Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Chauncey Gardiner.

No, it was the last guy who repeated BS he heard on tv that people inexplicably took seriously.

This one just gets in trouble with his mouth.

"Chance of audit torture being visited on gig workers and small biz just increased 500%?

You really need to be more selective in your news sources and/or more skeptical of silly right wing talking points.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Adder

You really need to be more selective in your news sources and/or more skeptical of silly right wing talking points.

Folks do realize that if gig workers are being caught up in an audit, what's likely at stake is whether they should have more of their FICA payments covered and get some other tax benefits from being characterized as an employee rather than a contractor?

The target in gig worker audits isn't the gig workers.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Dissent.

When I had my first bout with cancer, I was treated with a drug cocktail that included two drugs a client and close friend had been involved in developing, one of which I'd helped him with. His work helped save my life. It gave me new perspective on the good I could do even as a lawyer.

On the second bout, one of my side effects (mouth and throat sores - a colleague with similar problems recently died of them, literally chocked to death when their throat closed) was greatly helped by a product developed by another friend, who we've since helped connect with a contingent fee lawyer for help with a very unexciting but important collection matter (their distributor screwed them - it threatened their ability to continue). I realized my health depended in part on the quality of work of an otherwise lowly collections litigator.

Work can be a very fulfilling part of life if we let it, and keep the money issues from getting in the way.

I agree. Work can be fulfilling.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

I agree. Work can be fulfilling.

In my entire career the clients who should have won mostly don’t and the ones who maybe shouldn’t mostly do. But yes the $$$$$!

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

In my entire career the clients who should have won mostly don’t and the ones who maybe shouldn’t mostly do. But yes the $$$$$!

Wait, you lose cases?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Dissent.

When I had my first bout with cancer, I was treated with a drug cocktail that included two drugs a client and close friend had been involved in developing, one of which I'd helped him with. His work helped save my life. It gave me new perspective on the good I could do even as a lawyer.

On the second bout, one of my side effects (mouth and throat sores - a colleague with similar problems recently died of them, literally chocked to death when their throat closed) was greatly helped by a product developed by another friend, who we've since helped connect with a contingent fee lawyer for help with a very unexciting but important collection matter (their distributor screwed them - it threatened their ability to continue). I realized my health depended in part on the quality of work of an otherwise lowly collections litigator.

Work can be a very fulfilling part of life if we let it, and keep the money issues from getting in the way.

I agree with this. One can definitely find fulfillment in any profession.

But most people don't, or don't always, so they have to find balance. This makes more sense, IMO, than believing the Protestant Work Ethic (that life is just to toil and through that one will build character, and character is reward enough regardless of whether one makes money) or the Greed Is Good mantra (work sucks, so just crush it as much as you can and try to amass the greatest wealth and prestige... and then retire and become obsessed with golf and talk about it incessantly).

The kids these days seem to grasp that The Ride is the reward. It's all you get, so if you're sacrificing everything to toil which is not fulfilling and not enjoying yourself along the way, you're doing it wrong, and quite illogically.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

No, it was the last guy who repeated BS he heard on tv that people inexplicably took seriously.

This one just gets in trouble with his mouth.



You really need to be more selective in your news sources and/or more skeptical of silly right wing talking points.

Look up where the audits had been targeted over the past 20 years. EITC was one of the most frequent.

There's a narrative out there that the country is awash in massive super-wealthy cheats - Swiss accounts, hidden crypto, Panama, etc. But this stuff is rounding errors. What'd they get when the Swiss dimed out US citizens with hidden foreign accounts a few years back? Five, ten billion? Not chump change. But also not much more than a day's (if that) worth of interest on our debt.

They're coming for everyone, above $400k and below. Because that's where the most money is located. We could punitively tax the Forbes 400 crowd at 50% for a year and the money wouldn't be terrifically impressive. To make this work, they've gotta make everyone a target. Terrible for small business. Jacks compliance costs. Great for accountants.

[LessinSF]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The kids these days seem to grasp that The Ride is the reward. It's all you get, so if you're sacrificing everything to toil which is not fulfilling and not enjoying yourself along the way, you're doing it wrong, and quite illogically.

I have always been a role model.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The kids these days seem to grasp that The Ride is the reward. It's all you get, so if you're sacrificing everything to toil which is not fulfilling and not enjoying yourself along the way, you're doing it wrong, and quite illogically.

Yep. They get it.

In theory, with automation (and not having trillions of $$ in a few hands), we should all be living the lives of the passengers on the Wall-E ship.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

Yep. They get it.

In theory, with automation (and not having trillions of $$ in a few hands), we should all be living the lives of the passengers on the Wall-E ship.

Keynes predicted that we'd have 15 hour weeks by now and leisure would be prioritized.

There are many reasons we're not there, and some are good ones. Some people are simply ambitious, love to work, love what they do, and these people tend to benefit themselves and society tremendously.

But there's also a pathology at work - a belief non-productive life is wasted time. That it's somehow better to be doing anything than doing nothing. This turns people into strange little robots. Routine is sanctified. Put on khakis, get in car, drive, park, get coffee, walk upstairs, go into office. As a cheetah would stalk prey everyday on the savanna, because it knows no other way to live, I shall go off to the office to earn my keep every day.

Except you're not earning anything by this ritual. You're going through motions that actually hamper the work for which you are paid. The performative and rote conflate with the productive time. They layers on top of, or marble through, the productive activity. They sap energy. But you're a robot, so you don't see that anymore.

Until someone makes all the robots stay home for a year, unable to get a daily software reinforcement by plugging their asses into chairs in their cubicles just as you'd dock your iPhone into your MacBook.

Oh, wait, that was a rut, a Matrix... I was just sleepwalking through motions I needn't follow.

And why do we so easily turn into robots? I think because we're marinated in a high proof Puritan bullshit story about how rigid discipline, consistency, and sacrificing time is good for humans and makes them successful. Sure, the 10,000 Hour Rule works if you're Tiger Woods or Yo Yo Ma. But those are 10,000 useful hours. The 10,000 hours a cubicle monkey burns putting on Dockers, shaving, and sitting in traffic for an hour every morning are useless hours. The 10,000 hours anyone spends in meetings are useless hours.

There is no dumber statement than "He put in his time." People say that as if achieving success is a simply a matter of trading enough time, putting up with enough politics, being bored to tears regularly. How much innovation is lost every year because people find themselves "putting in their time"? Most of the great ideas one will have will be had while one is young. What kind of perverse society and counterproductive economy would encourage young minds to dutifully follow orders under impossibly dull conditions?

A fucking strange one. One still haunted by the spirit of the self-depriving religious loons who founded this place. Work should be performed in comfortable conditions under which its performed most effectively, not in a hairshirt and half exhausted.

"Thanks for decades of dutiful service, Bob! Here's a Rolex. Hope you picked a nice place to die!"

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Keynes predicted that we'd have 15 hour weeks by now and leisure would be prioritized.

FWIW, this unrealized promise is the subject of Brad Delong's new book, Slouching Towards Utopia, an economic history of the post-1870 world. I'm going to read it any day now, just as soon as I can get through Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

FWIW, this unrealized promise is the subject of Brad Delong's new book, Slouching Towards Utopia, an economic history of the post-1870 world. I'm going to read it any day now, just as soon as I can get through Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale.

Thanks for that. From reviews, it looks like a rewrite of history aimed at shitting on accepted narratives. Which of course is catnip to me.

I'll buy it for traditionalist friends for the holidays. I've found recommending The Dawn of Everything and Sex At Dawn to them quite fun. Nothing is more satisfying than causing an older person to doubt things he's just so fucking certain are "bedrock natural rules."

[LessinSF]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Thanks for that. From reviews, it looks like a rewrite of history aimed at shitting on accepted narratives. Which of course is catnip to me.

I'll buy it for traditionalist friends for the holidays. I've found recommending The Dawn of Everything and Sex At Dawn to them quite fun. Nothing is more satisfying than causing an older person to doubt things he's just so fucking certain are "bedrock natural rules."

Give "San Fransicko" to your progressive friends - https://books.google.com/books/publi...nV-G08w&w=1280

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

Give "San Fransicko" to your progressive friends - https://books.google.com/books/publi...nV-G08w&w=1280

Here's a book review of San Fransicko by Scott Alexander, which possibly could be like the most LessinSFest-adjacent book review ever.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Here's a book review of San Fransicko by Scott Alexander, which possibly could be like the most LessinSFest-adjacent book review ever.

For context, for those who have never met Ty, he is a lovely thoughtful man, BUT on the issue of SF being over run by homeless leaving feces I will note that Ty seems to favor restaurants with a strong odor reminiscent of a sewage treatment plant.