There is money in Slavery or Praying for JOB Security

Yes, you can become as slave. It isn't illegal to give up your life to another human being. In fact just the opposite, slavery is encouraged in today's society. We just have another word for it, we call it "Full employment with benefits." However, instead of buying slaves in the slave market as was the case a few hundred years ago, today slaves are bought on the job market.

Here is how the process works.

Step 1. Make yourself look good for whomever is going to be buying the merchandise. This could be in the form of getting better skills than the next slave, it could be writing a nice description of yourself in the form of a resume, or it could be simple grooming to make a good first impression on your future master.

Step 2. Find someone you think might benefit from your services. If you can't find anyone, you are not looking hard enough or you're not really ready to be a slave. Remember, like a used car, you can always find a buyer if you just lower your price enough.

Step 4. Show the person you would like to serve why it would be advantageous to have you as a slave. Like slaves of old in the slave market standing naked so that the buyers can see all they have to offer, bare your soul to your future master and show him why you will offer to give him more than what he is paying to get you. Explain why your whole existence up to this point has led you to seek this position and how you think you will serve him best.

Step 5. Respectfully negotiate your living conditions while serving as slave. Show how much better you will work if your master pays for your doctor bills should you happen to get sick. Explain how much more productive you will be in the rest of the year if you would get 12 days paid vacation instead of 10. Beg for better food and clothing in the form of more green scraps of paper.

Step 6. Work until your master says it's okay for you to go home. Work until your master says your work has not been up to his standards. Work until your master decides it's time he became a slave himself.

Step 7. Recognize that you are a worn out slave and hope your master still cares enough about you to put you out to pasture and not send you to the glue factory.

When it come to Careers.... It's all BS

Let's start by laying the cards right on the table. Nobody wants a job. Nobody wants to spend hours and hours  at an office day in and day out just to come home and sit in front of a 73 inch widescreen home theater system. People might get jobs because they want what the money a job will provide. But people don't get jobs just for having a job's sake.

It might be true that some people may say that they want a job for getting a job's sake, but what they really mean is that they want something to do on a daily basis that will give their life a sense of purpose while at the same time providing a steady income to pay for other things that give life meaning or sustain life. This is not the same thing as getting a job.

A job, or a career as some high minded people might like to call it, is just a simple market exchange. It can be a long term exchange, as when you get a salaried position with a firm, or it can be a short term exchange, as when you get a contract to do some work on someone's house. The purpose of the exchange is to provide some sort of value, and to get paid for providing this value. However, while altruism might be a strong motive when writing a resume for a non-for-profit organisation, what really motivates people's choice to get a job/career is the paycheck.

What is the problem with the idea that people are only in it for themselves, and only in it for the paycheck? The problem lies in actually choosing who to hire for the job. If at the end of the day everyone just wants a paycheck and no one actually wants to be there to do the job that you need to be done, you end up with a job poorly done. The only way you can actually make sure that the person hired for the job is going to do a good job is if you have some way of knowing that the person values the job intrinsically for something beyond the salary.

And so arrives the BS.

Because if everyone knows that the only people getting the jobs are people who want the job for some other  reason besides the paycheck, everyone will have an intensive to give off the signal of wanting something more that the paycheck even though all they really want is a nice salary. Basically, everyone will lie. And the honest people who just want to make a living will be without a job. (or they may end up owning their own business.)

The problem with this system is that nobody has intrinsic motivation to do ________________, people just want to get paid so that they can ______________________,____________________________,________________________, and ______________________.

Barack Obama, Corporate America, Rush Limbaugh, and others like them have people convinced that what they want is jobs and careers. What people really want is a sense of purpose, love, security, adventure, and a better car than your neighbors wife's first husband who only comes around on weekends. People are convinced that getting a job will get them these things because this is what they are being told by the invention of the unemployment rate. Why else would the unemployment rate exist except to paint a grim picture when people are out of jobs? Why else would such a rate exist unless one of societal. corporate, and  governmental goals was to encourage employment?

To summarize...And to rephrase...

I am sick and tired of looking a want ads that seem to think I have to make my dream in life working for their company. I am sick and tired of the only people being straight forward about the fact that people are only really in it for the money are the scam artists sending me emails asking for me to do money laundering. I am sick and tired of the concept of a cover letter where I have to explain to someone why I'll be a good fit for the job. The biggest disgrace in this country is not that so many people don't have jobs. The biggest disgrace is that so many people do have jobs.

Companies fear lawsuits. They fear the hassle of letting people go. They fear hurting people's feelings and disrupting their idea of safety and security. So they spend ages making sure they have the perfect candidate for the job. They waste time, effort, and energy looking for signaling mechanisms to make sure that they get the perfect employee. What they end up with is the person who can give off the best signals, and not necessarily the best employee.

Instead of worrying about hierarchy and hurting people's feelings, hire and fire till you find the person that does the job best. A seven second impression, a personality test, a college degree, and even the person telling you why the job is their life's dream, on top of all the other wonderful selection mechanisms in the world are nothing compared to seeing how the person actually responds when getting the job done.

And the job will be done, after all you are paying me aren't you?

(as usual... Unproofed ;)

You can say Anything! It will change Everything! A view of Possibilities And Orthodoxy

Every perspective that I read opens my mind to the world of possibilities that are out there. Every article possess within it the seed of ideas that make up a writers worldview. Every person writing something new is adding to the variations of possible ways to look at the world. Yet this thought itself is at odds with the very tenet of Orthodox faith.

The tenet of any "Orthodoxy" is that there is only One Truth. There may be many interpretations of that truth, but all these interpretations must adhere the the basic idea of One Truth. It is for this reason people who are strict adherents of any Orthodoxy will refrain reading works written by people who do not align with their own worldview. They will even go so far as to ban books written by people of their own world view if they think that the ideas expressed do not align with the One Truth ideology. The influence of unorthodox views can impact a person's adherence to the idea of One Truth.

Orthodoxy serves as a limiting mechanism in the field of unlimited possible ideas. Without social pressure, traditional values, walls of impossible heights, and a compass to show the way there is no way for a person to have any way of knowing where they will end up with their lines of inquiry and reasoning. Orthodoxy is man's safety net in a world of unlimited uncertainty, and a world of unlimited ideas. Orthodoxy tells a person  that at least there are others out there who adhere to the same logic. If the ship is going down, at least there will be lots of people going down with me.

Orthodoxy is not only something that is found in religious circles. Every human endeavor on the planet has it's own Orthodoxy. Academia has it's own orthodoxy with its peer review. Fashion has it's orthodoxy in the celebrities. Politics has an orthodoxy in the main stream political parties. Everywhere a person looks they can get a glimpse of people massing together and agreeing to "frame the conversation", to set the boundaries of what is possible in the current climates of life and the current ways of thinking.

Yet anytime one sees the masses of people agreeing to frame the conversation, one will also see the dissenters on the sidelines. These are the people that are willing to stand apart and leave the huddled masses, saying what they believe is correct no matter what the consequence. These are the people who destroy the Orthodoxy of today and make room for the Orthodoxy of tomorrow. These are the people who offer new ideas to people who would otherwise continue to think in one direction no matter what was going on around them. It is these people who enrich Orthodoxy with the various possibilities that are available. But it is also these people who undermine the whole idea Orthodoxy was meant to engender, a sense of safety and a sense of limits, and a sense that there is One Truth out there that can be known only through the orthodox lens.

It's at this point that I ask you, the reader, to reflect on what I have been saying. Think about the people you know who might be re-framing the conversation with their new ways of looking at things. What do you think the impact of their ideas will be? What do you think the impact of those ideas have been in the past? How do you think the existing orthodoxies will change due to the introduction of these new ways of thinking? Think about yourself, think about the way you personally think, perhaps you are someone who might possibly be thinking outside the box. Do you think your ideas have the power to change everything? Do you want them to have that power, or is holding your own unframed viewpoint enough?

Money Ideas?

I'm going to write a book about getting rich quick in the hopes that people buying it will make me rich quick.

Why does this sound like a bad idea?

Are we all just pragmatists?

Time after time, situation after situation, I encounter people that “get things done.” They argue with a sense of certainty that they are doing “the right thing for the situation,” as if there isn’t really any right thing at all. These people are called pragmatists. They look at the situation and determine what the right thing to do is based on what they believe are the special circumstances of that situation. This person deserves a break, this person needs a little help, this person could use a little extra time for special circumstances. Personally, I can’t really find fault with such lines of thinking. How can I fault the very thing that I do as well on a regular basis? No. The problem I have is with closet pragmatists- the people who at the same time they look at special circumstances they claim that they are working within a set system of boundaries. Hypocrisy: that is the real issue.

How can people on the one hand say that they support the Rule of Law and then with the same breath undermine the rule of Law by giving special people a break?

In a country that believes in opportunity for all, how can politicians go and create laws that benefit the few?

As Jews who pretend to care about right and wrong, emes and sheker, how can we go about defending people who are most obviously guilty?

Either there is a standard, or there is no standard at all. Once you start making exceptions to the rule, there is no rule at all. Everything is exceptions. Once everything is exceptions, aren’t we all just pragmatists?

(As always- Unproofed.)

Get Rich Quick! (Should I get an expensive paperweight?)

Just a few moments ago I had typed into the search engine a simple request, “How to make money fast.” I got back a plethora of responses all detailing the various ways a person could make money with out doing much effort. There were the letter stuffing jobs, the buying and selling website jobs, the make your own search engine jobs, the sell stuff on ebay jobs, and even the become an outsourced secretary at home job. Over and over one thought goes through my head, why would anyone pay money for something that anyone could do?

It all comes back to value. Way back when the butcher, baker, and coax cable maker all did the jobs in their job description. The butcher would butch, the baker would bake, and the coax cable maker would make candles. Then around the time I was old enough to realize that I might need to get a job someday, they changed all the rules. No longer would a person’s job description define what they produced; now a person’s job is whatever it takes to make money. Everyone is a marketer, everyone is a self promoter, and everyone is now a slave.

When tangible goods were the name of the game people knew where they stood. They were the producer of X, Y, and a little of Z. They knew that at the end of the day they produced something of VALUE. The products that were made were actual things that were used. Even software manufacturers knew that they were producing something that would actually have some sort of productive value. A better way to type documents is still a better way to type documents.

Now with the invention of “the cloud”, “the apps store”, “facebook marketing” and every other nonsense under the sun, people are being forced to pay money for nothing at all. And people are actually being paid to produce things that have no value whatsoever. Apps get created, bought, used once, and never touched again. Phones get discarded with increasing frequency. E-books get written, published, sold, and never take up one inch of shelf space. The book itself is never actually read either. The world is a shallow place, and the little birds of the world that pay for it all, a shallow people.

So my questions is these:

Should I pay 700 dollars for an Ipad?

Should I get a high paying job adding value to a company?

Should I pay $1 to rent a movie on RedBox?

Should I pay extra for the brand name? (The same Brand Name that spent extra on a commercial to tell me why it’s better than the generic store brand)

Should I pay taxes to a government that will use the money to buy someone else’s car and then smash the car?

I’ll wear my knitted cap under my black hat. That’ll teach them about values.

(Un-proof-red)

On the existence of Roaches

Some of the best ideas pop into a person’s head in the middle of the night. Some of the worst ideas pop into a person’s head in the middle of the night.

Why did God create Roaches?

What possible purpose do they serve? Perhaps they were created before God had man in mind? Perhaps they were created to mess with man’s mind?

I am of course referring to the little tiny roaches that scurry around when you just come into the apartment and turn the light on; those roaches that run under the counter just as you are arming yourself with a can of [insert bug killer spray here]. You know the kind I mean.

 4 months w/o an exterminator is really a killer.

I suppose when the dead bugs go up to heaven they can have my existential question answered. Though, perhaps God’s answer would be, “[insert godly sounding answer here]”

Values

Sitting in the living room at 2 in the morning, I find myself contemplating values. Specifically, I find myself contemplating American values. Obama has given a speech in which he policifies how he thinks American values should be spread throughout the world, specifically in the Middle East. I find myself asking the same question over and over in my mind, what exactly is American Values? Perhaps they are the values the American Heritage Foundations sponsors in High School text books? Perhaps they are the voice of the President of the United States himself? Or perhaps the values are the words that come from Fox News?

Frankly, I have no idea what makes up American values? I have even less of an idea of what makes up family values. I even have a hard time formulating what are my own values. (ok, the questions should have been in the opposite order, but then who can say?) What does it really mean to have (Capital ‘V’) Values?

The same old questions

Is it pointless to dwell on the same old philosophical questions? Eventually you find the answers you are looking for, or you don't, and either way you change from the person you once were to the person you are now. The new person you become is either still interested in the types of questions the previous person was interested in, or he is interested in a whole new set of questions. If the person is interested in the same types of questions he was interested in before he asked the first set of questions, can we say that this is a changed person asking the questions? Perhaps the fact that he is still asking the same questions proves that the person he once was still has not evolved into...

If I actually wanted someone to understand what I am saying I would probably say it this way: If you asked me today, "Why are we here?" and tomorrow you asked me the same question I would have to say that you are the same person you were yesterday. A new person would have figured out the answer to yesterday's problem and moved on to the followup question, "Where are the doughnuts?" The second question being a direct corollary of the first, plus a little demonstration of emotional growth. However, a person who continually asks the same question shows that he is still "hung up" on the same nonsense he was hung up on the day before.

What I postulate is that growth, in the philosophical sense, is the product of moving on to new sets of questions.

What are your new set of questions?

(un-proofread)