From: harka@nycmetro.com
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 1997 13:02:25 +0800
To: CYPHERPUNKS@ssz.com
Subject: Re: Saving money
Message-ID: <199710250528.AAA28050@einstein.ssz.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



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 > At 2:38 PM -0700 10/24/97, harka@nycmetro.com wrote:

 > The "just don't work for them if 'ya don't like it"-argument
 > will last about 4 weeks...the approximate time a human can
 > survive without eating. (or a couple of weeks less, if you have
 > kids)

 -=> Quoting In:tcmay@got.net to Harka <=-

 In> By my third year out of college, I had a big enough cushion of
 In> saved cash and other investments

[american dream deleted]

While I am glad for your achievements, you have not addressed my
point: all this doesn't apply to the larger mass of people.

You were fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right
time...one of the founding-members of a company in an industry,
that pays way more than average and thus brought you into the
position, that you're in now. Great...more power to you and I
encourage everybody to try the same.

But that's not applicable to the larger percentage of the
population. Besides, it's a supply and demand question.
Computer-jobs only pay that much because it's a booming industry
right now and there are less people than needed. Fortunate for
those who were/are able to ride the wave.
But if the available work-force exceeds the demand for it, such
jobs wouldn't pay nearly as much as they do right now.
Hence, achieving financial independence to the point of freely
choosing employers would become much harder again.

But this is the reality for MOST people (outside of the
elite-industries) already! Especially if they start out with
student-loan-debts amounting to several ten thousands of dollars.
Add a family/kids to that and you tell me how easy a task it will
be to quickly become independently wealthy.
(Some people will be able to pull it off somehow, most people won't
- - despite their wishes to the contrary. Should they make their best
effort? Absolutely! Will everybody succeed? Absolutely not.)

The background of this discussion is the free choice of employers
(based on their policies). My point is, that for the large mass
there is no such thing as a free choice (of employers), not
necessarely because they're not willing to improve their financial
standing to such a degree (who doesn't want to have more money?),
but because they don't have the time, resources and conditions to
do so.

But even IF you were able to "make yourself more marketable" (as
WHGIII eloquently composed)...if ninety percent of businesses in
the country use the GAK/CAK-feature of PGP 5.5 how much free choice
will then remain for you?

 > I.e. unless you are the super-duper, three-times
 > nobel-prize-winner (with lots of money in stocks), who can
 > AFFORD to choose employers that freely, you will be DAMN GLAD to
 > have a job AT ALL, regardless of their policies!

 In> More nonsense. Move out to the Bay Area, if you have any
 In> talent at all in software or hardware or biotech or Web design
 In> or multimedia, and you'll find jobs galore.

I'll invite you in return to move to Brooklyn, NY to find out for
yourself how easy life is for the non-elitists. Or maybe just take a
walk around your own town.

The truth is, that there are many people outside of Cypherpunks,
who get barely through life _despite_ making efforts. They may get
enough salary in their 9-5 job to maintain themselves to a degree,
but not nearly enough to have the complete freedom, that is the
issue here. And to say, "they get what they deserve" (if they don't
have the abundance of dollars/freedom) is rather narrowminded and
out-of-touch with most people's reality.

But these are the people determining if GAK/CAK ever becomes
widespread. If companies employing it would face extinction, because
nobody would work for them anymore, GAK/CAK wouldn't succeed.

However, capitalism doesn't work that way, despite of the few who
made capitalism work for them.

Ciao

Harka

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... By the time you can make ends meet, they move the ends.

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If encryption is outlawed, only outlaws will have encryption...