This is gonna be the thread where we talk about stuff

Show Content

SpoilerIs this a sound rebuttal? I lost my train of thought like 5 times composing my argument.

It is sound in the debate sense, in that you choose a value and take a stance based on that value and explicate how and why. I don't agree with it, but I don't have to; it's a logically consistent argument if you consider 'the right to the pursuit of happiness' to be universal or true. If we were going to keep this going I would respond with why I don't think that value is a valid one and why that interpretation of that value is flawed or unhelpful, but that's kind of beside the point by now.

Let's say you're already making your contribution to society. Is it wrong to try and make some money on the side off of what you're doing for fun?

I don't think there is, and in fact would encourage it in a socialized-capitalism scenario. People are going to create whether they're compensated or not, but some amount of compensation allows them to do so with less pressure or without sacrificing other things, which means a wider variety of creative output will be available for others' leisure consumption.

Of course, advertising itself is a wholly separate beast, and probably not within the purview of this conversation.

All I'm saying is that people shouldn't spend ALL their free time and money on things that serve no purpose but temporary enjoyment

you complain about strawman fallacies and yet you characterize everyone disagreeing with you as contradicting the above

Nnn... No? I neither explicitly nor intentionally-implicitly do so. Inasmuch as I said I don't think anyone who has ever been involved in a conversation like this has ever advocated "Do only charity forever", I don't think anyone (or few people) thinks that anyone should focus solely on hedonism or escapism or fun. Real people are rarely at one extreme or the other, and I don't mean to say they are. All I was pointing out is that the kneejerk reaction to most conversations that stray into this territory is to misrepresent the stance I took in the manner I described, or to interpret the suggestion that most people spend too much of their time and energy on frivolity and themselves as a personal insult (Which it's not! A criticism of a lifestyle, certainly, but no more of an insult than anyone with a held ideology pointing out when others don't conform to it and suggesting it would be best if they did.); nowhere within that exchange is supposed to paint people on the other side of the conversation as mindlessly self-indulgent or that disagreement with me is tantamount to uncaringness.

maybe the reason you suffer misinterpretation is because you frequently start on this favorite argument track

I feel like you may be conflating me with wheat to an extent here. It's certainly a subject we've both mentioned on occasion, but I don't think I've done it in any sense describable as "frequently". Maybe I have! I am more than willing to admit to cognitive biases, or that conversations I feel are distinct from this one don't read that way to you or others, but I honestly don't feel like I talk about this very often, and even more rarely initiate the discussion. I mostly avoid talking politics and economics and so forth with internet people because I know I have a tendency to get irritated and make the conversation unpleasant. Or I think I do, at least! You're your own biggest blind spot. I could well harp on this; I know others do.

p.s. what is your view on housework/child-raising/familial affective labor re: "making good use of your free time" and also re: being compensated by th' gummint for such

That one is... tricky. I have yet to form a solid personal ideology there, which I realize is a pretty sizable gap in an already-extremely-idealistic Utopia Plan. I do question the value of the family as the unit of child-rearing, but I know that I'm even less likely to find much support for any kind of redistribution of child-rearing labor than I am for radical socialism. I certainly am not against people having babies or making a home. I feel that the reduction of working hours by the consolidation of services and removal of competition and superfluity will give a much better chance to do those things and do them effectively, which is great.

If you mean "What do I think about those things in the actual real reality we have right now", I think they are important and necessary roles, and in no way think that having a family is a waste of time, if for no other reason than the positive externalities that come from children raised well and in stable situations. Sure, ideally things would be such that it would be reasonable to expect more from someone whose primary duties were in those realms, but that's not how things are now.

That said, I don't think that in the hypothetical society we're talking about that the government would be compensating family groups that chose to have children; homemaking and child-rearing and the like primarily benefit just you and your immediate family, in much the same way that choosing to landscape your property does slightly benefit others by raising the value of the area and making it more pleasant to live in, but it is primarily a task done for your own gratification and satisfaction. If we're talking about creche-workers, that's a different story, of course, but a family for its own sake falls more into the leisure than labor category.