LawTalkers - Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same

At the beach a few years ago, we were running up to a corner store to get Q and Fever Tree tonic for drinks (stuff is addictive... so good). A buddy with Prime said we were wasting money. Case of Q arrived two days later. Saved us a bunch of money.

I like the savings, but it kind of creeps me out. People are already “bowling alone,” as that famous book was titled. I think all of this home delivery stuff is making us even less socially connected, and a lot weirder.

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Millennials can’t even hold proper conversations. They get mad if you call them instead of texting. And the even younger kids are still stranger yet.

OTOH, the new technology enables new community through internet chat boards and the like. You don't have be a Timmy to point out that the communications there become rich in their own weird way.

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If you can’t hold a conversation, you aren’t going anywhere. Unless you’re some freak in Silicon Valley or a quant fund. Tell your kids to become “personality coaches.”

Fucking coaching... That’s another sad development. Executives need coaches? For what? Nobody did that shit in the past. It’s McWork. Fucking nonsense.

The people I know who have become coaches should not be coaching anyone until they can fix their own lives.

sebastian_dangerfield

09-20-2019 05:45 PM

Re: Um...

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Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 525040)

So use the time you save from going to the corner store to chat with your neighbor.

If the price is less, it's possibly because Amazon is the conduit for Wall St investors to subsidize your drinking, but it's more likely that it's cheaper to sell stuff without covering the costs of leaving it at retail locations for a while before it's bought.

OTOH, the new technology enables new community through internet chat boards and the like. You don't have be a Timmy to point out that the communications there become rich in their own weird way.

The people I know who have becoming coaches should not be coaching anyone until they can fix their own lives.

I think where you are leading with most of your arguments is that technology will eventually deliver for us the 15 hour work week promised by John Maynard Keynes.

I wish that were true. I think it actually might become true, but not likely within our lifetimes. The folly in that prediction is, like so many other economic predictions, it assumes rational actors. Humans are so stupid that we have let the technology drive us to work even more, rather than simplify our lives.

There is also this thing we have in the west called the “Protestant work ethic.“ we think the only reason we are here is to be endlessly productive, and that working around the clock is some sort of virtue. Rather than look at the time we can gift ourselves through use of technology, we are having a meltdown about losing unproductive jobs.

I love the idea of a 15 hour work week, but I don’t think the rest of our society, or our consumer economy, can quickly adjust to it. Stated more simply, we are going to have to find busywork to keep the masses occupied for a couple more generations, or shit is going to get very weird.

Tyrone Slothrop

09-20-2019 06:12 PM

Re: Um...

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Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 525041)

I think where you are leading with most of your arguments is that technology will eventually deliver for us the 15 hour work week promised by John Maynard Keynes.

Maybe you misunderstood what I said. I didn't say anything about Amazon making workers' lives better there. Myself, I would rather work in a corner market than in an Amazon fulfillment center. My point was that as a consumer, I am super happy to be freed of the need to run to a corner store to buy something that can be delivered, especially if that's cheaper. (For similar reasons, people go to Costco and buy lots of stuff all at once, but I don't have a house big enough to do that.)

ThurgreedMarshall

09-20-2019 06:32 PM

Re: Um...

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Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 525032)

People have a right to be selfish. You can chide them for it. And you should. But people have that right.

I'm not sure what the point of this is. Yeah. People have a right to be selfish. And if you're selfish, you get called on it. People have a right to shit their pants. So what?

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Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 525032)

I do not think people have a right to fix the game. It's one thing to not give a shit about others. But when you work to make sure they never have a chance, you're doing something different. When you rig the system, you're not saying, "You're on your own little guy... good fucking luck." You're instead saying, "You've got no chance because I have the ability to fix society so you cannot do better."

I do not understand why you think being selfish when it comes to the amount of taxes you spend and where that tax money goes is somehow different than what you just described. Taxes are spent on things we value as a society. Any reduction in taxes reduces the resources we share. If you vote your wallet, you are saying you think those resources should be diminished and services should be cut. Absolutely no one who "votes their wallet" is thinking strategically about efficiency no matter how many times they tell themselves that if the government has less money they'll be forced to be more efficient. That's just bullshit to justify the fact that they don't want to pay taxes.

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Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 525032)

The difference is, with the latter, you are anti-competitive. In the former, you're just selfish. You're correct that these behaviors can be seen as a continuum of thinking. But I think fixing the game trends from libertarianism into unethical, perhaps quasi-criminal behavior.

No. You're just talking degrees of selfishness.

People who actively work to change how tax money is spent or who vote for people who want to reduce the defense budget or cut out the overwhelming amounts of pork attached to bills, I can respect. People who just whine about taxes and ignore every other fucking issue this country is facing are full of shit and selfish assholes.

TM

sebastian_dangerfield

09-20-2019 06:33 PM

Re: Um...

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Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 525042)

I was trying to grab all our recent tech posts and guess where you were going in a broader context. The freedom you cite here is part of a slow unfolding of Keynes’ prediction, and a great defense of tech generally.

(I like talking to people at the bodega myself, but that’s another issue.)

Generally, the freedom Amazon provides comes at cost of others’ jobs. But it also frees them in terms of time. Where it gets tricky is “having money to pay for goods.” As tech eliminates wages and gifts us time, the price of things we need has to drop considerably. We can’t have an economy where we all have more time but only a small slice of us have funds to enjoy it.

Right now, we can’t even have that conversation because we’re so wired to think we must constantly work that a 15 hr work week and life of mostly leisure seems impossible... even as it is clearly coming.

ThurgreedMarshall

09-20-2019 06:34 PM

Re: Um...

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Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 525034)

No, I was trying to suggest that there is a widespread appetite for competitions with winners and losers. The NFL should change its rules to make the game more entertaining for its fans, preferably with fewer head injuries. Our society should change its rules to provide for more equality of opportunity and, if not socialism or equality of result, a better safety net to make sure that the worse off are not too badly off. The NFL, in its infinite wisdom, divides television revenue relatively evenly, so that the Patriots don't get that much more for winning than the Jets do for being the Jets. As with society, there is quite a lot of contingency in how this works -- the NFL is more able to do this than MLB because the national broadcast rights are so valuable and trump local broadcasts. The MLB continues with huge income disparities between teams that are a function of local TV markets, not success on the field. That kind of inequality has a disturbing way of perpetuating itself.

Okay, I don't even know what we're arguing about anymore. I don't disagree with anything you're saying, which is why I'm still confused about your initial comment.

TM

Icky Thump

09-20-2019 07:36 PM

Re: Um...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 525040)

So use the time you save from going to the corner store to chat with your neighbor.

If the price is less, it's possibly because Amazon is the conduit for Wall St investors to subsidize your drinking, but it's more likely that it's cheaper to sell stuff without covering the costs of leaving it at retail locations for a while before it's bought.

OTOH, the new technology enables new community through internet chat boards and the like. You don't have be a Timmy to point out that the communications there become rich in their own weird way.

The people I know who have become coaches should not be coaching anyone until they can fix their own lives.

I lost a car key on a run and I had to crawl 2 miles on my hands and knees to find it. I vowed never again. I looked for shorts with zippered pockets.

I went to Dick's, Nike, Sports Authority, Modell's, nothing. Spent most of my Saturday.

Went on Amazon, found them in 90 seconds, ridiculously cheap and they were at my house in two days.

So to hell with Brick and Mortar. More time running. Less time shopping.

Hank Chinaski

09-20-2019 07:52 PM

Re: Um...

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Originally Posted by Icky Thump (Post 525046)

Honestly, I’m starting to think I’m the only sock here with an assistant.

Icky Thump

09-21-2019 11:43 AM

Re: Um...

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Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 525047)

Honestly, I’m starting to think I’m the only sock here with an assistant.