Hi -- New here.
- Thread starter Oneuli
- Start date
ThatOwlWoman
Leftist Vermin
I click the magic check mark next to your name on the ignore list, look at your posts here, then put you back on the ignore list so I don't see your other mewling whines elsewhere! I know it's hard for you to understand, given your intellectual challenges.
I hope you'll continue to post in this thread; watching your dissection at the hands of the skilled wordsmith newbie is delightful!
Oneuli: "Give it a shot and find out. If you find you have a talent for it, it can be vastly lucrative."
Jack: Odd. I was going to say the same thing to you, but about Roofing work.
Oneuli: "Why would anyone put off earning money for four to eight years, to get a higher education, if the result will just be to earn too little to make that investment worthwhile? "
Jack: This goes back to my earlier reference to the 'genetic roll of the dice'. I'll simplify that with a quote from this Greek guy (not the one that I talked about before in an earlier post). He surmised the society of people consisted of a 'Gold Class', a 'Silver Class', and a 'Bronze Class'. Granted, the Bronze Class is unambitios. The Gold Class wants to keep what they have. The Silver Class, ... they want, desire, yearn, to be in the Gold Class. So this Class is easily exploitable, there's always going to be this drive 'to succeed'. There's lots of them to exploit. The easiest way is to increase the competition amongst them, having them run, faster, and faster, and faster, and faster ... on the 'Treadmill of Success'. By tossing in small obstacles in front of them, it only drives them harder 'to succeed'. Yes, those without the drive, ambition, stamina, fall by the wayside, only proving they are 'Silver Class' people.
Just my opinion as a Roofer (along with Pookie and the Mexican guy)
No, clearly not. But since you used the same misspelling twice in a row, the second time after I indicated the correct spelling, I figured you'd benefit from having the correction provided more prominently.
I don't believe I did. I don't think only I (or only liberals) can be correct. But I believe what I believe for a reason, and I think there's benefit to be had from people speaking openly about their beliefs and the reasons behind them. That helps us to come to a greater understanding.
You mean like the correct spelling of "guerrilla"? Although I think there's value in providing instruction when someone gets a technical detail like that wrong, I try to do so only in passing and to focus most of my attention on the core of their argument, rather than using the technical mistake as a "gotcha" moment to derail the discussion. As for the technical details, I won't claim to know all the technical details about the Vietnam War. It's a big topic and reading a few books and watching a few documentaries on it certainly isn't going to give anyone that. But what you perceived as technical errors by me were not. I did not say a typical tour was six months, nor that Saigon was safe in 1964. Those were your straw men, not my arguments.
I understand your view. I think it's quite short-sighted, though. If you pull the rug out from under those who try to step up their game, you'll get fewer people doing so. So, your tactics are directly opposed to the goal you're supposedly trying to bring about.
The mean annual wage of roofers is just $42,780, and there's not much hope of advancement from there, since the top 10% level for roofers is still just $64,860.
Presumably you're speaking of Plato's Republic. If so, are you aware that he, himself, considered that classification to be a lie? For my own part, I prefer truths to lies, even if people hope the lie will lead to beneficial social outcomes.
I know nothing about Chuck Schumer's niece, so I don't believe I said anything about that earlier.
Eagle_Eye
Well-known member
So you take me off ignore the put me back on. That seems like a lot of work to avoid seeing the truth.
I don't ignore you for the simple reason I get a laugh out of your constant hatred of those who know you best.
Oneuli: "I understand your view. I think it's quite short-sighted, though."
Jack: It's a tactic the Elites have used ... forever. Have the drones fight each other, whether it's 'Worker Drones' or 'Office Drones'.
Oneuli: "If you pull the rug out from under those who try to step up their game, you'll get fewer people doing so."
Jack: That is why I mentioned Socrates' view of a 'Silver Class'. They ARE ambitious and will sacrifice to 'Succeed'.
Oneuli: "So, your tactics are directly opposed to the goal you're supposedly trying to bring about."
Jack: I'm just an 'Observer', you know .... observing.
My observation is YOUR view is 'promoting Worker Drones fighting amongst themselves for the left over scraps'.
Conversely, when it comes to the Office Drones, YOUR view is' a protectionist position to protect your own self-interest'.
I can certainly understand your view, your position, it totally makes sense to me. You're very eloquent, fluent, persuasive. As (in my view) a representative of the 'Silver Class', you're an excellent representative.
Mmmmm ... I don't want to go off course here, but that is my generalized view of Humanity, ... some people get the 'good' stuff', others get short changed.
Oh.
Did you say any thing about 'emotional response' in an earlier post? (I kinda' have a major theme here)
Eagle_Eye
Well-known member
That's certainly not my approach. As I've discussed previously, my plan would be to provide government assistance to help citizens at the low end to increase their skills to move into higher-skill, higher-pay jobs.
Technically, that's Plato -- Socrates is just the character he put that dialogue in the mouth of. It's hard to say what the historical Socrates would have thought of it, since he was long dead by the time it was written. Anyway, I don't find his "noble lie" to be a helpful way to think about this.
I'd see that more with the alternate approach, which will leave low-end workers indirectly competing with low-end workers abroad as companies outsource work to cheaper foreign shores, or simply replace workers here with machines assembled by the low-end workers abroad. I think the key to a better future for the low-skill citizens in the US is not to try to protect their low-skills jobs from competition (either from automation, or outsourcing, or immigration), but rather to assist in moving them into a position where they can do higher-skill, higher-pay jobs.
It's about considering what kinds of behavior you want. If you want more people who are content with having few skills and low productivity, then create policies that shelter those with low skills from foreign competition, and, at the same time, punish those who invest in increasing their skills, by making sure once they've deferred gratification and expended time and money to improve their skills, you change the rules on them to hold their wages too low for them to recoup that investment. If, on the other hand, you want people to be striving to become more skillful and productive, then you allow competition from below, but make sure that investments in improving oneself have a good shot at being rewarded.
Do you want a future where the citizens of America are highly educated and there's a culture of investment and self improvement? Or do you want a future where people are comfortable in their lowly ruts and call on politicians to protect them from the challenges of competition and change? I know which I prefer.
I may have, but definitely not in the context of Chuck Schumer's niece, since I know nothing about her.
Eagle_Eye
Well-known member
First off you got me on "guerrilla" must have been a Freudian slip as my boss's call sign was "Gorilla".
Now I don't know how anyone can interpret that not to mean you were saying Saigon was safe from combat during that period.
You are trying to manipulate certain events in such a way as to show your theory is correct. Your above example assumes the MP never comes in contact with front line troops, never hears AFRTS, never sees the Stars and Stripes. In other words he would have had to have been in a vacuum his whole time there. Surely even you can see how ludicrous that is. Now you can try to spin that.
It's not hard. Something can be dangerous without a given individual having heard gunshots, personally.
I don't know what you mean. What events do you think I'm manipulating and what theory do you think I'm trying to establish as correct?
I didn't say a word about whether the MP came in contact with front line troops, or heard AFRTS, or saw Stars and Stripes. Again, you're mistaking your straw men for my arguments. I was simply trying to get you to think in terms of someone who was in country during the war and yet would have had a personal experience far different from the typical experience. When you seized up over that particular example, I offered some others, such as a mechanic in the engine room of a hospital ship. The point isn't the details of each individual example, but rather to get across the concept that an individual soldier's experience of Vietnam could be very different from what the war as a whole was like. Sure, he could have gotten a broader view from AFRTS or Stars and Stripes (or, better yet, an outlet that didn't have a propagandistic purpose). But then we're talking about second-hand knowledge, the same as someone who was never there.
ThatOwlWoman
Leftist Vermin
This is the very basis of why capitalism is a preferred and far more successful economic system than communism.