UK Authors aren't making a living from writing.

[Swilly]

This is generally why I avoid political conversations. There are thoughts at opposite ends of the spectrum, and many in between. At best, one might get another who is close to the center to change an opinion slightly. The others...one in a million chance at best.

I have a fantasy that would split the country in two equal parts, and position people in each half based upon their beliefs of a free market vs. what effectively is a socialist environment. It would be quite interesting to see what happened over the course of several decades.

The fall of the Soviet Union probably isn't a perfect example, because there were an awful lot of other factors involved.

Frankly, I think the biggest challenge we'll face in the future is how technology will continue to make jobs obsolete. I wonder what the hell people will do for a living, and what that will mean for society. I don't think it will be a pretty picture at all.

 

[R. Richard]

This is generally why I avoid political conversations. There are thoughts at opposite ends of the spectrum, and many in between. At best, one might get another who is close to the center to change an opinion slightly. The others...one in a million chance at best.

I have a fantasy that would split the country in two equal parts, and position people in each half based upon their beliefs of a free market vs. what effectively is a socialist environment. It would be quite interesting to see what happened over the course of several decades.

The fall of the Soviet Union probably isn't a perfect example, because there were an awful lot of other factors involved.

Frankly, I think the biggest challenge we'll face in the future is how technology will continue to make jobs obsolete. I wonder what the hell people will do for a living, and what that will mean for society. I don't think it will be a pretty picture at all.

They tried socialism/communism in the old USSR, in China and in Chile. In each case socialism/communism failed miserably. The attempts to at least try to replace socialism/communism with capitalism worked, to varying degrees.

Technology will, inevitably, replace low skilled work. The only answer is to train people for higher skilled work. Alas, the educational systems are not geared to turn out people who have skills suited to making a living. Something has to change.

 

[Swilly]

For that matter, free-market health models aren't so great even for the rich in the long term.

Take something like tuberculosis. You can take a universal-healthcare approach and make sure everybody gets thorough treatment, aim to eradicate it from your country altogether (and then screen to stop it from getting back in).

Or you can take the free-market approach. The rich get treated with a full course of first-line antibiotics that cures their illness, the poor get incomplete or no treatment. In the short term that works out pretty well for the rich. But in the long term it's a perfect environment for breeding multi-drug-resistant, extensively-drug-resistant, and totally-drug-resistant TB, and then everybody is fucked.

It's like trying to run a fire brigade or an army that only defends every tenth house. In economic parlance, the free-market model fails miserably because there are massive externalities involved. The same is true for art these days: digital tech means that people who don't pay for the creation of art still benefit from that creation.

There's healthcare that involves eradicating communicable disease, and there's healthcare that involves issues caused by lifestyle. We, as citizens, hold the key to solving the healthcare crisis. Take better care of ourselves. Should the government be able to FORCE people to do that? Should I, if I'm paying a level of taxes that funds YOUR healthcare for lifestyle related illnesses?

We have a mismatch between what we believe we're "entitled" to, and what we believe our responsibility to be. Don't hold me accountable; just take care of me when I fuck up? Is that how it should go? Or do we want Uncle Sam to monitor everything we eat, how much we sleep and exercise and what we do to our bodies?

I'm 56 years old, and I eat healthy, try to get enough sleep, minimize stress and exercise regularly. I go to the gym and blow away people half my age. My wife tells me to have fun at the gym. You know what? I don't. It isn't fun. It sucks getting under a heavy bar and coming out of a deep squat, or pushing myself to the wall doing sprints. But I do it for my health, and to maintain my ability to function effectively. I know I'm in the minority with what I do, and that's a shame. People treat their bodies like shit, and wonder why they break down. And then want someone else to pay to deal with it. Hell, drive like a psycho and watch your auto insurance rates go through the roof. Destroy your body, and...oh no. It wouldn't be fair to have to pay for the damage you've done to yourself. Sorry. I ain't buying it.

*End of rant*

 

[Aynmair]

I was born and raised in a communist country still struggling to get out from under its past - I don't hold it up as any sort of ideal.

Swilly's last point is one that also bothers me a lot. Not too far into the future automation, as RR pointed out, will make an awful lot of jobs obsolete. But I think education will have to go a long long way from what we have now to make up for the loss. Especially as education or intellectual pursuits are not in great favor in many parts of US society, and sadly in the halls of Congress. We've elected some frightfully ignorant people and, Swilly, whatever side of the spectrum we're on, you probably agree with me on that.

This is generally why I avoid political conversations. There are thoughts at opposite ends of the spectrum, and many in between. At best, one might get another who is close to the center to change an opinion slightly. The others...one in a million chance at best.

I have a fantasy that would split the country in two equal parts, and position people in each half based upon their beliefs of a free market vs. what effectively is a socialist environment. It would be quite interesting to see what happened over the course of several decades.

The fall of the Soviet Union probably isn't a perfect example, because there were an awful lot of other factors involved.

Frankly, I think the biggest challenge we'll face in the future is how technology will continue to make jobs obsolete. I wonder what the hell people will do for a living, and what that will mean for society. I don't think it will be a pretty picture at all.

They tried socialism/communism in the old USSR, in China and in Chile. In each case socialism/communism failed miserably. The attempts to at least try to replace socialism/communism with capitalism worked, to varying degrees.

Technology will, inevitably, replace low skilled work. The only answer is to train people for higher skilled work. Alas, the educational systems are not geared to turn out people who have skills suited to making a living. Something has to change.

 

[Swilly]

Hell yes, Aynmair. I'm kind of sick of checking off none of the above. Agree on education too. One problem will be aptitude though. Not everyone has ability.

One more thought on healthcare... Technology will develop treatments that far outpace our ability to pay for the. What do we do then? At some point, we need to let death win. It always does in the end.

Have a happy day everyone!

 

[Aynmair]

Hell yes, Aynmair. I'm kind of sick of checking off none of the above. Agree on education too. One problem will be aptitude though. Not everyone has ability.

One more thought on healthcare... Technology will develop treatments that far outpace our ability to pay for the. What do we do then? At some point, we need to let death win. It always does in the end.

Have a happy day everyone!

Death and birth control!

 

[Bramblethorn]

There's healthcare that involves eradicating communicable disease, and there's healthcare that involves issues caused by lifestyle. We, as citizens, hold the key to solving the healthcare crisis. Take better care of ourselves. Should the government be able to FORCE people to do that? Should I, if I'm paying a level of taxes that funds YOUR healthcare for lifestyle related illnesses?

I can't say I'm wild about paying tax for other people's smoking-related illnesses. But I'm wary of discussion about "lifestyle diseases" because so much of it is driven by people trying to rationalise their own good fortune as "earned" and other people's bad fortune as some sort of "moral failure", without looking hard enough at what's really going on.

Diet, for instance - it's comfortable to think that people who eat McD's are just lazy fatties who are bringing bad health upon themselves. But eating healthy (once we've agreed on what "healthy" actually is this year) takes time and money. Getting healthy levels of sleep or exercise is a fantasy for somebody who has to work two jobs to make ends meet, or who's caring 24/7 for a sick family member. And so on. So, yeah, I wish people would take better care of themselves, but in very many cases there are reasons why they don't.

Also, lifestyle and communicable diseases are not separable issues. Injecting heroin is very bad for your health, and about as much of a "lifestyle disease" as it's possible to get. But it also leads to a subpopulation of people who have weakened immune systems and don't have money for medical care (or choose to spend that money on other things, depending on how you want to frame it), which provides a petri dish for things like drug-resistant TB. If treating somebody else's self-inflicted "lifestyle disease" stops it from turning into a communicable disease issue that threatens everybody, hell yeah, spend some of my tax money on that.

Technology will, inevitably, replace low skilled work. The only answer is to train people for higher skilled work. Alas, the educational systems are not geared to turn out people who have skills suited to making a living. Something has to change.

Not the only possible answer. Why does everybody have to have a job? If I can build a robot that does the work of a thousand people, I'd prefer to think of it not as "now we have to find new jobs for a thousand people so they don't starve" but as "hey, we could now give a thousand people a permanent vacation and still be just as well off as we were before!" That's not necessarily what we should do with it - maybe there are even better options - but the only way it becomes a problem is when we forget that the goal of an economic system is to provide people with resources, not to provide them with work.

 

[Swilly]

My point is that we as a society feel that we can't force people to behave a certain way, but we then feel an obligation to deal with their bad choices. For the record, I don't equate overweight with unhealthy, and I certainly don't believe that every person that is overweight sits around gorging themselves on ice cream. The food pyramid we use in this country is a joke, so I do appreciate your comment about what healthy eating is. All that being said, people don't take care of themselves, and far too many of them refuse to get up off their asses and do anything. And that's a huge problem.

but the only way it becomes a problem is when we forget that the goal of an economic system is to provide people with resources, not to provide them with work.

Now that is a very interesting thought, and a good one.

 

[R. Richard]

Why does everybody have to have a job? If I can build a robot that does the work of a thousand people, I'd prefer to think of it not as "now we have to find new jobs for a thousand people so they don't starve" but as "hey, we could now give a thousand people a permanent vacation and still be just as well off as we were before!" That's not necessarily what we should do with it - maybe there are even better options - but the only way it becomes a problem is when we forget that the goal of an economic system is to provide people with resources, not to provide them with work.

If we allow a certain number of people a permanent vacation, there are certain effects.
1. Those on permanent vacation will use what should be work time to agitate for still more benefits.
2. Why live in Turdville, when you can live in Tahiti, Hawaii, San Diego, Aspen, etc.?
3. Those on permanent vacation will overspend and then become slaves of the money lenders. (No work breeds lack of self control.)