Why I doubt I'll ever reconcile my principles with society's

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I see the situation in most Western countries right now as being even worse than slavery. I mean, at least slaves didn't have to work to find a 'job' (and I mean 'work', because often, unless those with long-term jobs forget easily, job-seeking is more arduous than the jobs themselves).

And what is most people's motivations for getting a job? Well, most people my age it seems - trivial stuff: booze, and generally being able to go on a night out. Seriously? On a basis of rationality, is it sensible to go through immeasurable awkwardness to get a job in the first place, and then slave away at it... only so you could go on a night out? I mean, I'm not that kind of person so maybe I just can't relate, but they really must be desperate for that kind of thing (and what do they call it? Oh, being 'wrecked'... that's actually a fairly accurate term... for how society currently works).

And now I'll get to the actual principles, why fundamentally I can't possibly convince myself that doing the above is worthwhile (even if I don't care about nights out and, say, only get a job so I'd have even more useless money, so in turn bankers could use it in hedge funds and pay themselves even more bonuses... oh wait, I deviated). It's simply about the pure exploitation that I perceive as being the basis of such capitalistic systems: simply put, having a business is merely the legal way to get at other people's money (the majority of advertising being lies), and getting a job is like being a slave to a bank robber (oh, how ironic the circle goes)... an accomplice to the continuation of this misery.

I seriously find this whole world (of jobs) to be unjust at best, and I think being thought of as lazy due to this (if people think that that's the reason behind my reluctance) then I don't mind, just as I don't mind that people think I'm crazy for my vegetarianism: one can have principles, and the worst thing is when society actually tries to coerce such people. It's a zero-sum game, and I don't want to play...

If it weren't for Capitalism, your standard of living would be very poor.

We have progressed financially and in our well being enormously due to Capitalism. Without it, we would all be serfs.

Your life is what you make of it. You can maintain your so-called "principles" if you wish, but don't expect to get very far without earning your way.

Well if you already have so much money that more would be useless, there is no reason for you to get a job. None. You already have the money you need to survive in life, right? Then don't sweat it. Do what you want to do instead.

If you don't already have a bunch of money, then the money you would earn won't be useless because it buys things like food, shelter, heat, running water, etc. You kinda need those things. They are not handed out to anybody who is able to work and earn them themselves. The government has a hard enough time taking care of people who truly are unable to work. They aren't going to, and shouldn't, take care of you simply because you dislike the idea of work on a philosophical level.

You have a third option too you know. Be a bum. A real bum. The kind that lives under a bridge and eats in soup kitchens. They don't work either, and they don't really have to deal with much of normal society because most people won't get around them. So, that solves your problem. You don't have to fit into society, you don't have to go to work, you don't have to pay bills, you can eat for free at a shelter or soup kitchen, and you can sleep anywhere you can find to hide at night. I guess you better start getting your backpack together then, huh?

A few years ago, after a friend of mine got divorced, he locked his house, buried the keys where he could find them later, and went and lived on the streets of Houston through the summer and well into the fall. He finally decided to go home when it got cold out.

The world is an unjust place, but at least you are free to express it. In certain places, expressing negative opinions of the government is punishable by death.

I suppose you could become a homeless beggar, but what's the point. People have to work, jobs have to be done. The food has to get from the field to your plate, things have to be built, maintained, so we need jobs.

Capitalism is a flawed system, Democracy is a flawed system, but they are better than anything else. Communism isn't this glorious thing were you can do no work and get everything provided for you. That's a utopia and it doesn't exist.

Or you can crawl up into the welfare system and become a drain on society but then speaking of unjust, how is it fair that you don't have to work but I do?

I think that the flaws in Capitalism are largely from not really pushing for pure Capitalism. What we end up with instead is the government picking winners and losers instead of a Free Market.



You can say that again. In a Communist system, you have someone else deciding how much you will work and how much you will be paid for the work and you don't have a thing to say about it. The inevitable result is that you are much worse off than under a Capitalist system.

I understand what you mean mootoo, but most of the world is NT, and you will find this even more so outside of western countries. You can travel and directly experience other ways of life. Don't believe everything you hear in mass media.

Doesn't matter if it's AS or NT, you gotta work to support yourself. Some places have less superficial work, and work is more focused on survival, but no other way of life can you sit around and do no work and get taken care of.

Even if it was a pure aspergian community, you have to grow food, get food from the field to the table, produce things necessary for survival, your prob gonna want some kind of enjoyment so produce things for that.

You could try being a hobo, living off scrabs and stuff, just don't go to soup kitchens, there resources are just as thin as government.

You're merely parroting what everyone says. Nobody addressed the zero-sum argument - I think it's an adequate enough concern for a rational mind.

Go up to Alaska and live in the Bush. You won't have to work for "useless" money. It's all working for your own survival.

Actually being a hobo getting stuff out of trash cans that would otherwise be thrown away is a positive sum game as things are better off than that ending up in a landfill. Yes wall street is a zero sum game but that does not mean all economic activity is. If you can do something for someone cheaper then they can do it for themselves then you are helping society and making a postive impact. This is why I could never be a salesman.

What you describe is not really capitalism but unfortante special interests that have redistribution of wealth and rent seeking and wealth being redistributed upward which is a problem. I don't think it is just the government picking winners and losers but more even without winners and losers but society would form a proper way to do things that would establish winners and losers as well. For example having to wear nice clothes is basicaly giving the sellers a tying contract of you have to have nice clothes to get a job which is a wierd version of a tying contract if you want to sell your labor you have to buy this.

I want a job to work with economic models really. Also why you want something is not studied in economics. I don't really want those uses of money really either.

The wierd thing is society subsidizes criminals if they commit a crime by paying for food and drink and healthcare in jail yet if you find jobs morally wrong they don't do this. So why does society treat murders better?

People should stop breeding.