Stuff, for many, is a tool to get status, and that's what they really crave and resent not getting. JB

@@GoodandBasic Truly words of wisdom. As overrated as status may be, I do receive a lot of respect as the guy who provides rabbit manure and eggs to our neighbors; and that holds more value to me than others' jealousy of material possessions.

Stuff that brings no intrinsic value, then someone’s trash is another’s treasure.

Ah, but you expended energy to fish and to forage. You also spent your time doing that. That was the cost.

@@WDLKD Perhaps. But I also wasn't working 40 hours a week for the bear for fish scraps and still forced to give 25% of my share to the eagle. And if you think some shore fishing and 30 minute hikes in the woods are too much work in a day, you'll probably never be satisfied with anything. That'll just make your life even harder if you ever find a partner.

were all going to cark it in the end!

I reject the assumption that access to capital is prohibitively difficult for the average person. Information and education are free online (though certificates aren't), land is cheap if you're not looking next to a population center, tools are affordable (I supported my family for over a year on Etsy income with a little business started on about $300 of starting capital). Difficult, yes. Accessible, also yes. JB

Expecting to be paid decently is not demanding that other's do free labor for you (the comparison to slavery). That many Americans are working long hours and not getting paid appropriately is an issue that stems from elsewhere. I live in Europe and am able to earn a living and even store away savings by working just a single job at a fast food restaurant.

That depends. There is, or ought to be, no obligation to hire someone. No person should be forced to hire someone and pay them more than what they gain from employing the person. So a right to a living wage is the same thing as forbidding less useful people (like teenagers and others who are still learning how to make themselves useful) from getting paying jobs, since hiring them at a living wage doesn't break even financially and thus would not make sense for the employer, and it is illegal to hire them for less than a "living wage." So that whole category of people don't get hired, and their contributions, which are still valuable, don't benefit the rest of us in society as they learn and contribute what they're able to while making less than a living wage. If you feel you deserve more than you're making, what you're experiencing is essentially a kind of buyer's remorse for the trade you've made of x amount of time and effort for x amount of money. At that point you can either renegotiate with your employer or look for another job. JB

​​@@GoodandBasic the problem is many of the people with capital did not earn it and they are paying their employees far less than the economic benefit they derive from that income. Nor can the average person born poor improve their lot. The system is set up to prevent that. And there is the matter of what it costs to keep living if you get cancer for example. A million dollars for treatment is not uncommon. It cost me more than I will ever be able to pay off in lost wages and other costs. I had insurance so it only put me in debt a couple hundred thousand.

Thanks, man. I see myself primarily as a member of a family. My obligations are strongest as they are closest. JB

All living have the undeniable right to remain alive without condition.

I think the real difficulty is in learning to negotiate on your own behalf, and that means learning to say no to someone's face. No one extracts labor without a willing victim, meaning an employee who doesn't quit when they probably should. You trade your labor for money, and you determine half of that trade by setting the threshold terms you're willing to accept. If you are being exploited in an employment relationship, that is wrong and you need to get out, say no, and market your services elsewhere. I've been there, and getting out was both scary and liberating. There's also nothing wrong with inequality as long as it's the result of free choices. Basketball stars make millions because of the free choices of the fans to support the game through their tickets and willingness to give their attention to ads and sponsorship deals. No one gets robbed in that scenario, and neither does anyone get robbed in a free society when a tech mogul sells so much of a technology that they make billions. JB

@@GoodandBasic I agree to an extent the basketball is the effect of exposure Vs cost impact a billion people you need only 1 quid from each to be a billionaire tho if you wanna impact only one person to be a billionaire you need to sell a billion, so it's a different game at play compared to the masses in employment. If the only options you have are bad ones and and there are plenty of people willing to choose going into only tiny bit of debt Vs a ton then the wages don't rise, if u have a billion people with a choice of either u take what is offered and suffer alittle or you don't and someone else will, then you suffer alot most everyone choses to reduce that suffering thus cementing the value and the broken system. I fully agree everyone is a personal negotiation however if the people you are negotiating with are all in agreement at that's market value so take it and suffer or don't and suffer more it's not a fair negotiation to begin with. When the whole market is designed to be manipulative your individual negotiating power is hindered before you even started. When wages have stagnated the last 15 years yet corporate profits hit new records year on year and the economy keeps growing, the amount of money in circulation keeps growing, yet has populations the average persons buying power decreases and they suffer more and more the saying the buck stops at the top needs to be hindered, because when a days labour on average across all jobs means in real terms your life is getting worse year on year you are less able to afford a home less able to afford food and power, that's a reflection of systemic issues not just one personal failure of negotiation. Therefore the whole system has become exploitive and as I said if everyone is exploited choosing only one punch to the face daily is always better than two everyone will choose it, just you are all still getting hit in the face repeatedly.

There's no such thing as not having the money to move. You may not be able to afford to take all your stuff with you, but I've traveled for thousands of miles just on foot and the generosity of people already traveling in the same direction.

​​​​​​​@@mtnbkr5478Did you have children? Not saying it would be impossible, but some people have much fewer options available than others, and those options may not be better than the status quo. For example, yes everyone technically has the option of being homeless somewhere else. But personally I think it's not an entirely sensible point to make, as we know that choice can have significant negative consequences.

That feels gross to me too. Tempting, but gross. I personally believe that every person has a duty to serve others with their unique talents and perspective. JB

@@GoodandBasic Thank you, that makes me feel less crazy. Modern society is just so focussed on what's best for one's own life, over any sense of duty to others. Have to say, I'm loving these thought-provoking philosophical videos of late; the mulling over of ideas is just great

@@GoodandBasic Where do you draw the line between duty and slavery? Both words imply an externally imposed obligation, likely contrary to one's own desires. From our modern, emancipated perspective, we hold that slaves are victims, and have no duty but to themselves. But in societies that had slavery, the consensus of the time was that a slave had a duty to serve his master. I proffer that you're looking at the "duty to serve others" through that same lens.

​@@wayneshingler9664I can see the duty to serve others as cooperating parents caring for this infantile society. maybe this is too ambiguous, but this is the feeling that I get from that train of thought. A parent could be considered to be a slave to their child, however there must be some duty of care, some responsibility that comes with the experiment of consciousness and the realization that none of us made the choice to start living and the answer to the question of "what do we do, now that we are here?"

It's both. That argument works far better against a society with a landed aristocracy, but land, which is the most important kind of capital, is still available for those of the working class who want it enough to save for it. It took me several years to afford a house with some land, but it is possible and gets easier the farther you're willing to live away from a major population center. JB

But you choose to participate in that.

@GoodandBasic Yes, land and a place to live rent-free is definitely freeing. The ruling class still have too much of a hand in the lobbying and passing laws as to what I can and canott do with my land, to the benefit of the ruling class. Sometimes I wish we could completely separate ourselves from such a corrupt system, and this still doesn't address people that have far fewer resources than I have. I had to seriously reassess what labor means to me, and focus my labor on things of value to me and my family, and not focus my efforts to maintain the status quo of supporting a system that actively harms me.

I think you missed the basic logic of the video. The you and the planet idea highlights the fact that providing a living requires the labor of other people, it has nothing to do with competing with other humans. You are supporting slavery. JB

​​@@GoodandBasicI don't think they did miss it. They're refuting it, which is something different. It used to be that more than 80% of Americans were farmers. At present, 2% of Americans are farmers. They grow, not only enough food to feed all 100% of Americans, but enough to export, and for two-thirds of what they grow to be thrown away. You're framing that in terms of the farmers being slaves serving a nation of dependent children. But the truth is that there's simply not that much work to be done. It's like when a teacher breaks the class into groups and gives them an assignment that just one of them can do in 30 seconds. "Write two sentences about..." How would you stretch that out to include everyone? Just pass around the paper having each person add one word? That would be harder than just letting one person do it for everyone. Even that one person would agree. Suppose it's the year 2075. AI, robotics, and agricultural technology have advanced to the point that all that's necessary to grow all the food everyone can eat is for one person to press one button once every ten years. It requires no special skill to press this button. A child could do it. It takes about half a second, once per decade. In that scenario, how much should the button pusher be paid for pushing the button? Is that person a slave? How many hours a week should a person in that world have to work to pay for their food? Assume that the development of the food growing technology and system were entirely taxpayer funded. How many hours of value must each individual give to the button pusher for you to feel satisfied that everyone is pulling their weight? Got your answers? Now assume that a robot pushes the button. These machines are all maintained by other machines. They do the work of harvesting or producing their own fuel. They can run entirely autonomously for at least the next 10,000 years. The machines produce all the resources for their own operation. In that scenario, how many hours a week should people have to pay for food? Remember, there's no cost to producing it that hasn't already been paid by previous generations of taxpayers. The system no requires no human inputs. What, if anything, should people in that scenario have to pay, and why?

​@@GoodandBasicI think the original commenter was trying to bring up the point that there are people in our society that are being taken advantage of, cheated out of a fair wage essentially, and that this imbalance is in part responsible for the idea that a person does not have the right to fair competition. This unfair competition is akin to slavery as the ability to change these circumstances are mostly out of reach.

I'm assuming this is a comment about taxation, which is something I'm planning to make a video about soon. If you collect a debt by force, that is justified because there was an obligation that was not met. The same principle applies to child support. I think taxes are just to the extent that they match a real obligation to the society. I think that obligation is strongest when it is most local. I think that the taxation power is necessary, but easy to abuse, since the only limiting principle is the legislators subjective sense of how much is too much. JB

@@GoodandBasic So when you use violence to get money out of people, not to go on services, but to go on the debts you have hidden off the books, where does that appear? Where is consent? In particular informed explicit consent?

Actions can imply consent. Socrates believed that it was unjust for him to escape the death sentence passed on him by the same society that he had enjoyed the benefits of. It's a bit like the way that a father is obligated to support a child and "consents" to this by impregnating the mother. Or more like the way a child is obligated to obey the parent despite having never consented to the parent's rule. JB

@@GoodandBasic So implied consent means you can have sex with someone. So back to the question, violence to get money out of people, used to pay for a fraud. Is robbing Peter to pay Paul moral? Is ripping Paul off out of hundreds of thousands of dollars acceptable, and to lie about the debts?

@@GoodandBasic Let me give you the sex version You sleep with someone, You consent to it. Problem is they are HIV+, didn't tell you. That's not informed consent and is a crime. You assume consent, penetrate someone, then they say no, you withdraw. Presumed consent. You're saying that's acceptable. Explicit, informed consent, and the right to say no, or yes, is the moral position That applies to all aspects of life. But for some reason you don't believe that others have a right of consent in large swathes of their life. You know better and will use violence if needed to get what you want. So back to the debts. Why is the state impoverishing people to pay its hidden debts.

The organism that is the best at adapting is the one that thrives.

Dont need to be sick to be unable to pay bills.

America doesn't mandate capitalism. We have hundreds, if not thousand of private communes, including the famously tax exempt Amish.

@@mtnbkr5478 oh really US doesn't mendates Capitalism. What about Vietnam, Brazil and anyother nation that tried to implement anythibg other then American Capitalism. Now regarding the mendate of Capitalism in US itself. Your healthcare system is fucked up what is the reason capitalism. The pharma industry have been exploiting your people to death. Your IRS doesn't even tell you how much tax you owe why because certain private companies might go out of business. Americans like to cope with the horrific economic you have and also have enforced on this planet.

Well that was a dumb sentence.

@@daniellassander What didn't you understand?

I'm interested to hear you lay out the argument about society paying these debts of injustice. My trouble with such comparisons at face value is attributing moral culpability to society as a whole. It's hard to blame or punish a collective, since only individuals are capable of making choices. I think society as a whole has obligations, but those are all forward looking and translate to aggregated individual obligations. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. JB

​@@GoodandBasic Firstly as just 2 short notes, i presented it as a perspective, not _the_. And with 'unhealthy' i meant unhealthy for the recipient of social welfare. To answer your question; are we able to hold individuals accountable for systemic failures and injustices? Perhaps in theory one day we might be, but at the present time it does not seem to be a practical possibility or even a desire. I'll forgo the democratic argument of the collective obligating itself to social welfare, and instead focus on just the ethics of blaming the collective. In a functioning democracy, who is to blame for failures to curb systemic injustices and other societal failures if not the democratic collective? While the collective might not be to blame for the failures themselves, it can, and for the sake of societal progress should, be held accountable for failures to remedy them. To argue in favor of social welfare more generally, and starting with your opinion that collective obligations should be forward-looking; what ills are prevented by social welfare, and are of the many who despite social welfare do not progress to a life beyond it, the few who do not worth the cost to the collective? In my opinion, they are, many times over, and so is the prevention of the ills that afflict those who still fail.

EDIT: held accountable for failures to prevent* them, not "remedy".

Interesting. If I understand correctly, the intent is to prevent wasting the potential of individuals by the society failing to nurture their capabilities; if the "lost sheep" are provided for appropriately, then the argument goes that they will offset the benefit by contributing to the society later. I like that. It's forward looking and potentially testable with real world data, and probably even worth it on a moral level even if it's a net financial loss to keep the path to individual progress open. I'm still not liking the idea of "group guilt". Society subdivides into too many sub groups that eventually lands you back at the individual. History, even family history is incredibly messy. JB

@@GoodandBasic Yes, that would be pragmatic line of reasoning in favor of social welfare that i intended to share with you. The humanitarian and spiritual side i am sure you are familiar with, so let's just skip that. As an ending note i would like to remind that the benefit an individual might have to society in the future is impossible to quantify, and occasional drastic positive outliers are possible, a well-known example of which is Gandhi who relied strongly on donations and is sometimes describes as the "king of beggars".