Money, is it worth it?

[MonDie]

10 hours ago, zapatos said:

I think this line from Sheryl Crow's Soak Up The Sun got it right.

Then why haven't we fixed the damn problem?!  Brainy Quote my ass!

PS That river is full of teflon PFOA/PFOS particles.

... depending on how high up it is.

[iNow]

1 hour ago, Alex_Krycek said:

One of the problems regarding capitalism is the pressure it puts on people to pursue material wealth. <…> it locks people into jobs they don't want to do <…> money, and not true individual talent, become the end goal of all creative action. <…> most people never really tap into their true creative ability, whatever that may be.  Yes, there are a few who break the mold and actualize their creative potential, but in the vast majority this talent is suppressed, leading to a society where most people are not contributing their talents to the betterment of human civilization.  For this, we all suffer.  

These same points apply to universal healthcare. Having basics like access to healthcare without fear of bankruptcy enables entrepreneurs to take greater risks and achieve greater rewards without facing total catastrophic loss in the event of an unforeseen illness. 

These same points apply also to having a minimum floor in place for access to food and shelter, or even a universal basic income. 

We agree our economy is neither purely capitalistic nor purely socialistic. We even agree this is a good thing. Where we (“we” as a people, not necesssrily you and me here personally) tend to lose traction is when we begin discussing where the optimum point exists along that spectrum between capitalism and socialism, or when labels are bandied about to poison the well of honest debate among citizens. 
 

[MonDie]

3 hours ago, iNow said:

These same points apply to universal healthcare. Having basics like access to healthcare without fear of bankruptcy enables entrepreneurs to take greater risks and achieve greater rewards without facing total catastrophic loss in the event of an unforeseen illness. 

These same points apply also to having a minimum floor in place for access to food and shelter, or even a universal basic income. 

We agree our economy is neither purely capitalistic nor purely socialistic. We even agree this is a good thing. Where we (“we” as a people, not necesssrily you and me here personally) tend to lose traction is when we begin discussing where the optimum point exists along that spectrum between capitalism and socialism, or when labels are bandied about to poison the well of honest debate among citizens. 
 

Not knowing socialism or communism, I tend to assume that the communism-capitalism axis is as superficial/cultural as the left-right axis is.  It is more like some self-fulfilling guide to coalition building that probably made more sense fifty years ago.

Our societies seems to be full of reciprocity-driven concepts that would useless without a cultural context, including money and stocks.  Profit can have unintended side-effects.  The stock market is self-fulfilling.

[dimreepr]

19 hours ago, iNow said:

Money does, however, help buy happiness up to a point...

Indeed, but that point is food, shelter and water (and etc.); all of which should be the aim of any 'just' governmental system why else would we pay our taxes/tythe.

19 hours ago, iNow said:

According to recent data, anyway. Around October of last year, some new research came out suggesting that the threshold is somewhere around $70K per year. Happiness is harder below that point and easier above it, but the gains in happiness don't continue to grow as income does... For example, $300K per year is not meaningfully different from $70K per year in terms of happiness.

"I can prove anything by statistics except the truth" - George Canning

20 hours ago, Phi for All said:

That's funny, I use a similar anecdote to show the importance of NOT buying junk. I used to lose pens and sunglasses all the time because they were cheap and I didn't care about them. After a friend sat on my last pair, I decided to spend some money and get some nice sunglasses. I NEVER set them down carelessly, and for the first time I was able to keep a pair for a good long time. I bought a nice pen as well, and made sure I never loaned it out, or kept track of it on the rare occasion a friend asked. 

I justified that as being a responsible consumer choice as well as practical. I bought a $20 pen instead of 30 $1 pens, so I was saving the landfills AND my money. But I can look back now and realize that I might have put a bit too much importance on those pens and sunglasses. It took more time and effort to put those expensive glasses back in their case so they wouldn't get scratched, and I'm sure at some point I could have helped someone who really needed a pen, but didn't consider them a good security risk, not Pentel-worthy. Expensive things can de-value our points of view.

Those choice's and indulgences are some of the benefits of going to work.

If our society is fed and sheltered and the absolute need to have a job to make one happy is removed, then this insidious need to buy more junk is removed.

If both mice are happy, what's the problem?

[dimreepr]

On 5/10/2021 at 4:48 PM, swansont said:

If you, and everyone else, are provided with your needs, then no actual money is required. 

The issue I think you are describing is driven by wealth inequality, which is (in principle) eliminated. 

I was thinking of a hybrid system.

The people who's basic needs are met don't need money, shelter without rent, a food allowance and etc...

The people who want more, earn money for the extras they crave. 

The people who find value in what they do underpin the system, as they do now; nurse's, farmer's, bin men and etc. Should be rewarded equally...

Society needs everyone to find their niche, not just the wealthy.

Edited May 12, 2021 by dimreepr

[Phi for All]

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

I was thinking of a hybrid system.

The people who's basic needs are met don't need money, shelter without rent, a food allowance and etc...

The people who want more, earn money for the extras they crave. 

The people who find value in what they do underpin the system, as they do now; nurse's, farmer's, bin men and etc. Should be rewarded equally...

I think this could work, IF we make sure the private, public, and state ownership/management processes were each insulated from each other as much as possible. Public/state funded programs don't work as intended if there's a lot of private influence, the same way private enterprise is stifled by excessive public/state intervention. 

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

Society needs everyone to find their niche, not just the wealthy.

What about people who are really good at making money? It seems like they shouldn't be left out if "find your niche" is the goal. 

 

[dimreepr]

6 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

What about people who are really good at making money? It seems like they shouldn't be left out if "find your niche" is the goal. 

Indeed, they have value to add; but why is it more valuable? 

[Phi for All]

34 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Indeed, they have value to add; but why is it more valuable? 

I think this is the key, to de-value the undeserved extra clout having lots of money has, beyond the money itself. Some things should be unavailable for purchase.

[MonDie]

11 hours ago, dimreepr said:

Indeed, they have value to add; but why is it more valuable? 

Indeed, why does a computer hacker have access to more systems?  Moreover, does he have a right to those systems he hacked into?  Nobody owns the Internet!  But somebody does code the code, and knows the code's deepest vulnerabilities.

11 hours ago, Phi for All said:

I think this is the key, to de-value the undeserved extra clout having lots of money has, beyond the money itself. Some things should be unavailable for purchase.

Perhaps the dollar's deception of simplicity deceptively suggests anti-regulatory stances like longing for the gold standard, while legitimizing the rich.  The deceptively simple concept forgets that the power of currency actually comes from an idea, that so much exploitation is actually psychological, and these psychological tendencies are what crashes the system.

America's 2009 economic crisis, i.e. "the housing bubble", was caused by predatory loans.

[dimreepr]

What's the point of employing a lazy person?

Someone who spends all of thier time trying to find a way to do as little work as possible, costing the company untold millions.

On the other hand, if the company only employed them short term with a good wage, to find a way to do the job more efficiently and so save untold millions; even I will work for a day or two to earn a few luxuries.

And before anyone mentions time and motion expert's; an accountant is only creative when their trying to cook the book's... 🤣

I once worked for a company that made pod's in the factory that click together, on site, for students to live in.

They had a whole line dedicated to painting the walls; filling over the screws that attached the plasterboard, then sanding ready for paint, they also had team that snagged the failures of the line; I thought, why not just paper the wall's? One process with little chance of failure; but I couldn't be bothered to tell them...  

Edited May 14, 2021 by dimreepr

[iNow]

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

What's the point of employing a lazy person?

Someone who spends all of thier time trying to find a way to do as little work as possible, costing the company untold millions.

You're generalizing too much here. Laziness is not the relevant metric. In fact, it's often said that the worlds very best engineers are the ones who are truly lazy, for they are always seeking ways to do things more quickly and efficiently so as to minimize their own time investment requirements. 

Either way, this isn't a thread about laziness or some puritanical work ethics. It's about the concept of money itself. 

[dimreepr]

1 minute ago, iNow said:

You're generalizing too much here. Laziness is not the relevant metric. In fact, it's often said that the worlds very best engineers are the ones who are truly lazy, for they are always seeking ways to do things more quickly and efficiently so as to minimize their own time investment requirements. 

Either way, this isn't a thread about laziness or some puritanical work ethics. It's about the concept of money itself. 

I almost made a separate thread for this question; Hitler was a vegetarian, I'm not generalising and suggesting, all nazi's are "£$%'s. 

It's just 'A' metric of value...

 

Money is only worth, the value we chose to give it...

[ahmet]

On 5/10/2021 at 5:14 PM, swansont said:

The best things in life are free
But you can give them to the birds and bees

Just give me money. That's what I want.

ahahhaha      

     

On 5/10/2021 at 5:07 PM, dimreepr said:

What is it you want?

really, what I want might be different. 

formerly, my aim was to develop something to help humanity

but now, I aim someting which you may consider that things religious ,at least I think I should.

in fact, I shall again want to develop somethings to help humanity, but the aim is not that thing. that is just a content.

Edited May 14, 2021 by ahmet

[dimreepr]

10 minutes ago, ahmet said:

ahahhaha      

     

really, what I want might be different. 

formerly, my aim was to develop something to help humanity

but now, I aim someting which you may consider that things religious ,at least I think I should.

I wonder, why you would think that???

[ahmet]

9 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

I wonder, why you would think that???

that is logical decision. 

and ,why not ?

[dimreepr]

38 minutes ago, ahmet said:

that is logical decision. 

and ,why not ?

The Life of brian???

The Life of brian?

[ahmet]

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

The Life of brian???

The Life of brian?

mmm, no. 

I prefer listening to music instead watching film .

but succintly : 

1) our religion has real values. (Do not dstract your attention with wrong/fake applications/appearances (e.g. isis))

2)nowadays , arabs' money is the most valuable units as I know. 

3) in spite of everything,I think english society (e.g. in universities) applies special forms in laboratories.I mean if not the something,but the bulk of everything was incorrect,why special forms are being implemented /applied?

*** * *** 

(Crypted: VE-RI-TAS)

*** * ***    

 

 

summary: 

money and materials ..are not the aim , just tools.

[Sensei]

6 hours ago, dimreepr said:

What's the point of employing a lazy person?

Someone who spends all of thier time trying to find a way to do as little work as possible, costing the company untold millions.

Sounds you never worked in IT corporation..

Some programmer told me that they (he and the team he worked for at a time) were making ~ 30 lines of code per month. Every change of line he made required meeting with senior software engineers, hours discussion, acceptance and sending to automated test drive taking hours or days, and manual test drive..

For somebody unaware, from external world, "lazy person" might be indistinguishable from somebody thinking how to do something efficiently, correctly, without introduction of new bugs and problems in the app which has millions of lines of code.. Techniques which are fast and cheap (for IT company) to implement, are usually slow and inefficient for end user of the application.

Book writers, music composers, artists, programmers, often spend time on "nothing" (indistinguishable from nothing from layman's perspective), when in the reality they are doing work in their brain, thinking.

Jobs which don't require thinking and creativity are easily replaceable by automats, robots, machines and computers. In physical work it is much easier to tell whether somebody is lazy or not by comparison of the results with other employees doing exactly the same task. In intellectual creative work it is much harder to compare employees results.

8 hours ago, dimreepr said:

I thought, why not just paper the wall's? One process with little chance of failure; but I couldn't be bothered to tell them... 

..wallpapers is low quality cheap finish..

Funny in the context of your previous statement "someone who spends all of thier time trying to find a way to do as little work as possible"..

[dimreepr]

17 hours ago, ahmet said:

summary: 

money and materials ..are not the aim , just tools.

Money is not a tool it's a concept, so when we make our money work for us; it asset strip's the future.

It's like declaring a leaf as legal tender; we'd all be very rich, by defoliating the forest.

14 hours ago, Sensei said:

..wallpapers is low quality cheap finish.

Sound's like you've never been a decorator.

14 hours ago, Sensei said:

For somebody unaware, from external world, "lazy person" might be indistinguishable from somebody thinking how to do something efficiently, correctly, without introduction of new bugs and problems in the app which has millions of lines of code.. Techniques which are fast and cheap (for IT company) to implement, are usually slow and inefficient for end user of the application.

Book writers, music composers, artists, programmers, often spend time on "nothing" (indistinguishable from nothing from layman's perspective), when in the reality they are doing work in their brain, thinking.

Jobs which don't require thinking and creativity are easily replaceable by automats, robots, machines and computers. In physical work it is much easier to tell whether somebody is lazy or not by comparison of the results with other employees doing exactly the same task. In intellectual creative work it is much harder to compare employees results.

Funny in the context of your previous statement "someone who spends all of thier time trying to find a way to do as little work as possible"..

My point is, everyone has a nieche in society; and that's not always in a job.

What's your point?

The true value of money is to keep us all alive; to enjoy life. 😉

Edited May 15, 2021 by dimreepr

[swansont]

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

Money is not a tool it's a concept, so when we make our money work for us; it asset strip's the future.

It's like declaring a leaf as legal tender; we'd all be very rich, by defoliating the forest.

But then leaves would have very little actual value owing to inflation. The wheelbarrow full of "cash" (as in the stories from Germany after WWI) to buy a loaf of bread. Everybody can't be rich.

[dimreepr]

8 minutes ago, swansont said:

But then leaves would have very little actual value owing to inflation. The wheelbarrow full of "cash" (as in the stories from Germany after WWI) to buy a loaf of bread. Everybody can't be rich.

But everybody can be alive to enjoy it's wealth, if we shared more of the loaf.

Whoever defoliates the forest first, is the richest. 

Edited May 15, 2021 by dimreepr

[swansont]

2 hours ago, dimreepr said:

But everybody can be alive to enjoy it's wealth, if we shared more of the loaf.

But that’s not what happens in capitalism. We don’t share, we buy and sell. If there’s more money in circulation held by more people, prices tend to go up.

[dimreepr]

2 minutes ago, swansont said:

But that’s not what happens in capitalism. We don’t share, we buy and sell. If there’s more money in circulation held by more people, prices tend to go up.

Indeed, is buying more valuable?

[zapatos]

4 hours ago, dimreepr said:

Money is not a tool

Only if you redefine the word to eliminate one of its common usages.

[dimreepr]

1 minute ago, zapatos said:

Only if you redefine the word to eliminate one of its common usages.

Look on my world ye mighty and despair...