There is something wrong with "workers mentality"

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Nades
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13 Sep 2021, 3:25 pm

Fnord wrote:
When people can sell their "food stamps" (usually a pre-paid debit card) for as low as fifty cents on the dollar, and use the cash to buy booze and drugs, there are still some adjustments to be made to The System -- maybe incorporating biometric verification into the use of the food stamp debit cards would help; but some clever scofflaw would likely find some way to bypass that as well.



I was thinking putting their picture literally on their "stamp" and they need passport verification when they come to use it........now, how do you give some of them passports considering they don't know what the word "pass" means or what "ports" are. They should be renamed "Drugdrugs" and I'm sure they'll be interested in getting one.



uncommondenominator
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13 Sep 2021, 4:24 pm

Have any of you actually been on food stamps?

The "people on welfare are lazy and do drugs" trope is old AF. Adding in being ignorant and illiterate, too? Classy.

No, really, talk some more sh*t about people on public assistance.

Do you honestly think that there's anything easy about being poor?

"Poor" is not the same thing as "broke". Broke is when you spend all your extra money on luxuries. Poor is when you don't even have any money for luxuries, and maybe not even necessities. "Well maybe if they worked more they wouldn't be poor" - yes, because all places have enough jobs for everyone, and all work is fairly rewarded... :roll:

I suppose if you convince yourself that they're only poor cos they're lazy then of course you'd be upset about poor people having nice things. Being poor sucks. And when you DO budget and plan and manage to save up for something nice, someone blames you for "poor spending habits" for having the audacity to have something nice, AND be poor.

Somma y'all need to get th'f*ck off of your high horses.



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13 Sep 2021, 4:32 pm

uncommondenominator wrote:
Have any of you actually been on food stamps?...
Yes, for a few weeks in the Navy ... embarrassed the heck out of the base C.O., too!  Because it was legal...


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Nades
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13 Sep 2021, 4:57 pm

uncommondenominator wrote:
Have any of you actually been on food stamps?

The "people on welfare are lazy and do drugs" trope is old AF. Adding in being ignorant and illiterate, too? Classy.

No, really, talk some more sh*t about people on public assistance.

Do you honestly think that there's anything easy about being poor?

"Poor" is not the same thing as "broke". Broke is when you spend all your extra money on luxuries. Poor is when you don't even have any money for luxuries, and maybe not even necessities. "Well maybe if they worked more they wouldn't be poor" - yes, because all places have enough jobs for everyone, and all work is fairly rewarded... :roll:

I suppose if you convince yourself that they're only poor cos they're lazy then of course you'd be upset about poor people having nice things. Being poor sucks. And when you DO budget and plan and manage to save up for something nice, someone blames you for "poor spending habits" for having the audacity to have something nice, AND be poor.

Somma y'all need to get th'f*ck off of your high horses.


I'm specifically talking about being broke while on tax payers money, as in spending all that money on frivolous crap like cigs and booze. They don't budget and save up for something nice.....they never can budget. We all see these types of people daily and once you seen one, you pretty much seen them all. The exception being physically disabled and occasionally a mental illness that doesn't turn your brain into white goo.

Remember the type of people who I'm talking about. It's that woman I mentioned earlier who thought steam could be purchased in cardboard boxes. The guy who hasn't got a single high school qualification because he thought school was stupid and preferred smoking weed at his friends house. The woman who popped out 4 kids to two different fathers who go AWOL and thinks finding a third guy to do the same with is a good idea....... and just the run of the mill drunkards of course.

In a nut shell, don't give any of those types money. These types of people need control in their life and money gives them the total opposite and an opportunity to do what they do best which is screw everything up like they always have. They need to be reigned in with food stamps, prepaid utilities and rent to stop them getting their hands on cash if they like it or not. Better still they should have a bank account that they legally can't touch where grocery stores, landlords, utilities and local authorities are the only ones with authority to take money out or put money in.



magz
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14 Sep 2021, 1:39 am

I think we need to take living in different societes into account.
AFAIK, USA has a problem with real poverty (understood as risk to the very survival because of being poor).
UK has rather elaborate benefits in cash system that no one wants to touch because these people are voters, too. So, similarily to socialist states, a whole social class of "professional" system beneficients has developed, with children learning the lifestyle from adults and keeping it running.


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14 Sep 2021, 3:48 am

Fnord wrote:
Tross wrote:
[...] what allows Capitalism to keep on trucking on to this day...
... is cheap, disposable labor.
Well, yeah. Marx may have been right about the mechanics of how capitalism works, but he severely underestimated its lifespan. He is correct that it will one day crash and burn, but while there's no cure for its terminal nature, there have certainly been remedies to greatly slow down the process, and angles and loopholes have been exploited to that end that he failed to consider. Case in point, cheap labour, largely by foreigners.



magz
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14 Sep 2021, 3:58 am

Tross wrote:
Fnord wrote:
Tross wrote:
[...] what allows Capitalism to keep on trucking on to this day...
... is cheap, disposable labor.
Well, yeah. Marx may have been right about the mechanics of how capitalism works, but he severely underestimated its lifespan. He is correct that it will one day crash and burn, but while there's no cure for its terminal nature, there have certainly been remedies to greatly slow down the process, and angles and loopholes have been exploited to that end that he failed to consider. Case in point, cheap labour, largely by foreigners.
The best souorces of cheap, disposable labour are robots. In a modern German car factory, you can pay workers decently because there are very few of them, so their salary doesn't make the product much more expensive.
I think Marx generally underestimated effects of technological progress.

If things develop towards automatization, the concept of people having basic needs universally covered and being encouraged to seek their vocations may be not a bad idea... though in many societes, it would require substantial cultural changes.


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14 Sep 2021, 6:19 am

Nades wrote:
uncommondenominator wrote:
Have any of you actually been on food stamps?

The "people on welfare are lazy and do drugs" trope is old AF. Adding in being ignorant and illiterate, too? Classy.

No, really, talk some more sh*t about people on public assistance.

Do you honestly think that there's anything easy about being poor?

"Poor" is not the same thing as "broke". Broke is when you spend all your extra money on luxuries. Poor is when you don't even have any money for luxuries, and maybe not even necessities. "Well maybe if they worked more they wouldn't be poor" - yes, because all places have enough jobs for everyone, and all work is fairly rewarded... :roll:

I suppose if you convince yourself that they're only poor cos they're lazy then of course you'd be upset about poor people having nice things. Being poor sucks. And when you DO budget and plan and manage to save up for something nice, someone blames you for "poor spending habits" for having the audacity to have something nice, AND be poor.

Somma y'all need to get th'f*ck off of your high horses.


I'm specifically talking about being broke while on tax payers money, as in spending all that money on frivolous crap like cigs and booze. They don't budget and save up for something nice.....they never can budget. We all see these types of people daily and once you seen one, you pretty much seen them all. The exception being physically disabled and occasionally a mental illness that doesn't turn your brain into white goo.

Remember the type of people who I'm talking about. It's that woman I mentioned earlier who thought steam could be purchased in cardboard boxes. The guy who hasn't got a single high school qualification because he thought school was stupid and preferred smoking weed at his friends house. The woman who popped out 4 kids to two different fathers who go AWOL and thinks finding a third guy to do the same with is a good idea....... and just the run of the mill drunkards of course.

In a nut shell, don't give any of those types money. These types of people need control in their life and money gives them the total opposite and an opportunity to do what they do best which is screw everything up like they always have. They need to be reigned in with food stamps, prepaid utilities and rent to stop them getting their hands on cash if they like it or not. Better still they should have a bank account that they legally can't touch where grocery stores, landlords, utilities and local authorities are the only ones with authority to take money out or put money in.


UGH :roll:

Perhaps it's different elsewhere, but here in the US, we have whole swaths of areas where there just are no jobs. Whole towns and cities where almost everyone worked "down at the plant", or "down in the mine", but now the plant is closed, or the mine is stripped, or the factory moved - and now 10,000 people are out of a job, and have no resources to move, even if they knew where to move to, and could actually find a new job that employ the skills they have.

Maybe I'm nuts, but I feel like even stupid and lazy people deserve to live. Some people just aren't smart. Some people have limits to how much they can learn, or how fast they can learn it. Not everyone is qualified to perform work more complicated than bagging groceries. Not everyone has the same motivation. Not everyone has the same drive. So what if some girl thought you could buy steam in a box? People who don't know better can think all kinds of odd things. It's easy to laugh when you have the privilege of already knowing things. But yeah, lets laugh at the stupid people, for being stupid. Despite any stories I may have heard as a kid, about lazy grasshoppers and hard working ants, or however the story goes, I still don't feel that anyone deserves to starve in a world where the problem isn't that there isn't enough food, but rather getting the food to the people, and worrying about whether or not the recipient "deserves" or "earned" it.

Maybe I'm nuts, but I don't rightly care too much about those that abuse a system that overwhelmingly does far more good, to far more people. I'm far more concerned that there are people living in gilded palaces and riding private rockets to space for lulz, and buying their seventh mansion, or their fifth mega-yacht, while people are dying from as simple and solvable problem as lack of ACCESS to food and water and such that exists, and is being wasted in the name of greed because "someone didn't PAY for it", so they destroy it rather than give it away.

Governments and tightwads gripe about the billions of dollars lost per year that go to fraudulent cases, but never mention the same number of billions of dollars of wage theft committed against workers by their employers. Seems like it's mostly a matter of things balancing themselves out.

Maybe I'm nuts, but I just can't believe that everyone who uses assistance programs is "just lazy". Talking sh!t about them only serves to stigmatize the poor even more than they already are. Even the laziest people I've known still like to eat, and will generally exert enough effort to make sure they have regular access to food. With like, a JOB. They're lazy, but at their JOB.

Maybe I'm nuts, but the maximum benefits that a person can get on public assistance hardly seems like enough to live a good life. I don't see ballin out in a Benz on the amount that a person gets on welfare or food stamps. Not in the US, and not in the UK from what I'm seeing either. Many welfare benefits you can only claim if you've already paid into them - so it's your money coming back to you. Fantasies about people on welfare living large and luxurious might make for a good trope, but it's hardly the reality.

Playing off like they're all just drug addled lazy stupid leeches might make you feel morally superior, or at least morally justified, but it's a vicious disservice to a sizeable portion of people who's lives are harder than they need to be, in a world full of problems that don't all need to exist.

As far as I'm concerned, your joke about "calling them drugdrugs so they know what it is" sounds no different than if someone said "I was talking to someone who was autistic, so I started drooling and going "HURR DURR" so they'd feel more at home" - and then justifying it by saying "well, some autistic people DO act like that, you know the ones I'm talking about, and if you've met one you've met them all..."

Yes, some people do abuse it. Pretending it's being overused or over-depended upon is just political rhetoric to justify getting rid of it. People then get this funny idea that the money "saved" by no longer offering these programs will somehow go back into Average joe's pocket, and totally won't be used to fund more politicians' salaries or tax breaks for corporations. Painting poor people as the villain is a distraction from the fact that the real problem is wealth-hoarding billionaires and fat bloated politicians.

While I have no doubt that the average CEO probably works harder, on some level, than a janitor, or a cashier - I don't know that ANY job is 10,000 times harder, or that anyone can work 10,000 times harder, to justify getting paid 10,000 more. Let alone 100,000 times more, as would be the case when comparing some that makes $10/hr versus someone that makes $1,000,000/hr. And yes, there are people who make that much, and more.

The instant you say that people HAVE to work in order to eat, you've put a price tag on a human life. That person only deserves to live if their existence is profitable to someone. Sorry Tiny Tim, you only get to live if you're exploitable.

"But who's gonna PAY for it?!" How about the people with SO FREAKEN MUCH MONEY that they CAN pay for it, and not even notice the difference. If you distributed that 8 billion dollars in welfare fraud among the top 40 billionaires, each would pay 200 million a year. To put that into perspective, #40 on the list of billionaires has a worth of about 10 billion dollars. Big numbers all sound wild, so to put that in perspective, if you had 10 billion dollars, and I took 200 million dollars, that would be like if you had ONE HUNDRED dollars, and I took TWO dollars. 2%. Two pennies on the dollar.

Some things should have to be worked for. Some things should NOT have to be worked for. Nobody should have to perform for their daily bread in this day and age. When those who have the most tell those in the middle to keep an eye out for those with the least, they're just trying to keep both groups from turning their attention to THEM. Like the analogy of the guy who takes 7 of the 8 slices of pizza, then tells one guy that the other guy is eyeballing his slice, to keep them both distracted from his 7 slices.

If you think "hard work" and "good budgeting" is all it takes to not be poor, you're lucky the world hasn't shown you first-hand just how hard it can be. Even if you have issues with welfare as a system or in practice, classing all people on welfare as being lazy stupid druggos is several different kinds of f*ck'd, and using that as an excuse to make jokes at their expense is yet one more kind of f*ck'd on top of that. Being poor is hard enough without people deciding you're also a lazy drug addict that can't be trusted with money.

I mean, let's say I genuinely did need help, and only took welfare for a short time, cos the factory shut down and there was no work - but if everyone believes that all welfare people are just lazy, now who's going to hire them anyways? It's conveniently circular logic. You've already decided they're lazy and stupid and probably on drugs, so even if they tried to get a job like they're told, who's gonna hire them? You? Not with the way YOU talk of them, you're not. So then what? Even wanting to work, you've already decided that they're not worth hiring, since they're stupid druggies who can't manage things.

Really tired of people punching down rather than up.

Again, UGH :roll:



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14 Sep 2021, 6:54 am

uncommondenominator wrote:
Nades wrote:
uncommondenominator wrote:
Have any of you actually been on food stamps?

The "people on welfare are lazy and do drugs" trope is old AF. Adding in being ignorant and illiterate, too? Classy.

No, really, talk some more sh*t about people on public assistance.

Do you honestly think that there's anything easy about being poor?

"Poor" is not the same thing as "broke". Broke is when you spend all your extra money on luxuries. Poor is when you don't even have any money for luxuries, and maybe not even necessities. "Well maybe if they worked more they wouldn't be poor" - yes, because all places have enough jobs for everyone, and all work is fairly rewarded... :roll:

I suppose if you convince yourself that they're only poor cos they're lazy then of course you'd be upset about poor people having nice things. Being poor sucks. And when you DO budget and plan and manage to save up for something nice, someone blames you for "poor spending habits" for having the audacity to have something nice, AND be poor.

Somma y'all need to get th'f*ck off of your high horses.


I'm specifically talking about being broke while on tax payers money, as in spending all that money on frivolous crap like cigs and booze. They don't budget and save up for something nice.....they never can budget. We all see these types of people daily and once you seen one, you pretty much seen them all. The exception being physically disabled and occasionally a mental illness that doesn't turn your brain into white goo.

Remember the type of people who I'm talking about. It's that woman I mentioned earlier who thought steam could be purchased in cardboard boxes. The guy who hasn't got a single high school qualification because he thought school was stupid and preferred smoking weed at his friends house. The woman who popped out 4 kids to two different fathers who go AWOL and thinks finding a third guy to do the same with is a good idea....... and just the run of the mill drunkards of course.

In a nut shell, don't give any of those types money. These types of people need control in their life and money gives them the total opposite and an opportunity to do what they do best which is screw everything up like they always have. They need to be reigned in with food stamps, prepaid utilities and rent to stop them getting their hands on cash if they like it or not. Better still they should have a bank account that they legally can't touch where grocery stores, landlords, utilities and local authorities are the only ones with authority to take money out or put money in.


UGH :roll:

Perhaps it's different elsewhere, but here in the US, we have whole swaths of areas where there just are no jobs. Whole towns and cities where almost everyone worked "down at the plant", or "down in the mine", but now the plant is closed, or the mine is stripped, or the factory moved - and now 10,000 people are out of a job, and have no resources to move, even if they knew where to move to, and could actually find a new job that employ the skills they have.

Maybe I'm nuts, but I feel like even stupid and lazy people deserve to live. Some people just aren't smart. Some people have limits to how much they can learn, or how fast they can learn it. Not everyone is qualified to perform work more complicated than bagging groceries. Not everyone has the same motivation. Not everyone has the same drive. So what if some girl thought you could buy steam in a box? People who don't know better can think all kinds of odd things. It's easy to laugh when you have the privilege of already knowing things. But yeah, lets laugh at the stupid people, for being stupid. Despite any stories I may have heard as a kid, about lazy grasshoppers and hard working ants, or however the story goes, I still don't feel that anyone deserves to starve in a world where the problem isn't that there isn't enough food, but rather getting the food to the people, and worrying about whether or not the recipient "deserves" or "earned" it.

Maybe I'm nuts, but I don't rightly care too much about those that abuse a system that overwhelmingly does far more good, to far more people. I'm far more concerned that there are people living in gilded palaces and riding private rockets to space for lulz, and buying their seventh mansion, or their fifth mega-yacht, while people are dying from as simple and solvable problem as lack of ACCESS to food and water and such that exists, and is being wasted in the name of greed because "someone didn't PAY for it", so they destroy it rather than give it away.

Governments and tightwads gripe about the billions of dollars lost per year that go to fraudulent cases, but never mention the same number of billions of dollars of wage theft committed against workers by their employers. Seems like it's mostly a matter of things balancing themselves out.

Maybe I'm nuts, but I just can't believe that everyone who uses assistance programs is "just lazy". Talking sh!t about them only serves to stigmatize the poor even more than they already are. Even the laziest people I've known still like to eat, and will generally exert enough effort to make sure they have regular access to food. With like, a JOB. They're lazy, but at their JOB.

Maybe I'm nuts, but the maximum benefits that a person can get on public assistance hardly seems like enough to live a good life. I don't see ballin out in a Benz on the amount that a person gets on welfare or food stamps. Not in the US, and not in the UK from what I'm seeing either. Many welfare benefits you can only claim if you've already paid into them - so it's your money coming back to you. Fantasies about people on welfare living large and luxurious might make for a good trope, but it's hardly the reality.

Playing off like they're all just drug addled lazy stupid leeches might make you feel morally superior, or at least morally justified, but it's a vicious disservice to a sizeable portion of people who's lives are harder than they need to be, in a world full of problems that don't all need to exist.

As far as I'm concerned, your joke about "calling them drugdrugs so they know what it is" sounds no different than if someone said "I was talking to someone who was autistic, so I started drooling and going "HURR DURR" so they'd feel more at home" - and then justifying it by saying "well, some autistic people DO act like that, you know the ones I'm talking about, and if you've met one you've met them all..."

Yes, some people do abuse it. Pretending it's being overused or over-depended upon is just political rhetoric to justify getting rid of it. People then get this funny idea that the money "saved" by no longer offering these programs will somehow go back into Average joe's pocket, and totally won't be used to fund more politicians' salaries or tax breaks for corporations. Painting poor people as the villain is a distraction from the fact that the real problem is wealth-hoarding billionaires and fat bloated politicians.

While I have no doubt that the average CEO probably works harder, on some level, than a janitor, or a cashier - I don't know that ANY job is 10,000 times harder, or that anyone can work 10,000 times harder, to justify getting paid 10,000 more. Let alone 100,000 times more, as would be the case when comparing some that makes $10/hr versus someone that makes $1,000,000/hr. And yes, there are people who make that much, and more.

The instant you say that people HAVE to work in order to eat, you've put a price tag on a human life. That person only deserves to live if their existence is profitable to someone. Sorry Tiny Tim, you only get to live if you're exploitable.

"But who's gonna PAY for it?!" How about the people with SO FREAKEN MUCH MONEY that they CAN pay for it, and not even notice the difference. If you distributed that 8 billion dollars in welfare fraud among the top 40 billionaires, each would pay 200 million a year. To put that into perspective, #40 on the list of billionaires has a worth of about 10 billion dollars. Big numbers all sound wild, so to put that in perspective, if you had 10 billion dollars, and I took 200 million dollars, that would be like if you had ONE HUNDRED dollars, and I took TWO dollars. 2%. Two pennies on the dollar.

Some things should have to be worked for. Some things should NOT have to be worked for. Nobody should have to perform for their daily bread in this day and age. When those who have the most tell those in the middle to keep an eye out for those with the least, they're just trying to keep both groups from turning their attention to THEM. Like the analogy of the guy who takes 7 of the 8 slices of pizza, then tells one guy that the other guy is eyeballing his slice, to keep them both distracted from his 7 slices.

If you think "hard work" and "good budgeting" is all it takes to not be poor, you're lucky the world hasn't shown you first-hand just how hard it can be. Even if you have issues with welfare as a system or in practice, classing all people on welfare as being lazy stupid druggos is several different kinds of f*ck'd, and using that as an excuse to make jokes at their expense is yet one more kind of f*ck'd on top of that. Being poor is hard enough without people deciding you're also a lazy drug addict that can't be trusted with money.

I mean, let's say I genuinely did need help, and only took welfare for a short time, cos the factory shut down and there was no work - but if everyone believes that all welfare people are just lazy, now who's going to hire them anyways? It's conveniently circular logic. You've already decided they're lazy and stupid and probably on drugs, so even if they tried to get a job like they're told, who's gonna hire them? You? Not with the way YOU talk of them, you're not. So then what? Even wanting to work, you've already decided that they're not worth hiring, since they're stupid druggies who can't manage things.

Really tired of people punching down rather than up.

Again, UGH :roll:


Where did I say they should get no food or don't deserve the basics of life?

I said the opposite, that impulsive people can't be trusted to keep the roof over their own head or pay their food bills if you give them their benefits in cash and instead, their benefits should be given a different way where they have very limited control over them. I.e. banks, the local authorities, shops and landlords should be the only ones with access to their funds to prevent them from spending it all on drugs, booze and cigs and ending up homeless or starving half to death.

It's a no brainer.

I'm saying this from a British perspective too and more specifically the Welsh valleys. My area is infamous for sucking off the teat of the state and the mines closed down nearly 40 years ago so it's hardly like they had a shortage of time to sort everything out since.



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14 Sep 2021, 10:31 am

uncommondenominator wrote:
Have any of you actually been on food stamps?

The "people on welfare are lazy and do drugs" trope is old AF. Adding in being ignorant and illiterate, too? Classy.

No, really, talk some more sh*t about people on public assistance.

Do you honestly think that there's anything easy about being poor?


We don't have food stamps here, but we do have welfare and yes, I've been on it. Twice, actually. Wasn't easy, but the amount was big enough that even a disabled person like me with meds and medical bills got by. Then again, I had a lot of time to put in to planning a budget and going to the specific grocery stores where the stuff I needed was the cheapest.

In here, we have these programs where you go "work" to some specific place and get a little extra on top of the benefits you'd get without going. Places like these often have several people in such programs at once. I've been to a few such places during my time of being unemployed, shortest time in one place a week (they found me a place more suited for my education), longest six months.

In those places, I met lots of different people who were relaying on tax money for various reasons. Some were young like me on my first time and didn't really have any work experience, so they were in the program to get it (you could leave the program at a day's notice if you got an actual job.) Some had been unemployed for quite a while despite their best efforts to get jobs, and these people often had some health problems. Some were people with mental health problems who tried to get some kind of order to their lives. One guy I remember downright admitting that he hadn't had the motivation to look for a job or an education 'cause living on tax money was easy (note that he said easy, not luxurious or even nice), but now he was trying to get a hold of himself so that he could actually have a nice life in the future. There were also these people who tried to do as little as they could, kept long breaks and shared tips with each other on how to get as much tax payers money as they can with as little effort as they can. YES, these kind of people do exist. Not everyone on benefits is like that, in fact most aren't from what I've seen, but they exist. And as long as there isn't a proper way to smoke them out and take away the benefits from them and only them, not those who just can't get a job despite their best efforts, I'm certain they'll continue to exist.

Do note that this is coming from a physically disabled person whose disability limits the possible jobs they can do by a great deal and who has a chronic condition that takes expensive medication to keep in control (and it's currently getting out of control btw), who works part time (due to not finding a full time job that this disabled body could handle) with a pretty much min wage. My lot in life hasn't been the easiest, but life is what it is. Letting out some steam is due at times, but in general, whining about the rich and the well off isn't gonna make my life easier... though honestly, I whine about able bodied people far more than I whine about the rich. People without physical disabilities just don't tend to understand how privileged they are.



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14 Sep 2021, 10:37 am

I feel like people "without disabilities" are lucky more than they are "privileged."

Even some of them are not really "privileged" in many other ways other than physical mobility.

No knock on what you're going through. Because I know you really do the best you can.



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14 Sep 2021, 11:53 am

Nades wrote:
Where did I say they should get no food or don't deserve the basics of life?

I said the opposite, that impulsive people can't be trusted to keep the roof over their own head or pay their food bills if you give them their benefits in cash and instead, their benefits should be given a different way where they have very limited control over them. I.e. banks, the local authorities, shops and landlords should be the only ones with access to their funds to prevent them from spending it all on drugs, booze and cigs and ending up homeless or starving half to death.

It's a no brainer.

I'm saying this from a British perspective too and more specifically the Welsh valleys. My area is infamous for sucking off the teat of the state and the mines closed down nearly 40 years ago so it's hardly like they had a shortage of time to sort everything out since.
I wouldn't trust banks, shops and landlords to always fairly manage other people's money - but I support the idea of providing goods and discounts before money. Even if harder logistically, it discourages extreme irresponsibility.


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Fnord
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14 Sep 2021, 12:18 pm

magz wrote:
Tross wrote:
Fnord wrote:
Tross wrote:
[...] what allows Capitalism to keep on trucking on to this day...
... is cheap, disposable labor.
Well, yeah. Marx may have been right about the mechanics of how capitalism works, but he severely underestimated its lifespan. He is correct that it will one day crash and burn, but while there's no cure for its terminal nature, there have certainly been remedies to greatly slow down the process, and angles and loopholes have been exploited to that end that he failed to consider. Case in point, cheap labor, largely by foreigners.
The best sources of cheap, disposable labor are robots.  In a modern German car factory, you can pay workers decently because there are very few of them, so their salary doesn't make the product much more expensive.  I think Marx generally underestimated effects of technological progress.  If things develop towards automatization, the concept of people having basic needs universally covered and being encouraged to seek their vocations may be not a bad idea... though in many societies, it would require substantial cultural changes.
It troubles me to think that there will be no jobs for people who are capable of performing only menial, repetitive tasks for which robots are better suited.  Imagine being so inept that a one-armed, one-eyed machine that is bolted to the floor can take your job away from you and do it better than you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  It is bad enough when native-born locals lose their jobs to foreign-born immigrants (some of whom are here illegally) who are willing to work longer hours for less money and without health-care of any kind.  With robot labor, however, practically all the profits go into the pockets of the owners, with the displaced workers living on the dole with nothing productive to do with their lives.


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14 Sep 2021, 12:19 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:
I feel like people "without disabilities" are lucky more than they are "privileged."

Even some of them are not really "privileged" in many other ways other than physical mobility.

No knock on what you're going through. Because I know you really do the best you can.


"Lucky" is also good word to use, but with the same logic, the word could also be used of the people born in rich families instead of using the word "privileged", which has a very negative sound to it these days.



magz
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14 Sep 2021, 12:37 pm

Fnord wrote:
magz wrote:
The best sources of cheap, disposable labor are robots.  In a modern German car factory, you can pay workers decently because there are very few of them, so their salary doesn't make the product much more expensive.  I think Marx generally underestimated effects of technological progress.  If things develop towards automatization, the concept of people having basic needs universally covered and being encouraged to seek their vocations may be not a bad idea... though in many societies, it would require substantial cultural changes.
It troubles me to think that there will be no jobs for people who are capable of performing only menial, repetitive tasks for which robots are better suited.  Imagine being so inept that a one-armed, one-eyed machine that is bolted to the floor can take your job away from you and do it better than you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  It is bad enough when native-born locals lose their jobs to foreign-born immigrants (some of whom are here illegally) who are willing to work longer hours for less money and without health-care of any kind.  With robot labor, however, practically all the profits go into the pockets of the owners, with the displaced workers living on the dole with nothing productive to do with their lives.
That's why we should closely follow social experiments of covering needs universally and encouraging people to seek their vocations. Such experiments are done, mainly in Europe, and we can analyse their results.
The concept is, to change the cultural meaning of jobs, from income-oriented to contribution-oriented. Like Forrest Gump mowing lawns in his town for free. Or me moderating WP ;)


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kraftiekortie
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14 Sep 2021, 1:12 pm

I feel like people should seek to get into healthcare.

No robot can take away the job, say, of a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA).