for the poorest.

This is the part of 'mitigating unfairness' that I've taken issue with because of the following:

1) The need for a centralized 'authority' with their own agendas and lack of oversight.
2) Fostering dependence on this centralized authority in the cases of
a) Companies who will be extorted by the government promising political favors for money and
b) Citizens who will depend on government handouts.
3) The need to substitute one type of unfairness (uneven distribution of wealth) with another (taking wealth from some to redistribute to others).
4) The use of coercion to enforce such policy.

By the way changing the way we do education is done and the availability of it is pretty much what PK87 proposed , but you called it indoctrinaction...

Perhaps calling his proposal for education reform 'indoctrination' was hasty and erroneous. I retract that statement.

Theft is clearly bad, but one should be careful not to equate all movement of property to theft. Even to start the discussion of your questions, it would be needed to introduce philosophically what is property and define who are the rightful owners.

I'm interested in how you would redefine property in a way that taking something from somebody is justified.

 

[Agent Intellect]

I was surprised by this. Their past interactions seemed to be of a completely opposite nature. But then again, the same is true for many of the views AI has expressed here. Makes you wonder... what happened out there

the world is a big place where things may have unexpected turns and twists and possibly consequences

Eh? I'm not sure what you mean by this.

 

[Philosophyking87]

Michael Sandel's books > INTPforum discussions =p

*goes back to reading*

 

[pernoctator]

Would a somewhat relevant terrible pun help?

Spoiler

 

[Guess]

Michael Sandel's books > INTPforum discussions =p

*goes back to reading*

Can I take you away from your reading for some minutes?

Perhaps I spent too much time trying to refute opinions different than mine and I in my limited time I ended up not writing about opinions which align better with my view. Certainly our views do not align 100% and I have more to add to the things you told.

Well, today is a holiday and luckily enough I am not one of the slaves I previously described to AI. So I have some extra time today, and I will write mostly in addition to things you wrote before.

Since I read your first posts in this thread something two things have come to my mind.
1) Finally I found someone who make longer posts in internet forums than me
(in one forum I use to participate, the admins put this tag below my avatar - poster of biblical-size posts)
2) I have been thinking quite a lot on the issue of the mismatch of traits and work opportunities. This is obviously the idea I want to develop (in spite of this long intro).

I think there are a series of related issues to that one which need to be addressed together in order to have a proper understanding and in order to come up with practical solutions. So I will first describe how I understand things are, and then how they could be different.

I will use the word "job", to describe such work opportunities, but please understand being entrepreneur also included there. In fact, an entrepreneur who has to resort to capital ventures (should I say capital vultures?) is also to a great extent employee of the investors.

In my view, how things are done in current system:
1) We live in a system where the availability of jobs is mostly determined by most immediate needs of people who have enough purchasing power. Long term societal needs are mostly overlooked. The clearest example being proper sustainability of our society/specie itself (see how great job humanity has made in Easter Island ).

The purchasing power also have a huge impact. Nobody can possibly give more value to a particular good than a person dying of hunger values food. And yet we put effort human effort to create yachts and jewelry while there is still people dying of hunger. Simply, because the latter have no purchasing power. It is not even (currently) a technological problem nor a scarcity problem. Wherever I look for information, I found wolrd grain productivity to be in the order of 300kg per year per person, i.e. 800g per person per day.
http://www.fas.usda.gov/psdonline/p...etrievalID=425&hidReportRetrievalTemplateID=2
If only we would feed all people before feeding livestock animals or making bio-fuels, there would be no famine. But whereas a grain will feed someone or fuel the yacht of another one is solely defined on their purchase power.

2) Given the previously described availability of jobs, which is sickly skewed by the divine right of purchasing power, people have to search for jobs that will fulfill their needs and betterly match ones skill/traits. But here are several catches:
- Many jobs do not fulfill one person needs not even up to second level of Maslow's hieararchy of needs ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs ). When people are spending most of their daily time (discounted sleeping) and most of their effort on the job, it is very important whether the job satisfies such needs or not.
- The traits of someone, although given or shaped very early in life, may be underappreciated or considered innadequate for most of the available jobs
- Skill is a byproduct of both intrinsic characteristics, training and experience. Each job affects the skill of the person. Some increase the persons general set of skills, some are neutral and some even are negative.

For example, a cleaning job or coal mining actually has a negative effect even on the very ability of the person performing even that job. After 15/20 years doing such jobs, most people can easily be considered invalid. In other words, the longer time one stays in such jobs, the less likely it is that the person will ever be able to change to another job.

Other people can find a much smoother way over jobs which are increasingly challenging and fulfilling and have a proper career --> intern, graduate program, junior, senior, management, etc . The smoothness of a career path is directly related to the acquired skills, which depends again on the purchasing power the person has to pay for educaiton, and the appreciation of the traits (which is a point you exposed very well throughout the thread.)

The scene that comes to my mind is that the pool of available jobs is like a mountain (the highest on the mountain, the better the job). Some people are given an escalator, some are given a normal ladder, some have to climb on bare hands, some are tied to some point of the mountain and some even have oil on their hands, so that they slip away... The ones that climbed the escalator look down and say "worthless creatures", the ones that took the "effort" of the ladder say "such a lazy people"... And even some who climbed on bare hands simply say to the others "get over it", without noticing that at least they were not tied, so that they could move...
If you ever heard this type of comments, it is a mere coincidence :P

So summarizing some of the key issues (or as some say, putting forward a ostensible and concise thesis):
1) Human action takes place mostly to attend the urgent desires of an elite with high purchasing power. Other people needs/desires and long term issues are mostly overlooked.
2) One of the key elements to increase purchasing power is skill development. The means to increase skill often involves already having purchase power (paying for good education) or already having some skill (experience). Thus, most people are never given enough chance of developing their skills.
3) Every single man/woman on earth who can not get on track on a career path which enhances their skills waste their potential. "What a man can be, he must be"(Maslow) comes to my mind. The total waste of potential in humanity is absurd.
4) A lot of people with huge innate skills which could be very useful to solve our long term problems (e.g. philosophy) or simply enhance our life (arts) waste their potential if they can not somehow sell these things as short term desires of high purchasing power elite.

Ok. Enough of status quo characterization.

How do I think things could be different?

I think the 4 issues are all related to each other, but broadly speaking I think the problem could be divided in "what we want" and "how we organize ourselves to accomplish what we want".

That's a little bit the line of thinking behind a concept called participatory economics (parecon), where these 2 key decisions are sought to be done in a distributed and democratic way.
I am still to read more about parecon. I've basically seen a couple of videos about it, and I may warn the less open-minded that this can be really hard to digest. Actually, the first time I saw one of this videos I even thought "this guy can't be serious". But later I realized it does have quite some merits, and my prejudice was basically due to having the concept of eoncomic efficiency of the division of labor so much ossified in my head.

Disclaimer: I am not supporting parecon as it is. I want to develop more over it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd60nYW577U

I think one of the merits of parecon is that everyone would feel equally the burden of the undesired tasks. I have the understanding that people would find more creative ways to reduce the number of undesired taks. Today, we have quite some people opposing further automation, because that would mean they lose their jobs. In a parecon system I'd guess people would embrace automation as much as possible.

The thinking that made me overcome first prejudices about parecon was how it would work out if everyone had exactly the same preferences of me? It would be fair to distribute the burden of the bad jobs over everyone.

But that's also where I see a little bit of what is missing on parecon and started to be addressed at your post (PK87): people have quite some difference on the preference for jobs. Maybe if I read deeper on parecon, there is something addressing that, but I didn't see in this or other videos...

There are some jobs which are clearly undesired by the majority of people. I never heard of a millionaire who choses to clean toilets for a living. But there are cases which are not crystal clear like that. I hate to cook. Some people love to cook.

I think this could be solved as follows. As in parecon, people would rate how desirable a job is. But then I would change some thing. As far as I understood parecon, people have to cope with a balanced job basket, whether they like it or not, and the remuneration is based on hourly rates which are the same for all jobs.

I was thinking instead that people should be able to chose how balanced or not their job basket could be, but if they chose it to be unbalanced as for example to work more hours as philosopher to compensate that they don't want to work manually.

In order to meet the demand, the hourly rate of pleasant jobs should be less than those which are less popular. Essentially, this would create a market around jobs. But instead of making people only the producers of the job, they are consuming the jobs, i.e., chosing which jobs they want in a much more direct way than they do today.

As in any market, scarcity would be rewarded. But scarcity here mainly means nobody wants to do that. Imagine someone asking: are you greedy and want to consume a lot of goods? Then you better start cleaning toilets...

I hope this was worth you putting the Michael Sandel's book away for some minutes.

P.S. @proxy after you PM, I decided I will reply to you soon again. @AI I will come back to reply to you .

P.S.2 If I bet PK in length, it was not my intent

 

[Guess]

Here we go again.

When you say 'society should invest a little bit on it', what do you mean? Do you mean expropriating wealth from people in order to invest in it? Or do you mean that people under their volition should invest in it?

"society should invest a little bit on it" . That is an advice supplied with my argument. If I advice someone or advocate something, people may listen to it or not. It does not imply I want to implement it in a particular way.
But then in most of your replies you start to make a large stretch from one advice on how I would like it to be implemented. I'd prefer all humans would do good things voluntarily.

How do you know these fields are undervalued? How do you know they aren't over valued?

These fields have intrinsic value or long term value which is mostly overlooked by markets (that's what I tried to illustrate with Van Gogh and Eiffel Tower).
The same can be said, for instance, of basic math. How often companies invest R&D in basic math? I only heard about IBM.
And yet basic math may lead to the groundbreaking advances in physics, or engineering or geology 40 years later.
Therefore, if we are to have a long lived and prosperous society, somebody has to finance fields such as basic math and philosophy. I understand you don't want to be the one paying for it because you do not see any immediate direct benefit to yourself. But what happens if everyone thinks like that? The future society (our children) will bear the consequences...

Is expropriating wealth not what you want to do? It is certainly what Philosophyking87 wants to do. I wonder, will Philosophyking87 be the person putting guns to people's heads in order to do so?

Sarcastic mode ON
Yes! I am preparing a revolution to declare myself the emperor of universe. I am preparing an army of clones and I alredy started to build a death star. Philosophyking87 will be my right arm and I will give him a red light saber to go personally in your house and subdue you to our will.
Sarcastic mode OFF
Of course I do not want to expropriate's anyone wealth. If I am advocating something as people/society financing philosophy and arts it does not imply I want to expropriate wealth.
When I say impersonal terms like people/society should do something, you should not come back and say "you" want to do that.

Here's a scenario for three geniuses if we 'mitigate unfairness'. All three go to a school with the same curriculum that attempts to teach them the 'correct' way to think, and because it would be unfair to give them an advantage (and useless to do so anyway) they have to be taught watered down, politically correct, government approved curricula.

The school you describe seems like the video of "The Wall"- Pink Floyd. I don't think this considered a good school anywhere in the world. A good school provides tools for critical thinking, moral ethics and self-guided learning. If such good schools were universally available, it would empower everyone. In this latter scenario I would think your geniuses scenarios would be much less likely. And don't forget that in your examples at least all 3 had the chance to live beyond 1-year old.

The second genius puts their intelligence into something unencumbered by the governments mitigation of unfairness: a life of crime. The lack of economic growth on account of unfairness mitigation keeps wages low and a growing number of people dependent on depleting government handouts, so a life of crime is much more fruitful than honest work or government handouts, because even in all the attempts to mitigate unfairness by controlling the economy, a free market will emerge, legitimate or not. More and more honest people will start to see the benefit of participating in the free market of illegal goods, even at the cost of harming others.

This one I had to comment on separate, because it is mostly intuitive to me that (and I guess to most people) that unfairness lead to higher criminality. My home country is plagued with unfairness and high criminality. Wherever I traveled in where there is more equality I saw little criminality. But if you don't trust my personal experience I'd refer you to scientific studies.
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DEC/Resources/Crime%26Inequality.pdf

I can't really speak too much on the situation, but it sounds like the workers were voluntarily staying if the guy who gets fired was leaving at 5. If everyone left at 5 instead of voluntarily staying longer they would either have to fire everyone or allow it to happen.

This is a rather awkward use of the word "voluntary". Everyone in such situations feels an strong psychological pressure to accept slavery. Because one guy is crazy, does not sees the consequences or maybe mommy and daddy is rich, it doesn't make all the others to be voluntarily there working without payment.

With the same use of "voluntary", I think you would have to accept that you pay taxes "voluntarily", which you clearly don't.
In the same direction, one person evades taxes (leaves at 5), does that equate to you paying taxes "voluntarily"?

The only difference I see in these 2 situations is the agent of psychological oppression: government or employer. Can you explain why/if you see a difference?

They are still not forced to work. Once again, wouldn't a solution be an uninhibited market with a growth potential that allows more labor options?

The key issue is that more labor options will only appear if the economy grows. The economy will have to stop growing some day, and I am afraid this day is very close. http://intpforum.com/showthread.php?t=11880
We can not rely on economical growth to solve all our problems.

How would you propose something like this be fixed - preferably something that doesn't require government dependency from the would-be workers or government taxation from the companies?

This is a question I am still trying to answer. But my last (the long post) was quite of thinking loud.

Are you saying wealth can be replicated? I think this is degrading into a false analogy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_analogy
If you could state this without the use of the oar analogy, it might be better. I'm under the assumption that oars=wealth and net force (speed?) = GDP? If this is the case, the analogy doesn't fit.

I can see why you think it is a false analogy. We have totally different things in mind when reading it. For me the boat is the Earth. The oars are any means humanity has to advance: knowledge, natural resources, capital, labour. And the net force is how humanity is advancing. I'd hardly measure that by GDP. IHDI or HDI are better, but not perfect though.

I thought that should be more clear what I had in mind when I said I shared the oar with my coleague.

By the way, I have a real story, not an analogy, to add to that. I had a team building event where we are divided in groups of 2 or 3 people into boats. I never did such a thing before, but I happen to be on the same boat as a guy who did that often. He shared the knowledge with me. Half of the boats turned on the water that day... We didn't.

So you're suggesting that heavy taxes on the rich is for their own benefit?

I am affirming that greed is very bad for the person who falls onto it. It is a capital sin for a reason. The bible say "the love for money is the root of all evil"
I don't see a causual effect of having taxes in reducing greed.

What you seem to be against here is inheritance, not the accumulation of wealth. However, inheritance is at the wish of the owner of the money or property. If it's my money or property, I can do with it what I wish, which includes giving it to my family/friends upon my death.

What I had in mind was actually that much of wealth people accumulated over time was based on despicable practices such as war, cons, colonization, enslavement, etc. Inheritance only perpetuates the distribution.

They're not taking peoples labor, they're buying it.

They're buying at the lowest possible wage due to bargaining power innequality, basically meaning they have no other option.

If one offers Paris Hilton a cleaning lady job, I don't think she would accept, since she has other options. Quite different is the situation of people who actually accept it.

However, I don't see this as a method for mitigating unfairness - all you can do is hope that people will do these things, you can't force them to be altruistic. This makes any proposal to mitigate unfairness a suggestion at best and a personal prayer at worst.

Maybe it is just hope, but I think that leading by example can be inspiring and making big changes.

This is the part of 'mitigating unfairness' that I've taken issue with because of the following:.

I understand you have issues due to the reasons you mentioned, but I was basically assuming that the government will tax my money, whether I like it or not. In that case I'd still would like to press the government to use my tax money in my preferred ways. That's why I was adovcating to use the subsidies to universal internet access and famine extinction.

I'm interested in how you would redefine property in a way that taking something from somebody is justified.

It's quite the opposite. I will define it in a way where people can see more clearly that they have been taken away throughout history. Thus, the current distribution of property is philosophically questionable.

 

[Philosophyking87]

Lol, this is so true.

To grow as an individual, the INTJ needs to focus on applying their judgment to things only after they have gone through their intuition. In other words, the INTJ needs to consciously try not to use their judgment to dismiss ideas prematurely. Rather, they should use their judgment against their own ideas. One cannot effectively judge something that they don't understand. The INTJ needs to take things entirely into their intuition in order to understand them. It may be neccesary to give your intuition enough time to work through the new information so that it can rebuild its global framework of understanding. INTJs need to focus on using their judgment not to dismiss ideas, but rather to support their intuitive framework.

An INTJ who is concerned with personal growth will pay close attention to the subject of their judgments, and their motivation for making judgments. Are they judging something external to themself, or are they judging something that they have sifted through their intuition? Is the motivation for judging something to be able to understand its usefulness in the world, or to dismiss it? Too often, an INTJ will judge something without properly understanding it, and with the intention of dismissing it. Seek first to understand, then to judge.

Specific suggestions:

Take care to listen to someone's idea entirely before you pass judgment on it. Ask questions if necessary. Do whatever it takes to make sure that you understand the idea. Try not to begin judging anything about the idea until you have understood it entirely.

http://www.personalitypage.com/html/INTJ_per.html

Sounds like great advice!

 

[pernoctator]

 

[snafupants]

Lol, this is so true.



Sounds like great advice!

What a stupid idea.