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Joined: August 11 2005
Location: Philly
Status: Offline
Points: 15783
Posted: December 12 2013 at 11:09
rogerthat wrote:
They equally also make plenty of decisions that prioritise family over higher income. This is especially true of married women, who priortise raising their kids over career advancement. Why don't you admit that it is a situation that puts a person in a dilemma and makes him choose between more money and the happiness of the ones he loves? If it was only about the money, there wouldn't even be any dilemma, right? Is it because that would negate your argument that everything has a price?
This is a gross b*****dization of what I'm saying. As I said, Price =/= Money. And nowhere did I say that money is the only or most important thing.
That's a flawed example. They commit suicide because they cannot bear to go through the humiliation of being in prison and their guilt over failing the people who believed in them, especially family, overpowers them. The impulse to commit suicide may be triggered by the lack of money but the reason to commit it derives from ego, self esteem and guilt. That is not at all the same thing that you referred to earlier in saying everything has a price. People do not commit suicide because it will fetch them more money. People commit suicide because the lack of money is about to put them through unbearable humiliation and suffering which they would rather not bear.
You're making my point. People kill themselves because they find death more bearable than a life of humiliation. They just put a price on life which is priceless. Maybe I should start saying value? Would that be better for you?
Oh, do carry on then with being obstinate. It is a simple point I am making. I am not interested in whether the decision to give up your life on the battlefield is stupid. I am interested in the pyschological motivation for it, which is clearly not linked to money but other considerations, stupid or otherwise. Is this again a case that admission of this logic would disrupt your grand theory about the all conquering pervasiveness of money?
You have said money far more than I have in this exchange. I've barely talked about money at all. I don't even know how the discussion of war is related. I was just making a side comment because of the amount of glory I feel you're prescribing to it.
"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
Joined: October 16 2006
Location: FL, USA
Status: Offline
Points: 17493
Posted: December 12 2013 at 11:17
I will go to our actual discussion a little later but I think you two have a language barrier here or something. Price =/= monetary value. I think if using the word value will help Pat. .
Nice, now this is the type of stuff I miss about this thread!
Interesting point about culture earlier. I'm a bit of a cultural heathen I guess. I don't really "feel" it much...maybe it's part of growing up in the US where we dont have much of a culture (in a way we're about NOT having really) capitalism IS the culture. Not that that's a bad thing in itself, and I do see issues with too much pride of culture. Of course having culture is good too, and there are also issues I see in our lack of one here ($$$ above all, as I've found out recently even above family sometimes)
But sadly don't have time for all these fun ponderings...lunch break at work is all I get, and been too busy outside of that to lurk PA
Unrelated: I think I have decided, after all, to pursue the academic career path. Pat, how much hatred of my life and everything should I prepare for?
Oh man, I needa see if I saved this one page paper I wrote for an econ class on why file sharing is good for music, citing free markets, technology and yadda yadda and how in the end it could be good for music overall.
Or maybe I was just being an economist and simply trying to justify beliefs I already held because I like them
Joined: August 11 2005
Location: Philly
Status: Offline
Points: 15783
Posted: December 12 2013 at 11:58
JJLehto wrote:
Nice, now this is the type of stuff I miss about this thread!
Interesting point about culture earlier. I'm a bit of a cultural heathen I guess. I don't really "feel" it much...maybe it's part of growing up in the US where we dont have much of a culture (in a way we're about NOT having really) capitalism IS the culture. Not that that's a bad thing in itself, and I do see issues with too much pride of culture. Of course having culture is good too, and there are also issues I see in our lack of one here ($$$ above all, as I've found out recently even above family sometimes)
But sadly don't have time for all these fun ponderings...lunch break at work is all I get, and been too busy outside of that to lurk PA
Unrelated: I think I have decided, after all, to pursue the academic career path. Pat, how much hatred of my life and everything should I prepare for?
How can you say that the US doesn't have a culture? Well I mean it doesn't, but that's because it's so large and diverse. But the US certainly has cultures.
Be prepared to never leave your work at the office again.
"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
Nice, now this is the type of stuff I miss about this thread!
Interesting point about culture earlier. I'm a bit of a cultural heathen I guess. I don't really "feel" it much...maybe it's part of growing up in the US where we dont have much of a culture (in a way we're about NOT having really) capitalism IS the culture. Not that that's a bad thing in itself, and I do see issues with too much pride of culture. Of course having culture is good too, and there are also issues I see in our lack of one here ($$$ above all, as I've found out recently even above family sometimes)
But sadly don't have time for all these fun ponderings...lunch break at work is all I get, and been too busy outside of that to lurk PA
Unrelated: I think I have decided, after all, to pursue the academic career path. Pat, how much hatred of my life and everything should I prepare for?
How can you say that the US doesn't have a culture? Well I mean it doesn't, but that's because it's so large and diverse. But the US certainly has cultures.
Be prepared to never leave your work at the office again.
Well that's it. There are many but ya know...the melting pot. It all kind of, or should, blend into one. The lack of culture is because of many...? Amorphous, which I think is great. And technology/globalization has sped it up. Sadly I do think that all plays into the "capitalism is our culture" and it's not all bad, in many ways I think it's a positive. In other ways a negative.
Padraic wrote:
JJLehto wrote:
Unrelated: I think I have decided, after all, to pursue the academic career path.
I'm sorry you hate yourself so much.
LOL thanks guys.
This is of course assuming I get into a program, and with econ I still have a chance to escape the life of self loathing and get a job in government or wall street, oops no I'm f**ked all around. Bring on the self loathing
Joined: April 21 2005
Location: Boston, MA
Status: Offline
Points: 16328
Posted: December 12 2013 at 17:56
The T wrote:
On the other hand, the preservation of old cultural values and traditions probably helps somewhat to preserve nefarious things in India like the caste system which is quite socially unfair. What is your opinion Rogerthat?
Any country has a caste system of some kind.....Just some are more rigid than others....
Unrelated: I think I have decided, after
all, to pursue the academic career path. Pat, how much hatred of my life
and everything should I prepare for?
And all seriousness though, I spend 90% of my time saying "I can't believe someone pays me to do this."
I've said that before in jobs where I'm essentially doing nothing. I say it now because I'd do it for free.
Yeah,
we discussed this on FB a while ago when I first was contemplating the
idea. I eventually decided I'm kinda tired of making life choices on
what I think is best, or I 'should' do with no other basis. It's rare I
really want to do something, and this is one so I'm going for it.
Besides, the best laid plans of mice and men...I thought poli sci was brilliant. Slide into a cushy gov job, ??? profit! But
ya know, the great recession happened and helped put a lid on that.
Then I also realized: loloops turns out you really have to know someone
and gov jobs just don't turnover.
King of Loss wrote:
JJLehto wrote:
Unrelated: I think I have decided, after all, to pursue the academic career path. Pat, how much hatred of my life and everything should I prepare for?
Congratulations, Mr. Lehto. So what Finnish University are you going to attend?
University of Race Car driving, of course
Well for now I've applied to Bard College, private school in upstate NY. IF I am accepted, I'll be taking a somewhat off mainstream path of economics so LOL I'm really f**king myself here If not, always Rutgers. Go into wall street, crash economy ??? PROFIT
Word? Nice. Obviously I don't know much about that, but I like a lot of the work being done by the Levy Institute, which runs the masters econ program at Bard, some interesting stuff put out by them (maybe it's something the school strives to do?) And some of their work seems to have gained acceptance with guys like Krugman, so that's good.
Joined: September 03 2006
Location: .
Status: Offline
Points: 9869
Posted: December 12 2013 at 20:06
Equality 7-2521 wrote:
This is a gross b*****dization of what I'm saying. As I said, Price =/= Money. And nowhere did I say that money is the only or most important thing.
Then you have only agreed with what I said while trying your best to make it appear that that is not the case. My statement was simply that you cannot buy everything with money. If you are going to argue for something possessing value that cannot be transacted in money, that is the exact same thing that I said. In a general sense, the value of life is priceless because it cannot be bought with money. It cannot be bought by exchanging a price at a store.
Equality 7-2521 wrote:
You're making my point. People kill themselves because they find death more bearable than a life of humiliation. They just put a price on life which is priceless. Maybe I should start saying value? Would that be better for you?
Well, if you say value, then that only serves to support my argument. I have been repeatedly saying that just because the value of some things cannot be measured, doesn't mean they do not have value. You said earlier it is important to measure these things and now you have turned around and said these things do have a price even if it is not a money price. But those are not the same things at all; such price has nothing to do with price from an economic point of view which is the only price I have concerned myself with and helpfully used the word money to indicate as much.
Please be consistent and choose one line of argument or concede ground if you are only agreeing with my own. Yeah, I know it sucks but maybe non libertarians are also right some of the time, you know. Don't distract the discussion with a semantic discussion on price v/s priceless. What I have said from the beginning is very consistent: you cannot buy everything with MONEY. Suicide is NOT a counter example to that. Suicide is only an example of how other intangible considerations may be placed over life in certain circumstances. I had never said such circumstances would not exist and used the example of a soldier, which you have felt so obliged to disdain, to demonstrate that as well. I said life is priceless because nobody trades in their life for MONEY. Your example of suicide does not counter that at all.
Equality 7-2521 wrote:
You have said money far more than I have in this exchange. I've barely talked about money at all. I don't even know how the discussion of war is related. I was just making a side comment because of the amount of glory I feel you're prescribing to it.
So let me once again request you to attempt to simply read comments on face value instead of making inferences about their intent, which only serves to colour your arguments. I have simply said a soldier sacrifices his life not for money but for national pride and honour. Whether honour is stupid is irrelevant here, my only focus here from the beginning, which I tried repeatedly to make clear also, was the motive for the soldier's decision which does not have to do with money. That was my only limited point, it was not an advocacy of war. If you didn't concern yourself so much with being snide in your replies, you would probably comprehend and assimilate what is being said a little better and that would greatly help the cause of the discussion.
Joined: August 11 2005
Location: Philly
Status: Offline
Points: 15783
Posted: December 13 2013 at 07:21
rogerthat wrote:
Then you have only agreed with what I said while trying your best to make it appear that that is not the case. My statement was simply that you cannot buy everything with money. If you are going to argue for something possessing value that cannot be transacted in money, that is the exact same thing that I said. In a general sense, the value of life is priceless because it cannot be bought with money. It cannot be bought by exchanging a price at a store.
Not at all. I don't have enough time to fabricate arguments. Our original disagreement was about justifying value to different groups. There's a very real disagreement.
Well, if you say value, then that only serves to support my argument. I have been repeatedly saying that just because the value of some things cannot be measured, doesn't mean they do not have value. You said earlier it is important to measure these things and now you have turned around and said these things do have a price even if it is not a money price. But those are not the same things at all; such price has nothing to do with price from an economic point of view which is the only price I have concerned myself with and helpfully used the word money to indicate as much.
My exact point was that you can't measure the value adequately so you can't justify your taxation and subsidies.
Please be consistent and choose one line of argument or concede ground if you are only agreeing with my own. Yeah, I know it sucks but maybe non libertarians are also right some of the time, you know. Don't distract the discussion with a semantic discussion on price v/s priceless. What I have said from the beginning is very consistent: you cannot buy everything with MONEY. Suicide is NOT a counter example to that. Suicide is only an example of how other intangible considerations may be placed over life in certain circumstances. I had never said such circumstances would not exist and used the example of a soldier, which you have felt so obliged to disdain, to demonstrate that as well. I said life is priceless because nobody trades in their life for MONEY. Your example of suicide does not counter that at all.
Get off your high horse. I've had the same argument the entire time. You've been confusing it. I've never disagreed with the fact that you can't buy everything with money.
So let me once again request you to attempt to simply read comments on face value instead of making inferences about their intent, which only serves to colour your arguments. I have simply said a soldier sacrifices his life not for money but for national pride and honour. Whether honour is stupid is irrelevant here, my only focus here from the beginning, which I tried repeatedly to make clear also, was the motive for the soldier's decision which does not have to do with money. That was my only limited point, it was not an advocacy of war. If you didn't concern yourself so much with being snide in your replies, you would probably comprehend and assimilate what is being said a little better and that would greatly help the cause of the discussion.
You've made some assumptions about what you think soldiers do and for what reason. I understand exactly what you're saying. And I disagree with you.
Edited by Equality 7-2521 - December 13 2013 at 07:23
"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
Just have to say, at least here in the US, while a good number do join military service for pride/ideals for many it is an economic decision.
As System of a Down said, "Why do they always send the poor!?"
Well, because it can provide a very successful path for ones life. Especially if you really have no prospect of college.
One need not be lesser off of course, you can do your 4 years, and use the financial aid for school, or the pay you get while working. One of my roommates had his army pay, while working and of course getting aid for school so he was pretty damn set, and of course will end up with a degree, private sector job and still military benefits.
It is often pride/national honor but for many it's also a pretty sweet deal if you're willing to accept the "conditions" of the job
Joined: August 11 2005
Location: Philly
Status: Offline
Points: 15783
Posted: December 13 2013 at 07:45
Everyone I know in the military did it because they were poor: either they were too poor to afford college or just too poor to afford anything. Most people sign up when they're 18 right out of or while in high school. They don't know anything. They don't even realize they're mortal.
I'm trying to find a 2003 study that concluded that soldiers in Iraq have very weak ties to ideology or national pride but instead tend to have ties to there fellow soldiers as the primary motivator for continued service.
"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
Everyone I know in the military did it because they were poor: either they were too poor to afford college or just too poor to afford anything. Most people sign up when they're 18 right out of or while in high school. They don't know anything. They don't even realize they're mortal.
I'm trying to find a 2003 study that concluded that soldiers in Iraq have very weak ties to ideology or national pride but instead tend to have ties to there fellow soldiers as the primary motivator for continued service.
I do know some that did for the ideals...but they were either from military families or just were buffs, into history/military/guns etc but I'm sure many hype up/buy into the ideals but had financial reasons as the intitial motivator.
I do agree btw, I'd say a good majority of people do it for the $$ and really it's a pretty good deal, as I said long as you are willing to accept that life.
Which is why I think we need more gov programs (either directly or to boost the private sector, whatever) if we are too reduce the military (which I think we should). The military is basically a large employer for many poor people, they need some alternative if this option is taken away.
Joined: April 21 2005
Location: Boston, MA
Status: Offline
Points: 16328
Posted: December 13 2013 at 10:03
It is also a huge boon for the rich in this country that operate the financial institutions. They would not be able to jack up oil prices and the prices of other commodities if it wasn't for the consistent warmongering around the Middle East.... Much more so welfare for the rich than for the poor here........
Hell, a lot of the wealth that the rich around here have was made from the arms industry....dating back to the Civil War period...
Edited by King of Loss - December 13 2013 at 10:10
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rogerthat wrote:
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