On: Life Is a Ponzi Scheme (2009)

[ClumsyPilot]

Forget about money for a moment, think of just physical world.

The point is, the young would have a higher quality of life if they did not have to support the old. If one young person has to support two old, their quality of life will decline no matter what the fiscal arrangements are. Sure, technology improves efficiency, but not 300%

[danaris → ClumsyPilot]

That assumes each person produces only enough for a small, fixed number of people to prosper.

And, um...I don't wish to worry you, but efficiency has improved a whole hell of a lot more than 300% over the last 40 years or so.

The problem is that the gains have gone almost entirely to the people at the very top of the pyramid.

[ClumsyPilot → danaris]

That's a bold claim, which industrial process apart from computing and lighting has efficiency improving anywhere near 300%?

Gains have been marginal in air travel,, oil extraction, heating, steel, food and concrete production. Many of these are near the physical limits of possible efficiency.

[danaris → ClumsyPilot]

I apologize; I was misremembering the graphs. It's actually not quite a 300% increase: https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/01/15/40-years-of-economic...

It's just over 250% increase in productivity since 1979, while real wages have risen a fraction of that.

[imtringued → danaris]

I can't eat productivity improvements and neither can my parents. I know that this sounds absurd but that is the reality we live in.

[danaris → imtringued]

No, obviously not. But the point is that there is plenty of productivity to go around—the benefits of it just aren't available to most people.

So, if we were to reduce the ability of the people at the very top to siphon away 99% of the productivity gains we've seen over the past 40 years, we would have more than enough food, clothing, and shelter for everyone, with enough margin that people could also work shorter hours without losing the ability to provide for everyone.

The cost of that is that a very small percentage of the population can no longer have massively extravagant lifestyles.

[ClumsyPilot → danaris]

That graph is dramatic. I see what you mean, we are talking about economic productivity, which is fair enough.

[diN0bot → ClumsyPilot]

some might say that caring for others and being cared for (emotionally, not physically or financially) is the primary measure of quality of life.

i miss my grandmother a great deal.

[coldtea → ClumsyPilot]

>The point is, the young would have a higher quality of life if they did not have to support the old.

The older two, if they didn't have to support the young, e.g. not have babies, or just send them to work on farms at 6 years old...

Are the "young" supposed to get raised for free from 0 to 18 or even 0-25 or more in these days, and then coast along, with no responsibility of paying back to society for that?

[ClumsyPilot → coldtea]

This is not a moral statement, it's a matter of physical difficulty:

If you have 4 siblings, supporting your ageing parents is quite easy

If you are a single child, supporting two ageing parents can be challenging

If you alone had to support 4 ageing people (like someone who decided not to have kids), while also having to meet your work commitments, that would probably be very difficult.