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[LordBucket]

LB, you conveniently ignored a number of my arguments.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

No, I didn't "ignore" them. There just comes a point where one in three posts in the thread is from me, my average post is between two and ten times longer than most everyone else's, I'm providing dozens of links citing sources, and yet nevertheless people keep rehashing the same points, many of them poorly thought out, and many of them previously addressed pages ago in the thread. Once I start getting up into the two hour mark going into vivid graphic detail describing some minor little issue that's only even secondary to my actual premise...it seriously stops being worthwhile trying to respond to every single sentence of every single post from everyone else in the thread.

And even if I did, it wouldn't matter and somebody would still complain I missed something, like you're doing right now. Bay12 discussions are a bottomless pit. There's no way to satisfy every sentence of every person, and when I try, there's simply so much volume of response that people miss things and we end up going in circles answering the same questions. Like some of yours, which actually have been previously addressed. If you'd read my responses to other people about these same issues, you'd find that some of the things, not all, granted...but some of the things you're talking about, have either already been addressed, or are really besides the point, and don't really change anything.

To illustrate just how much time and effort I'm putting into responding to people like you who are complaining that I "conveniently ignored" your arguments...let's do a post, link and wordcount check of the previous thread page. 15 posts, five of them are from me.


Frumple: 210, zero links
Tack: 29, zero links
LordBucket: 462, 5 links
LordBucket: 229, zero links
TheCard: 22, zero links
Descan: 43, zero links
Eagleon: 133, zero links
LordBucket: 169, 2 links
Descan: 98, zero links
Eagleon: 236, zero links
LordBucket: 99, 1 link
Descan: 71, zero links
Urist McScoopbeard: 16, 1 link
LordBucket: 290, 2 links
alexandertnt: 38, zero links


Totals:
LordBucket: 1256 word
Eagleon: 369 words
Descan: 212 words
Frumpe: 210 words
Tack: 29 word
TheCard: 22 words
Urist McScoopbeard: 16

Or, to put it another way:
LordBucket: 1256 words, 10 links
EVERYONE ELSE COMBINED: 858 words, 1 link

So, yes. Using page 16 as an example, I am literally typing more than everyone else in the thread combined, and I am posting corroborative links ten times as often as everyone else combined. Oh, and incidentally that one link from Urist wasn't actually supporting any position. It was a joke link.

And you're complaining that I missed something? How did you phrase it?

LB, you conveniently ignored a number of my arguments.

Seriously? You really believe I selectively picked out your post and chose to ignore it as if to to be sneaky and hide from it? Really? Do you really believe that?

my arguments.

I think this is going to be my last response to anyone about septic vs sewer.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1. Septic waste needs additonal processing. Dedicated filtration installations remain.

Factually correct, and totally irrelevant. Yes, septic waste is processed. So is sewer sewage. The difference is that septic waste is cheaper, faster and less labor intensive to process. Yes, filters need to be replaced. That happens when the pumping service is done, typically every 3 to 5 years. The pumping process takes about 30-45 minutes, and filter replacement is a trivial 5 minute thing to do. There are youtube videos of this.

2. Sewers are needed to prevent floods, by carrying away rainwater. No sewers, no gutters.

You have no clue what you're talking about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_gutter
A street gutter is a depression running parallel to a road designed to collect rainwater flowing along the street and divert it into a storm drain."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_drain
"A storm drain...is designed to drain excess rain and ground water from paved streets, parking lots, sidewalks, and roofs."
"Storm drains are separate and distinct from sanitary sewer systems."

There's no relationship between these two systems. Combined systems have existed in the past, but they've not been in common use since the 1930s. Gutters and storm drains are simple pathways, generally paved with concrete to direct the flower of water. A sewer system connects houses to purification plants via pumping stations.  To say that there can be no gutters to direct water without sewer purification and pumping systems is completely ridiculous.

3. Septic tanks require drainage fields.
-Large (Impossible in cites and some surburban areas)
-Effects on water table if used en masse. A septic tank can last so long by filtering out all the water.This water is slightly polluted. (phosphates and other things. Comparable with overuse of fertilizer).
-If the water table is too high (after rains, or because everyone is using them), the system backfires and the tank floods.

Yes, it's not a good solution for some areas. I'm tired of linking this but here it is again: Perfect Solution fallacy.

Yes, there are some places where septic systems don't work very well. I've acknowledged this several times. It's completely stupid to reject a solution because there are specific cases where it doesn't work. Use it where it works, don't use it where it doesn't. The goal here is to increase efficiency and reduce workload. Septic systems have a lower work requirement than sewer systems. In environments where it's suitable, use the more efficient system.

4. Everyone has to use biodegradable products or the internal filtration process
fails and polluted water is dumped into the drainage field.

...what?

After reading that several times I can only assume that what you're trying to point out is that septic systems are not designed to handle non-biodegradable materials. Yes, if you dump cigarette butts and tampons and things into the system, that will create problems. The solution is...don't do that. You may as well object to people having cars with combustion engines because if you don't change the oil and replace the filter occasionally, they tend to break. It's a stupid argument.

Incidentally, guess what? You're not supposed to flush those things down a toilet even if you're on a sewer system either, because they clog that up too. You just don't see it and somebody else from the city has to deal with it, paid by you indirectly via tax money.

But, since you bring it up, the repair issue is actually a point in favor of septic systems. While they can break if you mistreat them, they're cheaper to fix when they do break. Average septic repair cost is $285, and absolute worst case when a septic system breaks, you dig it up and put a new one in for a couple thousand dollars. If you simply treat the systems well and maintain them properly you won't have these problems, and if you do, that's as bad as it gets.

Whereas when a sewer system breaks, that can run $20,000 even for just a break under one house, and BILLIONS of dollars in event of major breakage.


$12 Billion sewer repair
Population of Miami-Dade is 408,750

12 billion / 408,750 is a cost of $29,357 per person. That can't happen with a septic system. You could completely rip up from the ground, throw away and replace 408,750 septic systems and it wouldn't cost that much.

Again, I've said this multiple times, it bewilders me that anyone needs it spelled out...a septic tank is basically a couple-thousand-gallon metal drum with some filters on it that you install on a house, and give a simple, cheap maintenance to every couple years. A sewer system requires interconnecting subterranean pipe systems beneath hundreds of square miles of a town or city, plus pumping stations, plus purification centers, all of which must be staffed and maintained every single day.

Common sense should tell you that a septic system would be less labor intensive, and the numbers I've given, linked and sourced again and again demonstrate that septic systems are cheaper.

[LordBucket]

I actually agree (quite strongly, infact) with LordBuckets basic premise (reducing the ammount of
work required) as I think it would allow more people to pursue their goals and thus become happy.

Thank you. And, I agree...if people didn't have to work so much and had more free time to do the things they really want to do, I think that would be a positive change. Sure, lots of people spend their time in front of a televisions, but I suspect that a fair number of them do it because they're so emotionally drained from working jobs they hate.

I just disagree with some of the implementations.

Well, I'm flexible on the implementation. Replacing income tax with sales tax wasn't my idea, but I think that could work. And at a glance it seems like it would be more effective at the goal of reducing work requirements. It might have some issues, but that's by no means a deal breaker. It's silly to get too attached to any particular implementation. If that's a better solution, then great.

Like I mentioned in my first post in the thread, I'd like to see money be made irrelevant and go away altogether. Income tax becomes irrelevant if there's no money either. But there's what we'd like to have/be/do, and then there's practical implementation. I'd love to see the nano-disassemblers and star trek replicator quality 3d printers mentioned earlier in the thread, but there are plenty of "right now" practical things we can do to reduce work in the meantime before we get to that stage.

[Eagle_eye]

The problem with replacing income with sales tax is that it *massively* disadvantages the poor, because proportionally far more of their purchases aren't optional. Unless it was accompanied by a switch to socialism, you'd essentially be implementing a regressive tax.

[LordBucket]

The problem with replacing income with sales tax is that it *massively* disadvantages the poor, because proportionally far more of their purchases aren't
optional. Unless it was accompanied by a switch to socialism, you'd essentially be implementing a regressive tax.

Justify that. How much is this "massive disadvantage" you're talking about? Show me.

proportionally far more of their purchases aren't optional.

Yes, I'm sure that's true. But...so what? "Essentials" aren't generally taxed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_the_United_States#Taxable_sales

"Nearly all jurisdictions provide numerous categories of goods and services that are exempt from sales tax, or taxed at reduced rates. The purchase of goods for further manufacture or for resale is uniformly exempt from sales tax. Most jurisdictions exempt food sold in grocery stores, prescription medications, and many agricultural supplies."

[ed boy]

Post to the watch.

[SalmonGod]

While de-centralizing infrastructure/workloads may be helpful in some cases, I don't think it's really a central issue, especially to the discussion of capitalism.  I think what's more important is de-centralization of political power and resource control.  That's what will free people from being forced into meaningless work.  The job model dictates that the vast majority of people seek to be told what to do by someone wealthier, and that wealthier person will seek employees for the purpose of further increasing their personal wealth. 

This results in the far, far too much work being done that has one or both of two problems. 

1.  It's not geared towards benefiting the laborers or their communities, only the wealthy person who is paying for the work.  I know some would say that being paid for the job is a benefit, but I think it's the opposite.  The employer's incentive is to pay the employee the minimum possible, and the employee doesn't have much bargaining power to demand better because they require the job to survive.  So you get a lot of people who are paid just barely enough to get by, living paycheck to paycheck, and this stays constant throughout the working relationship.  Meanwhile, the employer is making profit.  His situation is constantly improving.  The societal effect is that resources are constantly draining from one group of people and consolidating into the hands of a shrinking handful.  As this continues, the good sides of capitalism (competition driving innovation and meritocracy) fade away to be replaced by two classes, one born into servitude for the other.  The long-term result is greatly negative to the employee.

2.  Because currency represents control over resources, the incentive is to gather as much of it as possible.  This results in a lot of work that is purely concerned with fabricated methods for manipulating the flow of currency, without doing anything of any positive benefit outside the context of currency.  As in, if currency didn't exist, the work being done would be completely incomprehensible.  It's nothing but shuffling around imaginary numbers of abstract, indirect, and purely socially constructed consequence.  I know that currency is supposed to make the process of exchanging goods and services more efficient, but this seems like the exact opposite of that to me.  Especially when we've hit a point where there is soooooooooo goddamn much of this kind of work going on, and a disturbing number of the wealthiest people have never done any real work of actual benefit in their lives.  They're just really good at the imaginary number game.  I'd be willing to wager that if this superfluous crap was swept out of the way and we were allowed to be strictly concerned with pursuing our own interests and directly working towards solving real problems, that a lot more beneficial stuff would actually get done.  Yeah, the function of the economy might be somewhat more complicated in some ways, but the amount of people and time freed up would so much more than make up for it.  Millions of people suddenly able to spend their time cleaning up their own lives and communities instead of playing with imaginary numbers.

Also, I'm greatly disturbed by how often it's repeated that the more wealth a person has, the more representative it is of more work being done on their part.  Bullshit.  There is no way in hell that the CEO of Fedex does 288x more work than me in a year.  It's physically impossible.  And considering my net worth is negative, trying to figure out how much more work than me he's done in his lifetime isn't even computable.  It's seriously offensive to me when people repeat the nonsense that money made is proportional to work done.

Finally, a person spends more than 1/3 of their waking hours working at a job.  It's 1/2 their hours, bare minimum.  If you sleep 8 hours and work 8 hours, that's 2/3 of you 24 hour day gone right there.  Half of it to work.  Then if you factor in commuting and any of life's other demands, most full-time working people are left with only a couple hours a day to invest in their own interests, and anyone who doesn't want to die of overwork at a young age (like my grandfather) will invest that time in resting and de-stressing so they can cope with the day-to-day grind.

And I have my own ideas regarding alternatives to the capitalist economy, but I'm completely out of time for now.

[LordBucket]

I'm greatly disturbed by how often it's repeated that the more wealth a person has, the more representative it is of more work being done on their part.  Bullshit.  There is no way in hell that the CEO of Fedex does 288x more work than me in a year.  It's physically impossible.  And considering my net worth is negative, trying to figure out how much more work than me he's done in his lifetime isn't even computable.  It's seriously offensive to me when people repeat the nonsense that money made is proportional to work done.

I think this might be a misconceptualization.

Setting aside theft and counterfeiting, there's really only one way for a person to "make" money: for somebody else to give it to them. Right? Any time somebody "makes" money, they're not really "making" anything. Somebody else is giving it to them. The amount of money you receive is not a measure of how much "work" you do. It's a measure of how much money people have chosen to give you.

Now, why do people give other people money? Sure...there are gifts, and inheritances. But generally people give people money in exchange for perceived value received. For example, if I have a dollar and you have an apple, we might trade. You give me the apple, and I give you the dollar. To me, receiving the apple was "worth" giving you the dollar. Maybe somebody else also has a dollar but they don't like apples so they choose to not give you their dollar for an apple. To them, that apple was not worth a dollar. There's no "fundamental value" to apples. There is only what apples are worth...to the people who have money available for them to choose to give, or choose to not give it.

Whether someone has one dollar, or a hundred dollars or a million dollars...every one of those dollars, somebody chose to give to them.

Money exchanges are not measures of "work." They're measures of perceived value received. That CEO you mentioned didn't do 288 times more work than you. He convinced other people to give him 288 times as much money as you convinced people to give you.

And if those people chose to give them that money...how you can be justified being angry about it? What the CEO of Fedex does might not be worth it to you to give him 288 times your salary. But it was obviously worth it to somebody or else they wouldn't have chosen to give it to him. How is that any different than me and the other guy choosing or not choosing to give you a dollar for your apple? To him, your apple wasn't worth a dollar. Does it make sense for him to be angry because I thought your apple was worth giving you a dollar?

Why are you angry that other people think it's worth giving somebody else money?

resource control. 

resources are constantly draining from one group of people and consolidating into the hands of a shrinking handful.

If you're talking about money, yes that trend does exist. But why are you using the word "resources?"

If you mean, like..."natural resources" I think what you're saying doesn't describe the world very well. Money tends to consolidate, but for the most part it's not really like there's a finite number of "resources on earth" that people are fighting over. Sure, wars have been fought over oil, but for example...Bill Gates. What "resources" is he, as you phrased it, "draining from other groups of people?" Warren Buffet. Is he "draining resources" from people? Oprah? She's a billionnaire. Is she "draining resources" from people?

Well, in a way, kind of by definition, yes, if you think of money as a resource. If I give you a dollar for your apple, you're "draining money" from me in the sense that you have the dollar and I no longer do. That makes sense. But my impression is that's not what you meant.

It kind sounds to me like you're thinking of the world and money and "resource control" as if it were a game of starcraft: there are a fixed number of crystal and vespene gas nodes on the map, and people fight for control over them, and once they have control of those resources they become unavailable to other people. But while that model does describe some cases, kind of...sort of, I think it's not very descriptive of modern economics as a whole. Even in  case like oil or diamonds, the people getting rich from having control of the resources are only getting rich because they're giving those resources to somebody else, in exchange for money. More to the point though, very few rich people in the modern world became rich by "wrestling control of finite natural resource" like forests or mines. Land, yes. Plenty of real estate millionaires, but it's not like there's a shortage of land. What makes land valuable is not the land so much as what you do with it. If you want land, you can buy cheap desert land for $1000/acre, pretty much all you want. There's a huge abundance of it, and people who make money in real estate generally don't make money because they've "wrested control" of land away from other people.

Go through the Forbes list of billionaires. Do you see anybody who made their money from taking or controlling large quantities of physical resources like lumber, water, metal, etc? I don't.

So what exactly do you mean by this resource control thing you're talking about?

Because currency represents control over resources,
the incentive is to gather as much of it as possible.

Again, that seems like an odd way to look at it.

How does currency represent control over resources specifically? Yes, if you have money, you can use that money to buy resources. But you can use that money to hire people, to pay for the processing of resources you happen to already have, etc. I don't see a strong connection to resources in particular unless you're including things like money and people as resources, in which case yes, you can use money to acquire more control over those things. But I don't think that's quite what you mean. Please clarify if I'm wrong...but again, it sounds like you're using a starcraft crystal and gas model for economics. Which...again, I don't think is a very accurate way of looking at money.

So...clarify?

[Tack]

I think money for work is a combination of labor, skill and rank.

Jobs which involve really hard work usually pay better.
Jobs which require degrees and masters always pay better.
And Jobs in which you oversee other people definitely pay better.

A CEO usually needs a masters in business or more - if he's been hired in. So between skill and rank he'd make a lot of money.

[penguinofhonor]

And if those people chose to give them that money...how you can be justified being angry about it? What the CEO of Fedex does might not be worth it to you to give him 288 times your salary. But it was obviously worth it to somebody or else they wouldn't have chosen to give it to him. How is that any different than me and the other guy choosing or not choosing to give you a dollar for your apple? To him, your apple wasn't worth a dollar. Does it make sense for him to be angry because I thought your apple was worth giving you a dollar?

Why are you angry that other people think it's worth giving somebody else money?

I think you're oversimplifying it too. When someone buys an apple at the store, they aren't thinking "Yeah, I'll give ten cents of this to the dude at the register, twenty to the guy who farms the apple, fifteen to the people who ship the apples to the store, and the remaining fifty-five to the CEO."

Your apple analogy is pretty spot-on, except that most of the time people choose to give their money to a corporation or group, not to any person directly. And the corporation decides how that money is divided between its workers.

The CEO didn't convince the customer to give him a larger portion of the money. The CEO convinced himself (and/or whoever else in the company makes those decisions).

[Eagle_eye]

But why is it relevant whether or not people agreed to give the CEO vast amounts of money? The situation is the same either way: some people have vastly more money than they need to be comfortable, and some have vastly less. That's not an acceptable outcome, no matter how it comes about.

[Descan]

Pretty sure CEO's decide their own income. Maaaaybe the board of directors? Dunno, really.

But people are resources, Bucket. ... Pretty much everything is a resource, not just lumber and iron. I mean -everything-. Insurance, computers, a person with a certain skill.

[LordBucket]

When someone buys an apple at the store, they aren't thinking "Yeah, I'll give ten cents of this to the dude at the register, twenty to the guy who farms the apple, fifteen to the people who ship the apples to the store, and the remaining fifty-five to the CEO."

But every one of those people had somebody choose to give them money. The guy at the register? Somebody chose to hire him and give him money. The guy who farmed the apples? Somebody chose to give him money in exchange for the apples. The people who shipped the apples? The people who they work for chose to hire them and agreed to give them money, and the company that paid the shipping company chose to give the shipping company money. The CEO? Eirher the baord of directors chose to give him money, or it's his company, and he's therefore the one the customer is actually giving their money to, and he's the one choosing to give a portion of his money to the people who work for him.

In every case, somebody chose to give money to somebody else.

most of the time people choose to give their money to a corporation or group, not to any person directly. And the corporation decides how that money is divided between its workers.

It's not up to the customer to decide what happens to his money after he gives it away. Once he gives it to somebody else...it's now their money, and it's up to them to decide what to do with it. In your example, the decision of how to distribute the money was made before the customer bought the apple, but all the same, every time money changed hands it was because somebody chose to give someone money.

Lets assume the CEO owns the company, and look at it from his point of view. He gave money to an apple farmer in exchange for apples. At this point, he owns the apple. He then gave money to a shipping company in exchange for shipping the apple. He then gave money to a sales clerk to act as his proxy, and handle the retail exchange of giving an apple to a customer in exchange for money.

The customer in this case is giving the CEO money in exchange for an apple, and the CEO is choosing to give money to employees and contractors for doing some of the work.

Why is anything wrong with this? If there was no company and it was just you personally and you bought an apple directly from a farmer and sold it somebody else for profit, you wouldn't have any problem with that. Why do people suddenly have a problem with it when somebody buys LOTS of apples, and pays other people to do the work for him?

[ed boy]

A big misconception I've seen in this thread:

Your pay is not a reflection of how much you produce. That's only a tiny component of your salary. The biggest factor by far is how replaceable you are.

The average burger flipper at McDonald's only earns a pittance because what he does requires minimal education and skills, and there are thousands of people with that background. The CEO of the company may earn a hundred times his wage, but that's because the CEO is a hundred times harder to replace.

[Helgoland]

Replacability is a function of your degree of specialization, though, isn't it? You not only being paid for the work you're doing right now, you're being paid for the work you did before and for the work you did in school/college/university. At least in theory

[ed boy]

Replacability is a function of your degree of specialization, though, isn't it? You not only being paid for the work you're doing right now, you're being paid for the work you did before and for the work you did in school/college/university. At least in theory

Only to the extent that it shows how replaceable you are. You can spend four years doing a master's degree in financial mathematics, but if you apply for a burger flipping job, you're still going to be paid a pittance. Unless you apply for a job that is related to financial mathematics, you can still be replaced by anybody that works moderately hard.

It does mean that increased automation and machinery advances will make wealth disparity worse. Your average waiter has enough competition that they are often paid below minimum wage, and expanding that competition to include specialized machines will only make them worse off. If you want to reduce wealth disparity, you need to either increase competition for higher paying jobs or reduce competition for low paying jobs. The first one ranges from difficult and expensive to impossible depending on the job, and the second one (given that a surgeon can flip burgers but a burger flipper can't necessarily perform surgery) is impossible without resorting to methods that most people would consider morally abhorrent (culling the uneducated, forbidding people from working outside their speciality, ludditism, requiring burgers to be made in an excessively complicated way that requires months of specialized training, etc).