Drinking on a Sunday Night

[mindwalker_i]

As I often do, I'm drinking on a Sunday night. I just got done making a printed circuit board in the garage - for the Atari joystick adapter, so I can plug in my old joysticks and play Atari 2600 games, or C64 games. That's a prelude to making bigger circuit board for my quantum entanglement experiment. I need to get the process down and make sure things work.

And it struck me: I do stuff. I make things, go to work and make things to improve the testing capabilities at my job, and try to improve methodologies, improve tools, and move the company forward. But America doesn't like people like me. They like people who, preferably, were born with money. America doesn't like or respect people who do work. America doesn't like or respect people who invent things. Capitalism used to have the feature that it rewarded people who did something cool, but it does so no longer. Honestly, I think that a function of the laws that have been enacted rather than of capitalism itself, but I still believe that a strong government hand in addition to capitalism, with a healthy dose of socialism, is the best way to move the country, and world, forward. It comes down to Darwin. Rewarding success, but making sure not to reward being born into the right place, is the key to promoting innovation.

Anyway, it sucks being someone who wants to do cool things.

[mindwalker_i]

4. yeah, tell me about the student loan part

To most, student loans are just a way to make money off pf people. It's not an investment in the country, it's not about making it better here, not even about improving the economy.

[SamKnause]

2. This American not only likes people like you,

she greatly admires people like you.

Money, or the toys it can buy have never impressed me.

People with skills, (construction workers, mechanics, computer techs etc.) and artistic abilities have always had my greatest admiration and a soft spot in my heart.

[mindwalker_i]

3. Well, I appreciate that

Even though I fell like America as a whole doesn't.

[SamKnause]

6. It has been drummed into their heads for decades.

Workers as a whole are not valued in this country.

People who work with their hands building or repairing things are not valued in this country.

People who work the land are not valued in this country.

People who work in factories are not valued in this country.

They are overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated.

If you do not have a college education in this country you are often thought of as less than deserving.

Physical labor has always gotten the short end of the stick.

Those in the arts have always been made to feel their contributions are silly or worthless.

The U.S. focuses and admires those with the mansions and full wallets.

They usually do not care how the riches were amassed.

They get admiration with earning it.

[mindwalker_i]

9. "Physical labor has always gotten the short end of the stick"

That's the truth! Some of us aren't geared toward figuring out the most efficient way of raking in the bucks - we actually want to produce something useful. We actually want to make things that other people might just want o have. The gall of us people!

BTW, spell chack is saving my life right now Booze helps me get to sleep somewhat on time, so I can get up in the morning and do useful things. for the record, I love the company I work for. My boss is a seriously cool guy. So I don't have a lot of reason to complain.

[1StrongBlackMan]

26. Actually, that's not true ...

It's certainly true for the "modern era" and western societies; but consider agrarian societies, especially on the continent of Africa, in South America, and aboriginal peoples, just about everywhere ... if one could and didn't do physical labor, one didn't eat and one certainly wasn't revered within the tribe/community.

[mindwalker_i]

27. They already had the short end of the stick

Hunting/gathering, or farming wasn't exactly the top of society.

[1StrongBlackMan]

28. It was/is the top of their society. eom.

[Aerows]

5. I do stuff too

I grow plants that make vegetables, sew things back together, sharpen things that are dull, and maintain leather products.

It's good for the soul to produce actual things, or maintain things that are valuable tools.

When you produce things, it gives you a good feeling inside of you. When you maintain your tools, it gives you a good feeling inside of you.

(Oh, and I do that as a hobby) My job is maintaining a computer network.

[mindwalker_i]

7. You, sir, rock

Being able to work with materials, maintain leather, make it look nice and be functional is a great skill - one I really and truely lack. Yeah, it gives me a good feeling to make stuff, and I really wonder what people in financial "services" feel like at the end of the day. What did they make? What did they do?

and computer networks are cool. I first put them together when Doom was popular, and, amazingly, I had friends who wanted to play Doom together.

[Aerows]

8. Well, actually, I'm a ma'am

and I was probably kicking your ass on DOOM back in the day

Do not let me get hold of the BFG9000 because I will ruin your world

And I agree with you. What on earth do people in financial services produce? They produce misery for everybody else, and are arrogant about it, too.

[mindwalker_i]

10. My apologies, ma'am

Rockets were my weapon of choice - had to aim them, and they made a big boom when they hit

[Aerows]

11. The best gaming moment in history for me

was Shadow Warrior. I know it was horribly and pathetically racist, but that area when everything in the fucking world is about to get you, you dive beneath the water and find the nuclear missile? OMG. Pop up, fire it off, duck back down. Wait for the boom.

Pop back up out of the water and there is one stunned wasp barely flying around.

That's the best rocket addition ever .

[jtuck004]

15. I was doing tech support on the Creative Labs support phones, and playing DOOM

like a mad person at night on our network. (Dip switches on sound and video cards and mother boards. An era of nightmares is over for most.) And because that wasn't enough, went home and turned on the speakers and played more.

That was fun. Total and complete waste of time. And fun.

Our problem is we make stuff, and operate things, but we can't figure out that we would all be stronger together, and those who do nothing but shuffle zeros for their own benefit are the beneficiaries of our inattention. We're too busy, perhaps.

[Aerows]

24. I'm going to keep a straight face here

You think Creative Labs "innovates"? Okay, that is a harsh judgment, but they hold a patent for one way of reproducing sound and use it to bludgeon every other human being that does it better than they do (which is everyone that tries).

Not to malign you, my friend, but CL?

[jtuck004]

25. I really don't give a flying rat's ass where you keep your face. You said you played

DOOM and I was relating back to the time. But so much for being light-hearted and friendly.

And where the FUCK you got this "You think Creative Labs "innovates"?" I don't know. You drunk?

You can't malign me since I really, really don't give a shit what you think.

And now even less.

Ignore.

[GliderGuider]

21. "Adventure" on a PDP-10. Later non-text computer games just weren't the same...

I've never played a modern computer game, and I also don't make anything but ideas. I wonder if there's a correlation lurking in there?

[DeSwiss]

12. K&R

The reality is that institutional establishments, institutions of codified thought, and institutions of societal influence and power, meaning philosophies, dogmas on one hand and corporations and governments on the other, each have a high propensity to engage in denial, dishonesty, and corruption to maintain self-preservation and self-perpetuation. The result is a continuous culture lag where social progress by way of incorporating new socially-helpful scientific advancements is constantly inhibited. It is like walking through a brick wall as the established power orthodoxies continue to perpetuate themselves for their own interests and comforts.

The profit mechanism creates established orders which constitute the survival and wealth for a few groups of people. The fact is that no matter how socially beneficial new advents may be, they will be viewed in hostility if they threaten an established financially-driven institution. Meaning social progress can be a threat to the establishment. So to put this into a sentence: "Abundance, sustainability and efficiency are the enemies of profit."

Progressive advancement in science and technology which can solve problems of inefficiency and scarcity once and for all, are in effect making the prior establishment's servicing of those issues obsolete. Therefore in a monetary system corporations aren't just in competition with each other, they're in competition with progress itself. That is why social-change is so difficult within a monetary system. In other words, the established monetary system refuses to allow free-flowing change.

We have to understand that government as we know it today, is not in place for the well being of the public, but rather for the perpetuation of their establishment and their power. Just like every other institution within a monetary system. Government is a monetary invention for the sake of economic and social control and its methods are based upon self-preservation, first and foremost.

All a government can really do is to create laws to compensate for an inherent lack of integrity within the social order. In society today the public is essentially kept distracted and uninformed. This is the way that governments maintain control. If you review history, power is maintained through ignorance. ~Peter Joseph

[daleanime]

13. ........

[hfojvt]

14. America, in general, does not like anybody

or dislike anybody. Lots of people like Tiger Woods, lots of people don't. Lots of people like Peyton Manning. Lots of people don't.

But, in general, talented jocks can become rich and famous.

So can people in the entertainment industry - actors, singers, musicians, comedians, commentators. Lots of people do not like David Letterman, but he still has a net worth of $400 million.

But it sounds to me like you do NOT want to do cool things, but instead, you want to become rich and famous by doing cool things.

[Enthusiast]

16. K&R! I bet you could fix my loudspeaker.

[mindwalker_i]

17. I might just replace it

with Rand Paul

[Enthusiast]

22. OMG! That would be awful!

[mindwalker_i]

23. Well, it would definitely be loud

But it would spew more BS than a cable news show (although not by much).

[surrealAmerican]

18. If, by "rewarding people" you mean financially ...

... I don't think capitalism ever had that feature. Our history is full of great inventors dying penniless. Capitalism "rewards" people who are great at selling things, that sometimes includes people who invent things, but not always.

[mindwalker_i]

19. Then maybe we should change that

You're right, people who were inventors usually weren't the ones to make the money. I kind of feel like that with Steve Jobs: he maybe took an idea that someone had and marketed it (well) without being the one to invent it.

I guess that what seems to be different now, is that if someone goes to college, learns a lot, and then is valuable to a company that makes stuff, the share of the wealth that the worker gets is lower than it used to be. This isn't limited to educated people either: people who work at difficult jobs that used to pay well aren't paid as well. The money goes to the top brass or to shareholders - people who don't DO the work. There was something posted here several months ago about an interview with a CEO. He was asked about the people working for him and said, "They're costs, they don't have any stake in it."

This is what's changed: if someone works, and works hard, they aren't valued and, consequently, they aren't paid. They people who are valued (and paid) are the ones that don't do or make anything, like financial people who basically move money around so they can skim off a percentage. That's dangerous in that, why would people then get an education and learn a skill that involves making or inventing stuff? In the limit, we would end up with a nation of "managers." Truthfully, there is some value to people who can manage and direct the efforts of others, as long as there are people to manage and direct.

[lumberjack_jeff]

20. Fortunately, that maker spirit is impossible to crush via mere economics.

Yeah, it'd be nice if making stuff carried more economic reward, but I find comfort in knowing that although posting stuff I learn may not be a big payoff for me, it might perhaps represent a small payoff for many.