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TheTaxMan 
Controversial Thug
Group: Members
Posts: 874
Joined: Apr. 2001
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Posted on: Apr. 10 2002,21:59 |
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MattTheTaxMan: what I do want to know is why I'm unmotivated...
<friend>: b/c you haven't found a reason to be motivated
MattTheTaxMan: well exactly, bu I don't even understand the concept
MattTheTaxMan: why people have devised a system of government and this huge economy around somehting that is so effort intensive boggles my mind
MattTheTaxMan: -completely- unfathomable to me
MattTheTaxMan: I mean, seriously..
MattTheTaxMan: This "Republic" thing just isn't ideal...
MattTheTaxMan: and some many people think it is
MattTheTaxMan: some, so
MattTheTaxMan: it's not even close
MattTheTaxMan: people die because they work to much, how dumb is that!
MattTheTaxMan: it's rediculous
MattTheTaxMan: and it's all becasue of Capitalism
MattTheTaxMan: Whatever works I guess..
MattTheTaxMan: They all sat quietly, thier ears on edge, as an eerie silence prevailed throught the wood.
MattTheTaxMan: A twig broke somewhere.
MattTheTaxMan: (that is your que to jump in)
<friend>: Sorry about not responding. I was just talking to a hot girl.
MattTheTaxMan: yes well...
<friend>: but...
<friend>: it requires a lot of work to realize our human potential
<friend>: there are so many problems that have to be fixed, and not enough time to fix them
<friend>: and to make some sort of difference we have to work hard.
MattTheTaxMan: bah, they dug up the money from the root of the tree
MattTheTaxMan: to allude to chaucer
<friend>: I just think you haven't found the thing that you want to do with your life, the thing that you feel would bring you meaning
<friend>: and until you find that I think you are going to wallow in the pointlessness of life
MattTheTaxMan: only because a few people have to have more than anytone else does communism not provide a utopia
<friend>: not true. Communism provides no incentive to work harder
MattTheTaxMan: that's becasue there is no insentive
MattTheTaxMan: anywhere, it doesn't exist
<friend>: The USSR had the lowest rate of doctors in the world
<friend>: b/c they got paid the same as the janitors
**edit drivel about communism**
MattTheTaxMan: getting side tracked tho
<friend>: but regardless of gov or no gov, I think that even then people will only do what they need to do to get the rewards
<friend>: yeah
<friend>: we are sidetracked
MattTheTaxMan: why is anyone a doctor now?
MattTheTaxMan: is it only for the money?
MattTheTaxMan: if so, humanity is hopeless, as far as I'm concerned
<friend>: it's not for money
<friend>: its a mix of a lot of things
<friend>: most people don't go through years of college and grad school for money
MattTheTaxMan: what's the inssentive to be a doctor, I want to know
<friend>: some people like the fact that they can help/save people
MattTheTaxMan: that's what a lot of people do
MattTheTaxMan: ok then, Helping People
<friend>: I like making programs/devices that can help people do that
MattTheTaxMan: that's free
<friend>: but see, that isn't the only thing
MattTheTaxMan: what else?
MattTheTaxMan: $$$$$$$$
<friend>: absolute self-sacrifice is as immoral as absolute selfishness, b/c it disregards the self
<friend>: I don't what it is you want from people
MattTheTaxMan: it's not absolute self sacrifice
<friend>: you bitch at one end and bitch at the other
<friend>: you get mad at people for wanting money and are disappointed when they take it
MattTheTaxMan: I'm losing you
<friend>: the problem is we operate at a fundamental level in a market system
MattTheTaxMan: yes
MattTheTaxMan: exactly
<friend>: and they tried to have a merket system even in communism, but that is incomaptible
MattTheTaxMan: that is the problem
MattTheTaxMan: the whole concept of the market place is hugely wound about greed
MattTheTaxMan: and it's been ingrained into society
<friend>: but the thing is, b/c humans are always trying to get an advanage over their neighbors (call it a remnant from the state of nature)
<friend>: But we know that
<friend>: I mean, what alternative can you see?
MattTheTaxMan: well I don't
MattTheTaxMan: what the fuck, I get the shaft
MattTheTaxMan: you see?
<friend>: well, you aren't entitled to anything. You have to earn it
<friend>: I am not entitled to anything either
<friend>: I am working for it as well
MattTheTaxMan: that's the problem..
<friend>: And I think it is fair that the work I put in is the satisfaction and reimbursement I get out of it
MattTheTaxMan: You're going to be busting your ass until you're 65 and can't enjoy life nearly as much
<friend>: but I can. I can have a family and know they are provided for
MattTheTaxMan: when are you getting reimbursed?
MattTheTaxMan: see, you just switched to my side
MattTheTaxMan: Having a family and knowning they're provided for has nothing to do w/ greed
MattTheTaxMan: it has nothing to do w/ the market place
<friend>: but the providing of them has a substantial amount to do in the marketplace
MattTheTaxMan: and that's not a legitamate goal of the entire concept of capitalism as far as I'm concerned
MattTheTaxMan: why?
MattTheTaxMan: there are tons of people who are single
<friend>: instead of complaining about the system from the outside looking in I try to work within the system to get what I want
MattTheTaxMan: and your goal in life is to have a fmaily and provide for them.
<friend>: maybe the single people work so that one day they can support a family
MattTheTaxMan: I don't get it
MattTheTaxMan: there must be some missing gene
<friend>: ppl don't just give up hope on stuff like that (not everyday tho)
<friend>: my goal in life is to do something
<friend>: I would prefer that something be productive
MattTheTaxMan: and my goal is to live
<friend>: but see, I think that by doing something I define and ligitimize my existance
MattTheTaxMan: just existing is wealth enough as far as I'm concerned
MattTheTaxMan: This Quest for Immortallity everyone haves I don't understand
<friend>: well, then learn to hunt and mend your clothes and live in nature.
<friend>: I don't care about immortality
<friend>: I know I'm going to live and going to die
MattTheTaxMan: to do something productive and to have a family
MattTheTaxMan: immortality is met by other means than living forever
<friend>: see, diong something productive doesn't mean immortality
MattTheTaxMan: shakespeare is immortal
<friend>: having a family is just an ambition of mine
MattTheTaxMan: Bell is immortal
<friend>: Look, I could be a politician and go into the history books, but I just don't think I want to stoop to that level
MattTheTaxMan: the history of what?
MattTheTaxMan: I'm not just arguing for the sake of it this time
MattTheTaxMan: I truely don't see the point
<friend>: I dunno. history of our country. History of the world, if I'm underhanded enough
MattTheTaxMan: But that's just what I'm on about
MattTheTaxMan: It's always revolved around who stabs the most backs and who comes out with the most
MattTheTaxMan: how many people know who Edison was?
<friend>: I just want to live a life where, when I die, people don't say that the world is better off without me. They don't have to say it's worse necessarily (although that would help my dead ego), but they can at least say it isn't better.
MattTheTaxMan: well that's all good and well
<friend>: see, I don't see what your problem is with the world. I think that instead of criticizing it from the outside, one day you should try to actually become a part of it. The view really is different from the inside.
<friend>: I don't think that makes me any worse of a person
MattTheTaxMan: what does that even mean?
MattTheTaxMan: I'm not critisizing anything you've said, I just don't understand it
<friend>: I figured that out a while back.
<friend>: And I'm not mad or anything, just trying to spread my horribly unenlightened thoughts
MattTheTaxMan: whatever you say
MattTheTaxMan: I'm at a disadvantage
MattTheTaxMan: Everyone else I know has some sort of "goal" in life
MattTheTaxMan: and I can spout off what I plan to do in 5 years
MattTheTaxMan: or 10 years
MattTheTaxMan: or whatever
MattTheTaxMan: but it really means nothing, becasue I'd rather be "living"
MattTheTaxMan: which has absolutely nothing to do w/ having a job
<friend>: I just think that you really need to stop complaining about the world and how you are disadvantaged and say what you want out of life.
<friend>: If it is living, what does that entail to you
MattTheTaxMan: it doesn't entail anything, it entails nothing
<friend>: I think the problem is that you are too lazy to go into these issues fully. You only go half-assed
MattTheTaxMan: I only do everything half assed, becasue I have no desire for success
MattTheTaxMan: nothing I see in the future is worth the years of effort it's worth
<friend>: and I think that you have no desire for success because you haven't found something you want to be successful at
MattTheTaxMan: If I get an MD, are the 48 hour shifts going to compencate for the 20 years lost in school?
MattTheTaxMan: is the money?
MattTheTaxMan: is the personal reward?
MattTheTaxMan: *shrug*
MattTheTaxMan: the end result is I have to force myself to do anything having to do w/ "success in the real world"
MattTheTaxMan: becasue none of it's worth it as far as I can tell
<friend>: well, I think before you make a generalized statement you should figure out what you like doing. Hell, if it is moralizing than maybe you should be a philosopher. Try to study what the great thinkers have thought so that you can figure out what you think
MattTheTaxMan: the ideal situation doesn't exist
<friend>: maybe it does, maybe it doesn't
<friend>: you're still too young to claim an absolute statement (which is a fallacy of logic, btw)
<friend>: it may exist, but maybe you haven't found it yet
MattTheTaxMan: have you?
MattTheTaxMan: can you see it upon you?
<friend>: considering you started this off saying you are too lazy (possibly too lazy even to search) I don't think that you can cast it off
<friend>: Maybe not exactly, but I am not claiming it will never exist
<friend>: I stay open to the possibility at least
<friend>: If it isn't there, then at least I tried searching for it.
MattTheTaxMan: (possibly too lazy even to search)
MattTheTaxMan: so where do you get motivation?
MattTheTaxMan: capitalism doesn't turn me on like the rest of the world, it seems
<friend>: From an underlying optimism that believes things will get better
MattTheTaxMan: I've just digressed 40000 years
<friend>: yup
<friend>: hey, man, i gotta go talk to this hot girl that I was talking to earlier
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Four billion years of evolution and this is all we have to show for it?
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CatKnight
Jedi Republican
Group: Members
Posts: 3807
Joined: Dec. 2000
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Posted on: Apr. 10 2002,22:14 |
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*sigh* just give us the jist of it... I don't feel like reading all that
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[url=http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/d/b/dbl125/dfa.jpg]If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful that you can possibly imagine.[/url]
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| Post Number: 3
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TheTaxMan
Controversial Thug
Group: Members
Posts: 874
Joined: Apr. 2001
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Posted on: Apr. 10 2002,22:21 |
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Well then don't reply, obviously.
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Four billion years of evolution and this is all we have to show for it?
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| Post Number: 4
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editor
forum whore
Group: Members
Posts: 0
Joined: Jan. 2002
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Posted on: Apr. 11 2002,01:48 |
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Sorry dude, I'm with CK on that one.
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| Post Number: 5
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CatKnight
Jedi Republican
Group: Members
Posts: 3807
Joined: Dec. 2000
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Posted on: Apr. 11 2002,03:37 |
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reading a page of an article is one thing, but reading a page of a chat conversation is just annoying.
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[url=http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/d/b/dbl125/dfa.jpg]If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful that you can possibly imagine.[/url]
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| Post Number: 6
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editor
forum whore
Group: Members
Posts: 0
Joined: Jan. 2002
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Posted on: Apr. 11 2002,05:28 |
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I read the first few and the last few. Did I get the gist?
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| Post Number: 7
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EvilGenius
another useless poster
Group: Members
Posts: 273
Joined: Sep. 2001
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Posted on: Apr. 11 2002,07:40 |
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gist: (since i'm friend enough to read it entirely...)
taxman doens't like the fact that life has him in a bind, nor the fact that life requires effort due to our way of life in this country (ie. capatilism), as well, the greed in human nature that makes everyone do what they can for just another dollar.. the biggest point in all of that, imho, is the effort one person puts into earning their living worth the life they live?
my belief is, if one person really loves doing what they put effort into, yes.. but if a person half-asses everything and doens't really care, and that's good enough for them, then that's fine too.. who am i to worry about another person's existence.. i dont' care what other people do, unless if what they do affects my existence in some way, shape, or form...
my existence blows as well.. i hate where my life is right now.. but i fucking bust my ass to get out of this place, and live an interesitng life. and to me, it's worth it, to hell with what other people think of my existence.
if i'm wrong on the gist of things, i apologize, and correct me.
also, living in florida, we are at a disadvantage to the rest of the world.
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Keep really low expectations, that way everything is a bonus. -- TheTaxMan
In silence a man can most readily preserve integrity. -- Meister Eckhart, Directions for the Contemplative Life
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| Post Number: 8
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EvilGenius
another useless poster
Group: Members
Posts: 273
Joined: Sep. 2001
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Posted on: Apr. 11 2002,07:43 |
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eh, i may need to change the most important gist of his conversation to :
Is the life one lives worth the effort he or she puts into it?
(ie. ton of effort for little pay-off, and other such nonsense.)
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Keep really low expectations, that way everything is a bonus. -- TheTaxMan
In silence a man can most readily preserve integrity. -- Meister Eckhart, Directions for the Contemplative Life
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| Post Number: 9
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kuru
Detonate.net's 9mm wielding geek-hit-Goddess
Group: Members
Posts: 2566
Joined: Aug. 2000
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Posted on: Apr. 11 2002,13:46 |
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You know why capitalism works? Because it specifically rewards those who put forth effort and achieve by merit, and it punishes those who are lazy, put forth no effort and produce nothing.
Why do people go to medical school (or engineering school, in my case)? Well, in part it has to do with their interest in the field, but mere interest isn't enough to make someone choose a career - they're going to be concerned about paying the bills, about having some luxury to enjoy. If I could be either an engineer or a janitor and make exactly the same wage, which would I be?
I'd be a janitor. I love being an engineer, all the thought I get to put into what I do, all the rational solutions to problems. I love coming up with the answers. I'm just not going to do it for someone else if they're going to pay me less than my talents are worth. My education cost me (I'm still paying) somewhere around 80000$ total. Eighty thousand dollars to improve my mind so that I could do the things I do. That money was spent as an investment, to make improvements to me, so that I could shop my skills around in the market place and get a better price for them. Eighty grand and five years of intense stress and effort because I knew I wanted to be in a position to produce something of value so that I would reap a better reward. That's called meritocracy.
Now, the 'crap about communism' is that it provides absolutely no means whatsoever to motivate a person beyond the rock bottom minimum of survival. Tell me that I spent those five years working on my mind, undergoing some of the most difficult mental exercise there is, voluntarily heaping personal and professional responsibility on myself to the point that if I sign my name to a design and someone gets killed by it my career, my livelihood, is over... and then tell me that I will make no more money than the person who pushes a broom around on the floor and see how fast I change my mind about making personal sacrifice. When there is no reward for my hard work, I'm certainly not going to provide it to someone else. Maybe I will still develop my mind, for me, so that I can go sell my skill on the black market - but I'm certainly not going to give away my skills for less than they are worth.
Would I be bored pushing a broom around the floor? Possibly. But if I know that no matter what I do, I will always occupy the same socioeconomic status of a broom-pusher, I'm going to be a broom pusher. Instead of turning my mental power toward engineering as a way to not be a broom pusher, I'm going to absentmindedly push my broom around and hope that one day I can go somewhere that there is something called 'opportunity.'
Then of course, there are people who think that someone like me should work as an engineer and pay out nearly half my salary in taxes because they feel entitled to sit on their ass all day long, not have a job, and 'just live, man'. You wanna live? Great. Take care of it yourself and stop asking me to finance it through exorbitantly high income taxes.
I work to earn money so that I can spend that money on people/things of my choosing to improve the quality and happiness of my life. You want to skip that 'work' step and just go spend money?
Hello? Not on my dime.
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kuru
'dancing is the vertical expression of horizontal desire.'
-robert frost
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| Post Number: 10
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TheTaxMan
Controversial Thug
Group: Members
Posts: 874
Joined: Apr. 2001
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Posted on: Apr. 11 2002,14:24 |
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People always get so angry at me when I talk about this. My point is it's a flawed system and everyone deals with it. I don't see it as ideal at all, although half of the world does. Don't worry Kuru, I'm not on welfare or will I be ever. I'll slave over some task, mindless or not, just like everyone else is or "should." Do I know how to fix anyone of these things? Unfortunately, no. If I could fix one thing, however, it would be the way I think, because apparently, I have some fundemental flaw in the way I proceed in my life. I'm not claiming communism is a Good Thing because it obviously can't work. I'm not claim capitalism is a Bad Thing, since it's basically the only thing that does work that we've stumbled upon.
The jist is, Where do you get the modivation for it all? Why are you slaving away, just to slave away even more? Why is this an exceptable solution? And a new one I was talking about last night, Why does no one try to improve or change the way the way capitalism works?
Edited by TheTaxMan on Jan. 01 1970,01:00
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Four billion years of evolution and this is all we have to show for it?
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