I see this parroted a lot, but it's more of a moral assertion that is completely ignorant of how economics works. This claim is easily debunked in a microeconomics 101 class. A business that can’t pay an arbitrary “living wage” disappearing doesn’t guarantee its workers get better jobs. In fact, it's often quite the opposite (less hours, automation, etc.). Not everyone's circumstances are the same, and not every job need to pay some arbitrary amount per hour.
> The whole point of civilization is to help people
Sorry, what? I mean, helping people is nice, but that's a very sweeping hippie sort of claim. I suppose you could say trade helps people, but that is a side effect of trade, not necessarily the point. Also, minimum wages often 'hurt' the very people they were designed to help.
> Without persuading other people of the “truths” that you discover, there is no real mathematics.
Why? If I sat around and studied math by myself and discovered something true yet not yet known but didn't share it, it's still true. Are you saying I didn't "do math" because I didn't share the result? Math exists on another plane and it has 'truths' that we haven't discovered, yet are still 'true', no?
No, they're saying that what is true in mathematics is contingent, not absolute. It all depends on which set of axioms use, what assumptions you make.
The area of a triangle doesn't have 1 unique formula, it has many, depending on the system you use. A triangle in plane geometry has a different area than a triangle in spherical geometry, and different again in hyperbolic geometry.
When you get to studying the geometry of manifolds, you realize the area of a triangle can be any damn thing you want, depending on how you construct the manifold you embed it in.
Ah I see now. Maybe my brain translated the question implicitly to "Are mums poisonous to cats?". I'm tempted to say it's a minor quibble, but on the other hand, there are probably a good deal of people who may stop reading after "Yes"
> If you think technology delivers improvements in living standards rather than all working people demanding better conditions you’re living in an absolute fantasy
Demanding better conditions does not just manufacture the technology, infrastructure, and productivity needed to provide the improvement in the standard of living. I think you're in the fantasy realm, my friend.
Which period of the last 2000 years was good for the vast majority rather than the ultra wealthy? And are these periods aligned with technology progress?
Living standards for ordinary people only started to improve in any meaningful way after the industrial revolution, a fact which is immediately obvious if you compare across generations. Technological progress gave us all of the things that distinguish the lives of 21st century Americans from the lives of medieval peasants. Central heating, indoor plumbing, electric lighting, general anaesthesia, antibiotics, automobiles, aircraft, limitless entertainment, food so abundant that poor people are obese. If you think that technological progress is intrinsically bad because it hasn't brought about a utopia of perfect equality, then I really don't know what to say to you.
No, you’re totally misunderstanding me, I don’t think technology progress is correlated with progress for humans at all. The point is only the post war period when taxes were 90%+ for the wealthy aligned with a growing middle class and a welfare state I.e. hospitals and housing for the poorest.
