I'm not sure that assumption holds water, as I see thing like this. Boston woman wounded by train refuses ambulance: 'I can't afford that' Not to mention no end of gofundmes for Americans seeking treatment. Plenty of people whi want to reproduce who can not. (That came under the basic needs)

It seems to me that plenty of first world countries don't meet the basic needs.

Financial independence would come under safety, so food banks and welfare shouldn't be needed when safety is satisfied. Not to mention love/belonging and self esteem (if their satisfied, suicide rates should be zero)

Plus well your basic needs can override self actualization at any time. I can see that a lot of fastlaners might be higher up though.

 

"The Soviet Union provided the best chance of self-actualization for the most people".

I was going to explain the mind-boggling absurdity of this, but I think there's no point. If someone is saying something like that, and saying he thinks it might be true, and on a fundamentally capitalist forum, it's either just trolling or is beyond helping. And he's been here 6 years.

Probably the most depressing part of this stuff is that it never goes away. I bet in 2150 there will be people saying "I think Hitler was basically misunderstood, and was actually probably a good thing for Germany", "Contrary to popular misconception, Mao was a true friend to the peasants", "Anarchism is the only true form of social organisation, and society will ultimately attain it when people wise up".

That there internet.

 

This is why I always respond that the "Digitalization" so dreaded by people and preached to be the death of so many jobs is a very good thing. Humans are not meant to slave off every day like a robot. Let's build more robots and programs and make them earn the money, while we watch them doing it. Finally the robots will be able to build more robots. Japan is a good example here.
And in the end there will be one big AI which is so uber-intelligent that it will make better business decisions than any human and accumulate a massive amount of wealth, only to make humans obsolete...lol

 

Well, I was vauge to avoid running into Godwin's law but you meantioned the head of the national socialist party. The Zi in nazi stands for the German word for socialist. So it's jarring when Americans complain about it being left wing. Hitler is too left wing for you? Not being argumentative or calling you or any modern day party as horrific as them. It does show how the meaning of the word has diverged considerably.

While everyone here is fastlane or fastlane aspiring, not everyone wants to be, and I think there's gold there.

I'm also pursuing fastlane for similar reasons. I'd much rather be at the third level, than be a millionaire or own a lambo. (Note he includes financial saftey/security of income)

I think most people who are slowlaners/sidewalkers are mostly on level 1 or 2.

 

Totally agreed , but 9-5 is more beneficial to employers as they can squeeze as much work they want.

 

Then why are there employers offering 32 hour work week? Why are there employers offering four days a week? That may have been true, but there's mounting evidence that it's no longer in the employers best interest. Look at the rise of gig work, how annualised hours was booming, once computers were affordable. Did you know IBM sold a few mainframes for that to Europe?

With modern predicitive software and big data it should be even easier (l can look at google to find out when McDonald's is likely too be busy.

Wouldn't that be a good time to call extra staff in?

Why four day work weeks? The idea behind 8-6 four days, is that the time loading up and shutting down equipment is saved, so for the same number of hours work,production can be increased.

There's some great research on this and other productivity measures. Like batching. Sure it won't apply to everything, but there are employers moving that way.

I'm going to try avoiding a political discussion here but arguably yes.

 

Yes ofcourse these methods are being used and part time work is on the rise.

But if look at the main stream work force , the 9-5 is still the trend as it is more beneficial to employers and they can squeeze the IT guys and labour for all the work.

 

Hey Guys,

I started reading and gathering quotes, but after so many I thought I would just share with you what I know. Maybe you could take something out of it.

I will comment on some parts but to summarise here.

If you want to know about 'what happened to us' in the past 150-200 years start reading Anthony Sutton and his "Wall Street" trilogy. He provided enough evidence that Ford was one of the Hitler's early backers. Then other 'capitalists' from the US joined (Rockefellers, RedShields, Morgans etc...). They are basically responsible for backing Germany and Bolshevik/Soviet Union and the genocide that happened. American industrialists backed Soviet 'Russia' (it didn't have much in common with Russia...) and supported genocide. They backed Hitler simultaneously.

Read Karl Marx manifesto. Sutton quotes it in his book but if you want it. It's all there, written in the mid XIX century (e.g. 'we should stop children working, we should force women to leave home and go to work, we should introduce mass public education and take children from their parents etc....).

You know about the Jeckyll Island conspiracy that created the FED...

This is normal because the meaning of words need to be inverted and even contradictory. Read Orwell's 1984 or just the manifesto I quoted above. In the Orwell's book you have the Ministry of Love which deals with 'hate speech'.

Currently the US is the biggest warmonger on the planet and what do they have there? Is it Ministry of Aggression? or Invasion? Nope, it the United States Department of Defense that supervises aggression...

Yet facts are facts. Sorry for picking on it but I can feel that water is not wet for whatever reason, but it is wet anyway. Or that the gravity doesn't exist but when I jump from a cliff I will be proved it's still there.

Capitalism and all -isms are just names (btw capitalism is just another name for slavery/socialism or whatever is there). We are people and give the sense to each. You can just a gun to defend or attack.

It's interesting because Ford himself thrived and flourished from using a lot of 'freedom' and risks that went with the freedom (responsilibity). Yet he/or the likes implemented a 'social system' that is contradictory to what they did when they were poor and helped them become rich. I see that with e.g. Schwarzenegger who is delusional about what he did when he was young and what he now advertises sometimes ('break the rules, not the law' - pfffff - he has broken the law so many times, including the immigration law of the US)...........

I wrote it above but will just repeat. Ford funded Hitler and aided Soviet Union. He directly financed genocide.

As I remember minimum wage was introduced to prevent children from working. And the lowest on the ladder. It directly hits the poorest, not helps them.

Soviet Union was the worst 'invention' of the richest people in the world. It was another system to keep poor people poor and the ruling class ruling as long as possible. Using terror.

I would be delicate with calling this forum capitalist. But I get the point. I would say this forum promotes freedom which can be achieved by using certain tools and learning the rules...

 

When the meaning is shifted or inverted in one part of the anglospjere but not another that causes a lot of confusion online.

As to facts are facts, well yes they are. I was answering a question I don't see an apolitical factual answer too. You can travel by car or train obviously and those are facts. Which is better though, that's mich more subjective.

 

Who said it ended

The European Union (former European Union of Coal and Steel and 2 other 'unions') was established by communists.

The collapse of the Soviet Union was staged a bit. I come from Poland, but I read they did everywhere.

It was called a peace revolution. In Poland, it was called 'a round table talks'. There was a trade union called Solidarity and 1/4 of population joined in the peak time. So what they did was placed their agents on top (e.g. Lech Walesa aka Bolek, Nobel Prize winner lol), removed the leaders that didn't want to cooperate with the communist government controlled by Moscow and kept their influence.

Methods have changed. The communist came to a conclusion that communism is not able to support itself when the population is poor. It has to be implemented on rich population (e.g. European Union). It leads to the same thing in the long run. Look at demographics and population growth rate in 'Western Europe' but also Eastern. It's almost 0. Earlier it was terror, nowadays is 'welfare state'. Leads to the same thing.

Anyway.... 9-5...

 

You're in luck. There's this profession called being a pornstar. It's questionable whether it's fastlane or slow lane but it sure seems like it would be better than sitting in an office for 40 hours a week.

 

The problem with change is that all the older people now 50+ had to deal with this sh*t themselves and are now set in their ways. Many of the more successful slowlaners aren't doing the work anymore so they have no real need to change, even though there is really no reason why people need to be sitting in cubicles for 8 hours a day when work can now be finished in much less time for a lot of jobs. Then you just have employees sitting browsing the internet all day chained to their desk like modern day sales. What probably needs to happen is all the 50+ people retire and then younger people move in to their roles and hopefully they decide to implement a shorter work week but I doubt this happens until automation eliminates most jobs.

 

Unfollowing this thread because I thought it would be about alternative work schedules for the modern era, but it's actually about stating preconceived conclusions about the real meaning of economic and political theory. Maybe the title of the thread should be changed, to include a reference to Karl Marx?