Twinkee: Can Survive Nuclear Holocaust, but not Union

[ElectricFetus]

It's not regulations that prevents child labor, it's prosperity. As for working more than 40 hours a week, I sometimes work 80 hours a week - I am not paid overtime. Steve Jobs wasn't paid overtime. No one has a 'right' to be paid 'overtime' at some magical number called 40 hours a week. In a well functioning economy I would have two additional people (or more) working with me. The lost prosperity thanks to government overreach is hidden from view. Mainly because the Asians at this time in history are working 80 hours a week so Westerns can enjoy a life they do not deserve.

Lets step back here and ask were did that prosperity come from? Was it on the back of slavery and feudalism, imperialism, etc, did people not have to first be worked like dogs, get some money in their hands finally and demand better rights using that money directly or indirectly to do so? Oh no your saying, those rights just appeared out of thin air!

Offering someone the opportunity to work is not 'harming' another person.

If I hired someone to kill someone else, that not 'harming' another person? Do you live in a world in which the actions of one person don't in anyway affect another?

Both people agree to the work contract. As a matter of fact, it's not possible to, in a free-market - to do something you do not agree to do.

Beside being able to directly or indirectly force others to do things they don't want to do (like die at by your hired assassins bullet) its easily possible to hold someone up to a contract they didn't understand, to get someone to do something they didn't agree too.

I'll take my chances with the volunteerism, the free-market, private property rights, law and competitive money.

Again who is going to enforces these rights and laws, who going to agree on the value of money? You seem to think all people out of the goodness of their hearts would obey and respect each other, despite all of human history proving otherwise.

In a prosperous society, children don't HAVE to work. In a poor society, children MUST work - or they don't eat. They die. We're heading towards a day when you will see American children put to work to pay the debt the last generation, which will be dead and gone - created for themselves because they didn't think it was 'fair' to work 40+ hours a week without more pay on top, or they didn't want to pay for their own education (or save for their kids' education) or they wanted a boat, house, second house, rental property, four cars, jet skis, and a lot of vacation time - because anything less, was 'Harming' them and were more than happy to borrow on their children's dime.

We may very well be heading towards the day when no one needs to work at all, or need an education, were machines do everything. I really don't think you can guarantee we are headed for regression anymore then utopia, certainly our present social structure is not sustainable but that assuming no technological progression, and the general trend has been technology can change and does society for the better. It was not egalitarianism that ended slavery, it was the cotton gin, machines can now in most areas do more work of greater quality and for cheaper then human slaves can. Is that not the ultimate expression of the free market: what ever can do the most, better and for cheapest wins the contract, regardless if its human or not?

Imagine you're a white guy, you own a business. You hire a white dude at $10 an hour or a black dude at $8 an hour. If you hire the white guy, you think you will probably go bankrupt and lose your life's savings you sunk into your small business - you simply can't afford to. And without an employee you also can't manage to compete against competition. You decide to hire the black guy - even though you're a bigot, at the end of the day, this is your only shot at success and at least you'll have a fighting chance. So, you negotiate with and hire the black guy. Both of you work hard, the business thrives. The black guy is indispensable - you recognize his skill set now. He also learns what the market is worth and his value in it. With the thriving business the black guy makes his move, he wants to be a partner. You know to do so will cut your profits in the short term, but he's a great programmer and you think in the long run it'll be a win-win. You agree. You both become wealthy billionaires, buddies, and he one day asks for your daughters hand. You agree.

Most of the time people who are bigoted will only see evidence re-enforcing that bigotry: if your forced to hire a black guy, verse choosing him at a lower price, chances are he will not be indispensable to you either way, simply because most employees aren't. Chances are higher that you will abuse authority from hiring a minority with bigotry then find a diamond in the rough.

Also having black friends, dating black people, etc, doesn't make you not a racists, you could have black kids even and still believe they are less worthy then white people!, heck next you will be saying Thomes Jefferson wasn't a racist!

 

[Michael]

And that genre of facepalm is what that brand of ideology depends on, completely, as physical reality. That is what American history looks like, through rightwing "think tank" optics - it's not even aimed at children, it's the bedrock of intuition and judgment for adults in positions of power and responsibility in this country.

ye gods, we're in trouble.

a) you sir, are a cynic.
b) by your own logic the best option, for us all, is to reduce the role of democratic institutions and promote the rise of private ones - least you find yourself on the wrong side of the pendulum on its swing back.

 

[Michael]

Lets step back here and ask were did that prosperity come from? Was it on the back of slavery and feudalism, imperialism, etc, did people not have to first be worked like dogs, get some money in their hands finally and demand better rights using that money directly or indirectly to do so? Oh no your saying, those rights just appeared out of thin air!

Where do rights come from? Our DNA? Nature? The human mind?

I don't think prosperity was built on the backs of slavery, slavery was a drag on human society. It reduced prosperity, which is why we were relatively stagnate for hundreds of years. Prosperity comes from voluntarism, free markets, free trade. Civilization itself is a free market enterprise. To do anything else is only a return to the jungle, rule by brute force. I don't think humans have to be worked like dogs. Just look at the Amish. They work, but I don't think like dogs. They live a pretty decent life. Imagine if they decided to use machines to aid in their labor. Their prosperity would only increase. Efficiency and ingenuity when paired with free-trade is where our prosperity comes from.

If I hired someone to kill someone else, that not 'harming' another person? Do you live in a world in which the actions of one person don't in anyway affect another?

If you hired someone to kill me that would indeed be harming me.

It would be of course, against the law.

But think about this: What if you VOTED to kill someone? Does voting change water into wine? How about to steal from them and give to yourself? Voting make that right? How about we invoke the National Identity? Then is it OK? Is it moral to vote to take from people of another nation? Say we vote on war? Well, actually we do, and are.

Beside being able to directly or indirectly force others to do things they don't want to do (like die at by your hired assassins bullet) its easily possible to hold someone up to a contract they didn't understand, to get someone to do something they didn't agree too.

I've been 'had' by contracts (rental agreement once screwed me out of $850). I just never did business with that agency again. As well as many other situations.

I could have hired a lawyer. In a free market, if this was a big problem, you'd find service providers would step in to offer services.

I'd much rather suffer this small insult than give up my personal Civil Liberties because I didn't read the fine print. And if ever there was a case of 14 pages of small print - that was it!

Again who is going to enforces these rights and laws, who going to agree on the value of money? You seem to think all people out of the goodness of their hearts would obey and respect each other, despite all of human history proving otherwise.

Apple has every incentive to make sure I'm happy. I find most stored try to 'do right' by the customer. Not all - but most. Also, pretty much all international arbitration (and there's a shit load of international trade) is done voluntarily. Which to me is the elephant in the room. Surely given the centuries of international trade and it's importance today - this is evidence that voluntarism and reputation is enough to keep people in line. Trillions of dollars are traded daily without any 'World Government' enforcing contracts.

We may very well be heading towards the day when no one needs to work at all, or need an education, were machines do everything. I really don't think you can guarantee we are headed for regression anymore then utopia, certainly our present social structure is not sustainable but that assuming no technological progression, and the general trend has been technology can change and does society for the better. It was not egalitarianism that ended slavery, it was the cotton gin, machines can now in most areas do more work of greater quality and for cheaper then human slaves can. Is that not the ultimate expression of the free market: what ever can do the most, better and for cheapest wins the contract, regardless if its human or not?

Yeah, I could see the day come when human laborers are superseded even more so by machines.

Most of the time people who are bigoted will only see evidence re-enforcing that bigotry: if your forced to hire a black guy, verse choosing him at a lower price, chances are he will not be indispensable to you either way, simply because most employees aren't. Chances are higher that you will abuse authority from hiring a minority with bigotry then find a diamond in the rough.

Also having black friends, dating black people, etc, doesn't make you not a racists, you could have black kids even and still believe they are less worthy then white people!, heck next you will be saying Thomes Jefferson wasn't a racist!

I personally think government anti-discrimination laws are perpetuating discrimination. It gives bigots an inch and they take it and run with it.

 

[iceaura]

It was not egalitarianism that ended slavery, it was the cotton gin, machines can now in most areas do more work of greater quality and for cheaper then human slaves can.

The cotton gin encouraged, intensified, and spread slavery throughout the US. It made industrial scale slave plantation cotton farming enormously profitable.

Slaves can run machines. Mechanization encourages slavery, by increasing the productivity of labor.

Slavery does not go away by itself, or somehow evaporate when the society becomes somehow mysteriously prosperous. Neither does child labor.

Surely given the centuries of international trade and it's importance today - this is evidence that voluntarism and reputation is enough to keep people in line. Trillions of dollars are traded daily without any 'World Government' enforcing contracts.

A vision of centuries of international trade that imagines it proceeded by private voluntarism and reputation, an assertion that the international trading of trillions of dollars daily is done in a context free of contract enforcement or governmental regulation, and the like, belong in a Peter Pan sequel after the pirates have disappeared - not an adult discussion of reality based economics.

 

[ElectricFetus]

Where do rights come from? Our DNA? Nature? The human mind?

I don't think prosperity was built on the backs of slavery, slavery was a drag on human society. It reduced prosperity, which is why we were relatively stagnate for hundreds of years.

Can you prove slavery was the cause and not merely a product or correlating event?

Prosperity comes from voluntarism, free markets, free trade. Civilization itself is a free market enterprise. To do anything else is only a return to the jungle, rule by brute force. I don't think humans have to be worked like dogs. Just look at the Amish. They work, but I don't think like dogs. They live a pretty decent life. Imagine if they decided to use machines to aid in their labor. Their prosperity would only increase. Efficiency and ingenuity when paired with free-trade is where our prosperity comes from.

We had free trade since the dawn of man, all that time and now it finally the cause of prosperity??? No I think prosperity is due to something else, something that at least correlates better! Things like how much labor is needed per resource and how much resources are there per population, the more resources per population and the less labor needed to extra said resources the more prosperity.

If you hired someone to kill me that would indeed be harming me.

It would be of course, against the law.

But think about this: What if you VOTED to kill someone? Does voting change water into wine? How about to steal from them and give to yourself? Voting make that right? How about we invoke the National Identity? Then is it OK? Is it moral to vote to take from people of another nation? Say we vote on war? Well, actually we do, and are.

Again who enforces the law in your free-market anarchist world? I don't believe in nationalism or war, just utilitarianism (Maximize human pleasure, minimize human suffering) If stealing from the rich and giving to the poor reduces suffering in general its a good thing. Now you might say that it doesn't, but I would say that we should test and find out rather then believe in some ideology out of faith!

I've been 'had' by contracts (rental agreement once screwed me out of $850). I just never did business with that agency again. As well as many other situations.

I could have hired a lawyer. In a free market, if this was a big problem, you'd find service providers would step in to offer services.

yeah like hiring someone to kill that guy.

Apple has every incentive to make sure I'm happy.

Apple is the antithesis of a free market: they have a cult of diligent buyers that will keep buying their products despite the existence of cheaper better products. This cult was created through propaganda and style.

Marx had the belief that human's could be molded into social insects, you have the belief the humans can be molded into stock exchange machines, humans are neither: they are talking hairless apes that often defy the logic of either beliefs.

I find most stored try to 'do right' by the customer. Not all - but most.

because they don't want to get sued, or have a protest on their front door, or go to jail. Get ride of government that provides the enforcement of courts, laws and policing and you will have a lot more fucking over of people.

Also, pretty much all international arbitration (and there's a shit load of international trade) is done voluntarily. Which to me is the elephant in the room. Surely given the centuries of international trade and it's importance today - this is evidence that voluntarism and reputation is enough to keep people in line. Trillions of dollars are traded daily without any 'World Government' enforcing contracts.

and how did trade exist in the past, I mean we had free trade then, gold for example move across continents for millennia between lands and empires the never new each other, why was the prosperity delayed by thousands of years? More so when there is a violation of international trade one nation can hurt another economically and even militarily for it, more so though international trade has and is causing much suffering and suppression or prosperity as some nations strong arm others into doing things or allowing things that murders thousands of people. International trade is not an example of free trade bring prosperity its only a product of the real causes of prosperity: the transport technology to move goods, the energy technologies to power their production and transport, the machines to produce and move so much with ever fewer workers, the weapons technology that has forced everyone to act civil or risk total annihilation, etc.

Yeah, I could see the day come when human laborers are superseded even more so by machines.

I personally think government anti-discrimination laws are perpetuating discrimination. It gives bigots an inch and they take it and run with it.

In the past there were no such laws and discrimination was much MUCH greater, I'm not willing to remove the laws to see if the free market can take the place of said laws. As is there are many nations that have few or no discrimination laws, take japan which technically has no laws that forbid them from discriminating against non-nationals, and they do so readily!