Related: the idea that everyone needs to work all the time isn’t really true anymore. If we were in like 3000 bce in a small farming village outside Ur, yeah, people gotta pitch in so we don’t get eaten by wildlife, the neighboring tribe, or whatever.
But in 2025ce, where so many jobs have so much filler nonsense? And when the rich can just live on investment income? No, the whole “work or starve” thing isn’t needed anymore.
We should have basic income for all and public housing. Let people pursue what they want. Maybe it’s art. Maybe they just want to take care of the local library. Maybe they just want to be a local barfly that keeps the tavern interesting. Who knows? But wage slavery needs to go.
Man that’s bullshit and you know it. Yeah a rich class is not exactly directly subject to work or starve, but people who write stuff like this don’t realize they are in that rich class. I guarantee you’ve never met or heard of anyone starving ain’t an anorexic or lost in the barrens. There has to be people doing the actual work, and people like you doing what amounts to fancy book keeping and service industries for the next class of people it’s very plain you’re envious of.
How do you think they make that money? Primarily off of consumerism. If we all collectively decided to share what we have and stop buying what we don’t need, there could be no passive income, not at the scale it exists today, anyways.
I think landlords make a lot of sense for commercially-zoned property, and for residentially there needs to be some way to live somewhere even if you can’t afford the mortgage deposit. So there’s nuance here that needs addressing IMO.
People do kinda pick where they are though? If there’s some unoccupied housing in Denver, but you’re living in Austin it’s not necessarily useful, that’s what I meant. I agree in principle on social housing, but there would probably need to be some kind of associated projects – either new construction or housing where ppl live but there isn’t enough accommodation, or new jobs created in areas with surplus, or both… And then you also need to think about local amenities (shops, hospitals, parks, schools, that sort of SimCity thing)
Sorry, I might have come across as if I fully disagreed with the notion, but I really don’t - I just think that the idea only works with a more integrated policy.
I think under a UBI scenario, people should get to pick the city they want to reside in, then get assigned a public housing unit(s) for their immediate family. They can also be provided free public transport, and a basic UBI vehicle with free fuel.
Ideally, people would have a bedrock of UBI services to rely upon for their wellbeing, and money is turned into something solely used for lifestyle upgrades: Buying a house of the quality, size, and location you want, a fancier non-UBI car, brand-name food or supplies, private school, ect.
I guess? With enough money you can just buy bonds, which sort of depend on consumerism but indirectly. Some municipal bonds return like 5%. 5% of a shit load of money is enough to live on.
The downside of reading a lot of depressing non fiction is I increasingly feel like I’m living in a cuckoo clock, and get frustrated with how everyone else seems oblivious and uncaring.
It argues that following the global economic crises of the 1970s, governments, financiers and technological utopians gave up on trying to shape the complex “real world” and instead established a simpler “fake world” for the benefit of multi-national corporations that is kept stable by neoliberal governments.
We haven’t needed to work since the early 1900s. The labor movement was all about getting people to work less and ensuring everyone is taken care of. Consumerism was invented to fight back and has been winning ever since. People are animals and animals can be manipulated.
Related: the idea that everyone needs to work all the time isn’t really true anymore. If we were in like 3000 bce in a small farming village outside Ur, yeah, people gotta pitch in so we don’t get eaten by wildlife, the neighboring tribe, or whatever.
But in 2025ce, where so many jobs have so much filler nonsense? And when the rich can just live on investment income? No, the whole “work or starve” thing isn’t needed anymore.
We should have basic income for all and public housing. Let people pursue what they want. Maybe it’s art. Maybe they just want to take care of the local library. Maybe they just want to be a local barfly that keeps the tavern interesting. Who knows? But wage slavery needs to go.
Man that’s bullshit and you know it. Yeah a rich class is not exactly directly subject to work or starve, but people who write stuff like this don’t realize they are in that rich class. I guarantee you’ve never met or heard of anyone starving ain’t an anorexic or lost in the barrens. There has to be people doing the actual work, and people like you doing what amounts to fancy book keeping and service industries for the next class of people it’s very plain you’re envious of.
If not everyone needs to work, then who needs it? Why should you work while others don’t?
How do you think they make that money? Primarily off of consumerism. If we all collectively decided to share what we have and stop buying what we don’t need, there could be no passive income, not at the scale it exists today, anyways.
We also need to outlaw landlords. Owning land is not a job and it’s certainly not a business.
Only raccoons could be owners of land :D
Hard Agree.
I think landlords make a lot of sense for commercially-zoned property, and for residentially there needs to be some way to live somewhere even if you can’t afford the mortgage deposit. So there’s nuance here that needs addressing IMO.
We could just… give everyone a place to live. Then there’s no such thing as “can’t afford a mortgage.”
Do people get to choose where they live in this scenario, or do we just allocate housing based on where’s currently unoccupied?
People don’t really get to choose where they live now. If you mean choosing from a list of vacancies, then sure, I don’t see why not.
People do kinda pick where they are though? If there’s some unoccupied housing in Denver, but you’re living in Austin it’s not necessarily useful, that’s what I meant. I agree in principle on social housing, but there would probably need to be some kind of associated projects – either new construction or housing where ppl live but there isn’t enough accommodation, or new jobs created in areas with surplus, or both… And then you also need to think about local amenities (shops, hospitals, parks, schools, that sort of SimCity thing)
Sorry, I might have come across as if I fully disagreed with the notion, but I really don’t - I just think that the idea only works with a more integrated policy.
I think under a UBI scenario, people should get to pick the city they want to reside in, then get assigned a public housing unit(s) for their immediate family. They can also be provided free public transport, and a basic UBI vehicle with free fuel.
Ideally, people would have a bedrock of UBI services to rely upon for their wellbeing, and money is turned into something solely used for lifestyle upgrades: Buying a house of the quality, size, and location you want, a fancier non-UBI car, brand-name food or supplies, private school, ect.
Consumerism is used for wealth redistribution.
Real wealth production occurs when machines create work, saving time. Work = money.
I guess? With enough money you can just buy bonds, which sort of depend on consumerism but indirectly. Some municipal bonds return like 5%. 5% of a shit load of money is enough to live on.
Recommendation: the book Bullshit Jobs
Also Graeber’s Debt.
So many of Graeber’s ideas are right on the dot. Those two books helped me understand economics better than fucking Milton Friedman ever could.
I’ve heard of this one. Maybe I’ll check it out.
The downside of reading a lot of depressing non fiction is I increasingly feel like I’m living in a cuckoo clock, and get frustrated with how everyone else seems oblivious and uncaring.
If you want an understanding of the cuckoo clock and how it came to be, I highly recommend you watch the BBC documentary HyperNormalisation.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperNormalisation
I want the inside of my house to look like the outside of an insane asylum
We haven’t needed to work since the early 1900s. The labor movement was all about getting people to work less and ensuring everyone is taken care of. Consumerism was invented to fight back and has been winning ever since. People are animals and animals can be manipulated.