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Comment by LunaSea | Hacker News Reader

> Those people will generate enough taxes and labor for lazy people like me, and it's okay.

Sorry, but it's definitely not ok.

Actually it is, and only a very strict and damaging protestant work ethic would tell you otherwise.

Oh, you meant that those poor workaholics shouldn't exhaust themselves by overexerting over too much work? With that I can agree. But taxing those producing the most so as not to leave behind those who have received fewer gifts, inheritance or good contacts? That's how you build a civilization. If only because those producing the most are also those receiving the most from their peers upfront.

Implicit in your position is a lack of agency. The high producers only produce highly because of receiving gifts from their peers. And the low producers are those who have not received enough gifts.

You leave no room for agency, competency, motivation. OP explicitly mentions that he just wants to be lazy....

I linked elsewhere to an essay showing how 'lazy' or 'idle' aren't insults, but mere synonyms for 'efficient' and 'purposeful'.

I don't get how you deduce that there's no room for agency. You seem to confound that with the different amounts of leverage that people with widely different origins get; those coming from a more resourceful starting point will produce more, regardless of the actual effort they put in.

Why not? Everyone has to be maximally productive at all times?

No, but I should not have to subsidize your laziness. I don't care if you want to lay on the couch all day, but it is not okay to steal money from me to do so.

https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/

He says everyone should work 20-30 hours, not more. How do you equate that with laying on the couch all day?

He's taking it to the limit to illustrate that even if you are minimally productive, he wouldn't care as long as you don't ask him to support you.

He actually edited his post and the wording of his last sentence has a different meaning now.

You're just making things up now. They said they want to work 20-30 hours a week, not lay on the couch all day. How would someone else working 10-20 hours less than you equate to them stealing money from you?

Eh, I think the point is that there are some who are so far gone into the "live to work" mentality that there's really no point in trying to convince them otherwise. The only option is radical acceptance and taking as a silver lining that they will probably produce higher than average output which benefits you ever so marginally.

More taxes are a result of earning more and not really from working more although they are usually related, so they still get compensated for that "extra" work.

>More taxes are a result of earning more and not really from working more although they are usually related

Even the mythical 10x engineer is not really getting paid 10x more than their same level peers so no not really.

So this even furthers the argument. Why bother having 10x the output if you only see a smidge of that productivity as increased income?

We're not talking about being more productive in the same number of hours. If you earn $2000 you pay more taxes than if you earn $1000, even if you work double the hours to earn $2000. So you still get rewarded for your extra time.

That's not how most jobs work, you get paid a salary, some people still work 60hr weeks and do not get paid more than their peers.

I refer you to my GP comment, where this is covered.

I disagree that earning more and working more are usually related. It can be related, but I don't think it's the norm. I think the norm is working more than you're getting paid for, and that pay not differing from those who are working less than you. Just look at people wringing themselves out in the hospitality and services industries, they're not getting paid more than everyone else.

The important part is earning more leads to paying more taxes. If you work the same job you'll earn more money while working 40hrs than working 20hrs. Where 40hrs is the standard, so in a general sense people working normal hours will pay more taxes than people working reduced hours.

Ah, I think we were just talking past eachother then. That makes sense to me. I was imagining the situations where the same two employees are paid 40hrs/week but one works 40 and one works 60. It sounds like you were thinking of people working part time versus people working full time, in which case definitely, the latter correlates to more income and more taxes.

It's not that uncommon for one software engineer to outearn another by 10x, assuming a little job hopping.

I agree but I think it's more relevant to compare the same levels at the same org. I would be pretty shocked to hear that there is any 10x delta in total comp across L5s at Google lets say.

The 10x delta exists. You just have to compare the L5 engineer from the lowest paying region with the L5 from the highest paying one. And for the same effort and output.

I don't think that counts as all else being equal. L5 in India vs L5 in SFBay Area isn't an interesting comparison.

A 10x difference between 2 L5 engineers in Mountain View is what I really meant.

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