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Comment by dolni | Hacker News Reader

That people reject taking on a career and being productive members of society is troubling. It also displays a ton of ignorance.

Suppose we lived in a society where people didn't specialize and there were no careers. What would the day-to-day look like?

Well, you probably wouldn't be able to get pharmaceuticals. The expertise required to conceive and produce those is massive. Ditto for healthcare.

How about food? Without farmers, we are stuck growing our own or foraging. Too sick to forage or work the field? Then you don't eat.

Somebody comes by your home with a weapon. Who do you call? Nobody, that's who.

That's what society looks like if everyone opts out of a career. And if everyone can't do it, nobody should be able to. Fairness and all that. Extenuating circumstances notwithstanding, of course.

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> And if everyone can't do it, nobody should be able to

So nobody should be able to take on any occupation except farmer or hunter-gatherer, because we would go extinct if everyone was a pharmacist or cop or baker? I think you’ve got the notion of universalizability from moral philosophy mixed up with economics.

If half of society doesn’t need a “career” job to get by, that means society can be maintained without that much specialized labor. In fact, I’m under the impression that our society requires large quantities of unspecialized labor to function - and the dissatisfaction with such jobs (or rather, the conditions thereof) are the subject of this article.

> So nobody should be able to take on any occupation except farmer or hunter-gatherer, because we would go extinct if everyone was a pharmacist or cop or baker?

So you took my examples and decided that because I didn't enumerate every possible occupation, that I intended to exclude all others?

I'd address your other points but it's not worth conversing with a person who clearly argues in bad faith.

It's completely logical to not want a career when executives capture all of the profits. It's irrational to work when the execs at your company make 10-100X what you do and the non-working investors capture even more value than that.

There is no labor shortage and there never will be. When exec pay equals worker pay, then all of the levers will have been pulled and we can maybe start to talk about a labor shortage. Much of which are jobs that shouldn't exist (ad sales), or things that can be automated.

Executives making too much is not a problem with people having careers and specializing.

Executive pay will not, nor should it ever, equal worker pay. I am not going to pretend multiple millions in yearly compensation is reasonable. But there is a bit more responsibility at the executive level than there is at the bottom.

Non-working investors are assuming risk. It is a different class of contribution than a worker. And don't forget, those "non-working investors" also include your average folk who are saving for retirement.

You said:

> That people reject taking on a career and being productive members of society is troubling. It also displays a ton of ignorance.

I’m saying it’s not ignorant at all, opting out of a system stacked against you is highly logical. I would find it far more troubling if people just ignored the inequality in their own companies and blindly worked to make others rich. That is the real problem.

Yeah me stacking shelves for 15$ an hour so that my boss can get rich providing goods and groceries all across the country is definitely a real problem.

I really don’t think there are many people making $15 /hr stacking shelves. Yes, that is a huge problem. How much are the execs making in this company? That’s money that could go to workers and customers. The system is broken so millions-billions get captured by those at the top with no benefit to anyone else.

Firstly: Is the system actually "stacked against you" or does it provide better quality of life for everybody? Yes, there are people with disproportionately more, but even the people at the bottom are better off under this system than many others, including communism.

Secondly: are people at the bottom, whose skills include things like "putting stuff on shelves" and "asking if you want fries with that" actually building a career? No.

Thirdly: those people all have the freedom to start their own companies. Unfortunately, what people will find is that it's a lot of work and a lot of risk. So they don't. And then complain about inequity.

Lots of complaining, very little effort into actually improving their own lives.

This isn't to say our system is perfect, cause it ain't. But by and large people aren't complaining because their life sucks, they're complaining because someone has more than them.

The system is absolutely stacked against everyone but those with money. Janitors can start their own business? With what capital?

> But by and large people aren't complaining because their life sucks, they're complaining because someone has more than them.

They are complaining because life sucks. Housing, healthcare and education are either unobtainable or will sink most people into a life of debt. That’s not complaining because someone has more than you. That’s asking for the bare necessities to not take a lifetime of labor to pay off.

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