capisce

I'd prefer 120 hz, at least for games and UI animations.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your viewpoint and how the profits get distributed) there tends to be more money in replacing people with automation than in employing them. And even when employing them there is always the incentive to pay the least amount that the market will bear. Crowdsourcing etc also provides very little in the way of job security.

I absolutely agree that long commutes are bad, but I still don't think that excuses Japan's overwork (Karoshi) culture. According to surveys Japanese employee satisfaction ranks relatively low compared to other countries: http://www.nhk.or.jp/bunken/english/reports/summary/200906/0...

Your argument seems to rely on the assumption that the employees have much of a choice. In theory there's supposed to be a free labor market, but in practice employers hold a much stronger hand than employees. It's hard for employees to vote with their feet when facing the threat of unemployment. Thus their "engaging in those activities" can not exactly be counted as any kind of approval.

Some solutions for this could be stronger unions protecting worker's rights, stronger punishments against employers who take advantage of the weak bargaining position of workers, or providing basic income to tip the balance of power a bit more in the worker's favour.

Maybe a daily walk in a park and/or 30 minutes of meditation could be better for their health than spending 12 hours in the office with a break of having a few beers each day. Seems like you're posing a false dilemma between spending the full day in the office and having a two hour commute each day - it's possible to choose neither of those. Are you sure your colleagues are so happy about their situation?

> I’d suggest working online as a freelancer or for a foreign company. Chinese companies pay programmers very poorly.

Well, how would you be allowed to stay in China then?

It's not just about weight, but also about composition. From the article:

While the low-fat group did lose weight, they appeared to lose more muscle than fat.

“They actually lost lean muscle mass, which is a bad thing,” Dr. Mozaffarian said. “Your balance of lean mass versus fat mass is much more important than weight. And that’s a very important finding that shows why the low-carb, high-fat group did so metabolically well.”

> learning about caloric content and restricting yourself in calories is much easier than following a diet

Apart from cutting out certain foods, the low carb high fat group was allowed to eat how much they pleased. Sounds way easier than counting calories all the time.

What do you propose? Making the rules say it's OK for employers to exploit their workers?

To show that increasing inequality is not inevitable, before 1980 wealth inequality levels in the US were either steady or declining (scroll down to the first graph): http://www.cnbc.com/id/101540240

Similarly median family income was tightly coupled to productivity growth until the mid 1970s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United...

Yes, worldwide hunger has fallen by 17 percent since 1990 (a lot less than world economic and productivity growth in the same period), but there are still 842 million people who don't have enough to eat. We could pat ourselves on the back and say "well done", or we could consider the fact that we're settling for a lot less than what we are capable of - http://www.wfp.org/hunger/stats

Inequality increase might be "normal" in our current political systems, but that doesn't make it desirable or inevitable. A progressive tax on wealth and income could prevent it from getting out of hand. Inequality is not bullshit, because first of all the extreme wealth in the hands of the rich could go a long way to feed and house the hungry and poor, and secondly wealth is power. Wealth can buy political power through lobbying and campaigning, ensuring that policies tend to shift ever in favour of the wealthy. Thus extreme inequality corresponds to extreme imbalances in power, undermining our democratic institutions.

On the first point, "you could approximately double the incomes of those living on less than $1.25 a day worldwide by transferring to them one-third of the consumption growth enjoyed by the world’s richest 1 percent since 1990. Think of it as bringing the consumption levels of the global 1 percent back to where they were around 2003 or 2004, in return for wiping out global absolute poverty. Is that such an unreasonable tradeoff?" - http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-12-09/how-to-end-g...

And while a lot of Chinese have moved from poverty to wage slavery, the economic narrative isn't really that rosy there either: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-04-30/chinas-incom...

You claimed the fact that people had been lifted out of poverty since the 1970s was a sign that the economy was doing well. Why then is a 45 % tax such a problem, assuming the people paying it don't end up below the poverty level? Considering what governments provide in terms of infrastructure, safety, education, social security, and health care, is that so much to ask for? It seems only fair to pay back to society for the opportunities provided for us. Also from a utilitarian stand-point societies with less inequality have less crime and improved well-being (assuming the GDP per capita is not too low of course). Tax is a necessary part of a well functioning society, not a bogeyman. We should just make taxation more fair by not making the middle class pay a disproportionate share - the wealthy often pay a significantly lower tax percentage on their earnings due to income being taxed higher than capital gains.

High tax rates do not prevent economic growth, in fact the opposite seems to be the case: "During the 1950s and early 1960s, the top bracket income tax rate was over 90%--and the economy, middle-class, and stock market boomed." - http://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-tax-rates

Tax rates are at an all-time low, inequality levels are soaring, and economic growth is poor. The gains from the high levels of productivity growth we've seen since the 1970s have been accumulating among a small elite. Doesn't seem very ideal to me.

While I am strongly convinced more redistribution is needed if we are serious about the well being of humanity. Economy should be a tool to serve humanity, not the other way around. Unless your head has been stuck in the sand, you might have noticed that pretty much all the increased profits generated since the 1970s have gone to the very few and rich.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/12/05/u-s-income-i...

Even if you only care about economic growth and not about inequality, there is evidence that economic growth is held back by the current levels of inequality:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/06/upshot/alarm-on-income-ine...

Where is the evidence for the case that taxes are way too high? Growing public debt will also be a burden on generations to come.

One of the Occupy Wall Street guys, like Obama? http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/07/obama-tax-inver...

Sure, tax evasion is a problem, but the fact is taxes have been on a downward curve for decades now. Wealth and corporate tax evasion is a race to the bottom, and requires international cooperation. Should we just shrug and let inequality grow without bounds? We don't need to restrict people's freedom to move, but the EU and US could for example cooperate on introducing tariffs on companies that base their operations in tax havens. Of course, there is still a lot that could be achieved on a purely national level too.

The US public debt is at 18 trillion USD, whereas total private net worth is at least three times that amount: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_position_of_the_Unite...

Sounds like it should be possible to reduce the public debt to a more manageable level.

Western countries are knee deep in public debt, but very rich when it comes to private wealth. We don't need to print money, we just need to increase taxes a bit, especially on the wealthiest 1 %. Inflation is an unfair tax as it targets middle class savers the most, instead of the rich who have most of their wealth in real estate, shares and bonds, etc.

Some prices would rise, but not enough to offset the benefits of basic income. Our economy has more than enough productivity and wealth to provide everyone with food and shelter. The majority of food production is largely automated and does not require a lot of cheap labor.

Your claim that basic income is not sustainable is unsubstantiated. Basic income is a great way to share the proceeds of automation and increased productivity among the many instead of just among the few.

I'm asking for the source of your claim that implementing basic income would make no difference whatsoever.

Sure, some prices would rise. Basic income needs to be continuously calibrated relative to the cost of basic living. That said, I don't see any good reason to expect that the price of say food would rise beyond people's ability to buy. Western countries already produce way more food than is necessary, so supermarkets end up throwing a lot away. With increased demand there would be increased production of food, clothes, and other essential items.

Market forces would still be in effect, so rent prices would reach a new equilibrium. As long as there are more apartments than people, rents would stay at a level that people could afford (or the empty apartments would lower rents until people could afford to live there). If there are not enough apartments, more would be built in cheap locations to satisfy demand. Sure, basic income wouldn't make everyone able to live in New York, but that's not the goal.

Source?

>> Are there any studies that show whether forced prostitution/trafficking goes up or down with legalisation?

The Netherlands, where prostitution is legal and regulated, is still one of the top destinations of human trafficking:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_the_Netherlands...

The Netherlands, where prostitution is legal and regulated, is one of the top destinations of human trafficking:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_the_Netherlands...

Sure, there might be better ways of solving this than making prostitution illegal.

Indeed, I do think there are better approaches than driving prostitution underground. My goal was just to point out that there are other arguments than "sex is bad" against legalized prostitution.

So in this case, what's wrong with breaking this law if it doesn't hurt anyone and is actually _good_ for the country's economy to do so?

From the article:

"Sex trafficking statistics are frustratingly incomplete, but a recent report estimated the number of victims in Europe at 270,000."

We accept this form of modern slavery?

"Denmark, which decriminalised prostitution in 1999 – the same year Sweden made the purchase of sex illegal - has four times the number of trafficking victims than its neighbour despite having around half the population."

There's a good argument against legalization.

Yes - your body, your rules, but in the reality of sex trafficking legalizing prostitution doesn't always ensure that. And as for the women who choose it freely but only because they are in the "unfortunate situation" where it seems like the best option, maybe we could introduce basic income so that many of them would not have to consider this option in the first place. I would say that's our responsibility as a society.

Or even better, pay them basic income - now women would no longer need to prostitute themselves out of desperation, and only the ones who really saw this as a lucrative career would choose it.

Wouldn't Thailand lose out by not allowing digital nomads to work there? What they contribute to the economy by staying there they would otherwise be forced to spend in a different country. So what is the law saying that you're not allowed to perform any "work" while you're in the country supposed to achieve, assuming you are not taking any jobs from locals?

Free markets suffer from negative externalities / tragedy of the commons, cartels, monopolies, race to the bottom, etc...

What if he's not willing to sacrifice his work-life balance, even for a higher compensation?

Money might not make up for a depressing job, if he feels he's already making enough to support his desired life style.

What did it get you thinking??

> "after numerous complaints over rowdy visitors"

Tragedy of the commons... This is why we can't have nice things.

Let's not stop there: http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/entry/21-hours

Piketty has the solution for the reduced wages at the bottom, with a tax on capital - just combine that with basic income and people don't have to worry about making a living.