Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Cite, please?

This is basic knowledge, so if you want something better than Wikipedia you're going to have to find it yourself.

[Descan]

You seem to think people need a fork in their back just to do anything, someone telling them what to do (most people aren't business owners and aren't competing, they're on the bottom rung doing the work), while we (or at least I) seem to think that it's the prospect of becoming destitute that prevent most people from doing anything. Fundamental disconnect.


And also a seeming disconnect on needing people to be useful for them to deserve life. Lolwut?


All the above @Scoopbeard, though I've lost him in 19 20 replies :v

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Well then I misspoke, so forgive me: to revise my statement, the population is increasing and regardless of predicted declines in the percentage of growth I find it hard to to believ it will ever stop growing.


Anyhoo, ill be going to bed now. I enjoyed the conversation, and Ill be back tomorrow.

[Thecard]

Guess I'll have to take the Wikipedia then, though it's usually poor form to cite it and say I'll have to find it myself. I get it, though, and I trust this is accurate.


EDIT:
I did do a quick Google, the site with your graph (a U.S. census website) was the fourth link. Not that hard for me to find, you didn't really need to link Wikipedia.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Well then I misspoke, so forgive me: to revise my statement, the population is increasing and regardless of predicted declines in the percentage of growth I find it hard to to believ it will ever stop growing.

What you want to believe does not effect objective reality.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

@Descan: What? Everyone deserves life, unless your a total dick. Anyways, in my personal experience people generally dont do things unless they have to, im only 17 so i dont have the most experience, my opinion might change over time.


EDIT: whoops, i meant the population not the rate of its growth!

[LordBucket]

Related trivia:

http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_201.htm
Employment by major industry sector
Agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting 1.6%
Agriculture wage and salary  0.9%


http://www.fas.usda.gov/itp/Policy/tradeFAQ.asp

"The United States is now the world’s largest agricultural exporter. The value of agricultural exports equals nearly one-fourth of farm cash receipts, about twice the level of the overall U.S. economy, and 1 out of 3 acres are planted for export."

So only 2.5% of the US population is employed in agriculture, yet we produce enough surplus food to export one third of what we produce.

[Descan]

@Descan: What? Everyone deserves life, unless your a total dick. Anyways, in my personal experience people generally dont do things unless they have to, im only 17 so i dont have the most experience, my opinion might change over time.


EDIT: whoops, i meant the population not the rate of its growth!

Everyone deserves life =/= you need to provide work that other people find useful [to get enough money] to eat.

[Max White]

And also a seeming disconnect on needing people to be useful for them to deserve life. Lolwut?

Well this is an interesting sentiment. You see people who aren't contributing tend to starve because traditionally  people would work very hard just to support themselves and were unwilling to share anything a la Ayn Rand. It is a system that sees many die, but at least those who get the chance to work for something better always take it.

Except we live in a slightly different reality to that. We are now at a point where we have enough excess wealth left over after the bare minimum to survive is taken out that we can live comfortably and support other people. A lot of people would consider the lives of others to be worth more to them than a second car, especially when some of those people will go on to contribute to the turning wheels of progress and continue to make life even better for all. Turns out Rand was wrong, no man is an island and supporting others is economically the best idea for all involved. Everybody deserves a level of support because we can afford it now and it will pa dividends.

Although some people are selfish. They seem to lack a kind of vision. Not much we can do about it, sadly.

[LordBucket]

you need to provide work that other people find useful [to get enough money] to eat.

Note that this is entirely a cultural phenomenon. It's completely possible to eat without money being involved. We simply have a culture of "work to get money to buy food." Food is produced by things like dirt and sunlight. Things that are not particularly scarce. "Work to eat" is a cultural view. Not a natural consequence.

[Lagslayer]

Posting to watch.

[Max White]

Note that this is entirely a cultural phenomenon. It's completely possible to eat without money being involved. We simply have a culture of "work to get money to buy food." Food is produced by things like dirt and sunlight. Things that are not particularly scarce. "Work to eat" is a cultural view. Not a natural consequence.

Well you still need to work the soil to actually produce enough food to keep yourself alive. It is called farming, historically people who were good at it or enjoyed it or didn't know how to do anything else would do it a lot to provide food to everybody. This gave everybody else a lot of free time to make other things. To make sure the farmers got their fair share of cool stuff being made they traded the food for the cool stuff.

Point is that there is no food without work. You will always work to eat, but that work might by with a hoe and scythe.

[LordBucket]

Well you still need to work the soil to actually produce enough food to keep yourself alive. It is called farming

Your sarcasm is noted, but misplaced. If you read my post more carefully you'll see that I was responding to a comment suggesting that it was necessary to provide work to other people. The point being responded to was that there is no food without work. For money. And that is not correct.

Point is that there is no food without work.

No, that was not the point I was responding to. I am objecting to this deeply engrained belief that "work" in the sense of "job" is necessary. It isn't. It isn't necessary fundamentally, and it isn't necessary situationally. It's a completely arbitrary convention.

Again, here is the quote that I was responding to:

you need to provide work that other people find useful [to get enough money] to eat.

That is not true.

I'm not advocating reducing technology and that we all live in huts and grow grain. I'm advocataing an increase of technology such that the whole issue becomes trivial.

But some people need help overcoming the "work for money to survive" mindset.

[Max White]

Technically working the earth to produce food really is farming, that not sarcasm. Its an actual thing. An argument could be made that it is condescending, but certainly not sarcastic.

Also these days you will always be working for somebody to eat because it is unlikely you will never become the owner of actual farmlands, the bank will happily claim it from you.

[Descan]

So I forgot about farmers, big woop :I

It still applies to everyone else. :v