Haven - cutting welfare

There's a balancing act involved there. Ideally you want the welfare to be around the poverty line, livable but just, and allow any work to bring you up to an actual livable wage before cutting out completely.
Part of that is a decent minimum wage, and to get that you either need the business managers to have a social concience, or for it to be enforced by a government with a social concience.

It would help if the big businesses etc actually paid their tax in a manner befitting having a social concience.

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I suggest learning to program.

What language is unimportant, as they are always in a state of flux.

Programming always ends up being some version of:
IF
THEN
ELSE
END

Dan Jones (Retired 40+year systems programmer)

dan92677 wrote:I suggest learning to program.

What language is unimportant, as they are always in a state of flux.

Or none at all, I'm working in the automotive industry, we're using MATLAB models with code generators for developing our software.

We got people developing software who never ever wrote a single line in C. Which is, of course, both a good and a bad thing...

dan92677 wrote:I suggest learning to program.

What language is unimportant, as they are always in a state of flux.

Programming always ends up being some version of:
IF
THEN
ELSE
END

Dan Jones (Retired 40+year systems programmer)

Though ultimately somewhat true, there is a huge gap in its truth between procedural and functional languages. I love my functional languages. They run rings around the procedural dinosaurs of yester year. Though age has nothing to do with it, my very own favorite, Lisp, is one of the oldest and best kept secrets in town.

35+ years programming.

clancy688 wrote:

dan92677 wrote:I suggest learning to program.

What language is unimportant, as they are always in a state of flux.

Or none at all, I'm working in the automotive industry, we're using MATLAB models with code generators for developing our software.

We got people developing software who never ever wrote a single line in C. Which is, of course, both a good and a bad thing...

Develop your software with Lisp! You'll save yourself tons of time and the resultant code will be much more powerful, feature rich and bug free.

Heck, Matlab is written in Lisp!

It's okay if they don't speak C. Let them speak with a Lisp, then let the seers optimize.

A very old college parody regarding C...

Oh say can you C
By the dawn's early light
How unproudly we fail
By the light of C's least gleaming
And the project's red glare
The bug busting in air
Gave proof thru the night
That the bugs were still there
Oh C does that damn fangled
'Bugger still wave
O'er land we shant be free
Long as C does yet wave

It was hilariously funny each morning the singing of the computer lab's National Anthem at 5:59 A.M sharp! The bewitching minute before the mainframe came online.

Every Engineering, CS, IT, Math, and Physics major's watch was set by the World's Atomic clock -- which hung on the wall in the Comp Lab. Some of my very good friends who attended school with me joke that their watch is still set to CLT (Comp Lab Time). The only clock that mattered.

Sully wrote:

DDHvi wrote:In the real world, with automation becoming less expensive (Moore's law increase of computer capability and better programming), the available work will tend to divide into 1) work that can't be done by computers, and 2) work that requires better education. It will be important for families to encourage their children to enjoy learning.

Actually, I wonder what's going to happen when automation reaches a point that the % employment required is much lower than the actual population-at what point will that prompt social change? What path will that change take? At some point education won't matter, because it won't actually get you anywhere.

That line of thought is one of the basic origins of socialism. A bit early, but they figured that eventually, machines would do most of the work, which meant a lot of people simply COULD not have a "paying job" by traditional means.

Hence, the idea of putting all production and its profits in the hands of everyone, as otherwise the people owning the machinebased production would end up with nearly all the money while the vast majority of people would end up dead in a gutter when cash runs out.

Tenshinai wrote:
That line of thought is one of the basic origins of socialism. A bit early, but they figured that eventually, machines would do most of the work, which meant a lot of people simply COULD not have a "paying job" by traditional means.

Hence, the idea of putting all production and its profits in the hands of everyone, as otherwise the people owning the machinebased production would end up with nearly all the money while the vast majority of people would end up dead in a gutter when cash runs out.

A bit back, Poul Anderson had a SF story where there was glancing mention of a future society where the average family lived back-to-the-land, but earned to buy manufactured items by on-line work. There are some people doing this now Also, there are some who are doing on-line machine supervising. One man in Japan runs a small automated plastic factory by himself, with the aid of an internet based alarm system - when maintenance etc. is needed, he calls in someone with the needed skills.

The Mother Earth News magazine has had 45 years of articles on living outside the system. There are also many who live hybrid. There is always something worth doing, but the manufacturing side of things is greatly reducing.

Perhaps more emphasis on maintenance work of all kinds would be a good idea: when I worked for US Steel in maintenance, they always kept a large reservoir of people ready to throw at any problem. The loss per hour when a big automated line goes down has to be very bad. Also, automated lines could have more problems with outside effects, EMP, hackers, power line failures, etc.

Riders of the Purple Wage by Phillip Jose Farmer had the same theme. Society had become so automated that a basic living stipend was paid to all, that enabled basic living. Those who were ambitious or wanted more took the few value adding or artistic jobs available. A ruling elite kept the sheeple happy with bread and circuses.

DDHvi wrote:A bit back, Poul Anderson had a SF story where there was glancing mention of a future society where the average family lived back-to-the-land, but earned to buy manufactured items by on-line work. There are some people doing this now

Yeah, but probably a bit hard to predict the internet in the 19th century.

The Mother Earth News magazine has had 45 years of articles on living outside the system.

Living outside the system is what my cousin has been doing as much as he can for a couple of decades now. Works well enough, but definitely has downsides i would prefer to skip.

There is always something worth doing

Definitely, but the question is if you can survive on it. Too often, the answer is "not a chance!".

In a modern developed society it is difficult to go "off grid". You have to pay council rates and possibly land tax on your property. There are charges like sales tax, VAT, or GST on the goods you buy. In many cases you get charged a service fee for water, sewerage or power if it goes past your property even if you don't use it.

Thus just shutting the gate and living by growing your own food, fuel and textiles is not possible. You have to have a cash income to pay these mandatory imposts. I see nothing unethical for those trying to be self sufficient to access some minimal welfare as it would be government money going to pay government automatic charges.