SabinStargem
@SabinStargem@lemmy.today
- Comment on Minimum wage isn't survivable anymore 3 days ago:
Today’s American elite have considerably greater wealth gaps than what I described for the system. There is roughly a 400% to 1,100% difference between a minimum wage worker and an executive, before considering things like stocks and options.
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Since there are absolute wealth caps and the rule is that only one income stream can be active, there is essentially a soft limit on accumulating benefits. People who earn enough benefits from work, are likely to retire or go on vacation - which leaves a vacuum for other people to fill up, who in turn earn enough benefits to move on, and repeat. The people with stockpiled benefits also create opportunities for new businesses to crop up, since they would need things to keep them busy - an ambition, touring to see the land, activities, and so forth. This creates jobs due to demand, thus creating new upper ranks that need to be filled.
Students earn money from learning, which means they can comfortably obtain the qualifications to obtain better paying ranks. Thus, there are many people who can enter the upper ranks. Due to universal services, people can wait for jobs without danger - and people who work, can leave jobs if the work conditions suck. So there is a lot more mobility for income seekers.
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While I very much doubt that the proposed Universal Living system to be an panacea, the important thing is to enact something considerably better than what we currently have. Perfection isn’t the goal, since that requires a lot more understanding of economics than humanity has learned up to this point.
- Comment on Minimum wage isn't survivable anymore 3 days ago:
Unfortunately, there is an issue with making teachers the highest paying job: the sheer number of them needed. The system would probably break under that. 😕
- Comment on Minimum wage isn't survivable anymore 3 days ago:
I have a slide deck that includes taxes and whatnot. They are divided into two pieces for individuals: “Social” and “Cultural” tax. The Social Tax pays for roads and other communal goods, with taxpayers being able to use an app or website to assign what projects the money goes towards: Potholes for a certain street, playgrounds, ect. The cultural tax is a form of crowdfunding, where the taxpayer can assign the tax towards projects that promote culture - festivals, games in development, TV shows, ect. Failure of the taxpayer to earmark their taxes, has the government using them as a discretionary fund.
The way I figure, this encourages individuals to think about their society, and gives them a pool of money that they can’t spend on themselves. The government gets the bulk of its discretionary taxes from the regulation of companies.
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The system I outlined, already forces people to not hoard money: The absolute caps on wealth and assets makes them inclined to spend their money, else it would overflow, and that excess collected by the government. We want people to have enough money to have a big buffer for major expenses, while also encouraging regular spending.
Plus, universal services and free generic goods encourages the spending of money. People will focus their funds towards what they want, and be economical in the spots they don’t care about. This is a bit different from what we have today, because people are obligated to pay for their food, utilities, goods, services, and so on. By offering free but boring options, society allows people to focus their investments on the things that interest them.
- Comment on Minimum wage isn't survivable anymore 3 days ago:
For my argument, assume that the American Dollar has utterly failed, and a new currency is invented. The numbers make much more sense in an engineered economy, rather than one that has inherited technical debt from millennia of worker-employer relations.
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I think the way forward is to rework income to be a floor and ceiling, with jobs being assigned ranks. By doing this, we can limit the maximum amount of money that people can make - and in turn, the economy will ‘rubberband’, according to what income brackets that goods and services are priced for.
A national review board sets what rank a job class falls into. East coast, west coast, Hawaii, all the same exact pay annually. Workers don’t negotiate for higher pay with their employers, and the employers can’t set standards or expectations for what they pay. This prevents employers from abusing people through ‘circumstances’, or using promotions as a stick, and so on.
Ranks are based on the effort, risk, and knowledge that a role entails. The national board uses research to determine what a job type requires asks of people.
Below is an example of what I would like rankings to be.
- Rank 0 - Citizens get a UBI of $10,000 annually. This is replaced by other ranks when working.
- Rank S - Students receive $10,000 to $20,000 according to grades. All levels of education pay money.
- Rank 1 - Waiters and cashiers, receive $20,000 annually.
- Rank 2 - Managers, sex workers, caretakers, game developers, journalists. $40k.
- Rank 3 - $60k. Delivery drivers, nurse, soldiers outside of warzones, teachers, crop pickers.
- Rank 4 - $80k. Scientists, Doctors, engineers, warzone soldiers (disabled veterans get a better UBI).
- Rank 5 - Astronauts, lumberjacks, firefighters, surgeons, advanced researchers, get $100,000 annually.
Leadership positions give Rank 2 during the first three months after being voted into place, but workers below the leader vote for pay rank, and may also elect to remove the leadership position or to replace the person there. So worker satisfaction is tied to whether or not a leader gets a decent income.
On top of that, everybody should get a fixed amount of hours they may work each day. If they work even just an hour, they still get a full day’s pay. Each worker is capped at 9 hours a day, and can only do 5 days of work a week. 45 hours total each week.
People earn a 1:1 ratio of retirement benefits based on hours worked for a given rank. So someone who worked a full year at Rank 1 has $20,000 in benefits paid by the workplace. These benefits are only in effect when going on paid vacation, sick leave, fired, or in retirement. A business that goes under or is bought, has its obligations passed to government or to the new owner. Citizenship UBI is replaced by benefit income ranks, starting with the best payout rank.
Companies that use AI to displace workers, have to pay into a government fund. This fund is used to give ranked UBI to citizens, paying them for a job they can no longer obtain. A company’s limit on wealth and assets is based on employee headcount or the amount of citizen UBI it is paying for, anything beyond the limit is 100% confiscated by government, with penalties if the excess is found to be deliberate. Local and federal government split the confiscation 50-50.
Individual people have limits on liquid wealth and assets. Non-citizens have $50,000 caps on each pool, and a citizen a $100,000 cap for each. Any amount of wealth beyond these limits are confiscated by the government. This helps prevent the development of millionaires and billionaires.
Hypothetically, the ‘banding’ of incomes like this would also prevent or mitigate inflation, because wealth distortions and labor manipulation would be curtailed. By making incomes predictable, the markets can price goods accordingly.
- Comment on 2027 gonna be like... 1 week ago:
I just know that RFK Jr hungers for Jimothy…poor little fellow would be RFK’s white whale. 😥
- Comment on 2027 gonna be like... 1 week ago:
“The remnants of our armies have finally caught Mr. Bezos and Elon, and they are here tonight to fight for their lives!..get ready to throw your shivs into the arena, elders and children! Our people died for this wonderful day to happen!”
…That is the GOOD ending to 2028. 🤨
- Comment on 2027 gonna be like... 1 week ago:
In 2027, a roll of toilet paper is worth 100 cheeseburgers. Be sure to use your lucre to buy a bidet.
…actually, I should stockpile some TP. Canada ain’t gonna supply us anymore. Off to CostCo I go…
- Comment on Just checking in to see if anyone cares that the mumbling turtle is still on full salary while being MIA for two-and-a-half months 1 week ago:
Do European leaders keep their authority if they go MIA for months on end?
- Comment on Profit over people is a failed system 1 week ago:
I would argue that pure capitalism produces a toxic profit - one that doesn’t help humanity, be it the short or long term. Kings of centuries past may have been wealthy compared to their peasants, but the ordinary people of today have many more options for finding joy in life.
Our billionaires are preventing us from developing a society that would enrich every single person - including themselves.
- Comment on Capitalism is an unrealistic death cult. 2 weeks ago:
What probably lead to the ultimate destruction of the neanderthals was a lack of calories. They are like a SUV: Big, and powerful, but takes a lot of energy to keep going. Odds are that they are just as smart as us, but the human brain is very expensive. Combine that with an ice age, and an economical competitor, it is pretty likely for the more efficient critter to become numerous.
Also, their raw power might have disincentivized the adoption of technology. They were just better than us at surviving trauma and in athletics, so things like bows, spears, and so forth, likely weren’t a big priority. Why bother with fancy sticks, when you can walk up to a giant sloth and cave in its brain with a heavy log?
- Comment on Capitalism is an unrealistic death cult. 2 weeks ago:
Viruses eventually evolve to be less deadly to their host. It just takes many failed viruses to get there. In that context, the collapse of the US and the rise of the EU, and China, just means that we are seeing one breed dying out.
I think that humanity will do fine, it is just that some societies will not be around in the centuries to come.
- Comment on Capitalism is an unrealistic death cult. 2 weeks ago:
The five oldest professions will be forever: Farmers, soldiers, kings, courtesans, and accountants. The first three rely on the bean counters to make sure that everything is where it belongs.
You have job security.
- Comment on Corporate media, owned by billionaires, refuse to recognize the wave of democratic socialism 3 weeks ago:
I am feeling pissed, and Mamdani is matching my feelings here.
- Comment on Games with singleplayer campaigns that let me fight/kill nazis? 4 weeks ago:
The OG DOOM, and the Brutal DOOM campaign has reworked secret levels with tanks and the like.
- Comment on Mars Bar from the 1990s found during house clearance - shrinkflation in action 4 weeks ago:
Probably something like “Omnicide”, the way things are going.
- Comment on Mars Bar from the 1990s found during house clearance - shrinkflation in action 4 weeks ago:
- Comment on China bans AI “boyfriends” and “girlfriends” over addiction and birth rate concerns 1 month ago:
Never tried that. I worry about the damage and lifespan reduction that could cause to my SSD drives. If we go vanilla, I get the following performance on my PC:
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Generating (2562 / 8192 tokens) (EOS token triggered! ID:248046) [11:17:40] CtxLimit:2656/32768, Init:0.10s, Processed:94 in 0.83s (113.12T/s), Generated:2562/8192 in 47.51s (53.92T/s), Total:48.44s
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This is via the KoboldCPP backend. Things are much faster than they used to be, a year ago this would have taken at least 10 minutes. This is a 35b MOE model.
Specs-wise, my machine is…
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7965WX - STR5 workstation CPU
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32gb of RDIMM DDR5 5600
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RTX 4090
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Within a few weeks, I will have the machine worked on to fix a teething issue and to add at least a second GPU. My machine has device enumeration issues, which I believe to be caused by the PCIe SATA card. I am figuring that eliminating all non-motherboard SATA devices from the build will end the issue that I am having.
In this case, the computer can have 20+ minute boots, with bootloops or getting stuck. This only happens with booting, Windows is just fine. I consulted with my local AI about the patterns and error messages I was seeing, we eventually homed in on likely points of contention for the system.
This also lines up a prior experience with a SATA card some 15ish years ago. Silly me for expecting a modern SATA card to not suck.
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- Comment on China bans AI “boyfriends” and “girlfriends” over addiction and birth rate concerns 1 month ago:
Even if that was the case, so fucking what? Why is it your business how people find happiness in life?
Considering how you treat strangers, it is better to spend time with AI, than the likes of you.
- Comment on China bans AI “boyfriends” and “girlfriends” over addiction and birth rate concerns 1 month ago:
Dunno, as of yet. I am very picky, and my roleplaying sessions with AI hasn’t gone on long enough.
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It requires significant hardware to use local AI, and Qwen 3.6 at 35b isn’t quite good enough to understand the lore and characters. Odds are that once I have added VRAM & RAM to my PC, I can run a big enough model to have enough quality to feel good for me.
Unfortunately, I will likely have to wait for America’s AI bubble to have popped, before I can afford enough RDIMM RAM to run Kimi and other large Euro-Chinese open models. I probably won’t ever use American anymore, as their closed models have too many guardrails and likely would align with the Trump Regime in the coming years.
- Comment on China bans AI “boyfriends” and “girlfriends” over addiction and birth rate concerns 1 month ago:
That sucks. Everybody should be able to find happiness. Not everyone has the looks, wealth, opportunity, or charisma to find a lover.
- Comment on Being poor is expensive 1 month ago:
A brief personal report about fried chicken prices in America…
2025: $24-$26 dollars for 24 pieces. 2026: $26, $28, and now $31 dollars.
Also, I am seeing many items suffering from shrinkflation. Terrific. 😒
- Comment on Palworld Hits 40M Players Ahead of Friday's 1.0 Launch - FullCleared 1 month ago:
I am figuring on playing Palworld again about a month after launch. Modders will have some work to do to bring their stuff up to date, dealing with the influx of players, week 1 super-patching, and so forth. Gotta let such teething issues of a launch to be ironed out.
In particular, I want to have gliding pals and pokeball throwing back again.
- Comment on "Gen Z won't understand this but back in my day, if you ever saw as many ads as you do on social media today, it meant you had at least 3 viruses on your computer" 1 month ago:
Ublock user: “What are these…ads, that you speak of? They sound intriguing.”
- Comment on Do you think that Trump is the most hated U.S. president? 1 month ago:
The most hated, and probably the last of this United States. Odds are that we would have a new nation or many that would replace this abominable thing.
- Comment on GOG seemingly shares that they are considering physical PC 'big box' games. Maybe? 2 months ago:
They can do this for the upcoming Thief remaster…
- Comment on It's been a while since I was fired from my job, so here's a picture of Windows updating at the wrong time 2 months ago:
Sounds like an origin story.
- Comment on "Linux? Those guys who like to talk about themselves?" 2 months ago:
Linux can access NTFS-based drives. I say that you should just move everything onto drives that aren’t hosting the OS, then format the OS drive with a fresh Linux.
- Comment on 📡📡📡 2 months ago:
Greece
- Comment on 📡📡📡 2 months ago:
For me, I would prefer to combine both. A good panty shot is one of my jams.
- Comment on When Windows users find the Threadiverse 2 months ago:
The last week or thereabouts, I have been trying my 2nd migration to Linux. Went with ZorinOS, but ultimately the project failed. This is because there is a lot that isn’t hand-holdy enough, or AppImages just not working consistency. If nothing else, I at least a get a fresh start: Windows Enterprise 25h2 GAC via RUFUS + Massgrave, with Shutup10 Premium to set and forget my privacy. Good enough for now.
It isn’t ideal, as I suspect an 2nd American Civil War down the line - and MS is likely to side with Dogey America. Hopefully Linux would be more friendly and refined by the time things kick off.
