Paul

We coullllld just put electrodes in people's brains and make them 'like' working. Or hell, make them 'like' being poor. It's cheaper, and you can't beat the happiness Turing test: if someone looks happy and claims to be happy, regardless of the electrode in their head- well, you have to just accept the fact that that person is truly happy.

No, I don't. I might accept that they have an electrode in their head though, which makes them appear happy.

Real problems like poverty are only partially physical, at best. There are physical causes (Katrina in NO, e.g.), but it's mostly behavioral in my view. Meaning that we need behavioral technologies to ameliorate behavioral problems.

I don't understand who's behaviour you are talking about. Behaviour is physical.
One technology used to modify behaviour is the minimum wage, another is are the equal rights amendments, so are labor laws.

As evidence that free money cures poverty I submit the Pell Grant system. I also submit the Marshall Plan. I can give you som more if you'd like.

ah, If you were here I could have some fun.

alas as it is I think we will end up agreeing to disagree.

That Marshall Plan thing is a pretty good example, but I don't think it will really help you understand. I don't think you want to understand.

-I'm still not seeing why a lot of people wouldn't just quit their shit jobs and rake in the $24000 a year. Why work a really crappy job, tons of hours and stress, just to earn an extra $10-20 thousand on top of that? You can live well, really well, on 24k, I know first-hand.

That was the argument given about welfare.

I have never made 24k. When I did DSL shit for quest, they paid the company that employed me $42/hour for me to be there. I got $12.53 per hour. That's the best paying job I've ever had. It's also how a lot of companies work. I quit that job, that was my way of saying that I wasn't going to be exploited like that. Did I work harder at that job than any other? No. Was it more important than working at the grocery store I worked at? No. I think a whole lot of people are underpaid, and a whole lot are overpaid.

Really I think this is all about fair wages. The federal minimum wage is rediculous. The Institute for Fair Economic Policy said sometime around 2002 that the minimum wage should be $12 an hour, and that for it to be fair, that increase would have to be done is such a way to avoid iinflation, and other market adjustments that could make such a raise meaningless. The point is for me that the Walmart kids have something like 16 billion dollars each, there are 4 of them I think. The employee of walmart stores gets paid on average something about $6 probably if they are a clerk. What are they supposed to do again?

Well, I've gone hither and Yon with this post so I hope some of it made some sense, if not too bad. I'm tired of typing.