You'll notice that Wikipedia article only discusses the Lump of Labor Fallacy in terms of Europe.

In the United States, things are a little different than the eurozone. You don't just get handed citizenship, you have to wait for years. Around 1/3rd of our immigrants are illegal, unskilled, and uneducated bumpkins with no meaningful English proficiency. Those folks have no chance of obtaining a loan, business license, or necessary permits, ever. And when you're not a citizen, you're paid in dirt and peanuts...and then the vast majority of legal immigrants will have no substantial capital by the time they gain citizenship, and any they do would go to immigration lawyers.

While some immigrants are absolutely job creators (I work for a company started by a naturalized citizen), the ratio of workers to job creators just isn't what you'd expect it to be.

Historically, it used to be the immigrants that created more jobs, but that was before the 1965 Immigration Act which increased abolished country of origin specific quotas. Most influx was restricted to 1st world western and northern european immigrants, who brought abundant capital, skill, and entrepreneurial spirit into the country. After the act, most of the immigration came from capital-poor and family-oriented (as opposed to entrepreneurial-oriented) folks from Asia, Africa, and south of the border.

The effect was quite immediate. Median wages adjusted for inflation started dropping in 1968 and have been trending downward ever since.

If we wan't to go back to a 1968-style economy and income distribution we're going to have to repeal the 1965 Immigration Act, and that's all there is to it.

Must be nice to have a government that allows a tight labor market to keep benefits high and dependency low. Our politicians adore dependency and buyers market here in the US...we've had more immigrants+graduates than jobs created for the last 7 years, making it tougher and tougher to negotiate benefits like that.

You CAN get vacation like that in plenty of companies in the US, but it is based on years of service. 5 weeks isn't terribly uncommon but you'd have to stay at the same company for a decade.

So you have to be pretty much done growing your salary if you want your 5 weeks. Almost nobody gets raises based on the market value of the experience earned at the company. Just inflationary raises if any. Even that is based on government reports of inflation, which are underreported to keep benefit costs down.

Miles per gallon is a 1-dimensional discrete measurement unless you decide to define something bigger...but blithely talking about "sin(x) miles per gallon" without defining what x is (e.g. a continuous function input with a unit of chuckle*seconds per beer*meter, etc) is absurd as drinking SQRT(-1) cups of coffee while running i + 2 meters, since we're talking about something that is not continuous by any conventional or apparent context.

And X/0 for positive X does NOT "technically" equal infinity. Rather it is a convention in some special-needs pre-algebra courses that X/0 "can be read as" Letting X be positive, take the limit of X/Y as Y approches 0." Which yields infinity...for what that is worth, only god knows.

</snark>

Exactly. BUT, if you're exempt and working more than 45 hours a week you are a chummmmp. So many positions out there just don't require it.

And not only that, if you put up with it, you are making the problem worse for the rest of us.

Seriously.

YOU are the market. If you are putting up with BS, then YOU are making it that way.

If you are underpaid, and overworked, and yet have put up with it for the last 10 years, YOU are the problem. And you're pulling the rest of us in the wrong direction.

I mean, I found what I was looking for in my current position:
* 40 hour work week (more like 38-ish)
* friendly, non-hostile atmosphere
* vary my time slot spontaneously and not worry about being "late"
* generous vacation (>3 weeks right off the bat)
* company sponsored outings for coffee and such
* getting compensated more than any of my other positions, even accounting for inflation and cost of living

It's still work, but work doesn't get better than that. But, to get there, I had to job hop 3 times and move my crap around because of all you fat whiny farkers out there who just sit there and take BS that doesn't have to be tolerated, making the rest of us have to go out of our way to avoid any employer you've slimed with the miserable inertia of your big fat lazy ass :P

Morale of the story...keep jumping positions, cities, hell countries until you find a good work environment. Every two years. Chop chop.

What's wrong with microchip?

Two guesses...

1. Microchip is a brand name. Calling an IC a Microchip is like calling a moving staircase an Escalator.

2. "Microchip" sounds like a disagreeably small snack. Quite the contrary, they are quite filling.

If someone is looking at college as something that will help them get a job or make more money, then they shouldn't fucking be in college to begin with.

No, no, no. Woosh. Look, modern Western society is great. Instead of a title being granted to you by some blue blood prick, you pay some stuffy bureaucrats to sit through their BS and take their tests, and you get your title at the end (Bachelor of Science, Master of Arts, etc). I think it is fantastic. If you want a title you can...get this...earn one in a fair environment! Just like the old crappy days, some titles are worth more than others (think MIT EE vs Podunk U Recreational Studies)...BUT you can have whatever the fuck title you please! All of them are open to you if you're willing to work and pay (or mortgage your future) for it.

Your realize there are a lot of butt hurt wannabe rich kids out there who went to "get an education" and they don't even have a pot to piss in? That is the double edged sword of being able to do whatever the hell you damn well please, and they are proof you are dead wrong.

If you want to pay the king...err...the bursar's office...$150,000 for the title of Duke of Wasted Drunk Mountain (for the education!) than that is your pill to swallow down the road. But that is immaterial...the education is certainly NOT the whole point. At the end you. get. a. god. damned. title. If you're a pink skinned ninny born with a silver spoon up your ass, that doesn't mean much to you, but to the rest of us who came from complete shit and are willing to take risks and work hard for some prestige and stability, it means a big fucking deal.

I showed up for the degree, and I have NO regrets, none. Education be damned.

P.S. New York has been in decline since the early 80's. That's why there are so many New Yorkers bleed blue, because Reagan's solution to inflation basically wrecked the northeast economy for good (hey it worked out great for the south, and they've been more or less solid red ever since). The prosperity that is left in the big apple is taxed to hell and back. The only businesses left run a tight ship...such is evolution, no room left for generosity. It'll be awhile before that behemoth dies, but still, there are better places in the world than soon-to-be-Detroit...err...New York...

How well has that worked so far?

^ This. When people complain that doctors only treat symptoms, and only treat patients using drugs and pills, there's your reason. No one wants to change their habits. Most people death march themselves into an early grave with the pills providing them some mud to slow them down :D

Great points, although it assumes no change in exercise regime. If you start running on a regular basis, the biological imperative to lose weight to run more efficiently (read: hunt more efficiently) is always an overriding factor.

Unfortunately a person with bad knees and hips who has been obese all of their life isn't going to get much out of that fact :D Calorie restriction without exercise *works*, but it requires willpower AND some kind of stimulant (such as caffeine, smoking, etc). The latter will drive other health problems if it goes on too long, of course.

That would be nice, but try doing that in the July summer heat in the deep south without showing up to work smelling like a jock strap! And lord help you if you took a dump after the shower. Haha. :D Maybe that works in Canada...

A discussion on salary isn't complete without also discussing the location of these immigrant workers.

Hint: They're always in major cities. National averages don't mean a damn thing when your local supermarket pays more for a meat department employee than your "average H1-B". Why do people see 50-something salary nowadays and think that is par? This is an engineering profession. Even the least skilled should be doing better than a teacher's or a cop's salary.

50k was good...25-30 years ago.

You say the idea of being aborted doesn't bother you. On some level you are speaking truthfully, but let us be more specific. That level is, to be exact, the surface level.

Quite the opposite. My views come from countless hours of meditation. It is truly freeing and humbling and sometimes frightening to look inside that far, but anyone can do it. It just takes some courage. Life isn't perfect, and neither is that. I have a picture of my last grave on my phone :D

If you claim none of this bothers you, well, I call shenanigans. In that case you are just too sophisticated to understand who you really are and too refined in your pursuit of approval from a blurred assortment of individuals (the deceit of which is called "society").

Approval? My thinking in this scenario is to make the tough decisions now, so that tomorrow is a better day. I'm never said making these kinds decisions are easy or straightforward, I'm just saying these things just don't cause the kind of deep pain you seem to think it does. Not to a path that hasn't even started. Maybe to the would-be parents, if they let themselves feel guilty.

This surgeon has reduced your life to the value of sparing someone -not from the pain of having headaches, but from the pain of having to get off the couch to take some aspirin.

Close to what I'm saying, but three clarifications would make this more clear:

I'm saying that we've come a long way as a society, with aspirin and cheap food as an example, and if we decide as a whole that this couldn't possibly have any dark implications for the future (reverse evolution) and don't do anything to avoid that, then we're going to get exactly that.

I'm also saying that "people" != "bodies". You're a spiritual person, so I'm sure you're acquainted with this idea.

Most importantly, it is totally different to lose your earthly anchor when you don't have a rope to it yet, then to, say, have a surgeon come for you in your prime years. If that doesn't seem intuitive yet, than just trust me on that, it is not a big deal.

I know this is a painful and personal issue for some, and maybe you have some regrets there, but this is unnecessary. Life is a gift. It can be taken away by anything, but it can be given at any time as well. If you abort one, and then have another later, it could very well be the same child, though it may look a bit different, have a different set of challenges, but such is a life.

That person, deep down underneath your comments here is the real you, the you I believe in. Whoever else you summon to respond is a murderer, and I will expose them as such.

What I'm talking about is a wholly different kind of compassion. One that assumes that, somehow, there is more to us than just a wad of flesh. Actually, that the wad of flesh doesn't matter that much. Yes, when you're self-aware, how your life goes down definitely matters. And I would agree that 5 months into a pregnancy is pushing it, since there is certainly some awareness there. But prior to that, why would it matter?

When I say the idea of my own abortion doesn't bother me, I'm saying I'd be fine with another, different life. And I'd be living it pretty much the same way, so it really doesn't make a huge difference in the big scheme of things. Unless some horrible deformity or disease got in the way, then I wouldn't necessarily be able to live life how I'd want to.

Its going to happen to you too, eventually. We all die. And when you come back, maybe you'll have to deal with a life sentence of disease or deformity of some kind. I hope for your sake you'd be one of my sons or daughters, because you wouldn't need to deal with that possibility (within the testing ability of modern medical science, of course), and if there was a problem, the abortion would happen at 5-6 weeks (been there, done that). No possibility of suffering whatsoever. Furthermore, I'd hope you'd do the same for me.

Hypocrite! How would you feel about someone throwing you out and replacing you?

Why are you ashamed? I think you're seeing the jaded outgassing of something deeper, and taking it the wrong way.

I'm not a hypocrite. The idea that I could have been aborted doesn't bother me. A life, any life, is what you make it. I'll share my reasons for this view:

I don't subscribe to this "one life" concept as being a genuinely spiritually valid viewpoint. Twins have different personalities for a reason, and here's a hint: it's not genetics!

Perhaps a lesson is in order: Before you are born you are not attached to that life. As you get older you get attached, and then you reach a certain point in adulthood where you get less attached at time goes on. The young adult years are the most vulnerable. When you get to old age, you more or less are used to the idea of moving on.

The next time you meet or hear about someone who isn't at home in their own skin, like a transsexual, think about what that really means. Consider you might have a person who maybe attached to some other life that they were enjoying, which ended abruptly. Maybe even you have quirks like this. It is certainly worth exploring.

That is precisely why abortion is humane, and "getting rid of stroke victims" isn't. No attachments. A blank slate is a blank slate.

I'm concerned for the long term viability of humanity because I'd like to keep living this life and many more, so to speak. One thing history proves is that society does not last forever, and medicine always goes with it. I happen to believe that our current basic iteration of society will be around a very long time before we would hit our next "dark age", long enough to evolve the entire human race into medical dependency if we go down the wrong path. Once society disappears, then what?

You may not agree with my rather game-like view of life, where "people" come from the soul, and coming back to live another life is a default, and everything is basically cyclical. But I challenge you to define it in a better way, that doesn't subjugate intuition with rote.

In the mean time, while you're figuring that out in your own way, I'll go my way and carve a cleaner, clearer path to future generations by being picky. And I won't force any of my children to live trivial lives defined by degrading, meaningless obstacles simply because I didn't make the effort to be informed or just couldn't make the tough decisions.

Because I'm well aware that how things look and feel from the outside can have no correlation with the amount of struggling going on within. I don't put any currency in how people feel about someone else's situation, because they'll think rather ignorant things like "humanity got along just FINE for thousands of years" when in fact reality was just a little bit more sinister, even if you just look at the tiniest details, like how we can just take an aspirin when we have a headache, or how an hour's wages, even at the lowliest occupation, will buy a fully prepared meat dinner.

That old, suffering world isn't quite dead yet, but we are making great progress, and we're almost there. And almost doesn't mean its time to get all soft and emotional, and cave in to the forces of darkness and randomness just so we can avoid feeling responsible for the world, and blaming it all on elitist programmers.

Well, if you'll put on your cyncial hat, the in-utero treatment you wish for already exists:

plannedparenthood.com

Some of these treatments coming out really make me worry for the future. Random mutations make their way in a consistent fashion into the human gene pool, and stuff like this prevents them from being filtered out. As cool as this would be *now*, given enough generations these mutations will disburse (ever wonder why so many people have blue eyes?) and eventually the entire human race becomes diseased and enslaved to these treatments.

I mean, come on...if you subsidize something, you get more of it. if it isn't strong and healthy, throw it out and pump out a new one. Its not like we're suffering a worldwide shortage of semen at the moment!

And before I hear one more sob story about how great "X" family member was and how they had the disease, let me remind you that our tax dollars are subsidizing the situation (many many times more than a regular child for special needs care)...yes, people feel the warm fuzzies when they encounter a less capable people who deals with their situation in a positive fashion, but that doesn't make it right, or proper.

I don't know, am I just too cynical? I think at a certain point you're gonna get a test result back and either you do the right thing, or you elect to have a human pet that is a drain on society (but nice for you). I think that stinks. Look around, we're already busting at the seams because there is less and less meaningful work for someone who falls below a certain point on the bell curve, and its getting worse as time goes on.

NT 3.51 was stable? Yeah, until you installed an update or a service pack, then it would blue screen. Or until you tried to move the machine, then it would blue screen. Or until you connected it to your Arcnet network, then it would blue screen. Or you ran heavy machinery around it, then it would blue screen. Or until you dusted off the case, then it would blue screen. Or until you tilted the monitor, then it would blue screen. Or if you plugged a shop light into an outlet on the same breaker, then it would blue screen. Or until you sneezed, then it would blue screen. Or if you were walking around the machine with hard sole shoes that made sounds when you walked, then it would blue screen. Or if a house fly got near the case, then it would blue screen.Or...

Yeah, like every other piece of Microsoft software at the time it was developed and tested in a clean room walled off from background radiation with 5 feet of lead-studded concrete, and with 5-nines cherry-picked hardware provided by the mfg. Why else do you think that all of a sudden ECC memory was a requirement for all servers regardless of whether it was a financial. Put it in a production environment? HAHAHA. No.

I don't think NT 3.51 was stable, but I do think memories tend to get rose-tinted over time.

Cue the Republitard-creationist onslaught of "this is proof of heaven" in 5..4..3...

It's official, Voyager has hit the map boundary and is hitting the clipping wall! The Matrix is real!

She'll need cheat codes to go any further, but what is the point? There's just an endless free fall void out there! Well, maybe it'll find some unfinished part of the map that got abandoned. That would be cool.

I'm sure religion will find a way to deal. Talking in vague code is humanity's best available toolset to make our limited reasoning seem more important and profound. Like how the pain of labor was caused by an Apple "of sin", even though everyone knows how much the glans resembles an apple...no that's just too obvious and mundane of an explanation....next up, Lolordz CREATED the heavan and the earth, and failed to mention the other tinkering going on. But he didst so because it was not our place in the house of the Lolordz.