[jimkleiber]

Well the essence of capitalism might be that people who own the capital receive money for owning it, not doing any labor on it necessarily.

So when we talk of people doing labor for money, we are assuming they can only own their body and receive money from that?

[34df]

owning capital comes with risk...

you may not like the fact the fat capital owner may not be lifting a finger, but they certaintly aren't getting a free lunch.

[mibsl]

5,283 workers were killed on the job in the United States in 2023.

The only thing capital owners risk is losing it and becoming a worker.

[jimkleiber]

Fair, I never said there wasn't risk involved with ownership. I even made sure to qualify when I said that people who own don't do labor, because often there is labor involved in ownership.

So I don't think it's a free lunch, it's more risk-for-lunch than labor-for-lunch. Maybe you could argue laborers are still risking their body or something, but I think the point might stand.

[irishcoffee]

The economic model is inconsequential to my point. Latching on to that as a boogeyman is a distraction, the point stands on its own.

[jimkleiber]

> Nobody cares, either you bring something to the table someone else can exploit for money, or you lean into “I’m helpless and the government owes it to me to take care of me because I’ve been indoctrinated into learned helplessness.”

You paint the economic model as a false dichotomy, and the main point of my posting was that it is not a false dichotomy. It is not either have a job (and be exploited by someone else) or be helpless and rely on government handouts.

For example, what if people who got laid off from companies were given significant stock in the company, so that they might partake in the potential savings and gains from replacing the workers with AI or other tools?

The whole conversation seemed to be about the economic model, so I'm not sure how it is a distraction, a boogeyman, or inconsequential.

[irishcoffee]

> For example, what if people who got laid off from companies were given significant stock in the company, so that they might partake in the potential savings and gains from replacing the workers with AI or other tools?

You have described less than 0.1% of the US population, not to mention the rest of the world.

I get it, you have an idea in your head and you're struggling to see past it. Read Brave New World.

[jimkleiber]

It seems that you may not want to actually have a discussion, rather just reinforce the idea that we're either screwed by employers or screwed by helplessness.

Fair, my one example on layoffs may not land with you.

But do you want us to just sink into the helplessness of us all being screwed or do you want to try to find solutions that might allow us to feel some sense of agency and hope?

[irishcoffee]

Dissmissive, thats a way to handle it for sure. I'd be much more interested in you adressing what I said. Dismmissing is lazy.

[jimkleiber]

You wrote 7 paragraphs originally. What specifically do you want me to address?