So, apparently in order to help their employees learn to survive financially, McDonald's partnered with Visa to come up with a sample monthly budget based on a yearly after-tax income of $24,720; I (per the usual) read an article about it recently and found it interesting how some in the media find so many people's financial situations absurd. Here is what I mean:
The amount allotted for rent/mortgage is $600. The Washington Post article states, "When I lived in St. Louis, my roommate and I each paid $425 per month for our comfortable two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in one of the city’s nicer neighborhoods. My then-girlfriend was paying less than $500 a month for a one-bedroom apartment." Um, this is exactly true for me! (It helps that I live in St. Louis) My roommate and I currently pay exactly $425 for exactly such an apartment in exactly such a location. And my last apartment, which was one-bedroom, never reached $500 in rent even with increases every year for five years.
Now, for someone living in New York, L.A./San Francisco, Dallas, Phoenix, etc., no, you will not find great apartments on the cheap - but a McDonald's worker likely has quite a different living situation figured out that has nothing to do with renting a great condo overlooking Lake Michigan, or even living alone at all. The article says quite nicely, "Gawker’s Neil Casey calls $600 per month for rent a “laughably small” figure, but Casey should spend more time outside the Northeast Corridor."
Other items in the budget are: $100 for savings, $150 for car payment, $90 for electric, and $100 for "other." The daily spending goal is $27. Matthew Yglesias, in a Slate article, says, "your $27 dollars a day needs to cover your gasoline, and minor details like food and clothing along with entertainment."
Here's the deal: once my bills are paid, I can live on $27 a day. This doesn't mean that I won't go over or that there are never emergencies; but it's the goal. I didn't spend a dime today! Didn't need to. There's gas in my tank and food in my cupboards. I didn't need anything so I didn't buy anything. And in a few days when I see something I want, I'll feel comfortable buying it because I know I've been frugal.
And what's wrong with living within one's means? We all know that in the largest cities, the cost of living is much higher, and generally, wages reflect that. But why are clothing and entertainment and dining out always considered so important? Aren't there other ways to spend one's time? Sure there are. Read a book; watch a DVD you already own and really like; go jogging; become addicted to Pinterest; start a blog; visit your elders; tutor schoolkids; volunteer at the food pantry. And on, and on, and on. None of those things cost a cent beyond the cost of gas.
There was a time when people only ate the food they had grown, wore the clothes they had sewn, and relied on each other for conversation and diversion. None of us has ever lived such a life and so we don't realize that it's possible to be fulfilled - and make ends meet - without a really nice salary and material goods.
There is one small catch, however: this sample budget assumes that the fast food employee has another job. Because you know they're not making $13 and $14 flipping burgers. Which opens up a whole other conversation: if McDonald's knows that they don't pay livable wages, why even put on the pretense? Why insult your workers by saying, 'Here's how to live well financially - but work another full-time job.' Perhaps they're presuming their workers live in a two-income household??
Anyway, I found the sample budget (minus the second job assumption) to be quite realistic and normal, and also something that those above lower-middle class obviously find hard to comprehend. This is the reality, folks. This is the majority now. The middle class is disappearing; the depth of greed to which businesses and corporations have sunk since 2008 is absolutely mind-boggling, and affects every one of us even if not directly. It's time to simply start living within our means and learning to find fulfillment beyond the dollar, because the country's situation isn't going to change any time soon.
Editor's note (hee hee): obviously the above scenario is not ideal for those with children or those with more than their share of credit card debt. Or both. There are plenty of situations, in fact, in which the sample budget falls short, but the point of the blog post is living within one's means.
Showing posts with label in the news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label in the news. Show all posts
8.07.2013
Who wants to live forever?
Doesn't matter. Futurists, scientists, and multimillionaires are hard at work finding ways to ensure that a pesky thing like the life cycle becomes obsolete. I read with much interest an article on livescience.com about the Global Future 2045 International Congress held in New York this past June, during which much ado was made about uploading human brains so that our minds can live on well past our 'best by' date.
I will quote directly:
But would such a mindclone be alive? Rothblatt thinks so. She cited one definition of life as a self-replicating code that maintains itself against disorder.* Some critics have shunned what Rothblatt called "spooky Cartesian dualism," arguing that the mind must be embedded in biology. On the contrary, software and hardware are as good as wet ware, or biological materials, she argued.
I will quote directly:
[Martine] Rothblatt introduced the concept of "mindclones" — digital versions of humans that can live forever. She described how the mind clones are created from a "mindfile," a sort of online repository of our personalities, which she argued humans already have (in the form of Facebook, for example). This mindfile would be run on "mindware," a kind of software for consciousness. "The first company that develops mindware will have [as much success as] a thousand Googles," Rothblatt said.
But would such a mindclone be alive? Rothblatt thinks so. She cited one definition of life as a self-replicating code that maintains itself against disorder.* Some critics have shunned what Rothblatt called "spooky Cartesian dualism," arguing that the mind must be embedded in biology. On the contrary, software and hardware are as good as wet ware, or biological materials, she argued.
The title of her talk? "The Purpose of Biotechnology is the End of Death."
The concept isn't startlingly new; in this summer's Man of Steel, Jor-El is no longer a hologram in the Fortress of Solitude by way of a crystal - he is his actual consciousness uploaded into a ship's mainframe (via pretty much a flash drive). The father that Clark Kent interacts with is a three-dimensional digital clone, with Jor-El's memories, personality, and love.
Further:
By 2045, "based on conservative estimates of the amount of computation you need to functionally simulate a human brain, we'll be able to expand the scope of our intelligence a billion-fold," [Ray] Kurzweil said.
[Dmitry] Itskov and other so-called "transhumanists" interpret this impending singularity as digital immortality. Specifically, they believe that in a few decades, humans will be able to upload their minds to a computer, transcending the need for a biological body. The idea sounds like sci-fi, and it is — at least for now. The reality, however, is that neural engineering is making significant strides toward modeling the brain and developing technologies to restore or replace some of its biological functions.
So, if someone wishes to surpass their mortal limitations - or even if perhaps they are paralyzed and somehow medical science is not quite up to par yet - they can upload their mind and live in a computer. Or something.
I'm no Luddite; this stuff sounds pretty cool. But I do have two main contentions.
Regardless of the speed and complexity that computers achieve in the future, how can we leave biology out of the picture and still believe that total replication of the human mind is possible? It has been incredibly helpful to describe brains in computational terms, but brains are not only computers, and they are not digital, and they certainly weren't created by man. Any mind clone will only ever be a cold calculation, a shadow of the person it claims to be. If people are okay with that, fine; pull up that creepy avatar of your grandmother and shoot the breeze.
Shakespeare's Hamlet said that death is the undiscovered country "from whose bourne no traveler returns." Ultimately we fear death because we have no idea what truly comes next - or because the idea of total annihilation is unacceptable. We will always try to find ways to cheat death, but is that really the answer? Sometimes things are the way they are because that's the way things are. Death is awful - but it also gives live all of its meaning. Perhaps if we focused more of our energy on living correctly and preparing for the end, facing it instead of running from it, we wouldn't be so scared.
But, I could be wrong. In 2045, or later, mind clones might be beautiful digital copies of loved ones we otherwise would never speak to again. In the year 2525 my consciousness just may be tooling around in a digital neighborhood with my digital consciousness friends, reminiscing on the days when most of the population still lived on Earth instead of scattered across the Milky Way.
Only time will tell.
*as opposed to, say, an unborn child
9.21.2010
Video game school? GREAT IDEA.
I stumbled across this fascinating article in the New York Times Magazine about a school in New York City (of course, where else?) named Quest to Learn that uses video games as a central educational resource. There are so many different facets of life and education that the article directly and indirectly touches on, that this blog post will probably become over-long, but hey, where else am I going to post this?
What I want the reader to understand is that I'm not anti-video game. Dear God, the hours and hours I spent in the days before worries playing on systems from the Atari 2600 to the XBox 360. I also am not saying that a video game design course couldn't be integrated into existing curriculums and used interdisciplinarily to great effect. It's just that some of the ideas and philosophies driving the Quest to Learn school indicate what amounts to a scrubbing of all pre-21st century pedagogy in favor of funneling learning through video games.
Video games, essentially, teach us how to be more robotically functioning - greater response time! improved dexterity! increased peripheral vision! There has always been a decision-making function. In the great, old Atari game Pitfall it was, should I cross the lake by hopping on the croc heads or by swinging on that there vine? Decisions happen every day, nearly every instant, as physicists in favor of the infinite universes theory can tell you. So while video games can give us improved military skills and heap more decision-making on us, what they fail fundamentally to be able to teach us is the why in life.
Let's get to the thick of things. The article states, "In a speech given the day before the start of the 2009 G-20 economic summit, Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, offered his own tacit approval, suggesting that playing video games, especially online multiplayer games, fosters collaboration, and that collaboration, in turn, fosters innovation — making it good training for a career in technology. 'Everything in the future online is going to look like a multiplayer game,” Schmidt said. 'If I were 15 years old, that’s what I’d be doing right now.'"
But that's just it, Eric - I'm not 15. Nor are about five billion other people on the planet. Just because video games are fun, and because there are grown-ups who find dealing with them easier than dealing with being a grown-up, does not mean that a diversion meant primarily for people who don't have responsibilities 18 hours out of the day is suddenly supposed to be all we ever do and see.
What I want the reader to understand is that I'm not anti-video game. Dear God, the hours and hours I spent in the days before worries playing on systems from the Atari 2600 to the XBox 360. I also am not saying that a video game design course couldn't be integrated into existing curriculums and used interdisciplinarily to great effect. It's just that some of the ideas and philosophies driving the Quest to Learn school indicate what amounts to a scrubbing of all pre-21st century pedagogy in favor of funneling learning through video games.
Video games, essentially, teach us how to be more robotically functioning - greater response time! improved dexterity! increased peripheral vision! There has always been a decision-making function. In the great, old Atari game Pitfall it was, should I cross the lake by hopping on the croc heads or by swinging on that there vine? Decisions happen every day, nearly every instant, as physicists in favor of the infinite universes theory can tell you. So while video games can give us improved military skills and heap more decision-making on us, what they fail fundamentally to be able to teach us is the why in life.
Let's get to the thick of things. The article states, "In a speech given the day before the start of the 2009 G-20 economic summit, Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, offered his own tacit approval, suggesting that playing video games, especially online multiplayer games, fosters collaboration, and that collaboration, in turn, fosters innovation — making it good training for a career in technology. 'Everything in the future online is going to look like a multiplayer game,” Schmidt said. 'If I were 15 years old, that’s what I’d be doing right now.'"
But that's just it, Eric - I'm not 15. Nor are about five billion other people on the planet. Just because video games are fun, and because there are grown-ups who find dealing with them easier than dealing with being a grown-up, does not mean that a diversion meant primarily for people who don't have responsibilities 18 hours out of the day is suddenly supposed to be all we ever do and see.
8.10.2010
The current crisis in American job searches.
So you all know how I feel about the job search process.
One of the featured articles on Yahoo today talks about companies strangely not being able to hire middle-level workers (since those were the jobs that were hysterically slashed when the economy took a fall). There are plenty of reasons offered in the article, and I'll let you read it if you want, but the best part about it happened to be the comments section. I'm not a huge fan of these comment sections returning, because so many people are legitimately amoral, racist, sexist, or just stupid, and I hated wasting my time reading past their garbage before and I hate it now. Fortunately, many of the comments for this article actually pertain intelligently to the subject.
People everywhere are angry at the current hiring practices companies have adopted. One commenter really preached it: "I don't want to hear another word from employers griping about not being able to fill positions when they do NOT give the common courtesy of letting candidates know that they have even received application information. They don't return phone calls, they don't want to be contacted, they don't want to pay a fair wage, they don't want to offer benefits, and they certainly don't want to come clean about any going concern issues."
How in the world has it become acceptable to completely ignore the online applications that are submitted, especially when it's most times the only method we have of applying? At my last job we got so many online apps and if we weren't hiring, there was no way to contact them and let them know. We just had to ignore it, delete it from the e-mail system. But the places that are hiring, that have put out ads on Monster and CareerBuilder and so on, can't they at least extend the courtesy of sending a form e-mail that says "thanks for applying"??
And they don't want to be contacted! I have submitted almost 18 online applications and only ONE gave me, in the process, a name and number for a contact. Everyone else - screw you, we don't want to hear from you, we don't give a shit about you.
Another complaint from a commenter was that positions are being eliminated and then combined at a lower salary. His former company laid off a slew of people, then started combining their disparate positions into one and put out ads looking for not only one person to do the job of three or more people, but to do it for much less pay. His theory is that it was done to keep padding the pockets of the top dogs - and it's hard to argue with that. But also...why are Americans being asked to keep taking lower-paying jobs? It should be obvious that employers don't want to pay us what we're worth anymore - that degreed people end up making $25,000 a year or less which is a CRIME - and then they sit around and contribute to articles complaining about how jobs aren't being filled.
I checked in with my temp agency today and the two or three positions they had available only paid nine or ten dollars an hour. I felt bad telling the lady that I just can't go that low, but after reading all the comments from the people at the article, I don't so much now. I have no savings, therefore I have to re-enter the work force in a place that allows me to become financially independent once again. And I won't apologize for that.
I wish I had a proper conclusion for this post, but there are no words to sum up how I feel at this point.
One of the featured articles on Yahoo today talks about companies strangely not being able to hire middle-level workers (since those were the jobs that were hysterically slashed when the economy took a fall). There are plenty of reasons offered in the article, and I'll let you read it if you want, but the best part about it happened to be the comments section. I'm not a huge fan of these comment sections returning, because so many people are legitimately amoral, racist, sexist, or just stupid, and I hated wasting my time reading past their garbage before and I hate it now. Fortunately, many of the comments for this article actually pertain intelligently to the subject.
People everywhere are angry at the current hiring practices companies have adopted. One commenter really preached it: "I don't want to hear another word from employers griping about not being able to fill positions when they do NOT give the common courtesy of letting candidates know that they have even received application information. They don't return phone calls, they don't want to be contacted, they don't want to pay a fair wage, they don't want to offer benefits, and they certainly don't want to come clean about any going concern issues."
How in the world has it become acceptable to completely ignore the online applications that are submitted, especially when it's most times the only method we have of applying? At my last job we got so many online apps and if we weren't hiring, there was no way to contact them and let them know. We just had to ignore it, delete it from the e-mail system. But the places that are hiring, that have put out ads on Monster and CareerBuilder and so on, can't they at least extend the courtesy of sending a form e-mail that says "thanks for applying"??
And they don't want to be contacted! I have submitted almost 18 online applications and only ONE gave me, in the process, a name and number for a contact. Everyone else - screw you, we don't want to hear from you, we don't give a shit about you.
Another complaint from a commenter was that positions are being eliminated and then combined at a lower salary. His former company laid off a slew of people, then started combining their disparate positions into one and put out ads looking for not only one person to do the job of three or more people, but to do it for much less pay. His theory is that it was done to keep padding the pockets of the top dogs - and it's hard to argue with that. But also...why are Americans being asked to keep taking lower-paying jobs? It should be obvious that employers don't want to pay us what we're worth anymore - that degreed people end up making $25,000 a year or less which is a CRIME - and then they sit around and contribute to articles complaining about how jobs aren't being filled.
I checked in with my temp agency today and the two or three positions they had available only paid nine or ten dollars an hour. I felt bad telling the lady that I just can't go that low, but after reading all the comments from the people at the article, I don't so much now. I have no savings, therefore I have to re-enter the work force in a place that allows me to become financially independent once again. And I won't apologize for that.
I wish I had a proper conclusion for this post, but there are no words to sum up how I feel at this point.
2.10.2010
When things go terribly wrong: Human Body Edition.
Lately I've been hearing about physical disorders that people unfortunately suffer, and it's pretty fascinating reading up on them. Granted, the reading is courtesy of Wikipedia, and I know that it's not the most reliable source, but then again, I'm not getting paid.
Today it was Kleine-Levin syndrome, dubbed "sleeping beauty syndrome." Read the wiki article here. Sufferers experience episodes anywhere from every couple of years to every couple of weeks. They will simply sleep the days away, some for as long as two weeks, only waking to eat, use the bathroom, and maybe shower. When they are awake for that precious hour or so, they appear spaced-out, childlike, and obviously sluggish. Some will exhibit a voracious appetite. Some will exhibit a voracious sexual appetite. All in all, it's a fascinating disease, one that usually appears spontaneously in the second decade of life and cures itself before old age. Doctors don't know why it happens - which always bugs me - but I want to learn more about this. I think we can actually learn a lot from it, from the behaviors exhibited when sufferers are in their waking mode.
A few weeks ago I heard that the son of a friend of a friend (sorry) had passed away due to complications from Prader-Willi syndrome. This disease usually claims the sufferers before they are twenty-one years of age. They have mild mental retardation, small hands and feet, are chronic overeaters and are, logically, oftentimes obese from a young age. Interestingly they don't actually die from the overeating, it's just a major symptom. Anyway, it's very sad that they must die so young.
(According to the Wiki article, the defect that causes Prader-Willi is similar to that which causes Angelman syndrome. When I read up on that, it was interesting to see that Angelman's is essentially a form of mental retardation--general happiness, a grasp of only the most basic skills, very late potty-training, a vocabulary of maybe five words, tops. It was interesting that the article never said it was mental retardation.)
You may have heard of Desiree Jennings, the "beautiful cheerleader" (they have to mention she's beautiful or, I guess, we won't feel sorry for her) who got the H1N1 vaccination and, ten days later, fell victim to dystonia. If you google her name you'll find videos. She suffers from chronic, manic muscle spasms that make it impossible for her move, let alone walk or perform the most basic daily functions. The only time she is able to move normally is when she is walking backward, or running. (Argh--think how much more we could learn about the human body just by studying why that is!) It even affected her speech. Now, I just saw a video today of her giving an update, and she was able to speak normally again (although she sounded very, very weary), and apparently she is being helped somewhat with treatment. It's not something that will ever go away, but she's not the only sufferer and there are things patients can try to get it under control.
Lastly, there are people who are actually born with no eyes. Specifically, no eye tissue. It's a condition called anophthalmia and while, in the video I saw, you can see this tiny, tubelike [pupil? retina?] just poking through the slit in the eyelids, essentially there is no eye there.
Sometimes I am just blown away by how intricate and fragile the human body is; how inconceivable that it all just came together on its own. (No complex machine/organism ever can) It makes it easier to understand just how quickly or early something can go wrong, though it doesn't take away the great sadness at knowing so many people in the world have to suffer.
Today it was Kleine-Levin syndrome, dubbed "sleeping beauty syndrome." Read the wiki article here. Sufferers experience episodes anywhere from every couple of years to every couple of weeks. They will simply sleep the days away, some for as long as two weeks, only waking to eat, use the bathroom, and maybe shower. When they are awake for that precious hour or so, they appear spaced-out, childlike, and obviously sluggish. Some will exhibit a voracious appetite. Some will exhibit a voracious sexual appetite. All in all, it's a fascinating disease, one that usually appears spontaneously in the second decade of life and cures itself before old age. Doctors don't know why it happens - which always bugs me - but I want to learn more about this. I think we can actually learn a lot from it, from the behaviors exhibited when sufferers are in their waking mode.
A few weeks ago I heard that the son of a friend of a friend (sorry) had passed away due to complications from Prader-Willi syndrome. This disease usually claims the sufferers before they are twenty-one years of age. They have mild mental retardation, small hands and feet, are chronic overeaters and are, logically, oftentimes obese from a young age. Interestingly they don't actually die from the overeating, it's just a major symptom. Anyway, it's very sad that they must die so young.
(According to the Wiki article, the defect that causes Prader-Willi is similar to that which causes Angelman syndrome. When I read up on that, it was interesting to see that Angelman's is essentially a form of mental retardation--general happiness, a grasp of only the most basic skills, very late potty-training, a vocabulary of maybe five words, tops. It was interesting that the article never said it was mental retardation.)
You may have heard of Desiree Jennings, the "beautiful cheerleader" (they have to mention she's beautiful or, I guess, we won't feel sorry for her) who got the H1N1 vaccination and, ten days later, fell victim to dystonia. If you google her name you'll find videos. She suffers from chronic, manic muscle spasms that make it impossible for her move, let alone walk or perform the most basic daily functions. The only time she is able to move normally is when she is walking backward, or running. (Argh--think how much more we could learn about the human body just by studying why that is!) It even affected her speech. Now, I just saw a video today of her giving an update, and she was able to speak normally again (although she sounded very, very weary), and apparently she is being helped somewhat with treatment. It's not something that will ever go away, but she's not the only sufferer and there are things patients can try to get it under control.
Lastly, there are people who are actually born with no eyes. Specifically, no eye tissue. It's a condition called anophthalmia and while, in the video I saw, you can see this tiny, tubelike [pupil? retina?] just poking through the slit in the eyelids, essentially there is no eye there.
Sometimes I am just blown away by how intricate and fragile the human body is; how inconceivable that it all just came together on its own. (No complex machine/organism ever can) It makes it easier to understand just how quickly or early something can go wrong, though it doesn't take away the great sadness at knowing so many people in the world have to suffer.
4.18.2009
Wow! Ugly people have value, too!
You've probably heard of (and heard) the newest singing sensation, Susan Boyle from Britain's Got Talent. She's in her late forties, has never been kissed, and is decidedly un-pretty by contemporary standards. But she sings - forgive the cliche - like an angel.
I'm always amused, in a kind of ticked-off way, when people's mouths turn into O's and they point in wordless shock at someone who has more than a fair share of talent but is not 'beautiful.' Clearly, women bear the brunt of this surprise, since men are usually more vaunted for what they can do, and what kind of person they are, than what they look like.
Why is it that we still equate beauty with virtue, talent, morality, and ugliness with corruption and worthlessness? We will never be the 'enlightened' world we assume we should be in the 21st century, as long as we can't wrap our tiny brains around the fact that people are not objects. It is impossible for our facades, our appearances, our decaying bodies to accurately represent the maturity of our souls, the many trials we are set to, the endless moments in which we change for the better or the worse and then back again.
(Why do we retain this malfunction? Is it survivalist prejudice, sexual attraction, lower-order thinking? Or - for more adventurous minds - do we keep the memory of another time and place in the deepst parts of ourselves, a time and place in which what one saw was what one got, and we can't shake this memory, to our own misfortune?)
Nobody lays awake at night because an ugly couch is neglected. And far too often, no one cares when someone is judged, withheld, robbed of opportunity because they don't supernaturally embody holiness and light.
Susan Boyle is decidedly un-pretty by standards put in place when humanity on this earth first sprang. That her voice is such a shock to the masses says to me that those standards may very well be our legacy until the last of us takes their final breath.
I'm always amused, in a kind of ticked-off way, when people's mouths turn into O's and they point in wordless shock at someone who has more than a fair share of talent but is not 'beautiful.' Clearly, women bear the brunt of this surprise, since men are usually more vaunted for what they can do, and what kind of person they are, than what they look like.
Why is it that we still equate beauty with virtue, talent, morality, and ugliness with corruption and worthlessness? We will never be the 'enlightened' world we assume we should be in the 21st century, as long as we can't wrap our tiny brains around the fact that people are not objects. It is impossible for our facades, our appearances, our decaying bodies to accurately represent the maturity of our souls, the many trials we are set to, the endless moments in which we change for the better or the worse and then back again.
(Why do we retain this malfunction? Is it survivalist prejudice, sexual attraction, lower-order thinking? Or - for more adventurous minds - do we keep the memory of another time and place in the deepst parts of ourselves, a time and place in which what one saw was what one got, and we can't shake this memory, to our own misfortune?)
Nobody lays awake at night because an ugly couch is neglected. And far too often, no one cares when someone is judged, withheld, robbed of opportunity because they don't supernaturally embody holiness and light.
Susan Boyle is decidedly un-pretty by standards put in place when humanity on this earth first sprang. That her voice is such a shock to the masses says to me that those standards may very well be our legacy until the last of us takes their final breath.
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