New Testingstan

wong interrupts by bedtime song time

Once you accept that morality is a social construct designed for collective benefit, then you see how nihilism doesn't work at all. Nihilism asks "why should I care about morality": a question that the oxymoronically named "individualistic morality" cannot answer except by inventing Santa Claus or some other magical enforcer. But social morality has a simple answer: "we don't give a shit whether you agree; this is good for society and the majority of us who have the normal tribal sympathetic wiring, and if you don't like it, fuck you".

"we don't give a shit whether you agree; this is good for society and the majority of us who have the normal tribal sympathetic wiring, and if you don't like it, fuck you"

i like how that doesn't make any sense and just introduces even more confusing terms he couldn't explain if pressed like 'good for society'

and 'society' for that matter

adr wrote:so somebody on the internet caled the employee/employer split of payroll taxes a brilliant illusion

that implies to me that if the employer didn't pay the tax, they'd actually raise people's pay (and then of course the government would tax it so the worker breaks even)


but somehow i really really really doubt that.

corrax

both are actually a tax on the employer, because the worker's pay doesn't come from magic but from the employer, and the workers will tend to be paid what they need to sustain their way of life, and the taxes are added on top of this

so if you raise taxes, wages will also tend to rise because the net price of labour stays the same

and if you lower them, wages will tend to fall

this doesn't happen automatically of course, but through through workers action and wage negotiations etc.
if they are not getting what they need, they'll have more leverage to raise the pay, and if they are getting more than they need, they'll have less

and if you change a tax that's purely on the employer, that'll change pretty much nothing for the employees, unless they can argue that they should get a higher share of the profits

RE : Greece and austerity :

[paraphrase of the perceived opinion of some people with green in their name] : "I don't understand... Why do the greeks complain about shit pay ? After all their minimum wages is higher than Porugal's one ! They should consider themselves lucky !"

Greece's minimum wage => inferior to €600 a month

Traduction : not even enough to survive given the cost of life in the country.




... Fuckers...

what is "traduction"

Whoops, I accidentaly used a French word. I meant "translation".

And I retract my statement as it was not really what the people in this thread meant.

I guess it's just that the pervasive treatment of Greeks (in the Medias and certain threads on TEO) as subhuman scum that must be "teached" "good and responsible" financial conduct through killing their own country and having their lives rendered utterly miserable is having me on edge, ready to blow a fuse at the slightest provocation.

Nietzslime wrote:i like how that doesn't make any sense and just introduces even more confusing terms he couldn't explain if pressed like 'good for society'

aye

i can't help but knock college here. a lot of those people did the whole college thing

"well rounded" my ass

ADR, why do you hate society so much? Are you one of them Terr'ists the Gubbermint warned me about on Fox and Friends?

I don't get the Greek thing, wouldn't most people be put off by austerity that impacts the standard of living?

Its like when we complain about gas prices, some euro comes in and says suck it up, its more expensove here. Yeah, but they actually have good transit and gas going up still costs us regardless of the difference.

I just want to put my fist through the screen.

so the way we say "state television" when referring to "axis of evil" annoys me. "state tv in iran reports...." etc

nobody says "state television in the uk" they just say "the bbc"

now tbh i don't know if iran's "state television" is managed like we do them here or canada or whatever


but the term itself bothers me

there's nothing wrong with the idea of public broadcasting

there is usually a difference between public and state owned television though

the bbc and others are funded by a "license fee" that's paid directly from the people to them, without having to go through the tax system and ultimately being at the mercy of the minister of finance

that theoretically makes the autonomous from the state and free to criticise them or whatever (though the state could still revoke their license to collect fees, so it would be wrong to say that they are completely free)


re: greece. turns out costs of living differ widely from one place to another and portugese minimum wages may be enough to buy portugese food, but it won't necessarily be enough to buy greek food. using the same kind of money merely hides this fact, it doesn't actually change the real costs of things

Dooey Jo wrote:re: greece. turns out costs of living differ widely from one place to another and portugese minimum wages may be enough to buy portugese food, but it won't necessarily be enough to buy greek food. using the same kind of money merely hides this fact, it doesn't actually change the real costs of things

Which add another layer of to the whole situation in my eyes...

Dooey Jo wrote:re: greece. turns out costs of living differ widely from one place to another and portugese minimum wages may be enough to buy portugese food, but it won't necessarily be enough to buy greek food. using the same kind of money merely hides this fact, it doesn't actually change the real costs of things

When I was in college, I shared an apartment with two friends. The apartment was huge. Three bedrooms, full kitchen, large common area. Pretty much took up half of a floor of the building.

Rent was about the same as the tiny studio my sister had in Manhattan. Because real estate in NYC is more expensive than in a Massachusetts college town.

Are people on TEO just not getting that? I've been avoiding most N&P threads over there.

Civil War Man wrote:

Dooey Jo wrote:re: greece. turns out costs of living differ widely from one place to another and portugese minimum wages may be enough to buy portugese food, but it won't necessarily be enough to buy greek food. using the same kind of money merely hides this fact, it doesn't actually change the real costs of things

When I was in college, I shared an apartment with two friends. The apartment was huge. Three bedrooms, full kitchen, large common area. Pretty much took up half of a floor of the building.

Rent was about the same as the tiny studio my sister had in Manhattan. Because real estate in NYC is more expensive than in a Massachusetts college town.

Are people on TEO just not getting that? I've been avoiding most N&P threads over there.

NYC is one of the most expensive cities in the world, so probably not the best example. But you'll get cheaper rent if you live out in Yonkers or Queens than if you try living in Midtown.

check this out

hour long video

two astronauts talking about the iss

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV5iUcdrPSE

cool stuff

be sure to watch and not just listen too

awesome pictures throughout

Zod wrote:NYC is one of the most expensive cities in the world, so probably not the best example. But you'll get cheaper rent if you live out in Yonkers or Queens than if you try living in Midtown.

It works for the example I was giving, even if it is an extreme example. Because it's all about a dollar there not being worth the same as a dollar in Upstate NY or the Deep South. Just like how a Euro in Greece does not necessarily give you the same purchasing power as a Euro in Portugal.

Oxymoron wrote:And I retract my statement as it was not really what the people in this thread meant.

I guess it's just that the pervasive treatment of Greeks (in the Medias and certain threads on TEO) as subhuman scum that must be "teached" "good and responsible" financial conduct through killing their own country and having their lives rendered utterly miserable is having me on edge, ready to blow a fuse at the slightest provocation.

It's not just the Greeks, though, seems like several of the mediterranean countries get sneered at.

Heh sounds like Europe's got it's own South too.

Yes, exactly. I am uprooting the entire tradition of western value theory, which I think is full of shit.

i remember one time when i was checking the dictionary to uproot einstein cuz i thought he was full of shit

turns out i was the real butt

edit testing edit

Civil War Man wrote: Rent was about the same as the tiny studio my sister had in Manhattan. Because real estate in NYC is more expensive than in a Massachusetts college town.

where did you go to school

uraniun235 wrote:It's not just the Greeks, though, seems like several of the mediterranean countries get sneered at.

Heh sounds like Europe's got it's own South too.

Minus the whole apartheid & slavery thing, though.

Oxymoron wrote:

uraniun235 wrote:It's not just the Greeks, though, seems like several of the mediterranean countries get sneered at.

Heh sounds like Europe's got it's own South too.

Minus the whole apartheid & slavery thing, though.

the nazi thing probably trumps that

Oxymoron wrote:

uraniun235 wrote:It's not just the Greeks, though, seems like several of the mediterranean countries get sneered at.

Heh sounds like Europe's got it's own South too.

Minus the whole apartheid & slavery thing, though.

yeah and the plight of the roma is the fault of gypsy culture