Lolz, you are using a 16 hour work week as your base argument for a minimum living wage. I'll just stop there.

The people voted for a president who campaigned for health insurance and passed a bill forcing people to buy health insurance. That's not even remotely the same as health care and the people are stupid for thinking it is.

Furthermore, if you want people to take sick leave, vote for mandatory sick leave, not higher pay. But you know what happens when you do that? People just abuse it. They take the days off where they are not sick and come in when they are anyways. You can't legislate people into being responsible. Additionally, you can live off of minimum wage. It just means having a budget, roommates and not going out and running up a crazy bar tab, or eating out all the time. Its not the "American Dream," but its doable. Again, you cant legislate people into acting responsible, and forcing more money into their pockets doesn't change that.

Ok, explain why does the government owe you healthcare?

Hmm that's odd. I had a similar situation happen to me and I made it through without government intervention. Its called a budget.

Very simply, a society is a group of people working together. If you dig into the philosophical implications of society, you can expand upon this greatly, but ultimately its to make a better place to live for everyone in the society. The "rules" for which to define someones input into society are up for debate. I'm not saying I have the correct answer to that question, but I will say anyone who doesn't think they have to contribute to the society in which they live shouldn't be part of a society. And yes, people causing economic harm should be culpable no matter how rich they may be.

I am talking in high level philosophy, isolated from the other problems we currently face in the US. We have many things we need to fix including all the corruption you mentioned. My prior arguments are against the welfare state we have created because it is a big problem. As you seem to agree, work ethic is a fundamental part of a healthy society. The idea of capitalism was meant to reward those hard workers. However, here in the US, we have become a fascist oligarchy.

Im not saying it isn't happening. I am saying there is very little philosophical bases for creating a society that works in such a way. Here in the US, it is certainly helping our decline back into the third world.

There is always an exception to a blanket statement and in this case its altruism. That being said people in those positions are usually volunteers not getting paid or are working for someplace like the pace corps. That has its own form of reward and I would never say someone doing what they love or helping others is inferior to me. Also, I know plenty of people in that boat as teachers and social workers, none of which make minimum wage.

However, I doubt the guy flipping burgers at that fast food joint is doing it for altruistic reasons. Now what is it that entitles that burger flipper to a two bedroom house in the burbs, a cell phone, internet, healthcare, gourmet food and alcohol, a retirement plan, and to top it off a chunk of my paycheck every year?

There are really two arguments that can be made:

No one is entitled to anything. A fair argument can be made for this.

People who contribute more to society are entitled to a better standard of living afforded by that society than those who don't contribute.

I am ok with either of these really. The one that is harder to make an argument for is people who don't contribute to society get a better standard of living than those who work.

I have not met anyone making minimum wage that was not lazy. Period. When I joined the work force at 15, I didn't make minimum wage. It was a typical fast food job, but when they hired me on, I immediately told them I wanted more than the minimum and I got it (not much but it was still higher).

On the flip side, one person I know has worked at minimum wage for 5 years at 39 hours a week. 5 years! In that time she didn't look for another job, ask for a raise or ask to be full time. Any one of those simple three things would have moved her further out of poverty. I don't know what you call it, but I call it lazy.

That being said, there are people that cant work and people that cant do anything higher than menial labor (more specifically the mentally disabled). We can included safety nets for these people, but what entitles them to a life better than poverty?

And all the 4k Pr0n you can compress

He must be here to fix the cable.

Really? AC, you never seem to stop typing. Always with the opinions.

Interestingly, autonomous vehicles follow that same rule. They will break the speed limit when the flow of traffic is. So in theory if you go to pass a bunch of them, they would speed up to account for your disproportionate speed. Sounds like a fun experiment: can you govern a flock of autonomous cars by altering your speed? Program them to go north in the summer and crap on other cars and we have the AI equivalent of birds.

Brilliant! Lets turn the entire country into Camden NJ. Not to beat a great quote to death: They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Your whole post really shows a naivety of power, corruption and human nature.

Traffic authorities? As autonomous vehicles increase, traffic cops will decrease.

Besides if we let the government collect all autonomous vehicle data, we are in for some serious trouble. If they use that power to enforce something as frivolous as traffic violations then we have really f***ed ourselves over.