I don't see his conclusion of "you have to get lots of smart immigrants to fill in"... he spends paragraphs talking about how there is a growing pool of able-bodied, middle-aged citizenry yet he advocates bringing in even more people to maintain GDP.
This is a training problem; we have a surplus of workers (and potential workers) with mismatched skills. He should consider retraining willing reentrants before further attempting to crowd a dwindling workforce with outsiders.
I know people who have been out of work for a long time, and it seems to come to the point where they can no longer keep a job at all. These people essential leave society. And then there are those who subsequently choose to occupy their time with things that are damaging to society, like gangs or other violence. I think there is a potential solution to these problems - workfare. By this I mean the social aid given by the government consists of giving people a job.
There is always more work to do. The problem is that there might not be someone willing to pay enough to have it done. This is where the government social program would come in. They basically supplement the income for the person doing the job. The idea being that it is better for the person to work then to just get aid. At the same time, society benefits because that person is being productive.
This is counter to one of the big ideas to solve the problem of loss of jobs, universal basic income. It is good that is being studied to determine if it is a good way to move forward. I think there are people who will make the most of that, which is great. I think there are also people who can fall between the cracks. Within a workfare type program, self motivated people can also be addressed. Perhaps some people's job could be working on their own project, such as open source software or even being a musician.
Looking at my own society (Sweden), the idea of fixing unemployment by inventing job programs to employ people is a quite common idea. Sadly it has some big draw backs, one simply being that such large force of "free labor" is very attractive to be exploited. When there is no option to decline a job offer, some places will naturally abuse that and out compete those companies not getting free employees from the state. The Swedish government naturally have rules against such exploitation, but enforcement is a problem and far from 100%.
And I recall reading that there is statistics showing the rates of people improving their situations when working in such jobs, and if I recall right, its no better than compared to people who just get social aid and stay at home. This is one of the arguments in favor of universal basic income when its discussed here.
>I believe that this instinct to perpetuate useless work is, at bottom, simply fear of the mob. The mob (the thought runs) are such low animals that they would be dangerous if they had leisure; it is safer to keep them too busy to think.
The desire to keep people employed is driven by fear, as its known that idle hands are the Devil's workshop.
There are a lot of ways that we can address the problem of poverty, and workfare is a legitimate component of a multi-faceted approach, but I think we need to use it very cautiously. If the government has meaningful projects that it wants to accomplish regardless, then giving those jobs (and the training needed to do them) to the unemployed is by all means a good idea. The problem is that the line between workfare and make-work is blurry. If you pay people $16000/year to build the Hoover Dam, that's awesome. But if you pay people more than the job is worth to society, or pay people any amount to do jobs they will view as stupid or pointless, that's counterproductive. The government must ensure that the projects they undertake generate societal value on their own, considering the employment created only as a side-benefit. Furthermore, when you require that people work in order to receive benefits, you are effectively saying that whatever else they would rather be doing with their time is worth less than whatever you are having them do, and whatever you are paying them to do it. Not only is that depressing, the thing they might rather be doing could be something very valuable to society. This is the main argument in favor of universal basic income. The is no requirement that people work, nor is there a requirement that they be unemployed, or anything else in a laundry list of arbitrary requirements. Everyone gets the same amount of money no matter what and no perverse incentives are created.
In addition, "workfare" is a well-tested approach that has given good results in the past [1] [2]. What's to stop someone on UBI from joining a gang, anyway?
Problem with this is that you then create incentive for businesses to pay less for staff, knowing the government will pick up the tab. Alternatively, the government prescribes the work - But then I suppose you end up with jobs which don't motivate people to get out of bed in the morning and leaves them in the same cycle we're trying to prevent
The problem with the government inventing jobs out of thin air is that those jobs tend to be counter-productive - They add bureaucracy and slow everything down further - They add negative economic value.
I like this idea. Furthermore, it could be used as a preparation for basic income: one of the problem with BI is where do we get enough money ?
One solution is making things cheap.
And one way to make that happen, is by collaboratively creating assets that may have high fixed-cost, but very low variable cost - which what we'll need for BI.
For example, shared community fiber. or on a bigger scale - build together a city ?
Indeed, you can view prescriptive or customary adoption of secondary and tertiary education (for one demographic) and the penal system (for another) as the state of the art social contract a la workfare. To all appearances, the US has been steadily drifting away from the welfare state model, so workfare seems like wishful thinking to me.
The thing that worries me most about "Men Without Work" is that's one way civil unrest can break out and war start. If that sounds bizarre then you should come visit me in Texas. I'll show you a land where almost every man has 2+ firearms. Where they overwhelmingly voted Trump, and distrust the government. I'll show you a land where men are more aggressive in general and my county in particular where at one point there were more shooting deaths per violent arrest than anywhere else in the country.
I don't want to live here when men reach unemployment rates beyond 25% (as the article and book suggest).
While I feel unrest could start there, I doubt it would persist. The army and national guard are just too well equipped and organized to deal with the problem. I'd put my money on 1,000 national guard troops vs 10,000 random Texans with guns. This doesn't even get into larger military hardware, such as planes and drones with missiles. Sure, people will die, and it would be a tragedy. It may move the political needle, but I doubt it would be some kind of meaningful uprising.
As a larger point, I think this diminishes the chances of a "french revolution" style revolution in general, where the huge masses of poor people revolt against the rich. The poor are not well equipped or organized in general, and military technology is increasingly becoming more powerful and longer range. Just think if the richest people were protected by working ED-209's that responded to their command. Even if we had the other 99% fighting them, could they really win?
Are you serious? You're giving them too much credit. They'd be squashed in two seconds if they ever organized. North Korea is a threat. Not some hillbillies in your neck of the woods with a few deer hunting rifles that don't have jobs. A larger threat locally that's been around forever and needs no speculation is inner city youths with no jobs, no education and guns. They started calling Chicago "Chiraq".
> I don’t see us turning the workforce situation around unless we somehow manage to transform our negative imagery about immigrants and start to aggressively seek out productive young, educated immigrants from around the world.
He lost me primarily at this point. From my perspective this makes no sense at all.
I work grueling 12 hour shifts on an assembly line. My fingerprints have worn off some of my fingertips I work so hard; cuts and scrapes all over my hands and arms from handling product and adjusting machines all day. The other day I stood up too soon while ducking under a belt and a sharp edge put a deep gash in my back.
Yet, I have a 2 year degree in mathematics and spend every minute not on the job programming, reading and learning. There is no other opportunity in Western NY for anyone with an associates degree.
I can't afford to commute an hour to work, and I have a broken down vehicle I can't afford to fix because I'm paying tens of thousands of dollars in student loans back for a worthless degree. I live with my parents, who themselves can't get full time jobs (I surmise age discrimination is the biggest factor) with graduate degrees.
America is not what it's made out to be. Neither is this ``education'' that's hyped up in the media and online. While I was growing up my parents couldn't make ends meet while they were both working. Now, as a full time worker, I see that I definitely cannot make enough to live on my own, a single white male.
Obviously, then, the answer is to accept more immigrants, so there's more competition for the dwindling number of jobs mentioned in this article (due to technology...).
> ... the gains in average education and health of the workforce over the last 50 years are unlikely to be repeated ...
Well no-shit sherlock.
People are pitched great promises by institutions and universities, only to find out that there's no job for them after 4 years of their lives and $100,000 of debt have been spent. Basically, they bought another (probably more expensive) house when they can barely afford the one they have. Further, there's likely high competition for anything outside of the medical field.
And good luck getting a job in IT unless you know someone (c.f. the latest SO survey).
My sympathy. I feel I worked somewhat hard to get through studies and into work but this is way worse.
I wish you all the best in either getting promoted at work (some jobs actually do) or getting an IT position at another company.
Possibly inspirational for some of you guys: at one point me and a couple of other guys in the IT department where I worked found out the girl who cleaned the floor had an IT degree from Poland an bugged our boss until he gave her a chance. She was good, got a permanent position. (She stayed there for a while, later married and moved across the country and continued to work in IT as a sysadmin.) My point is to be nice and dont give up. I have worked my way up from farm hand through conscription and a few months of construction work as well as cleaning to now being on my way from one Java position to the next. Of course I admit this us probably easier here in Europe but never ever give up.
I know this might be an unpopular opinion here, but there are so many unspoken assumptions and generalizations in a lot of these discussions. As someone from a developing country who has witnessed the rise of extremism and civil unrest there are some beliefs that many times go unquestioned which are not necessarily true:
- Men and women can and should fulfill the same roles in society, a perfect society is one where we have a 50/50 ratio in everything.
- There is nothing we can do about culture/religion, if anything, it is an insignificant factor.
- Economic models work the same everywhere.
- As long as things are relatively stable, they will remain stable, provided we make small incremental improvements.
- Politics still has the same power to change society as it did in the past, and politicians know what they are doing.
Thank you for bringing it up. Along the same lines I highly recommend the seminal work by Bertrand Russel, it dissects the "work is good" mentality in great detail (1932).
I think that 'work' is good, we just need to shift our concept of what work is. I think of 'work' as being any activity that advances society; this could be art, science, culture, or fulfillment of day to day needs (producing food, clothing, etc).
All of those 'avenues of community involvement' are work by this definition. The only problem is if we only define work as something someone is willing to trade their own resources for.... some things are valuable, but don't fit into the realm of something people would pay for (for lots of reasons, in particular if they are public goods that are non exclusionary)
Our current system of markets determining what work is only is applicable for a subset of the things that are valuable to humanity; we use it because it is the best proxy we have at the moment. We need a better proxy in the future.
While I don't accept work or labor as intrinsically good or necessary, IMO occupation is. Feeling needed and useful is central to having a sense of purpose, and without that, you get solipsism, anomie, and eventually social unrest.
In other words I agree, I just worry that the people correctly advocating for a cultural devaluation of "work" as an intrinsic good, and possibly for UBI, may also be overlooking people's need for occupation. While it's not an immediate concern, we should still be careful not to advocate for a system which makes meaningful occupation a purely opt-in option that requires significant self-motivated effort. Not everyone will think to opt in or be motivated enough to follow through, and while those people will not suffer from material deprivation they will still suffer, and destabilise and delegitimise the system we're working to achieve.
It strikes me as counterproductive for the Post-Futurist cause to immediately beneath its statement of values reproduce for comparison the infinitely aesthetically superior Futurist Manifesto:
"1. We want to sing of the danger of love, the daily creation of a sweet energy that is never dispersed.
2. The essential elements of our poetry will be irony, tenderness and rebellion."
vs.
"1. We intend to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and fearlessness.
2. Courage, audacity, and revolt will be essential elements of our poetry."
By any measure of thumos [0], they are incomparable.
If we want to see things began to change, we going to have to deal with this “variable.” Perhaps we should rethink our concept of incarcerating everyone found guilty of using currently illegal drugs. Maybe we need to rethink about how long felony convictions stay attached to personal records. When you can’t even rent an apartment in many states because you were a felon, and in some cases simply because you were charged with a felony at some time in the past, is it any wonder that we have large numbers of people not participating in the labor force? With 20 million former felons in America, we have attached a large anchor to our economic growth rate, and we have unfairly burdened these men and women.
Three months ago I was stopped in Vegas for jaywalking. I was (illegally) searched after not giving consent. I small amount of meth (which I was successfully using for cognitive enhancement for my job as a web app developer) and did 67 days in jail.
I lost everything. All my possessions (I was living at a weekly and they only hold stuff for 30 days). My laptops, phones, clothes, monitor etc etc. I lost my well paying remote job that I had for 2 years and was probably the best job I've ever had. Worse, I lost the respect of my boss whom I enjoyed a fruitful and meaningful professional relationship with.
The remote job was not easy to get as I have prior drug possession felonies in Florida. The idea of having to go through all the hoops to find steady work again 1. at my age 2. as a felon and 3. living in a homeless shelter is almost too much to deal with.
So I am now homeless and unemployed. I am living at the Catholic Charities shelter on Las Vegas Blvd. I recently got a hold of a laptop and am trying to cobble together my resume and find some remote work as I don't drive (I couldn't afford it anyway).
The point? It is going be almost impossible for me to replace the job I had, and in the meantime I'm suffering beyond all reasonable expectation for someone who simply was crossing the empty street with a small of amount of "drugs" on me.
Was this the outcome society wants me to have? To wreck what small success I struggled to get over what amounted to an illegal search and seizure (that's my PD talking, not me)?
Who was the victim of my "crime"? I have been using drugs for almost 40 years and am very experienced on their use for chronic pain relief and cognitive improvement, and to be honest I need it nowadays to keep my productivity high and to help with everything modern webdevs need to keep up with.
So yeah..."Men Without Work" is an ugly issue that keeps free-spirited people like me fucked up for no real reason whatsoever.
That really sucks. It seems you are pretty upfront with what happened and the shortcomings of it. But I'd like to reiterate what you should have done, so you don't make the same mistake twice: you should have gotten a script for adderall/ritalin or some other ADHD drug from a doctor. It's not difficult.
I'm in the same boat as you. I have chronic pain and use both morphine and adderall therapeutically. But I have trouble reconciling that you've been using drugs for 40 years and still haven't switched over to legal ones. Street drugs are tainted, often cut, often not even the same substance you thought you purchased. I'm young and I've already learned this lesson. It's unfortunate that it took you 40 years but you'll get back on your feet.
Switch to prescription drugs. Street drugs will cause kidney and liver damage, other organ damage. All kinds of terrible shit in them.
Pharmaceuticals are exactly what you asked for. The FDA is stringent. There are regulations. Big pharma ain't evil, just get the pure stuff legally.
Anyhow, did not mean to preach from the pulpit. I hope you get back on your feet and find a better routine without the unnecessary risk.
Unfortunately, yes. Drug enforcement and sentencing may be on a slow decline, but moralizing every perceived character defect is on the rise. There's no more effective way to do this than than through policies that not only punish the convicted, but add liability to any landlord or employer that would ordinarily feel that you've paid your debt to society.
> As we shall see, a single variable – having a criminal record – is a key missing piece in explaining why work rates and LFPRs have collapsed much more dramatically in America than other affluent Western societies over the past two generations. This single variable also helps explain why the collapse has been so much greater for American men than women and why it has been so much more dramatic for African American men and men with low educational attainment than for other prime-age men in the United States.
Although Ctrl-F shows me a few hits for "criminal" here, I see no substantive discussion of what is arguably the article's tl;dr.
That is, with admittedly some license taken, it is arguably the bloody War Against Drugs that has been destroying the US economy and culture.
Why don't I ever hear about the role inflation plays in these matters. I've yet to hear an explanation I understand that explains the following questions:
If productivity is rising why isn't the costs of goods and services falling?
If the overall costs of goods and services are falling wouldn't that translate to less labor to maintain current standards of living?
If less labor to maintain current standards of living was a reality, why is less labor necessarily a problem?
If the goal of productivity and efficiency gains in the labor market is reduced costs in goods and services, why is price deflation of those goods and services a bad thing like we're continually told?
What is the real goal of a monetary inflation targets of 2%? Why 2% and not 3%?
The reason inflation is necessary is because our money system is built on debt. If the money supply shrinks, there simply isn't enough money to repay the balance. That means insolvency, which further contracts the money supply. That results in more insolvency, and under the right circumstances you get a chain reaction that completely detonates the economy. That probably would have happened in 2008, but the government stepped in and artificially inflated the money supply to stem the bleeding. Unfortunately, since exponential growth can't continue forever, we're going to be locked into cycles of successively larger financial crises rescued by public debt until the system is so burdened by obligations that it collapses under its own weight.
The target inflation of 2% was established because the measurement error of the value is also about 2%. Hence if you want to avoid deflation, but at the same time minimize inflation your target should be 2%.
There's an oft-spoken of solution to this: more education. There's also a hidden requirement of that solution, that is namely that the person wants or is able to be educated.
The 'inclusion' narrative is something to be lauded for sure, but people are good at different things -- if someone is just plain not capable of being an engineer or doing whatever other white collar job du jour, what then?
What if they can't manage a vocational skill either? What if they can, but don't make the effort? Then what?
Also "more education" is not really a final solution. At some point education is only increasing competition among workers without adding any value. As soon as your average plumber has a PhD something went wrong. I already met Ueber drivers with a PhD.
We have to face the reality here: Most people simply are not needed anymore. If your wages are not rising according to inflation, the market has spoken and your current profession has an oversupply of workers. It is as simple as that.
The early pioneers were legally allowed to claim land for those activities, often resulting in brutal fighting with the native Americans already there.
Do you want "pioneers" fighting off rural/suburban families for their land?
This is intriguing. Any further sources for this claim?
>The technology that I’ve been looking at lately (and much of it is not public) convinces me that younger generations are going to live a great deal longer than they now dream possible.
People look at life expectancy numbers, which at rising, and think the limits of aging are increasing, but they're not. More people are living to 80, but 80 year olds aren't living any longer.
It's certainly possible science will discover a breakthrough, but there's no trends to suggest it yet.
I see 2 main causes:
1. As increasing number of women join the workforce, it reduces the # and pay of jobs for men
2. Entitlements from the Gov are preventing men from entering the workforce. I know of able bodied people who just collect payments from Medicare and decide not to work, which actually makes a lot of sense. Which would you rather do? Sit around and do nothing for 800$ a month or work minimum wage for 1300$ a month?
[+] [-] tomc1985|9 years ago|reply
This is a training problem; we have a surplus of workers (and potential workers) with mismatched skills. He should consider retraining willing reentrants before further attempting to crowd a dwindling workforce with outsiders.
[+] [-] gpsx|9 years ago|reply
There is always more work to do. The problem is that there might not be someone willing to pay enough to have it done. This is where the government social program would come in. They basically supplement the income for the person doing the job. The idea being that it is better for the person to work then to just get aid. At the same time, society benefits because that person is being productive.
This is counter to one of the big ideas to solve the problem of loss of jobs, universal basic income. It is good that is being studied to determine if it is a good way to move forward. I think there are people who will make the most of that, which is great. I think there are also people who can fall between the cracks. Within a workfare type program, self motivated people can also be addressed. Perhaps some people's job could be working on their own project, such as open source software or even being a musician.
[+] [-] belorn|9 years ago|reply
And I recall reading that there is statistics showing the rates of people improving their situations when working in such jobs, and if I recall right, its no better than compared to people who just get social aid and stay at home. This is one of the arguments in favor of universal basic income when its discussed here.
[+] [-] daliwali|9 years ago|reply
>I believe that this instinct to perpetuate useless work is, at bottom, simply fear of the mob. The mob (the thought runs) are such low animals that they would be dangerous if they had leisure; it is safer to keep them too busy to think.
The desire to keep people employed is driven by fear, as its known that idle hands are the Devil's workshop.
[+] [-] thescriptkiddie|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zeteo|9 years ago|reply
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Works_Administration
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Writers%27_Project
[+] [-] Nilef|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jondubois|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] petra|9 years ago|reply
One solution is making things cheap.
And one way to make that happen, is by collaboratively creating assets that may have high fixed-cost, but very low variable cost - which what we'll need for BI.
For example, shared community fiber. or on a bigger scale - build together a city ?
[+] [-] myegorov|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryanmarsh|9 years ago|reply
I don't want to live here when men reach unemployment rates beyond 25% (as the article and book suggest).
[+] [-] cbanek|9 years ago|reply
As a larger point, I think this diminishes the chances of a "french revolution" style revolution in general, where the huge masses of poor people revolt against the rich. The poor are not well equipped or organized in general, and military technology is increasingly becoming more powerful and longer range. Just think if the richest people were protected by working ED-209's that responded to their command. Even if we had the other 99% fighting them, could they really win?
[+] [-] myegorov|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] exclusiv|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bjd2385|9 years ago|reply
He lost me primarily at this point. From my perspective this makes no sense at all.
I work grueling 12 hour shifts on an assembly line. My fingerprints have worn off some of my fingertips I work so hard; cuts and scrapes all over my hands and arms from handling product and adjusting machines all day. The other day I stood up too soon while ducking under a belt and a sharp edge put a deep gash in my back.
Yet, I have a 2 year degree in mathematics and spend every minute not on the job programming, reading and learning. There is no other opportunity in Western NY for anyone with an associates degree.
I can't afford to commute an hour to work, and I have a broken down vehicle I can't afford to fix because I'm paying tens of thousands of dollars in student loans back for a worthless degree. I live with my parents, who themselves can't get full time jobs (I surmise age discrimination is the biggest factor) with graduate degrees.
America is not what it's made out to be. Neither is this ``education'' that's hyped up in the media and online. While I was growing up my parents couldn't make ends meet while they were both working. Now, as a full time worker, I see that I definitely cannot make enough to live on my own, a single white male.
Obviously, then, the answer is to accept more immigrants, so there's more competition for the dwindling number of jobs mentioned in this article (due to technology...).
> ... the gains in average education and health of the workforce over the last 50 years are unlikely to be repeated ...
Well no-shit sherlock.
People are pitched great promises by institutions and universities, only to find out that there's no job for them after 4 years of their lives and $100,000 of debt have been spent. Basically, they bought another (probably more expensive) house when they can barely afford the one they have. Further, there's likely high competition for anything outside of the medical field.
And good luck getting a job in IT unless you know someone (c.f. the latest SO survey).
[+] [-] reitanqild|9 years ago|reply
I wish you all the best in either getting promoted at work (some jobs actually do) or getting an IT position at another company.
Possibly inspirational for some of you guys: at one point me and a couple of other guys in the IT department where I worked found out the girl who cleaned the floor had an IT degree from Poland an bugged our boss until he gave her a chance. She was good, got a permanent position. (She stayed there for a while, later married and moved across the country and continued to work in IT as a sysadmin.) My point is to be nice and dont give up. I have worked my way up from farm hand through conscription and a few months of construction work as well as cleaning to now being on my way from one Java position to the next. Of course I admit this us probably easier here in Europe but never ever give up.
[+] [-] intended|9 years ago|reply
the theory for increasing the work force is that - the new workers don't displace jobs as much as they also create them.
So those new workers have to eat, sleep and wear clothes.
All of which are needs that have to be met, and so jobs and demand which is also created.
Im guessing, The question is which jobs are taken, and at what wage.
[+] [-] 77pt77|9 years ago|reply
What survey?
[+] [-] jchrisa|9 years ago|reply
Some of the values younger people are turning to today are hopeful. http://www.generation-online.org/p/fp_bifo5.htm
[+] [-] Nydhal|9 years ago|reply
- Men and women can and should fulfill the same roles in society, a perfect society is one where we have a 50/50 ratio in everything.
- There is nothing we can do about culture/religion, if anything, it is an insignificant factor.
- Economic models work the same everywhere.
- As long as things are relatively stable, they will remain stable, provided we make small incremental improvements.
- Politics still has the same power to change society as it did in the past, and politicians know what they are doing.
- We understand the effects of technology.
just my 50 ¢.
[+] [-] DenisM|9 years ago|reply
http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html
[+] [-] cortesoft|9 years ago|reply
All of those 'avenues of community involvement' are work by this definition. The only problem is if we only define work as something someone is willing to trade their own resources for.... some things are valuable, but don't fit into the realm of something people would pay for (for lots of reasons, in particular if they are public goods that are non exclusionary)
Our current system of markets determining what work is only is applicable for a subset of the things that are valuable to humanity; we use it because it is the best proxy we have at the moment. We need a better proxy in the future.
[+] [-] m_fayer|9 years ago|reply
In other words I agree, I just worry that the people correctly advocating for a cultural devaluation of "work" as an intrinsic good, and possibly for UBI, may also be overlooking people's need for occupation. While it's not an immediate concern, we should still be careful not to advocate for a system which makes meaningful occupation a purely opt-in option that requires significant self-motivated effort. Not everyone will think to opt in or be motivated enough to follow through, and while those people will not suffer from material deprivation they will still suffer, and destabilise and delegitimise the system we're working to achieve.
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] pygy_|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jpt4|9 years ago|reply
"1. We want to sing of the danger of love, the daily creation of a sweet energy that is never dispersed.
2. The essential elements of our poetry will be irony, tenderness and rebellion."
vs.
"1. We intend to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and fearlessness.
2. Courage, audacity, and revolt will be essential elements of our poetry."
By any measure of thumos [0], they are incomparable.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumos
[+] [-] cubano|9 years ago|reply
Three months ago I was stopped in Vegas for jaywalking. I was (illegally) searched after not giving consent. I small amount of meth (which I was successfully using for cognitive enhancement for my job as a web app developer) and did 67 days in jail.
I lost everything. All my possessions (I was living at a weekly and they only hold stuff for 30 days). My laptops, phones, clothes, monitor etc etc. I lost my well paying remote job that I had for 2 years and was probably the best job I've ever had. Worse, I lost the respect of my boss whom I enjoyed a fruitful and meaningful professional relationship with.
The remote job was not easy to get as I have prior drug possession felonies in Florida. The idea of having to go through all the hoops to find steady work again 1. at my age 2. as a felon and 3. living in a homeless shelter is almost too much to deal with.
So I am now homeless and unemployed. I am living at the Catholic Charities shelter on Las Vegas Blvd. I recently got a hold of a laptop and am trying to cobble together my resume and find some remote work as I don't drive (I couldn't afford it anyway).
The point? It is going be almost impossible for me to replace the job I had, and in the meantime I'm suffering beyond all reasonable expectation for someone who simply was crossing the empty street with a small of amount of "drugs" on me.
Was this the outcome society wants me to have? To wreck what small success I struggled to get over what amounted to an illegal search and seizure (that's my PD talking, not me)?
Who was the victim of my "crime"? I have been using drugs for almost 40 years and am very experienced on their use for chronic pain relief and cognitive improvement, and to be honest I need it nowadays to keep my productivity high and to help with everything modern webdevs need to keep up with.
So yeah..."Men Without Work" is an ugly issue that keeps free-spirited people like me fucked up for no real reason whatsoever.
[+] [-] goldenkey|9 years ago|reply
I'm in the same boat as you. I have chronic pain and use both morphine and adderall therapeutically. But I have trouble reconciling that you've been using drugs for 40 years and still haven't switched over to legal ones. Street drugs are tainted, often cut, often not even the same substance you thought you purchased. I'm young and I've already learned this lesson. It's unfortunate that it took you 40 years but you'll get back on your feet.
Switch to prescription drugs. Street drugs will cause kidney and liver damage, other organ damage. All kinds of terrible shit in them.
Pharmaceuticals are exactly what you asked for. The FDA is stringent. There are regulations. Big pharma ain't evil, just get the pure stuff legally.
Anyhow, did not mean to preach from the pulpit. I hope you get back on your feet and find a better routine without the unnecessary risk.
Best, goldenkey
[+] [-] pragmar|9 years ago|reply
Unfortunately, yes. Drug enforcement and sentencing may be on a slow decline, but moralizing every perceived character defect is on the rise. There's no more effective way to do this than than through policies that not only punish the convicted, but add liability to any landlord or employer that would ordinarily feel that you've paid your debt to society.
[+] [-] mirimir|9 years ago|reply
Although Ctrl-F shows me a few hits for "criminal" here, I see no substantive discussion of what is arguably the article's tl;dr.
That is, with admittedly some license taken, it is arguably the bloody War Against Drugs that has been destroying the US economy and culture.
[+] [-] 0x445442|9 years ago|reply
If productivity is rising why isn't the costs of goods and services falling?
If the overall costs of goods and services are falling wouldn't that translate to less labor to maintain current standards of living?
If less labor to maintain current standards of living was a reality, why is less labor necessarily a problem?
If the goal of productivity and efficiency gains in the labor market is reduced costs in goods and services, why is price deflation of those goods and services a bad thing like we're continually told?
What is the real goal of a monetary inflation targets of 2%? Why 2% and not 3%?
[+] [-] CuriouslyC|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sprash|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throw1233212323|9 years ago|reply
The 'inclusion' narrative is something to be lauded for sure, but people are good at different things -- if someone is just plain not capable of being an engineer or doing whatever other white collar job du jour, what then?
What if they can't manage a vocational skill either? What if they can, but don't make the effort? Then what?
[+] [-] sprash|9 years ago|reply
We have to face the reality here: Most people simply are not needed anymore. If your wages are not rising according to inflation, the market has spoken and your current profession has an oversupply of workers. It is as simple as that.
[+] [-] 77pt77|9 years ago|reply
This is not true.
This can be observed in many "western" countries to different degrees.
[+] [-] MaysonL|9 years ago|reply
[0]http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/the-plunge-in-labor-for...
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] ryanmarsh|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throw1233212323|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] sauronlord|9 years ago|reply
Also bodes well for pro-UBC arguments.
I don't think the early pioneers needed "work" to catch food, build shelter, and grow a harvest.
[+] [-] mattnewton|9 years ago|reply
Do you want "pioneers" fighting off rural/suburban families for their land?
[+] [-] kevinclancy|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ptr_void|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 77pt77|9 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWrwCiM4rUM&list=PL-uRhZ_p-B...
[+] [-] sgustard|9 years ago|reply
>The technology that I’ve been looking at lately (and much of it is not public) convinces me that younger generations are going to live a great deal longer than they now dream possible.
[+] [-] erikpukinskis|9 years ago|reply
It's certainly possible science will discover a breakthrough, but there's no trends to suggest it yet.
[+] [-] microtherion|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] pascalxus|9 years ago|reply
2. Entitlements from the Gov are preventing men from entering the workforce. I know of able bodied people who just collect payments from Medicare and decide not to work, which actually makes a lot of sense. Which would you rather do? Sit around and do nothing for 800$ a month or work minimum wage for 1300$ a month?