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kalirion: Would you be a garbage collector for the good for other people? A toilet cleaner?

Would you work your ass of through 12 years of med school to become a doctor and get compensated the same (i.e. nothing) as the guy who hands out (free) hot dogs at a baseball game?
I think this is a very good question to be put rhetorically. The point to highlight is:
What are you willing to sacrifice for? I sure as hell wouldn't bust my ass (I abhor hard work) for the same pay as someone else that does less amount of work. The prestige to be feel better than someone else because of it is part of the package. Perhaps less "I'm better than you"-attitude and more "At least I don't work in a humiliating field". It may not be politically correct but it's biologically sound. It's not about judging others, I don't really and I'm not rich or successful but if I'm going to work hard for something, I want to be compensated. Who would play a very hard video game for nothing? No achievement or the good feeling of accomplishment?

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Magnitus: So, I think it's fair I earn ~150% what someone with a non-skilled job earns (those 8 years with little income in my 20s were prime years), especially if that non-skilled work has iron-clad job security and sure enough, I earn about 150% what your average strongly unionized blue collar worker earns. That's fair.

That being said, I don't think it would be fair if I earned 1000% the wage of a non-skilled worker and I don't think it's fair that I currently earn over 3 times what someone who earns minimum wage earns.

I'm not overpaid, people who earn minimum wage are criminally underpaid. They need to bump up the minimum wage by at least 50% while freezing everyone else's income. I'd gladly sacrifice 2%-5% of my wage in inflation to see that happen.
You are way better human than I am. I would never have studied that much without knowing I would have been, more or less, guaranteed great pay with even greater potential as you rise in your career unless I was rich to begin with and chose a field I've genuine interest in but wouldn't guarantee a good income (like Philosophy).

That being said, it's hard to argue against the idea that minimum wage is severely underpaid (even if I think the system of minimum wage is inherently flawed).

Surely in an ideal, secular, humanitarian society we would want that those that have it the worst have it good enough. Of course the way our mind works, it's likely not possible due to rising standards and our will to have it as least as good as the average person as no one wants to be left behind. We also want different things. Maybe some of us are wired to want to be unhappy because whatever we would want, is inherently impossible (as in they want something that is simply not possible so the attraction of the idea is never over because it can never be accomplished).
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Rixasha: There's really not much else that stuck to my mind about Bojack Horseman, but this quote did.
I saw this one, too. Gotta love this voice actor, damn.
The quote? Cool and all, but what's with this thrilling ''pursuit of happiness'' these days (I mean, these last 150 years and all ;P)?
It's pretty much neverending in this so called era-of-everyday-pleasure, huh?
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Cadaver747: (...) probably wife and kids could give me some meaning...
Oh they will, trust me.
For me it's not about meaning and all, it's just another step towards a direction.
Gotta have a certain "regard" when the matter is marriage and kids. A caring one, I say ;)
Post edited November 16, 2016 by vicklemos
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mystikmind2000: You need an income to 'function' in life, but it doesn't have to be your 'purpose' in life,
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tinyE: Technically member of the clergy don't have an income but yeah, who are we kidding? :P

The Dalai Lama on the other hand. I'm whiling to bet he legitimately doesn't have an income.
If you don't need to eat, you don't need income.... I consider even donated food is technically income. that's a little sticky problem allot of religions like to pretend to overlook
Assuming that ones purpose is something given to them, and not something that one creates in their own mind as a "purpose" - which I would instead consider as a self-determined goal - then I suspect my purpose is to make a fool of myself. Seems to happen on a fairly regular basis, though it's certainly not something I aim to do. Hopefully people at least get a chuckle out of it.
Yes
This;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26U_seo0a1g
I showed this to my goldfish and he turned into a shark.
definitely no, and I think very very few of us really found it, while the vast majority thinking they found it in fact just delude themself and are not able to make a difference between purpose and small fake things that they wrongly consider purpose.
No.
Louis CK answers it the best for me, in a summary.

As a teen I had big dreams but as an adult it's all about the smaller things in life:
* spending time with friends and family
* being in decent health and avoiding injury
* eating good food and drinking nice things
* playing computer games, listening to good music and watching some nice films
* teaching myself new things, like languages, and doing my art
* going for long drives with my father next to me
* learning some cooking from my mother
.. and so on ...

When you are pulling yourself up from a personal low point in life every step forwards feels like a blessing to me.
Post edited November 17, 2016 by Ricky_Bobby
deleted
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kalirion: Would you be a garbage collector for the good for other people? A toilet cleaner?

Would you work your ass of through 12 years of med school to become a doctor and get compensated the same (i.e. nothing) as the guy who hands out (free) hot dogs at a baseball game?
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DubConqueror: You are using examples that expose the justice in the current system: a garbage collector and a toilet cleaner get paid way too little in today's society compared to doctors. Cleaning the garbage and and cleaning toilets is even more important for health, for ridding the cities of rampant epidemics that used to ravage them before hygiene, than doctors. While doctors had the pleasure and luxury of having 12 years of government sponsored education before needing to get to work after their childhood is done.

Plus work isn't just done for money. When cleaning personnel went on strike with the symbol of a household glove fitting a clenched fist, their strike was about acknowledgement and respect more than anything else. And in Cuba doctors take pride in their work, even though it's one of the lesser paying jobs in Cuba, their healthcare is such that it used to be an export product to help set up medical care in other third world countries.

The current system is completely off-balance, where you can get rich just by being rich and the ones who have the best chance to 'make it' financially are the ones with the best starting positions: rich parents that grant them the means for a good education, a network of contacts from their social environment that can get them the best-paying jobs, riches to buy lobbyists to influence the government.

Long story short: in the current system, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Let's start by creating a system in which excessive wealth is put into use for the common good instead of private luxuries and the excessively poor are sponsored to create a better way of life for themselves. If that should only stop at completely equal levels or if some differences are needed is up to question, but the current extreme differences between those that live on a dollar a day and those 1% of the population that own billions is really grotesque.

But where veering off-topic here: my purpose in life is to focus on what I CAN do to make this world a more just place and NOT to focus on those things that are beyond my power to change.
CLAPCLAPCLAPCLAP!

I couldn't have said it better myselft!
The only thing I would like to add is that humanity must consider itself a part of nature, not above it.
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zeogold: I showed this to my goldfish and he turned into a shark.
Huh, must have been a Comet.