Labor organization

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doodle
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Labor organization

Post by doodle » Fri Oct 16, 2020 11:12 am

Why does labor have such a hard time organizing especially in an environment of low unemployment as we currently have? Why hasn't a labor union emerged for workers at Amazon or walmart that pushes for better conditions and wages? It seems to me that as a unified group, the workers at Amazon have a tremendous amount of negotiating power. Obviously, they don't want to kill the golden goose but why not pressure management for increased benefits, wages, etc?
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Re: Labor organization

Post by doodle » Fri Oct 16, 2020 11:48 am

Isnt this a social justice issue? It seems like there is so much anger over stagnant wages....I just don't get it. Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't capitalism depend on labor and consumers? Even if you eliminate all the jobs with robots, it doesn't fix the problem. apple is only as rich as the number of people who can purchase their products. Industry capitalists have done a great job at organizing and squeezing efficiency out of labor force. It seems to me like labor (if organized) has quite a bit of leverage as well. Properly organized, a strong labor movement could easily flip the script.
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Re: Labor organization

Post by doodle » Fri Oct 16, 2020 12:00 pm

Admittedly I have a 'weird' perspective on these issues. I'm a part of the 1% who got here working mostly menial jobs with quite average investment returns. I know that two hardworking people in this country with a solid plan and very frugal habits can amass a million or more dollars in a decade while working very middle or lower middle class jobs. I roll my eyes when I listen to my older colleagues complain how broke they are while sometimes earning twice as much as I did. They are very inefficient. I also recognize that what I did is not scalable. I was able to exploit a profligate economic system. If everyone did what I did it would bring our economy to it's knees. We'd have great depression levels of unemployment. So the only solution I can come up with is to figure out a way to better distribute the wealth our society produces while simultaneously not impinging on individual freedom and motivation. I believe it's possible to do this through freedom based policies that also bring wealth distribution closer to a stable equilibrium.
Simonjester wrote: i suspect they don't have as much negotiating power as you think, the majority are menial labor, low job skills ( cant be on time, wont work when not supervised, on phone etc) these company's have figured out that low skill employees are so easily replaceable, and training cost on a new one so minimal, that there is no pressure to raise the wages, lower and middle management might have a better case for better wages and more leverage --- at least they have skills that are not as easily replaced or recreated with training..


most of the anger over stagnant wages that i see is ginned up by proponents of raising government mandated minimum wages, the low skill workers i have worked with either don't care (many of them) or they work at building skill sets that pay more..
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Re: Labor organization

Post by doodle » Fri Oct 16, 2020 12:34 pm

Simonjester wrote: i suspect they don't have as much negotiating power as you think, the majority are menial labor, low job skills ( cant be on time, wont work when not supervised, on phone etc) these company's have figured out that low skill employees are so easily replaceable, and training cost on a new one so minimal, that there is no pressure to raise the wages, lower and middle management might have a better case for better wages and more leverage --- at least they have skills that are not as easily replaced or recreated with training..


most of the anger over stagnant wages that i see is ginned up by proponents of raising government mandated minimum wages, the low skill workers i have worked with either don't care (many of them) or they work at building skill sets that pay more..
Being a garbage collector or strawberry picker are low skill jobs...but as we have discovered also essential to a functioning economy. I doubt they would be replaceable en masse as well. My guess is if strawberry workers walked out of the field during harvest time that farmers crop would rot in the field before he would have ability to find new workers. The same goes for Amazon or any other large business....like some businesses are too big to fail, their labor forces are too big to replace...especially if incoming labor force is also organized and on same page as fired labor force.
MangoMan wrote:
Fri Oct 16, 2020 12:15 pm
doodle wrote:
Fri Oct 16, 2020 12:00 pm
Admittedly I have a 'weird' perspective on these issues. I'm a part of the 1% who got here working mostly menial jobs with quite average investment returns. I know that two hardworking people in this country with a solid plan and very frugal habits can amass a million or more dollars in a decade while working very middle or lower middle class jobs. I roll my eyes when I listen to my older colleagues complain how broke they are while sometimes earning twice as much as I did. They are very inefficient. I also recognize that what I did is not scalable. I was able to exploit a profligate economic system. If everyone did what I did it would bring our economy to it's knees. We'd have great depression levels of unemployment. So the only solution I can come up with is to figure out a way to better distribute the wealth our society produces while simultaneously not impinging on individual freedom and motivation. I believe it's possible to do this through freedom based policies that also bring wealth distribution closer to a stable equilibrium.
Have you ever owned a business? I can tell you after 36 years of owning and running one, that exactly one out of about 35 employees I have had over that time period have actually cared if the business did well vs 'it was just a paycheck'. Little motivation, poor promptness, zero loyalty. If you think these people deserved to share in the capital that I created thru education, hard work and financial investment, you are clueless. Sorry if that seems harsh or I seem cold, but it's reality.
Yes, I was an independent contractor....but I worked alone or maybe paid a friend to help out if I needed a hand for a small job. You hired these people though. I assume they added value somehow. Sometimes you do get what you pay for. Perhaps you should have done all the work on your own but I guess you wanted to do something you weren't able to do on your own. You needed help to grow and become wealthier....so you looked to others for help. Why didn't you just work alone?
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Re: Labor organization

Post by doodle » Fri Oct 16, 2020 12:38 pm

Is it unfair that you can't really opt out of this system? Isn't that a sort of tyranny of the masses against the freedom of the individual?. I can understand why some people might want to play this capitalist economy game, but what if others don't? They just want to be born free to live on this earth in another manner. I guess they can't because the tyranny of the masses force them to abide by their ideas.
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Re: Labor organization

Post by I Shrugged » Fri Oct 16, 2020 12:55 pm

doodle wrote:
Fri Oct 16, 2020 12:38 pm
Is it unfair that you can't really opt out of this system? Isn't that a sort of tyranny of the masses against the freedom of the individual?. I can understand why some people might want to play this capitalist economy game, but what if others don't? They just want to be born free to live on this earth in another manner. I guess they can't because the tyranny of the masses force them to abide by their ideas.
It would be pretty hard to opt out without benefiting immensely from the work done by everyone else who doesn't opt out. You have talked about the social contract sort of thing, and that libertarians don't get it. A person who opts out is definitely flouting the social contract IMO.
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Re: Labor organization

Post by I Shrugged » Fri Oct 16, 2020 1:03 pm

I wouldn't be surprised if on the whole, Amazon employees are much more satisfied than you'd think from media stories. Same for Wal-Mart workers.

The stories come from what might be called malcontents. If a large minority of the employees were truly discontented, it'd be a much bigger story than it is.
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Re: Labor organization

Post by doodle » Fri Oct 16, 2020 1:13 pm

MangoMan wrote:
Fri Oct 16, 2020 12:52 pm
doodle wrote:
MangoMan wrote:
Fri Oct 16, 2020 12:15 pm
doodle wrote:
Fri Oct 16, 2020 12:00 pm
Admittedly I have a 'weird' perspective on these issues. I'm a part of the 1% who got here working mostly menial jobs with quite average investment returns. I know that two hardworking people in this country with a solid plan and very frugal habits can amass a million or more dollars in a decade while working very middle or lower middle class jobs. I roll my eyes when I listen to my older colleagues complain how broke they are while sometimes earning twice as much as I did. They are very inefficient. I also recognize that what I did is not scalable. I was able to exploit a profligate economic system. If everyone did what I did it would bring our economy to it's knees. We'd have great depression levels of unemployment. So the only solution I can come up with is to figure out a way to better distribute the wealth our society produces while simultaneously not impinging on individual freedom and motivation. I believe it's possible to do this through freedom based policies that also bring wealth distribution closer to a stable equilibrium.
Have you ever owned a business? I can tell you after 36 years of owning and running one, that exactly one out of about 35 employees I have had over that time period have actually cared if the business did well vs 'it was just a paycheck'. Little motivation, poor promptness, zero loyalty. If you think these people deserved to share in the capital that I created thru education, hard work and financial investment, you are clueless. Sorry if that seems harsh or I seem cold, but it's reality.
Yes, I was an independent contractor....but I worked alone or maybe paid a friend to help out if I needed a hand for a small job. You hired these people though. I assume they added value somehow. Sometimes you do get what you pay for. Perhaps you should have done all the work on your own but I guess you wanted to do something you weren't able to do on your own. You needed help to grow and become wealthier....so you looked to others for help. Why didn't you just work alone?
That's not owning a business, and none of my employees were prior friends, so you have no idea what you are talking about. This is like the comments Tomfoolery made regarding hospitals and also guns.

Yes, they were paid what they were worth. But you advocate that somehow they should be entitled to the fruits of my hard work and capital investment, while they have contributed little to nothing and have already been compensated accordingly. I don't buy it.
I had an LLC with a company name and truck. I bid on jobs and was paid for my work. How is that not a business? If I had a job that required two sets of hands I'd hire a friend for a few hours to help. I could have attempted to grow this business and hire subs to do work so that I could take on more than one job at a time. I decided to stay small and keep tight control of my quality. There was work i turned down and work that took me longer to complete on my own. There are people I know who built large businesses doing what I did and made more money than I did. They didn't work anymore, they just managed people who did the work. That's not the route I took. But don't tell me I didn't own a business.

You chose to run your business in a way that would increase your profits and reduce your work load...if not then why hire anyone? You hired people so that you could organize them and extract the value of their labor for yourself. Is it wrong if labor does the same and organizes itself to keep as much of its labor value as possible?
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Re: Labor organization

Post by doodle » Fri Oct 16, 2020 1:18 pm

I Shrugged wrote:
Fri Oct 16, 2020 1:03 pm
I wouldn't be surprised if on the whole, Amazon employees are much more satisfied than you'd think from media stories. Same for Wal-Mart workers.

The stories come from what might be called malcontents. If a large minority of the employees were truly discontented, it'd be a much bigger story than it is.
Walmart was the idea of one man. He is now dead. Walmart is now an enterprise that operates on the backs of millions of individuals. In some sense it is a tribe. In this tribe however a few individuals (none of whom started this company or put in the sweat equity to build it from nothing) take home millions of dollars while the vast majority break their backs and need government assistance to help pay rent and put food on table. Does that seem fair to you? Seems like bullshit to me.
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Re: Labor organization

Post by Xan » Fri Oct 16, 2020 1:23 pm

Is it not allowed for somebody to want to work to make a better life for his children?
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Re: Labor organization

Post by doodle » Fri Oct 16, 2020 1:33 pm

Xan wrote:
Fri Oct 16, 2020 1:23 pm
Is it not allowed for somebody to want to work to make a better life for his children?
Of course, that is the issue that labor organizations have faced. And because of their lack of organization labor got screwed similar to the way that the disorganized tribes of american indians did. I don't think equity of pay should be dictated through minimum wages or government oversight. And I realize that pay will not be exactly equitable. I do however think that something has to be done to level the wealth disparity in this country and short of taxing wealth or other forced measures the best solution I can come up with is for labor to organize and claim more of their value.
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Re: Labor organization

Post by doodle » Fri Oct 16, 2020 2:36 pm

tomfoolery wrote:
Fri Oct 16, 2020 2:27 pm
Doodle,

Why don’t all of the underpaid walmart and amazon employees all quit and start their own competitor retail business that pays their employees a fair living wage and makes higher profits to boot?

Who or what is stopping them from achieving this liberal dream?
Why doesn't Jeff Bezos package and ship all of his packages himself? What is stopping him? Or better yet, why doesn't he automate everything? Let's automate the entire workforce! Then we don't have to pay for workers at all.....oh, but then who has money to buy any of the products? Hmm.... That doesn't quite work either. What a shame that this human concept has flaws. Ahh, but indoctrination will solve that! We'll just talk about how this is the only way to organize production....any other way is simply unmerican!


This economic system is a game with rules that everyone has to buy into for it to work. If one group doesn't want to buy into those rules anymore it all falls apart. From my perspective this game over the last years has slowly started to become rigged to disadvatange the value that labor contributes to the overall societal wealth we have created. That needs to be balanced.

.
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Re: Labor organization

Post by doodle » Fri Oct 16, 2020 2:39 pm

tomfoolery wrote:
Fri Oct 16, 2020 2:27 pm
Doodle,

Why don’t all of the underpaid walmart and amazon employees all quit and start their own competitor retail business that pays their employees a fair living wage and makes higher profits to boot?

Who or what is stopping them from achieving this liberal dream?
It's like a wheel and axle from my perspective. One doesn't much work without the other. We need ideas and we need people upon whose backs those ideas are put into reality.
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Re: Labor organization

Post by Mountaineer » Fri Oct 16, 2020 2:49 pm

doodle wrote:
Fri Oct 16, 2020 2:36 pm
tomfoolery wrote:
Fri Oct 16, 2020 2:27 pm
Doodle,

Why don’t all of the underpaid walmart and amazon employees all quit and start their own competitor retail business that pays their employees a fair living wage and makes higher profits to boot?

Who or what is stopping them from achieving this liberal dream?
Why doesn't Jeff Bezos package and ship all of his packages himself? What is stopping him? Or better yet, why doesn't he automate everything? Let's automate the entire workforce! Then we don't have to pay for workers at all.....oh, but then who has money to buy any of the products? Hmm.... That doesn't quite work either. What a shame that this human concept has flaws. Ahh, but indoctrination will solve that! We'll just talk about how this is the only way to organize production....any other way is simply unmerican!


This economic system is a game with rules that everyone has to buy into for it to work. If one group doesn't want to buy into those rules anymore it all falls apart. From my perspective this game over the last years has slowly started to become rigged to disadvatange the value that labor contributes to the overall societal wealth we have created. That needs to be balanced.

.
Balanced by whom and with what ground rules established by whom? Man will NEVER create heaven on earth. Life is not fair and neither does our Constitution nor most religions ever say it is.
DNA has its own language (code), and language requires intelligence. There is no known mechanism by which matter can give birth to information, let alone language. It is unreasonable to believe the world could have happened by chance.
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Re: Labor organization

Post by doodle » Fri Oct 16, 2020 2:57 pm

Simonjester wrote:
tomfoolery wrote:
Fri Oct 16, 2020 2:38 pm
It seems to me there are three factors to running a retail business like Amazon or Walmart:

1) Access to brute force menial labor -- these are the people Doodle argues are underpaid
2) Access to managerial / intelligent / skilled labor
3) Access to capital

You need capital to buy stuff and warehouses and website hosting and such.

Since there's a total amount of revenue that comes in from a business, in order to pay the brute force labor more, you have to pay either the capital-holders or the skilled labor (including CEO) less.

So, if you think you can get people willing to lend capital for a lower rate of return, and/or get skilled workers to work for a reduced pay, then go ahead and start this business.

But why would anyone lend you capital at a lower return they can get from Wal Mart or Amazon, who have a higher profit because they "underpay" their brute force laborers?

And why would skilled labor take a pay cut to work at this new venture compared to Wal Mart and Amazon?

Seems like the brute force labor are getting paid exactly what they are worth in a free labor market.
this....
the proletariat are going to have to start a revolution and get government to force the evil corporations to pay them more than they are worth.. (it hasn't ever worked out in the real world yet but lets give it another go?)
One doesn't get paid what one is worth. One gets paid what one negotiates. Labor is doing a shitty job of negotiating. Ideas don't work without labor. Labor is doing a poor job of taking it's fair share I would argue....because it is largely made up of low iq people who are easily taken advantage of. That is called exploitation in my book. Besides, it is the government that protects this concept of intellectual property. It's the idea people that rely on government force and tyranny when you really think about it. Absent a government enforcement mechanism there would be no such thing as intellectual property...
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Re: Labor organization

Post by doodle » Fri Oct 16, 2020 2:59 pm

Mountaineer wrote:
Fri Oct 16, 2020 2:49 pm
doodle wrote:
Fri Oct 16, 2020 2:36 pm
tomfoolery wrote:
Fri Oct 16, 2020 2:27 pm
Doodle,

Why don’t all of the underpaid walmart and amazon employees all quit and start their own competitor retail business that pays their employees a fair living wage and makes higher profits to boot?

Who or what is stopping them from achieving this liberal dream?
Why doesn't Jeff Bezos package and ship all of his packages himself? What is stopping him? Or better yet, why doesn't he automate everything? Let's automate the entire workforce! Then we don't have to pay for workers at all.....oh, but then who has money to buy any of the products? Hmm.... That doesn't quite work either. What a shame that this human concept has flaws. Ahh, but indoctrination will solve that! We'll just talk about how this is the only way to organize production....any other way is simply unmerican!


This economic system is a game with rules that everyone has to buy into for it to work. If one group doesn't want to buy into those rules anymore it all falls apart. From my perspective this game over the last years has slowly started to become rigged to disadvatange the value that labor contributes to the overall societal wealth we have created. That needs to be balanced.

.
Balanced by whom and with what ground rules established by whom? Man will NEVER create heaven on earth. Life is not fair and neither does our Constitution nor most religions ever say it is.
Hmmm... Sounds like something louis the 16th might have said.
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Re: Labor organization

Post by doodle » Fri Oct 16, 2020 3:13 pm

Simonjester wrote:
doodle wrote:
Fri Oct 16, 2020 2:57 pm

One doesn't get paid what one is worth. One gets paid what one negotiates. Labor is doing a shitty job of negotiating. Ideas don't work without labor. Labor is doing a poor job of taking it's fair share I would argue....because it is largely made up of low iq people who are easily taken advantage of. That is called exploitation in my book. Besides, it is the government that protects this concept of intellectual property. It's the idea people that rely on government force and tyranny when you really think about it. Absent a government enforcement mechanism there would be no such thing as intellectual property...
you can only negotiate so much if the value of the work you do and the skills you bring are weak..
not paying somebody more than they are worth is exploitation?
!!damn i have been exploited my entire life and never even realized!!!
I'm arguing a simple truth here...production of anything requires both mental and intellectual input and physical input. I'm not saying that someone who sits at home and does nothing deserves anything. I'm saying that someone who works 40 hours doesn't deserve to be able to barely afford rent and food while another person who works forty hours at the same company can buy a billion dollar luxury yacht. I'm saying that if that is the disparity of outcomes within the same company then the laborer is doing a crappy job of negotiating his fair share of the pie. Sure, the laborer is expendable...it's a simple job that can be easily replaced with another person desperate for a few crumbs....except if all the slaves collectively realize that their masters beautiful plantation is actually a result of their sweat and sore aching bodies. The amazing productive plantation that feeds everyone is really the result of a collective effort. That without people out there busting their backs all day Mr. master wouldn't have anything to show for all his great ideas.
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Re: Labor organization

Post by I Shrugged » Fri Oct 16, 2020 3:14 pm

Doodle, I am starting to think you are trolling. You know that it has been tried around the world.

In any event, if you own stocks, you’re one of the oppressors.
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Re: Labor organization

Post by doodle » Fri Oct 16, 2020 3:24 pm

Simonjester wrote:
doodle wrote:
Fri Oct 16, 2020 2:57 pm

One doesn't get paid what one is worth. One gets paid what one negotiates. Labor is doing a shitty job of negotiating. Ideas don't work without labor. Labor is doing a poor job of taking it's fair share I would argue....because it is largely made up of low iq people who are easily taken advantage of. That is called exploitation in my book. Besides, it is the government that protects this concept of intellectual property. It's the idea people that rely on government force and tyranny when you really think about it. Absent a government enforcement mechanism there would be no such thing as intellectual property...
you can only negotiate so much if the value of the work you do and the skills you bring are weak..
not paying somebody more than they are worth is exploitation?
!!damn i have been exploited my entire life and never even realized!!!
Take sole proprietor... Say by himself he can build one swimming pool a month. He hires a helper...suddenly he becomes three times as efficient and his work is easier and lighter on his body. Carrying 150 pound pieces during installation is so much easier and lighter on his body. He can now build three pools a month. How much is that laborer worth? From my perspective he is adding two swimming pools of value every month. Why then if he is adding two swimming pools of value with his work is he being paid say...half a swimming pool? Maybe he doesn't realize his true value. Maybe he is a dumb negotiator...if he were aware that he was adding that much value how much is fair? Well corporations being profit maximizing organizations try to pay him as little as possible. Wouldn't it be smart for labor to organize to try to maximize their profits as well?
Simonjester wrote: unless your laborer can also build a pool by himself ,he is not adding anywhere near that much, he adds no know how, no capital, and the boss has to stay on him to keep him from slacking, has to tell him ever move to make and watch to prevent screw-ups.... none of that ads up to equal or even close to the business owners contribution.
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Re: Labor organization

Post by Xan » Fri Oct 16, 2020 3:33 pm

You don't get paid based on how much value you add, you get paid based on how hard you are to replace. That's true for everybody, including the sole proprietor with the swimming pool business. He's adding value to people's houses (well, in theory), but he doesn't get paid a cut of that value. He gets paid based on how much competing swimming pool guys would charge for the job.

You're advocating for filet mignon costing as much as a cheesburger, but water costing $1,000 an ounce. That's what it's like to pay for stuff based on the value it adds.
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Re: Labor organization

Post by vnatale » Fri Oct 16, 2020 3:41 pm

There is also the risk factor that the laborer generally does not participate in but which the business owner always does, especially when giving personal guarantees and putting up one's home as collateral for the business's loans.

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Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: Labor organization

Post by Kriegsspiel » Fri Oct 16, 2020 7:01 pm

doodle wrote:
Fri Oct 16, 2020 12:00 pm
I roll my eyes when I listen to my older colleagues complain how broke they are while sometimes earning twice as much as I did. They are very inefficient.
Same. I think they're just trying to get me to commiserate with them about how the "system is keeping them down" or whatever, and I retaliate by being so upbeat and positive that I break them.
I also recognize that what I did is not scalable. I was able to exploit a profligate economic system. If everyone did what I did it would bring our economy to it's knees. We'd have great depression levels of unemployment.
Don't beat yourself up too much, everybody's not going to do it. If we can get even a few more people to do it, though, then we'll have freed up many jobs for all the qualified people that are otherwise shut out from them. For instance, I left a high paying but very stressful corporate job a while ago. I'll never try to get that job back, and someone else has it now, so they can earn all that money and stress and follow in my footsteps! It's a good thing.

I was also on the other end, earning less money but having more fun and no stress, in the blue collar world.
You there, Ephialtes. May you live forever.
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Re: Labor organization

Post by doodle » Fri Oct 16, 2020 7:52 pm

I'm curious, Krieg...are you a determinist? Do you subscribe to the idea that we live in a causal universe and that human behavior springing forth from this universe is also subject to these laws? Sam Harris has made a pretty strong argument for there being no logical ground upon which to build a foundation for free will. If this is the case does it affect the way that you think about and judge human behavior?
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Re: Labor organization

Post by Kriegsspiel » Fri Oct 16, 2020 8:05 pm

doodle wrote:
Fri Oct 16, 2020 7:52 pm
I'm curious, Krieg...are you a determinist? Do you subscribe to the idea that we live in a causal universe and that human behavior springing forth from this universe is also subject to these laws? Sam Harris has made a pretty strong argument for there being no logical ground upon which to build a foundation for free will. If this is the case does it affect the way that you think about and judge human behavior?
Never thought about it.

8)
You there, Ephialtes. May you live forever.
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Re: Labor organization

Post by doodle » Fri Oct 16, 2020 8:32 pm

I'd argue that it's highly consequential to the way one thinks about issues.

Here is full speech.

https://youtu.be/_FanhvXO9Pk


This is condensed Joe Rogan for those with adhd...


https://youtu.be/OFazP2nBIqQ


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