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Mofabio posted:What? I said he depoliticized political questions. This would also be true if he had different values. Again... that has a zero effect on carbon emissions.
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Mar 4, 2015 05:36
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Vomik posted:Again... that has a zero effect on carbon emissions. FI is just believing your intentions and results align because you want them to real bad.
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Mar 4, 2015 06:54
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Vomik posted:Again... that has a zero effect on carbon emissions. With FI surely you could make positive contribution to improving the environment rather then just become an activist.
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Mar 4, 2015 07:02
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Hell FI is already the lifestyle that radical environmentalism preaches, building a future by radically decreasing your overall consumption.
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Mar 4, 2015 07:36
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Xoidanor posted:Hell FI is already the lifestyle that radical environmentalism preaches, building a future by radically decreasing your overall consumption. I'm taking the "earn more money by clubbing seals" approach to increasing my saving rate.
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Mar 4, 2015 07:45
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Personally I just want to be FI so I can anger and confuse those around me with my lack of needing to work.
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Mar 4, 2015 15:07
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Radbot posted:Personally I just want to be FI so I can anger and confuse those around me with my lack of needing to work. same
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Mar 4, 2015 15:22
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I'm upset that MMM has committed wrong think as well. You should try to bait him into a Twitter exchange and have people email his work for him to get fired. Oh wait
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Mar 4, 2015 16:29
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Radbot posted:Personally I just want to be FI so I can anger and confuse those around me with my lack of needing to work.
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Mar 4, 2015 16:42
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Bhodi posted:I've taken a year off twice so far and if you made this post as a joke you will quickly find out that it's not a joke at all, people will absolutely react that way When you looked for a job after the gap year, how curious (or angry/confused) were your interviewers?
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Mar 4, 2015 17:57
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MJBuddy posted:Man we should shift this to the bad with money thread because protesting and voting are both horrible with money. Ask a game theorist about voting in political elections. They'll tell you its pointless, but you should do it anyway.
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Mar 4, 2015 18:04
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Mofabio posted:When you looked for a job after the gap year, how curious (or angry/confused) were your interviewers? The subject gets dropped pretty fast when you explain you took the time off work to help your ailing grandmother who is 92 when she fell against her coffee table and cracked her hip. I was just fortunate that I had just gotten a fantastic severance + RSU liquidation + living well beneath my means and was in a financial position where I was able to help a family member without serious hardship on my part. I think most people can understand.
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Mar 4, 2015 19:36
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Blackjack2000 posted:Jobs require us to do the things we don't want to do. They force us to get up early and get ourselves into the office. They make us stick with it when things are frustrating or not working the way we want them to. I agree. Jobs are great at providing structure, and they also provide a convenient scapegoat. Going from 9-5 to FI can be overwhelming. http://www.polygon.com/2015/3/4/8146115/constraints-adriel-wallick-gdc quote:Wallick says she spent her time traveling or working on personal projects with more freedom than ever before. However, she soon learned that even this ideal-sounding state was not without its own kind of price. quote:As an aside, I've alway found the things people say they're going to do when they achieve FI to be vapid and a bit obnoxious, and not all that different from how trust fund kids and the idle rich think they spend their time. Speaking of vapid and a bit obnoxious... http://kut.org/post/besomebody-speaker-draws-controversy-austin-high-school quote:When Shaikh used the #BeSomebody hashtag on Twitter, people responded positively. So he decided to create a media platform to encapsulate that passion. According to the #BeSomebody website, Shaikh wants to create a “motivational movement” that encourages people to become “passionaries." Passionaries, as defined by the company, are people who pursue their passions, find ways to connect with other people with similar passions and make a living from those passions in what he calls the “passion economy.”
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Mar 4, 2015 20:27
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Radbot posted:Personally I just want to be FI so I can anger and confuse those around me with my lack of needing to work. My favorite will always be "Oh man I could never do that... I just can't imagine sitting around all day doing nothing" Cool man enjoy sitting in your office all day doing "something".
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Mar 4, 2015 20:28
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:My favorite will always be "Oh man I could never do that... I just can't imagine sitting around all day doing nothing" For a certain type of person there's actually a strange logic in that. If you're in a job where you spend most of the day posting on the forums, and you're the sort who'd be doing that at home all day if you didn't work, you'd be an idiot not to take somebody's money for doing it.
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Mar 4, 2015 21:09
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Dangit Ronpaul posted:For a certain type of person there's actually a strange logic in that. If you're in a job where you spend most of the day posting on the forums, and you're the sort who'd be doing that at home all day if you didn't work, you'd be an idiot not to take somebody's money for doing it. at work I can't post in my underwear, checkmate
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Mar 4, 2015 22:18
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:at work I can't post in my underwear, checkmate You can if you own the business, checkmate again
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Mar 4, 2015 22:21
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Plus if you're self employed, you can look at porn at work and your boss may even give you a handjob!
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Mar 4, 2015 22:22
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:at work I can't post in my underwear, checkmate get a job where you can work from home, best of all possible worlds
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Mar 4, 2015 23:37
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canyoneer posted:Ask a game theorist about voting in political elections. They'll tell you its pointless, but you should do it anyway. I'm an economist by training. They'll tell you it's pointless and then talk about the hundreds of published articles trying to explain why people do it, and either call everyone stupid, irrational, or nuanced depending on which theory they prefer. I mean, there's some better theories out there, but all of them recognize that your vote doesn't matter much at all with regards to politics, or worse your voting is just very harmful in general (because we're all loving idiots). Basically the theories that seem most consistent (to me, in my research) are those that cast voters as having two qualities in varied measures: They're idiots, and they're self important, so they vote because it makes them feel smug and they vote badly because it's basically impossible not to. But there's dozens of competing mainstream hypothesis for voting, and I think they all hold some water, so no one get pissy because you think your vote is the true enlightened one (it's not; don't vote).
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Mar 5, 2015 06:33
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Just install the philosopher-kings already imo.
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Mar 5, 2015 06:53
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MJBuddy posted:I'm an economist by training. They'll tell you it's pointless and then talk about the hundreds of published articles trying to explain why people do it, and either call everyone stupid, irrational, or nuanced depending on which theory they prefer. Elections go beyond national politicians. What about local bills? Local politicians? DA, sheriff? Also my local county had something like 10% of the voter base turn out (a very small amount). It can and does come close to individual votes mattering sometimes, at least here. Nationally we're a swing state and the margins are ridiculously small sometimes. Sometimes the voting decision is obvious for a certain generation of people, and that generation may be a group of people less likely to vote like young people. I don't see what you're getting at here.
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Mar 5, 2015 16:57
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The assertion that most people are ill-informed on everything and the best people are still ill-informed on many things is pretty true though. I don't like the solution of "just don't vote" though because then the agenda of the rich and powerful runs completely unchecked.
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Mar 5, 2015 17:17
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I'd also be interested to know what exactly economists consider stupid or irrational about the voting preferences of the greater public. As a former econ student, too often "stupid" votes are ones that aren't cast for the guy promising lower taxes. To me, "stupid" voting is a natural result of first-past-the-post voting systems, as they ensure people will vote defensively.
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Mar 5, 2015 17:24
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Nail Rat posted:The assertion that most people are ill-informed on everything and the best people are still ill-informed on many things is pretty true though. I don't like the solution of "just don't vote" though because then the agenda of the rich and powerful runs completely unchecked. What about voting allows a person (or, for the sake of argument, a group of people of any size) to challenge the agenda of the rich and powerful?
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Mar 5, 2015 20:21
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That's the other econ/finance joke I know. (efficient market hypothesis jokes ITT) A finance professor and a student are walking down a busy sidewalk. A student spies a $100 bill plainly visible, wedged in a crack. The student leans down to pick it up and the professor says "Don't bother. If it was a real $100 bill, someone else would have picked it up already".
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Mar 5, 2015 21:06
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I always hated that joke because both would probably agree with something like "don't make a career out of picking up $100 bills unless you have a statistical model for where they are about to fall". It's me I'm the joke sperg.
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Mar 5, 2015 21:15
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tuyop posted:What about voting allows a person (or, for the sake of argument, a group of people of any size) to challenge the agenda of the rich and powerful? Tons of things, like 40 hour work weeks, minimum vacation periods, minimum maternity leave periods, requirements to document justifiable causes for firing, to name a few. Just because these are not all laws in the U.S. does not mean that they were laws put in place by any mechanism other than voting. All of them are legislation enacted in various European countries, and all by people who were accountable to voters. The U.S. has a unique talent for convincing poor people that they are just temporarily embarrassed rich people who should vote in the interests of rich people, so that they will have an even better ride when they get to the RichPersonVille.
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Mar 5, 2015 22:20
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I would (baselessly) argue that worker protections were more a result of working class unionization threatening business productivy and prosperity, than a result of popular opinion and policy reform. The vote was important but only when the leverage was present.
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Mar 5, 2015 23:01
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Yeah, improvements in working conditions were largely due to union strikes, it wasn't top-down legal implementation that gave us a 40 hour work week or decent working conditions.
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Mar 5, 2015 23:13
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Dwight Eisenhower posted:The U.S. has a unique talent for convincing poor people that they are just temporarily embarrassed rich people who should vote in the interests of rich people, so that they will have an even better ride when they get to the RichPersonVille. Kind of a derail but where are you meeting all these "poor people" who vote to lower taxes? In my experience the people voting to lower taxes are business owners, middle and upper-middle class...you know, the people actually affected by paying taxes, people who could retire earlier and reach FI faster if it weren't for the burden of 1/3 of their gross income being pissed away.
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Mar 5, 2015 23:22
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fruition posted:the burden of 1/3 of their gross income being pissed away. Yeah, being pissed away on things like roads, bridges, clean water, safe food, police and fire protection, etc., etc. Things that create a stable society that allows you to become/remain wealthy and successful. Not saying there aren't problems or inefficiencies that exist in the government at various levels, but the presumption that taxes are just being pissed away is pretty derpy.
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Mar 6, 2015 00:00
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Mofabio posted:What? I said he depoliticized political questions. This would also be true if he had different values.
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Mar 6, 2015 00:14
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Nail Rat posted:The assertion that most people are ill-informed on everything and the best people are still ill-informed on many things is pretty true though. I don't like the solution of "just don't vote" though because then the agenda of the rich and powerful runs completely unchecked. But I'm in this thread because I hope to be among the rich and powerful at some point. 
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Mar 6, 2015 01:54
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Cicero posted:You criticized his lack of protesting/field activism, implicitly critiquing his personal values that apparently don't put much stock in doing said activism. Yeah... I mainly just wish he'd mention it. Because, we all know people who actively fear retirement. When probed, at least the people I know really fear feeling worthless. We talk about how FI really means work is optional - not verboten - and about more vacations and time with kids and stuff like that. At least in my experience though, that doesn't actually convince anyone whose self-worth is tied up in their work. That's why it's so weird he doesn't even mention activism as a way to add meaning to your life after wage work is over. To recap: he cares about multiple causes, activism requires a lot of time and passion, you don't have the disapproval of your boss to worry about, it's pretty cheap (about 95% is meetings, for better or for worse), and sometimes it actually makes the world nicer. I understand why he did it, especially after reading how many FI-aspiring people here laugh at activists. But certain people ask "what are you supposed to do after financial independence?" and want a better answer than "anything!".
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Mar 6, 2015 02:03
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Dwight Eisenhower posted:The U.S. has a unique talent for convincing poor people that they are just temporarily embarrassed rich people who should vote in the interests of rich people, so that they will have an even better ride when they get to the RichPersonVille. 11% of the population will earn a top 1% income for at least one year in their life (36% will be top 5, and over half will earn top 10%) , and the likelihood to fall into a higher tier is directly correlated to age, so it's not a horrible characterization to say that income mobility is massive, highly variable, and you're likely to earn more in the future. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0116370 Guinness posted:Yeah, being pissed away on things like roads, bridges, clean water, safe food, police and fire protection, etc., etc. Things that create a stable society that allows you to become/remain wealthy and successful. That's not even 9% of the US budget. canyoneer posted:That's the other econ/finance joke I know. (efficient market hypothesis jokes ITT) An engineer, a chemist, and an economist are stranded on a deserted island. They are starving, when miraculously they find a box filled with canned food. What to do? They consider the problem, bringing their collective lifetimes of study and discipline to the task. Being the practical, straightforward sort, the engineer suggests that they simply find a rock and hit the cans until they break open. “No, no!” cry the chemist and economist, “we would spill too much food and the birds would get it!” After a bit of thought, the chemist recommends that they start a fire and heat the cans. The pressure in the cans will force them open and the food will conveniently already be heated. But the engineer and economist object, pointing out correctly that the cans would likely explode and splatter the food all over the beach. The economist, after carefully studying the cans and reading the labels, starts scrawling a series of equations in the sand, which eventually cover the entire beach. After much pondering, he excitedly announces, “I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” as he points to the final equation. They ask him to explain, with their visions of finally getting a meal causing them to regard the economist with a new sense of respect. The economist clears his throat and begins, “First, assume a can opener …” Radbot posted:I'd also be interested to know what exactly economists consider stupid or irrational about the voting preferences of the greater public. As a former econ student, too often "stupid" votes are ones that aren't cast for the guy promising lower taxes. It's a natural result of any less-than-unanimous voting system, but there's practical/logical reasons for preferring sub-unanimous ratios of voting, but 50% is arbitrary and completely full of poo poo, basically. I don't think economists are in agreement in this field at all. I've known dozens who all love talking about this but all enjoyably throw smack talk to each other's preferred explanations. One theory I'd be foolish to undermine is that your vote matters not because it has any effect, but because when we see things like marijuana votes getting closer over time, politicians adjust their platforms to appeal to that, so voting for decades in losing battles works if you get momentum at all. Totally makes sense; doesn't explain everything (but that's the caveat to just about every one of them). Some are purely "special interest groups rule" and some are "voters are inherently irrational in the voting booth." And just because it's stupid and bad doesn't mean it's the worst or we should get rid of; still probably means we should all care a lot less about it though because we have such little control over it, so we're getting all worked up over nothing. Nail Rat posted:The assertion that most people are ill-informed on everything and the best people are still ill-informed on many things is pretty true though. I don't like the solution of "just don't vote" though because then the agenda of the rich and powerful runs completely unchecked. If you'd like to run with the logic of collective action in response, you can "simply" create a voting block to have political influence, like unions and religious groups and financial firms, etc. Your vote doesn't matter, but if you find 300 people who all vote the same way you can demand favors. Of course this has dead-weight loss and as a result you and everyone who does this is a monster cannibalizing our economic system or something. If you are your drinking buddies all promised to vote the same way and had an internal election on every issue your votes would matter "more" and it'd only cost you the time to have a quick hand count at the table. Even better, if you only voted on things that you all unanimously agreed on, you'd have a higher certainty that you weren't stupid about it. If you extended this to add in the other drinking groups at the bar you could feel even more sure about it. Goons love the Dunning-Kruger effect; it applies to voting too. Knyteguy posted:Elections go beyond national politicians. What about local bills? Local politicians? DA, sheriff? Also my local county had something like 10% of the voter base turn out (a very small amount). It can and does come close to individual votes mattering sometimes, at least here. Nationally we're a swing state and the margins are ridiculously small sometimes. Sometimes the voting decision is obvious for a certain generation of people, and that generation may be a group of people less likely to vote like young people. I don't see what you're getting at here. Is ridiculously small 1? The value in voting is the Expected Probability of your vote being a deciding vote (not of your region, of the election as a whole) * the marginal value of the election result to the voter. The other issue at hand is the correct vote. And I don't mean that it's values-based, but that the vote is achieving the goal of voter. Intentions and results aren't aligned because we'd like them to be.
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Mar 6, 2015 02:38
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fruition posted:Kind of a derail but where are you meeting all these "poor people" who vote to lower taxes? In my experience the people voting to lower taxes are business owners, middle and upper-middle class...you know, the people actually affected by paying taxes, people who could retire earlier and reach FI faster if it weren't for the burden of 1/3 of their gross income being pissed away. The loving South. As soon as they hit $15/hr those racist pricks can't slam the door behind them fast enough.
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Mar 6, 2015 03:48
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Dwight Eisenhower posted:Tons of things, like 40 hour work weeks, minimum vacation periods, minimum maternity leave periods, requirements to document justifiable causes for firing, to name a few. Like other people have said, your examples (except for maybe maternity leave, which is relatively benign compared to, say, civil rights) have nothing to do with voting and everything to do with challenging the critical point(s) of the "agenda of the rich and powerful". Political power has never been that critical point. In the past, that mass had to do with the mechanisms of production, so strikes and unions were effective. Now, that's been taken care of with globalization and the system has a new critical point. It would make sense if that new point were something like profits or money, because so much work is done to convince people that corporations and their products are necessary. If the new point is profit, then by opting out of purchasing more than you legitimately need, you challenge the "agenda" the same way a coal worker striking challenged the system and won. I like Zinn because he explains how it can be true that (a) living conditions marginally get better for enough people over time and (b) a system increases inequality over hundreds of years. Voting (and the mythology about its efficacy) is one mechanism used to legitimize such a system, which is in nobody's best interests. Our problem is that the system grows more perfect over time so any meaningful change becomes harder to see, let alone enact. Edit: And this is the best derail ever, IMO.
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Mar 6, 2015 04:32
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tuyop posted:Like other people have said, your examples (except for maybe maternity leave, which is relatively benign compared to, say, civil rights) have nothing to do with voting and everything to do with challenging the critical point(s) of the "agenda of the rich and powerful". In all of the cases their emergence is more than coincidence or spontaneous as well. The institutional and economic realities of the times were leading influences, rather than trailing. Child labor laws passed after child labor rates plummeted. Workers rights pass as workers rights expand due to low unemployment and high labor demand. 40 hour work weeks in the US became codified and common practice after two world wars gouged the labor force after being a major demand of labor groups for literally 200 years prior to that.
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Mar 6, 2015 06:40
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Edit: Wrong thread :p
root of all eval fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Mar 6, 2015 |
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Mar 6, 2015 09:18
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